The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

Calendar for January 2010

This is a screen shot from gtdAgenda. I put it here as a reference for myself. Yes, there is a calendar in the sidebar of my blog, but this one is larger and I do not have to scroll down to see it. 

Different Kinds of Search Engines

I sort of divide search engines into my own three categories.  There are my favorite kind which pull up everything about anything, there are specialized ones which pull up a particular kind of response, and then there are the phonies.

Lately when I go to a page that doesn't exist anymore, instead of the 404 error message, a wanna be search engine comes up.  But if you put in a legitimate search term, it spills back a bunch of marketing garbage.  Those are annoying.  It is hard for me to imagine how people can be making money by putting those up, but they must be, or they would not do it.

Then you have search engines which bring up specific kinds of information.  For example, once when I put the term "Rosetta Stone"  into Yahoo's search it gave me information about a group of musicians.  When I put it in a business-oriented search engine, it brought up language instruction software.  When I put it into an all-purpose engine, that one finally brought up the ancient Egyptian artifact that I was researching.   

So when looking for media files, something like Video & Music on Rapidshare might work, but if you want something else there are resources for finding the best place to look. I put the term "specialized search engines" into the Google search box and many lists with thousands of specialized search engines came up. Wikipedia explains that these are called vertical search engine. So I Googlized the term "vertical search engines" and learned that another name for them is vortals.

I love learning new words.

One of my favorite online games

Actually, I have challenges turned off, but I thought being able to link my profile here was extremely kewl:

View my profile Play more games

Who You Calling a Sucker?

This is a sucker from my late Uncle's grape plant:

I was trying to clone his fig tree from a root cutting, because my Uncle's tree has the best tasting figs I have ever eaten. 

When I moved here I made a list of the plants I wanted to try to grow in my postage stamp sized backyard.  Grapes were not on the list.  However, when a family member obligingly dug up a root out from under the majestic fig tree...and it turned out to be a grape vine...and it grew...well, what's a new mom supposed to do?  I had to love it. 

Every day brings a new challenge. 

Just Across the River

With all the rain we've been having down here in Southern California, almost every intersection looks like a little river, but when I think of a river, I think of the Colorado, snaking its way through the Grand Canyon and Lake Mead,  shrinking into Lake Mohave, and then below Katherine's Landing and the Davis Dam, you find Laughlin, Nevada.

With less bustle and less expensive than Las Vegas, Laughlin is on the business-friendly, tax-free side of the river, as any nv llc business agent might tell you.  

Laughlin is in the Tri-State area which also includes Bullhead City  (Arizona) and Needles (California).  I just got back from spending a month there, and I must say that the thrill of being there never diminishes for me.  Although I don't gamble, I love the Laughlin resorts, all lined up along the river walk.  I like to go there in off-season and walk along the Colorado almost by myself, but it is also fun to go when the tourists are there en-mass, in order to participate in the many scheduled events.

Some parts of Arizona and Nevada still feel a bit like the wild west, but Laughlin is a safe place to visit.  Under the jurisdiction of Clark County, the businesses along Casino Drive are patrolled by yellow-shirted Las Vegas police riding bicycles. 

You can incorporate in Nevada without having a Nevada address, and without paying a lot of the taxes that other states charge.  For example, they do not have a franchise tax, or corporate state taxes, or even personal state taxes.  

What they do have is brilliant sunshine almost every day of the year, and lots of entertainment and oodles of fun places to eat.  I go there every opportunity I get, whether for business or not.  Actually, it is a great place to combine the two. 

Rain!

I sure felt funny packing an umbrella on my latest trip because it hardly ever rains in the winter where I was going.   But last trip it did rain a bit and all the umbrellas in my small resort town were SOLD OUT!

That looks more like a river than a road, doesn't it?  The spray rising up in front of the right side of my windshield is from my front tire, but there is a higher one on the left from the fellow who is passing me at what I would consider high speed.

The weather forecast suggests this might happen all week.  I guess it is a good thing I brought the umbrella.  I also think it would be a good thing to stock up on groceries and stay in the rest of the week. 

Property Management

I have an income property that is managed by a company hired by the owner's association.  Maybe they are the best that can be found in that area and maybe not, but I am not awfully happy with them.  It is probably the fault of the owner's association, however, not the management company, but I still don't think they are handling it very well.

The property in question was languishing on the market almost a year when I bought it back in the 90's and then it quadrupled in value.  In today's market it is hard to say what it is worth, but it is still definitely worth more than I paid for it.  The problem is that when I bought the condo it was in a gated community, with a live patrol 24/7.  Now it isn't.  I would have cut costs anywhere else, but not security.    Minutes after they stopped the patrols we had people jumping the fence.  It is a high fence, too.   Some of the fence jumpers were actually residents wanting a short cut to the fast food place on the other side of the wall.  But others were coming in from the outside for reasons less innocuous.   So I expected the property managers to call the police when they saw outsiders crawling over the wall.  They said they could not do that.  They said I could call the police if I wanted to, but they were prohibited.  Huh?  If I were there, I would tell the trespassers to go away myself. I thought the whole idea of having property managers was that they would do that in my absence.  Wrong.

I wonder if they have the same problem elsewhere.  I would like to ask a Property Manager in Cincinnati if they allow people to jump the fences there.  Or if they just plaster the cracks and paint it over and pretend that was normal wear and tear -- while passing the cost of the repairs along to the owners.  

It is a pretty little condo in a resort community, but I think our property values would hold better, even in this economy, with better management. 

I Went Bowling Today

Yes, me!   I got a Brunswick T-Zone pink pearl ball for my birthday, go figure, and decided to start learning how to use it. 

I had a pretty nice contraption on wheels that I had bought at a sewing shop to store and transport machine embroidery thread.  It was just taking up space, so I retrofit it to hold my shoes and ball and other gear.   So I don't have to buy a bag.  I thought maybe the season bowlers would make fun of that, but they said "Good idea!" 

A couple of the resort casinos that I visit when traveling have bowling lanes on the property. 

I think bowling is good exercise when I am taking a motor trip.  After sitting in the car it is good to do something different, and after trying out a few lanes here and there I have concluded that bowlers are, for the most part, pretty nice people.   I had a good time and plan to do it again soon.

Business Quality Audio

That is what I get from my Plantronics Bluetooth mobile headset.  That is, when I remember to stick it on the cute little charger. 

I don't know how the folks at HeadsetHome knew that Plantronics is the brand I use, but they were right on target, so of course I accepted their invitation to mention plantronics headsets  in my post.

Whenever PayPerPost sends me an e-mail saying my post has been approved for payment, they say to tell all my friends how easy that was. Hmmmm. With the new Version 4.0 it really is easy. I liked the old PayPerPost a lot and was afraid that change might bring complications, but there was no learning curve at all. Like they said, it was easy. Setting up my plantronics headset was easy too. My heart sank when I first started reading the directions, and learned that you have to "pair" the devices before using them the first time. But they pretty much paired themselves. Good thing, too, because I was holding my breath and if it took too long I might have given the term Bluetooth a new meaning.

Are You Getting Google Alerts?

This is still in Beta:

http://www.google.com/alerts

It looks very cool.   Speaking of cool, if anyone needs a coveted Google Wave invitation I have some.  Just leave a comment and let me know.