Meet in between...

This is pretty cool, especially if you live in a big city like Dallas. If you drive from the east side of Dallas to the west side of Fort Worth, at 65 miles per hour, it takes about an hour. So this will really be handy when meeting my gal pals:

http://meetinbetween.us

Horsehead and Orion Nebulae

Horsehead and Orion Nebulae
Credit & Copyright: Dale J. Martin (Massapoag Pond Obs.)
Explanation: Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one of the night sky's most recognizable constellations, the glowing Orion Nebula and the dark Horsehead Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas. They appear in opposite corners of this stunning mosaic taken with a digital camera attached to a small telescope. The magnificent emission region, the Orion Nebula (aka M42), lies at the upper right of the picture. Immediately to its left is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man. The Horsehead nebula appears as a dark cloud, a small silhouette notched against the long red glow at the lower left. Alnitak is the easternmost star in Orion's belt and is seen as the brightest star to the left of the Horsehead. Below Alnitak is the Flame Nebula, with clouds of bright emission and dramatic dark dust lanes. Pervasive tendrils of glowing hydrogen gas are easily traced throughout the region in this deep field image of the same region.

IRS letter...

This is pretty funny. A guy named Ed Barnett, Wichita Falls, TX wrote the following letter to the IRS:

"Dear IRS,

I am sorry to inform you that I will not be able to pay taxes owed April 15, but all is not lost.

I have paid these taxes: accounts receivable tax, building permit tax, CDL tax, cigarette tax, corporate income tax, dog licence tax, federal income tax, unemployment tax, gasoline tax, hunting licence tax, fishing licence tax, waterfowl stamp tax, inheritance tax, inventory tax, liquor tax, luxury tax, medicare tax, city, school and county property tax (up 33 percent last 4 years), real estate tax, social security tax, road usage tax, toll road tax, state and city sales tax, recreational vehicle tax, state franchise tax, state unemployment tax, telephone federal excise tax, telephone federal state and local surcharge tax, telephone minimum usage surcharge tax, telephone state and local tax, utility tax, vehicle licence registration tax, capitol gains tax, lease severance tax, oil and gas assessment tax, Colorado property tax, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and New Mexico sales tax, and many more that I can't recall but I have run out of space and money.

When you do not receive my check April 15, just know that it is an honest mistake. Please treat me the same way you treated Congressmen Charles Rangle, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and ex-Congressman Tom Dashelle and, of course, your boss Timothy Geithner. No penalties and no interest.

P.S. I will make at least a partial payment as soon as I get my stimulus check.

Ed Barnett

Wichita Falls"

Cleaning up your hard drive...

Here's a good tip from April 2008 "Woman's Day", p.12:

"Clean up your temporary files every 2 weeks - Go to my computer, right click C: drive, select Properties and Disk Cleanup; check Temp Files and Recycle Bin, click OK."

Thumb Drives

I was cleaning out some files yesterday and came upon an old receipt for a thumb drive.. In 2001, a 256 Mb thumb drive cost $159! Last week we bought a 32 Gb drive for $66!! Technology marches on!