Sylvania g meso Netbook – Review

2009 March 10

dscn6376I once had an Asus Netbook.  Asus bad.   Asus very bad.  To replace that very bad netbook, I went shopping and looked at the MSI Wind, Acer, Dell, Everex, and Lenovo, and I settled on probably the least known of them all, the Sylvania g meso.  Hey, doesn’t Sylvania make light bulbs?  Yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before.

Although the others had a lot going for them, the Ubuntu Linux distribution with Netbook Remix from Canonical that comes native on this little guy is what sold me.  I was able to load Ubuntu NBR on the Asus, but it was a nightmare and took three days and all for nothing because the hardware failed a couple days later. Read Full Article & Comments…

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Thanksgiving – Backfire

2009 March 8

I and three of my neighbors get together once a month or so for an afternoon of food, conversation and perhaps a movie or a card game.  Two of them are vegetarians, so a couple of years ago when we started this,  I had to partake in my first vegetarian meals.

Much to my surprise, they weren’t bad.  Barb, Dorothy and Jan can cook up really nice and tasty meals that are filling.  I’ve even prepared some myself and have done alright.  Even so, if I have a choice, I’ll take something with meaty goodness.

This past Thanksgiving, my neighbor Barb said she would be home and would like to host us for Thanksgiving dinner.  I first declined because I thought I’d be on a road trip, but that got delayed, so as it turned out, I was home.  But, I had a standing invite from my other friends Ken and Barb, whom I’d spent other Thanksgivings with and they were always a good time.  So, I told my neighborhood girls, I wouldn’t be able to attend.  I even made fun of the situation gesturing with my hands as scales as I verbally weighed my options; turkey Thanksgiving with all the trimmings vs. vegetarian Thanksgiving.  Turkey Thanksgiving with all the trimmings vs. vegetarian Thanksgiving.  Hmmmmm.

Well, turkey won out.  I even stopped by my neighbor Barb’s place to visit the girls for a few minutes before heading over to Ken and Barb’s place.  I rubbed it in Jan’s face, the only other meat eater amongst us, that I was having turkey, neener neener.

So, I headed off to Ken and Barb’s house and we enjoyed each other’s company for awhile and started in preparing some of the food.  Barb’s daughter Erica was there as well and it was fun seeing her again.  About an hour into the visit, it dawned on me that I hadn’t smelled anything cooking and so I queried about that.  Barb looked at me real funny and said “Maggie, you know what we’re doing right?”  I said no.  She and Erica are looking at each other funny and Barb said “Maggie, I’m sure I told you what we’re having”.  With a puzzled look on my face I shook my head and said nope.

Just then, I looked at Erica and it hit me.  All of a sudden, I remembered that Erica is a vegan.  OH NOOOOOO!  I felt the heat rising in my face as I realized what was ahead of me.  At that moment, I remembered how wonderful it smelled over at my neighbor Barb’s place.

Not able to hide my surprise and disappointment, I just went with it, overly making fun of the situation and we all laughed about it.  I even called Jan, Barb and Dorothy to tell them what happened and gave them the opportunity to rub it in my face, which they did royally.

So, I settled in for the duration with my friends and my first vegan Thanksgiving dinner of tofu and peanut stirfry something or other.  Yeah… uh…. mmmmm?  Uh huh.  Classic backfire.  Love ya Erica.

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Full Circle

2009 March 6

It’s strange sometimes how things work out. The people you meet, the places you go, the decisions you make, all leading you down a path fraught with disappointment or another path abounding with bliss, or even a path of indifference.

If I hadn’t been running late to the airport, I never would have sat next to that person on the plane and wound up married a few months later. If I hadn’t stopped at the casino that night, Terry wouldn’t be one of my best friends now. If only, if if. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Hindsight, blah, blah, blah.

If a series of events at work hadn’t happened last year, I wouldn’t have resigned my job and run off to Europe and stayed in a particular hostel and met Donna and her son Ian, who I’ve kept in touch with since. If I hadn’t seen Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live that night and liked his banjo music, it wouldn’t have led me to Tim O’Brien, who is now one of my favorite musicians, which led me to his tour schedule and a concert in Berkley in April, which is 30 minutes from Donna and her family in East Bay.

As events have conspired, I’ve just planed a trip to California at the end of April and Donna and I are going to see Tim in concert and I’ll stay with Donna and her family. It should be hoot.

Neat.

Cheers,
Maggie

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ASUS – Review – very dissapointing

2009 March 4

Review: by Maggie Williams

I bought an ASUS 900 netbook PC last summer for a two month road trip in Europe, it actually performed pretty well while I was there.  It got a lot of attention due to its size and I was plenty willing to tell people about it and I recommend it.  I used it for updating my travel journal, saving my pictures, email, phoning home via Skype, watching movies, and more.

When I returned home, it failed and would no longer boot.  I contacted ASUS tech support who was pretty quick to replace it.  The replacement arrived a week later and failed the very next day with the exact same problem.  I called back and they wanted to replace it again and it failed three days after I received it; same problem.  Then I had to wait for almost two weeks for the third replacement (fourth PC) and I decided then to give up on ASUS; I’d been trying to leave on another road trip, but this experience with ASUS was delaying that and costing me money.  Normally, I wouldn’t put up with such horrible service, but Read Full Article & Comments…

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Sidewalk Art (Pavement Drawings) by Julian Beever

2009 March 2

julian2a1

I recently received an email showing off Julian Beever’s pavement drawings. I found it fascinating. He creates drawings on sidewalks in chalk, which look amazinglyjulian2b realistic in 3D when viewed from Read Full Article & Comments…

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Western Washington / Lower BC Mainland Border Cams

2009 February 25

I cross the USA Canada border frequently and so I originally posted this to my blog privately so I can check the border line up web cams from my cell phone before choosing which crossing to use.  I figured why not make it public.  They start with the western most (Peace Arch at Blaine) and go east.

Feel free bookmark or add this page to your favorite social networking site by clicking the ADD THIS button to the left or to bookmark this page directly on your phone or website, here’s the URL:
http://maggiewilliams.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/western-washington-border-cams/

Cheers,
Maggie Williams

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