Windows 7 Home Premium

For the first time since Windows XP released - October 25, 2001 – I have a new, official, released Microsoft operating system to install. Now, there have been other installations since then, including a couple re-installs of Windows XP, for various reasons. Others included a couple different versions of Ubuntu (Linux) on my development computer, and more recently, the Beta and Release Candidates of Windows 7.

Just before dinner yesterday, Susan informed me that my Amazon package had arrived. I knew right away that it was the long awaited new operating system that I pre-ordered back on June 26. I immediately went to work installing it onto my extra partition. I’m keeping my original Windows XP installation safe in the primary partition, just in case I need it.

After dinner, I basically locked myself in the computer room and started installing applications. First up was my Trend Micro Internet Security software, followed by Microsoft Office and Google Chrome. This, along with creating Susan’s and Andrew’s user accounts, took me well into the night.

Today, the installation continues. My digital camera and video camera software is installed, as well as my sound card software. The big question now is, “Where are all of my original installation disks?” In Washington, I had nearly three shelves full of computer boxes with the original software inside. Before moving, I pulled out all the disks and recycled the boxes. So where are all of those disks now? I truly don’t know. They must be in the attic, because I can’t find them in the computer room. So, until I find them, I guess I’ll be needing to keep Windows XP around awhile longer.

Osceola Fall Festival

Today was the Osceola Magnet School's big fundraiser; the Fall Festival. Each class was given a choice of fundraising activities and a 36" x 36" piece of cardboard to decorate. Andrew's kindergarten class picked the Lollipop Clown. But considering the fall theme of the festival, some of the parents decided to change the name to Pick-A-Pop Scarecrow.

Susan spent many hours with another parent working on the theme and ideas for an in-class activity for the kids to work on and contribute to the poster board. They decided on custom lollipops, colored and cut from construction paper, and glued to wooden dowels.

The night before the kids were to work on their piece of the project, the poster board arrived at our house, completely void of any decoration. I got busy thinking about how to apply nice looking lettering. My first thought was to paint on letter blocks, like those used by young kids. I knew my artistic talents would be stretched beyond their limited capacity, so I searched Google for a letter block font. I found a great, free font and printed "Kindergarten Class" in two inch letters across seven sheets of paper. I placed the pages onto the poster board with the idea that I would trace each letter, then paint each letter a different color. By the time I had traced the letters "K", "I", "N", and "D", my hand started to hurt and I figured there's got to be a better way than this. After a few thoughtful minutes, I came up with a new plan. I typed each letter into a three inch square in Microsoft Publisher, then changed the colors of the letters, and printed the results on my color printer. Then I cut out each letter and glued it individually to the poster board. This worked out fabulously.

Just when I thought I was finished, Susan realized that we didn't have the name of the fundraiser and the instructions written. Back in Publisher, we came up with a nice design using WordArt and some leaf graphics.

The next day at school, we let the kids decorate, cut, and glue their custom lollipop to the poster board. The kids left the classroom in groups of four at a time. We had three stations for them to work. First, they wrote their names on their lollipops and colored them. Then they moved on to the cutting station, where they cut out the lollipop and glued on a small ribbon. Finally, they moved to the poster board station, where they attached their creations to the wooden dowels that I had already glued down. It's funny how the girls selected the inner grouping and the boys selected the outer. Within an hour, all the lollipops (except for two due to the kids being absent) were attached.

I was now happy in the knowledge that my contribution to the festival was complete. I was wrong. Yesterday afternoon, Susan called me from school and told me they needed help with the easels. She told me they needed a hammer, nails, a drill, and wire. I was wondering to myself, "What in the world are they going to do with nails and wire?" After a quick stop at Home Depot, we had our supplies and were on our way to school.

Most of the easels were complete, but several were in bad shape. I managed to steal some wood from one to "fix" two others. Let it be known that I'm not proud of the results, but to my knowledge not one failed while in service at the festival.

Today, when I found our class fundraiser, I noticed that Susan added the border that Mom sent us in the mail - nice touch.

For the first three hours, Andrew and I were on our own. We did nearly everything there was to do: bounce houses, food and snacks, dart game, fishing game, peg boards, the lollipop tree, tubes of candy, and many more.

One of the big attractions that we avoided was the haunted house. Andrew wanted me to go first and tell him about it. He really didn't want to go in without some knowledge of what to expect. I didn't want to spend that many tickets. Eventually we decided to go in together. The parents did a fantastic job decorating the multipurpose room. Outside looked like a cemetery, and inside had many rooms with scary things all around. Several times, people jumped out at us from dark places. Luckily, the bigger kids raced ahead, so the initial shock of the scare was gone by the time we arrived on the scene. Even so, when we left the building, Andrew was clearly glad to be out. He told me that he didn't want to go back in again.

When Susan arrived, we met her at the Pick-A-Pop Scarecrow lollipop tree. She was about to start her shift at the booth. Andrew told her about all the things that he had done, with special emphasis on the haunted house. To my great surprise, Andrew asked Susan to go with him, back into the haunted house. After they entered, I went around back to wait for them at the exit. When they came out, I asked Andrew what he thought. He told me that he closed his eyes all the way through.

By now, we had seen and done everything at least once. I had know idea how to spend the next hour. Luckily, Andrew ran into one of his classmates and they filled the time playing at each bounce house and on the playground.

Unfortunately, the fun ended on a sad note. A boy gave Andrew a helium balloon after the festival ended. Andrew played with it while I helped take down some easels and clean up. When I went to tell him it was time to go, he wanted to see if some sand could hold the balloon. I told him not to let go of the string, but he did anyway. The balloon pulled free of the sand and slowly climbed away. I leaped for it, but couldn't reach it. Andrew was a wreck, tears flowing wildly down his cheeks.

Susan saw us walking back to the car and asked what happened. We told her the story and she said, "Oh, I have a balloon in the car for you." What a life saver! The day was now considered a complete success.

Uncle Donald's Farm

Now that I'm living in Florida, one of the things I find myself missing this time of year is farms. I've always enjoyed driving by or going to farms with cornfield mazes and pumpkin patches. In Washington, our favorite was Stocker Farms in Snohomish. Vero Beach, and all of Indian River, is known for its citrus fields. There are no cornfields or pumpkin patches to be found.

This year, we decided to go in search of a fun farm, even if it meant driving all day to get there. Within an hour of Internet searching, we decided to visit Uncle Donald's Farm in Lady Lake, Florida.

We started the trip by driving to the C&D B&B last night. This morning, I awoke to an empty house. Dave had already left on his weekly golfing adventure and Cathy had to work. We were very surprised to find the thermometer on the back porch showing only 60 degrees! For the first time in a long time, I had to wear jeans and my soft, fuzzy, long sleeve shirt. After a quick breakfast, we were on our way.

Right out of the gate, we ran into delays. Susan needed to stop at a post office to drop off a package for her mother. While she was inside, Andrew complained to me about his toe hurting in his shoe. When Susan got back in the car, she looked for his other shoes, but said they were back at the B&B. We drove all the way back, only to find that they were NOT at the B&B, but instead, in the way-back of the car. DOH!

Back on the road, our GPS started telling us to take the next right, then take the next left. It didn't take long before I realized that I had no idea where I was. If the GPS had failed, I would have had no idea how to find the farm, or the B&B for that matter. Even though we were completely lost, the drive was very nice and it was good to see some hills for a change.

Upon arrival at the farm, my first feeling was a bit of disappointment; there were no cornfields and from what I could tell, no real pumpkin patch. Nonetheless, the farm quickly grew on me. We were greeted in the parking lot by a large, scraggly, friendly white dog. The farm was obviously planned with young kids in mind. Near the entrance, we found a pen that had kids for sale at cheap prices.

The main area inside the gate was setup for familes to have picnic lunches. There were dozens of picnic tables sitting about randomly under the trees. I'm sure the shade is most appreciated most of the year, but today, I was looking for sunshine. It was probably still in the low 70's and quite chilly for us thin blooded Floridians.

Our first destination was the "pumpkin patch". The pumpkins were lying about for families to pick up and purchase. Nearby was the maze, constructed from large hay bails set about. Luckily for me, I could see the entire maze, but Andrew had to find his way through by trial and error. Inside the maze were lots of little posters with silly kid jokes written on them. For example: What animal can jump as high as a house? All of them; a house can't jump!

Next up was the hayride. A large group of parent, grandparents, and kids climbed into a long, open trailer with hay bails for seats. We were pulled around a large field, past the ostrich pen, to an area with a small herd of cows. We stopped so the cows could converge on the trailer. At that point, we were shown how to make "hay bouquets" to feed the cows.

After the hayride, we spent the rest of our time looking at the animals in pens. They had an amazing collection, including: horses, goats, sheep, rabbits, pigs, ducks, cougars, a river otter, cranes, turtles, a fox, coyotes, deer, a talking parrot, turkeys, hawks, owls, chickens, and a peacock. We even got to witness feeding time. Everyone was interested to see the cougars devour their raw meat.

While on the hayride, we overheard a couple talking about leaving to eat lunch at a nearby fast food restaurant. We had to interrupt because A) we were hungry and B) we hadn't seen much of any civilization for most of the drive from Sanford. After seeing everything at the farm, we followed their directions and quickly found The Villages. What a shocker that turned out to be. Check out the web site and be amazed. Almost every store you can imagine is located there; and all accessible by golf cart.

After lunch, we drove back to the B&B via a different route. I've heard a lot about Mt. Dora, so I had to stop and see for myself what all the fuss was about. After driving through the small town, I must say that it is quite charming. There are several blocks of small shops and restaurants along oak-lined streets, with a lake at the bottom of the hill. There's even a small, scenic rail tour operator.

Another Day On The River

Today, Aunt Cathy and Uncle Dave invited us to go for a boat ride and try out the newly installed Garmin GPS.

Dave put the boat in the water and we were on our way. Since I was the designated GPS tester, I got to sit in the driver's seat, and as such, got to drive the boat for the first hour. That was a great and unexpected treat!

The GPS display was very confusing at first. It showed our position, but we were surrounded by white areas that I mistook for land. After zooming out a little, I realized that the white areas were deeper water and the light blue was shallow water. With this knowledge, we headed east down the river. As we approached the Highway 46 bridge, we turned around and returned to the lake.

Back in the lake, we found a quiet spot along the northern edge and ate lunch. After lunch, Dave drove around randomly at high speed for a while, then headed back to the marina.