But I've been so busy, and it is just such a hassle to go buy film for the camera, then take the film to the store to get developed, then have to get triple prints (one for Mom, one each for each of her brothers), then have to hassle with returning the prints that aren't so good, then finding envelopes big enough to hold the prints, and cardboard to put in the envelopes to help prevent the prints from getting bent, then paying postage, and taking them to the post office.

Hmm, I thought... I've had a digital camera for a while now. Surely there must be an electronic solution.

Well, there is, and I didn't even have to pay for the prints!

I signed up at Shutterfly.com for their free 15 print trial. The process is very intuitive. After selecting a user name and password, I was led right to a page from which I could create my first album. I was prompted to install a small weblet which only took a few moments to download, and was then presented with a cool little applet that allowed me to select the folder which contained the pictures I wanted to upload, then select the individual pictures, then do a batch upload. After uploading the pictures, I was taken to a page which allowed me to enter and store the names and addresses of Mom and her brothers. I then clicked on the order page and selected which pictures I wanted prints of (funny thing, there were exactly five - go figure), and to whom I wanted them sent (again, strangely enough, three people - let's see, that's five pictures times three people... 15 pictures. Gee, wasn't that the number I got for free?). All very quick and easy, and very cool. The only thing I had to pay for was the shipping, which was less than $2 per shipment, so for less than $6 total, I now have one less to-do on my list.

Find something that you enjoy doing...

That not everyone else can or is willing to do...

That you can get really good at...

Preferably that other people find value in so you can make a decent living...

Learn to do it very well, then maintain your skill...

That's it.

Seems simple, doesn't it?

Then why have I never been able to do it?

Bonus information:

If given the choice, pick something that you can be your own boss doing. Any time you are working for someone else, a good portion of your effort goes to financially benefit the owner(s)/executive(s), not you. Plus, there are lots of perks and financial benefits to owning a business. If you do decide to work for someone else - be careful. Small businesses tend to exist for the benefit of the owner, large businesses for the benefit of the executives and stock holders. Don't discount working for the government - you can retire while you are still young and either enjoy many years of life with some level of financial security, or still have time for a second career. Don't discount non-profits - you won't get rich, but you might find the work fulfilling. Money can bring comfort, but it's not everything; on the other hand, being poor sucks. Not matter what, remember, no one will be looking out for you, except you.

Start saving for retirement early. Like the day you start your first job. It is amazing how much sooner or how much richer you will be when you decide you've had enough of the grind. In thirty or forty years, you will appreciate the extra cash much more than you will be glad that you bought that shiny bauble you really didn't need and long ago threw away.

It was a real struggle to decide which of the sixty to replace. I ended up picking the John Wooden quote "Be quick, but never hurry."

The new quote:

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute. - George Bernard Shaw"

Seemed appropriate for me on a number of levels.

By the way, the entire list is still available on Witsdom, here: Witsdom Wisdom. Some of it may be schlock, but much of it is good to remind yourself of occasionally.

My feelings were somewhat mixed about the book.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the level of detail DeMille had regarding aircraft and aircraft operations. It was really cool to be able relate first hand to some of the aircraft in the book, and for his narrative to actually be correct regarding the details. Either he is a pilot, or he did very good research.

It was also really cool that many of the locations were places that I am intimately familiar with. Who would have ever believed that Craig Municipal and Monks Corner airports would appear in a major novel!

John Corey is a great character. He is strong, smart, resourceful, and a wise-ass. I really do like these detective characters who are sardonic/cynical/sarcastic. There seems to be many similarities between Corey and Spencer, another character that I like.

In this book, I also found the combination of 1st and 3rd person to work really well. I think in part it is because when in 1st person, we get insights into what the character is thinking, as well as what is he is saying and what is happening. Some of the best lines in the book are thoughts that John chooses not to utter.

The narration was absolutely superb. Brick performs the book rather than simply reading it. His interpretation of John Corey is inspired.

On the other hand, after the initial incident (I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers) it seemed like there were two independent story lines - Asad Kahlil and John Corey. I would have expected that the two would have been tightly woven... cat and mouse... John always just a half-step behind... But no, the suspense was sorely lacking. For most of the book, Asad did his thing, pretty much unfettered, and John sat around. Where was the chase? The only time I even wondered, much less was surprised, was about half-way through the book when (oh, I won't spoil that part). Granted, John finally did get a clue, and get off his butt towards the end, but it was a long time coming. While the ending had a modicum of excitement, I felt that overall, it was anti-climatic.

The book does raise some interesting points about what drives terrorism, especially the concept of blood feuds, retribution, etc. I don't know if DeMille intended it as such, but I found the book to less of a suspenseful book, and more of a scary book. Not Steven King scary, but really scary - because it illuminates one thing that drives terrorists, and drives home that we are all but powerless to stop people who truly believe that they have God on their side, and are more than willing to die for their cause. It also saddened me, because it highlighted that there are religious and cultural differences in the world that are unlikely to ever be resolved, and when to these you add anger over events that in some cases occurred thousands of years ago, it seems that we are doomed to a cycle of man killing man as long as man walks the earth.

I noticed that the fan in the office (which had been the fan in the living room) was wobbling more than I remembered.

I figured it probably was that I just hadn't remembered how much it wobbled, although it occurred to me that maybe I had dislodged a balancing weight when I moved it.

It just so happened that I was spending a lot of time in the office, doing mind numbing reviews of contract documents. Given that my sweetie was off visiting in North Carolina, I also didn't have much in the way of pleasant distractions from said mind numbing work. So, I decided that fixing the wobble would be a nice short break from contracts review. I should have known better...

I still had the balancing kits from the two new fans I had recently installed. Well, truth be told, I still had fan balancing kits from fans I had installed five years ago, but that's another issue. Anyway, so I hauled the medium ladder into the office, and figured I'd just quickly balance the fan. After placing the balancing clip on the fan blade, turning the fan on, mentally noting the amount of wobble, turning the fan off, moving the balancing clip to the next blade, turning the fan back on, mentally noting the amount of wobble, turning the fan off... for all five blades... I decided that the wobble was most corrected on blade five. I then did the tuning check, where I slid the clip towards the center and checked, then slid it toward the end and checked, and selected the location for the weight. As I stuck the weight on the fan, I noticed that the blade itself was wobbling! The screws that secure the blade to the motor were loose! After checking the other blades, I realized that they all were loose! Good thing I decided to fix the wobble I decided. I would have hated to see what happens when a blade's screws work their way all-the-way out.

So, no biggie, right? Just tighten the screws and be done with it... Oh, were it only so easy! See, the cover which attaches the light kit to the fan blocks access to the screws which secure the blades to the motor. So, I had to remove the light kit. This is a bit of a pain in the best of circumstances, but the ladder I was using was about two inches short of comfortable. I guess I could have gone and gotten the big ladder, but it is such a pain to horse around. So, I struggled on tip-toe to get the light kit removed, which I finally succeeded in doing. I was then able to tighten the blade screws, and reinstall the light kit. I was so happy when I got it all put back together and flipped the switch to turn the fan on.

Until the fan started wobbling.

Now, most folks at this point would have said "good enough" and gotten on with their life. But, gentle reader, if you know me at all, you know that's not me.

So, back I went to the balancing routine. I've never actually run through the balancing routine a second time. But in this case, the second time turned out to be the charm. After placing the clip on blade four, the fan ran without the slightest hint of a wobble. I slapped a weight on blade four, held my breath, turned on the fan, and felt a little shot of joy when nary a wobble did I see.

While I did get satisfaction out of my endeavor, I think I might make an offering to the fan gods to see if I can get a respite from fan work for a while. Then again, the fan in the guest room is a bit noisy...

Even though I've had the 7135 for over a year now, I didn't notice this behavior until after I had installed "Crazy Daisy" from AstraWare, which, by the way, is totally addictive! I don't think the game is the cause of the behavior, I just think that it allowed me to notice the behavior.

Anyway, the behavior in question is that after a reset of the device, it comes up in what I believe is 16 bit color depth (65K colors). After I hot sync, it appears that the device switches to 8 bit color depth (256 colors). I have not been able to find anything which displays the current color depth, so I don't know for sure, but I can say that the colors seem more varied and more vibrant before I hot sync, than afterward.

I searched and searched for a utility to either display the current color depth setting, or to allow me to reset it on-the-fly. I thought I had found one in either "Colorize" or "Butterfly," but though either appears to allow adjusting the color depth, neither seemed to do anything on the 7135 - at least not as far as my perception of the base colors was concerned. Sure, they did adjust the colors of scroll bars, menu bars, etc. - but that's not really what I was looking for. I did find a reference to a "VideoModeHack" by Robert Diamond, which seemed like it would do everything I wanted, but I could not find anywhere from which to download it.

I also found ZLauncher which appears to have some controls for color depth as a small part of its functionality, but I'm still deciding if I really want to install it and change the whole user interface - although it does look like a really cool program.

I also installed McColors and "Screen Prefs" from Mike McCollister at http://mikemccollister.com/palm/ and thought for a moment that they would do the trick, but... no.

I am starting to think that it is a bug in the version of the Palm OS that Kyocera implemented - that once the color depth is changed, only a reboot will reset it.

I did find a nifty free little application that allows me to reset the device via the screen rather than having to remove the battery cover - it is called, strangely enough "Reset" by CHZ-Soft. It still is a hassle because every time I reset, I have to go through the digitizer/screen calibration, but, I guess it's better than nothing.

I also found a cool little freeware application that allows searching the text of the memo database called Q-Pocket for Palm by Toshiyuki Masui, and a shareware application called Memo Leaf which offers search in addition to some other nice enhancements for the built-in memo application. It had always bugged me that the built-in memo application did not have a find or seach feature, given the extensive use I make of it to help me remember the important tidbits of data that are no longer so efficiently maintained or retreived in my wetware. Now, I have one less thing to be bugged about.

The operative word is tried.

Try as I might, I could not get the sliding portion of the door out of the track so I could remove the broken wheel and replace it.

I searched and searched on the Internet. I discovered that in order to remove the sliding door, I first had to remove the sliding screen and the fixed panel portion of the door. Removal of the screen was relatively simple. Removal of the fixed panel was impossible. I removed every screw I could find. I gently pushed and pulled and pried. No luck. I could get the portion of panel away from the wall to giggle slightly, but couldn't get the other side to budge at all. I searched some more. I coaxed some more. I cussed some more. After two hours of struggle, I could stand no more. So, I gave up.

But, the door's dysfunction was really bugging me. So, we decided to bring in a professional.

Jeanie had gotten the name of a "handy man" from our Realtor and gave him a call. An appointment was scheduled, and he arrived today, on time, tools in hand. Unfortunately, I was on a work call, so I didn't get to watch what he did or ask him what the "trick" was, but he was able to remove the door and replace the wheel all in about an hour's time. The door now works perfectly. In fact, it works so smoothly, that sometimes, I'll open and close the door just because it works so well.

I made my annual pilgrimage to the eye doctor this week, and as has been the case for the last few years, age continues to affect my eyes.

As can be expected after one passes his fourth decade, I am experiencing the gradual increase of presbyopia. Every year, it seems, I need slightly stronger reading glasses. My regular prescription also continues to change. While I can see distance "just fine" with no correction, I can see "even better" with my glasses. This is mostly due to a slight astigmatism. What I hadn't realized until this last visit is that when I was younger, I was slightly farsighted, but over the years, the farsightedness has been decreasing to the point where this time, I was very slightly nearsighted!

I was able to arrive at this conclusion after reading this wonderful explanation of how to decipher / understand an eyeglass prescription. That, combined with the fact that I am retentive, and have recorded what my prescriptions have been for the last six years. In looking over the prescriptions from year to year, the trend was easy to see. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun).

The doctor also mentioned that I would be a good candidate for CK surgery. At first, my reaction was a quick "no!" While I need some help to see up close, I'm not so bad off that I'm keen on someone monkeying with my eyeballs. I'm also not sure how the FAA feels about CK surgery. But, after doing a little reading, while I'm not ready to run out and have the procedure done, I am willing to contemplate the possibility...

Jeanie found another fan that she liked almost as well, that was a pure outdoor fan - guaranteed not to rust. This one is the Hampton Bay 52 In. Nassau Ceiling Indoor/Outdoor Ceiling Fan in Natural Iron Finish which she found at Home Depot.

Unfortunately, my first thought, to just remove the old fan as-is without disassembling it, wasn't an option. Because of the size and overlap of the blades, I couldn't reach the cover over the hanger ball - even with our eight foot ladder. So, in order to get to the cover, I had to remove a couple of the fan blades, which meant that I first had to remove the light kit. Then we had the quandary of where to put the partially assembled fan so it wouldn't get damaged. No good solution. So, I ended up taking the whole thing apart and re-boxing it.

We had hoped to be able to use the old light kit on the new fan, but unfortunately, the attachment methods were very different between the two fans, and I didn't think that I could make it work, at least not without more engineering prowess than I possess. The new light isn't ugly, it's just that we really liked the other. Oh well.

The good news is that the new fan does produce significantly more airflow, which was the primary goal in placing a fan out on the porch in the first place. And, as you can tell from the picture, the blades are very similar to the blades on the fan in the living room, so it helps to tie the two spaces together. Based on our first experience, we also decided to go with a two foot down rod rather than the stock 4" down rod - which Jeanie and I both agreed was a good decision.

Lowes gave us no hassle with the return, although the customer service representative was unmoved when I told her that we had wasted a 10% off coupon on a fan that turned out to be unsatisfactory.

Oh well, a 10% coupon and half a day gone, but at least we have a satisfactory ceiling fan on the porch.

Okay, so maybe I was a little spoiled in North Carolina. Having three donation centers open five or six days a week within 30 minutes drive is a bit of a luxury.

But, one center, open one day every other month? Give me a break!

But yes, that's what the situation is in Jacksonville. The center is open for donations on the first Monday of every other month. Sure, they have a bloodmobile and associated blood drives at various other sporadic locations and dates throughout the month, but, the operative words are various and sporadic. Makes it kinda tough to adhere to that five or six donations a year goal given my work schedule.

Another big surprise was how the medical questionnaire was handled. In North Carolina, the ARC makes a BIG deal about donor confidentiality. They give you a private area to fill out the medical form, and they even have white noise generators in the interview rooms. In Jacksonville, the staff member asked each question out loud and we had to give the answers out loud. We were in an interview room, so it wasn't like we were doing this out in the open, but it did feel weird. Not that there are any answers that Jeanie or I are embarrassed about, but it is a very different experience.

On the plus side, for Jeanie and me at least, there was no line when we showed up yesterday at around 5:00 PM, and there were three friendly staff members to attend to us. And yes, Jeanie did also give a pint of her precious life juice. This was to be a big donation for me - my 40th pint - five gallons. When I saw how empty they were, and thought about them only being open once every other month, I figured - if I was lucky - they might offer to mail me my five gallon pin. But given their seemly lack of focus on blood services, I figured even that might be a stretch. Imagine my surprise, and delight, when they actually had one last five gallon pin left on site! We even both got T-shirts.

Looking forward, the big decision is going to be if we stick with the Red Cross, or if we will switch teams and start donating at the Florida Georgia Blood Alliance. They have seven centers open five or six days a week within thirty (or so) minutes drive. FGBA has been serving the Jacksonville area for over 60 years and appears to be very community focused. ARC is relatively new to this area (to my utter amazement) and is trying to get a toe-hold in this area. ARC is a good organization that does a lot of good for a lot of people, and I do have a long history with them. On the other hand, there is something to be said for convenience if that becomes the difference between a donation and no donation. Oh well, I guess I've got eight weeks to think about it...