I think I would enjoy podcast more if I actually had a MP3 player. Sort of hard to download and listen on the go without one. I explored Podcast Alley, which indexes free podcasts from all across the web. You can browse by topic or search using keywords. Although, I'm not sure how accurate their keyword search is. I was searching for some of my guilty pleasures; and, when I tried X-men, I got one called Crochet for Men. I suppose if you say them really fast, they sound alike, but still not sure how it ended up on my search results.
I've been intrigued by podcasting for a while. I think it would be fun to do a book talk/reader's advisory type of podcast for the library. But I have no idea how to start one. I don't mean the technical part. That's pretty easy to find out. I mean convincing other people to do it and getting them to commit. Any suggestions?
16 January 2009
13 January 2009
You Tube
Oh Cookie Monster in the library.
I've got a whole different perspective on this, now that I work in a library.
I've got a whole different perspective on this, now that I work in a library.
11 January 2009
Great Cruise 2008 - New Orleans
There will be more about New Orleans, later. (After I tell you about Cozumel.) For now, here is a mosaic of some of the graves we saw in Cemeteries No. 1 and 2. 
Great Cruise 2008 - Belize
In Belize we saw more Mayan Ruins. The site was called Altun-ha. This is where a carved head of Jade was found in 1968. According to our tour guide, the head is now on display in a local bank, but we didn't get to stop and see it.
Altun-ha seemed to be more complete than Kohunlich. The buildings were closer together and the jungle farther back. You can't really tell, but the next two pictures are panoramic, taken from the top of one of the buildings.
Altun-ha seemed to be more complete than Kohunlich. The buildings were closer together and the jungle farther back. You can't really tell, but the next two pictures are panoramic, taken from the top of one of the buildings.
And this was the building they were taken from. We didn't climb the really steep stairs to the top. I don't think I would have made it if we had to do that. A wooden stairway was built on the side of the ruins, so anyone who wanted to could make it up. Going back down was a little scary, cause you had to take a couple of the original stairs down before the wooden one started up again. But they don't tell you that before you go up.
One more thing about Belize, the port is surrounded reefs, so really large ships, like our cruise ship, aren't able to come into the port. We got do what is a called a "tender port". Smaller boats came up to the cruise ship and we would board them; then they would take us into Belize. Although these boats were much smaller than the cruise ship, they still could carry about 50 -75 people at a time. They had two seating areas, one enclosed and one above open to the air. Going into Belize, I sat up top. We went so fast that my hair came out of my pony tail and created a huge rat's nest on the side of my head. The moment we got off the boat, someone in a dolphin suit grabbed me and someone else took our picture. It later went up in the ship's gallery. I wasn't even tempted to buy that one.
One more thing about Belize, the port is surrounded reefs, so really large ships, like our cruise ship, aren't able to come into the port. We got do what is a called a "tender port". Smaller boats came up to the cruise ship and we would board them; then they would take us into Belize. Although these boats were much smaller than the cruise ship, they still could carry about 50 -75 people at a time. They had two seating areas, one enclosed and one above open to the air. Going into Belize, I sat up top. We went so fast that my hair came out of my pony tail and created a huge rat's nest on the side of my head. The moment we got off the boat, someone in a dolphin suit grabbed me and someone else took our picture. It later went up in the ship's gallery. I wasn't even tempted to buy that one.
Not only is Belize the only English speaking country in Central America, it also has its own special language. Here are some the words and phrases we learned:
belize it or not
unbelizeable
seeing is belizing
I can't belize it
Great Cruise 2008 - Costa Maya and Guatemala
Well, I finally got all my pictures from the cruise I took in December. So I'm now ready to blog about it. Yeah!
We left from New Orleans on Dec. 7th. Spent a day at sea, and then arrived at Costa Maya on Dec. 9th. On our day at sea we explored the ship, which didn't take as much time as we thought. When we first saw the ship, we thought it was huge! Then we realized most of the ship was devoted to rooms and a casino, so really not that big. They did have a library, which we both needed since after we explored we spent the rest of the day by the pool reading and discovered we did not bring enough books. So I've got a new series to read thanks to the cruise.
Our first landing was Costa Maya. As we were approaching the port, Mason and I went up to the deck to watch. When we made it, I looked over the side and saw dolphins! Three or four dolphins were swimming around the front of the ship. They were kind of hard to see because they kept going too far under the water, so you didn't know where to look for them. So I got to see wild dolphins. Woo hoo!
Our visit was first that Costa Maya had in over 2 years. In 2005 it was hit by hurricane Dean and its taken them this long to recover and rebuild enough for tourists. You can still see a lot of dead trees and building skeletons along the cost.
Our visit was first that Costa Maya had in over 2 years. In 2005 it was hit by hurricane Dean and its taken them this long to recover and rebuild enough for tourists. You can still see a lot of dead trees and building skeletons along the cost. In Costa Maya we took a tour to the Kohunlich Mayan Ruins. I took a lot of pictures here, but here are the best.
This is a coconut tree typical of the area. The coconuts are itty-bitty and grow in clusters. 
Bats live in some of the temple ruins.
Bats live in some of the temple ruins.
One of the pools. The ruins are the very top of the mountains, so they have to have pools to collect rain water. Otherwise, it all runs away.
The man in the jaguar mask. There were four carvings like this in one building.
Guatemala was the second county that we visited. The coastline was a bit more like I expected tropical/Caribbean countries to be, with jungle going right down to the sea.
Here we took a very scary bus ride to a jungle park. The bus itself wasn't scary, but the roads were. You know those narrow, twisty little roads you hear about other countries having? Well this was one of these, only going up a mountain, with no guard rail. But the jungle was beautiful.
This is a typical tree found there.
And we got to swim in the river. Yep, I swam in the jungle. And I had little jungle fish nibble on my toes.
We could've stayed there a lot longer than what the tour let us. The water was cool and very beautiful. I loved the way the sun feel on it though the trees. The jungle was nice too. It wasn't too hot or humid, to me at least. Mason later told me she was dying of humidity. But she lives in a desert while I no longer do. It was really very pleasant. And we got our first souvenirs here too. Our guide gave everyone a little worry doll. The dolls are maybe an inch tall and dressed in traditional clothing. You tell them your worries at night and put them under your pillow. In the morning, if the doll is gone, then your worries will be too.
Next post . . Belize.
Next post . . Belize.
09 January 2009
Web 2.0 award site
For Thing 19 we get explore a Web 2.0 award winning site. The awards comes from SEOmoz.org, which searches for the best of the best in 2.0 web sites. Since I'm going on a trip to Wales this year, I thought I would check out the winner of the travel category, Farecast.com
Farecast predicts when the prices for air travel will be lowest, so you don't have to worry about when the best time to buy is. They will tell you. You just tell them the when and where. At least, this is what its suppose to do. Apparently they can't do this for international flights yet. I still got prices for flights from all the major airlines and air fare sites (they grab the prices listed on Orbitz and Expedia and Hotwire and a whole bunch of other travel sites and compile them for you too) but no predictions on when the best time to buy would be. I may try it again for my Christmas flight this year, just as soon as I figure out which family member I want to visit with in 2009.
Farecast predicts when the prices for air travel will be lowest, so you don't have to worry about when the best time to buy is. They will tell you. You just tell them the when and where. At least, this is what its suppose to do. Apparently they can't do this for international flights yet. I still got prices for flights from all the major airlines and air fare sites (they grab the prices listed on Orbitz and Expedia and Hotwire and a whole bunch of other travel sites and compile them for you too) but no predictions on when the best time to buy would be. I may try it again for my Christmas flight this year, just as soon as I figure out which family member I want to visit with in 2009.
03 January 2009
Thing 18 - Online Documents
Hey, I remembered a Thing's number. Yeah!
More than just web pages can be created for the Net now. You can create documents online and not have to worry about saving it to a disc or flash drive. You can save them online. Google Docs and Open Office are probably the biggest two providers of this type of service. Since you're saving documents to on online server, you don't have to worry about carrying around discs or drives or going back to the same computer every time you need to work on a document.
Open Office seems to have more features, like drawing, but you have to download the software on every computer you use. So that could be a bit inconvenient. The type of program I use most is Publisher, and Google Docs doesn't really have anything close to it, yet. They're mostly for Word and Excel type documents. Reports and spreadsheets -- they make the business world go round.
My computer still has the Corel Office Suite on it (yes, it's old. I am aware), so I have been using .rtf a lot. I'm always asking what type of file it is that is being sent and always asking them to convert it to .rtf. It's rather annoying. But with online documents, I don't have to worry about such things. I can create, print and/or share my documents without having to worry about whether or not my computer can read it. As long as it can open up the Internet, it can open up the documents. So whenever Google Docs comes up with a Publisher-like program, I'm so there.
More than just web pages can be created for the Net now. You can create documents online and not have to worry about saving it to a disc or flash drive. You can save them online. Google Docs and Open Office are probably the biggest two providers of this type of service. Since you're saving documents to on online server, you don't have to worry about carrying around discs or drives or going back to the same computer every time you need to work on a document.
Open Office seems to have more features, like drawing, but you have to download the software on every computer you use. So that could be a bit inconvenient. The type of program I use most is Publisher, and Google Docs doesn't really have anything close to it, yet. They're mostly for Word and Excel type documents. Reports and spreadsheets -- they make the business world go round.
My computer still has the Corel Office Suite on it (yes, it's old. I am aware), so I have been using .rtf a lot. I'm always asking what type of file it is that is being sent and always asking them to convert it to .rtf. It's rather annoying. But with online documents, I don't have to worry about such things. I can create, print and/or share my documents without having to worry about whether or not my computer can read it. As long as it can open up the Internet, it can open up the documents. So whenever Google Docs comes up with a Publisher-like program, I'm so there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)