Categories
McUpdate

Home Sweet Home???

We are no longer moving into the townhouse we have been anticipating moving into. Basically, along with some other issues, it just didn’t feel right anymore. But we still want to move ASAP. So for the last few days, we’ve been looking around the area for a house, not a townhome. We have come to the conclusion that Orem has some elevated prices right now, so we’re looking around different cities closeby. Even though Orem is ideal since that’s where it’s at, and since so much of our family lives there now, the prices seem a little steep for what you’re getting. But Orem would be the city of choice for us right now. Anyway, we like one in Springville, which is just south of Provo, but we want to look a little more just to make sure… You know, date around a bit… It’s sort of like trying to get married, I think. You go to some places and they are just not right for you, and you know it after just a few minutes. They’re either too rough around the edges, a little too old, or something about them is just too annoying. But then you find that one special place, and it just feels right even if it isn’t 100% perfect, but its imperfections are things you can live with (especially compared to the imperfections of other places you’ve experienced). If you walk in and it feels like home, it might just be the one for you.

Categories
Personal

Last deep thought from Primary


Ahh yes, the last deep thought from primary for a while. We were finally released today from teaching the 4 & 5 year olds at church. The deep thought comes from Alex as he gave the prayer to start class: “Please bless us to die with joy”…… Amen

Categories
Ranting

Are you for real!?


Have you ever seen a picture or video and you think, wow howd that happen? or that’s one lucky photographer to catch that scene as it happened! or Wow that celeb looks better/worse than yesterday… well you’re probably right. Photoshop fools many people a day, including magazine & newspaper editors. Here is a great story on CNET that gives some great examples; I really enjoyed it. So next time you get the amazing shot of the week in your junk mail, just remember that Adobe is very proud of their lead photo editing software.

This lead me to thinking, who can I trust now? If I can’t trust pictures from high profile magazines and news stations.. I’ll have to start thinking on my own! We all will continually have to ask, is that really possible? Could those two people have really meet each other, and why would they? Why would the shark have attacked the helicopter? Oh darn you photoshop for making my brain have to think about every one of the thousands of images it sees each day. Just a warning to everyone, the phrase “seeing is believing” is no longer true. I guess we’ll all depend on faith now!

Categories
Reviews

Icee you see we all see

I enjoy Icees a lot. I generally like them better than Slurpees because they have seemingly smaller granules of ice in them. The other day I went to Burger King to indulge in a refreshing Cherry Icee, and I discovered that they have something called an Icee Float. It’s the same as an Icee except it has a bit of vanilla milkshake added to it, so it tastes creamier. I think it’s relatively new, at least new to me. And the good news is that it’s the same price as the original Icee; the small one is only a dollar! That’s a lot cheaper than a lot of other specialty drinks like that (such as ones at Sonic). There are only two flavors, though: Cherry and Coke. I feel that they would be wise to make a root beer flavored one, because that would be a tasty alternative to the typical boring root beer float. Have you tried an Icee Float yet? What do you think?

Categories
Tech

How to: Speed up computer / prep a new one


When you get a new compueter you are excited and love how fast and amazing it is. A few months later, after you fill it with videos and photos it’s not running as fast. What’s the deal!? Here are some tips you should setup when you get that new computer, or if you feel like speeding up your old one.

  • The first principle is, don’t be a grandma!

    • Your computer does not need to collect anything. If you don’t use it at least once a month. DELETE IT.
    Room on your hard drive is very important, don’t give it away like candy. (Why is HD room important? Space for stuff you need & virtual RAM!! & other stuff) Ok, with that said lets make sure to delete things properly! Use the uninstall whenever possible. Much of the time you will find the Add/Remove Program window will do the job. Otherwise use the uninstall contained with the program. On a new computer this is very important b/c they stuff all kinds of ad junk on there. Like AOL, “Free” Games, HP Crap Software, etc. So go to your control panel and double click “Add/Remove Programs”. This will pull up a list of installed programs on your computer. Go through one by one and say, “Self, do I use that?” If the answer is no or maybe someday, then uninstall it.

  • The second principle is clean and protect

    • Computers are hard enough to manage as it is. You don’t need adware and spyware messing things up more. Download and use these simple (and free) tools. And it’s a great idea to set them up on a schedule (to run right before your disk clean and defrag)

    1. Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool
    2. Microsoft’s Defender (Do a full scan not a quick scan)
    3. A antivirus software of your choice (AVG is Gino’s (free) recommend)

  • Third use and schedule system maintenance

    • Built in system optimizers can boost the speed of your computer by a lot. You should use the disk cleaner weekly, and defragment your HD once each month or two. To find these tools click on start, then hover over all programs, then hover over accessories, then hover over system tools. There you will see “Disk Cleaner” and “Disk Defragmenter” (the “Scheduled Tasks” is also in that folder, use that to setup cleaning times, then you don’t even have to work to have a fast computer!) The disk cleaner will find all temp files and delete them for you such as useless internet pics and so forth, and the disk defragmenter will move files on your hard drive closer so the laser reading them doesn’t have to bounce all over the place loking for files on your HD disk.

    Another great trick is to keep your desktop clean. The more items (large files) on your desktop (apps not shortcuts; shortcuts are typically 1KB, that’s really small) the slower your boot up time will be.

    Hope this helps anyone out there who just got a new computer, oh and all this is for Windows; sorry Mac users, a How to on Mac will have to come when I save enough money for one 🙂 Got any ideas on top of these? Post em in the comments, I’d like to know!

Categories
Married Lessons

Motherhood Materialized

Last night Pace, Chase & I went on a group date to the Nickelcade in Orem. We went with Darin & Nada, and Rachel & Dustin (Rachel’s new “friend”). It was lots of fun, and we all took turns holding Chase, in and out of the baby carrier, despite his obvious distaste for the noisy place. Once I had him in the carrier and was sitting there playing a monster truck racing game with Rachel, when I suddenly felt some kind of warm liquid seeping onto my clothing. Before you get too grossed out, I will reveal what it was. Chase was peeing on me. The interesting thing was that it was right on the crotch area of my jeans, not the best location for liquid to appear. I had Pace come over and take Chase so I could survey the damage, and he didn’t believe me when I told him what had happened, because the baby was completely dry. See, Chase is pretty amazing sometimes, in that he can pee up his back or out the sides of his diaper. I can’t even begin to explain how any of this happens, but it happens nonetheless. Anyway, I then took Chase outside to the car to change his diaper. I was still wearing the baby carrier and probably looked a bit frazzled. As I was digging for my keys in the baby bag, I had a bit of a mommy moment, just thinking that it’s official, I’m a real mom now with baby pee on my pants and all. I put Chase in the trunk of the car to change his diaper (probably a shady-looking thing to a lot of people, but what can you do). As I was leaning over to change the baby’s diaper, a guy driving by whistled, I guess at me since I was the only one around, and I just had to chuckle to myself, thinking yeah he has no idea….

Categories
McUpdate

Yay! (a poem)

Hey! My sis Rachel is here to stay! Hip hip hooray! She’s been checking out boys so we know she isn’t gay! And we’ve been able to see her every day! And that is a-okay! We wouldn’t have it any other way! If you’d like to visit her, you may! But to getting married soon, she says “Nay”! We think she’ll soon eat her words and have to pay! What do you say?

Categories
Ranting

Will Survivor survive this one?

SEPT 14th 8pm (eastern)

Well, it has nearly arrived. The next season of Survivor is just around the corner, beginning September 14th on CBS and entitled “Survivor 13: Cook Islands“. Watch out for this one, because there’s no doubt that it will be messy. I say this because the tribes will be divided by… guess what… you’ll never guess… ethnicity! Yikes. I am feeling, now more than ever, that I have no desire to be on the show. The apparent tribe names (I’m not sure if they’re official) are: The Asian-Americans, the African-Americans, the Whites (why aren’t we the European Americans?), and the Hispanics (and the South American Americans?).
The “White” tribe? Not very politically correct! I’m offended. Who else is offended? 😮 This racial division thing could be a good move on the part of the producers or whoever decides on tribe division, I guess because people might want to see which race does better. But above all, I think it will offend a lot of people and start lots of fights. Maybe Survivor won’t survive.

Tell us what you think about it, and you could use this link to tell CBS what you think about it, like I did.

Categories
Personal

Cotton’s New Roomie


Today Cotton came home to find his stuff shuffled and new stuff in one of the rooms of the apt. Little did Cotton know his new roomie was also in the apt, just very well camouflaged. Yep Cotton got a new roomie today and doesn’t know anything about him, just keeps seeing more stuff pile up. My guess is he’s a sniper and loves sneaking around, what’s your guess?. We’re having a contest here to see who can find out / make up the most about Cotton’s roommate before he does. (And yes I found this picture by typing roommate into Google images!)

Categories
McBalderdash

McBalderdash Results


After much deliberation, the McBalderdash results are in!

Here’s the real answer: C.H.H.A.= Canadian Hard of Hearing Association

Rachel: 82.4 points for being the first one to submit a response! And .3 points for involving McMom’s favorite animal in your answer. Tyler: 82.7 points for using the word anonymous, but -.7 points for using the word “hunter,” which had already been used by Rachel. Brad: 82.6 points for creating a weird mental image in our minds Pace: 82.5 points for mentioning the children of Hungary Joy: 82.8 points for having such an original answer, but -.7 points for using the crude term “hooter.” TMom: 82.7 points for using the word Crusty, but -.7 for using the word “Hog” which was already used by Rachel (apparently everyone wants to BE Rachel!), but .5 points for involving the older crowd, aka the Boomers, in your answer. Melissa Keck: 82.9 points for mustering up the courage to post on our blog, but -.9 points for not really being the one who posted it. Jason McGowan: -82.9 points for rarely reading our blog and not posting anything for McBalderdash, but 82.97 points for donating money to the McBlog Foundation.