Andrew Parks Life Blog » General interests

My dream to go green and live self sustaining break out the solar living source book and gardening tools

Andrew — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:58:45 +0000

One of my dreams and goals for the future that I would like to achieve withing the next five years is as follows.
I have discussed this at length with my Wife and we agree on most points here of the goals.

1. Move away from the suburbs, urban sprawl, home owners associations, heavily populated areas, etc..
2. Purchase a small working farm / hobby farm on several acres of workable land.
3. Build and install my own energy generating methods by what ever means is available
The list here is not all inclusive, solar panels, wind turbine,geo-thermal solutions, passive solar,
grid tied system, battery backed system, emergency generator, solar hot water heater, high R value
Insulation, high R value double pane windows,utilize the latest technology in photovoltaics.
Hydro-electric power from a creek or river on my property.
The list could go on here in this area of alternative energy sources, and I will add to it here as
Technologies change.
4. Become less dependent on grocery stores and restaurants for my Family’s food supply.
5. Participate in a growers co-op, and community gardening.
6. Have our own water well.
7. Live a simpler life
8. Seek out a more organic diet for me and my Family.
9. Find a more spiritual side of my life.
10. This should have been step 1 – Secure the financial means to achieve steps 1-9.

These are not such lofty goals considering the government is offering tax breaks and incentives to individuals that install and use alternative energy sources, as well as the tax breaks that you get if you operate a farm.

I ordered a very thick book a few months ago called the solar energy source book. The company that publishes the book has been around since the mid-1970′s. It is packed with alternative energy ideas, and the actual sources where you can get everything you need for living a more self-sustaining lifestyle.
These people where probably called hippies then, but are considered innovators now.

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this sort of stuff.

A wish list

Tim Rice Oxley of Keane doin a cover of Jackson Browne’s / Gregg Allman’s These Days off the Laid Back Album

Andrew — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:09:47 +0000

Surfin around on youtube today checking out what’s up with Keane these days, and low and behold I ran across Tim Rice Oxley doing a cover of “Jackson Browne’s” / Gregg Allman’s “These Days“, off of the Laid Back Album. Jackon Browne wrote the song and it was his orginal, although I have to say Allman’s version is the one I will always remember. These days was one of my favorite songs that seemed to capture of lot of feelings for me and when I was growing up listening to this Album daily. You know how some songs just give you certain feeling, this one did, and still does, it is timeless.

What I like about Tim’s version here is I can pick out all the words of the song without having to go look up the lyrics. Of course not taking away Gregg’s mastered version that is the best of all time.

It is strange how some music / artists you just feel a connection with through their music, well Gregg Allman was alway one for me, and Keane certainly.

If you get a chance go check out both on YouTube, lots of good stuff there.

Enjoy

Laid Back

I got to play with the new Amazon Kindle 2 today, it is amazing

Andrew — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:20:03 +0000

Today a friend of mine let me play around with his new Amazon kindle 2. Needless to say I am jealous, tech toy envy is not good. I was aware of the older legacy kindle, I think is was called the kindle 1, and it looks like the designers really packed this new puppy with features. If you don’t know what a kindle is, basically it is an electronic book reader. Here is the cool thing though, unlike reading a PDF or a word document on a laptop, which becomes very tiresome, the kindle uses something called electronic paper technology.

The technology behind electronic paper is that it does not have the same glare that you get when reading text from a laptop, or PC. If you have ever tried to read anything on a laptop on a sunny day, much less even a cloudy day forget it, the glare is too much to deal with.

Carlos gave me a quick tutorial on using it, I have to say it is an easy learning curve, even for the most technically challenged.If you have a hard time with small fonts, what I call mice type, kind of like what you may be reading now . The Kindle2 has a function where you can change the font size, and font type on the fly. The kindle really looks like something apple would have designed, because it is very thin like the new Iphone, itouch etc…

By the way Carlos also has an iphone, he downloaded the free app on the Apple app store, and we did some comparisons, if you like constantly having to move the page around to read it, I guess it is close to reading any text on the iphone. Not sure if they have an app for itouch?

It weighs around 10 ounces but has a very sturdy feel just like apples products. He says the battery life is around 4 days, which I question that, but from what I have read about the new things they are doing with battery life technology I guess it is possible.

I have been very interested in ebook readers for sometime, I read articles about what was coming years ago when I got into reading e-books on my laptop. It looks like the technology has finally caught up with the predictions. So much is packed into this thing and the learning curve on it is dog simple.

You can bookmark pages and go back to where you left off reading. Also it has a feature where you can make notes / annotate sections on the sides of the pages just like you could in a real paper book.

I have always had an interest in finding ways to not use so much paper. I quit taking the newpaper years ago when I was able to get all my news, local and nationwide online. This little device has green written all over it’s face. I can only imagine the eco-friendly devices, and solutions to our wastefull habits that are in store for us in the future.

So my question is, how many of the books that I like to read are available on the kindle 2. Carlos says the info he read states right now there are around a quarter of a million books available for download.

I really go excited when I found out that free wireless connectivity is included in the price. You can browse Amazon’s kindle book store, and find your book and download it from any location where their wireless coverage is available. It seems that the wireless coverage should be pretty good, as Amazon’s whispernet they say is somehow linked in with Sprint’s 3G network. I know that sprint has really been beefing up their 3g network over the past few years, it, “publicly available wireless connectivity” is just one of the “big shifts” of the internet. So you know what this means for the kindle, and any other device using an available 3g network? No more looking for a wireless hotspot.

Previous owners of the original kindel can download all their previous purchases.
The big draw to me is if you are an avid reader like me you can save half on best sellers, you can get your subscriptions to your favorite magazines and news papers, and I looked out on Amazon and it says they are auto delivered to your Kindle 2. It had big name newspapers like the Wall St. Journal, and The New York Times. Can you imagine how much paper could be saved.

Last he showed me that it has free wireless access to wikipedia included, and free access to an online dictionary, I forgot the name of the dictionary site.

I think I covered all the feature that he ran through in about ten minutes.

Oh, almost forgot this one, when your eyes get tired of reading you can switch over to text to speech mode, and it will read to you. It sounds like the normal top of the line text to speech program, which I really don’t like that much, but nevertheless you can rest your eyes and finish off a chapter or two.

So I started searching for prices out there, I looked on ebay and found kindles being bid up beyond the new and used prices that are on Amazon, that does not make sense to me, unless you like wasting money.
I will be putting this on my wish list for Christmas. I usually don’t get expensive gifts for Christmas, although I would gladly forgo a Birthday gift to get my hands on one.

Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

A list of memories from my hometown Smyrna Georgia

Andrew — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 03:43:56 +0000

I grew up in Smyrna Ga. I have had every intention to try to capture my memories of my childhood and teenage years somewhere, I guess my blog would be the best place for that.

I have been wanting to drive around Smyrna and take pictures of the few places that are still left that hold memories for me, more on that in a later post.

In the meantime I have decided to try a brainstorming exercise to try to think of every person, place and or thing about Smyrna and my experiences there.

Here goes the random list as they enter my mind, I will add more as I think of them.

Family,Sandies, Dantes Pizza, Smyrna Elementary, Aunt Fannies Cabin, Brinkley Park, Dunn St., Campbell High School, 1970 Chevelle Malibu, summertime, friends, GB’s Place, Hoot Gibsons BarBQ, Storyland, the covered bridge, bennet woods, old fire truck, the 4th of July, how to make a buck, belmont hills shopping center, Howards, Cobb Center, Griffin Middle School, Sisters, sparkles skating rink, Campbells Restaurant, The American Legion, Tenneco, Lee St., Jonquil Plaza, Smyrna Cable, The Sunnyside Inn, Nanny, Holly Tree, Colquitts, Ponderosa, Pizza Inn, Shakeys Pizza, First Baptist Church, Calvary Baptist Church, Church St., Ridge Rd., Pecans, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Silver Corvair, magic tricks, baseball, Johnny Rebs, A&P, Captain D’s, JC Penny’s, Woolworths, Dunaway Drugs, Dairy Queen, cutting grass, Whitfield St., Cousins, The Music Mart, Gibson’s Department Store, Richway’s, Jonquil sporting goods,Garage, Floor Heaters, Big Apple, Love, sno-cones, the concession stand, pool,green grass, blue sky, Jonquil pool, the teen canteen on Church St., Jane Lyle Rd., the woods, tennis, go cart, old Smyrna Library,

I am sure I have a bunch more in my brain but it is not 11:40 and I have to wake up at 4:30 AM

To be continued

P.S. If anyone from Smyrna reads this please post your memories here.

Thanks

I finally got around to watching the movie Twilight

Andrew — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:12:48 +0000

I seem to be a bit late to getting around to watching the latest movies, and I practically have to be drug to the movies. The last movie theater that I visited was when my Wife and I went to see Mama Mia, I was reluctant to go see a movie with a name like that, I knew nothing about the movie, then after the first few minutes my Wife informed me, “Oh by the way this is a Musical” as she laughed at the look on my face.
Well needless to say Mama Mia seems to be one of those movies that you start out hating, then all of the sudden it grows on you. We now have the DVD and did a family movie night, my daughters ended up hating it too, then ended up saying it was a good move. It is one of those movies that gives you a good feeling once it is finished with it.

So again with Twilight the movie, I am sort of late here as well. My daughters have been reading all the Stephenie Meyer Twilight series books way before the movie was made, of course while watching the move they informed me several times that the book was way better than the movie. And they kept saying something about “is robert pattison’s married? They googled it, the answer is no.

I have to say the movie was pretty entertaining, I doubt if I will ever get around to reading even a chapter of one of the books. I am more of a technical reader that a pleasure non-fiction reader, I need to change that I’m told.

Now I am looking forward to the release of the next movie, New Moon.

An easy way to save for college tuition and expenses, is a 529 plan right for me ?

Andrew — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:11:19 +0000

We live in Georgia so we are lucky there is the Georgia lottery with the hope Scholarship program to help pay college tuition costs. I am fairly sure that your child has to maintain a B average in order to keep Hope, pardon the pun.

I have been researching other avenues of ways to save for college expenses. I read about 529 plans, which grow tax free, and can be spent tax free, also something called a Coverdell plan although it sounds like you have to manage your own investment with a Coverdell.

There is some good information on 529′s at Clark Howard’s website here.

Also in my research I also found a really neat site site called UPromise.com where you can get back a percentage of your everyday purchases, at restaurants, department stores, online stores, and grocery items. Once you build up your rewards you can take the rewards and open a 529 plan, or pay off student loans, or get it back in the form of a check.

I will be opting for the check option, then I can place the savings directly into a 529 plan of my choice.
They have an example on their website, where you can open a 529 direct with their own investment company, although I am not sure this is the best option from what I have read about 529′s and how they are sponsored by individual States. I created a mind map of how I plan to use this site. A little different than the diagrahm on UPromise.com
.

Take a look below, I created this little mind map as an example of how I plan to use UPromise.com
.

You can move the mindmap around by clicking your mouse and dragging it to look, or increasing or decreasing the size of it.

Upromise – Turn your everyday spending into college savings

How much resveratrol do you have to take or red wine should I drink for it to benefit my health ?

Andrew — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:48:04 +0000

I read these articles I come across that state you would have to ingest huge quantities of resveratrol to realize the health benefits.

Well I found that I could not drink red wine, it seemed to react in a negative way with a medicine that I take, I’ll spare you the details, so I rolled over to my local walgreens and purchased a bottle of resveratrol supplement. I have to say I was wondering if the walgreens brand I found was really the real thing? It took forever for me to find it hidden among the wall of vitamins, minerals and herbals. It cost me just around 10 bucks, I took it for a month and then ran out, I need to refill it, but just have not found the time.

How much resveratrol do you have to take, or red wine drink for it to benefit your health ?

Take a look at this article I found that suggests allot of resveratrol.

Diet Blog

Resveratrol: Fountain of Youth or Waste of Money
Diet Blog, California
by Mike Howard Red wine drinkers have been toasting to better health and longer life with all of the news pieces on the miracle that is resveratrol – a component of red grape skin and some other fruits. Let’s sift through the claims and hype and see …

So in a nutshell I think what they are saying here is, if you are going to seek the health benefits of resveratrol, you are going to have find a concentrated source of it in order for you to see the real health affects. I did quite a bit of research on the web and found that Biotivia seems to back the claims of their product with some fairly hefty R&D on the subject. The deal I found on Amazon may be better than on Biotivia’s site, Amazon offers free shipping sometimes.

Amazon Resveratrol Simple Search

Biotivia Resveratrol Bioforte 500 Dietary Supplement, Capsules, 60-Count Bottle

I always like to check wikipedia as well, very interesting information here that supports possible longevity and and anti-aging properties of resveratrol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resveratrol

“Search for immortality may be within reach” – Google news headline somewhat confusing, but hey it’s catchy and makes you want to click.

Andrew — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:14:11 +0000

So I ran across this headline on google news, it, the headline that is, made me want to click it to check it out. Once on IEET’s website I did somewhat understand the correlation between the headline and the link to the article about an upcoming conference on what role physical enhancements, “the upgraded body” have on the disabled and the non-disabled, and the ethical issues that technology driven age enhancement carries.

Copywriting works, example, I a 40+ year old starting feel and see the first effects of aging suddenly has a keen interest in wanting to regain my youth.

The conference sounds very intriguing, and opened a new thought process for me on this subject.

Take a look for yourself

Search for immortality may be within reach
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, CT
From the opulent courts of Chinese emperors to the austere cells of Indian sages, from the drafty northern European chambers of medieval alchemists to Ponce de Leon’s legendary—and probably falsely attributed—quest for the Fountain of Youth in the …

Playing with adobe photoshop look at my goofy header

Andrew — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:50:48 +0000

So this is what my Friday nights have come to.
You know you are a geek when you play with adobe photoshop on a Friday night.

I am just getting the hang of creating simple banners, headers logos, etc..

Here is an example of the header listed above

one header for my blog

So Basically each different part of the header is a new layer in photoshop.
I followed a simple tutorial I purchased to make this one, really makes me appreciate photoshop experts.

I will try to post a video soon outlining the steps to create a banner.

Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 7