1. Nehalem, OR at July 4.
   Nothing special for anyone outside my family. Big, big family gathering most years. Crowded yet fun from what I hear.
2. Yosemite.
   My husband’s favorite place to go. But we haven’t been since we were dating. The kind of hiking he likes to do is a bit tough with small children.
3. Royal Peacock Opal Mine
   You get to dig your own opals, and they’re in the United States. But once again, not a trip for with small kids, and I’d want to try this kind of thing someplace else first. I really love opals.
4. Australia
   I mentioned I like opals, right? But beyond that there’s plenty of interesting sights in Australia.
5. Disneyland
   Yes, been there before and I like going regularly.
6. Alaska
   Aiming to see the Northern Lights if possible.
7. New Zealand
   Just always seems so beautiful.
8. Japan
   Out of sheer curiosity. This interest doubles if my daughter does decide to study Japanese as she has sometimes talked about.
9. China
   I’d love to try this one the way my uncle did - almost all small towns rather than big cities. He says it was much more interesting that way.
10. The Moon
    So what’s an improbable wish or two?
11. Anywhere, Outer Space
    I did mention two improbables, after all.
12. Mexico
    I don’t mean Tiajuana. That’s technically Mexico, but doesn’t count for much of an experience in a foreign country. I’d want time to check out some of the more interesting areas.
13. Random driving trip.
    This is one my husband and I would love to do sometime. Pack up the car, pick a destination for the day. Stay a few days, pick a new location. Repeat. It would probably involve lots of camping.

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Bugs in the computer, that is.

My computer was crashing a lot today. This particular machine has always been exceptionally sensitive to dust. I can tell when it needs to be dusted again (about every other month) because it starts crashing.

But this time it was more than just the dust. Yes, indeed, there was a bug in my computer, of the pincher bug variety.

Know what? They really don’t like cold air being sprayed on them, even to get them out of the computer. And when the air is especially cold, coming from a can of air that has just dusted a computer, they really, really don’t like it.

As I begin this, it’s not even 9:30 in the morning my time, and the day is looking a wee bit long. Not too bad, I hope, just LONG!

1. First wakeup ~1 a.m. as my daughter wants to use the bathroom.
2. ~7 a.m. real wakeup time as my daughter and son come for a snuggle. One of the best times of the day, but I was deep asleep so a little extra groggy.
3. So’s my daughter. It takes a lot of pushing to get her ready for school.
4. Get myself ready to take her to school.
5. Walk her to school.
6. Help with morning read in her class.
7. Return home and help get son ready for his speech therapy. He tries to talk us into letting him just wear his favorite blue blankie to class. Doesn’t work.
8. Find out AVG scan on DH’s computer thinks it has spotted a trojan downloader on his machine.
9. Do online research to find out how to get rid of it.
10. Find lots of possibilities, plus the possibility of a false positive.
11. Research the various possibilities to figure out which ones I want to try.
12. AdAware finds nothing.
13. Trying Panda Activescan now. Here’s hoping it finds nothing!

I loathe false positives less than real ones, but they’re still a pain. I have to do all this research and no idea if it’s for nothing or for a huge deal. The particular trojan is a nasty if real! So glad only one computer is dealing with this.

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My sister and her husband gave me a very nice Christmas present this year - their spare TiVo plus an annual subscription. They say if I like they can just renew it each year for me rather than buying a present. Not a bad deal, but I told them I will think on it.

You see, I already have Media Center on my computer. But TiVo was the version I first tried out, back when it first came out and one of my other sisters had it. And I’ve long thought that I like it best.

Don’t get me wrong. Media Center is nice. It came with my computer that I was buying anyhow, and all I had to do was get the tuner card so that it could receive cable channels. No subscription fees.

Each one has some advantages and disadvantages.

TiVo Advantages:

• Designed just for the television.
• Great operating system. Easier to interact with in many ways.
• I like watching my shows on the television.
• Makes suggestions of shows you might like to watch, and records them. This can be turned off if/when it drives you nuts.
• I think the picture quality is better in my experience.

TiVo Disadvantages:

• Subscription fees.
• Watching a lot of television on the television means I work less.
• If you just want to record, for example, the 9:00 showing of a show every week, you can’t just type in the name and tell it to do it. You have to go by time and channel for this. Otherwise the subscription will go for all showings. This is a pain if it’s on a channel that does a lot of reruns, such as the Discovery Channel.
• My own problem - living room is really not set up for an internet connection or telephone connection, so we have a cord running through the house to the nearest phone outlet. We hope to eventually do wireless internet, but it’s not in the budget now.

Media Center Advantages:

• No subscription fees.
• Sometimes it’s nice to watch television on my computer monitor.
• Add on for the computer. Designed to deal with much more than just recording and watching television.
• Could be set up to work with the television if I cared to do it. They’re in separate rooms, so it’s not happening for me.
• When you decide you need to program in a show you’d like to record, what you are currently watching appears in a small screen near the bottom, so you don’t stop watching completely.
• You can choose the airtime of shows you want to record, so episodes run at other times do not record.

Media Center Disadvantages:

• Add on for the computer. Designed to deal with much more than just recording and watching television. Yes, good and bad.
• Watching a lot of television on the computer means I work less.
• I’ve always felt the picture quality was poorer.
• Took a very long time to figure out how to change show priorities. You have to go to the Scheduled recording section, then switch to series before you can mess around with recording priority on anything other than a case by case basis.

All in all, it’s interesting having both. I don’t know if my preferences will change or not over time. One plus to having both that I’ve already noticed is that my husband and I can more easily enjoy our preferred shows separately and together. With Media Center on my computer, not his, he hasn’t always been able to watch his shows as easily as I could watch mine.

Technorati Tags: tivo, media center, television, dvr

My desk is reaching critical mass, to where I’m going to have to clean it off soon. It was the one part of the house I didn’t clean before having company over for Christmas, and it shows!

1. Can of soda.
   This is a rare treat. We don’t normally keep sodas in the house. It’s leftover from having company over on Christmas.
2. Presidents of the United States flashcards.
   My daughter is fascinated by Presidents. Most particularly George Washington, since she learned his face off the quarter.
3. Wacky Pony
   It’s a book belonging to my son that my dad gave him. Weird book, but my son loves it.
4. Speech therapy flashcards.
   From my son’s speech therapist to help him work on his sounds.
5. Box of envelopes.
   Just seems to be their home. I never find another place for them when I clean my desk.
6. Box of toothpicks.
   Just blame my husband. I don’t know why they ended up here.
7. Extra Christmas cards.
   Really only one is extra. The other is reserved for my inlaws’ fridge for when they return home.
8. Ferrero Rocher wrappers.
   Their new variety, which is all chocolate. Pretty good.
9. 3 hole puncher.
   Just another item and its random home.
10. USB cord for camera.
    Because how else would I know where to find it?
11. Stack of random papers.
    The things that really clutter it up.
12. Jewelry bag.
    Actually something my daughter likes to use when she’s playing as a little purse.
13. Christmas card mailing list.
    Printing it was the easiest way to have my husband check who he wanted to send a card to.

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