Surf like a man or a woman?

Your Surfing Habits are 60% Male, 40% Female

If we had to guess, we would guess that you are a man. You use the internet to make your life more efficient - and to make you smarter. For you, the internet is like a vast encyclopedia. You search and surf extensively. You look up everything online.

Do You Use the Internet Like a Man or a Woman?

How did you get here?

I always wonder how random visitors find my site and am always amazed when I look at some of the Google searches that have landed people here. This week seems to have brought more than the usual number of random hits so I decided to post some of the searches here:

• what is my princess name
• quiz on five senses
• personalities with lots of hand gestures
• julieanne seattle blog
• personality based on fridge
• personal camp barges
• my halloween name
• five senses personality test
• beer truck pictures on flickr
• diet spice cake
• how to test the five senses
• coke spice cake
• best paella
• eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you may be in utah
• sushi thumb drive
• gesture quizzes
• ikea bulla bag
• julia ann in the bathroom
• maltby latte cup drive thru

And my favorite... bathroom liquor cabinet.

Barney on Dogster

Barney now has his own profile on Dogster. You can check it out by clicking the box below. Barney says, "Come by and leave me a bone!"

Join the Dogster community

Draft Folder Clean-Up

I just realized that my Drafts folder is filled with half-written, never posted update on recent happenings in my life. Also, it's been a while since posted a bunch of random stuff all together, so here goes.

Originally titled: I can see clearly now!

I've made a couple of references to surgery that I've had recently and wanted to share a bit more about it. I had eye surgery to treat posterior capsule opacity (a.k.a. secondary cataract) on Tuesday, June 10th. The procedure is called a YAG Laser Capsulotomy and by surgery standards is pretty easy as I was able to eat and drink prior to the surgery, didn't have to deal with anesthesia or extensive pain and was back to normal within a few days.

The surgery itself was a breeze. They strapped my head into a harness which holds the laser and I had to stare at a bright light and hold very still during the procedure. The doctor had explained it all to me but I had the distinct impression that the laser would only be fired a few times, certainly less than 10, but that was a misconception because it got 96 blasts to my left eye and 104 to my right. Following the blasts the nurse rinsed my eyes thoroughly with a saline eye bath and they sent me on my way. Don arranged to work from home so he was able to drive me and then stay with me while I recovered. I had a mild headache and slept for a couple of hours immediately after getting home. When I woke, my eyes were still a bit dilated but I could already see improvement. Over the next few days it just got better and better.

I saw the doctor for a follow-up appointment one week after surgery he was extremely pleased with the results, as am I. My vision is back to the nearly normal place it was following my cataract surgery 5 years ago. I'm absolutely amazed by everything I see, it's all so shiny and bright and pretty. The one thing that I wish I hadn't seen... the age spots, freckles and wrinkles on my face, getting old isn't pretty.

Originally titled: Dancing Round the World

Famous dancer and fellow Seattleite Matt Harding has just finished his latest world travel dancing video, you can see it below. He became a YouTube success in 2006 when he posted his first dancing video which shows him doing a goofy dance in cities and countries around the world. I saw if for the first time a couple of years ago and started reading his blog on a regular basis. He has a great sense of humor and always makes me laugh, plus I love that he is doing something that he is passionate about and he's from Seattle.

Matt and his girlfriend just returned home from another amazing journey and his new video is filled with another great collection of clips, and this time the locals are dancing with him in many of the shots. It's awesome, way to go Matt!



Originally titled: Long live the 3-day weekend

Due to rising gas prices the company that I work for has made the decision to offer employees the opportunity to work four 10-hour days, instead of the typical five 8-hour days. We realize that our customers shouldn't be forced to adhere to this schedule so it took some juggling to make sure that every department would be covered Monday - Friday and once that was approved we were able to start our new schedules on Monday, June 23rd. I now work Monday through Thursday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., which I am thrilled about. More importantly this means that every weekend is a 3-day weekend! Hooray!

I was a bit worried about a 10-hour workday but I did fine the first week, the days went by quickly and I found that I was actually a whole lot more productive that during an 8-hour day where everything seems more condensed. Where I did note the difference was in my evening plans and activities, since I am now home later and leaving earlier, I have less time at home to get stuff done during the week, but I have to remember that is was the extra day is for. I have a whole laundry list of things that I want to do with my new day off, including:

• Clean out the storage room
• Clean old clothes, shoes, etc out of my closet
• Do some volunteer work
• Visit Seattle neighborhoods where I haven't spent much time
• Visit some museums
• Take long walks

I'm anxious to see how I feel about this change in a couple of months and see if I have accomplished anything on my list as a result.

Weekend Wrap-Up

I'm a bit behind again on my updates, so to catch up, here are the highlights from June 20 - 22:

• Celebrated the end of the week by drinking beer on the deck at Pyramid. It's finally warm enough for al fresco dining!
• Relaxed and cleaned the house in prep for house guests.
• Found a gadget (for $10) that allows me to hook up both my DVD player and my TiVo to the TV in the living room.
• Finally got an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer. I've only been wanting one for a year or so.
• Watched 27 Dresses.
• Attempted to helped my friend Jenna some Internet recognisance, but failed.
• Ended up on the deck a Pyramid again Saturday afternoon with Don for more sun and beer.

The past weekend (June 27 - 29) was super busy as my Cuz (Karri) and her Huz (Dale) were in town from Salt Lake, the highlights:

• Enjoyed dinner, the bright blue sky and sun from the deck at Ray's Cafe on Friday evening.
• Had lunch on the patio at Red Hook and then took the brewery tour. Karri and Dale got extra beer from the tour guide when she found out they were from Utah, she felt sorry for them.
• Took the winery tour at Chateau Ste Michelle and learned that they gave their very first tour on Karri's birth date.
• Bought some wine in the wine shop and then enjoyed the grounds and listened to Earth, Wind and Fire complete their sound check for their concert later in the day.
• Had a lite late dinner at Andaluca in the Mayflower Park Hotel.
• Enjoyed brunch on the Seattle waterfront at Bell Street Diner.
• Dropped Karri and Dale off at Terminal 30 so that they could board the Star Princess and head off to Alaska.
• Packed up the picnic basket and headed to Woodland Park Zoo with Kat for the Indigo Girls concert. The weather was perfect and the concert was great!
• Left the concert and headed directly to the airport to pick up Don.
• Should have been exhausted from a busy sun and fun-filled weekend but didn't manage to fall asleep until nearly 2 a.m. Somehow, I feel fine today.

How was your weekend?

Weekend Wrap-Up

Another weekend has flown by all too quickly. The highlights:

• Celebrated a very belated birthday dinner with Suzie at Mama's Mexican Kitchen in Belltown on Friday night. The food was yummy, as usual, and so were the margarita's and it was great to get caught up with Suzie.
• Woke up early on Saturday morning so Don and I could head up with hill to do laundry. I do love being able to do 4 loads of laundry in less than 2 hours.
• Sorted through every pair of socks that I own with Kat and threw those that met the following criteria: 1.) holes or runs of any size or shape (cause let's face it a small hole will be a big hole in no time at all), 2.) translucent fabric (when gym socks resemble nylons it's time for them to go away), 3.) outdated styles (remember those thick crew socks that you would pull up and then scrunch down for that *legwarmer lite* look), 4.) haven't been worn in the nearly 3 years that I have lived in Seattle (I used to love crew socks but don't anymore so they got thrown in the donation bag)
• Made a list of the replacement socks that would be needed to have a good selection/collection and set out with Kat to find them which we were able to do with a stop at Fred Meyer and another at Macy's.
• Stopped shopping long enough to enjoy a burger, fries and onion rings with Kat at Red Mill Burgers.
• Browsed through Barnes & Nobel and picked up a few books that we had been looking for.
• Saw 27 Dresses, which was good, except for the really creepy solo dude that was seated next to me.
• Laughed so hard that I cried during the "Benny & the Jets" mondegreen scene. Kat and I were both having major "Myzah Georgia" and "DaVinci View" flashbacks.
• Unpackaged and put away 46 new pairs of socks! :-)
• Watched and mocked the "not-so modernized or improved" Miss America pageant which my TiVo had recorded. I was disappointed in the final choice, Miss Michigan, cause what beauty queen can't sing "Over the Rainbow," give me a break. She is the stereo-typical Miss America proving that some things just don't change. Miss Washington made a great showing and I was really proud of her top finish.
• Savored a wonderful dinner at DeNunzio's Italian Restaurant in Seattle's Pioneer Square with Don on Saturday night. It has been on my *Seattle restaurants to try* list for nearly 2 years ago and it lived up to all the reviews that I had read. We had excellent authentic food, good wine and wonderful service.
• Watched The Nanny Diaries.
• Spent 4 hours on Sunday morning determined to fix the problems that I have been having with the external hard drive that stores my iTunes library. For no apparent reason it switched from F:\ to G:\ in the middle of last week. A quick google search reveled a fix in Windows, I then reinstalled the driver and I was back in business. I had to consolidate my library a few times and still have some individual errors but I was able to sync after 5 days which made me unbelievably happy.
• Watched Jersey Girl, Green Card and Dawn Anna all movies that my TiVo had recently recorded as suggestions when not recording game shows.
• Read numerous chapters on Eat Pray Love in an attempt to finish it before my Thursday night book club.
• Ordered pizza and groceries online so I didn't have to leave the house on Sunday.
• Missed forced-air heat as baseboard heaters just don't cut it when it's really, really, really cold outside.
• Waited for the snow that never came.

How was your weekend?

Harassing an AutoBot

Over the weekend I received an invitation from my friend Nikki to join reunion.com

Susan Says: HEY WAIT, we hate to see you go without seeing all we have to offer. Registering is free, and who knows... you might just get reunited with an old friend.

Susan Says: Just type 'HI' or 'HELLO' in the space below to let me know you are there

You: Hi

You: I did register, I just had a couple of windows open at the same time.

Susan Says: Connect with old friends, classmates, family, lost loves, military buddies or anyone. CLICK HERE to Register FREE to register for free.

You: You are a robot aren't you?

Susan Says: I'm a real person.

You: Then why when I told you that I had registered, did you encourage me to register?

Susan Says: Stay in touch and share updates with family and friends... who knows who you can find?

Susan Says: Would you like to register for free today?

You: You are totally a robot.

You: That pisses me off so much that I want to delete my membership.

Susan Says: You can change your mailing options at anytime. We offer self-managed mailing options for subscribers to use as needed. We are also available Monday through Friday at 1-888-704-1900 for your customer service needs.

Susan Says: Reunion.com is the leader in keeping people in touch online... discover what 35 million other members already know by registering today. CLICK HERE to Register FREE

You: Too bad I didn't ask you about mailing options.

Susan Says: Would you like the link back to the registration page?

You: Oh, honest to GOD! I have told you over and over again, I have registered! But you are a stupid robot and all you are going to do is remind me to register and ask me to register over and over again.

Susan Says: For customer service CLICK HERE

You: Will customer service confirm that you are a robot?

Susan Says:CLICK HERE for customer service.

You: Is that all you will say now?

You: Cat got your tongue?

You: Apparently so or I prefer to think that no one programmed you this far because they didn't think that anyone would chat with you this long.

Yahoo! IM Freeks

What is wrong with the people that IM using the Yahoo! messenger service? I get more random conversation invitations from Yahoo! than AIM or MSN and they all turn out to be total weirdos and freaks.

Last November I chatted with a Yahoo! member that had found me though a Yahoo! group that we were both a member of. The conversation was primarily about cancer (the subject of the Yahoo! group) and I added him to my buddy list. Well he must not be very smart because within less than a month he must have though that I was interested in him in other ways (No I don't want to see your webcam). And in January he began sending offline message. I told him on numerous occasions that I appear online when I am available, I don't play the invisible game. But still the messages continued. So tonight I cut him off with the following conversation.

[22:41] freakshow: ur here?
[22:46] me: yes
[22:46] me: But you are still appearing invisible
[22:49] me: I am growing tired of your offline messages. They continue even though I have asked you not to IM me when I am not online. And you always appear invisible. I think I am going to block you.
[22:51] me: Well since you haven't responded, I have decided. It's over. You are blocked.

So, what the hell is wrong with the people that chat on Yahoo?

I'm published

I am a huge fan of Wikipedia and use it as a reference tool almost daily. Last week when I was researching information for my posting on Bear Camp Road I noted that there was no Wikipedia article on Dewitt Finley, so I wrote one. It was really rough at the beginning and just two days later one of Wikipedia's finest had marked it for deletion. So, I cleaned it up a bit more but struggled to get the links to work. Then a wonderful Wikipedia user by the name of Crossmr came in and fixed the things that couldn't and it's perfect now. You can check out the article here.

I am going to continue to work on figuring out the coding etc and hopefully contribute some additional entries.

Technology Woes

I suffered from tremendous technical difficulties yesterday. I was forced to replace my cell phone battery (yes, again), yet even after hours of charging it died. I got repeated error messages from my wireless broadband service and the service kept insisting that I needed to generate a new IP address, this put quite a kink in my studying for my upcoming final examination. And, I had been trying to upload some posts to my website yet the Blogger website that I use to manage my website wasn't working properly. I was finally so frustrated that I gave up on it all.

My horoscope this morning said something about having a temper tantrum and I just blew it off, but when I still couldn't get my phone to charge or my wireless card to work reliably this morning, I became very, very, very, angry.

So after work I went to the Verizon store. I have teased many times over the past few weeks about how hard Verizon is working for me (totally tongue in cheek) but tonight (maybe because of my temper tantrum) they really did work for me.

I was greeted Chris, the same tech support guy that helped me on Sunday, and he immediately recognized me and started fixing the problem with my phone. While I was still explaining the problem in great detail he was pulling a brand new phone out and hooking it up. Once the phone was settled I addressed the wireless broadband problem with them. I explained my frustration with the service and it's general unreliability, he called the store manager over and they let me out of my contract. Which was huge relief. I had been disappointed by the service since I got it but felt trapped.

However, this left me with a problem, no access to the internet. I heard a couple of ads on the radio for Clearwire and noticed a kiosk at Pacific Place where I had parked my car. I stopped by to ask a few questions which were answered to my satisfaction and I took the plunge and signed up. Upon arriving home I set up the modem. It works perfectly, it's much faster than Verizon and I am happy!

Hopefully all of my technology woes are behind me, I get very grumpy when I am not able to connect to the world.