I Love Lynda

I love Lynda.com. Lynda is an online training library of quicktime videos for a variety of digital media, design and development. Sign up for a month, at $25, and you have access to any and all training videos you desire to sit through. I've used it to brush up or sharpen my skills on a number of design applications.

I know they have training for all Adobe products including Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Flash and Dreamweaver; other applications like CorelDRAW and Office; and many other training videos on such topics as digital photography, Web design, digital video, and many others - all things various individuals have asked me about learning. The video trainers are clear and upbeat so the learning is easy.

If you are at all interested you can check it out here. Lynda usually lets you preview the first five or six videos of any class free.

A Framley Parsonage

Right now I'm reading Anthony Trollop's A Framely Parsonage. Those Imperial Brits are such drama queens, tween novels got nothing on the passion and tragedy of English society people. And there's the bonus of heaping helpings of dry wit too. Maybe it's just my recent brush with illness but here's a passage I particularly enjoyed:

Mr. Sowerby was one of those men who are known to be very poor - as poor as debt can make a man - but who, nevertheless, enjoy all the luxuries which money can give. It was believed that he could not live in England out of jail but for his protection as a member of Parliament: and yet it seemed that there was no end to his horses and carriages, his servants and retinue. He had been at this work for a great many years, and practice, they say, makes perfect. Such companions are very dangerous. There is no cholera, no yellow-fever, no smallpox, more contagious than debt. If one lives habitually among embarrassed men, one catches it to a certainty. No one had injured the community in this way more fatally than Mr. Sowerby. But still he carried on the game himself; and now, on this morning, carriages and horses thronged at his gate, as though he were as substantially rich as his friend the Duke of Omniun.

Another life lesson in the book: there's really nothing as enchanting as a handsome, wealthy, aristocrat with a gun.

Drowning My Sorrows

I'm sick again. I've lost my voice, everything in my head is malfunctioning and I'm all achy with fever. Whatever this bug is, it makes me ferociously thirsty. I've been doing my best to drink the pain away. In just three hours I consumed 196 oz. of liquid. Thank goodness there is an awesome sale on V8 diet Splash at the grocery store right now. I also cleaned out our limeade, the 3 64 oz. bottles of cranberry juice, a full box of mandarin orange tea and a full box of hot chocolate. AND I'm still thirsty.
I feel so bad that my mind started thinking of Thucydide's description of the plague in The Peloponnesian War. From Chapter 49:
[2] As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.
[3] These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness, after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very great distress.
[4] In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed, producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in others much later.
[5] Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the neglected sick, who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank little or much.
[6] Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them. The body meanwhile did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed, as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels, inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhea, this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal.
[7] For the disorder first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the whole of the body, and even where it did not prove mortal, it still left its mark on the extremities;
[8] for it settled in the privy parts, the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these, some too with that of their eyes. Others again were seized with an entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either themselves or their friends.

My New Favorite Show

My new favorite show is Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the travel channel. I noticed it New Years night when they had a show on Sao Paulo Brazil. Being curious about what Robby may not be telling us about his current living conditions, I tuned in. There were the football sized "burgers" layered with beef, ham, spam and sliced meat that Robby took pictures of. There were also the shops that sold fried bits of unmentionable animal parts. And the vibrant city, the soccer and the people. Watching made me dream of how wonderful it would be to do nothing but travel the globe.
Since then, I've enjoyed scenes from Iceland, Spain, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Singapore. Maybe one day I'll get to go somewhere cool, until then hurray for TV.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire

I've been reading a Motley Fool book "You Have More Than You Think You Have." It's really interesting. The power of compound interest is stunning. I'm learning that can work for you or against you depending on how you manage your money. It's really scary to me that the average American household holds around 7,000 in credit card debt.

The book is really encouraging and gives some practical advice on saving, getting out of debt, following a budget etc. I appreciate that they try to avoid penny pinching and instead work on the larger picture. If anyone is interested in reading it I'd be happy to lend it to you. If you don't live by me you can buy it off Amazon for around 1.50.

I also just caught an article on NPR about savings. Here's a section that has left me thinking:

If you start saving $300 a month — or $3,600 a year — when you're 25, and earn an 8.5 percent annual return and reinvest your earnings, that money will be worth $1,064,457 when you're 65.

But if you wait until you're 35 to start saving the same amount, you'll only have $447, 173. If you wait until you're 45 you'll have even less — $174,000. Think about that. If you start when you're 25, you're saving for just twice as long, but earning more than eight times as much money.

You can read or listen to the rest of the article here.

Art Class

I've been toying with the idea of "teaching" an art class. I'd like to get some practice to see how much I would really like it. Would anyone be interested in being in the class? I'm thinking being in the class would mean coming over to my place and working on a project of your choice.

Peas Porridge Hot

As winter sets in there's almost nothing I love more than a big bowl of warm soup. While I make a lot of soups from scratch, one of my absolute favorite soups comes from a bag. Manischewitz Soup. They usually cost around a dollar and the pack holds 5 servings. Each serving has no fat, 150 calories and around 10 grams of protein. Even better, it's hearty enough to keep you full for hours and is really thick and tasty. It's soooo good. I find myself craving it. All you have to do to make it is boil water and pour, perfect after after a long cold winter day.