Always a favourite song for everyone...and these guys do a great job with it.
Just a happy song for you on a Friday morning...TGIF!!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
A lot can happen in 25 years...
Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of wedded bliss for hubby and I. Okay, maybe bliss isn't the right word for it.
A lot can happen in 25 years.
For us, as the young couple from June 11, 1983 we have gained 3 grown children, numerous in-laws & outlaws, nieces & nephews, a few pets come and gone...same with some friends. We have lived in a few different houses, even built some of them. We built a business together, raised a family, and created many moments, some good, some bad, but all memorable.
Oh yeah, we have gained a few pounds since then and our hair has either gotten smaller or thinner and thank goodness we have thrown away the head bands, the leggings, and the shoulder pads...but I think my kids have found them. Sheesh.
Over the years, the one things we always seemed to need more of was time. Necessity being the mother of invention, we have seen plenty of "time-saving" inventions over the last 25 years.
Look how much we have gained over the last quarter century, according to a list put together by USA Today. The top 25 inventions are listed below. Supposedly saving us time. How is that working for you?
1. Cellphones. Car phones were around in the 1970s, but it wasn't until 1983 that Motorola introduced the first widely available handheld cellphone. The DynaTAC 8000x weighed almost 2 pounds, but it still cost $3,995.
Just fabulous, now I have no time to myself...I can run but I can't hide because you will just call me on my cell.
2. Laptop Computers. It was about as portable as a sewing machine. But the 28-pound Compaq Portable – Compaq Computer's very first product – was the first portable IBM-compatible PC on the market. More than 53,000 sold in the year after its 1983 launch, despite a price usually topping $3,000.
Sure, now I spend time blogging, emailing, surfing, scanning, printing, loading, updating...I even had to learn a whole new language...but I can do it anywhere...so long as I can steal that free wireless internet signal...
3. BlackBerries. An obscure Canadian pager company, Research In Motion, shortened attention spans around the world with the launch of the BlackBerry mobile e-mail device in 1999.
Have you tried to set these things up? Yeah, need I say more? Think of what you could have been doing in that time.
4. Debit cards. Ka-ching! Who needs cash when you've got a debit card? They took off after Visa launched its check card in 1995. Before then, less than 2% of Americans used debit cards. Ten years later, debit card transactions exceeded those on credit cards.
Let's see, before debit cards I took out cash. When the cash ran out I was done spending. Now I can email my banker from my Blackberry and get my overdraft increased. If only I could find time to program it.
5.Caller ID. Bill collectors and your annoying Uncle Ned are easy to ignore with this invention introduced by BellSouth in 1984 in Orlando. Caller ID followed voice mail, an invention created a decade before to make up for declining secretarial employment.
Ignore the bill collectors, sure, but how many of you have called people back just because you saw their number show up...oh I know you have...what do I have to say about that? Leave a message after the beep...
6. DVDs. Americans traded all those hours rewinding video cassettes for hours watching directors kibitz about behind-the-scenes antics with the introduction of digital video discs in 1995. Consumers spent $7.4 billion on DVD rentals last year, up 10%. VHS rentals plummeted 74%, to $281 million.
Hmmm, HD or BlueRay?
7. Lithium rechargeable batteries. How many AAs does it take to power a laptop? Almost no one knows, thanks to the durable rechargeable battery Sony brought to market in 1991. It made its debut in a Sony camcorder – and has provided juice for laptops, cellphones, digital cameras and other portable electronics ever since.
Oh frick, I forgot to recharge the batteries...
8. iPods. Walking down the sidewalk hasn't been the same since November 2001, when Apple introduced its iconic portable digital music player. It wasn't the first player, but fans declared it the coolest and easiest to use by snapping up more than 100 million of them.
See "Blackberries"
9. Pay at the pump. Filling up the tank became even more self-serve when a gas station chain in Abilene, Texas, invented technology that turned the pump into a quasi-ATM.
Okay, this one I don't mind so much but really I do miss the old "We Jump to the Pump for You"...don't you? Now I spend hours in the cold winter months looking for a Full Serve station...so much for reducing my emissions.
10. Lettuce in a bag. Americans discovered there's more to salad than iceberg lettuce drowning in bottled dressing after the rollout of mixed lettuce greens in a bag. Fresh Express in Salinas, Calif., made that possible by inventing a high-tech plastic bag introduced nationwide in 1989. That helped ignite a whole consumer category of portion-controlled foods, such as bagged baby carrots.
Can you spell "Salmonella" (in-a-bag)?? Yeah, please wash your lettuce-in-a-bag.
11. Digital cameras. Kodak unveiled a digital camera for professionals in 1986, when consumers were still getting millions of rolls of film processed in labs. Apple followed with the first consumer version eight years later. But it wasn't until this century that cameras got affordable, driving consumers to buy a forecast 30 million this year.
Delete...oops, oh crap.
12. Doppler radar. We became a nation of weather fans as Doppler radar brought up-to-the-minute images to TV starting in 1990, a dozen years after the Weather Channel's launch turned forecasters such as Jim Cantore into celebrities.
Now my kid freaks over Tornado Warning
13. Flat-panel TVs. RCA pioneered flat-panel technology in the late 1960s. But it took nearly four decades before consumers got the idea. This year, 68% of all digital TVs sold are forecast to come with flat panels.
Did you just blink? I think so, and in the meantime your neighbour just bought a better one than yours.
14. Electronic tolls. Throwing quarters in a tollbooth bin became a thing of the past when the North Texas Tollway Authority started its TollTag system in the Dallas area in 1989. Now, millions of commuters prepay tolls and rely on electronic gadgets attached to their cars to zip through toll plazas.
What's a toll? LOL...I love Alberta.
15. PowerPoint. Lecturers from CEOs to sixth-graders display topic headings and charts with the click of a mouse. PowerPoint was invented by Forethought. Microsoft bought Forethought in 1987, unveiled its Windows version in 1990 and changed public speaking forever.
So after your child has spent hours and hours preparing their essay, the teacher now wants it illustrated and set to PowerPoint...yeah whatever.
16. Microwavable popcorn. We can credit – and blame – food scientists for simultaneously making possible lunch-in-a-hurry and that terrible burnt smell wafting from the office microwave oven. General Mills paved the way with the launch of Act II non-refrigerated microwaveable popcorn in 1984.
And we will all die from the microwaves, yada, yada, yada...
17. High-tech footwear. Plain canvas sneakers got tossed to the back of the closet when Nike launched Air Jordans in 1985, followed by Reebok's The Pump in 1989, giving rise to the performance-footwear industry.
See #13...don't blink.
18. Online stock trading. Investors jettisoned pricey stockbrokers after an Ameritrade predecessor offered online stock trading in 1994. During the market runup that followed, CNBC's Maria Bartiromo became a household name, and PCs morphed into slot machines for a new breed of investor: day traders.
Yup, now every idiot (this includes me) can lose money online because they don't know what they are doing...all from the convenience of their living room.
19. Big Bertha golf clubs. A World War I cannon inspired one of the biggest golf innovations when Ely Callaway created the oversize, wide-bodied stainless steel wood he dubbed Big Bertha in 1991. Callaway Golf followed up with the Great Big Bertha, Biggest Big Bertha, Great Big Bertha II, Big Bertha 454 and today's Big Bertha 460.
Golf widows unite...
20. Disposable contacts. A scream followed by, "No one move!" once routinely signaled that someone had dropped a pricey contact lens. Daily disposables – contacts worn for just a day before they're tossed – arrived in the USA in 1995.
Disposable...need I say more?
21. StairMaster. Arnold Schwarzenegger's breakout performance in Pumping Iron wasn't enough to get Americans pouring into gyms. Technology led the way with the StairMaster, one of the first machines to turn gyms into modern exercise arenas after it was introduced in Tulsa in 1986.
Laundry holder, clothes hanger, dust collector, oh come one you know it's true.
22. TiVo. The gadget is now a verb, with 4.4 million subscribers TiVo-ing their favorite TV shows. The digital device changed TV-viewing habits after the first TiVo was shipped in 1999.
Now you get to save countless hours of television which you will never really have time to watch anyways because you are too busy programming you electronic gadgets to make your life easier.
23. Purell. Germs trembled, and parents rejoiced ("What in the world is that on your hands?!") when Gojo in Akron, Ohio, created Purell hand sanitizer. The market for packaged handwipes and towlettes took off amid health scares over avian flu and post-9/11 threats.
Or you could just wash your hands with that stuff, what's it called? Oh yeah...SOAP.
24. Home satellite TV. The dishes that receive signals were once so big and pricey, they'd pull down your house if you tried strapping them to the chimney. But the 1994 launch of service from DirecTV led to today's supercompact dishes and lower prices, beaming tonight's Dancing with the Stars to the USA's more remote places.
More channels to surf...more time to waste...more re-runs.
25. Karaoke. What makes you sound so very good singing Stairway to Heaven? Two stiff drinks get you on stage in front of amused and horrified co-workers. But it's the karaoke machine invented in 1983 that really did the trick. The most popular karaoke song today? Patsy Cline's Crazy, says Karaoka.com.
Alright, I admit, I like this one and that song..."Crazy, I'm crazy for feelin' so lonely...
I'm crazy, crazy for feelin' so blue.....".
And so 25 years later one thing has stayed the same...we are still married...and what have I learned? I'll keep the old model...I like him!
Now, I gotta go...the Wii I ordered is in and I need a good workout but first I gotta figure out how to set it up.
A lot can happen in 25 years.
For us, as the young couple from June 11, 1983 we have gained 3 grown children, numerous in-laws & outlaws, nieces & nephews, a few pets come and gone...same with some friends. We have lived in a few different houses, even built some of them. We built a business together, raised a family, and created many moments, some good, some bad, but all memorable.
Oh yeah, we have gained a few pounds since then and our hair has either gotten smaller or thinner and thank goodness we have thrown away the head bands, the leggings, and the shoulder pads...but I think my kids have found them. Sheesh.
Over the years, the one things we always seemed to need more of was time. Necessity being the mother of invention, we have seen plenty of "time-saving" inventions over the last 25 years.
Look how much we have gained over the last quarter century, according to a list put together by USA Today. The top 25 inventions are listed below. Supposedly saving us time. How is that working for you?
1. Cellphones. Car phones were around in the 1970s, but it wasn't until 1983 that Motorola introduced the first widely available handheld cellphone. The DynaTAC 8000x weighed almost 2 pounds, but it still cost $3,995.
Just fabulous, now I have no time to myself...I can run but I can't hide because you will just call me on my cell.
2. Laptop Computers. It was about as portable as a sewing machine. But the 28-pound Compaq Portable – Compaq Computer's very first product – was the first portable IBM-compatible PC on the market. More than 53,000 sold in the year after its 1983 launch, despite a price usually topping $3,000.
Sure, now I spend time blogging, emailing, surfing, scanning, printing, loading, updating...I even had to learn a whole new language...but I can do it anywhere...so long as I can steal that free wireless internet signal...
3. BlackBerries. An obscure Canadian pager company, Research In Motion, shortened attention spans around the world with the launch of the BlackBerry mobile e-mail device in 1999.
Have you tried to set these things up? Yeah, need I say more? Think of what you could have been doing in that time.
4. Debit cards. Ka-ching! Who needs cash when you've got a debit card? They took off after Visa launched its check card in 1995. Before then, less than 2% of Americans used debit cards. Ten years later, debit card transactions exceeded those on credit cards.
Let's see, before debit cards I took out cash. When the cash ran out I was done spending. Now I can email my banker from my Blackberry and get my overdraft increased. If only I could find time to program it.
5.Caller ID. Bill collectors and your annoying Uncle Ned are easy to ignore with this invention introduced by BellSouth in 1984 in Orlando. Caller ID followed voice mail, an invention created a decade before to make up for declining secretarial employment.
Ignore the bill collectors, sure, but how many of you have called people back just because you saw their number show up...oh I know you have...what do I have to say about that? Leave a message after the beep...
6. DVDs. Americans traded all those hours rewinding video cassettes for hours watching directors kibitz about behind-the-scenes antics with the introduction of digital video discs in 1995. Consumers spent $7.4 billion on DVD rentals last year, up 10%. VHS rentals plummeted 74%, to $281 million.
Hmmm, HD or BlueRay?
7. Lithium rechargeable batteries. How many AAs does it take to power a laptop? Almost no one knows, thanks to the durable rechargeable battery Sony brought to market in 1991. It made its debut in a Sony camcorder – and has provided juice for laptops, cellphones, digital cameras and other portable electronics ever since.
Oh frick, I forgot to recharge the batteries...
8. iPods. Walking down the sidewalk hasn't been the same since November 2001, when Apple introduced its iconic portable digital music player. It wasn't the first player, but fans declared it the coolest and easiest to use by snapping up more than 100 million of them.
See "Blackberries"
9. Pay at the pump. Filling up the tank became even more self-serve when a gas station chain in Abilene, Texas, invented technology that turned the pump into a quasi-ATM.
Okay, this one I don't mind so much but really I do miss the old "We Jump to the Pump for You"...don't you? Now I spend hours in the cold winter months looking for a Full Serve station...so much for reducing my emissions.
10. Lettuce in a bag. Americans discovered there's more to salad than iceberg lettuce drowning in bottled dressing after the rollout of mixed lettuce greens in a bag. Fresh Express in Salinas, Calif., made that possible by inventing a high-tech plastic bag introduced nationwide in 1989. That helped ignite a whole consumer category of portion-controlled foods, such as bagged baby carrots.
Can you spell "Salmonella" (in-a-bag)?? Yeah, please wash your lettuce-in-a-bag.
11. Digital cameras. Kodak unveiled a digital camera for professionals in 1986, when consumers were still getting millions of rolls of film processed in labs. Apple followed with the first consumer version eight years later. But it wasn't until this century that cameras got affordable, driving consumers to buy a forecast 30 million this year.
Delete...oops, oh crap.
12. Doppler radar. We became a nation of weather fans as Doppler radar brought up-to-the-minute images to TV starting in 1990, a dozen years after the Weather Channel's launch turned forecasters such as Jim Cantore into celebrities.
Now my kid freaks over Tornado Warning
13. Flat-panel TVs. RCA pioneered flat-panel technology in the late 1960s. But it took nearly four decades before consumers got the idea. This year, 68% of all digital TVs sold are forecast to come with flat panels.
Did you just blink? I think so, and in the meantime your neighbour just bought a better one than yours.
14. Electronic tolls. Throwing quarters in a tollbooth bin became a thing of the past when the North Texas Tollway Authority started its TollTag system in the Dallas area in 1989. Now, millions of commuters prepay tolls and rely on electronic gadgets attached to their cars to zip through toll plazas.
What's a toll? LOL...I love Alberta.
15. PowerPoint. Lecturers from CEOs to sixth-graders display topic headings and charts with the click of a mouse. PowerPoint was invented by Forethought. Microsoft bought Forethought in 1987, unveiled its Windows version in 1990 and changed public speaking forever.
So after your child has spent hours and hours preparing their essay, the teacher now wants it illustrated and set to PowerPoint...yeah whatever.
16. Microwavable popcorn. We can credit – and blame – food scientists for simultaneously making possible lunch-in-a-hurry and that terrible burnt smell wafting from the office microwave oven. General Mills paved the way with the launch of Act II non-refrigerated microwaveable popcorn in 1984.
And we will all die from the microwaves, yada, yada, yada...
17. High-tech footwear. Plain canvas sneakers got tossed to the back of the closet when Nike launched Air Jordans in 1985, followed by Reebok's The Pump in 1989, giving rise to the performance-footwear industry.
See #13...don't blink.
18. Online stock trading. Investors jettisoned pricey stockbrokers after an Ameritrade predecessor offered online stock trading in 1994. During the market runup that followed, CNBC's Maria Bartiromo became a household name, and PCs morphed into slot machines for a new breed of investor: day traders.
Yup, now every idiot (this includes me) can lose money online because they don't know what they are doing...all from the convenience of their living room.
19. Big Bertha golf clubs. A World War I cannon inspired one of the biggest golf innovations when Ely Callaway created the oversize, wide-bodied stainless steel wood he dubbed Big Bertha in 1991. Callaway Golf followed up with the Great Big Bertha, Biggest Big Bertha, Great Big Bertha II, Big Bertha 454 and today's Big Bertha 460.
Golf widows unite...
20. Disposable contacts. A scream followed by, "No one move!" once routinely signaled that someone had dropped a pricey contact lens. Daily disposables – contacts worn for just a day before they're tossed – arrived in the USA in 1995.
Disposable...need I say more?
21. StairMaster. Arnold Schwarzenegger's breakout performance in Pumping Iron wasn't enough to get Americans pouring into gyms. Technology led the way with the StairMaster, one of the first machines to turn gyms into modern exercise arenas after it was introduced in Tulsa in 1986.
Laundry holder, clothes hanger, dust collector, oh come one you know it's true.
22. TiVo. The gadget is now a verb, with 4.4 million subscribers TiVo-ing their favorite TV shows. The digital device changed TV-viewing habits after the first TiVo was shipped in 1999.
Now you get to save countless hours of television which you will never really have time to watch anyways because you are too busy programming you electronic gadgets to make your life easier.
23. Purell. Germs trembled, and parents rejoiced ("What in the world is that on your hands?!") when Gojo in Akron, Ohio, created Purell hand sanitizer. The market for packaged handwipes and towlettes took off amid health scares over avian flu and post-9/11 threats.
Or you could just wash your hands with that stuff, what's it called? Oh yeah...SOAP.
24. Home satellite TV. The dishes that receive signals were once so big and pricey, they'd pull down your house if you tried strapping them to the chimney. But the 1994 launch of service from DirecTV led to today's supercompact dishes and lower prices, beaming tonight's Dancing with the Stars to the USA's more remote places.
More channels to surf...more time to waste...more re-runs.
25. Karaoke. What makes you sound so very good singing Stairway to Heaven? Two stiff drinks get you on stage in front of amused and horrified co-workers. But it's the karaoke machine invented in 1983 that really did the trick. The most popular karaoke song today? Patsy Cline's Crazy, says Karaoka.com.
Alright, I admit, I like this one and that song..."Crazy, I'm crazy for feelin' so lonely...
I'm crazy, crazy for feelin' so blue.....".
And so 25 years later one thing has stayed the same...we are still married...and what have I learned? I'll keep the old model...I like him!
Now, I gotta go...the Wii I ordered is in and I need a good workout but first I gotta figure out how to set it up.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Perceptual Experiment
A very cool experiment...
http://transformationteam.net/video/perceptual_experiment_tc
Give it a try!!
http://transformationteam.net/video/perceptual_experiment_tc
Give it a try!!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Ahh, rural living at it's finest...
So we are sleeping soundly last night...
I wake up around 2:30 am to the feeling that perhaps a moth landed on my bed...you know that fluttering wing kind of vibration that you hear/feel from a big ass moth...yeah that.
Hubby is also waking up at this point with a definite WTF coming out of his mouth. We were both half asleep and he asked me to turn on the light. I struggled and managed to find the switch (I am a heavy sleeper, lol, and I need my eight hours).
Not being very happy at this point in time we both look around the room to see what had pretty much hit the bed next to hubby's ears and brushed by his remaining hair. We see this dark thing flying around the room in obvious distress...
"It's a moth" says hubby
"It's a fricken bat" says me
"It's not a fricken bat" says hubby...obviously thinking I am nuts and a big scaredy cat.
It flew out of the room...we are now laughing at each other as we follow it into the main area of the house. Note: he still think it is a moth -- apparently he thinks we have big ass black moths out here. I am still pretty sure it is a bat.
I hand the "fly" swatter to him. We nearly pee ourselves laughing as he chases this damn thing flying at Mach speeds around the house, they are fast and silent, did you know?? That is a funny site at 2:30 am...burly hubby with a fly swatter, ducking, swatting...kind of squealing (think like a girl) as it whizzes by his head.
He finally says to me, "I think I need a broom"
Okay, I think I just dribbled in my jammies...
I go to the broom closet and before I can even grab the broom I hear
Ugh, hmph, thud. "uh, yeah, it is a bat"
Ewww....
Funeral services were not held but viewing is available on my front lawn at your convenience.
I wake up around 2:30 am to the feeling that perhaps a moth landed on my bed...you know that fluttering wing kind of vibration that you hear/feel from a big ass moth...yeah that.
Hubby is also waking up at this point with a definite WTF coming out of his mouth. We were both half asleep and he asked me to turn on the light. I struggled and managed to find the switch (I am a heavy sleeper, lol, and I need my eight hours).
Not being very happy at this point in time we both look around the room to see what had pretty much hit the bed next to hubby's ears and brushed by his remaining hair. We see this dark thing flying around the room in obvious distress...
"It's a moth" says hubby
"It's a fricken bat" says me
"It's not a fricken bat" says hubby...obviously thinking I am nuts and a big scaredy cat.
It flew out of the room...we are now laughing at each other as we follow it into the main area of the house. Note: he still think it is a moth -- apparently he thinks we have big ass black moths out here. I am still pretty sure it is a bat.
I hand the "fly" swatter to him. We nearly pee ourselves laughing as he chases this damn thing flying at Mach speeds around the house, they are fast and silent, did you know?? That is a funny site at 2:30 am...burly hubby with a fly swatter, ducking, swatting...kind of squealing (think like a girl) as it whizzes by his head.
He finally says to me, "I think I need a broom"
Okay, I think I just dribbled in my jammies...
I go to the broom closet and before I can even grab the broom I hear
Ugh, hmph, thud. "uh, yeah, it is a bat"
Ewww....
Funeral services were not held but viewing is available on my front lawn at your convenience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
