Friday was the last day of school for the children here, and all 3 of mine did excellent this past year. Two of them are now moving on to Middle School, and my smallest moves on to the next grade in Elementary. Since the school year came to a great end, we decided to take the kids to Sea World Orlando on Saturday, just to have some fun.
It has been very hot here recently, and the temperature on the ground was well over 100 degrees. We started off early and the kids got touch and feed the dolphins, something they all were wanting to do. After lunch we headed for the kids park inside Sea World where there are various rides and activities for kids.
First ride up was the carousel. My wife and kids, along with others from our family, got on the ride as I headed off to find some shade as I couldn’t take the heat much longer. The ride was beginning to stop and after chatting with my brother-n-law for a bit, I got up to meet the kids. I then noticed a park employee running with a small child and their mother out of the ride area, after a second I realized it was my wife and smallest daughter.
I shot off and ran to them at which time they arrived at one of the medical stations inside the park. My daughter was crying, my wifes hands had blood all over them and I was about to freak out. We were met by one of the parks paramedics which quickly took her into a room and proceeded to clean her wound. She apparently slipped while stepping off the carousel platform, hitting the platform itself, and causing a laceration under her chin.
After cleaning and bandaging up her cut, they gave her a Shamu plush toy, and after talking with the security and paramedics, they drove us out to our car. We then headed towards the nearest hospital which was about 5 minutes away, and checked in at the ER. She was in a room within 15 minutes, and after getting a few stitches, we were out in just about an hour. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon. Overall, she is OK and I appreciate the messages I received asking about her.
I really have to say the staff at Sea World were the best, along with the folks at Dr. Phillips Hospital. Although the first day of summer vacation ended with a trip to the ER, the people who took care of us made a tough situation at least a little better.
I am still fairly new into my DSLR adventures, but since I bought my Nikon D40 I have begun purchasing some accessories I would consider essential. One of the first things I was concerned about was keeping the camera clean, the lens in particular. The D40 and lens certainly wasn’t cheap, so I did plenty of research before deciding on what cleaning system to get.
After reading review after review I decided to pick up the Nikon Lens Pen cleaning system. One reason is that it seemed to have a very favorable rating overall, and the other reason was that it is a simple solution. I really wanted the most efficient way to clean the lens that isn’t going to fill my camera bag with useless stuff.
Another bonus was that it is less than $10, so really no harm in trying it out. It arrived just in time for my trip to Sea World, where I had no doubt I would need to clean the lens at some point in my trip. Wouldn’t you know just an hour or two into the day that I accidently put my finger on the lens, so now was the time to see if my purchase was worth it or not.
On one end, there is a retractable brush to wipe away any loose dirt or debris. The opposite end of the pen has a cleaning tip with some type of solution on the pad. First you brush the lens, and turn the pen over and wipe the lens in a circular motion with the cleaning pad. I was worried the cleaning solution would leave streaks, but I have to say the lens came out as clean as the day I took it out of the box. I was able to clip the pen to my camera strap for quick access if need.
For less than $10 you really can’t go wrong with the Nikon Lens Pen. It’s a simple, but highly effective solution to cleaning the lens of your camera, whether it’s a DSLR or just a point and shoot. Regardless of the type of camera or brand you are using, I definitely recommend making space for the Nikon Lens Pen in your gear bag.
I have spent a good part of the day playing with different themes, and tweaking the current one I am using. I actually like it, but wanted to see what other configurations would look good. I have been using the two-column setting for a while, so I added the third column just to see how it will work. So far I like it, but I’m not sure if I like the reduced space of the main column. What’s your opinion?
I’m also looking at adding Disqus comment system tomorrow, just to see how that works out. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what direction I want to take my blog in, but I guess I will just keep working at it. So as I said, I’m working on it this weekend, so if you see any weird stuff that’s just me messing around. If you have any suggestions or comments please let me know.
I will admit that at one time, I was pretty excited about Facebook. I really couldn’t tell you how many people I had join up, but it certainly was a decent amount. There were all these cool applications to go with Facebook, all kinds of people to meet and get in contact with, so-called “A-list” bloggers would post daily about something related to Facebook…..and then it stopped.
It didn’t happen overnight, but to some people it might have seemed that way. The “buzz” about Facebook has declined significantly, and the bloggers who couldn’t get enough of Facebook have pretty much abandoned it. Traffic to Facebook has been down, as much as 10% according to some analysts. Now I have seen quite a few websites do reader surveys asking about the decline of Facebook visitations, and there are various reasons that have been listed.
I still use Facebook on a daily basis, but the excitement just isn’t there anymore. For me, I just think Facebook isn’t “cool” anymore. The application requests were cute at first, but quickly became one of the most annoying things on the internet, right up there with music on someone’s MySpace page. I think a lot of people also started asking, “what is the point of Facebook anyways?” Yes, it’s great for connecting with friends, and some networking, but what else? If I want to keep up with my friends and associates, I turn to Twitter despite the incredible amount of downtime Twitter experiences.
Is this the end of the line for Facebook? I don’t think so, but traffic to Facebook will slowly continue to decline. Profile pages are scheduled for an overhaul in the coming weeks, but from what I have seen already, I don’t think it will make much of a difference. I really can’t predict what’s ahead for Facebook, but I can say with confidence that the days of Facebook being the number one “social network” are definitely over.
The series has been a quietly celebrated one, and it’s easy to see why. Focusing purely on turn-by-turn galactic conquest, GalCiv sets itself apart with an impressive AI and a deep set of features.
The Political Machine was a tongue-in-cheek look at North American politics released just in time for the 2004 presidential election. For the latest on The Political Machine 2008, we sat down with Brad Wardell, the lead designer as well as the president and CEO of Stardock Corp.
It’s pretty much confirmed that a new iPhone will make its public appearance in the next few weeks. Now all the talk is related to the iPhone supporting 3G, which is great, but there are a lot of people, including myself, who will not upgrade just for that. I would hope that the upgrade shows us a host of new features, not just a network speed boost. So with that I wanted to list some features I would like to see added, aside from 3G.
GPS. The “Locate Me” feature is nice, but it does not compete with true GPS.
Better Camera. A much higher resolution for the iPhone is needed, and it makes such an advanced phone lag behind some others.
Video Recording. That pretty much says it all.
These are my top 3 requests. So how about you, what else would you like to see besides a 3G update?
I released a new wallpapers today, along with a matching logon for Windows Vista. The wallpaper pack has a wide variety of screen resolutions including widescreen. For Vista users, there is also a logon available, and you will need LogonStudio Vista (free) to apply it.
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