NaNoWriMo Win

My first nano and I made it thanks to many friend's encouragement. Now I do not want to write a darn thing! I'm getting tired of words. But next year...rest up for next year.

ooprint

Free blogger cards allows me to promote my blogs in real world!

I've been waiting for this opportunities for a very long time now. I'm glad some one has thought of this idea. The folks at ooprint went even further to provide customized tag clouds to focus on individual blogs. Here's the link to the freecards. Ooprint also has a group on Facebook!

THIS POST SPONSOR BY OOPRINT

Tisimi

http://www.tisimi.com/user/lexly87
is up and running again after they made improvements to it. You can vote for people like me to win the design contest or you can also sign up and submit your own design and let other people vote for it.
I like the site a lot and will use it for my architectural projects.

The Mist

The Mist by Stephen King come to theater just in time. November is a notorious month for fog in Oregon. This makes for a perfect get away from the real fog and be envelope in theater Mist. We've been watching the trailer on television and can't get enough of it. I want more! So here's the trailer on the computer: http://www.themist-movie.com/
A classic Stephen King novel 'The Shining' is so scary. I have the book and plan to read it. The 'RedRum' scene is so well filmed. The odd juxtaposition of camera angle puts things off kilter. It was filmed in a famous Oregon landmark call the Timberline Lodge. It's a very scary old building which still exist to this day. I have just recently watched 'Room 1403' with an equally clever device for story telling. King has a knack for this. He puts a character in a situation and we see what can happen. That is the basis for a novel. He has lots of imaginations. I also saw 'Sleepwalker'. I really think Alice Krieger, the actress who plays the mother to a teenage boy is very expressive in her role. It's about a supernatural un-dead who sucks and feeds on human breath for food. The new thriller from King is 'The Mist'. Check out the trailer. We will be going to this movie for sure.

15 nanowrimo excerpt

The crickets are loud. I hide the box next to my head in bed. I bring with me a flash light and sneak a peak into the paper hotel. I carefully open the lid and watch them move. The lid is full of holes and I shine the light as though I’m the stars. I imagine myself inside that box looking out into the starry sky. The creator has trapped us on earth like this box of cricket and has shined a light upon us...only we see a starry sky.
I’m terrified that the cricket will have escaped and crawl up the legs of my pants.
We are trapped like that cricket in cages being transported from one city to the next. And if we are lucky, some one will adopt us just like some kid will buy a cricket from the large cage from the man and then put him into a match box. We go from home to home, suburb to suburb, city to city, country to country.
I saw myself in the crickets. Bad karma has caught up with me. My necks will be broken and mounted on a stick by pirates of the seas.

Digital Camera

scrapbooking is a new passion of mine. I like digital cameras so much. I have two Panasonic Lumix FZ-10 and Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC1. I crave the new Panasonic Lumix L10. It has the film aspect ratio for very cinematic affects and panoramic like picture. Ritz is near by my work. I help my sister pick out the Nikon Digital SLR for her husband one Christmas. The camera came free with digital lessons. Those are very useful for making the best and brightest holiday seasons! It's fun to create only scrapbooks too. There are several out there. The smile box is good. Comcast has music features to go with it. Scrapbook.com is another good one. Plus photobucket, flickr, snapfish, Kodak Easy Share Gallery too.



THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY RITZ CAMERA.COM

NanoWriMo Exerpt

It’s the beginning of monsoon season. The cricket season. They crawl on the wire screen mesh. The symphony of sounds. There are several different kinds of crickets. One type is the brownish color. We call these fire crickets. The other is a black with a bright yellow marking on the back of the cricket’s neck. We carry them in match box and put them in shirt pockets. Later on, the crickets sleep in one large shoe box with other crickets. In the morning, I open up the box to see which one survived the night. They die in battle. The cruel things we did to them. We break the heads off of a dead cricket and put it on the end of the burnt incense stick. With this device, we use the whiskers of the cricket head on the stick to tease the live crickets into flaring their wings and enrage them to ruffle the transparent wings to make that lovely sound and music. It amazed me. The sound coming out of that peculiar vibration and the transparent wings. Especially the brown fire crickets which were a little wrinkle. The black ones were so dense yet when the wings rub, vibrate and fluff the air; such density became light and flurry.
The children, boys mostly, came gather round the bicycle which transported the screen cage of crickets. A wood frame box with mesh screen enclosed a city of crickets. Their barbed legs grip the screen while our faces gaze at the crickets. Our noses are inches away from the mesh. Sometimes, a finger would flick at the mesh to test the strength of those legs. The box is strapped to a wired bracket attached to the bicycle’s back wheel.

Happy Halloween

http://www.realestateecards.com/pumpkin/ayang

Warm in October

It's amazingly warm for October. I'm going to fright town tonight. I walk to Thai BBQ for lunch. Me.dium is fun. So is Pandora. I found old songs of New Order and Psychodelic Furs's Ghost in you. I've added a bunch of my social media in to Pownce.

Pandora's Box

I have open the Pandora's box! I am streaming the music as I type this. I like the smooth sound of acoustic guitar of Dominic Miller. I discover Dominic's music through Sting.

micro stock

http://us.fotolia.com/p/330135
It's been an interesting amount of work for perhaps a minimum return. But I'm glad that Fotolia accepted 9 out of 28 photographs that I have submitted. Back in the days before the inter-net, I was trying to break into the world of Stock photography. In the early days of Tony Stone, before it was sold to Getty's image, submission process was cumbersome. This was in the early nineties. Photographers send in slides, then it was upgraded to high quality jpg files. Now many people are submitting there works.

Shutterstock is also another good source for micro stock: Submit Photos to Shutterstock and make $$$!

See chadmcdermott.blogspot.com for more info about micro stock.

amazon store

http://astore.amazon.com/dnl-20

Squidoo lens

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/duc

Interim post

5.5 POSTING REGULATIONS.

If you have a Blog accepted into the Marketplace, you must comply with the following Posting Requirements:

1. Frequency of Posts. You may post a maximum of two (2) PayPerPost Marketplace Opportunity-related posts per blog in any given day. Sponsored posts may not appear consecutively on your Blog. Each Sponsored post must be separated by at least one non-sponsored, original content, post. 'Sponsored' posts apply to both PayPerPost Direct and Marketplace Opportunities, as well as other sponsored posts from competitive services.
2. Interim Posts. Your last non Opportunity-related post must have been within the 7 days immediately preceding your Opportunity-related post. After any break in blog activity of 7+ days, interim posts, that is, posts between Opportunity-related posts, submitted on the same day as your paid Opportunity-related posts will not count towards this requirement.

Shutterstock

 Submit Photos to Shutterstock and make $$$!

Mindfulness

I've been listening to this book on tape but you can also read it. I feel very relaxed. This is not some new age thing. It is written by a Zen master. I like his methods and metaphors. One metaphor which have stuck with me is of a stone thrown into the body of water. It accepts and sinks to the bottom. This is the position for meditation. He discusses the Sutra in layman's terms. These ancient philosophy and methods illuminates. Another metaphor is of the breath. He describes each breath as a climb on the rope to get to the top. He talks about the concept of the five aggregates. This is Dharma. This book seems to touch up on a lot of smaller detail items that I've read in the life remix, life hacks, and life improvement tip blogs. When I eat, I slow down and respect the food, I'm mindful and thankful. When I write, I'm mindful and thankful for the paper, computer, and typewriter etc. Hand writing has now become a form of meditation. An example of mindfulness image which the author gives is when one breathes, focus as though it was the axis on which the planet rotated.

'The Dead Fish Museum'

I read 'High Divide' and 'Drummond & Son'. These two stores are about a father's relationship to his son. 'High Divide' is about a father and son who take a camping trip to Olympia Washington. The hike culminate in one night when at the very peak of the mountain, the father asked his son to move to California after the divorce. Indeed the title suggests that there is going to be a divide. It is also a fork in the road which hikers often confront. Midway, there's a sign post which ask lets you choose the difficulties of continuing further.

I want to compare these with similar stories by Michael Chabon collected in 'A Model World'. They deal with the confusion which boys feel in their father's divorces.

'Drummond & Son' is a story about a typewriter mechanic and is son. If you like typewriters like I do, then this story is for you. There are several reference to communication. The typewriter is a machine for communicating. It's ironic that the mechanic spends more time fixing the machine then trying to fix the communication between him and his son. There is a lack of a motherly figure in both 'High Divide' and 'Drummond & Son'. And it is this lack of the wife and mother which seems to have broken up the wholeness of the family structure and leave the men lost and estranged.

Snow Crash

‘The Art of Innovation’ led me to ‘Snow Crash‘. I started reading it over the weekend and didn’t want to put it down. It’s very funny. For some reason, I latched onto this book. Maybe it’s because it talks about the Metaverse. Recently, I got into Second Life (SL). I need to do a little bit of research to find out which came first. It talks about people building houses in the virtual world. I can see some similarities between the Metaverse that Neal Stephenson renders and the world of SL. I think this book has influenced a lot of people and companies. For example, the book talks about goggled into the virtual world through the vision apparatus, a goggle. Hm…Google sounds a lot like goggle. Was the book the source?

update: “The Metaverse is a fictional structure written in code” - Neal Stephenson

meta-mater

I’m not a big fan of Sc-fi books, but once in a while a book like ‘Snow Crash’ proves to be readable. I’ve try William Gibson’s ‘Neomancer’. I didn’t make the leap into it yet. Maybe it’s too far out there for me to grasp. ‘Snow Crash’ seems very plausible. I remember, in my younger days, buying David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising’ because it had a cool cover of the man and dolphin. Uplift series

Art of Innovation

Earlier I happen upon ‘Ten Faces of Innovation‘ on Levenger’s website. My local library didn’t have this particular book yet. So I decided to check out it’s predecessor: ‘The Art of Innovation’. This book opened my eyes to things, my work place, my everyday experience and interactions with products. I read this yesterday and Saturday and couldn’t put it down. I took lots of notes on my CircaToma notebook of course and began making lists of things that bug me. IDEO call it a ‘Bug List’. I called my brother Andy and talk to him about it because he has read this and is reading ‘Ten Faces of Innovation’. I remember interviewing at an Architectural firm in Portland. Their studio practice imitated IDEO. I have a whole new respect for design. What we do with products, hacking it and modifying it are our ways of influencing and adjusting the product to our needs. I wasn’t aware that what we were doing is quick prototyping. Now I look at Judy of the Wood’s, NayNay, Mlle_Bleue, Shris, ArtisticSara,R.Rassemusen, Chet, and many other’s work (and even my own) with new eyes. I see DIY communities are like Hot teams working together to strife for better products.

The book is entertaining and the way Thomas and His co author wrote put complex projects into readable terms. It made me think back to reading about Jason’s story of how he started his business. He was looking with his eyes observe his friend with a problem in organization. What can be done better? His quick thinking and prototyping lead to a new line of product that are useful. IDEO encourages looking across the sea for ideas. Jason has done that as well as others. I used to work with the father of the founder of Oregon Chai. He told me a story of how his daughter’s travel to India lead to her idea of making the India version of tea call Chai in their home kitchen. It was very popular drink among friends. She shopped it around to different grocery stores. Eventually the demand for it out grew the kitchen area. Her father, the architect, built her the building for the start of her company.

http://diysara.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/diy-2-in-1-combo-rollacirca-notebook/

http://hdbizblog.com/blog/2007/06/06/using-a-capture-notebook/

Ready for organization philosophy

Chicken or the Egg

I received ‘Ready for Anything’ (RfA) as a belated birthday present from my sister. She saw it on my Amazon wish list. It proves that once it’s on a list, the mind can forget about it and go on to the next thing. This came as a surprise. I don’t remember putting it on the list. Earlier, I dismissed this book in a conversation with Jennifer George, who thoroughly analyzed the text. I’ve been wondering several points about this slim book. I want to make comparisons to it as investigations into the organization philosophy. This book was born after ‘Getting Things Done’. In the order of thing, ‘Ready for Anything’ is the egg. If I compare the two, Ready for Anything is the philosophy in which GTD is the systematic execution, a methodology. There are some 52 short sections, which can be read as or compare to Koan. At times they are like Koan, because of they are mysterious in nature. At times, it’s hard to understand without a through understanding, and systematic practice of GTD. At times, RfA is a ‘Cliffnote’, a synopsis for the real text. Even though it is written after GTD, I wonder if this could have been a prequel, a predecessor, a subconsciousness lurking underneath GTD. It acts as if an introduction to the systematic execution of a process. In some ways, I prefer RfA, as it is not as dogmatic as GTD nor is it as instructional. It is rather a pondering about a methodology, a pretense for the rigor which is spelled out in GTD. The marvel of it is that, as systematic as GTD is, people who have read it devised their own system. GTD methodology is flexible. Another book by David Allen could not have conjure up a better scheme. It is better to revisit the existing scheme with new eyes and perspectives. I think that this is what RfA does best.

Eastern Philosophy or emptiness….

Interestingly, the majority of the book is spent defending his theory against the ‘Priority Based’. This was and may still be the pervasive thinking. When I was a ‘Franklin Covey’ (FC) guy, I didn’t prioritize my tasks either. In Eastern Philosophy, we are taught not to look at the duality of good or evil. Thus, prioritizing seems to pass on a judgment. I struggle with the goals and mission statements. Because at the time, I concentrate on the moment, the present. Again, this is a Zen philosophy. The other is the notion of Emptiness, which relates to Feng Shui. It is an idea that if your mind is empty it can receive insights. If your channels of energy is clear, more energy will flow. I would say that the majority of GTD philosophy is based on Easter Philosophy. David’s analogue to the ‘Mind like water’ is a zen practice. Stephen Smith has caught on to this and have found quotations from ‘The Book of Five Rings’ which matches David’s thinking. In RfA, much of the quotations are peppered along the margin. I find these quotes match well with the text and marvel at how David has found them to seamlessly illustrate his point.

52 card pick up

Strangely enough, the number 52 made me think of Decks of Cards. Because GTD has been adapted into the Hpda, index size, I wonder if the whole book can be squeezed down into this playing card version. Each sections can be on a card, maybe in a form of a Haiku: Collect, Process, Organize,/Review, Do (it). I think Jenifer George is right in saying that the chapters don’t relate or appear to be in any particular order. True to the form of non- prioritization, this book can function well as a shuffle deck of card. There is a theory of randomness and chance and organized chaos. This is where we step into the new age territory.

digg story

thesimpledollar.com/2007/06/03/review-ready-for-anything/

GoodReads

auction ads

Electronic Closing

Ah finally a post opportunity that is about mortgage. I have been a big advocate of paperless submission in the mortgage industries. I like it's effientcy. I trust it more then the fax. It is scarry to see faxed papers flying around in a copy room with very private and security risks involve. With the latest technology. I don't see why this isn't possible. Well to tell you the truth, a lot of the hassle and cliches of the computer problem still has to be worked out. I've tested the system for three years now. only a few company does a good job in this department. As users of the process, people must train themselves to new ways of interacting with the technology. many of the promise of stream line is still in some infancy stage. Electronic closing is the latest in line of this methodolgy.

Rustico

You know those Google mail ads really work! I was reading my gmail and noticed the Rustico Leather advertisement. I had my eyes on these gems for quite sometime now. A coworker gave me one long time ago a small pocket book with leather and a wrapped tie. At the time I wasn’t so much into writing about notebooks. I took that notebook with me to Hungary on an Artist residence. The small size was perfect for keeping phone and email addresses of people I met. The 3×5 inch was good for sketching too! The creamy paper was gorgeous to write and draw on. It took a variety of ink pens with out any problem. Years later, I discover that it is similar to, if not, a Rustico Journal! The year was 2000. Since then, the leather has aged beautifully in my hands.

I wrote to inquired about featuring Rustico’s fine line of leather journals. Isaac of Rustico replied quickly and is glad (and I’m glad to feature it.) to have us look at the numerous journals in different sizes that Rustico has to offer. There’s even a 3×3 exquisite little gem. I am to select one to examine. Hm…. what should I choose? Decision decisions…Well I leave you with this dilemma. Tell me which journal should I pick? Unless I hear other wise, I’m leaning towards the Traveler Journal with a distressed bomber leather jacket enclosed by a buckle. Issac tells me this is one of the most popular items. Here’s just one example of their popular Bomber Jacket Leather journal: http://www.rusticoleather.com.bomber

Starcraft 2

agloco

Get pay to look at the website or browsing any site you want: agloco.com

My starcraft addiction started as a boy's night out. It was a LAN party. We play Starcraft Broodwar until 3am. That was before I was married so three or four years ago. I still play that game. It is a game of modern Chess for me. My favorite is the play against the Hardcomp 7 vs 1. I introduced my nephew to the game last year. Then I got an email from him with the link for Starcraft 2. I'm glad they improved the graphics. You know, I wasn't excited when the made a role play version of Starcraft for the PS2. But this PC version of improved graphics is something I'll get to play. My existing Rrood War has a defect because I can't play Zerg. I miss playing Zerge. It is very biographic and organic, almost sexual. A lot of the imagery is based on the movie Alien.
There's a blog about StarCraft: CreepColony.com


starcraft

RfA

Chicken or the Egg

I received ‘Ready for Anything’ (RfA) as a belated birthday present from my sister. She saw it on my Amazon wish list. It proves that once it’s on a list, the mind can forget about it and go on to the next thing. This came as a surprise. I don’t remember putting it on the list. Earlier, I dismissed this book in a conversation with Jennifer George, who thoroughly analyzed the text. I’ve been wondering several points about this slim book. I want to make comparisons to it as investigations into the organization philosophy. This book was born after ‘Getting Things Done’. In the order of thing, ‘Ready for Anything’ is the egg. If I compare the two, Ready for Anything is the philosophy in which GTD is the systematic execution, a methodology. There are some 52 short sections, which can be read as or compare to Koan. At times they are like Koan, because of they are mysterious in nature. At times, it’s hard to understand without a through understanding, and systematic practice of GTD. At times, RfA is a ‘Cliffnote’, a synopsis for the real text. Even though it is written after GTD, I wonder if this could have been a prequel, a predecessor, a subconsciousness lurking underneath GTD. It acts as if an introduction to the systematic execution of a process. In some ways, I prefer RfA, as it is not as dogmatic as GTD nor is it as instructional. It is rather a pondering about a methodology, a pretense for the rigor which is spelled out in GTD. The marvel of it is that, as systematic as GTD is, people who have read it devised their own system. GTD methodology is flexible. Another book by David Allen could not have conjure up a better scheme. It is better to revisit the existing scheme with new eyes and perspectives. I think that this is what RfA does best.

Eastern Philosophy or emptiness….

Interestingly, the majority of the book is spent defending his theory against the ‘Priority Based’. This was and may still be the pervasive thinking. When I was a ‘Franklin Covey’ (FC) guy, I didn’t prioritize my tasks either. In Eastern Philosophy, we are taught not to look at the duality of good or evil. Thus, prioritizing seems to pass on a judgment. I struggle with the goals and mission statements. Because at the time, I concentrate on the moment, the present. Again, this is a Zen philosophy. The other is the notion of Emptiness, which relates to Fung Shui. It is an idea that if your mind is empty it can receive insights. If your channels of energy is clear, more energy will flow. I would say that the majority of GTD philosophy is based on Easter Philosophy. David’s analogue to the ‘Mind like water’ is a zen practice. Stephen Smith has caught on to this and have found quotations from ‘The Book of Five Rings’ which matches David’s thinking. In RfA, much of the quotations are peppered along the margin. I find these quotes match well with the text and marvel at how David has found them to seamlessly illustrate his point.

52 card pick up

Strangely enough, the number 52 made me think of Decks of Cards. Because GTD has been adapted into the Hpda, index size, I wonder if the whole book can be squeezed down into this playing card version. Each sections can be on a card, maybe in a form of a Haiku: Collect, Process, Organize,/Review, Do (it). I think Jenifer George is right in saying that the chapters don’t relate or appear to be in any particular order. True to the form of non- prioritization, this book can function well as a shuffle deck of card. There is a theory of randomness and chance and organized chaos. This is where we step into the new age territory.

agloco

Get pay to look at the website or browsing any site you want: agloco.com

the seed

The Seed Project is a global environmental installation where people from all over the world are planting seeds. Seed Planters will be encouraged to create Flickr accounts and network with each other. The goals is for the network to expand, creating the world's largest art collective.

Seed Project Instructions
Artists will be encouraged to collaborate, form art groups and participate on future projects separate from the Seed Collective.

http://www.artworldigest.com/projects.html

The Police Hell Freeze over Tour

I absolutely like the band The Police! I thought 'Synchronicity' was by far the best album they ever made and then they broke up. It had literary references about 'Sheltering Sky', and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger' made references to Greek Mythology! How cool is that. And the videos were very high in concept.
When they performed at the music award show, I thought that was the extent of their come back. But no, they are going to tour! What a great way to celebrate it then get their new CD. I thought they look a bit old, nothing like the youthful Police cd cover. Andy Summer and Stewart Copland were unique musicians. They had jazzy influence in the way that they play.
I am ecstatic that The Police are going on a new worldwide tour! I have never seen The Police on a past tour. But I've always wanted to see them perform. I saw Andy Summer recently on an old YouTube footage teaching the public a few of their classic songs. He wished that they reunite and looks like his wish came true. We want you to discuss the concert including all the I like the band so much!
In this new police cd you'll get literary reference to Lolita in 'Don't Stand So Close To Me'. Roxanne, and 'Every Breath You Take' which Puff Daddy remixed and cover in his own version.



The disclosure badge link is "http://www.thepolice.com". Please make sure that the disclosure badge link does not have any extra characters in the web address or your post will be flagged.

Snow Crash

‘The Art of Innovation’ led me to ‘Snow Crash‘. I started reading it over the weekend and didn’t want to put it down. It’s very funny. For some reason, I latched onto this book. Maybe it’s because it talks about the Metaverse. Recently, I got into Second Life (SL). I need to do a little bit of research to find out which came first. It talks about people building houses in the virtual world. I can see some similarities between the Metaverse that Neal Stephenson renders and the world of SL. I think this book has influenced a lot of people and companies. For example, the book talks about goggled into the virtual world through the vision apparatus, a goggle. Hm…Google sounds a lot like goggle. Was the book the source?

I’m not a big fan of Sc-fi books, but once in a while a book like ‘Snow Crash’ proves to be readable. I’ve try William Gibson’s ‘Neomancer’. I didn’t make the leap into it yet. Maybe it’s too far out there for me to grasp. ‘Snow Crash’ seems very plausible. I remember, in my younger days, buying David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising’ because it had a cool cover of the man and dolphin. Uplift series

shooting the monkey

http://shootingthemonkey.blogspot.com/ book club

‘The Art of Innovation’ led me to ‘Snow Crash‘. I started reading it over the weekend and didn’t want to put it down. It’s very funny. For some reason, I latched onto this book. Maybe it’s because it talks about the Metaverse. Recently, I got into Second Life (SL). I need to do a little bit of research to find out which came first. It talks about people building houses in the virtual world. I can see some similarities between the Metaverse that Neal Stephenson renders and the world of SL. I think this book has influenced a lot of people and companies. For example, the book talks about goggled into the virtual world through the vision apparatus, a goggle. Hm…Google sounds a lot like goggle. Was the book the source?

I’m not a big fan of Sc-fi books, but once in a while a book like ‘Snow Crash’ proves to be readable. I’ve try William Gibson’s ‘Neomancer’. I didn’t make the leap into it yet. Maybe it’s too far out there for me to grasp. ‘Snow Crash’ seems very plausible. I remember, in my younger days, buying David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising’ because it had a cool cover of the man and dolphin. Uplift series

testing photo upload

Hi there, Testing ! 1 2 3 do me

GOD Bless

…………

godblessvtech.wordpress.com

eteraz.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/i-should-have-done-this-earlier

natalia Antonova.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/299

tags: Virginia+Tech

ny locations

http://nylocations.blogspot.com/

Jenni bick Bookbinding

jennibickbookbinding.blogspot.com/2007/03/san-ysidro-ranch-guest-book

Epica News

http://epicanews.blogspot.com/

cantankerous

http://cantankerousconsultant.blogspot.com/

04.02.09

etsygreetings.blogspot.com
all fillers no killers
This is a link I found from blogspot. Anything interesting from blogspot I like to post here on this messy blog. I signed up for an account at Highsmith.com. They've got some great library stuff. I've been looking for a box to store the cd and dvd like the ones I see at the library.

koolplace circa

koolplaces.blogspot.com

squidoo.com/circarolla

I've open up shop on www.ducnly.com
my very own url with name etc. I claimed it I claimed it!!!

Mortgage Calc

Mortgage Rates

I've used a Mortgage calculators for work. These Calculators are designed to help determine mortgage rates. They may help you plan your for your future purchase. I wanted to learn more about how these mortgage calculators work. So, if you are like me, here is a great opportunity to test out some mortgage calculators and how they determine mortgage rates and mortgage quotes.

Focus on Nevada mortgages and Washington mortgages. You may want to mention different factors taken into consideration by mortgage companies when determining a mortgage quote.

Various mortgage calculators are available at PersonalHomeLoanMortgages.com, along with information on Nevada and Washington mortgages. Link as it works for you, but in context please (not separate text/link).



Mortgage Rate
http://www.personalhomeloanmortgages.com

Mortgage Calculator
http://www.personalhomeloanmortgages.com

Nevada Mortgages
http://www.personalhomeloanmortgages.com/nevada/nevada_mortgages.asp

Washington Mortgages
http://www.personalhomeloanmortgages.com/washington/washington_mortgages.asp

Have a great day!

Handwriting

www.bluebirdstudios.blogspot.com

st. paddy

http://www.realestateecards.com/paddy07/yang

http://pamelatang.blogspot.com/

http://www.kafka-franz.com/KAFKA-letter.htm

Stickers

custom labels is a cool idea for crafters. "Customized Stickers is a premier custom sticker and label maker who can design personalized adhesive labels in any color, shape or size. Let our sticker printing experts create your custom bumper stickers, printed address labels and much more."
Imagine what you can do with this. As an artist, I like to make design that are similar to tatoos. But I don't want to get a tat, so I just would like to make stickers and put it in my notebooks, journals, and scarpbooks. For organization, I would like to make color coded stickers for all of my projects. One of my goal is to do a nice folder for all of my color and black and white photo negatives.

etsy mini

I've open up shop on www.ducly.etsy.com

Blogarsay: Book Meme

Blogarsay: Book Meme

LOC

Originally uploaded by lexly87.
List of Candidates. When I’m at the library, bookstore or video store, I can come up with lots of titles that I want to read, or view on DVD. Well here’s a version of a bookopda to gather those titles.

Paul has come up with a brilliant hack to store Circa Rolla discs at avwrites.

Couponchief

Coupon Chief

We like to shop at Targets. After looking at the Coupon Chief
site, I'm kicking myself for not having to discover this sooner. So I signed up for email offers of coupons from Target. We could have saved $8. That's almost a 12" subway sandwich. They have other cool companies like Amazon, Best Buys, and more.
It's fun to shop with coupon codes. I don't like to subscribe to newspaper. So online coupon code is the clean way to go.

Daybook by anne Truitt

I read this book years ago. Perusing through my book shelf, I picked it up again. That's the value of owning your own copy. You'll never know when you'll need it again. WRL encourages picking up a book again if you've fallen into booklove with it. There's a value to revisiting a book that one read. Often I rush from one book to the next.

Space Heater

space heaters
My wife smokes outside on the patio. I've always felt sorry for her because she has to sit outside in the cold. I'm thinking of getting her a patio heater.
This one is propane and it's refillable, clean, and convenient. I think it's a good investment. It's not too big and cumbersome. Plus it's good for when we want to be outside in the spring air at night sipping beer or bbqing. :)

epica journal

http://ducly.wordpress.com/2007/02/22/epica-i

It’s been an uneventful morning until I open up my gmail on this fine Friday. Thank you Tari (and the fine folks at Epica) for your Generousity!! Some times I feel like a monk with an alm bowl extended asking for samples of luxuries. I’ve asked Epica to sample one of their fine fine journals and I’m excited to report that Tari has agreed to let me have one of the journal to review. I look forward to having the journal to sample and write about it here. It’s an adventure. Sometimes we are affraid to ask for what we want in life. I am terrified of rejections. But I think that now I must earn it through hard work.

I came across this bit of about the Benedictine libraries and their use that I wanted to share.

The vow of poverty forbade individual monks from owning books (Christ, 19)

The use of the library by monks and nuns was regulated by Benedictine Rule, which permitted only one borrowing per year, at the beginning of Lent. Otherwise, books were distributed each morning and returned each evening (Christ, 45)

The librarian was a well-educated monk who reported directly to the abbot (Christ, 27)

The installation of a libraian was a festive religious rite (Christ, 19)

Box net

I like widgets. Because I don't have a Mac, I try to get widgets for PC. Here's a cool widget for music.

http://box.net/widget

Its a flash player that streams podcasts, music, photos, videos, and any other type of file. They are offering unlimited bandwidth with this widget, and they also will host up to 1gb of files for free.

Please consider putting a live widget on your site and trying it out, so that you can give us an honest opinion of it.

Here's some embed code in case you'd like to save time making one yourself:

Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

Box.net Widget

Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

sing poetry

Listening to Ms. Bruni sing the gorgeously romantic opening stanza of "Lady Weeping at the Crossroads," one of two Auden poems on the record, it seems entirely possible:

Lady, weeping at the crossroads
Would you meet your love
In the twilight with his greyhounds,
And the hawk on his glove?

Build Traffic

There's a new feature on PPP which allows readers to Review My Post. The new PPP program pays you to build your own blog traffic.
"PayPerPost is pleased to announce its new Review My Post program. The Program pays you every time someone signs up and reviews a post on your blog. It's a great way to earn money while increasing the traffic and interest in your own site. This program is open to all bloggers and is great for bloggers who aren't interested in doing sponsored posts. Bloggers can simply add this badge at the end of their post and easily earn money and build traffic with no additional effort. This program is exploding let's help to grow it even faster! Click "Affiliate Tools" in your blogger interface then, select review my post for details. Let PPP know what you think about this new program that pays you and others to blog about your blog."
Well, I am interested in building traffic to this blog. It's one of my goals. It's a great idea as some bloggers perfer no ads on the page. It gets the community involved and be for active, interactive with their opinions and express how they feel about a certain post or blog. For example, I'm always curious about the post that I put up. Is it relevant? I'm going to test this feature out on my blog.

advertise on blogs

Tschai Handmade Books for Purchase

I know it takes lots of labor and love to create such a lovely book. I’ve always wanted to make one myself but don’t have the patience or time to do so. Fortunately, there are those skill enough to make and carry on the tradition of book making for us to enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/papersandtschai

Tschai makes handmade leather journals; hand-cut and hand-sew them… he have so many supplies right now, that i want to get a lot of journals done for the first quarter of 2007 and sell on the second quarter. He can give bulk prices.

Please contact Tschai : chai1505@gmail.com

Make Money Blogging

Sometimes, the post opportunities really ignite my imagination and memories about travel, food, or goals that I have. Recently, I wrote about Italian Villas, Asian Food websites which offers delicious recipes, and one of my goal is to increase traffic to blogs. I'm learning how to do that slowly through PPP. It's getting increasingly harder to find good post which my meger traffic qualifies. So hurry before it's too late. Get your traffic going and blog with the easy not so demanding PPP. On the other hand if you are a Rockin' blocker then you can really earn American Bucks fast. Oh why has Borat influenced my speech? I wish there was a PPP about Borat and his new DVD out. See I can't help myself, I'm always plugging things that I see or in on everybody's mind. So naturally why not put your mad bloggin' Skillz to work? Your Nogin' will thank you. Your Wallet will thank you. Your bank account will thank you. I got my interest earned income from my saving's account and it was a total of $14 woopin' dollars for the whole entire annual year. You can easily make that kinda do in a week or day. I'm not as prolific as some. I think there are bloggers out there with lots of blogs who have earn well over a thousand, maybe two thousand. I feel that I'm earning a higher interest in the bank every time I blog. If I get rip off at the cleaners for charging me too much and not getting that spot out of my suade jacket, well then I know that I can get him back by blogging for about $30... there I hope to have convinced you. What's more you can go off on the cleaner or someone that makes you made and get money out of blogging about it as long as it fits the requirements of the PPP. See I can release my stress and put myself in the win win situation and feel good that I make an extra dollar for voicing my opinion about a product. Maybe I'll look for a better cleaner business! Maybe I have friends out there with a similar problem. I'm killing two birds with one stone!.

The new segmentation system awards bloggers with high traffic blogs. You could make $1000 for a single sponsored post! Spread the word!! Unforturnately, the traffic to this blog is not much. But I'm trying to get the traffic flowing.

Also...Did you know that PPP only charges a 35% service fee compared to ReviewMe that charges a 100% markup. They are taking half your money for every post! You can get high paying opps more often and put more in your pocket with PPP. PPP makes sense for high traffic and lower traffic bloggers alike.
make money blogging

Bookography

I’ve always wanted to buy or create the ultimate journal to keep track of the books that I’m reading. I found this the other day. This system uses the Circa rings which easily allows one to move the pages from one section to the next.

I also checked out from my library Steve Leveen’s book “The little guide to your well read life”.

Hi Eunice,
I have a blog which I write about Circa Levenger Products: http://ducly.wordpress.com
I would like to receive free samples of your Levenger Products to review on my blog. Some of my post have been featured on notebookism.com.
I’m really interested in trying out the ‘Bookography’. I would like to test this product out and persuade my readers of it’s virtues.
-Duc

Update: 2/13/07 no response from Levenger yet.

I’ve decided to use Squidoo as a form of Bookography using the Levenger organizational ideas: squidoo.com/bookography

SI Valentine

Back in the days when I was a single man, Valentine day meant many things. Sometimes good and some times bad. But let's not get into that mess.
besides for Valentine's Day, the other big "holiday" on that date is the release of the 43rd annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and all the hype, history and controversy that surround it each year.
Feb. 14 is also the release of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. This year, SI is going high tech and it's about time too. There is an exclusive cell phone wallpapers of SI swimsuit models available at SI Mobile (www.simobileswimsuit.com). In addition to checking out the issue, people can see their favorite SI models at any time by downloading cell phone wallpapers from SI Mobile.

"These images come straight from the photo shoots featured in the magazine, are only $1.99 each and are available for all major wireless carriers. Over 50 supermodels are featured on the site, and bloggers are encouraged to name drop some of the more popular ones in the posts including Victoria's Secret model Heidi Klum,
Marisa Miller, Ana Beatriz Barros, tennis star Maria Sharapova, Molly Sims and 2005 SI cover girl Carolyn Murphy. Classic SI cover girl wallpapers from past years that are also featured on the site include three-time cover girl Elle Macpherson ('87, '88, '94) and Kathy Ireland ('92, '94). SI Mobile users can also download video clips from the photo shoots, "video ringers" (ringtones with video), animated screensavers and more. Bloggers are required to include an image in the post.
NOTE: If you choose to purchase cell phone wallpapers off the site, you will be asked to provide some personal information to ensure delivery. Your personal information will not be disclosed to any third party.
Bloggers are required to include an image in the post."

Marisa Miller

Valentine Ecard

http://www.realestateecards.com/214/yang

Every one is getting flowers at work, well most of the girls are. I sent my wife flowers as well. It was delivered when I drive my wife to work. She was totally surprised.
I wore a cripy white BCBG shirt with a red print tie and an Armani Exchange blue with brown pin stripe suit to work for picture day. It was like first grade all over again :).

mytimetoquit

Lighting

If youve ever considered upgrading your home lighting, indoor or outdoor this post is for you. Shoppremier sells a large variey of home lighting fixtures.

I've been eying this light-wall-sconce for a long time now. We have two sconce in the T.V. room. Sometimes, we just don't need that much light while watching t.v. I've taken one light bulb out. Now the living room lighting looks uneven. I wish to install a new light sconce so that it can be on a dimmer switch and I can have a remote control for the light and adjust the level for reading or watching t.v.
The other problem I have is that the lighting in the eating area is in the very high ceiling. When the bulb goes out, I'll have to upgrade it to something practical. Or maybe I can install another wall sconce at the low level next to the dining table.

Frank Buchwald Lamps

Disclosure: This is a pay per post post, it has been sponsure and paid for by shoppremier.

uncyclopedia

designnight.com/products/li-xi-gift-envelope

"I had fallen in love with the movie A Room with a View that year, and was especially taken by Julian Sands "declaring the universal Yes" as he ran, ecstatic, through a field of wildflowers. "On the other side of the everlasting 'why'," his character's father had said earlier in the film, "there is a 'yes'. And a 'yes' and a 'yes'!"

-Gayle Grandeis

quote

Italy

I remember watching Dian Lane in 'Under the Tuscan Sun' and thinking I would like to get a villa next to her. Well, now with property in Italy I can dream about it and possibly make it a reality.

In college, I had a chance to go to study abroad in Rome. The University of Oregon offer an architectural program to study for a semester. At the time, I had passport problems. Some students decided to stay and miss graduating in time. They brought back sketch books full of buildings, ideas, and personal discoveries. They wore Italian Leather Jackets.I even enrolled in an Italian Class. The only thing that stuck in my mind now is the words for bicycle, gelato, and ciao. Italian is a beautiful romance language base on Latin. I coveted a few of the old Latin tutorial text from the local library discards.

The Italian weather is great for bicycling or hop around in a Vespa like you see in the movies. Oh talk about great sceneries of Italy in the movies! I could watch 'The Talented Mr. Ripely' again. How about 'Room with a View' or 'Wings of a Dove'? I think I worn out the VHS version.
My favorite parts of the English Patient is when they are in the abandon Villa. The author read books about life of the villa as research.
A holiday to Italy would be fine to see the Pantheon, on my list of wonders of the world.
Italian food is my favorite because I love pasta. I believe that Marco Polo brought noodle from China during his visit and has influence Italian cuisine.

The names of their cities: Tuscany or Sicily or Lake Como is soft and evocative on my tongue.
The actor George Clooney's was so enamoured with Italy that he bought a house.
The real estate market for unique property is there. Keep looking, Keep dreaming.

property in Italy

ppp

Tisimi

Hi Lexly,

I am about to launch a new site for design and innovation. The site is www.tisimi.com and is planned to go live on March 1st.

The problem I have is that for me to launch the site, I need to have something up there.

If you are interested in showcasing your designs and winning prizes (up to $1,000) by doing so, check out the site.



Thanks for your time.

-Robin
I would love for you to upload some of your images to the site, so you can showcase your talent, and maybe win... i particularly like these ones:

www.flickr.com/photos/ducly/tags/drawings/
www.flickr.com/photos/ducly/tags/fashion/
www.flickr.com/photos/ducly/tags/sketches/
www.flickr.com/photos/ducly/tags/architecture/

cheers!

misc

carnegiehall in an effort to attract younger hip crowds invites alternative folk song artist like Banheart.

metameat.net/kafka-while I was in Hungary, I missed a chance to see Prague. I skim and skip around Kafka's diary.

One of the diary prompts from TJ4 asks what makes you happy today?
One of my post is featured on: notebookism.com

What made me happy yesterday? Armand from Notebookism invited me to be featured on Notebookism. I also got a $20 coupon for diner at a fancy restaurant.

veryshortlist.com/lists

Windflower

Windflower combines Capolan, TFR

There are the elements: earth Sirocco, Wind- Zephyr, Water Mr. Ham

The characters represent the elements.

What about the drawing paintings at the bottom of each page? One almost don’t need a bookmarker because, the images trigger the words, it acts as it’s own bookmarker. But there is no coralation between the image and the images on that page. It is only after you read the description and imagine it in your head that a few pages later it shows up. The image doesn’t dictate your imagination.

I came to the Retro Traveler through the Notebookism.com, which also has a group on Flickr. The Retro Traveler uses Journals to keep track of his travels. He uses the pocket Moleskine.com hard paper and soft paper plain collects postal stamps from the different countries that he has been to.

Official Google Blog: New sunrise layer on Google Earth

Official Google Blog: New sunrise layer on Google Earth

flash

Say you love her with personalized flash!

Personalized thumb drives in 14 colors with FREE laser engraving!

Be different. Pexagontech.com is offering incredible deals on personalized flash drives with FREE laser engraving. There are no order minimums so you can get just one drive engraved for your wife or girlfriend to carry around her music files. Or perhaps get a thumb drive for each of your daughters so they can tote around their schoolwork on a keychain. How about that one special teacher who would love a personalized portable drive for work and play? Forget the flowers, what that special someone really wants this year is her very own, personalized thumb drive!

Again, there are NO order minimums and absolutely NO setup charge. Custom laser engraving from pexagontech.com is FREE on all Store-It Thumb Drives!

512MB, 1GB, 2GB or 4GB of portable storage in an ultra-small, Hi-Speed USB flash drive now available in your choice of 14 exciting colors! Durable, aluminum design with free custom laser engraving!

Store-It Thumb Drives allow you to take your important information and personal data with you wherever you go. Store your digital photos, music files, business documents, and more on an ultra-smaill, Hi-Speed USB flash drive. Easily access and transfer files between multiple computers. Includes security software to password protect your sensitive information.

Current online specials: 512MB Thumb Drive (any color) for $14.99 with FREE laser engraving. 1GB Thumb Drive (any color) for $18.99 with FREE laser engraving. 2GB Thumb Drive (any color) for $37.99 with FREE laser engraving. 4GB Thumb Drive (any color) for $69.99 with FREE laser engraving.

thumb drives

Realestate

Current concerns about realestate.
johnlscott.com
johnlscott.com/PropertyDetail
jade
amyyang

Tips for Tax time:
epowernews.com/articles/art0702/04vat_0702.htm

Current Concern about Art:
pulliamdeffenbaugh.com/Artwork
There was a course at PSU taught by Joseph Beil call "current concern". I thought this was a good title and topic. My inspiration moves with the time. One day to the next, what is current on my mind should be visually documented. Currently, I'm interested in the drawings on Vellum.

banksy.co.uk/drawing/index.html

financier who snatched up “No. 5, 1948” for $140 million last November

artnet.com/Magazine/reviews/karlins/karlins7-10-00.asp

Effexis

When I was a teenager, I had order two floppy disks software to keep a journal on the computer. That was before blogs. I still keep an document of diary but the blog is conveint to sort through. The calendar features is great for skipping around to check out on different days. The Journal, has this feature. I've wanted this feature on a wish list for a very long time and now I found it. Even some blogs you can't skip around to different days so easily to edit and add to my memory pool of what happen on a certain day.

The Journal belong in a group of other softwares offer by: http://www.effexis.com/achieve/planner.htm
This software is in my radar of GTD. There are a few good time management software.
I like it because it works seamlessly with Outlook. I would like to download it and take it for a spin like I did with the Journal. There are so many things to do, to organize. It makes planning fun.

Drawings

I stumble upon this site of Leonardo Divinci Drawings in a Mozilla plug in call 'Stumble' I really like the drawing diagrams of his concave surfaces and the light on the sphere: http://www.visi.com/~reuteler/leonardo.html

This site is so very minimal: http://wooptydoo.com

Lastest news radar picks up a Hurricane brewing over Frankfurt, Germany. Soon it will go into Poland.

DVD Ripper News

Dvdripnews.com is the only site which tells you when a DVDRip will be released to the internet

DVDRipnews.com is the only site in the whole of internet which lets you know the release date of the DVDRip of a movie (not DVD). Besides that, it will inform you what the size of the DVDRip will be (1CD or 2CD) and also the file format (XviD/AC3/MP3). The site is perfectly legal as it just gives the dates and file format info.

It is the one and only site of it's kind. The site provides an accurate way in which the site reveals even the file size and format details in advance.

Right now there is also a commenting contest which lets visitors win a free backlink to their sites.

DVDRips are distributed through the P2P networks, there are file sharing, movie sharing via bittorrent, movie sharing over the internet in general, movie downloading etc...

DVDRip News

blogspot blog roll

I came across this site through flickr, particularly Hardley Sutton's account. http://babeswithbooks.blogspot.com
"Hard" as people call him has a picture of Daniel Day Lewis in the movies "Room w/ a View". His Cuties Curios blog is amusing.

November of 2006, I saw The Sartorialist's photo in a GQ magazine while waiting for my wife to get her hair color. It was the article with Will Ferrell on the cover of 2006. A few pages later, I read an article on Thom Browne. Back at the keyboard, I decided that I would google Thom and found enough to create a Squidoo lens about Thom. Of course The Sartorialist had blog about Thom!

thesartorialist.blogspot.com

The Satorialist’s gear:
dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_eos5d.asp

thesartorialist.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_thesartorialist_archive

Gallery Leather

The Gallery Leather company has good products. I've bought their Photo Albums before from B&Noble stores. I found a good mini three ring binder, Desk Planner for 2007 at T.J. Max. The standard mini three ring paper fits easyly into the three ring binder, which is the same size as the Original of the Franklin Covey binders. The thing I don't like about FCovey is that it's too thick for my use. When the year is over, I end up with an big stack which I have to buy another special binder made of paper to keep the whole year together. Also FC binder rings are (proprietary) too many which requires a special puncher to make new papers fit into the binder.
They have a new website coming up galleryleather.
I enter to win the recipes organizer.

The Sheltering Sky

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustable well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply part of your being that you, that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless."-Paul Bowles, "The Sheltering Sky"

Update: 12/6/06

Writings inspired by Magic Paula's question: "What is Time?" from the Letter's Lives Group on Flickr.

A nomadic tribe wondering through a labyrinth carried by the wind
An ancestral grid dividing the chronology
the wind whispering its strange language for trees to decipher, transmute and deflect.
The days are a canonical mocking of our small existence.

What is time?
Time is the underlying theme in Paul Bow's novel about travel, love, and cultural difference. I read this book over the holiday break and away from my normal environment. It made me think and feel lonely at the same time. I was jet lagged and in a different time zone, nine hours difference. It's a good book to bring along on a distant trip. I marked it up frequently because I wanted to remember those passages. Usually, I don't like to mark up the book.