Photo Hunters: Scary!

This was another really tough one for me this week! I find bugs to be very, very scary.. but it’s late October here and all our bugs are either frozen by now or are migrating down to annoy you folks in the south, hee. But I brainstormed with the kids and guess what? I FOUND SOMETHING REALLY REALLY SCARY! It’s THIS:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I am the computer technician in the house, and we have.. SIX computers! So when I see this, my hair goes white and my knees start to clatter.

But you know what’s worse? That image is from a screen saver! It’s a program you can download and install on your computer! (Or as a nasty, nasty prank but we don’t want to be doing that, do we? An infuriated co-worker or spouse would be ever scarier!). You can see for yourself– information about this scary screen saver program is here.

One other scary thing I thought of was a work of art we saw this week at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute museum. I didn’t get a photo, though– I was videotaping. It’s a short video, you can see the big bug here. It was quite startling to enter the museum and see this huge spider dangling from the second floor! The artist did a great job, too– it looks real!

How did your Photo Hunt go today?

See what’s up with today’s FFQF at Meet the Founders blog

The theme for this month has been “Virtue.” The FFQF group has really done well with the theme this week; I’ve really enjoyed reading the quotes and the posts about them. Most of the posts have concerned private virtue, that is, moral virtue. Since the presidential election is so near, I decided to do something different and mention about the virtue of the oath of office, particularly of the presidential oath of office. This is the oath required in the Constitution that the president is to make:

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The phrase “So help me, God” was added by George Washington (he also kissed the Bible), in deference to Providence that had helped the patriots win the fight for liberty.

In reading the news and hearing so many campaign promises from various candidates for president, very little is mentioned of the oath of office the president will take. This oath does not concern national health care (unconstitutional), income taxation fluctuations (unconstitutional), the “war” in Iraq (unconstitutional), “exporting democracy” (unconstitutional), and bailing out financial institutions (unconstitutional).

If, for instance, the president is required to do any act, he is not only authorized, but required, to decide for himself, whether, consistently with his constitutional duties, he can do the act.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

I sure wish our leaders would stick to their oaths. The office of the president is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to eradicate the states’ sovereignty or dole out public largess at the slightest oinking.

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29:2

I know I have a lot of genealogists who visit this blog. Thanks! I knew there was a good reason for posting about cemeteries and New York State history. I’ve been reading some excellent books on the history of the Oneida Indian Nation; in the “olden” days, preserving oral history and family traditions meant speaking into a cassette tape player and transcribing the stories by hand (very laborious, I’ve done it with a lot of my grandmother’s stuff). But I saw a great video about a speech-recognition software program, done by blogger friend Heather with her 95-year old dad. It’s amazing!

The above video is not the typical Dragon NaturallySpeaking video. It was created by a blogger named Heather from British Columbia. She writes a blog called Boating in Beautiful British Columbia.

In the video that she has created, she talks about Dragon NaturallySpeaking. She talks about using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. In fact in the video, she is using Dragon NaturallySpeaking while she’s talking about it but you don’t quite realize that until the video is about halfway done.

The thing that’s REALLY interesting about this video, is not the fact that Heather is using the software and it’s not the fact the software works for her so much as HOW she chooses to use it. She took Dragon NaturallySpeaking and sat down with her father who is 95 years old. She spent a few minutes with him getting the software tuned to his voice so that the computer recognizes his sentences and words. Then she’s lets her father tell some of his great stories to the computer which transcribes everything that he says.

You can tell just by watching the video and listening to her father that he really does have some interesting stories to tell. I have a feeling that I could probably listen to the stories myself quite a bit, enjoying them immensely. And that too is not really the cool thing about this video. Although I’d love to hear her father tells more stories, the COOL THING is that she’s using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to capture a piece of her family’s oral tradition.

I can think of hundreds of different stories that my family has shared with me over the years that have not been documented. Our family is slowly losing some of those great stories and unfortunately, as we are losing some of our family members. We survivors don’t know all of the stories ourselves that our parents or grandparents or our great grandparents knew. But this video shows that you can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to help capture some of those great stories that your parents and grandparents and great grandparents have probably told you dozens of times.

It’s something that we don’t always think about, but in a lot of ways those stories are some of the most cherished memories that we will walk away with from our family. And the sad thing is that our family cannot Be with us forever, but their memories can live on and this is where Dragon NaturallySpeaking really shows us its value. It’s true for $99 you can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking and you can type 150 words a minute. That’s a pretty good value for the software. It’s not too expensive and the benefit is tangible.

Now, you can get a useful tool at any computer store or Home Depot or Lowes, and if you don’t know how to use it well, then it really doesn’t matter what you pay for it. It is a waste of money.

Heather shows us a great way to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to capture some of the most valuable information and stories from her father that she might ever be able to record not only for herself but for her daughter and her grandchildren someday and great-grandchildren and many other branches of the family even.

So that’s just another great reason why they Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a pretty cool piece of software. $99 could help you capture your family history easily and even make it indexable too, so that you can search it from your computer. That’s just amazing.

My name Brett Bumeter, and I write about Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I’ve been writing reviews about it for almost 2 years now. You could say that I’m sold on the software, and I hope that this article and this video helps show you the value of using it as well.

Sincerely,
Brett Bumeter
Softduit Media
www.softduit.com

PS this article is about 630 words long and it took me five minutes to write and another minute or two to edit with Dragon Naturally Speaking 10. Even with editing time that’s close to 100 words per minute!

Check out the very versatile Dragon Naturally Speaking software– type at $150 words per minute for $99! I think it’s perfect for preserving family history, and saves tons of time from transcribing work.

Pixley Falls State Park is on Route 46, south of Boonville. It lies at the southern foothills of the glorious Adirondack Mountain Range. Like so many New York State geography wonders, this is a watercourse over ancient stratfied limestone. The state park, open all year, is 375 acres of forest and trails. Camping, picnics, hiking, cross-country, fishing and seasonal hunting are all welcome here. It is very woodsy, and there are steep trails to follow. The kids loved it– it’s a great place for nature exploration.

A small stream flows through the park, part of the many-veined water network leading to the mighty Mohawk River. The stream tumbles down the steep hills, narrows in some places and widens in others. the day we visited, the waterflow was steady but rather small and unspectacular. During periods of heavy rains, I could imagine it cresting easily over the green banks.

You really need to click the image to enlarge it, in order to appreciate the absolute beauty of the place.

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t think limited mobility should ever keep a person from traveling! My grandparents were examples of this– my grandfather was resigned to a wheelchair (arthritis) by age 40, but he and my grandmother and their two young sons traveled to Arizona and back for the trip of a lifetime. And my dad, whose mobility has been limited the past few years, recently bought a terrific wheelchair from the SCOOTER store, and he and his wife have still traveled out to Texas every year, as well as trips to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas (he goes on a yearly prairie dog hunt out that way). He absolutely loves his Scooter and it is very portable with their RV. Actually, he loves the Scooter so much, he is now a distributor of them for people in his area who have limited mobility. Founded by small businesspersons Doug and Susanna Harrison, the Scooter has its headquarters in New Braunfels, Texas. I love their motto, “Always Do the Right Thing.” The Scooter is a really cool power chair- my dad uses it almost all the time now. My dad is such a great example to me– his entreprenurial spirit and his belief that travel is always possible! If you are interested in learning more about the Scooter, check out their website at TheScooterStore.com. Don’t let limited mobility keep you from seeing the places you love.

I’ve been so wildly busy that I realized I never posted much about our trip to Oneida Lake three weeks ago! :S Since then, we’ve been to the Adirondacks. We went up to the town of Steuben to see Pixley Falls, a lovely little waterfall in a state park. I suppose Pixley Falls must have been much, much larger in its heyday- it was once considered a minature Trenton Falls (we visited the Trenton Falls site, see about it here), and Trenton Falls is pretty impressive.

Pixley Falls is very pleasant. I’ll have a larger post about it; I have to research its history a little more (requiring more time) and I have about 60 photos and videos to sift through yet. It was a really nice visit. I took this short video of the falls. I thought I’d give you a sneak preview and show the video first. The kids loved it; there was so much to explore here!

I love autumn but oh I hate to see summer go. I cling tenaciously to the knobs of my beloved barbeque grill up until the first real snowfall. I rarely use the oven from May to September, so I’ve got loads of nice and simple grill recipes.

Are you watching another grilling season close, with tears in your eyes? You can always relive those special grilling moments with a recipe contest! I’m going to enter. Grand prize is $400 (that would buy me a nicer grill!) See the barbeque grills contest at ibuybarbeques.com for information on how to enter.

Here’s my simple recipe, but it’s sooo good.

Grilled Squash and Onions

1 eggplant, skin peeled and cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
1 medium yellow squash, sliced
1 large white Vidalia onion, skinned and thickly sliced
1/8 teaspoon mint extract
1 tablespoon freshly minced basil
1/2 cup or so of olive oil
pinch of salt

In a bowl, mix olive oil, mint extract, salt, and basil. Add the eggplant, squash, and onion slices and allow to sit while you fire up the barbeque.

Lay slices on the grill and cook at medium heat until squash softens (make sure the eggplant is cooked thoroughly, but don’t let it become mushy). I like to sear the squash slices a little.

Serve hot with grilled chicken. Yum!

The contest ends at 12:01 on November 1, 2008, so get your recipes in before it’s too late!

Several weeks ago, I blogged about a neat and specialized travel blanket, the Cabin Cuddler. I got one! Here’s my review. And by the way, this is not a paid review– it’s gratis!

The Cabin Cuddler is a very compact package. It’s lightweight and comes with a blanket, an inflatable pillow (it’s uninflated for carrying purposes) and the carrying pouch with a clip-on handle.

The entire set is extremely light and portable, perfect for travel. It was invented by traveler and airplane captain Jim Levings, who noticed his airline passengers always shivering beneath their skimpy airline-distributed blankets. He, his wife, and his sister put their heads together to Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever attended a church service in a theatre? I’ve been to a lot of church services, and a few of them were very concert-like, in huge theatres. I once saw Carman live, here at the Stanley Theatre in Utica, NY, and that was an absolute blast! It was his “Radically Saved” Tour; ever hear his skit about the disciples in the Upper Room? It is terrific! In it he says, “We’re gonna have som’ CHURCH!” and the audience goes wild, lol. Nothing like a really fun time like that!

I’ve also been to a few Christian services where we performed skits on stage. And when I was a kid, my parents took me to see the jaw-dropping Easter play performed at Hill Cumorah in Palmyrah, NY. That was an event to remember. Probably the most amazing church services I’ve ever seen were videos of the Kathryn Kuhlman services in the 1960s, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles– what spectacular services those must have been for the attendees! How I wish I’d been there! And I love listening to the Hillsongs CDs where they get everyone involved in the worship. Church services in theatres are wonderful events, where there is such an atmosphere of devotion, camraderie, and excitement.

There is a large, special theatre church service coming this week, and it sounds incredible, too; click here to find out more. It’s the first annual Theatre Church Conference in Silver Spring, MD, October 22-23. It’s a composium of pastors and church leaders from the United States’ fatest-growing churches to discuss the future of theatre worship. It sounds like an amazing event. If you are going to be in the Silver Spring area of Maryland this week, it sounds like a wonderful event to check out, you can find out more here about this event and others.

Many thanks to Bluehost tech support John for his expertise. He was able to translate my error log and get my comments working again. A big THANK YOU, John! What’s also cool is that we may be related, lol!

What happened with my comments is that the database for the blog needed a little cleanup. John said this happens from time to time– databases get full of stuff and need some attention. So if you find yourself with such a problem with your blog, ask your tech support how to optimize/repair the database. It seems to cure a lot of ills.

Thank God, I can now resume regular broadcasting! I’m sorry for the comments problem– your comments are not lost, they are recorded in the error logs. I am going to attempt to restore them. Thanks for your patience!

For some inexplicable reason, the comments have stopped working for this blog. I did nothing! They just decided to stop working today. GRRRRR. Today also happens to be the day where I usually get hundreds of comments (Photo Hunters Day). I apologize for the problem. I’m going to be trying to fix it by changing themes, so things may seem different around here for a little while.