'Star Wars - Medstar II: Jedi Healer, A Clone Wars Novel' - Chapter (Part )

Well, it’s Monday and it’s the last full week before Spring vacation.  I hate to say it, but I really think I need that upcoming vacation!  I got up this morning and was exhausted because I had taken another cold pill around midnight last night and then only got about six and a half hours of sleep.  Of course I should’ve expected to be exhausted after having done that to myself.  I got up and got into the shower and took another nice long shower to help my stuffed up head.  It did eventually help to expel some of the stuffiness in my head.  I got out of the shower and felt a little bit better and then headed out to the kitchen and had a breakfast of cereal and orange juice as I watched “The Early Show” on CBS.  All I can say is that it seems as though ALL of the news media in this country is very SMUG right now over the passage of the Health Care Bill last night.  They all act like they personally were responsible for the passage of the bill and that they somehow had something to do with it.  I really don’t like the idea that this health care bill passed last night in the late hours.  First off, the bill was rushed through.  Second, the bill does nothing to resolve the real issues at hand.  The real issue has to do with the insurance companies and their horrible practices of not granting procedures to those that have health insurance.  But, this bill does NOTHING to address any of those issues.  Hey, here’s another thing to think about.  What about all the illegal immigrants in this country?  Will they be required to get health insurance, and if they don’t, will we fine them?  There are a lot of questions that remain.  And it does not appear that anyone has thought that through before passing health care.

So, anyway, getting off my high-horse, I got myself ready and I was off to work while the kids were off to school.   I got to school and set things up for my day today.  I taught the last in a series of music theory lessons to all of my classes and I am happy with how my instructional day went.  My students worked hard and got a lot of their work done.  I think it helped that I explained to them how urgent it was that we get things done before vacation.  I got done with my instructional day and had my first day of tech crew rehearsal with my tech crew.  They seemed to work well together and I think I may have a nice tech crew this year.  The real advantage is that I have a lot of repeat students who are already knowledgeable on their stations, so they’ll be able to handle taking care of things and making sure they run smoothly.  I got done with tech crew rehearsal and found out that Heather’s car broke down at work.  The mechanic at the garage believes her truck now needs a water pump and timing belt.  Well, that will cost some bucko bucks!  So, I drove home right away.

I got home and we had dinner together and then we cleaned up after dinner and I went into the basement and played “Call of Duty 4″ for about a half an hour and then watched “The Office”, and then two episodes of “Two and a Half men” while I had a spirited debate on Facebook about the Health Care Plan.  It actually was a nice spirited debate and I really liked seeing everyone else’s point of view on everything, even those that agree with the plan.  I do think that we all need to start talking in this country more so we can all agree that the parties in this country are BOTH broke!  Anyway, I got done with my debate and continued watching TV including “How I Met Your Mother”, “Rules of Engagement”, “Two and a Half Men”, Big Bang Theory”, and “CSI Miami” before heading to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part of Chapter of “Star Wars – Medstar II:  Jedi Healer, A Clone Wars Novel” by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry…..

[Via http://thegalaxycast.wordpress.com]

More Waiting - but another song!

Monday, March 22, 2010 – No news today from Iowa City. Last week the first call came on Tuesday so we are thinking this week will be similar. Kellee was in the basement today recording another song and he heard the dogs barking upstairs and found out it was his G-ma working in the yard.  Turns out – Heidi’s mom came over and began the task of cleaning up the gazillion sticks from our trees. She completed the front yard and we are very much appreciative of her hard work and her support.

So yes, Kellee wrote,  recorded and posted another song today. This one is called “Never Comfortable.” He took some of the lyrics directly out of Job 38:4-7.  It was the first one he wrote on this journey in which Heidi & I did not cry after the first listen. http://www.myspace.com/kelleevanhemertmusic

We received a nice card today from a family from church, in it was a quote which spoke right into our situation, “Patience is not passivity, its concentrated strength.”

Tonight, Heidi made a meal to place in the freezer while I went to the Barefoot Warriors prayer at TRC. There was more prayer offered up for healing for Kellee and patience for Heidi & I. Once again I was glad I went besides the prayer, there were nice words of support! When God’s people gather to pray, it is a good thing!

[Via http://braintumorparent.wordpress.com]

Leaving Facebook

你们好 or Greetings,

I have been toying with this idea for a long time. In some ways it was one of the harder decisions that I have had to make in a long time, but nonetheless I have done it. I have removed myself from the largest social networking site, Facebook.

I used to be a huge promoter and supporter of the website. I loved how you can see updates, pictures, and videos from all of your friends. I liked that people could see what I was up to without me having to be at the computer or phone the same time they were. I liked the idea of FB so much that I bought a $60 service so I could update it while I am in China.

I liked Facebook, but does it add any real value to my interactions with my friends and family? Does the one thousandth request for Mafia Wars do anything for me? Do I really want to be friends with that person I met once ten years ago? Do people care what I did over the weekend or what I am going to eat for dinner? Is it good to have passive relationships with hundreds of people and not really e-mail, call or write to those who are supposed to be close to you?

I have found out about death, marriage and children via Facebook. These used to be meaningful events in peoples’ lives that used to warrant a letter, a visit or a call. Now it seems all information is routed via Facebook and open for the world. I suppose I am nostalgic for the times my mailbox (real and digital) had some substantial information in it or when people used to talk and not text. I also realize that it has been a long time since I have put much effort in my correspondence. With these things in mind I took the leap.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not holier than thou. I like surfing FB and FB stalking my friends as much as the next person, but does it make my friendships or me any better? I suppose we will see. I deleted my account without the contact information of a lot of my friends so I hope this hasn’t disconnected us indefinitely. The plan is to try to stay off FB and see how it goes. Is it possible to be unplugged and still keep up with friends and family? We will see.

I hope to hear from you soon and you can expect a letter from me.

m

[Via http://kandm1.wordpress.com]

Remembering Barry on Facebook

For those of you who knew Barry and would like to share memories, photos, videos or anything else you can now do so on the In Memory of Barry Andrew Henderson page on Facebook.

After almost four years, I still receive messages from his friends telling me how much they miss him and I thought the Facebook page would be a perfect way for everyone to share. Thank you to everyone who has contacted me. Your thoughts mean so much to me.

[Via http://crumblingwalls.wordpress.com]

Social Media - How to Efficiently Plan Your Time

“THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TIME!”

When bombarded with ALL the social media sites, how often does the little voice in your head scream this fearful reality?

You can *conquer all obstacles* and stifle this fear by learning how to manage your time.

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management<

Today, I’d like to introduce my guest blogger who sets his schedule very similar to mine. Actually, when I read his post, I thought it was mine…lol.

Colin Welch

COLIN WELCH is the Training Manager at Silicon Beach Training in Brighton.

How to Manage Social Media Activity

Your Social Media Management Schedule:

Ever feel a bit intimidated by the fast pace of social media and the sheer volume of it all? Our Social Media Training, Blogging and SEO Training courses are a good starting place if you’re new to blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn WordPress and the like. But once you are up and running it’s still very easy to feel alarmed – but have no fear we have a solution!

It doesn’t matter how many tweets you make a day or how often you write a blog, as long as you plan your activity and break it down into simple stages. For those who struggle with this, consider our Time Management Training. A recent blog post listed the 50 most common social media mistakes and number one is “lack of planning” – planning your social media activity is crucial!

If you find yourself wondering “how do I manage my social media activity most efficiently?” then read on for our example schedule of what you can do throughout the day, once daily, weekly and monthly.

An example schedule for managing social network sites and activity: 1. Social Media Activities – throughout the day

• Tweet and respond to tweets/retweets: Tools such as TweetDeck and HootSuite are great ways to manage Twitter (see our blog post discussing the benefits of each), and if there’s a topic you want to keep an eye on you can create a search column using the related hashtag.
• Respond to blog comments on your own blog posts

A handy tool such as TweetDeck will create a pop up notification for new tweets as they happen – this helps you to keep on top of your tweeting and retweeting throughout the day. Although if you find this distracting, it can be a good idea to put aside a couple of short time slots during the day and do a quick blast of retweets, replies and link-sharing. HootSuite is a useful tool here too, as it allows you to schedule your tweets for later.

2. Social Media Activities – at least once daily

• Check Facebook: Check your profile, pages and groups and respond as appropriate.
• Add bookmarks: Scan what’s popular on bookmarking and recommendation sites such as Delicious, Digg and Mixx and add your own bookmarks (read this handy blog post about building links for free and why bookmarking sites are so useful).
• Check your subscriptions and RSS feeds: Netvibes is a useful tool for keeping on top of your RSS feeds and Google Reader subscriptions can be a good way to monitor updates – then make sure you share/tweet anything of interest to your followers.
• Check your stats: Google Analytics is the main choice but there a other tools out there – try MyBlogLog for trending links and real time information on stumbles. See our Google Analytics Course and Advanced Google Analytics Course if you need help with this.

Ping.fm is a useful tool worth mentioning here; it allows you to update dozens of social media sites through its easy to use interface, so it’s a huge time saver – read more in this blog post summary.

3. Social Media Activities – weekly

• Write a new blog post: Download the WordPress plugin for automatic Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed updates, and get it circulating. If you need help with WordPress, take a look at our WordPress Training.
• Comment on blogs: Comment on relevant blogs – this is also an opportunity to promote your new blog post.
• Check LinkedIn: Look out for relevant groups and discussions to participate in, and respond to Questions in your network – and again, promote your new blog post.
• Organise Twitter: Organise who you’re following on Twitter by grouping them into lists (and update these lists regularly) e.g. industry leaders or favourite photographers – see our Twitter lists for ideas.
• Scan Google Alerts: Look out for mentions of your name or brand – you can do this in a Google Reader RSS feed, and then respond as appropriate.

Weekly actions will require too much time to be doing them on a daily basis; things like writing a blog post may require keeping an eye on the news and trending topics, as well as research.

You may wonder why it’s worth taking time to participate in others’ discussions. Well the more generous you are, the more willing people will be to join your discussion or reply to your questions when you are promoting your services or a new blog post. See Heather’s post on the art of generous blogging.

As for how often you should blog, at Silicon Beach Training we aim to blog more than once a week, but it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re consistent – regular blogs will build your readership and keep them coming back (see Jodi’s post on keeping your blog regular).  If you’re on a roll with your blogging then consider writing a few in one day and scheduling when they’re posted.

4. Social Media Activities – monthly

• Find new Twitter follows: Try using MrTweet for recommendations or have a browse on Yellow Pages style service Twellow.
• Upload a video or photos: TubeMogul is like Ping.fm for video, a handy tool providing a single point for distributing videos to the top video sharing sites as well as providing analytics.
• Share content: We share content on our Free Resources page but social publishing tools like SlideShare or Scribd (allowing you to share documents, PowerPoint presentations and PDFs) could broaden who you reach out to, as a helpful blog post explains.

The monthly actions will take significant time, and which ones you choose will depend on your business and interests. It can be helpful if you’re working in a team – that way you can share your work load and create a schedule for who’s doing what (see our Social Media Guidelines for an example social media strategy for businesses).

The various social media management tools we’ve listed are just suggestions and we only use a few regularly – you can see just how many there our on our comprehensive list of social media links – just choose the ones that work for you and, most importantly, don’t panic! Whatever you do it all comes down to two things: consistency and monitoring i.e. checking mentions of your brand and responding to comments.

Of course our social media action plan is limited – is there any action you would add or any tool you couldn’t manage social media without?

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For more information about Colin Welch and Silicon Beach Training go to: http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk

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[Via http://joconquerobstacles.com]

The other thing the internet does

I decided a long time ago (November) that I wanted to write and so I am. I like writing. I also decided that what I would write would be for pretty much everyone I know to read. And to that end I’ve used Facebook as a lazy, mostly ineffective way to let people know I’ve written something.

Today I was going to write about Uni and how it’s been starting a new course and what people have been like there. But then I remembered that the next thing I wanted to write about before anything else is feeds.

Feeds (aka RSS) are a way of keeping up with any websites you follow. Any website or blog or youtube channel you check every now and then (or frequently) has a feed attached to it that updates every time something new is posted. This allows me to get just about everything I’m interested in reading on the internet sent to me as it’s published: TV shows, new youtube videos, news from The Australian (breaking news and Arts news), gadget news from Gizmodo and new posts from other writers who are actual people.

I use Google Reader to manage my feeds.

Just thought I’d mention this and I’ll make the feeds for my blog more public for anyone interested in using this other thing that the internet does to keep up with my sporadic posts.

As I said, I’m writing for anyone who’s interested. It’d be interesting to know who actually reads this. Let me know in person, or in the comments if you feel so inclined.

Nathan.

P.s. I don’t read newspapers mostly out of how inconvenient I find them and I use Google Reader as a substitute for this plus all the other stuff it does. If you want a better explanation as to how to use feeds let me know and I’ll help!

[Via http://xxlna.wordpress.com]

Join us on Facebook

I am increasingly finding that Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with friends, and also services, such as cafes, music events, and products that I like and buy.

So we have created a Facebook page for Myrtle Cottage Findhorn.

Please join us, and become a fan by clicking here.

Findhorn Bay and Culbin Forest

[Via http://myrtlecottagefindhorn.wordpress.com]