AZDana

Archive for April 16th, 2007

Well, PS, my son, took his turn caring for the kittens, and the BBD was/is very jealous. After all, she’s his dog and he’s her person, so she wanted to know what he was doing touching another fur-person.

He brought home the kitten milk replacement, and the babies seemed to like it. Then again, how could we tell if they didn’t? On second thought, maybe they would’ve preferred a nice cup of cappuccino.

I’ve never tried scrapbooking on my own, so I was excited to test out the Online Scrapbook at heartvault.com . My first word of advice is to only visit the site while using Internet Explorer. When I clicked on the gallery, I kept getting error messages while using Firefox. I had no problems accessing the gallery when I switched to IE and everything loaded smoothly and quickly.

I really like the concept behind HeartVault. However, it seemed very difficult to use because I couldn’t find any instructions. When I clicked on the link, “Examples”, it says “To open just click on a book”. Then I wonder, which books? The ones above the “About Us” link, or the large examples below? So, I decide to take a chance and click on the picture of the bride and groom. It’s a wedding album, a very nice one, and it’s easy to figure out how to turn the pages. However, I’m trying to make my own book, so back to clicking I go.

Somehow, I managed to click myself out of my account, so I log back in. The two pictures that I uploaded are still there, and I click on “Add New Scrapbook”… but where is the picture that I just uploaded? I don’t have a clue, and for some reason, I have to log back in again.

I went through a lot of trial and error in order to make this page http://www.heartvault.com make this page. The strange thing is, the image shows up if I paste the url directly into another browser window, but there seemed to be nothing I could do to embed it into this post.

http://www.heartvault.com/asp/Book.aspx?ScrapbookID=187

Part of the directions say, “To embed this scrapbook into another web page that supports JavaScript, copy and paste the following HTML:

So then I also tried this:
To embed this scrapbook into a web page that does not support JavaScript (MySpace Blog, Blogger), copy and paste the following HTML:

And I pasted the code, not just the copy and paste that I’m showing. However, there was absolutely nothing I could do to embed the image. My son also tried to help me embed the image to no avail. I guess you can always click on the link to see the page I made.

Like I said, this is really a great idea. I really wanted to make a scrapbook showing various members of my family over the last 70 years. In my mind, I was going to start with a picture of my great grandmother, and end with a picture of the youngest member of my extended family. Right now, because it’s in beta, this site seems to be more suited to someone that is more familiar with scrapbooking. Also, it seems to be totally incompatible with Firefox, which happens to be a very popular browser. I thought I came up with a good idea for my first scrapbook, and I think that I’ll be able to implement it as soon as I figure out the learning curve at HeartVault.

PS, my son, just called from the local big box store. He found a bottle designed for feeding kittens that cost a buck and change. Makes me wonder how many abandoned kittens there are, if someone’s marketing the supplies to care for them. Then again, maybe it’s a giant conspiracy and these kittens were actually left on my door by the bottle makers! HA!

He just told me that the tiny container of cat milk costs three bucks for eight ounces. That’s FORTY EIGHT BUCKS A GALLON!!!!!

Their mother is probably out there eating a petrified rat leg someplace, and these babies will soon be drinking the most expensive liquid in my home.

Sigh.

This stuff is vile and disgusting. Some of their other stuff is pretty good for canned chili, but this is sweet and horrific. I just read the label and it appears that the people at Stagg decided to count jalapeno peppers as a vegetable. I don’t exactly mind the classification, but if you’re going to say its a vegetable, shouldn’t there be enough of the peppers to be visible to the naked eye? It actually tastes so sickly sweet that I thought I was eating chunky applesauce at first.

On the other hand, the Stagg chunkero chili isn’t too bad and is actually quite tasty compared to other canned chilis. At least, I think it’s spelled chunkero. It could be chunkerino for all I can remember right now. I think my memory’s been affected by the abomination known as Stagg Vegetable Garden Four Bean Chili.

Okay, picture this:

The little kittens are mewling/yelling, the BBD is pacing all over the place, I’m trying to write something meaningful for my other blog and then the BBD decides to try to get into my lap. One hundred pounds of dog? I don’t think so!

So I sit here ranting and complaining till MP gets tired of it. She reacts by making me wear something she calls the “shortbread cookie hat of shame”.

No, I’m not going to pose for the camera, but if I don’t start to behave myself, then MP may end up posting some candid shots at my photobucket account. Darn it all, why did I ever tell her the password?

At my last job, I had a co-worker we’ll call “Natasha” (not her real name). She was blonde, petite and had a very pleasant demeanor. She and I got to know each other when we sat together at a company dinner. It turned out that she was one of those Russian brides that met her husband online. Well, she actually pointed out that she was from the Ukraine, and was very proud of being Ukrainian. When she arrived in America, she spoke English but she watched television in order to learn idioms and slang. She actually had a good command of the language because she was very diligent about learning how to successfully communicate.

The last time I saw her, she had just managed to get her parents moved from the Ukraine to Arizona. Before they arrived, they worked very hard at learning English. They understood it well enough to read and write competently, but they were being challenged by learning how to speak it correctly. I really admire people that come here from another country and try to do their best to take their place in this melting pot we call America.

Ever watch “Beverly Hillbillies”? Remember Ellie Mae and all her critters? Well, that’s exactly what my daughter MP is like. This morning, a stray female cat found our home, gave birth in our yard and left behind two kittens which MP promptly rescued. MP says she waited a long time before deciding the kittens were abandoned. So now our dog, the BBD is freaking out from the sounds they’re making, and the other cats are not too pleased by this turn of events.

I wouldn’t expect her to leave the kittens outside screaming for hours, but then again, I wonder if MP is doing something that attracts these strays? For all I know, the local alley cats are out on the streets, handing out maps that lead straight to my front door.