Christmas Photos and More

One of the reasons that I'm glad that I enjoy photography is that when we have insane Christmas seasons of immense activities, parties, dinners and such, I know that I'll have plenty of photographs:

The first set of photos is from Bev's annual Christmas party. The food was excellent and the company as well. The popular gift of the afternoon was most certainly Bev's hand-made slippers for everyone.

Bev's Christmas Pary

(click on picture to view album photos)


On Christmas day we opened presents and loaded up the car and headed to Waynesboro to visit with Ted and Carol. The food and company was also excellent there. Audrey found her new tent (complete with tunnel) and plasma car (see photo) to be a great diversion (I particularly enjoyed riding the plasma car with her).

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

(click on picture to view album photos)

Finally, after a hectic time of traveling and parties, we made plans to head to Bethany Beach to hang out with our friends Jamie and Amanda Biddison. We had a fun time baking and decorating cookies as well as relaxing with walks on the boardwalk and watching a LOT of television.

Delaware Post-Christmas Retreat

(click on picture to view album photos)

Whew! With all of that, I'm just about beat! Thankfully, it was a most enjoyable way to end the 2007 year and we look forward to whatever the Lord has in store for us in 2008. Happy New Year to you all!

I Love Impressions

On of my favorite types of comedy are impressionists. Here is a great clip of Frank Caliendo on David Letterman. He has to be one of the best impressionists I've ever seen. Take about 7 minutes and enjoy. He's really good:

Little Brother Comes To Visit

This past Saturday, my little brother Donovan and his wife Sharon came to visit us here in Lancaster. They made the trip down from New York City, where they live (Brooklyn). They brought us gifts, including a cool penguin hat for Audrey (which she loves). It was really cool seeing them. Check out a few photos below.

Donovan and Sharon Visit 2

What kind of Geek are you?

In one way or another, we're all hiding that "inner geek" inside of us. During my web browsing today, I found a poster that reminded me of just that fact. Go on over and check out the selection and see if you're on the list:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2086153791&size=o&context=set-72157601200807582

I'm not a Microsoft Hater, but...

This article is pretty funny.

Realism and the Pittsburgh Steelers

I like to consider myself a "realistic" football fan. Of course, I always want my team to win, and I always stand behind them. However, when it comes to haughtiness and bragging, there's usually nowhere to stand. Take this season, for example: The Steelers are 9-3 for the season. The media and the Steelers themselves are taking this to actually believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers actually belong in the same rankings as New England possibly Indianapolis. I'm sorry, but they are nowhere near the powerhouse that the Patriots are.

First off, their record has several flaws to it. One of those has to do with last year's pathetic post-superbowl season. Coming out of a superbowl that they barely won, the Steelers went on to disappoint with a lousy 8-8 season that didn't even get them a playoff game. The NFL naturally adjusts the schedule in the coming season to accommodate the "weaker" teams in the league. This year, the Steelers have been given a fluffy schedule against many other weaker teams (with maybe New England being an exception). Let's not forget that the Steelers have 3 losses against teams that barely have a chance at the playoffs this year. And in last weeks's game against the Bengals, Big Ben had issues throwing the ball because it was wet? Are you kidding me? Do they not practice in the rain? Somebody tell me how a professional QB in the NFL can't throw in the rain. Particularly when their team's home field isn't in a dome?

Now I've been reading reports all week at how the Steelers claim that they are going to upset the unbeaten Patriots and I can't help but laugh. Have they not reviewed their own past 3 games? Somebody needs to show them the tape, because if they play anything like they have been playing the past 3 weeks, then this game will be over by half-time.

And if the Steelers win? Well, good for them. However, its a lot easier to enjoy my team when they humble themselves and step down to reality, than when they start guaranteeing victories against teams that, at least this season, have it together way better than they do.

Hate folding Laundry?

Me too. That's why when I found this video on how to fold a T-shirt in about two seconds, I just had to share.



Fold a T-shirt in 2 seconds

OOHHHH YEEEAHHHH!!!

On a lighter note, I just read this post that made me a somewhat happy camper:

Gmail Adds AIM Support

Dealing with God's will

Today I read two different stories about babies. One of those being my wife's blog post about our 3 month old son Liam. Liam is a treasure to us. A blessing from God to a family without any merit to know him. He's a gift we cherish daily, and just the thought of his little grins, coos, and hand-motions makes me smile. I thank God for the safe pregnancy that my wife had, and for the safe labor as well. All of these were undeserved privileges. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy.

Then there was the other story. A woman who is involved in our school is pregnant with her second child. She is due this Spring. She and her husband have been dealing with the diagnosis of their unborn daughter, Janessa, who has severe developmental issues. These are not just mere deformities, but almost guaranteed fatal ones. Janessa's condition and prognosis is that, if she even survives pregnancy, that she will quickly die after birth. The severe situation of her health problems affects her brain's ability to enable her to perform any life functions. This is compounded by a heart condition that will inevitably cause congenital heart failure shortly after birth. The story ends with notes of praise, as they rejoice in the possibility of being able to meet their daughter before she dies.

I can't even fathom for a moment the sort of emotional torment that these people are going through, and yet they still find rays of sunshine in the news. As a parent of two healthy children, the second story is torture to me. And yet, I can't help to see that these people, who still choose to praise God for the little time that he could give them with their daughter, have chosen to accept God's will for them and their daughter in such a circumstance.

That second story humbles me greatly. It shows me how much I need to be thankful for, and how little faith and hope I really possess. Let me end this post with an inspirational excerpt from the letter :

So, needless to say, we have many things to think and pray about. We
are so thankful for the wonderful care we received at CHOP. We are
confident that what we were told is exactly what is wrong with
Janessa. We feel encouraged that we will probably get to meet our
little girl and share some time with her (that has been our biggest
desire since we learned of her condition). We also feel very sad that
we will lose her at some point in the future, and preparing for that
loss is hard to think about. We realize the importance of planning
for all possible outcomes: complete healing (should God choose to do
that), or losing our little girl (should God choose to do that). We
have no way of knowing what God's will is, and so we will just have to
wait and see what He does. We do know that He is able to do miracles,
and also that He sometimes chooses not to. We realize that in either
situation, it is a matter of bringing honor and glory to Him. We are
very glad we can have confidence in the fact that God is Good. He
loves us, and He desires for everyone to come to know Him. If God
chooses to let Janessa live, so that others can come to know Him
through her life- GREAT! If God chooses to let Janessa die, so that
others can come to know Him through her death- GREAT! The God we
serve doesn't change depending on our circumstances. He is the same-
yesterday, today and forever. Our lives are in His hands.

Forward Progress

Well, after experiencing such a huge letdown with printer incompatibilities, weird internet issues, and stupid user mistakes, I'm starting to settle down with this computer. Here are some further thoughts as of today:

1. After discovering that HP didn't make a Mac version of their driver for my computer, I found that there was a work-around on the web for downloading an older HP driver for a Mac-specific printer that did the job. It was quite a hassle to get working, but now it seems to work fine (albeit, quite slow). I guess that it was disappointing to learn that I couldn't just "plug and play" like I did for windows xp with this thing.

2. The weird internet slowness issues are seeming to subside for now. After doing some further research, I found that some people had trouble with their Macs on the internet because of older routers, etc. So, after plugging my Mac directly into the cable modem, things are now zipping along. So that makes two things that I own that didn't work well with the Mac. This does not impress me. Old hardware or not, Macs are supposed to be easy. If I weren't a geek, I'd be surfing on a PC by now, since I wouldn't have the patience to deal with this stuff.

3. I'm quite impressed at how quickly the Mac mini actually reboots. I've never owned a windows machine that booted like this. Its nice.

4. As much as I never used to like iTunes, I feel like I'm warming up to it. Overall, I'm not that all impressed with Apple's way of designing applications. I don't find that there are controls which would be intuitive for me. Most things are symbols and aren't even labeled (particularly in iTunes).

5. Stupid FedEx.

6. One of my favorite online utilities, Logmein.com works great with OSX, which now allows me to support our school servers from home (a HUGE plus).

Well, these are the extent of my thoughts for now. The hiccups have caused enough angst to keep me from posting photos of the "unboxing" (sorry, Dave).

Apple Seems to be Leveling the Playing Field

So here we are after several day switching to the Mac, and the experience has been nothing but bothersome. What!??? How can that be? According to the "cult of Mac" and the Apple website, Macs "just work". Yeah, whatever. Here's how things have been "just working" for me over the past few days:

1. My wife has not once been able to print. I've been able to print only one time, after spending 30 minutes trying to find a driver that was actually remotely compatible with my printer (since HP doesn't make a specific Mac driver for my printer). Even so, I'm still hearing the echoes of confident Mac enthusiasts and commercials which state that all you need to do is plug it in, and it works. Maybe on their planet it does.

2. I actually found a way to accidentally delete an app without moving it to the trash. How did I do that? Well, I wanted to drag it from the app folder to my dock. Doing so, it landed in the wrong place on the dock. So I attempted to drag it to another location on the dock, only to have it dissapear in a cloud. I couldn't find it elsewhere. I even did a spotlight search for it, which yielded absolutely no results. Yep, that's right its gone. So now I need to pull it from my install disk to use it again.

3. I have yet still to be able to view pages properly on both firefox or safari. Both my wife and I are having problems viewing images, which do not show up randomly on certain sites. I've checked all the necessary settings in both browsers, and nothing has worked. The photos show up randomly on our google blogs, and any google related site where there are pictures. However this morning, I wasn't even able to view photos on Flickr.

My hunch is that these problems might be somewhat related to the new Operating System OSX Leopard. So much so, that I'm going to revert back to Tiger. If rolling back to the former OS does nothing, then perhaps Mr. Warfel will be able to see the first ever pictures of a "re-boxing" of the Mac Mini as I ship this baby back to Apple and get myself a Dell. Stupid FedEx.

First Impression of the Mac Mini

After a little over a week, we finally received the Mini. I'd have to say that I'm most impressed with the packaging. You can tell that Apple puts HUGE amounts of care into appearances, and their packaging of the unit is one of those details. The mini came in a tiny white box with a handle on top. Inside it had everything carefully wrapped in clear plastic (like a new CD). The unit itself was tiny, about the size of a CD case. Interestingly, the power brick, which was also sleekly styled, was almost half the size of the computer. Putting the thing together and initial setup was a snap. Just plug it all in. Here are my random thoughts from what I could do yesterday:

-It is hard to get used to using the copy and paste functions, which requires using the windows key, rather than the CTRL key, which I'm used to.

-The mini came with OSX 10.4 Tiger installed, but also with a Leopard install disk. I DID in fact install Leopard, and found it to be somewhat faster overall than Tiger, but the doc is kind of weird looking. I think I preferred the old doc, but its a minor quibble.

-Installing and uninstalling applications is too simple. I wish windows could be like that.

-It takes some getting used to having a fixed menu at the top of the screen per application, rather than a menu connected to the actual window of the application. I keep forgetting to look there.

-I hate that clicking the x button does not quit the application, but only hides it. I'm a performance miser, and that is something that I could easily overlook and end up with 40 apps opened at one time.

-I had to download a driver from HP's website for my printer. I also should note that HP never released an official driver for my printer, so I actually had to do some google searching to find one of the same "family" that works on the Mac. I've not officially printed anything yet, but I'll assume that the driver works.

-iPhoto was not as impressive as I had thought it would be. I'm glad that I ordered Lightroom. Photo organization and quick editing were a breeze with Picasa. Its a bit more involved with iPhoto, but I like the added control you get over image exposure. I think what I hate is the weird photo management and arrangement. I felt like Picasa did that way better.

-I'm still trying to get iMovie to work. It just hangs on me each time I launch it. I've never once had it working. Stupid FedEx.

-There is way less flexibility in tweaking the system settings than in something like Windows or even Linux. Either way, most things are eye candy anyways, so no big deal. Just something I noticed.

-Once I actually figure out the iTunes interface, I think I might like it. I'll be honest in that I've never been a fan of the iTunes GUI over the years and have avoided it on my PC, but its integration with OSX and FrontRow is probably a good reason to start learning it.

-Installing OSX Leopard was so simple that Microsoft should be somewhat ashamed at the way its done in Windows. The total installation (clean install) took 45 minutes. The process can be that short in Windows, but the screens for OSX make it much less intimidating.

-Garage Band looks so awesome I'll just reserve to say that it deserves its own separate post, once I can actually start producing some music on it (yes I do play and write music sometimes).

I think I'll stop here with the thoughts. There's still a lot for me to learn and explore, so these initial thoughts might be totally bunk in another month. Either way, I'd have to say that I'm still feeling neutral on the whole thing. I don't LOVE the mac yet. Its too different from the things I've used over the years to just take it at face value. Stay tuned for more thoughts.

...

I finally got my Mac today. Stupid FedEx.

Why I hate FedEx

Okay, so I've been waiting for my Mac to be delivered for over a week now. According to the posted tracking info on the web, it was to be delivered today (Monday) at some time. So I went out to a nice breakfast with my family, only to arrive home and check the status to see that FedEx had come at 9:23AM and we weren't there (we got home an hour later). So I proceeded to call FedEx and see if they could drop it off sometime today, or if I could go pick it up.

Them: "I'm sorry, sir, but the package cannot be re-delivered until tomorrow."
Me: "So there's no way that you can call the driver and have them re-deliver it today."
Them: "Nope. I'm sorry, but we have no way of contacting the driver or even the service station."
Me: "You mean that nobody can call the driver's cell phone and let them know of anything?"
Them: "Sir, if you would like, I can put in a message, but they won't get the message until tomorrow morning."
Me: "Thanks, but I would like to have my package today. Its not even 11AM. Your guys deliver until 5pm. Can't I just arrange to have it picked up somewhere else today? I can drive and get it."
Them: "I'm sorry sir, but there's no way that anyone can contact the truck drivers once that they are on their routes. I know that it is an inconvenience, and we are working on making this process better, but there's nothing that we can do."

Apparently, FedEx drivers enjoy the freedom of being cut off from any sort of outside communication from their work. This must be a good job for the anti-social personalities out there. Nevertheless, I go yet another day of waiting. Stupid FedEx.

A link to share

Well, Its been almost a week and I'm anticipating the arrival of our new Mac Mini tomorrow sometime. Interestingly, I ordered some items from Newegg.com on the same day and they've been here for about 4 days now. Go figure. As for preparations, I've been reading some Mac info here and there trying to ready myself for the switch. I even dove into creating my own external backup drive. I made a nice discovery last night about my spare hard drive that I had. I went in to format it to FAT32 so that it would be Mac read/write compatible, when I noticed that it was not 80 GB in size, but rather, 160 GB in size (half of it was never formatted or partitioned).

Okay, since I'm going totally geeky with this post, I might as well share a funny link that a student of mine discovered for me. Its a link to a never-before released operating system by Microsoft. Check it out and see for yourself:

http://www.deanliou.com/winrg/

Thanksgiving 2007

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Waynesboro, PA. Liam got the chance to enjoy his first Thanksgiving with us, and also to meet his Uncle Jordan, Aunt Jenifer and Cousin Ashley. We had a lot of fun with some great food provided by Carol (Nona). Below are some photos:

Thanksgiving 2007

Oh The Times, they are a Changin'

It has finally transpired. We knew it eventually would. We've had our computer for almost 6 years now. Just about every component inside has been replaced or upgraded. When the CPU fan went on it a few months ago, I had a feeling that we'd be needing a replacement some day.   Finally, when Meg told me that the computer was randomly restarting on her, I knew that its days were numbered. We had over 20 GB of photos, several GB of music files, and other important docs and items that were not worth losing. So we did it. We bought a new computer. Not just any computer. This was to be a computer that matched our current lifestyle. It also had to fit our budget. So here it is: We ordered a new Mac Mini from Apple. It is now hurtling its way towards our address from California (so says the Fed Ex tracking site).  Stay tuned for futher reviews, thoughts and editorials on this new plunge into the unknown. Although, if we can base what we know on what our myriad of Mac-crazed friends tell us, we're going to be very happy with our decision. Now where's that kool-aid that Steve Jobs sent me...?

Safari Redemption and other Browser thoughts

Recently I've been surveying the whole gambit of alternative web browsers, in an effort to see if any of the competition (besides IE and Firefox) has been doing any improvements since my last survey. Here is what I've found:

  Opera 9 just doesn't get it. They pack a ton of features, they've slimmed down their browser's default settings so that you are not bombarded with stuff, but they still run into the same site incompatibilities that they've always had with sites. Their only benefit is the speed of their browser, but fractions of a second in browsing are not an equal trade to so many site compatibility issues.

Maxthon 2, a clone to IE seemed like a viable alternative. It comes with every feature under the sun for browsing, and most of them are way too overkill. Without getting too detailed on the features, let's just say that I use a browser to surf the web and too many bells and whistles just takes up space and gets in the way. Needless to say, compatibility is great, since they run on the IE7 engine. However, before I could declare anything good, I got into a situation where I had a random error which opened up hundreds of empty tabs and gobbled up 765 MB  of system memory with no remedy to fix it (other than killing the active task). This is a major no-no for me. If its not a beta, then somebody  needs to fix their junk.

Earlier in the year, I gave a look to Apple's new release of Safari. At the time, I found it pretty decent, but had some site compatibility issues that I couldn't get around so easily. Thankfully, I found that Apple has been working on them and I found very few sites that gave me problems. The speed is rivaling of Opera, which lends it to be a better alternative. In fact, I'm writing this post on Safari for windows right now. Its doing a fine job, but I'll continue to test it throughout the week to see if I'm convinced. 

Overall, I think that Safari has the advantage for anyone considering looking for something that is not IE or Firefox. I still hesitate to give it any advantage over Firefox, when you consider the expandability of Firefox. However, some people don't have time to tinker with add-ons and such. If that is the case, you may want Safari.

Make That "Extra Cheese", Please.

Not that I should be surprised, but we've come a long way when it comes to ordering a pizza. I guess we're still using a phone, at least.

Text message your Papa John's Pizza order

Here We Go!

 

We start them young around here.

The "Valuable" Internet

Here's a roundup of stupid stuff my students showed me this week:

DVD Rewinder

World's most annoying web page

Don't shoot the puppy

...and here's a few classics you might have missed that are still around:

Zombo.com

Insanity Test

Our Sunday Expedition

Today we decided to be brave and do something adventurous as a family. After viewing some photos online of a place nearby, we thought we'd take a hike near "Chiques Rock" as it is know around here to explore. Meg, Audrey, Liam and myself braved cliffs, dark tunnels, abandoned railroad tracks, and leaf-covered trails together. It was a great experience for Audrey, who really needed the exercise and freedom to explore. I think I was probably the wimpiest person on the hike, worrying about trails being too steep, etc. Nevertheless, we kept going and so did the fun. Click on the picture below to see the photos of our mini-adventure

ChiqueRock

Photography Anyone?

I'm a little crazy when it comes to photography, which is my newfound hobby. Why do I think that am I crazy? Well, first off, I listen to photography podcasts practically every day to and from work in my car. When I'm using the internet at home or at school, I'm usually researching cameras, lenses, or reading photography blogs, tutorials, or viewing photos. I teach a digital photography class at school, and I also manage a flickr page, and a digital photography website (blog) for our newly-formed digital photography club at school. Oh, did I mention that I have my own photoblog where I post my favorite shots? I'm also saving up every little penny I have for a Digital SLR camera of my very own (right now we have a simple point-and-shoot which I feel like I've outgrown months ago). I've also completely read through B&H's 2007 Digital Photography Source Book (a catalog), as well as about 7 different books on photography in the past 6 months. Do I have reason to feel a little nuts? Maybe. However, if you see me snapping photos or hear of my untimely death at the bottom of a cliff with a shattered camera in hand, now you'll completely understand.

A few more funnies

Here are a few more funny videos that I ran into on the internet recently. They are all SNL shorts:

http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_spellingbee_td

http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_teddybearheart

http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_dontbuystuff

The World We Now Live In

Today is a good day.

Despite the lack of sleep, today is turning out to be a good day after all. I have just been given word that the school has officially hired a Spanish teacher. Here's the drama on that whole event: This past year, our Spanish teacher left and the school couldn't find a replacement. Well, actually they found me and a computer course to replace her. I ended up being assigned Spanish 3 and 4 and the 1 and 2 students were placed on an online program for Spanish (still trying to figure out how they can learn like that, but hey, its the 21st century, so, whatever). I've been having fun with teaching the Spanish class, and its really brought back a lot of the language I've lost over the past 5 years since I last taught it. However, my heart has not been totally in it. I love the Spanish language, and I spent 4 years of college and almost 5 years of teaching time with it. However, my new role as a computer teacher/technology coordinator has certainly been my preference of jobs. Doing both makes me realize that my passion definitely is for computers more so than Spanish. So let me sum up this whole post: They hired a Spanish teacher. YIPEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! :-)

First Smiles (Part 2)

3 years ago this past week, my daughter Audrey smiled at me for the first time. There have been many smiles since, but that one always comes back to my thoughts as the most memorable.

Fast-forward to 3 years later to the exact week, and my son Liam gives me a smile too. I'm thinking that it was a planned affair. Liam must have been reading my blog archives.

Our Fall Traditions

This weekend we went to Cherry Hill Orchards to do some apple picking. We typically make this a family affair, as we have in the past.
We ended up combining all of our favorite activities into one day and went for a hayride and pumpkin picking too. Audrey had a blast. I'm not sure about Liam. He pretty much slept through the whole thing. Good thing we have pictures. Speaking of which, here is a link to some of our favorite shots of the event:

Apple Picking 9-29-07

A Play for the Other Team.

(Geek alert: If you have no interest in computers, this post will probably be dumb. Unless, of course you have an interest in me, which by all means you should continue reading.)

Because of the nature of my job, I get a lot of respect from parents and staff who value my advice for computer decisions, purchases, etc. Today I had a parent approach me and ask for advice on a new laptop computer. After listening to the things she said she needed, I came to a somewhat uncomfortable conclusion. She needed a MacBook. Now, I'm not a Mac user at all. I don't own one, because I can't afford one. I've also never really used one. Okay, I might have used OS 8 and OS 9 (blech!) briefly in my college career, but that aside, all my my experience lies with the PC from windows 3.1 to the current Windows Vista. I felt uncomfortable, because it was the first time I recommended a computer platform that I didn't have a clue as to how to support. I might as well as recommended her a UNIX workstation. Why did I do that? From what I gather, her primary use of the computer was going to be for writing music (she's a musician). From what I understand of Mac's, that's the logical way to go if you are a musician, video production person, and graphic artist. Anybody out there wanna chime in on this? Did I give her good advice? Or am I crazy? Insane Mac users need not respond. We already know that you are crazy and have a secret Steve Jobs poster hanging somewhere in your house. :-)

Things I've learned so far this week

So far this week I've learned a few new things, such as:

1. Driving and manipulating a cell phone is probably more than likely to send me and my vehicle into a ditch.

2. One's silence can be more aggravating than one's attack.

3. Babies can keep pooping even while you change them (so gross).

4. According to my daughter, my 2-week old son is not talking yet, because he's a boy.

5. Driving and admiring God's beautiful sunrises on the way to work is probably more than likely to send me and my vehicle into a ditch.

6. For every victory there is an equal and opposite defeat, or vice versa depending on your mood.

A Quick Funny.

Little Liam Slideshow

Here's a little slideshow of Liam. He's not yet two weeks, but he seems to be getting so big already.

Jesus I Come

This song is not my own, but oh, how often I should be singing its words...

Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus I come; Jesus I come.
Into They freedom gladness, and light,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of my sickness, into thy Health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus I come; Jesus I come,
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus I come to Thee

Out of earth's sorrows into Thy balm,
Out of life's storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress into jubilant psalm,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
Jesus I come; Jesus I come;
Into Thy blessed will to abide
Jesus I come to Thee

Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair into raptures above,
Upward forever on wings like a dove,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus I come; Jesus I come;
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus I come to Thee.

Introducing William "Liam" Albert Jurina

Born: September 2, 2007 8:14am
Weight: 8lbs 10oz
Height: 21 inches


Meg did absolutely awesome. She even forwent the epidoral and went 100 percent naturally. What a woman! She's doing great as will be seen in forthcoming photos. Anyways, I'm sure you'd like to see some more photos of little Liam. Here they are:

http://picasaweb.google.com/abjurina/WilliamLiamAlbertJurina

More photos to come, naturally.

No Baby No Cry.

Let's face it: Nobody in America likes to wait. We live in a hurried and fast-paced culture where millions of people need to "gitt'er done!". So we keep going at a furious pace without stopping. Why? Because there's no time. Or so we believe. Then God says says something like, "Oh, you want a baby, huh? Well, you're gonna have to wait on that one. And just when you think you can plan it, I'm gonna make that baby come when I want it to, not you."
These past few days if not weeks have been pretty tough on my poor, loving little wife. She's got aches and pains, and a baby kicking and punching her internal organs wondering why his room keeps getting smaller. And because I'm the useless male-type person, I have to sit back and watch this all unfold. Sure, I help her where I can. But short of pulling off her round little belly and strapping it on me, there's not much more I can offer her for that kind of discomfort. So we wait. My poor wife waits too. She's said things like, "Its weird, but I'm actually at a point where I'm ready to welcome the pain". I've seen her in labor before. I'm never going to know exactly how bad she feels in labor but from what I gather its probably equivalent to being stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen with a blunt screwdriver. In any case, we wait as patiently as we can. I know that God makes us wait so that when it all pans out, He can say, "See that. It was all worth it!"

When it rains it pours.

Obviously, my previous posting of my ToDo list shows that there's much to be done at work and such. I've been attempting to work extremely hard at getting as much done at the new school as I can before the baby comes. It seems that this task is not immune to setbacks. For instance:

-Discovering that Verizon decided to delay our internet connectivity in the new building to the end of the week, after last week telling us that it would be done by today at the latest.

-Also discovering that the computer which managed our school's grades, classes, etc. had a major melt-down which destroyed even the hard drive and data.

-Repeated crashes of our brand new phone system, which leaves us unable to call out or anyone else to call into the school (which, I might add, is less than ideal for one who expects that his wife can call at any time announcing that she's in labor).

-A giant move-in-day for the school which included a host of furniture and other items...all except my stuff which sits in the upper room of a church 2 miles away. For some reason, my dilligence in getting the network set up and the lab running afforded me not to be able to stand outside with a bullhorn announcing, "Hey, you forgot about MY stuff!".

-Really crappy Verizon wireless service that drops off of the face of the Earth each time I walk within 200 feet of the new building. Yet another way my wife CAN'T contact me in an emergency.

So what's to do? Panic? Strip naked and run down the middle of the street shooting a pistol in the air while screaming at the top of my lungs again? (Okay, maybe you weren't supposed to know about that incident?) No. I'm gonna do what David did, what Abraham did, what Moses did. I'm gonna trust God and dive in. Besides, I can't find my pistol.

I've seen some neat stuff in my life...

...but this artist is just amazing. Scroll down to see it all, and also how he does some of it.

Things to do before September 4th

1. Move server to new building
2. Set up server to manage/authenticate all users on network.
3. Learn how to properly do the second thing on my list.
4. Learn new phone system at new building.
   
5. Set up 2 wireless access points for BIC Church.
   
6. Install and re-image 25 desktop computers.
7. Add new student and teacher accounts to active directory group.
8. Create new group policies for staff.
9. Review/edit student group policy.
10. Add all teacher computers to the domain.
11. Set up new staff members with computers.
12. Install wireless access points in new building.
13. Set up teacher computer and networked printer at Sandhill Road Campus.
14. Find storage and move extra computers to storage.
15. Install computer clusters in several teacher classrooms.
16. Review and plan curriculum and lessons for Spanish 3
17. Review and plan curriculum and lessons for Spanish 4
18. Review and plan curriculum and lessons for Spanish 8th Grade
19. Review curriculum and plan lessons for Digital Photography Course
    
20. Review curriculum and plan lessons for Intro to HTML Course.
21. Review curriculum and plan lessons for Modern Tech Essentials Course
22. Review all School Technology Program Curriculum (Grades 7 and 9).
23. Assist Meg on the delivery of our second child.
24. See Simpsons Movie with Brock.
    

The Poll Results Are In!

And I've got all the evidence in the world now that nobody really reads my blog. I've figured that the 4 measly votes in 30 days is a pretty good indicator of that. Oh well. "At least I have job!"

Overwhelmed by females.

Yesterday we had a birthday party for our daughter, and it was then that I realized that my little girl is becoming more of a 'girl' each day. The picture above displays the remnants of Audrey's birthday cake. What is missing? The icing, of course. She only eats the icing. This, to me seems to be the obvious signs of feminine taste. As a young boy, I'd always eat the icing too, but I'd never let the cake sit there. Gotta eat the cake. Its a preference of quantity that has always dominated my taste buds to some degree. But my daughter (and my wife as well) would prefer quality, sweet pastries, and sugar in varying degrees. Oh, I sure win with my daughter's preference to fruit over ice cream. That's something I've handed on. But eating only icing off of the cake is not from me. I told Meg that next year I'm going to save money and buy her (Audrey) a tube of cake icing instead of a cake. I don't think she'd notice.

The Things that People Do

I may not be much of an expert when it comes to naming children. Although, with the exception of my father, everyone has like our daughter's name. Anyways, it seems that we now live in a world where no absolutes, self-expression, and moronic stupidity are prevalent. At least for people who decide to name their children things like "@". I'm not kidding. Check out the article here:

Naming kids weird things, like @

And while we're at it. How about these people who make couches out of things such as mousepads, old computers, fed-ex boxes and whatever else they dream up after dropping acid:

crazy mouse pad couch

The adventure of Mr. Sh@rts Head and his sidekick Miss P@nty Head

As we left our heroes, they were last seen stranded on the love seat pondering ways to save the universe. Unfortunately, Mr. Sh@rts Head and Miss P@nty Head had, once again, misplaced their sh@rts and p@nties, resulting in yet another spoiled adventure. Tune in next time when Miss P@nty head says, "Hey Daddy, what's that on your head?"

(Note: Actual spellings have been modified to protect the innocent.)

Harry Potter and Metaamphetamines

I have enjoyed reading the Harry Potter series. I borrowed book 7 from my friend this time, since I didn't think it would be smart to invest 20 bucks in another of one of the maybe 3 books that I own. Anyways, the thing about reading Harry Potter is that it has an addicting element to it. Once you pick it up, you just can't get enough. Its very hard to put down. So hard that in the past 3 days, I've been not been able to get into bed any earlier than 1:30AM. In fact, the past two days, I've been up to 3AM. This stinks when you consider that I am awoken on average by 7:30am by my darling 3 year old daughter. Let's face it, 4 and 1/2 hours of sleep a night is not healthy. So I'm guessing that my addiction to Harry Potter might be what it would be like if I was addicted to Meth. I'd get no sleep, feel a longing loss and mental pain from not being able to read/have it, while all at the same time feeling guilty about it all. I'm nowhere saying that I understand what it is like to be a Meth addict. Those people need love and compassion. However, I'm quite thankful that J.K. Rowling doesn't put out several Harry Potter books a year or I'd be destined for rehabilitation and intervention.

Camping Photos

This is old news to some people, but we actually did go camping a week ago and took some pictures. Here are some choice shots to share:

http://picasaweb.google.com/abjurina/Camping_8507

Overall, it was nice to rough it for a day, but next time we do it, we'll make sure: 1. our children have had decent sleep. 2. Meg is not 9 months pregnant 3. I don't have a head-cold 4. Its not upper 80's with 75% humidity. I think that if we work with those above guidelines we should be all set for next time.

New Photoblog Added

Okay, I may be way ahead of myself on this one, but I've decided to start my own personal photoblog. If you like photography or pictures, give it a look if you want.

http://jurina.wordpress.com/

Being who you want to be

One of my most favorite songs on a lyrical level is a song by Switchfoot called "This Is Your Life". I've posted the lyrics to this song on my blog here before: http://thejurinas.blogspot.com/2005/02/good-music-good-lyrics.html

I can't help to continue to look at my job and really feel blessed that God has led me where He has. I have so many friends and acquaintances who really struggle with what they want to do in life. I understand to some degree because I went through that same realization not too long ago. I thought I wanted to be a computer programmer. For two years I trudged through it, convincing myself that this is surely where God wants me. I lied to myself repeatedly with thoughts of contentment at what I did. The reality was that I was miserable. I wasn't "who I want to be". I wasn't making a big difference in the lives of others as I was with teaching. I missed the relationships. Looking back, I realized that I was being prepared through that experience to appreciate so much more my gifts and love for teaching and serving others.

So I guess this is the challenge for you. To borrow from Switchfoot: "This is your life. Are you who you want to be?"

Some Fun Worth Sharing

My cousin decided to share a relatively humorous SNL video that he found on the internet recently. I found it funny enough to share...along with some other skits some of you might enjoy:

(I take no responsibility for the 'other' links or ads that might be available on these sites.)

Taco Town:
http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_tacotown

Baby Toupees:
http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_babytoupee

Swedish Chef Ringtones:
http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_swedishchef

Evangelism Linebacker:
http://www.sermonspice.com/cart/?p=product&id=722

The Blonde Antelope:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3728266100951844857

New Poll Added.

Well, my curiosity has gotten the best of me. My wife has been blogging for a couple of weeks now. She's way better than I am at keeping it up. I guess she's a bit more interesting than I am. In any case, I just put up a poll to check on who is actually reading this blog. Feel free to vote if you want. I guess its more motivation for me to keep it up frequently if I know that people are reading it.

In other news, now that August is here, I'm bracing for my life to turn upside down. A new baby is about due, which will bring our total of young 'uns to 2. For those who don't know, babies are evil. They take away your sleep, spit up on you a lot, cry and scream at you, and then poop and pee themselves and make YOU clean it up. Then when you just can't take it anymore, they crack a little smile or make a little twitch and grab your finger with their tiny little hands and make a coo noise. At that point you're toast. Well, this is coming to our house. I'm also entering into one of the busiest seasons of my professional career with organizing and managing the technology in a brand new school. Its going to be one crazy month of August. If you don't hear anything at all from me soon, check the insane asylum.

Tags are here.

I finally got a clue and started tagging my posts a little bit. I can't imagine that anyone cares, but I figured that it would be good to tag the posts for sorting or browsing later. I'm always one who likes to be organized. Anyways, if you like tagged posts, then I did you a favor today.

Thoughts from Clive Staples, Part 1

I've been reading a lot of books this summer over various topics of interest. The problem never seems to be, "Should I read this book?", rather, "Which book should I read now?". My issue is that I see 3 or 4 different books that I want to read and then get them all. I then strategically place them all over the house in various places where I might have some spare time to pick them up and read a few pages (yes, like the bathrooms). This becomes a problem because I now find myself reading only small portions from one book rather than large portions of a whole book. So I never get anything finished. Anyways, sorry for the rant.

I was reading The Screwtape Letters today when I came to this explanation of Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood concerning what he wants the human to believe humility is. I found this very convicting for myself and just wanted to share:

"You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character...By this method millions of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. An since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible." pgs 70-71

Ouch.

How to ruin the moment

So I decided to take my 2 year-old to the mall the other day to play in the play area and enjoy an Annie Anne's Soft pretzel (mmm, yummy!). One of the things that she enjoys doing is going to where the coin-operated rides are and pretending that they actually are real vehicles, or horses, or whatever. Now I'm sure that everybody remembers these types of "rides". They usually are parked outside of your favorite department store. Your mom or dad would sit you on it and drop in a quarter (nowadays it's between 50 cents and a dollar..yikes!) and the machine would move up and down or back and forth and play music or make noise for like 3 minutes and then stop. For the most part, a terrible waste of money. Meg and I have resolved not to waste our money on things like this in order to teach our children the value of money, as well as to save it for yummy soft pretzels.

Anyways, so we're at the mall and Audrey is playing merrily on the rides, role-playing between and astronaut or a bus driver (depending on which ride she is on), when some woman with her 0.5 year old comes over and drops in 50 cents into the machine so that her toddler can sit there in a trance, drool, and then eventually cry and try to get out of the thing. What ruins the moment for me is that, all of the sudden that parent has just created a situation for my daughter and I. She inadvertently "unlocked" the knowledge that money could be grossly wasted on these "rides", and that eternal happiness could be achieved at the price of 50 cents. I now need to convince my 2 year old that she doesn't need to slowly go back and forth for 3 minutes to the sounds of Old MacDonald playing over and over again for 50 cents. It took about 5 minutes to explain this to her, but thankfully she dropped the topic and went on to her new position as a train conductor.

What a Camera Can't Do

_{My Canon Powershot S2 IS}

So I was on my summer vacation with my family and a good friend who enjoys photography like me. We decided to go out and shoot shots at the beach during the evening hours just to practice some low-light photography and see if we can find some interesting compositions.

My friend utilizes a Nikon D70, which is a DSLR camera with some pretty nice features. I'd compare it with a Canon EOS Rebel XT or something along those lines. My camera: Canon Powershot S2 IS...NOT a DSLR, so pretty limited. I didn't think this way at the time. When I had purchased my camera, the idea was to get a camera with good quality, virtually no shutter lag, and lots of room to learn photography and advanced settings. We didn't want something that was "too complex" until we felt that we felt that we've learned more about the more advanced facets of photography. The camera was not disappointing. It has a nice 12x zoom which comes to about 435mm (cropped) 35mm equivalent plus many manual settings and such. Prior to the trip, I believed that, other than the possibility of purchasing different lenses, there wasn't much I was missing. With my ongoing learning of digital photography, I was elated to find that so far, I've been able to apply much of what I've been learning on this camera.

However, then we started shooting. I made some manual adjustments to find that my aperture only closes down as far as F8. This could be very limiting for me in circumstances where I'd like a little more DOF (Depth-of-Field) in my shots. It also limits me when playing with slower shutter speeds. Speaking of which, I can only slow down my shutter to 15 second exposures with no bulb-mode option or anything similar. This clearly took the fun out of my night-shooting. Not that a 15 second exposure is extremely limiting, but it certainly hurts when I'm trying to get shots of lightning or make star-trails. No fun.

However, there was a feature on my camera that I wish that DSLRs would have, and that is the adjustable lcd screen. Because of the flexibility of my screen, I could get some really cool shots without having to contort my body into yoga-like positions. In any event, for a point-and-shoot camera that was half the cost of an entry-level DSLR, I think it holds it own. On the other side, I hate the thought of, with my new knowledge and desire to explore in photography, having a camera that prevents me from exploring other creative options. I suppose that mastering the stuff I can now do will allow me to get the most out of this camera until the time when I can move up to DSLR joy.

Summer Vacation

We just returned from a week at Bethany Beach in Delaware. It was a really good time. We went down with our friends Chadd and Cheryl Caldwell, co-workers of mine at Hershey Christian. Chadd and I are avid photographers and event went as crazy as getting up at 5am one morning to get some photos of the sunrise. Towards the end of the week we were joined by the rest of Megan's immediate family for a birthday celebration for her mom. The whole week seems like a blur now, but here are some of the highlights of the hundreds of photos we took on the trip.

http://picasaweb.google.com/abjurina/BethanyBeach2007

Apple's Safari Browser for the PC (Beta) Review

Last night I decided to see what Apple had to offer with their new Safari Browser. From what I've heard from Mac users, Safari is less of a resource hog than Mozilla Firefox on the Mac, and it also seems to load pages a lot quicker. The download took no time at all, nor did the installation. However, like all Apple products for the PC, it simply has to install at least one other piece of software on your machine that you didn't ask for. In this case, it was the "Apple Product Update" and "Bonjour". I believe that these pieces were optional, but still, the point is that you get nagged to install them anyways.

To apple's credit, the browser certainly was fast. I felt like my internet connection increased significantly as pages rendered and loaded quite well. The interface was weird. Apple certainly went to great pains in making the Safari Browser look a lot like OSX's platinum theme. Using their browser in full-screen view made you think that you were on a Mac, with the buttons and animated features working seamlessly as you surfed. I found it quite annoying for some of its functions with tabs and configurations, but that's probably stemming from years of Firefox and IE. It was something that was going to take some getting used to. At least I had tabbed browsing.

Installing plug-ins was not that difficult to do, but unless you scoured the download page or did some decent Google searching, you were out of luck. Also, a lot of pages weren't ready to distinguish between Safari Plug-ins for the Mac and ones for the PC. What's more, some of the so-called "plug-ins" were actually full versions of the software.. This left me with stuff I didn't want, like Adobe Acrobat Reader 8, which is one of the chunkiest pieces of software out there (The install was about 123 MB once installed).

My favorite remote PC access site Logmein.com didn't work so well. For some reason, after installing the Java Plugin, restarting, and various other attempts didn't fix the issue. I was forced each time to use the HTML implementation which is way too annoying for anyone.

Then came the killer. I was browsing randomly and ready other forums and reviews on Safari when I noted that one article mentioned something about memory usage. I had known that Firefox has had issues with memory management, but these days, things were much better than originally. The article prompted me to check out my memory usage from Safari. After spitting out my drink in a spray all over my desk and picking myself up off of the floor, I looked again at what the memory monitor said: 131MB of memory used (and counting). That was rediculous. More than 10 percent of my system memory (1024MB) was being used up by Safari with just one tab opened. Despite its speediness, that's enough to take a toll on any system. I feel bad for the poor chap who has 512 or even 256MB on their system trying to run this thing.

With that revelation, I quickly uninstalled the browser from my machine. It was clear that the glaring issue was the system memory usage. And with LogMeIn not working so well, I could find little to justify using it in day-to-day use for my job.

In conclusion, the Apple Safari browser is a slick and snappy program. It has available plug-ins for the typical browsing needs such as Flash and Java and even Media Player. However, the interface is not too configurable, the tabbed browsing can be tiring when compared with Firefox or even IE7. Lastly, the fact that it eats system resources for lunch make it not too great of a browser for less-equipped PCs with less than a gig of memory. Thankfully, Apple can punt to "Beta" as a good excuse for these things. It is noticeable, however, that anything that Apple tries port over to the PC (such as iTunes) proves to be less than stellar. Nice try Apple, but it's not ready quite yet.

The Linux Dilemna

Besides the obvious factor of being a computer geek, there is some mysterious appeal to learn and use an operating system other than Microsoft Windows. Am I against using Microsoft Windows? Not really. Most of what I know and understand about computers has come from learning it in a Windows environment. I guess I'm curious to know how the other half lives. Recently, we've been toying with the idea of possibly running Ubuntu Linux on the computers in the elementary lab. This idea is mainly motivated by the idea of saving a lot of money, as well as giving a chance to an open source alternative.

So what is the dilemma? The dilemma has a lot to do with the support and maintenance of Linux. As well as the unpredictability of what could go wrong. What if the printer stops working? What if certain well-used programs don't work? What if our web-filtering software is not compatible? What if I die in a tragic blimp accident and they don't have anyone else who even remotely can figure out the mess I've made using Linux? These questions keep me away. Admittedly, I've been using Ubuntu Linux on my home desktop and my work laptop for about 2 weeks now and I'm really content with it. Only rarely do I find any need to boot into Windows for the use of Internet Explorer or Picasa2 (it runs so slowly in linux for me). Would I recommend Ubuntu Linux to others? Sure. Would I use it in my school's elementary lab this coming year...probably not. Not yet, at least.

A Very Dark Graduation

Friday June 1, was Hershey Christian School's first high school graduation. They graduated 8 seniors. It was a momentous occasion for the school. However, it was probably like no other graduation. About 10 minutes before the ceremony began, a strong storm knocked out power to the area and the entire ceremony was done in the dark. I commend our headmaster for sticking it out, but there's just a little less magic in a room where you can barely see anybody. I kind of felt bad for the people that put so much hard work and planning with the assumption that there would be electricity readily available. There was no slideshow, video address, microphones, speakers, video recordings, air conditioning, etc. In any event, the kids still got their diplomas and will be able to look back on it and say that they got to graduate in the dark, I guess.

The Blue Angels

This year we were able to travel down to Annapolis, MD to watch the Blue Angels perform their practice run at the United States Naval Academy. We joined up with some friends from the area for the event. It was quite a fun event, with plenty of room for the kids to run around as well as an outstanding day weather-wise. To view some pictures from the event, check out the link: Blue Angels

Photography Ethics?

I was just reading an article out of a special edition of National Geographic that I found kind of interesting. The author was talking about digital photography and emphasizing with great effort, the issue of trust. His point was that with digital photography is it very easy to "manipulate" color, contrast, lighting, and other parts of a photo which can "deceive" the viewer. The idea, he says, is to develop a trust with the viewer of your photo. If you attempt to digitally manipulate a photo with an intent to deceive the viewer, then you are entering "treacherous waters". The author then went on to assure that the photographs in National Geographic are in no way enhanced for this reason.

Personally, as a hobbyist in the field, I'd have to say that anything I want to do with my photos to improve them for my own enjoyment is valid. I also think that if I want to enhance a photo in a way that will make my intentions of the shot more clearer to the viewer, there is nothing wrong with that either. Some people are purists in this field. Anybody else have opinions on that? Feel free to leave some comments.

My First Trip to the Big Apple

This past weekend I was able to go on a two-day trip to New York City with the high school choir. It was a really fun trip. Our itinerary included a concert in St. Paul's Chapel, shopping in Chinatown, dinner in Little Italy, a Broadway show (Phantom of the Opera), a 4 hour tour of the city which included excursions through Central Park and Rockefeller Square, a trip on the Staten Island Ferry (with a view of the Statue of Liberty), lunch and shopping in Times Square, and a visit to the Metropolitan Museum. This was the first time I've ever been to New York City, so I was able to snap some photos. I've only put about 1/6 of those on our photo page. Feel free to check them out.

The scary thing about computers.

Have you ever seen those "end of the world" movies where the computers crash and pandemonium breaks out and people start raiding stores, etc.? Yesterday I was going through the self-checkout of the local grocery store when the kiosk I was using crashed on me. Suddenly, I noticed that other people had concerned looks on their faces. As I scanned the faces of the cashiers, I realized that their machines had crashed. It was then that the manager called all of the store staff to the front of the building and was giving them frantic instructions. This was going on, of course while the lines were beginning to build with confused customers with huge piles of groceries.

There was an announcement made that they were experiencing a computer issue and it would be fixed momentarily. Well, 10 minutes later it was still not fixed. I overhead one employee tell another that not only had the store's computers gone offline, but the entire chain of grocery stores in the area were experiencing the exact same problem at the exact same time. Needless to say, I had to get back to work, so I left my stuff and walked out.

This experience kind of woke me up to the reality of how much of what we do everyday is relied upon the use of computers. If ever a Y2K situation ever occurred, I think we'd be seeing a major catastrophe. Humans have been too conditioned and dependent on machines for operating in every day life. Kind of scary.

Embarassment

If anyone feels like an idiot for blogging, its me. My new job has made blogging very difficult to do regularly. This is the reason for the lack of posts. Oh, and my evaluation of Vista? Nevermind. It lasted about two weeks, and then I realized that Windows Vista had nothing to offer me that I couldn't already get elsewhere.

So lets move on. I've been attempting to try and find a lazy man's way of posting photos on the internet without really dealing with managing a website and such. I found that Google has a nice offering with Picasa's web pages. I get to easily select the photos and upload them in a matter of a few clicks. I love this. Its so easy. So what's the url for our pictures? Here you go:

http://picasaweb.google.com/abjurina/

You can go there to see our pictures from time to time. Now that the weather is nice, we'll be taking shots pretty often, and I'll try to keep it updates much more often than my blog. In any case, if you read this blog, you've now got a way to check out pictures now and again. I'll try and get the blogging going more often once the school year calms down a bit. Its going to be a busy summer, but I want to continue the writing as much as possible. Also, if you are into technology at all, you can keep up with my other blog at http://hersheychristiantech.wordpress.com. I mainly write on topics of technology that are relevant to the parents and school community, but there might be some good jewels there for somebody.

I'm back (2-1-07 post)

Not that anyone is paying that much attention, but I'm finally taking the time to write more. I've been caught up with work and holidays and work and, did I mention work? Well, needless to say, I found a sliver of time to write.
I decided to recently become an early adopter of Windows Vista. I can't say that I've found anything to do back-flips about over it. It certainly has a nice interface and some neat eye-candy (if you are using the Aero features). However, when you've become used to so much not changing for 6 years in Windows XP, its a bit intimidating. I certainly applaud the fact that Microsoft has updated the operating system with some better and more useful applications. The Windows Calendar is quite useful, and well-integrated with Microsoft Mail. However it turns out that Microsoft Mail is little more than Outlook Express with some small changes. Another really cool application is the windows snipping tool. It allows you to take great screenshot clips anywhere. No more annoying pastes of a yucky bmp file into a Word or Mail document. Its actually quite handy. Well, I'll not make any more comments until I play with it more, but this is my impression as of one weeks use. There's plenty more to say about it, so stay tuned.