Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Seeds for our garden

I'm just testing out creating documents in Google Documents and then sharing them. I thought it would be fun to share our garden seed collection in my blog. This is wayyyy too much stuff for the amount of garden space we have, but oh well...it will be fun trying to fit it all in.

Our seed collection so far

Tonda di Parigi

60 days. The round, 19th-century Parisian heirloom carrots are harvested at 1"-2", uniform and deep orange. The flavor is excellent and very sweet. These tender carrots are very popular for marketing. Plant thick for bunching.

http://rareseeds.com


Atomic Red

75 days. Brilliant red carrots are so healthy and unique-looking, sure to add color to your garden. The 8" roots are high in lycopene, which has been shown in studies to help prevent several types of cancer. Crisp roots are at their best when cooked, and this helps to make the lycopene more useable.

http://rareseeds.com

Cosmic Purple

This one is causing excitement at farmers' markets. Carrots have bright-purple skin with flesh that comes in shades of yellow and orange. Spicy and sweet tasting roots are great for marketing.


http://rareseeds.com

Lunar White

Here is a vigorous producer that has creamy-white roots that are very mild, delicious, and have a fine flavor, and very small core. White carrots were grown in the Middle Ages, but now have become very rare. We are glad to offer this productive new variety.


http://rareseeds.com


Amarillo

75 days. Lovely, lemon-yellow roots have sweet, bright yellow flesh. Good for a summer to fall crop, large 8" roots and strong tops. Yellow carrots always taste the best to me, they are so crunchy and full of juice.


rareseeds.com/seeds/Carrots/Amarillo

Chinese Yellow

Beautiful, yellow-orange cucumber from mainland China, the young fruit is green. 10" fruit are as crisp as an apple. Very mild and delicious, great for slicing or for pickles. This was our largest yielding variety ever - just a few plants produced hundreds of cucumbers! Our favorite cucumber for 2003. A very rare Chinese heirloom.


http://rareseeds.com

Thai "Petch Tsai"

Lovely pale green to beautiful lemon-yellow 5-inch fruit, one of my favorite new varieties and a lot of fun to grow, these are very mild and delicious. This Thai variety is quite ornamental, and is a great home garden variety. Collected by us in Thailand. Rare and unique.


http://rareseeds.com

Rosa Bianca

80 days. Colorful, light pink-lavender fruit with white shading. Rich, mild flesh is very popular with chefs and gardeners alike! No bitterness. A great variety for heirloom market growers. Use the color that sells!


http://rareseeds.com



Listada de Gandia

90 days. One of the most popular heirloom types, this variety has 7" long fruit that are white with lovely bright-purple stripes. Very beautiful & with fabulous flavor in the sweet, tender flesh. This great variety hails from Italy, a country that is renown for fine food.


http://rareseeds.com


FENNEL Di Firenze

    (Foeniculum vulgare) This is the Anise flavored vegetable that Italians love. Large 1 to 2 lb bulbs are delicious in soups, sauteed, baked and raw in salads. This Italian cultivar is fairly early. The authentic "Finocchio" for growers of quality. Pkt. (200 seeds)

    http://rareseeds.com

    Red Wonder Wild Strawberry

    This variety was selected to produce large, elongated red fruits that are sweet and aromatic. Perfect for growing in flower gardens and containers as the plants, flowers and berries are ornamental. So delicious, the fruit won't last long! (Pkt. 75 seeds)


    http://rareseeds.com

    Showy Pink Blossoms & Tasty Strawberries

    New! Amazing plant produces large red berries continuously while pretty pink blossoms provide a gorgeous display for hanging baskets or to brighten up your strawberry patch. The fruits are delicious and the pink blossoms attract much attention.

    Zone 4-9

    http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=Fragaria%20Fragissimo&showurl=%2F09.html

Genovese Basil

The famous Italian heirloom is very popular with many cooks.

http://rareseeds.com

Siam Queen Thai Basil

Very strong, clove-scented basil. This heirloom is very popular in Thailand and is a very flavorful specialty variety.

Pasted from <http://rareseeds.com


Lime Basil

    A unique lime-flavored basil from Thailand. Popular variety for fresh market!

    Pasted from <http://rareseeds.com

Cinnamon Basil

Spicy flavor, tasty Mexican variety.


http://rareseeds.com


Lemon Basil


Thyme - French Summer


Cilantro

    (Coriandrum sativum) Popular in Mexican cuisine, this herb is a must for all salsa and chili recipes, delicious and flavorful.


    http://rareseeds.com


Texas Early Grano 502

    Vidalia-type onion is a good choice for the south. Sweet, tasty flavor, developed in Texas in 1944.


    http://rareseeds.com


Red of Florence

    Oblong shaped, bright red onions, great for planting spring or fall, seems to do well in many areas. They are very mild and sweet, great for salads and pickling! A delicious Italian heirloom. Very rare.


    http://rareseeds.com

Rocky Top Lettuce Salad

Our Improved formula blend is now better than ever! With more brightly colored and unique lettuces, it makes a flavorful and brilliant salad. A top selling item for us - our customers just love it! Perfect for better markets or your home table. People love the rich, old-fashioned taste. Includes some unlisted rare varieties.


http://rareseeds.com

Purple Calabash

85 days. May be the most purple of all purple tomatoes; a deep purple/burgundy, and very colorful! The shape is also exciting, with the 3" fruit being very flat, ribbed and ruffled. Flavor is intense, sweet and tart, with a lime or citrus taste, almost wine like. The most uniquely flavored tomato I have ever tried! The plants give huge yields. This tomato resembles tomatoes pictured in 16th-century herbal diaries.


http://rareseeds.com

Black Cherry

Beautiful black cherries, look like large, dusky purple grapes; they have that rich flavor that makes black tomatoes famous. Market growers report that this variety is an incredible seller, large vines yield very well. Very unique and delicious.


http://rareseeds.com

Flame (Hillbilly)

A huge, bicolor heirloom, brilliant yellow color with red marbling. Very large with a rich, sweet flavor. Beautiful when sliced. An heirloom believed to be from West Virginia.


http://rareseeds.com

Striped Roman

Stunning and unique. These long, pointed red fruit have wavy orange stripes! People were really excited about this one at our last Heirloom Garden Show. It’s a specialty grower’s dream; just what chefs and today’s buyers are looking for; a perfect midsized beauty with brilliant color, meaty flesh and excellent flavor. This variety was developed by John Swenson.


http://rareseeds.com

Ananas Noire or Black Pineapple

Our most exciting new tomato this year, it is wonderful in every way. This unusual variety was developed by Pascal Moreau, a horticulturist from Belgium. The multi-colored, smooth fruit (green, yellow and purple mix) weigh about 1 1/2 lbs. The flesh is bright green with deep red streaks. Everyone loves their superb flavor that is outstanding, being both sweet and smokey with a hint of citrus. The yield is one of the heaviest we have ever seen! Be the first at your farmers market to have this new classic.


http://rareseeds.com

Copia

Our most unique and beautiful large, striped tomato, these have lovely, fine stripes of glowing gold and neon red. Inside, the flesh is a flavorful mix of red and yellow, swirled together in various combinations, and very tasty. This new variety was developed by Jeff Dawson and named in honor of "Copia," the Amercian Center for Food, Wine and the Arts, of Napa, CA. This should make a superb tomato for market growers and is a new "must have" for heirloom gardeners. 80-90 Days.


http://rareseeds.com


Black Krim

Deep dusky rosy purple heirloom if not the prettiest tomato, certainly one of the best tasting. Super sweet, complex old-time tomato flavor is a favorite of many. Produces abundant, large beefsteak fruits, 5 inches across. Dark red interior.


http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=Cherokee%20Purple&showurl=%2Fspecial.html

Goliath

This F1 Hybrid is truly outstanding in just about every way. Huge, handsome fruits often weigh over a pound and are as close to perfection as you can find anywhere. Sweet, lucious tomato flavor, highly disease resistant and producing tremendous yields -- the fruits just keep coming. One of the best varieties on the market.


http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=Tomato%20Goliath%20&showurl=%2Ftomato.html


Green Zebra

Sweet & Zingy Taste Treat

Chosen for its truly excellent flavor and striking appearance, Green Zebra is hard to beat for salads and salsa. The fruits are generally smallish, about 3 oz, but plants produce good yields. Bred in Redmond, Washington in the early 80s, Green Zebra is destined to be a future heirloom. Must try!

Indeterminate 76 days


http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=green%20zebra&showurl=%2F10.html


Mortgage Lifter

    The now legendary "Mortgage Lifter" tomato was brought into being in the early 1940s by an auto mechanic named MC "Radiator Charlie" Byles. Charlie developed the tomato by cross-breeding four of the largest-fruited tomatoes he could find.The offspring turned out to be so good that Charlie was able to sell the young tomato plants for $1 each (in the 1940s) and to sell enough of the plants to pay off the mortgage on his West Virginia home. These are big, meaty tomatoes, which can weigh as much as 4 lbs. Very productive and fairly disease resistant well worth a try.

    Indeterminate, 79 days


    http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=green%20zebra&showurl=%2F10.html

Purple Russian Tomato

4" plum tomato with exquisite flavor suggestive of a black. Attractive purple-black fruits are meaty and wonderful for slicing, salads and sauces. Heirloom variety from the Ukraine. Very good, reliable producer.

Indeterminate,. 80 days


http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=green%20zebra&showurl=%2F10.html

Snow White Cherry

Tasty sweet, unusual ivory-white cherry tomatoes ripen to pale yellow. Flavorful fruits are terrific for snacking and look great in salads. Hybridized by Joe Bratka.

Indeterminate, 75 days

http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=green%20zebra&showurl=%2F10.html


Sweet Red Grape

    The favorite that was available only in the produce centers of grocery stores is now available from SEED. Bright red small fruits are about 1/3 oz. each. They are a sweet, bite-sized, oval shaped grape tomato, with great flavor and outstanding shelf life. An early variety, only 58 - 60 days to maturity. Single plant can yield 500+ tomatoes. Indeterminate. Yields clusters of 20 fruits or more. Strong tolerance to heat, humidity and cracking.

    Indeterminate, 60 days


    http://seedrack.com/cgi-bin/perlfect/search/search.pl?q=green%20zebra&showurl=%2F10.html


Transparent New!

A very pale, creamy lemon-colored tomato which almost borders on translucent, giving this 3 oz wonder an exotic appearance indeed! Very mild and sweet, having a soft skin and smooth texture that makes it a delight for fresh eating. The vines set huge yields of this rare and delicious little tomato.

Pasted from <http://rareseeds.com/search.php>


Golden Midget

70 days. A beautiful miniature watermelon that weighs around 3 lbs. It's easy to tell when they are ripe as the rind turns a lovely golden yellow when ready for harvest, a very beautiful contrast with the salmon-pink colored flesh. The taste is sweet and refreshing. Very early, matures in just 70 days. Developed by the late Dr. Elwyn Meader, UNH in 1959. Unique.


http://rareseeds.com

Orangeglo

85 days. Very sweet, beautiful deep orange flesh, excellent almost tropical flavor! The best tasting of ALL varieties we tried - the favorite of many who tried it at our place. High yields. Very resistant to wilt and insects; strong healthy vines. These will sell at roadside stands & markets!


http://rareseeds.com

White Wonder

Beautiful, snow white flesh is so pale it is almost transparent! The small 3-8 lb icebox-sized fruit are round. The flavor is unique, fruity and so delicious. This refreshing variety is perfect for gourmet growers wanting to target high-class markets. They will add contrast to any display and are sure to bring attention at farmers markets. White-fleshed watermelons were common in the 1800's and Henry Fields was still selling seeds for a white-fleshed variety in the 1970's. But due to corporate agriculture, these genetic treasures are about to be lost This will be a shame as white-fleshed varieties date back hundreds of years and were developed in Africa from wild strains. This early variety is not for shipping as they crack easy, but you will enjoy their unique crispness fresh from the garden.


http://rareseeds.com/search.php

Honeydew - Orange Flesh

98 days. Light green smooth skin, orange flesh. An orange-fleshed version of the regular Honeydew, tasty.


http://rareseeds.com

Banana Melon

90 days. Banana-shaped fruit, smooth yellow skin and sweet, spicy salmon flesh. 16”-24" long, 5-8 lbs. It was listed in 1885 by J. H. Gregory’s Catalogue, which said “When ripe it reminds one of a large, overgrown banana... It smells like one, having a remarkably powerful and delicious fragrance.” This is one of my all- time favorites, being very sweet and great for specialty markets.


http://rareseeds.com

Netted Gem

One of the most popular melons in the 1890’s, it was introduced by W. Atlee Burpee in 1886 and was famous for its high quality and very spicy sweet flavor. Flesh is bright green, skin is netted. It is round and weighs 2-3 lbs. Rare


http://rareseeds.com

Boule d'Or (Golden Perfection)

Very sweet, pale green flesh is just marvelous. Yellow and loosely netted, a very beautiful melon. This was one of our top melons in our 2003 trials, truly incredible! It was listed in Vilmorin's book The Vegetable Garden in 1885, but is very rare now. An all-time favorite and a dream for market growers.


http://rareseeds.com

Tigger

The most amazing melon we have grown. The fruit are vibrant yellow with brilliant fire-red, zigzag stripes, (a few fruit may be solid yellow), simply beautiful! They are also the most fragrant melons we have tried, with a rich, sweet intoxicating aroma that will fill a room. The white flesh gets sweeter in dry climates. Small in size the fruits weigh up to 1 lb. - perfect for a single serving. The vigorous plants yield heavily, even in dry conditions. This heirloom came from an Armenian market located in a mountain valley. It was the most popular melon at our Garden Show last August and makes a unique specialty market variety. Pkt. (25 seeds).


http://rareseeds.com

Collective Farm Woman

This heirloom from the Ukraine was collected in 1993 by Seed Savers Exchange. Very popular on Island of Krim in the Black Sea. Melons ripen to a yellowish-gold and the white flesh has a very high sugar content, a favorite among heirloom gardeners and growers alike. Ripens early, even in Russia.


http://rareseeds.com

d'Algiers

Another colorful ancient French Cantaloupe (possibly from Africa) it is definitely one of the oldest. Ribbed fruit are dark green (almost black) with silver splashes. As they get ripe they turn yellow with near red splashes. The flesh is highly perfumed and very smooth and creamy. Compact vines, quality French seed, from Bruno Defay. Pre-1800 Heirloom.


http://rareseeds.com

Charentais

80 days. A famous, superb heirloom. A French, 2-3 lb. melon with light, grey-green skin. The bright , orange flesh is super sweet and very fragrant. This was my favorite melon in 2003. I just love the firm, sweet flesh. These are top sellers at high dollar markets.


http://rareseeds.com


German Porcelain Garlic (Allium sativum)


    This garlic grows a very large bulb containing 4-5 very large cloves. The wrappers are splashed with purple. The clove is usually striped and very easy to peel. This is a hardneck keeper. It generally stores from midsummer harvest until the new year and does well in any climate. Number one in taste!

    http://myworld.ebay.com/bulbmart


Romanian Red Garlic (Allium sativum)


    Outstanding Porcelain strain similar to German Red but slightly later maturing. Tall, dark green plants. Large bulbs, 4-6 cloves per bulb. Cloves streaked & lined on buff brown background. Stores well. Hot and pungent, stays with you

    http://myworld.ebay.com/bulbmart



Inchelium Red Garlic (Allium sativum)
From Inchelium, WA, on the Colville Indian Reservation. The bulbs are large - to 3+ inches in diameter. 8-20 cloves of good size. Mild, but lasting, flavor, with a hint of hot! Dense cloves store well. Flavor can get stronger in storage. This vigorous soft-necked variety won a Rodale taste test of 20 garlic strains - named "Very Best of the Soft-Necks."

    http://myworld.ebay.com/bulbmart

Chesnok Red Garlic Bulbs

    The very large bulb contains 9-10, nicely colored, easy-to-peel cloves. This garlic is especially good for baking. It holds its shape, keeps its flavor, and develops a delightful aroma. This type originated from the Republic of Georgia.

    http://myworld.ebay.com/bulbmart


Musik Garlic (Allium sativum)

    The very large bulb contains 4-5 buff-colored cloves, streaked and lined with red highlights. The flavor is HOT and pungent with long lasting bite. Source uncertain, but probably southern Germany or northern Italy. Could be from a northern Italian family named Musica. It is considered one of the two heartiest, largest, and tastiest varieties. Ideal for roasting. In appearance, extremely beautiful! Flavor: strong, but not overwhelming. Shelf-life: 5-8 months.

    http://myworld.ebay.com/bulbmart

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Gingerbread case mod


I love case mods, and I've had some experience making gingerbread houses, but I'd never have thought to combine the two. Although this is pretty darn ugly for a gingerbread house, I give it mad props for being VERY COOL for a computer case mod.

Click here to see more pictures and the step by step building of the Gingerbread Case Mod

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Some There/Therebucks history

So, the other day...I guess it's been a few weeks now, Kittenkat contacted me because she was very distressed over IMVU's proposed tiers system and she thought, since I live only six miles from IMVU and have been known to sneak attack them and just show up there, that maybe if she could win me over to her cause, she could get me to march into IMVU and get them to listen to reason.

Honestly, IMVU should probably hire Kittenkat to be their in-house economist or something, but my days of IMVU peeps telling me that they owed me a debt of gratitude so great that they are happy to buy me lunch once a month for basically forever are probably over. The best I can do right now is publish what Kittenkat shared with me after being frustrated by one of IMVU's newer employees "Joepez" telling her she didn't understand the There economy as well as There's original founder and some of his cronies and tried to explain to her a few things about the There economy.

Please enjoy this wonderful bit of There history compliments of KittenKat!

As There's founder and ex-employees should be able to tell you, I was there since the beginning, and my resale site (tbux.com) pretty much single-handedly shaped the resale market from the beginning. If anyone knows anything about the resale market at There.com, it's me.

For the record, here is the story of the There resale market:

I became involved in the There developer program pretty shortly after it was released. After time I and the other top developers had accumulated enough therebucks that there began to be talk about selling them for cash. The first person to offer us cash for our therebucks was Baloo, who happened to be There's economist (he operated his resale site on the side). He offered us terrible rates (2700T/$1 as I recall) but we sold to him, because he pressured us and because it was money.

It didn't take me long to decide that we had to be able to sell them for more he was offering. So I got together with There's other top developers, showed them my proposal for tbux.com, formed tbux.com, and began to sell directly to There members at 2000T/$1 (~200T/$ savings over There's official rate). Sure, Baloo could offer consumers a cheaper rate, but he had depended on having the major developers selling to him, so by banding together, we eliminated his supply, so we had no trouble selling for that rate. Shortly thereafter we began to resell other developers' tbux, offering them a rate of 2200T/$1 (our spread is and always has been very low).

We've had a small handful of competitors over the years, but none have ever succeeded at driving the rate of tbux down. Even during the period of economic turmoil and panic which followed There's "Black Friday" (in 2004, when There Inc. announced that it would no longer develop the consumer version of There), tbux.com kept buying and selling at the SAME rates.

And here we are, in 2007, buying and selling at the same rates we always have, and still selling out. 2000T/$1 is now the standard resale cost of Therebucks across all resellers, a whole 200T savings over There's rate of 1800T/$1.

So, to say that There's resale market is where it is because its "mature" is just completely inaccurate. There's resale market has not changed at all since it started with tbux.com back in August 2003."

For the record, *I* never sold to Baloo. My first sale was actually an exchange of ThereBucks for frequent flier miles which allowed me to attend the first There real life gathering in 2003.

Anyway, thanks to KittenKat for allowing me to share that nice writeup of There and ThereBucks history in my blog. Maybe it won't help us stop tiers, since Will Harvey has indicated that they only implement things we suggest that they were already implementing anyway, but it's still a great read. Cha right...like Will knows more about the There economy just because he founded There. According to any IMVU employee who worked on the blox project There is already dead, and yet as far as I can tell they are still growing strong. Wishful thinking, guys?

Monday, November 12, 2007

XO: approved for usage on one's lap

Did you know most "laptops" are now called "notebook PCs" these days because they aren't actually approved for usage on one's lap? They are such energy hogs full of bloatware that they run much too hot most of the time to comfortably and safely use them on your lap.

Today I ordered my OLPC XO laptop. The famed $100 laptop! Okay, so it's actually costing me $423.95 through the GOGO program, at least I was "allowed" to purchase one at all.

One of it's MANY, MANY neato features is the part where it is the first laptop to be certified as an actual laptop in several years. In other words, it is approved for use while it is actually on your lap. It has other great features, but you should watch these YouTube videos to learn more for yourself. It'll be sooo much easier than me trying to type it all out and probably more interesting as well.







The one feature I believe MY XO laptop will be missing is a manual power supply. Well, those things don't come standard even if you are a child in a developing nation, but it may be easier for them to obtain one. I'm pretty sad about this because I'm really excited about that feature. I wish every laptop and appliance had options like that. Well, maybe they kind of do...in trying to find something that would let ME power my XO, I checked out the laptop.org wiki and found, as perhaps my most promising and available option, the "Weza", a foot crank power source that costs $269.99...that's more than the laptop costs! Still, I hope I can afford one because it looks totally cool and like it would power other stuff as well although...the XO requires something like 1/10 the power of your standard laptop, so where I think you can power the XO Laptop for ten minutes with one minute of hand powered effort, I guess you would have to keep cranking or pumping or foot stomping or whatever for the entire time you were using a more energy-hogging Notebook PC.

So, if they're going to make this laptop available at all to the "general public" in the U.S. and Canada, wouldn't it be nice to make the hand powered option available for purchase as well? I'd like to be able to power stuff by hand without paying $270. I really want the XO "yoyo". Here you can see the Yoyo in action, although you may not want to watch this entire video as it is a little boring...


After ordering my XO this morning, I spent the entire rest of the morning reading anything I could find about the promotion and the XO and stuff. First I read a bunch of news stories that all said almost exactly the same thing, then I started watching stuff on YouTube, which is where I found the videos above, and finally I ended up at the laptop.org wiki, which is mostly for developers but contained some interesting nuggets. I haven't found a community of non-engineering information about the XO yet, but then I was reading and watching more than I was searching.

I did see a video where some students in Brazil were trying the laptops. Their teacher didn't seem to like them very much, and felt it was the teachers that should get computers, not the students, but I got the impression that may have been more because the teachers seem to have been somewhat forgotten in this initiative. So, it's not that she felt her students shouldn't have laptops, it's just...why do they get laptops and all this support and SHE DOESN'T? I know I'd probably be a bit sore if I were an overworked, underpaid teacher and all my kids got laptops and I was supposed to just help them use them and make projects that used them when I didn't even get a laptop myself, all so these children could grow up to save the world while meanwhile remembering me as that teacher that didn't even really know how to use an XO. Or something like that. It just seems like maybe the OLPC initiative spent more time simply designing the laptop and not so much thinking about social dynamics or classroom dynamics.

So, I hope that even though I didn't get up and order my laptop at 3am when ordering first opened that I get mine in the first shipment. It sounds like 40,000 of them are supposed to be manufactured by the end of the month, and half of those will go to the GOGO participants in the U.S. and Canada, and the other half to a number of different developing nations. Then, in December twice as many will be produced, but people that don't get laptops from that first lot really aren't going to have them until early next year.

I am going to be anxiously awaiting mine! Too bad it's not like ordering something on the Apple website where you can track your package as it leaves the factory in China and makes it's way around the world to your home.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

One Laptop Per Child: One time opportunity alert

I received the following email from OLPC today. since they claim this is the ONLY time the XO laptop will EVER be made available to the public, I figured I'd pass on the info. I certainly hope to have $400 at the ready on Monday. Oh yeah, and of course it's great that these are finally rolling out of the assembly line to get into the hands of kids in developing nations. I heard that getting governments to express interest in ordering them has been MUCH easier than getting actual concrete orders. Kudos to Uruguay, which placed a huge order with plans to have one per child by some time in 2009.

Give 1 Get 1

You are receiving this email because you requested a reminder from One Laptop per Child about our limited-time "Give One Get One" program. Starting Monday, November 12 at 6:00am EST, you will be able to donate one XO laptop to a child in the developing world and also receive a laptop for the child in your life, by visiting www.laptopgiving.org or calling toll-free 1-877-70-LAPTOP.

"Give One Get One" is the only time we are making the revolutionary XO laptop available to the public. For a donation of just $399 ($200 of which is tax-deductable), you will be giving the gift of education. Additionally, T-Mobile is offering donors one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States, which can be used from any Wi-Fi-capable device, including the XO laptop.

We will send you another email when the program begins on November 12. Until then, thank you for your interest in OLPC. We hope you'll join us in our mission to bring education and connection to children in even the most remote regions of the globe.

p.s. I AM the child in my life.

World's Worst Blogger?

I have to wonder sometimes if I'm not the world's worst blogger. I'm probably not...there are so many blogs out there that I'm likely to be more like "average" or something, but I've read some books on blogging (or started to read them, since I love to get all excited about a book, obtain that book, start reading it and then set it aside for an unknown period of time that could end up being forever) that say things like: you should blog about only one subject.

Not only do I blog about unrelated topics, There, IMVU (you can't really say those two are unrelated, but you could say that the number of people interested in posts about BOTH places is severely limited), Yelp, Cancerous Cats, Misc (a category I could probably rename "things that could be of interest to my mother, because she can read them aloud over the phone to my grandmother" but that's a little long for a tag) but I am not even that good about tagging my posts in the first place.

So I have to wonder...is my blog actually of value to anyone besides myself? I do stumble onto blogs sometimes that I find interesting and that give me hope. One I recently took an interest in is about one person's life and foodie experiences in Paso Robles, CA, which also included a bunch of stuff about her struggles with yoga. Now I admit, I am MORE interested in the foodie experiences and winery stuff, especially in Paso Robles, but I do find the yoga stuff interesting as well and even enjoy reading little bits about her life. And why not? It's much more interesting to learn about a person so you can better relate their experiences to your own and better interpret the things they say that brought you to their blog in the first place.

Maybe to learn what makes a good blog, I need to spend more time reading blogs and less time reading books about what someone else thinks makes a good blog. Probably the number one thing is just posting to it regularly. November is a good month to do that, too, because it's NaBloPoMo.

If you actually enjoy reading my blog, or even if you think it sucks, feel free to leave me a comment. I love just knowing someone is out there. I try not to be annoyed when people email me or talk to me in person and indicate they were reading my blog, but I can't help thinking "if you had something to say about it, why didn't you...you know...share with the rest of the class?"