- September 5, 2012 -

Hello family, friends, & readers! Not much new to report ... had an FD call for mutual aid to an unknown fire in McKinney & I missed it. Disregarded. I didn't miss anything. Phew! then we were toned out again to the same fire, but this time it was a confirmed structure fire. Darn, I DID miss something! 2 calls & a structure fire. Rats! The city council meeting was boring which was a good thing, I knitted another panel for my afghan & knit the last panel today which will finish it up (look for a pic on facebook later & one in tomorrow's blog post). After that it was Sims time. My #1 downloads game. On the Sims 3 11th birthday last year, I downloaded all of the #1 downloads. The #1 downloaded lot was the Yellow Country Estate (1st pic). Household was Friends (7 of the most beautiful Sims I've seen!) & pictured (2nd pic) is my favorite, Lora. Then I created my Sim to go with them, who is wearing the #1 downloaded shirt, pants, shoes, hair color, etc. (3rd pic). The next pic (4th pic) is just a screenshot of the living room of that house. Pretty, isn't it?! And of course all of this is located in the #1 downloaded world ... Cornucopia. So, with everything created & set up together, it's time to play. 1 tiny problem though ... there's a maximum of 8 Sims per lot. I have 8 already, which means none of them can marry or reproduce. As much as I liked all 8 Sims, I had to kick out at LEAST 5 of them. That way, 2 of them can marry & have a child & 1 of them can at least marry. So, I kept my favorite, Lora ... My Sim, & my 2nd favorite, Natylsha. Lora married Jackson Ziegler & had a Son, Kyle. My Sim married Efren & had a son, Efren Jr. Nat married Bill & unless someone dies, isn't going to have a family. Jackson was older when Lora met & married him & he aged up into an elder, so he's going to be the 1st to go. The house may be beautiful, but it's TINY. It only had 1 room upstairs that was large enough for a double bed. I had to convert the garage & turn it into a triple bedroom & then grab & expand one of the rooms upstairs which changed the look of the house from the front, but I think it looks just as good as it did before. I now have 5 double beds in the house & both sons can marry & their wives will have a place to sleep & have a child. Of course, to pull that off I'd have to kick out 4 Sims. That means all 3 husbands ... Jackson, Efren, & bill go, along with Nat. That will leave me, Lora, Kyle, Efren Jr, their future wives (Kyle is going to marry Juana who he met in kindergarten), & their children. I hate kicking people out of the house, but that 8 Sim limit makes it mandatory if I want future generations. WOW is it hard keeping track of & directing 8 Sims! You ... you need a shower. OK, you ... you need to go eat something. What are YOU doing? Nothing ... OK, go play your guitar, you need the skill for your job. You, you, & you ... go to bed, you have work in the morning. Wait, someone needs to change the baby's diaper ... uhhh ... ok, you ... stop playing the guitar, go change the diaper, then back to the guitar. Who did I miss? Oh yeah ... you ... you go & prepare dinner, we're almost out of food ... ::: sheesh! ::: Both kids are in grade school now, so I have to make sure they go to school, 1 is supposed to be getting better acquainted with his future wife, the other needs to MEET his future wife, make sure they do their homework when they get home, none of these Sims has the neat trait, which means none of them automatically clean up after themselves & 8 Sims can very quickly leave a stinky mess of empty plates all over every available surface, & the worst part? Remember I said it was a beautiful house but small? There's only ONE bathroom. Yep, 8 Sims all having to go to school or work in the morning & ONE tiny bathroom. What a huge pain in the __________! Games are supposed to be fun, not harder than real life. LOL! I love every second of it though. :) I went to bed earlier than the night before & was actually tired which was a good thing. Except ... I got in bed & although I was exhausted, I couldn't sleep! I was up for another 3 hours, doing NOTHING but wishing I could go to sleep. I finally did & then forced myself to get up when I was originally supposed to. Now I'm SO tired. My eyes are dry, I want to go to sleep in the worst way, but I don't dare or I'll just have the same problem again tonight. Milligan Water meeting Monday.

100% down plan is always the best idea when buying a home. That way, you don't have any payments.

Attach a magnetic strip to the inside of your medicine cabinet to easily store metal nail clippers, tweezers, or scissors.

Color Splash:

*** Selected by Apple for the App Store Hall of Fame ***
ColorSplash™ lets you quickly and easily give photos a dramatic look by converting them to black and white, while keeping your chosen details in color. This effect draws the viewers' attention to the colored areas, creating striking images.
The intuitive and responsive multi-touch user interface makes ColorSplash amazingly easy and fun to use. Use your finger as a brush to "paint" sections of your image black and white, or to bring back the original color. Zooming in and out using the two-finger pinching gesture allows you to work on details with pixel-accuracy.
Features:
- Video tutorials explain the use of all features and will have you editing your images in minutes.
- Share your edited images on Facebook, Flickr or Twitter.
- Save multiple sessions to resume your work later.
- Undo any number of accidental brush strokes.
- An alternative view mode highlights the regions that will remain in color with a red tint. This makes it easier to see and adjust the boundaries between color and black & white regions.
- Choose from 4 different brushes (hard or soft edged, opaque or transparent)
- Work in landscape or portrait orientation.
- Hide the toolbars in full screen mode.

Katie Couric makes network anchor debut (2005):

On this day in 2005, Katie Couric makes headlines--and TV history--with her highly publicized debut as the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening news broadcast, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Couric, who served as co-anchor of The Today Show from 1991 to 2006, replaced Dan Rather, who anchored CBS Evening News from 1981 until his retirement on March 9, 2005, in the aftermath of a controversial story about the military record of President George W. Bush. (Bob Schieffer served as interim anchor between Rather’s departure and Couric’s debut.) Barbara Walters was the first woman to co-anchor the network evening news, when she was paired up with Harry Reasoner on the ABC Evening News from 1976 to 1978.

Couric was born on January 7, 1957, in Arlington, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979. That same year, she began her career in journalism as a desk assistant at ABC News in Washington, D.C. During the 1980s, she was a TV reporter in Miami and Washington, eventually becoming a Pentagon correspondent for NBC. On April 5, 1991, Couric became the permanent co-host, alongside Bryant Gumbel, of The Today Show, where she was known for her perky on-air personality as well as her hard-hitting interview style with politicians and other newsmakers. On April 5, 2006, after months of speculation in the media, Couric announced she would leave Today. That same day, CBS officially confirmed that Couric would become the anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News. Her salary of $15 million per year--which made her TV’s highest-paid news anchor--reportedly remained the same. Couric said farewell to Today Show viewers on May 31, 2006. Meredith Vieira, a former co-host of Walters’ daytime chat fest The View, replaced Couric on Today starting in September 2006.

Couric’s heavily hyped September 5, 2005, debut on the CBS Evening News attracted large numbers of viewers, but the show’s ratings later dropped below those of competitors NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson. Some critics charged that Couric didn’t have the hard-news experience and gravitas of her CBS predecessors Rather and Walter Cronkite.

Room-service waiter:

Delivers food to your room at hotels that have restaurants.

Tip: 15-20% of the total charge. Check the bill to see if the gratuity has already been included (it usually is for room service). But don't confuse this tip (it's identified as "gratuity") with a "delivery charge." The delivery charge isn't the same; the server doesn't receive any of this charge.

Star Cross Key:

Unlock the secret to love with this heart key pendant! Made out of surgical grade stainless steel with wood inlay and cubic zirconia, this pendant will surely be the key to the heart!

Thew:

1a: Muscular power or development b: Strength or vitality. 2: Muscle or sinew - usually used in plural.

"Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, & big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit," retorts Falstaff to Justice Shallow in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2.

"Thew" has had its strengths & weaknesses since it entered the English language. in Middle English it carried a number of meanings, referring to a custom, habit, personal quality, or virtue. The word began to tire in the 16th century as these became obsolete, but it was soon revitalized with a new meaning: to describe the quality of physical strength & later for the muscles demonstrating that quality. In time, the word buddied up with "sinew" in both literal & figurative turns of phrase, as in "the thews & sinews of my body ached" & "their love affair was the thew & sinew of the story."

To minimize jet lag, reset your watch to the new time zone. It helps you adjust psychologically.

What color are an emu’s eggs?

Very dark green.

What was the world’s first fully computer-generated full-length feature film?

Which airport is the busiest, 2nd busiest, & 3rd busiest?

A. London Heathrow

B. Atlanta

C. Chicago O'hare

Which of these events happened in the 1980s?

Tienanmen Square protest, 1st test tube baby born, the Reagan administration, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mother Teresa wins Nobel Peace Prize, boycott of the Moscow Olympics, nelson Mandela freed.

Which QB has the most, 2nd most, & 3rd most TD passes?
A. Fran Tarkenton

B. Brett Favre

C. Dan Marino

CBA. Favre is the Iron Man of the NFL - the only player to have started every game his team has played over the past 15 years.

You're not entirely __________. You do have some redeeming qualities. For instance, __________.