Saturday, January 31, 2009

Puzzle Share

JigZone had another really beautiful puzzle today, full of blues, greens, and a very pretty flutterby. It's been a while since I last shared a puzzle so here's today's for you to enjoy.

Click to Mix and Solve



Friday, January 23, 2009

More Quiz Fun!








You’re Origen!


You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears.


Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!






JSD located this test which is designed to tell you which church father you most resemble. True to more than half of the tests that JS and I take, my results are similar to hers. See above. Now if I could just figure out how to remove all the extra spacing above and below it I'd be really happy. In the meantime, the Gandhi Twins live on in the form of Origen Twins.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Suddenly It's Raining Jobs

Today's interview with Radio Shack seemed to go well. The hiring manager informed me that all potential employees are interviewed twice and, since the hours I wanted to work are day time, he said he'd call the manager of another store near me and ask her to call and set up a second interview as I would probably meet her needs better. I left feeling hopeful.

Went home, chatted briefly with Sandi, and then, while I was working at the computer, the Census Bureau called. I was offered a position working as an administrative clerk and the training is to start on Tuesday next week. Yay! I'm working! The Census job pays better than the sales one would have. I'd have loved the technology of Radio Shack, but more money and serving your government is even better. While talking to Lou, the hiring manager, I learned that the job may go for much longer than the 5 to 10 weeks being advertised. The training is paid. No overtime. Office dress is business casual. There will be about 30 to 40 people in the office. I'm to bring my own lunch and they don't have a refrigerator so I guess it will be peanut butter sandwiches till I get more creative.

After that good news I called my folks to share. No sooner had I gotten off the phone with Mom when Jenny, whom I met working at Pearson, called. She told me to call a certain person at Pearson because they were now taking on people and I could set myself up for work on evening shifts later when the projects start. That would be nice as it is something I'm familiar and good at. I called and left a message with my phone number and the information they asked for. Hopefully I'll hear back sometime next week.

Considering the state of the economy and the skyrocketing unemployment rate, I feel blessed. Thank God for friends who pray and a Lord and Saviour who has the grace to listen!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Shared Letter to a Friend

Wrote the following in response to a reply from JS this morning. I'd shared the current Rose is Rose comic with her. Rose is Rose is created by Pat Brady and distributed by United Features Syndicate.



:-) You're welcome!

When I was a kid, I would sometimes stay overnight at the grandparent's house. They didn't have a fireplace either. We'd sleep under lots of covers, sometimes with hot water bottles at the bottom for our feet. In the morning, Grandmother would get up and hurry to light the large gas heater in the living room. When it was lit we'd all rush in there with our clothes to change in front of it. This stove was just wide enough for two to stand in front of comfortably. There would be 4 of us, so it was turned up high to spread the heat for this activity. There were no carpets in the dining room we had to pass through, so the wood floors were very cold on little feet. Sometimes we held our clothes in front of the heater to warm them up before putting them on. Even so this was a fun time for my sister and me because we started our mornings with two folk we loved better than just about anyone in the world and the morning chatter was fun. Then we'd help Grandmother make breakfast. :)

Sometimes I envy you all the wonderful family time you have. You are so blessed! Thank God! Please keep sharing the wonderful stories of your family times. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Friday I have a job interview. Tuesday I walked the 281/Henderson Pass shopping center and looked for help wanted signs in the windows. I brought home 2 paper applications and 2 cards that gave websites to apply on. Two hours after putting in the Radio Shack application online I got a call from the manager of the store in Rolling Oaks Mall and he wanted to set up an appointment time. So I'm to be there at 2:00. Please keep me in your prayers. If I get the job I'll be trained on all their products and will gladly work any hours they have as long as it doesn't interfere with my much needed church activities. The pay for a starting sales associate isn't much. About $7/hr plus occasional incentives for sales made, but they have benefits for full time employees and of course discounts on products. Even it I don't get full time work it will be some money coming in and I know you understand the importance of that. It would also go a long way towards making me feel useful again. Plus it would be working with the public which is something I need some experience with. I am both excited and nervous.

Did I tell you I took the Census employment exam? I did well on it. My raw score was 95 and with my 5 points veteran preference I should be getting a call from them the beginning of February when they start hiring. All jobs for that project last 5 to 10 weeks and pay 11.75/hr. I could work that job around the sales job and be bringing in some decent money for a little while. Prayers for that too would be appreciated. I'd rather work in the office than in the field. I'm directionally impaired and finding my way from place to place is very dicey. I'd do much better handling all the filing and data entry that is required for this huge project. Plus it is a government job and that looks good on the resume. So will the sales experience.

Sorry this is so long in the middle of your busy day.

Love you bunches and wish you were here to give me a comforting hug!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

TV on the Web

A few months ago my TV died and, taking my cue from Susan's example (she and her husband only watch series on DVD), I decided not to purchase a new one. Sure I missed some of the shows I watched regularly, but there were other things I could do with the time. And I haven't come to regret my decision yet.

DVD watching is something else I missed, but that was more easily remedied than the lack of television programming. After all, I have a computer with a DVD drive and a decent screen. Windows Media player will handle DVDs just fine. So on holidays I pull out one of my favorites and sit back in my reasonably comfortable desk chair to enjoy it. I've even had a neighbor in to watch one with me while we shared pizza.

Knowing that I was a regular watcher of some of her favorite shows, Sandi decided to come to my rescue and suggested I look for TV shows on the web. It seemed reasonable. I'd heard that there were full episodes online, so I started doing some research and, sure enough, you can indeed watch TV on the web, free and totally lacking any kind of advertisement. Finding the shows you like to watch, however, is a bit dicey as not all broadcasting corporations make their hottest shows available on their websites. Plus you have to do some research to find good pages, which can take a bit of time as you do trial and error on each page you discover. There are some pluses, but more about those in a bit.

My research started with four USA broadcasting corporations: ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. ABC readily puts full episodes on its website and you can keep up to date on their fare easily. That's great, except I don't watch much of what they offer. They were the first major US broadcasting corporation to do it though, so kudos to them. CBS I watch regularly and I was eager to catch up on Ghost Whisperer. Oops, seems CBS doesn't put the latest episodes of its premier shows on it's website, although that may change as recently they've started putting up a very few of their more popular series in HD. Mostly though it's small clips, not enough to call it TV. They do have a chat and watch page, CBS social room. There they let you watch a show with other people, chat, and answer trivia questions at the same time. Sometimes there are current episodes of popular shows, but you can only watch what they are offering that night. NBC is better than CBS and may be as good as ABC. They have HD episodes online too. And a page that is classy looking and easy to navigate. Then I got around to Fox. With Fox on Demand, they may be better then NBC and CBS. The shows are current, but I don't watch many of their shows either. If you want to see what the major networks offer, the links I've provided are direct to their video pages. Still no Ghost Whisperer though, so I kept looking. Three weeks ago, I came across a blog, Free Online Episodes, that had taken the time to address the problem of staying up to date your your favorite series and gave you several urls to watch most of the favorite popular shows. It was a good place to start.

For the next week or so I hung out on that blog and would click through to some of my favorite shows. Not all of the links worked, but usually there was one that did. Like any good blog, they update things as necessary. Their latest offering, posted Jan. 11th, has links to Knight Rider. But still, no Ghost Whisperer. And that was Sandi's big thing. She really wanted me up to date on that, for which I'm grateful. Her support and encouragement were unending. In the mean time, I kept doing searches using the keywords "full episodes" and finally came across a really great website, Surf the Channel.

From Surf the Channel's website you can find most of the shows you know and tons that you don't know. New episodes are put up daily. You can search by genre, title, or cagetory. There's both TV and movies. Many of the links are to Asian web pages so there will be subtitles in the language of that area. You can also find lots of links to Megavideo which is another website offering lots of free online TV and lots of current movies. Megavideo lets you watch for 72 minutes and then asks you to join or wait 54 minutes before watching again. I haven't signed up for their paid service because I don't mind waiting to finish the episode I was interrupted in the middle of. There's tons of other stuff to watch. Since discovering Surf the Channel (StC), I've found episodes of Sanctuary, an exciting SciFi offering that started as HD webisodes, and in addition to seeing all 8 of those I've caught up on most of the rest of the season. There seems to be a 1 to 4 week delay in an episode being broadcast before it shows up on the web. I've also caught up on NCIS and of course, Ghost Whisperer.

When there isn't a new episode to watch among my favorites, I explore the other offerings StC has. So far I've discovered Fallen, a 3 episode miniseries which presents us with a war between angels and nephilim, half breeds bearing both angel powers and human souls. There is also The Tudors, a wonderful series put on by Showtime which takes place in the early years of King Henry's reign complete with court intrigue, lots of mistresses and dalliances, and all the political intensity of the era. I haven't had cable or satellite in several years so I've got a lot of catching up to do and I'm delighted with what I'm finding. That's one of the biggest perks of watching TV online. Another great perk of internet TV is that with no advertising going on the show finishes in about 42 minutes for an hour long show. Yay, you've got time to do other things, like watch more shows than you could fit into an evening of TV watching.

Recently Sandi sent me another link, this one was FanCast which seems to be closely linked with Hulu, which is known for all it's free episodes. What Hulu offers is mostly older TV shows that are no longer broadcast and haven't been in reruns for awhile, but it does stay abreast of a few of the popular shows. You can catch up on Monk there. And it has just about every new movie trailer you could ask for. FanCast is different. They have links to quite a few of the popular shows although their offerings aren't quite as rich and varied as StC. Still, what you don't find on StC you can usually find on FanCast. Plus you don't have subtitles and the screen to watch is larger on your browser than many of the StC places.

Sometime soon, I plan on putting most of those online TV websites among the links on my sidebar. In the meantime, I hope you find the links I've provided useful and discover some new series that you'd didn't have access to before. Enjoy!

Monday, January 05, 2009

Tarot Personae

The start of 2009 is a fine time to grab a new quiz and enjoy silly self analysis. Taking my cue from Paschal, I found myself really liking this one's results. They seemed surprisingly accurate and, for a change, I didn't have any desire to take it twice. Enjoy!


You are The Star


Hope, expectation, Bright promises.


The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised


The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.


What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.