ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

Google is trying to help prevent drunk emailing. They've created Mail Goggles which asks you some basic questions before sending an email so you don't send something you regret. By default, it's only active on weekend nights but you can adjust the settings according to your own personal drinking schedule.



I can think of a few people reading this who might just benefit from this. :)

- he says "having a GPS just makes life funner."
- he has a browser folder to save his favorites that's located in the browser toolbar so he can drag a page to it when he wants to save it. Bonus points because he sorts it according to the sites he likes best.
- he says "not everything has an address but everything has coordinates!"
- he creates Word documents complete with WordArt, formatted text and clipart that he searches to find just the right image.
- he completes his work in class so quickly that he's now gone through more "free time worksheet packets" than the first grade class did the whole previous school year.
- his favorite show is "How It's Made."
- his pre-test scores at the beginning of the school year are higher than they are supposed to be at the end of the year.
- his favorite part of piano lessons is doing flash cards.
- he insists on reading non-fiction only.

Saddest part is that he sounds almost exactly like me 25 years ago (except instead of a GPS, it was a TRS-80 I was obsessed with and my favorite show was Mr. Wizard's World). Poor thing. Destined for a life of book smarts but no common sense. :)

Just trying to keep my fellow old people in the loop. Here's your Don't Act Old lesson for today:

People under 30 don't usually use abbreviations like LOL, ROFL, etc. They simply use "ha." They do use some abbreviations such as OMG or BRB but not too many. Additionally, if you're IMing and need to correct yourself, the normal method is to use an asterisk to correct yourself. Example:

Joe: Hey, did you watch The Office last night?
Sally: Yeah, it was one of my favortes.
Sally: *favorites
Joe: Mine too.

I'll keep an eye out for more lessons for old people. Stay tuned.

Meet my new BFF, my Garmin 260w.



It's portable but wide enough to be easily used in the car. In just a few days, I've already used it to find a couple of places. Blake is way more obsessed with it than I am and we even suggested he be a GPS for Halloween. I look forward to using it in pedestrian mode where we'll take the kids out geocaching, a.k.a., scavenger hunt for nerds.

I just want to give a Sarah Palin style shout out to Wichita doctors.

Ever since we moved here and had to choose all new doctors, we've had nothing but great experiences. I was nervous at first because our doctor list from our insurance company isn't lengthy so our choices are limited. For instance, when it came time to get Payton's orthodontist appointments restarted, we only had one choice. And the office is awesome. Even better is the fact that we get a medical debit card to use for medical expenses and her braces are completely paid for.

Andy and I had never gotten setup with a general doctor for ourselves so I made "new patient" appointments for both of us this week. I just returned from mine and was very pleased with the new dr. And no co-pay on top of it!

When we lived in Texas, we had issues with our general doctor being mean, our dentist talking to everybody like 2 year olds (even to Andy!), the orthodontist office being expensive and unprofessional (I had to ask the assistants to please not discuss the details of their personal lives across the room while my child was there. They were so inappropriate.), our pediatrician and eye doctors weren't available much, etc. We did change doctors around a bit while we were there trying to find a good fit but after a while you just look flaky while constantly changing records from one office to another.

Happy to report that won't be an issue here!

Man, I love her.

100% of the people in our house over 5' tall are sick today. The munchkin is doing a pretty good job of entertaining himself (and by "good job" I mean trashing the basement in the absence of much supervision).