Slice of Life: Computers and Cell Phones

Slice of pie, anyone?

slice [slahys] – noun 1. a thin, flat piece cut from something: a slice of bread. 2. a part, portion, or share: a slice of land.
from http://www.dictionary.com

I have to be honest - those are just two of the million definitions of the word slice (who know slice could defined in fifty million different ways?!). All I wanted to do was have a super-cool hook to start my blog, but dictionary.com had to make it a lot more complicated.

Anyway, on to the bulk of the blog (and my point). Since this blog site is supposed to be about my life, and the things that seem to matter most to me, I thought a series of blogs that delivered a slice of life as I know it seemed appropriate. Well, the slices are more like slivers, really. Snippets.

But enough of the semantics... let's get on to the slice, shall we?

Slice of Life: Computers and Cell Phones

One of my greatest aspirations is to be a writer, but writing is just like any other career path in the world – you usually don’t become a success the first time you submit a manuscript somewhere.

And while I pursue this goal, I have to eat. I have to pay the bills. That would be why I have a day job. I scored a part timer at Auto Safety House within a month of returning from my World Race adventures.

At work today, our IT guy was installing Adobe® Photoshop® on my computer when he realized it was super slow and needed more memory. So he decided to add more (who am I to complain? The computer was slow before he started putting anything on it). That didn’t work – the memory cards he had on hand, that is – so he put my computer back together saying something about getting cards that would work. I smiled and nodded, because at least I had a computer to work from.

Not even two minutes after he finished, he was back. Why? Because he had been using his cell phone as a flashlight to look at the insides of the computer, and when he put everything back together, he left the phone inside. Now, he had to get it out again.

I think I laughed for a good five minutes. Needless to say, it made my day.

Info attribution for Cherry Pie photo as found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cherry_pie_by_Hamish's_new_boyfriend.jpg
• Retrieved on January 21, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_pie
• Image URL: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Cherry_pie_by_Hamish%27s_new_boyfriend.jpg/800px-Cherry_pie_by_Hamish%27s_new_boyfriend.jpg
• Photographer: Ann Larie Valentine
• Date: May 14, 2010
• The file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike

Metaphors: Candles

I've recently fallen in love with candles. Since coming home from the World Race , I've bought at least one a month. My favorite candles are the ones that come in glass jars - because when they burn out, I can clean the remaining wax out and put the jars to other uses. Right now, that means they get cleaned out and packed away in anticipation of my move to Flagstaff. But as I was lighting one tonight (vanilla spice... Thanksgiving smells? Yes, please!), I saw a metaphor for writing flickering away in the flame licking at the wick and melting the wax. I suppose it could be a metaphor for life in general, but since the theme of this blog is writing... Well, you do the math.

[Five Minute Friday] Purpose

Fiber bars, strewn along the side of the road. There had to be at least a dozen of them, still in their wrappers and completely unopened. No box in sight. Really? That's about the reaction my younger sister and I had when we stumbled on them on our early morning run. Really? along with disgusted sighs about the wastefulness of it. These were the expensive ones, not a generic store brand that kind of tastes and kind of looks the same sometimes. So, when we weren't keeping an eye out for their box, we speculated about what had happened. And wondered how many more we were going to see before the end of our run. "Maybe they took one bite and thought they were gross," my sister said. "So they threw them out because they didn't want them anymore." I let out one of those disgusted sighs and nodded along with her theory. "Yeah, or they got in a huge fight, and threw them out in a fit of rage." "That's a possibility." And

How to Make Sure Your Book Review Request Does NOT Get Deleted

I've been hesitant to write this post. That is due, in large part, to how angry I get some days after reading book review requests. I curse, I rant, I snark. My cat will tell you it's not a pretty sight. But I also feel like this is a good opportunity to talk about what it is that makes me feel those feelings AND how to not stir them up. I'm not the only reviewer that gets frustrated when I see certain things in my emails from authors looking for a review. And I know I'm not the only one who gets triggered enough to ignore or delete those messages. I never feel good about doing it. It's just that I'm hitting the proverbial wall here and I want to hit it a little less often. So if you're an author looking for loving advice on how to approach reviewers (especially this one), read on. Review Requests I Always Delete Before I get into what to do, I wanted to take a minute to look at what not to do (and how I handle it). Want to know what immedi

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