Each New Day

We watched part of a show tonight entitled “Unbroke”. It seems as if it is a Dave Ramsey financial seminar for the pop culture. The show incorporated popular actors like Seth Green and the Jonas Brothers to help impart financial wisdom to those who may otherwise tune out such advice. Much of the advice was sound and very close to what Dave Ramsey might say. But some of the tactics used were a bit cheesy. After only watching about fifteen minutes though, I think it was a smart approach to help reach more people, particularly the younger crowd.

While watching a home improvement show today I learned that when making something that needs to support weight, like a ladder, out of oak wood, it is best to use brass nails. There is a naturally occurring acid in oak wood that over time can eat through steel, making steel nails not the best choice. Apparently this acid does not affect the brass nails that way.

I just learned today that Texas band students in grades 6-12 can earn college tuition vouchers by playing Taps at Veteran’s funerals! Once they become performance ready, they can send out letters letting hospitals, chaplains, funeral homes and other like places know that they are volunteering to play Taps at the funeral of veterans. After they have played they fill out a form and send it to Austin. They will be given a $25 voucher good for tuition or required fees at an institution of higher learning! For more information you can <a href=”http://www.broncoband.us/taps_tuition.asp”> read here </a>.

As I was editing a previous post on this blog site, I went into the hyperlink window. I found a little box to check if I wanted the link to open in another window. Well, yeah! That is a great way to keep folks at my blog while still letting them have a look at what I was referencing. All without having to use the back button! Anyway, it’s a nice little feature!

The other day, my husband, my son and I all enjoyed a TV commercial. That in itself is pretty uncommon! I don’t even remember what the commercial is for. It is filled with all kinds of statistics. We enjoyed seeing how many people leave their cell phones in cabs and how many people use Twitter and how many don’t even know what Twitter is (26%!) I had to laugh out loud. Until I stopped to think about it. Do I really know what Twitter is?

So I decided to take a look at the Twitter website today. It is a fairly young start-up at just three years old. It started as an idea to see what friends of Jack Dorsey were doing at any given moment. It is a way to keep track of all the goings on of friends by asking one question “What are you doing?” Answers can be rhetorical or can be given in the space of 140 characters or less. It is up to the recipient whether or not to respond. It seems to have become a favorite device to keep up with the folks in your life. Not only that, you can keep track of business as well. You can likely find your local news on Twitter, you can get info from VistaPrint, you can get headlines from Dell. AT&T uses Twitter during service outages!

Looks like Twitter is here to stay!   

Now that we get a sports channel, we have been watching it nearly every day. The last few days we have been watching the Giro de Italia. I have learned a new word used in the sport of cycling. The “peloton” is the group or pack of riders who ride together to aid each other and utilize drafting to go faster. The word is from the French meaning “group” or “platoon”.

On Monday I was traveling down the Interstate Highway taking my daughter to her volleyball camp. My car started sounding funny, lights came on and the steering was affected. I was in the far left lane heading onto an over pass so I could not pull over as quickly as I wanted. As soon as I could I pulled onto the shoulder and called my husband. He said he thought I threw a belt. After a couple of minutes I found the pulleys and belt and sure enough it was broken. Just then a wrecker pulled up behind me. I was informed that according to the county I had to be cleared off and he would tow me to the nearest gas station. As I began to speak, he said that it was a free tow. He took me to the station and even parked me in the shade. I was given paper work to read about the Safe Clear Program. You get towed up to a mile for free if your vehicle is inoperable and you have pulled onto the shoulder. He also told me that if it ever happened again all I have to do is call 311 and they will be out ASAP. Then he came back from his truck and returned my wallet that I had left in there! I was thankful for his help and honesty. My husband came and got the belt fixed within the hour! Knowing about the Safe Clear Program is a great piece of information to know!

I don’t normally like to eat out. But for Mother’s Day my husband doesn’t want me to have to cook, nor does he want to cook, so we are going out. I just can’t decide where I want to eat. At first all I could think of were the standard franchise places. Then I remembered a local steak house we ate at on Valentine’s Day. That might be a great choice, though it’s a bit late to get reservations. Another option is a new Italian food restaurant that sounds really nice. Hm. I just don’t know which one to pick.   

When writing a formal paper, it is important to give proper credit to where information was found. As my daughter is working on a biography report, she asked me to just tell her how to do the works cited page. It is just not that easy! Especially since almost all of her information has been found on the internet. There are all kinds of details to which attention must be paid when citing these sources. Every kind of website has particular rules to follow when being cited, whether it is an online article, a personal website or even an email. It is important to follow the format given for each source.

One of my son’s friends asked why sports’ arenas are called “gardens”. Pretty good question. I looked up some answers online. Don’t know how accurate they are, but they sounded pretty good! Here is what I got from Yahoo Answers:

“The word garden comes from the Latin ‘geard’ which means open space. Yard and GARDen come from this word.

Thus there all sorts of gardens, not just flower gardens…
For example: beer gardens, etc.

Madison Square refers to to the intersection that the arena is on, and garden is an open-spaced venue.”

Another similar answer at the same site:

“The term “garden” in British English refers to an enclosed area of land, usually adjoining a building. Just another term for arena.”

And last for fun:

“cause they used to grow championships there!”