Wellness #42: Staying Well

O.K., I tried the symptom checker on my hip pain. For the past week when ever I move my leg in various ways, (I haven't figured out exactly what I'm doing yet.) I've been getting this intense shooting pain up my hip. It is inconsistant and started when I slept a couple of nights in my in-laws guest bed, which is why I am going to give it another week before I go into the doctor. I personally think it is a pinched nerve. The Mayo Clinic, however, says it is a hip labral tear. As I read it, it makes sense but the pain does seem to come from the nerves not anything that is torn. Reading the treatment though, they suggest pain killers anyway which I can and have been doing on my own. If it doesn't go away by next Thursday, I will call the doctor for an appointment.

I found the MedlinePlus Go Local website harder to use than I thought it would be. I tried to find resources for thyroid cancer 10 miles from my home and came up with a VERY confusing list. I had to go by county and not distance. This is not an easy thing to do when you live at the corner of three different counties. I also didn't find much in the way of support groups in the area period. I guess it is still to rare of a disease to warrant a support group at a regional basis. (There is a nationwide group called ThyCa, but they do not have local meetings.)

I was able to create a health family tree. It would not be very useful to my descendants since my husband and I are planning to adopt. (Among other medical and genetic problems we both have, my husband's exact words were, "We're not having children of our own. We're stopping this Moran cancer gene in it's tracks!" After 4 types of cancer in 4 different generations, none of which are now fatal, I whole heartedly agree.) I am planning on saving it though for my nieces and nephews. It would be nice for them to have all that family health information in one place.

Wellness #41 - Going Green - Part 2

My husband and I already do quite a bit of these suggestions. We recycle as much as we can, although we are looking into recycling more. I walk to the grocery store and Walgreen's as much as possible while he rides his bike. I bring my lunch with me to work despite the fact that I live very close. Every time we have a light burn out we try to replace it with an energy efficient one. Aah, the joys of having a leftover hippie who works in the energy sector as a father.

My husband and I are considering changing to Reliant's 100% wind energy plan. It's about a cent more a kilowatt then what we're paying now but if it reduces our carbon footprint, it would be worth it. I looked at Green Mountain Energy but their cheaper plans had a tendency to fluctuate too much.

I try to hyper-mile my car as much as possible. I try to drive the speed limit and coast as much as possible. I suppose I could do more. I drive with my cruise control on the freeway too much, I'm sure. I realize when I do that, I put my car in control of my speed and it is probably harder on it's insides then I am. I use it because I acknowledge I have a lead foot and I am trying to go the speed limit. I will try to drive without the cruise control when I go up to my in-laws next Christmas. I will also try to drive 55 the next time I get on the freeway here in town (if I can get up to that speed). I understand the need to drive slower. I allowed my sister-in-law to drive my car back to Houston from Bowie, TX the last time we went up to Oklahoma. She drove 80 nearly the entire way back, getting us to Houston an hour and a half early. She also used nearly a 1/4 of a tank more of gas than I usually use driving that same distance at 65-70. That just proved to me that hyper-miling a car is the way to go.

Wellness #41: Going Green - Part 1

Well according to the Individual Emissions website by the EPA, my husband and I put out approximately 32,446 pounds of CO2 per year. Not bad considering he has a long commute to work. We already recycle plastic, paper, metal, and compost and produce only about 3 bags of trash every month. There doesn't seem to be a place in the Katy area to recycle glass although my sister-in-law in the Clear Lake area has Ellington Field near her. She offered to take our glass off our hands and recycle it for us. Now I just need to find a receptacle to keep it in between times that we see her.

As the lights in our study, closets, and two extra bedrooms go out, we will be replacing them with energy efficient lights. (We've already replace them in our bedroom lamps and in one in our closet. I will go scour Home Depot if I ever have the time for more energy efficient flood light bulbs. (Unfortunately, those are used in the majority of the house.)

If I get really brave, I might even turn down the heat in the winter (we already keep the house at 65). Eventually (once the house is paid off), we would like to install Energy Star windows and better insulation in the attic.

I have never been to a Farmer's Market but there is one here in Katy that I've always wanted to go to. I see they sell fish, nuts, olive oil, bread and other things I usually have to go to the grocery store to buy. Perhaps the weekend after next, my husband and I might go down there and look around. (I actually do need bread and olive oil.) It will also be good next January/February when I am on my wonderful special diet. We like supporting the little shop owner rather than the big corporate conglomerate.

Wellness #40: Fitness

I messed around with a few of the "calculators". (I'm supposed to live past my 97th birthday if cancer doesn't get me first. I also have a "healthy BMI and need the average amount of calories.) I wasn't all that interested in many of the other calculators. There wasn't enough of the directions to tell me exactly how they worked and I was depressed enough anyway.

I admit I'm not as good about exercising as I should be. My mother is a certified personal trainer. (I can use her for free.) I own a tredmill which I use but not as much as I should. It's been kind of hard to motivate myself in the mornings with my husband home all day. (It's hard to exercise with him on the couch eating his cereal.) I was able to exercise this morning and will most likely get myself going in earnest again on Thursday when he starts back at work.

Wellness #39: Nutrition

I don't know how much I will actually use the NutritionData.com website. I really liked the unit conversion on the website and I might use it for that purpose. I put my lunch into the nutrition counter and came back all depressed. Although I don't think it is quite as high in cholesterol as the site claims (I'm not having as much corn pudding as I told the site I was.) it was still way too depressing for my taste! And of course it had to remind me about the amount of sugar in my small orange. Is anything safe to eat nowadays besides air?

For the Recipes.Sparkspeople.com website, I found a Chicken casserole recipe similar to a recipe I grew up with but no longer make (so now I don't have to feel quite so guilty). I found the Sodium content to be quite high but the recipe I used as a child contained salsa and chili peppers insead of Chicken Broth, Cream of Mushroom Soup and Velveeta. I think the one I ate as a child was healthier. The recipe I chose contained:

Chicken Breast, no skin, 30 ounces (remove)
Cream of Mushroom Soup, 1 can (10.75 oz) (remove)
Cream of Chicken Soup, 1 can (10.75 oz) (remove)
Canned Tomatoes, 1 can (remove)
*Velveeta Cheese Product, 16 oz (remove)
Swanson Chicken Broth 99% Fat Free, .5 cup (remove)
Cheddar Cheese, 8 oz (remove)
Corn Chips, 16 oz (remove)

And the Nutritional data:

Nutrition Facts

8 Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories 767.4
Total Fat 46.1 g
Saturated Fat 17.0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 10.9 g
Monounsaturated Fat 9.7 g
Cholesterol 134.4 mg
Sodium 1,979.0 mg
Potassium 468.5 mg
Total Carbohydrate 44.9 g
Dietary Fiber 3.0 g
Sugars 5.6 g
Protein 47.1 g
Vitamin A 21.7 %
Vitamin B-12 10.9 %
Vitamin B-6 38.2 %
Vitamin C 5.8 %
Vitamin D 0.9 %
Vitamin E 7.6 %
Calcium 70.6 %
Copper 13.4 %
Folate 6.0 %
Iron 15.4 %
Magnesium 21.6 %
Manganese 15.7 %
Niacin 65.6 %
Pantothenic Acid 14.2 %
Phosphorus 48.5 %
Riboflavin 19.6 %
Selenium 40.7 %
Thiamin 8.7 %
Zinc 17.8 %

Games and Gaming #38: Console Gaming

Oh, this was just too cool! I LOVE this arcade website. I'm going to have to bookmark it on my home computer. I played Duck Hunt, Tetris, and Simon. I can't wait to try Astroids and Spaced Invaders. I did have a bit of a hard time trying to figure out where the controls were on my keyboard, but it wasn't too frustrating. I felt I was improving my eye-hand coordination and memory by playing these games as a child.

The Maud Marks Library already has a couple of Sony Playstations. I think for library purposes these consoles work well for us. The kids seem to like Guitar Hero and DDR. I would love to see us get Rock Band someday if we could find the room. I think these games work better in the library setting then some of the games which use only control pads. It would also be nice to get a Nintendo Wii, simply because it promotes active involvement in the games. I understand though that these would probably be better for schools who cannot afford gym teachers though.

In the case of our kids, I think they really do just come for the games and stay for the games. This is proven by the fact that the number of teens in the library always doubles when there is a possiblility of "Fun and Fabulous Fridays". Then, when the kids see there are no games, they don't tend to stay. Perhaps there is a way to bring books into the whole gaming day? That way we can get at least a few of them to come for the games and stay for the books.

Games and Gaming #37: Get Your Game On @ The Library

I didn't really like the Carnegie-Mellon games at all. I wasn't able to find any directions on how to play the games. I found the game "I'll Get It" impossible to play. I clicked on the student and then nothing happened (or so I thought). Turns out I was taking the research question from them, but a newcomer to this game would not know that! Then after taking it to the catalog, it would only tell me search complete and not tell me what to do next. Perhaps if they added a dialog box to the bottom (ALA Runescape), it would be easier to understand and figure out what the player is supposed to do. The game "Within Range" was a little easier to figure out. It still took me a little while to discover what I was supposed to do. Perhaps if they had a page of rules and directions that they showed first, I wouldn't have had such a hard time with it.

I definitely agree that games belong in the library. We have not been all about BOOKS in quite some time. Libraries have been "media centers" for a while now and I know that Fort Bend library has actually had children's computer games (for literacy purposes) on a few of it's computers for years. As a learning experience, I like the way Mr. Martin put it in the New York Times article, "'If a kid takes a test and fails, that's it. But in a game, if you fail you get to take what you've learned and try again.'" It is a progressive learning trait that will help them in the real world.

For our library it is more about survival than anything. The teenagers are going to be coming here and playing Runescape anyway. It would be nice to have even more games for our Playstations and maybe even a Wii some day. As interesting as Runescape is, it is nice to encourage the teens to interact with each other more. I also agree that it brings more teens into the library. Perhaps if ye can get them in the door, we can encourage them to check out EVERYTHING the library offers.

Games and Gaming #36: The Wide World of Online Role Playing Games

O.K. Well, obviously, I created a female avatar, dressed rather conservatively. She is wearing a short sleeved purple shirt and a royal blue skirt. She has dark hair in a pony tail.

I found Runescape to be a very involved game. It seems to me to be a complicated version of a Nintendo game my brother used to play when we were kids, Link. In that game, you also had to move around a magical world performing tasks, collecting items, and fighting creatures. However, if memory serves me correctly, it was not nearly as involved as Runescape seems to be. I found it pretty easy to get around for the most part, although, I did have a slight problem trying to figure out how to run. One of the things I found most surprising was the fact that with many of the simpler tasks, all you have to do is point and click and the computer suddenly takes over and makes your "avatar" do the task. If I remember correcty, the games of the early 1990's force you to assist you character in doing each task. (Whether it was swinging an ax multiple times or clicking each time you wanted to shoot an arrow.) I nearly got killed at first because I wanted to tell my character where to shoot the arrow and instead, she would move in the direction I clicked my mouse.

I understand now why the teens like to play Runescape so much. I believe it is actually good for them. It takes their natural desires to play and gives them a chance to think. It isn't for me (I prefer the socializing that comes around a normal, ancient, Nintendo where both players are sitting next to each other.) but I can see why the kids like it and I would probably encourage it with our library teens in the future.

Games and Gaming #35: Games? In the Library?

I played FreeRice, a crossword puzzle on the Chronicles website, and a few of the games on PBS kids. By far, my favorite was FreeRice. It was easy to learn and it really helps build vocabulary. When you miss a word it will eventually repeat giving you a chance to reinforce the definition in your mind. Sometimes it got a little annoying only because when I finally made it to a slightly difficult level, I would miss a word and then miss the next one or two knocking me back down several levels. It's great for learning vocabulary though and, of course, you help the world by donating free rice!

Maps #34: Geocoding and Geocaching

I chose to look up the Maud Marks Library at 1815 Westgreen. The coordinates for it are 29.757586, -95.734183. It was kind of cool to look at it over the satellite. The building looks so tiny compared to the field nearby.


Katy's Easiest is a cache located very close to my house on Misty Cove Dr.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=a76ec9a1-6823-41dd-8e33-c34816d47205
N 29° 49.467 W 095° 42.818

I don't think this would be something I would really get into. I'm more of someone who likes to go on walks and hikes but not looking for treasure. My house is already packed full of stuff; why would I want to add to that mess?

Maps #33: Relocating with Online Maps

The Houston Association of Realtors web page has really changed over the past four years. My husband and I used it 4 years ago to find our current house. I liked the way that this time around I could separate out the forclosures out from the others. There sure are alot of forclosure right now, over 36 in the Katy area. Also, it seemed that every house had virtual tours right on the website. Four years ago, I would say only about half of them had the pictures and that was only if they were desperate to sell the house. At the time none of the forclosure had pictures; now they all have them.


Another feature I loved is that HAR has gone international. They have properties listed in Greece, Dubai, Mexico, Brazil and more. In fact I found one property in South Africa that I got a real good look at. It was a several acre property. The final picture in the tour was six lions. Were they sitting there near the house waiting for something?

I chose to look up the Walk Score for a house in the Memorial Parkway subdivision, a neighborhood very close to the library. Considering the number of strip centers and grocery stores nearby, I expected the Walk Score to be very high. I was extremely disappointed. The Walk Score was only 31. What I don't understand is that my home, just as close to other stores in a different area scored a 60. I'm not sure I trust the Walk Score anyway. I think it works on as the crow flies mentality. I happen to know my house is 3.5 miles from the library but this website is telling me it is just 2.5.

The new house would be within walking distance of all the public schools, Memorial Parkway Elementary, Memorial Parkway Junior High, and Taylor High. There are two grocery stores, a Randalls and an HEB within walking distance too. There is also at least 2 Mexican Restaurants, 3 sandwich shops. and several pizza places very close by. I would also be 3 miles closer to the library.

I liked the HAR website best. It was easiest to narrow down exactly what I wanted in a house. They had some any different ways you could narrow things down. You can get very specific as to your desires.

Maps #32: Current Events

Often our Caller ID gets phone calls from strange area codes and the caller information says "caller unknown". Question-- Where is area code 214 from? Answer-- Dallas according to http://www.usnaviguide.com/areacode.htm

O.K. Well, I clicked on Global Incident Map and, boy, was that interesting. I thought I might be able to find an epicenter for the earthquake this morning near San Antonio. Instead, the subtitle for this webpage is, "A Global Display of Terrorism and Other Suspicious Events". However, there was still a incident icon flashing in Texas. It turns out someone pulled up to a guard shack near the port of Texas City and claimed he had a suspicious package in his vehicle- http://globalincidentmap.com/eventdetail.php?ID=7974

On Terra Server, I looked at the various baseball fields. Miller Park in Milwaukee has an interesting roof. It looks as if the two sides open almost like a fan instead of just in one direction like Minute Maid Park.

I next went to National Atlas. I clicked on the map labled Wildlife Mortality- Avian Cholera. Although I was not able to get close to the map, it looks like Harris County might be having a problem right now.

Oh, and that EarthNow Landsat Image Viewer is pretty cool, you can watch the earth pass by underneath you and an image at the side shows exactly where on the planet you are looking.

Maps #31: Have Map, Will Travel

View Larger Map

Well, this certainly has been an interesting lesson. I attempted to view the Google Create a Map Tutorial but did not find it very helpful. I ended up just playing around with my map and seeing what I could do. I ended up making a map with points from my past all around the Houston suburbs. I was also able to draw a line connecting the three elementary schools I went to in Missouri City and drew a shape connecting the various places I lived in the Tri-City area.

This might be fun when planning a road trip. A person can put points on a map that they are going to visit and then draw a line as they travel so everyone else can follow their progress.

Spring Cleaning #30: Take a Load Off Our Drives

I post to the S:drive all the time. As programming and publicity coordinator for my library, I am continually creating fliers and posters and then transfering them to the S:drive so that they can be printed downtown.

I spent quite a bit of time deleting files from the P:drive. I found fliers that had been created before I arrived. (I've been here six years.) I deleted any flier that was so old it was not done in current HCPL format. I ended up clearing out probably 2/3 of the old fliers. I also got rid of a couple of old press releases not done on current HCPL letterhead. There were many folders where now there is only one or two things in them. It took me a while to work through the Fonts folder . I tried to be extra careful because I didn't want to get rid of any fonts we still might need.

Best of all, I finally cleared the pictures from my 2004 engagement and 2005 wedding off the P:drive. I've been meaning to do it for a while and I finally had no excuse. There were more pictures than I thought there would be. Now, though, they are on Flickr and off the P:drive. Yea!!!

I don't really have much in my Z:drive. I was able to get rid of one or two of the files there though.

Spring Cleaning #29: Email

I have always tried to keep my e-mail pretty cleaned out. Usually, I keep it under 10% of the space used. That being said, I actually did need to clean it out when this started as I am now over 11%! And, wow, that worked big time!!! It was pretty easy to clear out enough to get the box down to 8%. I just went through and found old messages I had previously forgotten to delete. Now I just have e-mail from people regarding work events coming up.

What really surprised me though was when I was looking in my folder of e-mails I had from family. I hadn't added to it for a long time as I have been encouraging them to e-mail me at my home address. I assure them that it does get checked and only e-mail me at work if there is an emergency. However, I found several old pictures of my nieces and nephew. I hesitated purging them because they were so cute, but really, when was the last time I looked at them. So, delete, delete, delete and purge!!! And now, my box is less than 3% full. It's amazing how much unnecessary space they were taking up.

Now, all my e-mails are in folders, my inbox is completely clear, and my address book is all updated.

Spring Cleaning #28: Don’t Clutter Up Expensive Cyberspace

I decided to use Remember the Milk. I liked the way I could set things to come back on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis. I can just mark things as done and they will automatically set things back with a new due date. I do not have to keep adding things back in. I was also able to tag things, another advantage. I created my very own honey-do list for my husband full of household chores and repairs he needs to take care of.

When it comes to taking care of my house, I use the FlyLady system. A year ago, a friend of mine with 3 kids told me this was how she kept her house in working order. The entire concept for this is a person can do anything for 15 minutes. If you try to go longer you can get bored, stress, etc. So you set your timer and spend 15 minutes on any one task. Then, even if it is not done, you move on to something else for 15 minutes. Every 45 minutes you take a 15 minute break. I have found this motivates me to get things done quickly and correctly. After all, if you only have 15 minutes before you have to move on, do you really want to come back to a project?

I have found the idea of Getting Things Done rather intriguing. I remember I have often written out a to-do list and then forgotten to look at what I have written down. I think what I'm going to try to do from now on is set aside 15 minutes every Sunday to log on to Remember the Milk and set my to-do list for the week. By doing this on the Internet, I can access it anywhere and therefore have no excuse but to follow through with it at 15 minute intervals at a time.

Sound: #27: Creating Your Own Podcast

O.K. I have the Podcast. It is up on Gabcast. I decided to do a podcast about events happening at the library during the month of April. For now, it is just me reading the press releases I send out every month but maybe someday I can get more creative.

Problem: I can't figure out HOW to post it to my blog. I tried everything it seems. I put my blog address in three different places and no such luck. If you want to listen to it though, it is on Gabcast.com. It is called Branch Happenin's and the channel number is 18652.

Sound: #26: Making (or listening to) Music Together

I knew about MySpace, but not any of the others. It seems like Qloud goes through iTunes which I have no interest in so that probably won't work at all for me. Project Playlist was really interesting. It is a music search engine with pretty new stuff. I even found whole albums listed. I found the Beatles Revolver album. I know it was the entire thing since it was over 34 minutes long. A drawback I found was that there was no way I found to browse the selections. I think Imeem was the best. It was really organized with the ability to browse as well as exact search for music. It had really new stuff too. The first page came up with Jordin Sparks.

I ended up signing up for Imeem. At first I found it extremely confusing. It was and still is having problems sending me a confirmation e-mail. (It's partially my fault, I gave it the wrong e-mail address; but when I switch the address around, it still couldn't find me.) Finally, when I gave up with that, I decided just to start creating a playlist. I had a little trouble figuring out how to do this also. They don't give real directions on their page. Finally, I was able to create a list and add a couple of Beatles and U2 songs. It's kind of cool but I don't think it's something I will ever really use.

Sound # 25: Am I a music pirate? It's hard to know...

Burning to a CD was easier than I thought it would be. It had taken me over an hour and a half to download my All Strings Considered file. (My husband and I still live in the 20th century with dial-up. We'll be moving forward to the turn of the century next month with DSL.) It took me a bit of finagling, but I was finally able to figure out how to burn it onto a CD. I was surprised with how fast it went. Originally, my computer told me it would take 20 minutes to burn the CD but when I went back to it 10 minutes later, the CD had been ejected and the computer told me the task was completed. I popped the CD into my CD player and sure enough, beautiful dulcimer music.

I still love my CDs. Not many people I know have made the transistion to MP3s yet. I'm sure I will have to someday but at the moment I prefer the CD player I can blast around the house while I'm cleaning. I'm not a huge fan of earphones.

I waiver between whether or not music sharing is good for the industry. I can see the one side where it is good for new artists. It allows for the exposure to more people out there and is definitely easier and probably cheaper than trying to convince radio stations to play the music. Demand feeds demand. People will possibly be willing to buy an entire CD if they like what they hear on the one song. On the other hand, since the advent of the Internet and Napster, sales in the music industry have plunged. No one wants to pay for what they can get for free. This has been a problem since cassette tapes became available and people were able to record their favorite record albums. It has become increasingly worse since file sharing became possible through the Internet.

The real problem is that technology has taken off and as a society, we are unable to keep up with all the changes. With every piece of "life simplifying" technology, life actually becomes more complicated.

Sound #24: The Sound of Music!

I looked at all 5 different pay sites for the music. If I were to use one of those sites, I would probably go the Yahoo! Music. Right now they are running a free 14 day trial. They only have access to about 2 milion songs compared to Napster's 5 million but that is still quite a bit of music. You have to download the free Yahoo! Music Jukebox. The best part though is that it is only $8.99 a month or (even cheaper) at $71.88 a year. In today's struggling economy, no one has a lot of disposable income.

It took me a couple of days to figure out how to download to my home computer. I chose All Strings Considered, a Hammered Dulcimer file off the Overdrive Database. I was able to download the Overdrive software without any problem. But, the first time I tried to download the file from the database, it told me my Microsoft Player version was out of date and I needed to update it. It continued to tell me this even after I took steps to correct this problem. I walked away from it for a couple of days. When I came back to it, I was able to download it with no problem. The computer didn't even act like it had any problem at all! Now I'm able to listen to dulcimer music straight from my computer.

I do not have a MP3 player to transfer it to, but I have been able to do this multiple times over the past couple of years from work computers during other training.

I did figure out that my favorite stations, Sunny 99 and 106.9 The Point do broadcast over the Internet. I decided that I preferred Sunny's broadcast to The Point's because it connects faster. Also, The Point started with a commercial while Sunny went straight for the broadcast. This was very annoying as The Point was supposed to be playing Runaway Train (great song!) and I was watching a commercial instead. I only caught the last few seconds of Runaway Train! Annoying!