Interesting poster

I saw this on my lunch time downtown walk.

Dazel Dead 5/2008

Me and D at the Gingerman for Dazel Dead, May 2008. Taken by Bill.

At the car show

More about MS Office 2007 files

Just a while back, I blogged about how to open MS Office 2007 files on a Windows machine even if you don't have MS Office installed. I've just stumbled upon a website that will convert the files for you. I haven't tried it out, but it appears that Zamzar converts MS Office 2007 files as well as does many other types of conversions. This might be useful to keep in mind if you are on a different operating system, like Mac OS X.

Downtown Austin

D took this picture a few days ago somewhere around San Antonio and 8th Streets.

Yee haw!

BabyBoy is in charge!

On the importance of blogging for technical folks

My second post for the Phurnace Software blog (which is why I didn't post last night....I was working!):

On the importance of blogging for technical folks

Stealth cat

From todaysbigthing.com:

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Congratulations, D!

She just accepted a new job at Compass Learning!

TestLink

I just started using TestLink at work. It's a software test case management (TCM) tool, something every QA team needs, in my humble opinion. We didn't have anything in place, so I researched and chose TestLink over a few other free/low cost solutions. It's not HP Quality Center, but so far it is getting the job done. I've only been using it for a few weeks now (we're in the middle of a sprint), so I'll give an update later, and a more thorough review of the tool.

How to open MS Office 2007 files on Windows without MS Office

I am currently using OpenOffice v. 2.4 at work, which doesn't support MS Office 2007 files. Sometimes I just need to read these files, and not really edit them. E.g., I will get a .docx or a .xlsx file from a colleague or vendor. Just yesterday I couldn't open a .docx file from our outsourced vendor. MS Office 2007 support won't arrive until OpenOffice.org 3.0 comes out (it's in beta testing right now). So my quick solution was to download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats and the Word Viewer. Together those allowed me to open the vendor's .docx document. Note that the Word Viewer 2003 plus SP3 update seems to work well too.

Dadaism

BabyBoy is into dada lately, as in saying, "da da da da da!" Actually he's really getting into turkey and vegetable puree, as evidenced by this smile at dinner time tonight.

Holding hands

I'm doing more photo organization on my computer and I found this picture that my mom scanned for me. My brother and I are holding hands and playing Red Rover at a girl scout camp. Note the special grip we used to prevent the other team from breaking through. I love that I'm wearing a Grease t-shirt, which dates this photo to circa 1978. I loved that movie when I was a kid.

Broken faucet

These things always happen on a Friday night. But it's fixed now. Thanks J!

Man in motion

BabyBoy in action.

Book Review: The Milk Memos

I just finished reading The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business With Babies--And How You Can, Too by Cate Colburn-Smith and Andrea Serrette. I wish I had read this book before I returned to work from maternity leave, but fortunately, I had plenty of support from my partner and co-workers, one of which just finished nursing her daughter and pumped at work as well. There is lots of good advice in this book, from how to survive the first week back, finding a private place and time to pump at work, and even all the way to discussing weaning. The book is based on notebook entries that were started at IBM by women pumping milk in their lactation room. The book has notebook entries interspersed with real advice and facts. The authors are non-biased with regards to how long a woman chooses to pump and nurse and whether or not they switch or supplement with formula. There are also anecdotes about forgetting pump parts and leaking milk. But what touched me the most was realizing that I'm not alone in feeling torn about returning to work and still being a mommy as much as I can. There is good advice about how to handle it and keep your sanity. I recommend this book and rate it 9 out of 10.

My new phone

For my birthday, I gave myself a new phone, the Sony Ericsson Walkman W580i, in jungle green. I haven't tried out all of its features yet, but so far it has been a pretty good phone. I also bought a 4 Gb memory card for it, and have loaded up some of my favorite tunes as well as a few podcasts I'm trying out.

Visitors, Part 3

Last in this series: Cousins from Richardson and Temple came to catch up while my family was here. This is a photo of my dad and his cousin and husband and BabyBoy. Taken by my cousins from Temple.

Just the right amount of tortillas

In response to my mom's post about not being able to find tortillas in small amounts, D found these at HEB.

Visitors, Part 2

We had some more visitors arrive after my family. Actually we aren't sure when they arrived, but it was some time last week that we heard noises in the attic. To confirm our suspicions, D opened the attic access and put out some cat food to lure our attic guests out. She caught this one on camera.






We did hire someone to trap our unwanted guests. He caught three of them.

Goodbye, Neo

Yesterday, we said goodbye to Neo. He had FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus). He was a very sweet and handsome kitty, and will be missed by all.


And here he is with D and BabyBoy, when BabyBoy was only a week old. It is hard to believe that he was once a feral cat, but became so tame and loving and loyal.

It's even harder to believe that he's gone now.

Visitors, Part 1

Well, I have been on a bit of a hiatus due to lots of visitors and also health reasons. My immediate family was here the last week and a half of August, and I know they really enjoyed visiting with BabyBoy. Two weekends ago, we all piled in their rental car and headed to the coast for a short visit with my aunt and uncle in Robstown, Texas. Here is a photo of BabyBoy meeting them for the first time.