How To....

Ever had to fix something, but didn't know how to go about it? What do you do? You could call a family member, a friend, or a neighbor.... go to the library, do some research in books.... or use the internet!

If you don't know already, the internet is full of helpful advise on anything you want to know. Some excellent and professional advice and tutorials... to opinions and plain ol' hearsay! It's all there. You can have your pick, and contribute too!

I use the internet a lot. I've been able to find useful information quickly to get the job done.Of course, I'm also pretty good at discerning what is true and false. To me, it's a challenge... like being a detective on a case. That's probably why I like it so much. A little research on a topic is fun (at least, for me it is).

Let me give an example... when I had to install the garbage disposal, the instructions didn't help at all! Whoever wrote and approved of them should've been fired! They didn't make sense! I pulled out my laptop, did some quick searches.. low and behold! Simple steps on how to install it. Even on what NOT to do! There was even several videos!!! Wow! Pretty soon, I got it figured out! I was ready to go!

Now at the store, you can buy several good sized "How To" books. I'll admit it, they've intrigued me. They tell how to fix things that are broken, how to install items, and how to prevent mishaps or better your home. I almost bought a few at times. But, do I need to? No!

Thanks to the internet, I can easy find the answers I need. And it's just not one way of getting the job done, a search will often give you several sources for the information needed! It's great!

Boy... what would we do without computers? lol!

~Matt

In The News! LOL

Ok... I just can't pass this news story up!

It's got to be the funniest piece of the news I've heard in a long time, and will definitely the story of the year for me!

"Former President Bill Clinton had a recent phone call with Tiger Woods and offered the embattled golfer his support and encouragement!"

Now that's funny! And now.... let the jokes ensue:

• Was Bill actually trying to get more 'tips'?
• Were they comparing notes?
• Perhaps Bill was just telling Tiger that he shouldn't have admitted it so quickly... things like this need to be "defined"!

Anyway, I just couldn't pass this one up!

~Matt

Hey... That Bytes!

I read a neat article in the news yesterday. It talked about the naming system for the International System of Units (SI).

Here's the official SI prefixes:

10 = deca

100 = hecto

1,000 = kilo

1,000,000 = mega

1,000,000,000 = giga

1,000,000,000,000 = tera

1,000,000,000,000,000 = peta

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = exa

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = zetta

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = yotta

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = unnamed

As most of you know, these are used for our bytes in the computer systems. I have a terabyte hard drive at home, for example. I'd like to think I'd never fill it up, but who would have imagined that you could fill up a 4 gigabyte hard drive 10 years ago? I sure didn't!!! You can now get usb flash drives that hold that much for less than $30!

Well, the article goes on to explain that there are a group of people campaigning to name the "unnamed" unit "Hella". It goes on to claim that the word is California slang meaning 'very'. According to dictionary.com.... it means "(a) hell of (a)".

This may come to be a problem in the future when we use this unit of measurement for our technology. Would it be allowed on tv commercials? hmmmm. How will strict conservative families deal with it?

Makes one wonder!

~Matt

M&M - Wore out!

Here is a picture of M&M crashed out, asleep! This was taken Saturday night. Those poor kids!

~Matt

Week Rundown! (02/22/10 - 02/28/10)

Monday:

We spent the evening cleaning bedrooms! I was very proud of Mysia, she did her's without any help! I helped Malachi, and we finished within a decent time. Lydia had a major paper she was working on. I helped by looking over it and seeing if I could fix any grammatical errors. My main focus of the evening was the budget. Yuck!

Tuesday:

Came home, cleaned house a bit. Paulette and Moses came over with pizza. I helped Paulette with the updates for her laptop, and helped Moses with some tunes that he needed put on his music player. We watched the Olympics, and Lydia did some homework.

Wednesday:

Visited with Grandma Taylor after church services. We had a nice visit. M&M ate cookies and milk, which is a treat for them. They tried to play with Alley (the cat), but the poor thing is not to fond of them!

Thursday:

Family Movie night! We got two movies from redbox. Mysia (and Malachi) watched a Tinkerbell movie while Lydia did homework and I made supper. When the movie was finished we all watched "Ice Castles." It was a very good movie, and it gave Mysia pause on the fact of the girl being blind. So we we able to explain to her about blindness. It was a neat way to give her a lesson, and we didn't even expect it!

I also got a call from our good friend George Bryant, and we now have the quartet booked for two dates in June! Hooray!

Friday:

My mom came my work and had lunch with me! We had the taco salad from the cafeteria, and had a good conversation while eating.

That evening we had roast, watched the olympics, and Lydia did a ton of homework.

Saturday:

We got up, went to the gym for swimming and practically wore M&M out! When we arrived back home, we let the kids watch some cartoons, eat popcorn, and lay around. They took naps, and I even got one! Poor Lydia did more homework.

Later in the afternoon, we dropped the kids off at my parents' house and went on a date. Afterwards, we went to the library and went over the budget. It's nice to do things like that with no kids!

When got home around 7ish, the kids were out... it had been quite a day for them I guess! So we put them to bed, I did shopping while Lydia worked on more homework. When I got back, she gave me a haircut before going to bed!

~Matt