3 Things I Learned This Week #58

Dysautonomia

Ever hear of this? I didn't until I read Rachel's blog at One Day At A Time. She has this chronic illness. Her autonomic nervous system does not properly regulate vital functions such as temperature regulation, digestion, heart rate, blood pressure, and energy production. When she stands up, her blood pools in her feet, they turn purple and her ankle swell. This is just one of her problems. Fortunately, she has an amazing attitude and takes it in stride. I found her blog through SITS this week.

TV: Undercover Boss and Survivor

Undercover Boss is a new show that aired after the Super Bowl that I really like. The CEO of a waste management company went undercover and pretended to be a new employee in several different areas of his company to see if the policies in place were effective and find out areas where they could improve. It was truly an eye opening experience for him. It was so funny watching him trying to do the jobs his employees do every day that he couldn't handle. I missed the end though because I taped it and because the Super Bowl ran a bit over, the ending got cut off. It is being shown again though tonight at 9:00 and a new episode with Hooters will air Sunday night at 9:00 on CBS.

The new Survivor season of villains against the good guys was on last night. It's fun to watch the key players from other episodes back for this special "reunion" season.

UPADATED AT 6:45 A.M.

Entrecard Drama

Cornyman has accused some bloggers of ghost dropping and I was surprised that some of my regular readers were included; therefore, I discounted it but will post more about my thoughts on this tomorrow.

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8 Things I Learned This Week-#56

Selling Your Blog

At Daily Blog Tips I found an informative post: "Where and How I Can Sell My Blog." One place is flippa.com and another is digital point. I suggest you go read the article first so you can get the "how" part.

Cost of Femara

I got my new prescription filled for that pill I have to take for five years to keep the Cancer from returning and it costs $412 per month! This is TERRIBLE! I'm bumming out over this-AARRRGH! The good news is once I reach my $2400 deductible which at this rate will be (July), the rest of the year will be covered all by my insurance. Next year I can change to a plan where I just pay $35 a month for it. This is one instance where it would have been nice to have seen the future in advance!

Psychopaths

After reading Columbine by Dave Cullen, I learned what psychopaths are like:

Psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling. They lie for amusement and take great personal pride in their deceptions and extract tremendous joy from them. They are distinguished by two characteristics: The first is a ruthless disregard for others: they will defraud, maim, or kill for the most trivial personal gain. The second is an astonishing gift for disguising the first--it‘s the deception that makes them so dangerous. The fundamental nature of a psychopath is a failure to feel. Their brain processes emotional responses differently.

Pet Poisons

Playing my cat & dog trivia game this week, I learned that the top poison for dogs in 2009 were human medications. We always keep ours in a high cupboard and never leave them out on the counter. Here's the Link to the article Top 10 Pet Poisons of 2009.

Poor Passwords

I read one of the Yahoo news articles from THE NEW YORK TIMES this week about poor passwords people use and was relieved when mine were not on the list. Check to see if yours are listed at "If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It Hack Me." I got a tip from a Webroot email for coming up with a strong passwork that I thought is pretty good:

To create strong passwords, try thinking of a sentence that includes a number. Then, use the first letter of each word as your password. For example: "My favorite TV show is 24" would give you the password: MfTVsi24.

Bar Soap

At Seven Clown Circus I learned that if you open your new bars of soap and allow the air to make them hard, they last much longer that way.

Dogs & Owners

Our Friday Fragment hostess left me the following comment on last week's post:

Mrs. 4444: The info on dog walkers is great. What do they say about people (like me!) who just put their dog on the treadmill?! (I thought she was kidding so exchanged the following emails):

me: No, you don't put your dog on the treadmill! LOL

Mrs. 4444: Yes, we do, and he loves it! The vet loves it, too; it's easier on the joints! He does get regular walks, too, but hardly ever in the winter.

me: This is funny--you should definitely do a post with a video or picture of your dog on his treadmill walk!

Mrs 4444 dog really does use the treadmill! Here is a link to the short video she posted of her dog, Cooper: When Dogs Feel Fat.

Firefox Seminar

Kathy at the Junk Drawer kindly left a link in the comments on my Friday Fragment post last week to a www.lehigh.edu/computing/docs/firefox/seminar.html she did. It's a comprehensive look at Firefox and you may learn something you didn't know and get more use out of it. Thanks, Kathy!

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Nine Things I Learned This Week! -Part 13

This has been one very educational week for me. This is the most I learned in a week since I've started doing these every Friday.

Thanks to Fenced In Family's Loss of Information post I finally backed up some of my more important files on a CD but still wondered how to back up my blogs. I found the answer at Blogger Tips and Tricks and also at Quick Online Tips. Unfortunately, there's no easy way so I guess I'll just select my more popular posts to copy the HTML code for it to my "notepad" on my computer as suggested at Blogger Tips and Tricks. To back up comments, by selecting the email notification you can save them that way. One of the commenters mentioned a free online service that might be easier: https://blogbackupr.com. Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks to Kathy at The Junk Drawer, I learned that once you publish a post, it immediately goes to feed burner sending to google readers and if you delete it, anyone trying to read it will get an error, not found. To fix this, the best thing to do is change the post content.


View my page on Author and Book Event Center

When chatting at Author and Book Event CenterI learned a new word: "lookiloos." I never heard this word before, but it means people who look at a site without signing in to join or participating by leaving a comment. Are you a lookiloo? Have you ever heard that word before? (If you'd like to chat with me, join me there at 7:30 Eastern time on Tuesdays.) In chatting with some other authors, I learned that newspaper ads are pretty much a waste of money, AFTER I already spent mega bucks for a 2" x2" black and white ad in a section with many other bigger, colorful book ads in the NEW YORK TIMES!


I found this very creative brownie recipe when visiting a new blog to me at Purr Prints. Before baking, you press in peppermint patties. Don't they look yummy! I sure would like some in my tummy!



Did you know you can buy special marshmallows for cereal? You can! I learned about this at I Do Things So You Don't Have To. Here is the link to Cereal Marshmallows where you can order some. They actually care about customer satisfaction even. There are also other things available too. I'm really beginning to think there is a site for anything!

Here's an easy way to add a search widget for your blog if you want to that Alan from Alan Gay and Straight left in the comments on my "Help, I'm Losing It" post:
http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/07/search-widget-for-your-blog.html (just make sure your logged in to the blog you want it on)
click "Add Blog Search Widget" or there is also a code you can copy if you prefer. I put this one on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog although I like the looks of the one on this blog better. Still don't know where I got it from though.

Last Saturday I attended a drama workshop that our church had for anyone interested on the drama team or interested in acting. I learned that actors actually do warm up exercises before going on stage! This was new to me. I will share these with you in a single post.

I learned from Bumpy Path that when commenting on Blogger blogs, I should choose the "Name/URL" option instead of accepting the default Google ID because the link for the Google ID goes to the profile page instead of my blog! All those comments then that I left using that, don't even help my page rank any. The name you leave will be what shows up as the linked text. The URL you leave is the address to your blog, and it needs to be a complete URL with the http in front. I sure wish I knew this sooner!

See my new "Top Commenters Widget" on the sidebar? Thanks to Corpse of Attic I found an easy way to install it! Hope you enjoy it. It shows the top commenters over the last 30 days.