Podcasting?

I have finally succumed to the world of podcasting. Not that I wanted to, but because of necessity. After reading this, you will understand that this is the way to go for railroaders away from home. Or even for those long drives to and from work.

You see, the workings of the railroad require you to be gone for extended periods of time. These trips I take normally take more than 36 hours and sometime upwards of 60 hours depending on the traffic, number of trains called (needed) and other uninspiring things which keep me away from home. So, how can I listen to the things I want which are scheduled at a certain time and on a certain day? Podcasting!

I also do not have the money to go out and blow on a $400.00 iPod. Not many people I know can spend money like that for something that will probably break in a few months (which things like this typically do break in a short time). So, I did the smart thing, I went to the open source community and picked up iPodder. This is an open source project where many generous people have combined forces and created a very nice program for everyone to use.

I am not going to go into the details. If you want those, just click here and read everything yourself. If you want to skip all the details, get the application and start enjoying podcasting, click on one of these links and download the application for yourself. No, there is no spyware, adware or other things to buy. As a matter of fact, there are many ways to use your existing hardware, PocketPCs, and various toys to take the programs you want with you. Check it out, what can you lose?

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Google Earth

If you don't like the idea that your railroad maps are a few black lines on a white piece of paper, you now have an altrnate map. Google has bought a company named Keyhole and created Google Earth.

With a free download for interfacing software, you can get areial maps of most of the planet. The software is free but the hardware to run it really needs to be current. If you want to see if your computer will run the software, go here and check the requirements and the information for video cards.My laptop is a 1.8Ghz system but it can barely run this software. I will try it out on my desktop system and see if it runs better.

One of the more interesting things you can do with the software is making up location points. The map can have points located on it where you can indicate the various points and what ever realating data you want to add. You can use little icons which are definable too.

Currently, I am adding alot of indicators which I am also including other date for the locations like: Phone Numbers, Printer designations, track lenghts, and anything else I can think of that might be relivent. Even better, once I am done, I can export "My Locations" to a CSV file and I can post it here. Sharing data should be easy this way.

Once I get my locations input, I will speak more on this.

One big But!

One of the main things here is, It's free, It's Interesting, and It's Useful. I recommend you look over the site and install it. The only caveat is that Google wants to also install it's browser tool bar. This is a fairly intrusive piece or software which reports back to google every time you go to a website. I recommend you do not install the Google Toolbar. I really don't like anyone knowing where I go on the Internet. Maybe you don't care, but I do. All I want to say is to think before installing the toolbar.

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Bound

I watched it again while doing the dishes.

Jennifer Tilly

Gina Gershon

Need I say more???

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One very upset dog

For the sake of sanity, I wanted to tell you the names of the animals who shared our home first. The names are simple and rather odd, but from now on, I will call them by name.

Cat: Named "Dawg" - Dog: Named "Jack"

When the cat (Dawg) died Friday, we were not sure how the kids would take it. They did really well at knowing what the situation was and that he was in a lot of pain.

What we didn't expect was that the dog (Jack) would be so depressed, upset, dismayed, or whatever you want to call it. We always expected the problem would be there, but we never expected it to be so bad. He really has been searching for 'Dawg'. One things we noticed right awas was that he was sitting on the couch and not moving but looking around like he was going to show up in the normal cat way. In other words, Dawg would jump up on on the couch, look at the dog, jump up, walk around Jack a bit, sit down and wait to be pummeled.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the cat would sleep in the dogbox with jack. When the cat knew the dog was felling bad, the cat seemed to know this and would stay in there with him and comfort him. It was rather strange but it was good to see.

Now that Jack has no one, he has resorted to playing with a stuffed animal Maryann gave him. At the moment, he is doing OK but you can tell that this will get worse for the foreseeable future. I hope that with some added attention, Jack will be OK. I guess it will have to be since we are not getting another cat for him.

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Quote of the day

If you can't say anything nice about someone,..... You must be speaking about Hillary Clinton.

Jeff Foxworthy

Ya gotta love it.

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The "Dawg" is gone.

Our cat (named "Dawg") is now gone. I buried him just east of the old house in a sunny spot. It is a nice place and I remember him running through that area so I thought is was very appropirate. He will be greatly missed. I really intended to write more but I can't do it now. Maybe later.

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