links for 2008-04-30
April 30, 2008 by Nicki
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Essential to Vista Twhirl users
Earn your wings
April 30, 2008 by Nicki
I had posted a little over a month ago on Bama Angels about an addition to the Soldiers’ Angels site: a real-time counter showing how many soldiers are awaiting adoption. I had been good about checking the site a few times a week, but with the way work has been lately, I hadn’t visited in a while. I was reading on Hooah Wife and friends this morning that the count is up — way up. Nearly 400 soldiers are currently in the queue.
I see that number and instantly think of the men and women that it represents. These soldiers were submitted by a friend, a loved one, or perhaps a C.O. Someone cared enough to submit them to Soldiers Angels … and now it’s our turn to let them know that we care!
What it takes
It’s a small sacrifice. One letter each week. One package each month. Packages can be any size or theme, or you can choose from those listed in the Soldiers’ Angels online store.
This organization is NOT about taking sides, pushy agendas, or political views. It is about our soldiers. Our brave men and women deployed all over the world, defending and protecting the freedoms that we cherish. It is our job to ensure that they never feel forgotten, neglected, unloved.
Will you be a soldier’s angel?
Even if you can’t adopt a soldier, at least take a look at Soldiers’ Angels list of programs. Everyone has a talent of some kind. So, why not put your talents to work for a good cause?
Be somebody’s Angel, and earn your wings.
Humpday Hilarities
I have several funnies for today, so let’s get started!
This set comes courtesy of my Cotillion sister, Conservative Belle:
A little boy was attending his first wedding. After the service, his cousin asked him, ‘How many women can a man marry?’
‘Sixteen,’ the boy responded. His cousin was amazed that he had an answer so quickly by ‘How do you know that?’
‘Easy,’ the little boy said. ‘All you have to do is add it up, like the Bishop said, 4 better, 4 worse, 4 richer, 4 poorer.’
After a church service on Sunday morning, a young boy suddenly announced to his mother, ‘Mom, I’ve decided to become a minister when I grow up.’
‘That’s okay with us, but what made you decide that?’
‘Well,’ said the little boy, ‘I have to go to church on Sunday anyway, and I figure it will be more fun to stand up and yell, than to sit and listen.’
A 6-year-old was overheard reciting the Lord’s Prayer at a church service, ‘And forgive us our trash passes, as we forgive those who passed trash against us.’
A boy was watching his father, a pastor, write a sermon. ‘How do you know what to say?’ he asked.
‘Why, God tells me.’
‘Oh, then why do you keep crossing things out?’
A little girl became restless as the preacher’s sermon dragged on and on. Finally, she leaned over to her mother and whispered, ‘Mommy, if we give him the money now, will he let us go?’
After the christening of his baby brother in church, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, ‘That priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I want to stay with you guys!’
Terri asked her Sunday School class to draw pictures of their favorite Bible stories. She was puzzled by Kyle’s picture, which showed four people on an airplane, so she asked him which story it was meant to represent.
‘The Flight to Egypt ,’ was his reply.
Pointing at each figure, Ms. Terri said, ‘That must be Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. But who’s the fourth person?’
‘Oh, that’s Pontius – the pilot!’
The Sunday School Teacher asks, ‘Now, Johnny, tell me frankly do you say prayers before eating?’
‘No sir,’ little Johnny replies, I don’t have to. My mom is a good cook.’
A college drama group presented a play in which one character would stand on a trap door and announce, ‘I descend into hell!’ A stagehand below would then pull a rope, the trapdoor would spring, and the actor would drop from view.
The play was well received. When the actor playing the part became ill, another actor who was quite overweight took his place. When the new actor announced, ‘I descend into hell!’ the stagehand pulled the rope, and the actor began his plunge, but became hopelessly stuck. No amount of tugging on the rope could make him descend.
One student in the balcony jumped up and yelled: ‘Hallelujah! Hell is full!’
A little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again. Finally she spoke up, ‘Grandpa, did God make you?’
‘Yes, sweetheart,’ he answered, ‘God made me a long time ago.’
‘Oh,’ she paused, ‘grandpa, did God make me too?’
‘Yes, indeed, honey,’ he said, ‘God made you just a little while ago.’
Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, ‘God’s getting better at it, isn’t he ?’
This one comes courtesy of Squiggle Biscuit 
Last week, I took my children to a restaurant. My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads he said, “God is good, God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And Liberty and justice for all! Amen!”
Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark, “That’s what’s wrong with this country. Kids today don’t even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!”
Hearing this, my son burst into tears and asked me, “Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?”
As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job, and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.
He winked at my son and said, “I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer.”
“Really?” my son asked.
“Cross my heart,” the man replied.
Then, in a theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), “Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes.”
Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal. My son stared at his for a moment, and then did something I will remember the rest of my life.
He picked up his sundae and, without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, “Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes; and my soul is good already.”
These two are from my friend Barb:
A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long the dachshund discovers that he is lost.
So, wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having him for lunch. The dachshund thinks, “OK, I’m in deep trouble now!” Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly, “Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here.” Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. “Whew,” says the leopard. “That was close. That dachshund nearly had me.” Meanwhile, a monkey, who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes.
But the dachshund saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up.
The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, “Here monkey, hop on my back and see what’s going to happen to that conniving canine.” Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, “What am I going to do now?” But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn’t seen them yet … and, just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says, “Where’s that darn monkey? Sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard.”
Shame, Shame, Shame
A man placed some silk flowers on the grave of his dearly departed mother and started back toward his car when his attention was diverted to another man kneeling at a grave.
The man seemed to be praying with profound intensity and kept repeating, “Why did you have to die? Why did you have to die?”
The first man approached him and said, “Sir, I don’t wish to interfere with your private grief, but this demonstration of pain is more than I’ve ever seen before. For whom do you mourn so deeply? A child? A parent?”
The mourner took a moment to collect himself, then replied: “My wife’s first husband.”
Last but certainly not least, this little cutie comes courtesy of Right Wing Sparkle:
She’s SO CUTE!!!!
links for 2008-04-29
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Who says we can’t trust Microsoft?
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An introduction to yoga nidra, a style of yoga that focuses solely on the meditative side. Also known as yogic sleep.
links for 2008-04-28
April 28, 2008 by Nicki
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A list of known spammers and various trouble-makers on Twitter
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This SO makes me wish I still drank beer!!!
For the soldiers’ requests
April 28, 2008 by Nicki
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Things with Soldiers’ Angels have been going well. I’ve so far managed to collect a box full of dental supplies from an area dentist and have received expressed interest from a couple food vendors who may be able to provide some snacks to our guys and gals overseas.
YAY! 
I’ve been spending my spare time emailing companies that I’ve run across from Google searches. I started with the list of “needed items” and went looking for vendors and manufacturers to approach regarding donations. I think in the span of one week I must have emailed a good couple hundred companies and snail-mailed a couple hundred more.
I know, I’m such a spammer … I show go work for a prohormones seller or something!
Seriously though, the effort is worth it if even one company decides to help out!
Wanna help?
If you’re interested, I am always looking for help mailing out letters and contacting companies regarding donations and sponsorships!
For Moms
April 28, 2008 by Nicki
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Mother’s Day is coming up and a friend sent me to a site showing the ring that her kids are giving her for Mother’s Day. (actually I think “Dad” is paying for it, as they’re 6 and 8, LOL!) It’s very sweet, they told her about the mother’s ring that they picked out and showed her the catalog, and then told her that “it’s a surprise!”
Kids are so cute!
Hers will look something like that, but will have the kids and hubby’s names. I thought it was very sweet and have thought about getting something similar for myself.
Jessie asked me last weekend what I wanted for Mother’s Day … I said, “A clean house.” She laughed and said, “No, really!”
I think she thought I was kidding.
Summertime approaches
April 28, 2008 by Nicki
Summer is almost in full swing. Jessie’s heading into her last month — well, really 3 weeks — left of school and she’s SO ready for summer to get here! She and Jim have this deal, if she brings home straight A’s on her report card, he will get her the Nintendo DS and Dogs game she’s been wanting.
She’s worked REALLY hard this nine weeks, and if she’s not spot on, it will be close! She had a shaky start at the beginning of the year and this is the first year that she did not spend the whole time on an Honor Roll at all. (until this year, she’d always had straight A’s) I’m really proud of her, she found her motivation (a game system/video game … what a wonderful little geekling!) and has not let up, going full tilt boogie studying and making sure her homework was always checked for mistakes.
This geeky momma is so proud!
Her class is going to the Zoo next week, and guess who is chaperoning. Yup, yours truly. (Don’t worry, I’ll pack body armor and mace! ) She’s excited to have me coming along, and I’m just as equally excited to be going. She’s still in that cute stage where it’s OK for me to be around while she’s sitting and talking to her friends … I’d better enjoy it while it lasts! LOL!!
Shopping!
Jim and I will hopefully be resuming furniture shopping soon. The new bed is almost paid off and we now need a new mattress. We’ve been to several places and found that we both liked one of the Serta models. We tried out the Tempur-pedic from one place, but you know? I was surprised to find that I really don’t care for the memory foam mattresses.
After that, we’ll probably get a new couch, but that may have to wait until we get a new house — the den is pretty cramped as it is! We got a new dining room table from my grandmother, and we both have odds and ends still in storage.
Part of me thinks it’ll be kind of fun re-arranging and replacing everything. The ‘paying for it’ part still sucks though. ;P
I think I’ll sit this one out
April 28, 2008 by Nicki
I saw that WordPress released an update over the weekend. It’s now up to 2.5.1. There’s a ton of fixes, but among the highlighted are:
- Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
- Better performance for those who have many categories
- Media Uploader fixes
- An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
- Widget Administration fixes
- Various usability improvements
- Layout fixes for IE
I doubt I’ll be upgrading because I hear some users are having trouble receiving their password emails (e.g. when it’s recovered), so I figure it won’t be too long until 2.5.2 will come along. I’ll upgrade then.
Besides, I already have a lengthy “to do” list for each of my sites as it is … don’t these WordPress people know I’m busy?!!?
Seriously though one thing about this release did pique my interest: I was reading about the addition of SECRET_KEY to the wp-config file (edit: this was added in 2.5). From what I understand, it helps secure your WordPress cookies — nice.
More security is always a good thing, right? :mrgreen: Like Fenphedra to a speed freak, heh!
And speaking of WordPress…
Have I mentioned that the upcoming South by Deep South conference will have a full-on WordCamp?
They are looking for speakers, so if you’re going to be in the area and are interested, be sure to drop by the WordCamp Birmingham wiki and leave your info!
I’m definitely looking forward to that. Mark your calendars, people! 
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