Today I found a game called Bookworm and it reminds me a little of Scrabble. I downloaded the free trial and get to play a few free games. If I like it, the purchase price is reasonable – cheaper than the Playstation and XBox games.

If there are specific, concrete things that the educators want the parents to do that will result in a better education for the children of America, let me know exactly what the parents need to do. I will help get the word out and maybe we can turn this thing around.

Our future depends on it.

My favorite magazine was always McCall’s Magazine. I know they stopped publishing it many years ago. I miss that one.

The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services maintains an awesome website that has an interactive Google map of the fires. You can click on a fire icon and a text box opens with detail of that particular fire area, including current status of containment and the number of acres affected. Click here to see the current map – it is very disconcerting. As of this morning there are over 1,000 wildfires burning out of control, with weather forecasts of more storms with high winds and lightning. So things are not looking good for No Cal.

I have a girlfriend who decided to ride in Rolling Thunder this year, too. She has become quite the patriot since 9/11 and I hope she met some guys on the ride that opened her eyes and her mind to a totally different lifestyle from her little cocoon of a teacher’s life in suburbia that she’s enjoyed all these years. I can’t wait for her to call and tell me all about her biker experience.

It is always nice to get something free to try – it surely must open the minds of a good percentage of people who might not otherwise try a particular food or drink but soon discover that they actually like the product. Part of this is due to favoring brands or flavor with which you grew up or are accustomed to eating and drinking. Part of it is due to a natural resistance to try new things without some incentive. And part of it, in my household anyway, is that the person doing the grocery shopping is a creature of habit and only searches out the brands and items that we know we like or prefer so they can get finished with the chore of shopping and get back home as quickly as possible.

Well, since school is out for the summer, I thought it would be a great idea for him to build his own computer from a Do It Yourself kit. That way he can pick and choose exactly what components he wants and he will learn a lot from the hands on experience of putting together a computer.

She’s been trying to make a go of it on her own since she was 16 but didn’t pop into our lives until about 3 years ago when she showed up on our doorsteps with a suitcase and her son looking for someplace to sleep. And I don’t mind helping her, but at some point you have to cut the apron strings or kick the baby bird from the nest or whatever you have to do to get them on their own two feet.

So our talk will be about taking financial responsibility for herself and her son. I don’t think her mother ever talked with her about anything like balancing a checkbook, using a debit card and establishing credit. But in today’s world, the young people need to learn these things and be smart about their credit to build a secure future for themselves.

Something I do for fun when I am watching a DVD on the set with a remote control is to use the Spanish subtitles and then watch it again in Spanish if the DVD has that option. I took Spanish in school and I can understand a lot of it when I hear it, but I never have the opportunity to speak it to anyone. I feel terribly handicapped when I am around a lot of Spanish speaking people and cannot participate in the conversation.

I would love to go to the Spanish immersion camp they host every month out west. You go for 2 weeks and everything around you is in Spanish. Being able to speak it and have feedback from someone interested in helping you improve your speaking ability would be the best part for me.

The first book for boys is by by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, and the one for girls is by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, so I suspect this was written is a big hurry to take advantage of the first book’s success.

On the back cover was a great little convincing blurb: “For every girl with an independent spirit and a nose for trouble, here is the no-boys-allowed guide to adventure.” That’s what made me put it in the cart, and I can’t wait to start reading it tonight.

So I thought it would be good to buy another one just like for the home office and we can give the old PC to our grandson. He has just started school and he loves to play with letters and numbers, he can read a couple hundred “sight words” and he like to play with numbers, too. I’ve shown him how to get online to play a couple of good children’s sites games, like Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer. He can even play a couple simple card games. We are so proud of him!

So I’ve searched everywhere for this Slimline PC and can’t find it for sale anywhere!

1. Get off Lists – go to the website for the Direct Marketing Association, dmachoice.org and click on “Remove my name from those lists.” This is free, takes about 4 months to see the full impact of reduced unwanted mail, and stays in effect for 3 years.

2. Don’t Get on New Lists – marketers build new lists from product registration forms, contests and sweepstakes. Don’t fill those out.

3. Protect Your Identity – Register at optoutprescreen.com to opt out of prescreened credit offers. These offers come from the four credit bureaus, Experian, Transunion, Innovis and Equifax, who sell your data to the credit card companies.

4. Remain Anonymous – Sign up for grocery store loyalty cards and other membership-based discounts when you don’t need to actually receive anything in the mail from them by using a fake name with no address.

We dropped anchor in a great spot with lots of fish, way out in the Atlantic. As soon as the kids dropped their lines into the water they were getting bites and pulling them back in. This went on for hours!

By the end of the day we had several buckets full of fish and the kids had a blast. We paid some people back on shore a little money to scale and clean the fish for us, and we took our catch home in a big cooler full of ice.

I would love to do that again sometime, maybe with our grandchildren next time.

I’ve been looking into exercise alternatives because I know I’m spending way too much time at the computer and I feel like my legs and muscles are just wasting away. I want to get up and do something active and keep my health, so at the moment yoga is at the top of the list.

I’ve also discovered the On Demand feature that Comcast provides. I missed all the new shows for this season’s Big Brother reality series and was happy to see that they are all available for viewing using the On Demand feature. So I’ve watched one of those each night to try and catch up to the current show.

Again tonight we are having severe weather warnings. I’m glad for the rain, as last year was a drought for most of the southeastern states. But the wind does a lot of damage and the tornadoes do kill people when buildings collapse or cars flip over.

I wish the government had a better handle on the global warming and could lead the way for the rest of the world – especially China – to treat our Earth with more respect and care.

Instead of catching fish I think we will take a drive down to Chattanooga tomorrow and take him through the aquarium. It’s a long drive, but I think he will love seeing all the exhibits, especially the sharks.

They have spring break through next Tuesday, so surely the weather will change for the better between now and then and we can take the fishing poles down to the lake for his introduction to the sport.

Modern science has come up with some effective treatments now. Perhaps you’ve seen the television commercials for Proactiv. They are testimonials from actual users that prove how effective Proactiv can be as an Acne Treatment. I found even more information on the internet and want to share that with you.

If you or someone you love and care for is having a problem with acne, I suggest reading the information on Acne.com and see if Proactiv might be the solution to your problem.