jewel June 13th, 2009
But I don’t hate using Vista. I really thought I would because the couple Vista machines I had to do stuff with at work were absolutely painful to deal with. But, the machine I just bought a couple weeks ago is a much more robust system the ones at work, so, even though Vista is a resource hog, it can handle it and then some. I did turn off the annoying “are you sure?” messages on day two, though, because seeing those messages every single time I would go to do something was making me feel violent urges. So far, though, that’s the only thing I’ve outright hated. Continue Reading »
jewel April 26th, 2009
In the spring and summer months, my husband and I periodically take a drive to a few of Virginia’s many wineries. There are dozens of them, so we haven’t even come close to visiting all of them yet. They all have their own styles and personalities and it’s fun to choose a few, every now and again, and see what they have to offer.
Yesterday, we took a trip to visit 4 wineries. Village Winery, Lost Creek Vineyard & Winery, Hidden Brook Winery and Fabbioli Cellars. I linked to the Virginia Wine pages rather than the individual winery websites here because the info given is consistent and compact. The individual winery websites can be found at the end of this post. Continue Reading »
jewel May 23rd, 2008
Since I decided to take today off work, I thought I should get out of the house and enjoy this gorgeous spring weather we’re having. So, I went to the zoo. I know I was just there last month but that was part of a field trip with the photography class I was taking. And, although I got some good panda and tiger shots, there was a lot I didn’t get to. So, today I went to get some shots of the animals I don’t normally photograph and just to see what I found. Continue Reading »
jewel May 21st, 2008
Well, I hope so, anyway. I got a Wii Fit for my birthday! I’ve been wanting it since I saw it reviewed on G4 and it came out today. So, I plan on giving it a few rounds this evening. Perhaps I will even add to this post after I use it to say how I like it. 
Edited: Well, I’ve used it and …………………………………. Continue Reading »
jewel May 13th, 2008
It finally feels like spring is actually here. I swear, I was beginning to think we were going to skip spring altogether and head straight into summer. It’s been cloudy and rainy and cool and I know we’ve needed the rain, but when the weather is better in London for more than a few days, I get depressed. Continue Reading »
jewel April 27th, 2008
Yesterday my photography class met at the zoo for our second field trip. I love the zoo. I’d love to go there more often. So, anyway, I cleared off my memory cars, charged the camera batteries and off we went. It was a beautiful morning. We got there around 8:30 and met by the panda’s. They were all out and chowing on some bamboo. Mmmmm…..breakfast, said my stomach, as I remembered I forgot to pack that granola bar. Continue Reading »
jewel November 4th, 2007
Ok, I’ve narrowed down the theme choices to 3…but I really like them all. *sigh*. I suppose I can just rotate them.
They’re all shown below. If anyone cares to leave an opinion as to which one you like best, feel free. Clicking on the thumbnail will take you to a larger sized graphic.
Black Theme:
Fog Theme:
Lake Theme:
jewel November 3rd, 2007
I’ve been playing with my blog theme today. I’ve found a few that I like and I’ve edited them a bit. I’ll very likely switch between them a few times over the next day or so to see which one I like the best. I’m having fun with it.
jewel October 6th, 2007
Well, it’s kind of a hobby…
A friend at work started roasting his own coffee. It’s pretty easy to do, he said, and inexpensive, too. I was luke warm to the idea until he brought me enough roasted beans to make a pot of coffee. It was some of the smoothest, tastiest coffee I’d ever had. He used a hot air popcorn popper (the kind with a metal bottom, not mesh). Later he added a thermometer, which cost just a little more than the popper.
Well, having tasted the freshly roasted coffee, I was sold on the idea. I got a popper and a thermometer and last Tuesday I gave this roasting thing a try. It is so easy! I set myself up on my porch to do the roasting because I didn’t want to do it inside (I’d hate for my smoke detector to go off or anything). It only took a couple minutes per batch, I took each batch up to 445 degrees. Since I’m using a popcorn popper, I can’t roast that much at a time (about enough for a full pot), but that’s ok since it doesn’t really take that long to do.
Today I roasted up some more. This time I roasted them a little darker (455 temp). I’ll make some from this batch tomorrow morning.
jewel July 8th, 2007
Yesterday I was doing my normal shopping in Target when I happened by the electronics section and they actually had a few Wii’s in stock! It wasn’t on my list of things to buy, but we’ve been wanting one since they came out so, yep, I bought one.
We set it up and started playing. First you need to make your Wii Mii avatar – which is much fun in and of itself – and then you’re ready to play.
What absolute fun! We invited a friend over and spent a few hours playing the bowling game that came with it. I actually feel sore this morning from it. LOL. It is possible to get a bit of a workout playing a video game. Who knew! Of course you can set the remote to be really sensitive so that you don’t need to actually move while you play, but what’s the fun in that??
Quite a few games came with the console (Wii Sports):
- Boxing – ok fun, but tiring very quickly. Good upper body exercise.
- Golf – I’m not much for golf IRL, but the game is pretty fun.
- Tennis – It’s doubles tennis, so if you don’t have 4 players you can choose to control both the players on your side of the net or have the console control one of them.
- Baseball – I haven’t played this one at all yet.
Now we’re looking for other fun games to play on our new Wii. I love how the remote works.
