So, I’m taking this class GD-436, Interactive Scripting. Our homework for this week is to create a blog account and post a blog. Well since I have a blog account already all I have to do is post a blog for class. I couldn’t really think of a topic to blog about so I’m going to kill 2 birds with one post ~ stone.

First bird: Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways do blog sites aid in the dissemination of useful information and discourse? In what ways do they hinder it?I think blog sites are great informational sites. Of course some have better, more credible information than others. There are so many different blog sites that stating the information in blogs are useful or harmful, it all depends on the information you seek and how you verify credibility. Mostly, I enjoy blog sites that are educational and entertaining. Blogging is a great tool to disseminate information because blog sites are frequently crawled by spiders which help get visibility on a site, I don’t really see a way blogging hinders dissemination of information other than dissemination of possibly wrong information mixed in with good information.

2. Post the url to your blog from the assignment and post a response to one other students blog.Ok, well this is the blog for the assignment so, here’s a click here to refresh the page.

Second bird: Completing the Requirements for the Blog Post

1. Create Categories: well as you can see on the sidebar I have quite a few categories already. I’m inserting this post to the “blog” category.
2. Insert an image:
   
3. Apply a unique template: this template is very unique because I created the WordPress template to match the layout of my website.
4. Post a trackback to another blog site. Here’s the most recent blog in Balanced Energy, LLC‘s website. I designed that website for my friend’s business.
5. Use HTML in the blog: well I killed this requirement when I inserted the image above because I used the <IMG SRC> tag to insert the image.

So in my boredom I started stumbling and I came across this recipe “The Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake Recipe.” Before reading the article/recipe I figured it would be this rich and tiresome to prepare chocolate cake, but no… it only takes 5 minutes to make! I definitely have to try this… probably tonight. If and when I do I’ll post a photo and let you know how it was. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will taste absolutely horrible so I won’t have another easy fix to my fat cravings.

January - I turned 21 for the 8th time.

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February - We drove down to Los Angeles to see Valerie. She was there for a week so I had to take the opportunity to see her, especially pregnant with her baby girl! We spent the day at the Getty Center. I don’t remember what we did for Valentine’s Day, but I know Stephen got me beautiful flowers!

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March - Uneventful.

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April - Stephen took me and the puppies up to San Francisco for a week! I love that city and I was so happy to be there with the person I love most in the world and my babies. Our trip could not have landed on a perfect time; we didn’t know that the 2008 Olympics torch was scheduled to be ran through the city 2 days after our arrival. It was a controversial one because many protested the Olympics held in China, there were protests all over the place. The Embarcadero was packed with people pro-China and human rights activists. Chinese flags flooded the streets like a blanket of blood (how ironic) and then there were the Tibetan flags scattered all over the place as well. It was great to experience the rallies.

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May - We find out we’re moving to Stuttgart, Germany! Stephen applied for a job and got picked up for it a couple weeks later. For a few days we were stressing out about it because the people he worked for didn’t want to give him up and they tried their best to stop his move. Thankfully people in high places put their foot down and confirmed his orders.

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June - I resigned from my job at GS&ES to get ready for the move. We didn’t have much time to prepare because his orders were to report in Stuttgart no later than the second week of July. I spent the entire month of June packing and preparing for the move. We also decided that Alex and Gabby come with us to spend a school year in Germany.

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July - We celebrated three years of marriage! Stephen got older. We moved out of base housing into a hotel for a week and then on the 1oth we flew out of LAX into STR. This was a very tough time for the puppies. It was a very long flight and they were cooped up in a travel carrier that fit under the seats in front of us. They were very well behaved but I knew they hated it, whenever I checked on Kookiis she was shivering. I wish I could have taken her out of the carrier and put her on my lap. Vandy did very well; I think she slept through most of it. When we arrived we stayed at a hotel for over a month.

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August - Alex turned 11. Kookiis turned 4. We finally found a house to move into! Moved in as soon as we could, we have lived in a hotel too long! Thankfully, we didn’t have to pay for the bills. Of course if the military had a better process they wouldn’t have spent over $10K for our hotel stay! Talk about tax dollars down the drain! Tay becomes very sick from GBS and begins his stay at the hospital.

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September - Vandy got older, we think she turned 3 this year; we chose this month for her birthday because we adopted her from the shelter in September 2007. We start to settle in and the kids start school. I get on a plane to Manila, Philippines to be with Tay and Nay. I arrived on the 2nd, by that time Tay has been in the hospital for about 2 weeks. I stayed the entire month, around the middle Yen joined me; she and I left at the end of the month. During our entire stay, Tay was in the ICU. He was in a state of paralysis and was unable to speak. I was giving up hope and my heart has broken.

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October - I am back home. I missed my husband and my babies so much while I was away. Seeing Stephen at the airport filled my heart with warmth. Tay remains in the hospital, critically stable. What does that mean? It’s an oxymoron to me.

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November - Stress starts to build in our home. Alex has become rebellious and very unhappy. He expressed his feelings about wanting to return to Texas with his mother. Tay remains in the hospital, still critically stable. Some great news ~ Mama Len has become an American, after years of waiting it finally arrived. Yay! Obama is elected president of the United States!

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December - Gabby turned 10. It completely escapes us that Christmas is near. The stress at home and the condition of Tay took away the Christmas spirit. We fought to get into the mood by going to Christmas markets, I attempted to decorate the house but when the tree was up and the lights were set they burned out! Christmas spirit killed. The catalyst was Alex depression manifesting into an unacceptable outburst, this time he had gone too far ~ he finally got his wish… to go back to Texas as soon as school was out for Christmas break. Needless to say there was nothing to celebrate.

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I welcome 2009 with open arms! Hopefully this year will be a better year for us.

I can’t believe Christmas is next week! This year has been a roller coaster ride and it continues to be. I feel like there’s nothing to really celebrate about. I mean of course there are but it just seems inappropriate to celebrate the holidays when there is so much drama going on. What is up with all the drama this year? 2008 just blows past and marks my heart with pain. Will 2009 be better? I hope so.

A few things I’m really looking forward to the new year are…

1. Yay! Back to school for me! I can’t wait till the 9th of January when I start school again!

2. Barack Obama takes over as the new president!

3. I turn 20! Yes, twenty! Go to my Kaboodle list to buy me a present!

4. I finally get to have a summer and Christmas alone with my husband!

5. We hit our golden anniversary! 5 years baby yeah! It’s the new 50!

Thank you PSDtuts.com for the “Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop” tutorial!

For no apparent reason I got up at 5:30am this morning. By 10:30am I had nothing else to do, so I sat down on my desk and started stumbling through websites. StumbleUpon is one of the best web surfing tools around. You just click a button and ta-da you’re at a web page you probably never would come across. So here they are, the 10 interesting sites I stumbled upon today.

10 – Скульптуры из песка (43 фото) – Sculptures of sand (43 photos) – what if it rained?

09 – The Vampire Library – get your fill of vampire lore here.

08 – Eye Spy: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket – oh the things people do for art!

07 -The Rise of the Machines – I don’t remember meeting a robot in Japan, South Korea, or Singapore when I was there. I don’t even know of any here in Germany. I need to get out more, I guess I haven’t traveled enough.

06 – Males of All Species Are Becoming More Female – the environment is turning our men into women!

05 - Cheap First Class Airfares: Airline Secret Exposed! – the key word here is Y-ups, just remember that every time you make flight reservations! Get first class tickets for almost economy class prices.

04 – Who Needs a House Then? – where’s the pool? Gotta have a pool?

03 – Brain Pop – yep, knowledge is power, learn something new.

02 – The Simpsons parody iPods, iPhones, Apple Stores, Steve Jobs, and even Apple’s 1984 commercial – I have a white ear buds!

01 – Cookie Recipes – this has to be the best site ever! I’m starving for some Margarita Cookies!

I can’t believe Christmas is almost here! This year flew by so fast it seems like we just celebrated last year’s Christmas yesterday. I’ve felt the Christmas spirit creeping up but now that it is December I feel like I need another month or so to be Christmas ready. I usually have the house half way decorated by now, but this year… we haven’t even decided what colors to do. Last year we did red and gold, I love that combination, and this year we can’t quite decide. I think we’ll go with the traditional holiday colors.

Christmas cards? Last year our Christmas card was a photo of Kookiis and Vandy wearing their holiday couture. This year I decided to design the card in Photoshop and here is what I came up with. I will be sending them out soon, I hope in the mail, but if not you’ll get it as an e-card.

click on the photo to view larger image

Thanks to PSDTuts for the tutorial. “How to Create That Last-Minute Holiday e-Card in Photoshop“

I was watching videos on YouTube this morning and recently I’ve been watching Sungha Jung, a young Korean boy who plays the guitar like a pro, all his videos are amazing and Charice Pempengco, a teenage Filipino girl who has the most powerful voice I’ve ever heard. My favorite one is Sungha’s rendition of the Mission Impossible theme.

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Since I posted “Email Updates?!” I’ve been receiving questions like “what’s an RSS feed,” “how do I subscribe,” “if I subscribe, how would I read it?” So I decided to write about RSS feeds and how you can subscribe to mine and from other websites you frequently visit.

RSS is Really Simple Syndication. Instead of me explaining what it means I’d rather provide this video I found on YouTube that explains it in plain English.

Now, according to the video you must register with a reader. Of course that’s true, but he didn’t say that you can subscribe to an RSS feed and read it in your email. I read all my RSS feeds in Outlook 2007.

If you don’t use Outlook like I do, I’ve provided a way for you to subscribe through your own reader. I discovered this WordPress plugin called Add-To-Any-Subscribe-Button. It lists almost all the current RSS readers. Like My Yahoo, iGoogle, My MSN, Windows Live, iTunes, etc.

RSS is great; you can read new content from your favorite websites all in one spot. You don’t have to go browsing through your favorites to find new content any more. Happy subscribing! BTW, don’t forget to subscribe to mine. Click on one of the buttons on the top right corner of this page.

Since I was offline for a long time, I was wondering if anyone missed my email announcements regarding new blog posts. I was tempted to write to few blogs offline and just post them all at once as soon as the DSL is turned on. I decided to read and play around on Adobe Illustrator CS3 instead.

Anyway, the purpose of this blog is to find out if you wanted to continue receiving email announcements. It felt like extra work on my part, but I wanted people to read my blogs. I even posted announcements on other sites I used to write on like MySpace and Multiply, sometimes even Friendster. Yeah, seems like I’m desperate for readers! All I really want is to get the word out to those interested. And more importantly, so I’m not telling the same story over and over to everyone who asks what I’ve been up to lately or how I’m doing.

So… please participate in my poll. Question 3 asks if you subscribe to my RSS feed, if you don’t and want to click here to start your subscription. For now this will be my last email announcement.

Today was a little too hot and humid for me so the kids and I stayed in the hotel all day. I decided to organize some photos and play around on Photoshop. I learned how to create a Quicktime movie in Photoshop from one of the tutorials in the Adobe Design Center Video Workshop. Of course the next step was for me to figure out how to embed Quicktime movies on my blog. I am learning that I love WordPress more and more as I use it and learn more about it. I think pretty soon I will migrate my entire website to WordPress instead of just my blog.

Compiled here are pictures I’ve scanned from a photo album from my youth. There are pictures of my sister, my cousins, and of course me.