Christmas morning!!!

Christmas Eve

I'm so excited that it's Christmas Eve! I've been such a good boy!! I can't wait to wake mommy and daddy up really early so we can open our gifts from Santa.

Cory and Tyler in their matching Christmas jammies!! What handsome guys!!

Tyler watching Lawrence Welk with Connie!!

Three Month Pictures (A Few Days Late)

It's a bit late for it, but I got around to taking some current pictures today. I'd taken off Tyler's diaper and was going to throw him in the shower with Angie right after I took a couple of pictures. As usual, I forgot to take into consideration what usually happens when he's left exposed for too long. Thus, the wet spot at the bottom of the 2nd picture (on our bed). Doesn't he look mighty pleased with himself?

As usual, both are formatted for 4x6 prints.

Cory's Spot: My Favorite Early Christmas Gift

Yesterday at work, a good friend gave me the mug on the left - it's a 100 oz. whopper (the smaller one on the right "only" holds 44 oz.)! Actually, he gave me the Pepsi version, but I can't stand Pepsi, not to mention that it just wouldn't be right to advertise the wrong addiction to the world, so I called around town last night and this morning and found a c-store that had the Dew version and was willing to exchange it for me.

I've been sipping on it since about 7:00 this morning, and I've hardly made a dent. Isn't it awesome?!

Christmas at the Miles'!!

Here is our beautiful tree!

"Shuttlecraft to Enterprise.
Shuttlecraft to Enterprise.
Spock here.
Happy holidays!
Live long and prosper!"

What a cutie!! These are some of the pj's I made for Tyler, and now they're almost too small.

I made this Snowman quilt a few years ago. It's a block of the month and I would get one block a month. How pretty!!

Bear Navity Cory's mom gave us two years ago. All the girls in the family got one. So now we all have matching nativities.

Like father like son!!

Cory has already been teaching Tyler the importance of computer skills. How cute is Tyler with his keyboard. And, he's looking at the monitor!! 

Two Months Old!!!

Sorry these pictures are a little late, but they are Tylers 2-month mark. Isn't he soooo cute? And yes, we will post pictures of our festive house soon. SOON! It's been a busy week. I've been sick with Mastitis for the last few days and haven't felt like taking pictures or cleaning the house. But since I've been on antibiotics I'm feeling a lot better. So maybe tomarrow or Monday look for our beautiful tree. But for now, you can enjoy looking at Tyler's sweet face.

BIGGEST EVENT IN TELEVISION HISTORY!!!

Did anyone else watch David Letterman last night??? I was looking forward to last night all week long. It was the biggest event of television history. Oprah was on David Letterman last night. Yes, it's true. Dave was on his best behavior and it was a bit wierd to see him so serious. But, come on, its OPRAH WINFREY!! It was so exciting.

Cory's Spot: Software: Konfabulator

Another piece of software I tried out and stuck with in recent months is Konfabulator, now from Yahoo (download here). This is even more versatile than Google Desktop, but it also takes up more space, since its plugins, called Widgets, are designed to be pretty, instead of just functional. Because people are actually writing all kinds of really cool Widgets for Konfabulator, instead of just theoretically able to, like with Google Desktop, there are new Widgets showing up all the time, and if you wait long enough, there's likely to be one that will do just what you want it to. Or, you could actually write it yourself (personally, I haven't been ambitious enough to even try, but it's possible).

Like Google Desktop, I don't actually use all the Widgets that come with Konfabulator. I've also added a few I've discovered along the way. I use the basic calendar that comes with Konfabulator, as well as the default weather tool. Many others have come and gone over the past couple of months, but the four add-on Widgets I use are Can'tWait!, a countdown/countup timer I used to count down to and now up from Tyler's birthdate, Trash Bin Deluxe, which I use instead of the Windows default, since it shows how many items are in the recycle bin and how much space they're using, and Lazy Launcher, which allows you to easily find and run programs by name instead of by navigating the Windows Start Menu. For some reason, I can't find the resource meter I'm using anymore, but InfoLabel is also cool, since you could customize it to do the work of both Trash Bin Deluxe and my resource meter.

With two software posts in one day, I'm sure to come off as one heck of a geek, but so be it. Try these two apps out and let me know what you think.

Cory's Spot: Software: Google Desktop

It's once again been much longer than planned since I last posted, but I have some time off of school and work, so here goes.

Sitting on the right-hand side of my desktop is a nifty application from Google called, appropriately, Google Desktop (download here). This comes with several different plugins to provide various bits of information, including weather reports, stock updates, news articles, and RSS feeds, among others. It's also my understanding that 3rd party plugins can be devloped, so possibilities are endless. It also features Google Desktop Search, which scans your hard drives initially for documents, emails, web histories and such and then keeps an eye on things from that point forward. The advantage of this is that you can find information that's come across your desktop much more easily and more comprehensively than is possible with Windows' built-in search function. Google says your desktop results are kept completely private and are invisible to the people and Google, and I believe them.

For me, Google Desktop has proven to be most useful docked to the right-hand side of my screen, but set to auto-hide. Even though I have my desktop resolution set to 1280 x 960, I found that it took up too much space to leave visible at all times, and there's a nifty alert feature that lets you know when a new RSS or news item is available, even if the sidebar is hidden. At the top of the sidebar, I have my RSS feeds, which I pretty much use only for family members' and friends' blogs, so I can easily see when a new post goes up. This feature automatically adds any RSS feeds it finds, so I had to go through and weed out the feeds I didn't want and turn off the auto-find feature after a while. Next I have my news items. If you let it, Google Desktop will customize these based on what you read most. For example, I have a lot of tech articles that show up, along with some health, business, and general interest articles, and no sports articles. The third plugin I use is a nice little notepad. Simply type reminders or whatever here and they're automatically saved. Finally, I have What's Hot and Quick View minimized at the bottom of my sidebar. What's Hot shows what Google thinks are the most popular items on the web and Quick View is similar to Windows' own Recent Documents list, but can be customized to show popular and recently used items, instead of just the latter.

Well, that was much longer than I'd intended to geek on about this particular program, but that's okay, it's a useful program.