Thanksgiving

Well, another Thanksgiving is behind us. Thanksgiving aka Turkey day, happens to be one of my favorite holidays. I like turkey, and mashed potatoes, and stuffing.

However it has been a rough week. The big problem, Billie got sick. She had a fever. And of course it was worst Thanksgiving. Why does she always get sick late at night, weekends, and holidays?
So Friday the husband took her to the Urgent Care office as the regular doctor's was closed. They checked for strep, flu, all negative. So he said it was a virus, and sent him off to Publix for antibiotics.
We now think Billie is allergic. She got worse after we started the medicine. She got a little rash and started to have the nastiest blow out poo's I have ever seen. Trust me you do not want any more detail than that.
So we stopped the medicine yesterday. And not to much surprise she is much better today. So far no nasty blow outs, no screaming aches, and the rash is fading away. Granted, the rash may have only been heat rash, as Billie seems to get it a lot, but who knows.

SocialScope started acting up again today on my BlackBerry. After a quick email, which did not get a reply, it was back up and running. I keep UberTwitter installed as my back up. But twitter is not the same without SocialScope. I really hope it has not been abandoned. I am not sure as we have not had an update in a long time nor any tweets from their official twitter account.

I got some deals online at Amazon and Wal-Mart over the past few days. Mostly at Amazon. I think I have finished for the girls, and the husband. Now to finish everyone else.

Day

Been a long hard day. I'm jealous of everyone with the new 9700. It sounds like it gets a lot more out of its battery.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon. Lots of turkey. I love turkey.

Kinda blah today.

Sunset On Another Adventure

It felt strange returning to work and my normal life this week. Clearly the Nasa Tweet-Up had more of an affect than I would have guessed. Was it the people? Was it the message? Was it space itself? Who knows. I am not going to question it.

I have never been around another group of over 100 people who, for the most part, didn't know each other, that were all so nice and friendly. If only every one and every gathering was like this. It would be wonderful.

Clearly Space Exploration is important. And just as clear, many people have forgotten about it. Can you blame them? These are not the best of times. Regardless of which side you are on, who or what you believe, times are tough. But that doesn't mean we let something as monumental as space pass us by. Exploration is what we do.
Plus, I would rather be visiting the ETs first than have them visiting us. With our sci fi movies, tv, and books, we are all bound to think they are here to kill us, enslave us, or eat us. Gets good ratings, box office sales, or best seller lists.
Maybe I should write a story where the aliens are not here to use and abuse us. . . .

Some great places to check out -
http://spacetweepsociety.org/ A lot of the members of this group were at the tweet-up, they are good people.
http://savenasa.ning.com/

NASA Tweet-Up Day 2

Here is the correct link to my flickr pictures from the Nasa Tweet-Up. Yesterday apparently my copy and paste was missing the majority of the number at the end.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissaox/sets/72157622811798508/

I am very tired and just finished loading the pictures. I am going to try and get my husband's video online, but I am not sure I will make it.

Watching the launch from so close was amazing. The sound was so loud and the light was so bright. There really are not good words to do it justice. It is much better than watching from my back yard.

NASA was great to us and we would all love to go back again. Everyone we met, and there were a lot of you, was wonderful.

Day 1 Of #Nasatweetup

What a great time. I am so worn out, so I plan on making this quick.

First, pictures - http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissaox/sets/721
These are the pictures both myself and @dave_ox took.

We got to meet @astro_dave and @nasa and @rocky_sci to name a few. It was amazing.
We got to get so close to the launch pad, the one with the shuttle on it. The bus tour was great too. We saw the VAB and the crawler.
Somehow we made time for the 3D Imax movie and the ride that simulates a launch.

One thing is for sure, my feet hurt and I am tired. Tomorrow up early to head out to the park and get bused to the press site to see the launch.

Listing at Nasa

We are hearing from @astro_mike talk about the crew on the shuttle set to launch tomorrow. They sound like great people.
So far this has been great at nasa today. :)
Lots of cameras flashing and clicking. Lots of laptops and video cameras.
They are trying to get our netbook connected now. Doesn't look good. It just doesn't see the network. Blackberry does tho.

At Nasa TweetUp

We are here and the lecture has began. Its cool seeing shuttle parts and hearing stories.
Check us out on twitter, we are using #nasatweetup.
Its a little chilly here but its fun and interesting.
We are hearing about the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge and alligators.

Updated Nasa Tweetup Streaming Link

The updated link for the streaming of the Nasa Tweetup tomorrow morning is - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tweetup. The Tweetup will be broadcast from 8-10 a.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 15.

I can't wait. I am excited and nervous. :)

Long Day

For a friday it was a long day. I finally got my email that my account was fixed. Then I got an email from blackberry that I needed to validate my new wow email. I panicked. Thought I was being hacked again. I wasn't.

The real work began after I logged in and realized all my stuff and the guild bank stuff was in my email. :( talk about a pain. I'm still not done.

We did get to watch The Mentalist tonight. It was a great episode and I can't wait for next week. Hopefully I will get to watch Fringe soon.

My mom called me today at work and wanted to know how to turn her BlackBerry on.

Another Day

Well, today was not the best of days. My alarm did not go off, so I overslept. Not by much, just fifteen minutes, but its still not the way you want to start the day.

All day at work I checked my BlackBerry for an email from Blizzard. I finally got one, but it was not what I hoped. It was a survey about the professionalism of the guy in game. Please, just fix my account so I can play. I am losing all sorts of honor, experience, and such as I can't play.
Ok, WoW rant is now over for today.

I know I have talked about the Kindle a lot. I was planning on something else tonight, but I read an article I have to share here, on SlashGear. Kindle DX not suitable for the blind says advocacy group.
I am sorry, I don't mean to sound mean, but blind students have to purchase special text books already. Why does it affect the Kindle?

So who has moved to Windows 7? I did at the end of October from XP. I loved XP and refused to use Vista. However there is one feature of Windows 7 I adore. The previews from the tool bar is nice, but my favorite is the Bubble screen saver. Your backdrop remains the same, with whatever windows you had up. Then bubbles dance all over the screen. I am silly I know, but I love it.
I can't speak to the install process too much. I was hear when my husband was working on his. We ran into one issue, aside from having to back everything up. The key that came with his brand new Windows 7 didn't work. He called Amazon, who sent us to Microsoft. The gentleman was very nice and got my husband up and running.
My PC was done while I was out of town for work. Wasn't that sweet of my husband to do for me?

If you are not following me on twitter (you know you really should - melissaox) you might not know that I am going to the first Nasa Tweetup in Florida starting this Sunday. It concludes on Monday with the launch of the shuttle Monday afternoon, allowing me, and my husband, to be at the press site for launch. We are very excited. We welcome everyone coming for the Tweetup and the launch. This will be my first Tweetup. The ones in Orlando have been on weeknights and its a bit of a drive for me when I have to get up at 5am the next morning.
We might be on NASA TV, or even the news.
If you want to watch -
NASA will use UStream to broadcast the 8-10 a.m. portion of the Nov. 15 Tweetup at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-television. Portions of the Tweetup may be broadcast on NASA Television and online at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv. Photos will be posted online during and/or after the event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto.

I will also be taking pictures with my BlackBerry 8900 and posting them to my flickr account, http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissaox/.

My Nasty Wednesday

Today was supposed to be good. A day off in the middle of the week. Relaxing with the family. Stayed up late last night, did a Heroic Dungeon in World of Warcraft. That was fun. I got a few new items, better than what I had. And it was the first time I had done the dungeon on heroic.

Then we retied and watched last night's V and last week's Fringe. And for anyone who saw my tweets last week, I gave in and bought Fringe from amazon. It was wierd to watch at first with no ads, but cool. Fringe scared me, I thought the shadow man was going to get me. I am a chicken, and terrified of the dark.
I woke up a few times during the night. Maybe if I had thought to go log in to my WoW (World of Warcraft) account or email account I might have stopped the attack. But I didn't.

This morning when the girls woke me up and I got them situated with breakfast I checked my email where my BlackBerry said I needed to reset my password on one of my email accounts. I thought it was odd, but went to the PC to take a look and reset the password on that email account. It wasn't until I got in and saw other emails that I realized it was the email account that is now my log in to WoW thanks to the battle net account change.
It was a fairly public email I used as my contact for most everything. In hindsight, that was a bad idea.

I reset my password for WoW and found my characters naked, itemless, and penniless. I sent in an email and my husband realized both guild banks had been picked dry. He opened an in game ticket and they said my case was in queue and we should hopefully get everything back, but it would take a few days.

I have created a new email account just for my WoW account. I went through and changed all my email accounts passwords to randomized ones. A pain in the butt to type in, but more secure. I also ordered my husband and I Blizzard tokens (authenticators) we have to wait 15 days as Blizzard for whatever reason did not support any of the newer BlackBerrys for the mobile version.

When I say newer, I mean the 8900 or the Storm, both have been out for quite some time. I am not talking about the 8700 or Storm 2 that just came out.

So now I can't play WoW until they fix my account which could be several days. My in games friends and I all feel violated.
I hadn't installed any programs. Matter of fact this PC was wiped and re-loaded just before Halloween to install Windows 7. It also came up with a clean scan that was run this morning at 4am, right around the time I was attacked.

I find myself wondering what happened. And what I can do to keep it from happening, at least until I get the token which should make it impossible to happen again.
And really what did this person gain for all their work? Not much really. Is this what buying gold leads to? Not that I have ever bought gold, but I understand one theory is the gold sellers hack accounts to get the gold to sell and to spam and sell from. Wouldn't that go away if WoW sold gold legally, so to speak?

Needless to say, I haven't put much thought into it yet. I am just upset that I was drug into this mess and my holiday and week has been messed up.

Kindle On Castle

Well, before I delve into the mess of my morning I want to point out that Castle has an Amazon Kindle at the end of Castle Monday night. Awesome! Makes me love Castle even more.

More about my bad morning later . .. .

My Kindle Thoughts

So, one of my favorite new toys, my Amazon Kindle. I forgot how much I liked to read.

With two small kids and all the kid gear to take with me, I have no room for a book. With my Kindle I get to take a ton of books (plus all of Amazon's library) with me.

I used to read avidly when I was younger, pre-husband, pre-baby. Seems like a long time ago, and my oldest is 4 and a half, do I guess it has been a long time.
I have re-read some old books, read a few new ones too, like the recent book The Lost Symbol and Angels & Demons before that. And I have to mention Heat Wave based off the show Castle, a great read.
Newspapers and magazines via Kindle didn't really appeal to me, however I didn't read them before, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise. Blogs are a different story, although I could get them for free online for as little as $1 or $2 they can be delivered to my Kindle to read at my leisure. I haven't decided if I like them enough to pay yet.
I love the ability to change books easily if I don't feel like a mystery or adventure today I can read a romance novel or what ever might strike my fancy.

Do I miss the actual book? Honestly I did once, for five minutes. Then I wondered what was wrong with me. We never have any where to put books in my house, they are always stashed away somewhere to gather dust and not be seen until we move or clean. Of course, not with the children's books, but I don't read those, well, generally not by myself.

Now this is all what I think of the Kindle. I was terrified after buying it that it would be a waste, and I am very glad for me it wasn't. Results may vary, but I recommend the Kindle as a great e-reader.
And if you wonder about the Nook, I can't say too much except that I haven't used one. Oh, and let's not forget the books are generally cheaper on Amazon versus Barnes and Nobel.

Time to stop typing and start reading.

Random Thoughts

So I'm wondering, what to write about tonight. The annoying ladies at work I share the bathroom with who can't flush their seat covers? I don't think that will lead anywhere positive.

Let's try something. I have an intense urge to write. Sadly the urge doesn't provide direction. I had the same problem when I was pregnant, both times, with food. I wanted something to eat, but nothing ever seemed to be that something. It was just as annoying then. Maybe more so as I was bigger and couldn't always see my feet. You wouldn't think you would ever miss your feet, and then suddenly they become one of many things you can't get to for what seems like a very long time.

Look at me. Rambling aimlessly on about feet. I am not a foot person I swear. My youngest, Billie (often B for short) loves shoes. We have to keep her away from the shoe closet when we open it. She loves to pull them all out.

Today was an important day for B. She learned to take her diaper off in the middle of the living room while we entertained Kaylee playing Uno Rush on the Xbox 360. I squealed and Dave put her diaper back on. Apparently just in time as I changed her not 5 minutes later and it was nasty.

I should try and sleep. Not really sleepy, but I have to get up early for work. Sweet dreams.