It was not too long before I added my depreciated 2 cents. I quickly realized that I was the lone voice saying "throw them all away". I coined the phrase "untether altogether" to signify we might be better off giving up our Blackberries and smart-phones, and other digital leashes - at least part of the time.

Of course, I could not leave well enough along and end my comments with the idea we might … just might … be too entwined with those beeping, buzzing, interuptus maximi. I had to suggest I should keep my colleagues abreast of breaking news through the use of smoke signals. Oh, silly me.

<RANT>
I don’t know what it is about the way MojoPac runs programs but Symantec Firewall is not at all happy. First, the firewall is running on the host machine and not in MojoPac. This means you must keep toggling out of MojoPac back to the host to see the pop-up and then deal with it. Unfortunately, how ever it is that Symantec "remembers" the exception, it does not correspond to the actual program in MojoPac. So, you have two options, disable the firewall in the host or manually create firewall rules for ever exception that open the addresses/ports independent of the program that needs it. This can not be automated so every pop-up takes about 2 minutes of click and typing to fix things. I am sure that as a "guest" at someone;s house and using their computer, messing with their firewall rules is one of the lat things they’d let me do, just as they were saying "it was great to see you, now GET OUT!".
</RANT>

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

This part of his address should not be taken lightly. The power FDR describes helped a paralyzed nation but it could just as quickly shackled it. We must watch carefully what takes place on Main Street, Wall Street, *and* Pennsylvania Avenue.

I purchased a set of the Bodum Pavina glasses (12 oz) with the expectation they would keep my morning latte hot long enough for me to drink it. First, one arrived broken and is being replaced. Second, the glass only was able to keep my beverage warm, not hot, for 45 minutes.

If you read the description carefully, it first says; "the glass is held together tighter, resulting in a stronger glass" however it goes on to tell you all the ways to "be gentle with the glass". Given one arrived broken, I question this claim. Next, it says; "These glasses will help to keep hot drinks warmer and cool drinks cooler", but then goes on to say, "for best results retaining heat, pre-heat the glass before use." I only tried a hot beverage and it do not do significantly better than a traditional glass.

The glass is attractive but if you are looking for everyday durability, do not get the Bodum double-wall glass. If you are looking for something that will keep you beverage warm longer that a traditional glass, do not get the Bodum double-wall glass.

As always, YMMV.

Since my primary camera was digital, I also took three sets of images which I would later reassemble. The largest of these sets was 41 fames and when finished, gave me an image 7128 x 8320. The individual images were photographed at F2.8 and 1/90sec using ISO100 using a 300mm lens. I probably should have used F32 or better, added a gradient filter, and used a long exposure but I didn’t realize some of the issues I would encounter in the post production.

While the photographs are good, they do not convey adequately convey the size, color, or quality of the quilt. I’ll continue to work the composite image to color match it to the actual quilt. At some point, I will do a full inspection for image aberrations and if I don’t find any, I will track down a customer photo lab that can handle a large print.

My solution is "”Portable Apps”. There are good implementations of most of my required travel companions and one passable implementation. Here is what I travel with:

• GIMP Portable - Photo and Image Editor
• FileZilla Portable - the full-featured FTP client
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition - the handy email client
• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition - the award-winning web browser that’s safe and secure (with the Foxmark plugin)
• 7-Zip Portable - File archiver and compressor
• Windows Live Writer, Portable - Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using your current blog service.

In case you were wondering which is the “passable”, it’s Windows Live Writer. The author is doing a pretty good job but there are a couple of issues like it must be installed to the root of the portable media and it occasionally has forgotten my configuration.

I was about to try MojoPac but the forums are littered with negative commentary so I will hold off until I have time and a device to spare.

I have also used a 1GB flash drive for the above so it is pretty compact. There are some other options but this one is my current choice. Things often change. Your mileage may vary. Stay tuned for updates. yada, yada, yada.

• hand made gifts
• shop at departments stores and malls
• buy direct from on-line stores
• Amazon
• eBay
• Woot

I won’t have too many hand crafted gifts this season but I will be making a few. Currently there is only one gift I plan to suffer the "bustling crowds" for. As much as possible I will shop on-line and watching for the best bargains.

So, now that I have my blogging tools working again, it just screams to play with features and see what works and what doesn’t. The first is this “Polaroid” plug-in.

It’s funny, in a way, that we didn’t want to buy the expensive packets of self-developing film, the camera was clunky and not very flexible, and yet, we somehow love the look of a computer generated Polaroid photo on a webpage. Who knew ? I bet Polaroid is kicking themselves they did not patent the image constructs - they could still be in business !

I also downloaded another plug-in that should make posting files a bit easier but since I do that about twice each year (and I just did it 10 minutes ago), that one will not be over used.

FYI - the image is a picture of Zen when she was 15 months old playing with Dibs who was about 14 weeks old at the time. They both noticed a wooly worm making its way across the Jolly Ball. I guess parents with children can relate - it was a picture that just had to be captured !