A Little Sumptin' Sumptin' About My Preschool G-babies HIgh Tech Style!

In 2008 I had a printer and grand children who were bored.  I went online to find all sorts of printable coloring pages and this website treasure I wanted to share with you.  It provides free educational sheets for early childhood up to 5th grade.  Free no hitches or downloads.
http://www.tlsbooks.com/

 When you click on a worksheet you want it opens up the Adobe PDF file and you can print OR save.  I found a way to make it work with out printing.
You can convert it to a jpeg format so you can use MS Paint to color or draw the answers.
Here is my screen shot story:

1. Find the worksheet you want.

This is the pdf file that opens. You don't have to save it.  You can copy the url (http://www.tlsbooks.com/matchthefrogs.pdf) and use it for the conversion below. I saved it by clicking the second icon on the top left side that looks like a 3.5 floppy disk.  I kept the name it had and it was saved as a .pdf file.

      2.  Go to Zamzar.com




You can find programs to download that do conversions, but most of them are limited use demos.
Zamzar is free.

Notice it has 4 steps in the screen shot.
First browse your computer for the pdf file.
Or you can enter the url of the pdf file by copy/paste
http://www.tlsbooks.com/matchthefrogs.pdf

The second step you choose which format you want to convert it and in this case it is .jpg.

Zamzar is not only for .pdf to .jpg conversion, but also many other conversions. Right now I am explaining how to change a DOCUMENT FORMAT from one form to another format.  Zamzar also supports image, music, video, e-book, compressed, and CAD format conversions.

Like when you use Windows Media Player to copy off your Music CD you get a WAV file you can convert it to an MP3 using Zamzar.  MP3 is supposed to be compressed and retains the quality of the WAV so you can have more room on your MP3 player.

The third step is to enter your email and then the Convert button to finish.
You receive a link to a temporary inbox on Zamzar.  Where you will find your files.  Download the self extracting zip file and not the others.  They give you the option.
This file you have converted is only stored for one day on their site.  There is an option to sign up for an inbox, but you need to pay.

I blogged a few steps down about the graphic tablet I bought for $39.99.  My grand children aged 3 and 5 LOVE it.  To use a pen interface is just about like using a crayola without the danger of taking it to the walls or seeing if purple tastes like grape..
AND what is a computer, but really an interactive TV?

The .jpg format can load into MS Paint or GIMP or Photoshop
(other formats like gif, bmp, and png are supported as well).
.

If all you want to do is get coloring pages do a Google search for: "coloring pages printable" and your results are 
About 5,940,000 results

(0.12 seconds) 

 Even if you don't go the TLS Books route for worksheets, you can also do a Google search for:
"Preschool worksheets printable" and your results are
About 424,000 results

(0.07 seconds)

(As long as your saved files are in a format that can be loaded into MS Paint)

TLS books website had a donation link asking for $1.00
I clicked it and it sent me to a Paypal

There are so many worksheets on this website that it is well worth the dollar!

Here is another link I found where you can insert the word and it will make a worksheet for you kid to trace over words.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE AMAZING WORKSHEET MAKER

Bluezy's movin' to a blue house and other babble....

"Be grateful for the home you have, 
knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need".
~Sarah Ban Breathnach (author of Simple Abundance)




We have been on a deadline to move out because the lease ends here on July 31.  With a pending move there is a stress of uncertainty.

• January- we had vague plans of moving to a local place
• February- we had plans to move to Boise, ID.
• March- thru April we had plans to move out of state
• May to June- we had plans to move to Boise, ID
• June- we decided to stay local
• July- we found a blue colored home for Bluezy and company!

  Even though most of my life I have been shadowed by a chaotic demon,
I am most comfortable when I can see the road.


In my surfing today I found some things just to see what they consider BEST places.  I personally think the best place is here and now with the ones you love!
Either way, I found these clicks curious....

1. Money's 100 Best Places To Live 2010 
2. Best Places To Live Slideshow
3. America's Best College Towns Slideshow
4. America's Best Cities For Summer Travel
5. Forbes America's Most Miserable Cities 

Wolfgang's Vault Is A Treasure For My My My Generation!

If I swallow anything evil... 
put your finger down my throat.
If I shiver...  
please give me a blanket keep me warm let me wear YOUR coat.







I was surfing for some streams...and...
This site is a true treasure for my my my generation.
If you have not already heard of this,
you best go there now and


                     Enjoy



 WOLFGANGSVAULT.COM


According to the website, the Vault opened in 2003.  It's name comes from Bill Graham as my my generation (who still have enough braincells) should recollect the great concert promoter!  The website states: "Born Wolfgang Grajonca in Berlin in 1931, he escaped Nazi Germany to grow up in a foster home in the Bronx and anglicized his name at the age of 18. Bill Graham, who would come to be known as the midwife of the modern rock concert, was smart and forward-thinking, an opportunist and a listener, fair and ferociously demanding, and he remembered his roots: in the 1980s he opened a small San Francisco club and named it Wolfgang's". Bill Graham died in 1991 and later his collection was purchased by a group headed by Bill Sagan who owns the website.




 THE CONCERT VAULT



I am right now listening to Pink Floyd In Concert
from May 9th, 1977 at Oakland Coliseum Arena (Oakland, CA)
and it was really hard deciding what concert to listen to (yes, I just found this site)!
Rolling Stone magazine said Wolfgang's Vault has over 300 concert streams in a 2006 article. The music is clear and noise free.




 THE VAULT STORE


The vault store sells posters, backstage passes, apparel and tickets.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience ticket from Oct. 1968 is going for over $1500!
A postcard of Jimi Hendrix of the same going for $145.00
A Marilyn Manson straightjacket going for $866.00
Compared to The Beatles (no tickets on sale) a 12 x 12 original poster one of them goes as high as $595




WOLFGANGSVAULT BLOG 


 You can hear "The Pick Of The Day".  There are 25 contributors listed of which I do not know who they are, but I googled the current one
Victoria Keddie and visited her website with bio. Very artistic and accomplished...


Quickly some of my favorite album covers...

This song doesn't get enough classic playtime...Not streamed on Wolgang's Vault

 

 

 

 

 

VAWT- The Beautiful Winds Of Change

This technology should be seen regularly in our towns and cities. I wanted to share my current surfing interest.  There is a duality to the VAWT aesthetics.  Pleasant to the eye, and sticking it to the electric companies!








VAWT is an acronym for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine. These turbines run on low air amounts and can generate up to 5000 watts.

Source:  otherpower.com/small turbine basics

In 2008, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 11,040 kWh, an average of 920 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month. Tennessee had the highest annual consumption at 15,624 kWh and Maine the lowest at 6,252 kWh
Source:  US Energy Information Administration- Electricity FAQ

I am going to introduce my grandchildren to electronics by doing the following project. Maybe we can progress and eventually make our own VAWT.

The Genius Mouse Pen 8x6 Graphics pad I bought!

I bought two of these recently from Meritline.com and paid only $39.99. Used paypal and it got here in less than a week with the first. I then used their site and it took 2 weeks. Free shipping (FedEx)
It is bigger than I thought and it is sturdy as hell.  All the digital artists use graphic pads.  They of course have your lah tee dah name brands Like Wacom or Bamboo for up to $200 plus bucks, but this little jobber does the job for my grandson and myself.  You can use it with MSPaint, GIMP, or PhotoShop.  The artists that make stuff like below, use PhotoShop and a graphics tablet.



Click here for the product overview!

Click here to see the Best Of Photo Shop website

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.






 Click here to get GIMP for Fweee!

Click here to GIMP video tutorials




Click here to see Soltaire Miles Flickr digital art photostream!
Soltaire Miles is a Jazz singer and a Digital Artist here is her singing below:

Click here to go to Deviant Art 'How To Paint Digital" tutorial 



Click here to see the many video tutorials on Digital Painting

Lookie here my truck runs on water????

Back in the 80's my husband and I came across an article that had the schematics to a Hydrogen Converter.
According to the author, he had desperately published the article to save his life.  Apparently, when he had tried to market the idea, he was approached by BIG OIL.  BIG OIL wanted to buy it from him so they could shelf the idea.  When the author refused to sell, a series of coincidental accidents resulting in the death of his 8 buddies involved in his research made him fear his own life.  I sort of believed it...
I had assumed that this logical concept of using hydrogen, would be up and coming in the future.  More like up and confusing or CON-fusing.







1. HHO conversion kits-



This is a concept where you take water and break it down to HHO gas or called Brown's gas and mix it with gas in your engine to increase mileage and horsepower.  When I did a Google search on this, I got 1,160,000 results ranging from believable videos on YouTube, to companies that sell them, blogs, and then the convincing Mythbusters test in the episode below called "Exploding Pants".

Watch for yourself and see if it is 'Plausible" or it gets "Busted"
.*Mythbusters used one brand of HHO kit.  Other brands claim show tested results backed by news reports and others use more than one electrolysis chamber to produce more Browns gas.  The links are so many pro and cons it is CONfusing to say the least.







2. Hydrogen Cells









HowStuffWorks.com 
has a comprehensive article on hydrogen cell cars.




Can You Really Run Your Car On Water? @ About.com

Is that a Shell emblem on the pump?  So the same companies that
sticks it to us at the pump are going to do the same with Hydrogen sales?  But rest assured that the Little Mermaid will not gag and Bambi and friends will twitterpate in a cleaner world.
Even if it were just a water hose, there would be a corporate name slapped on the water tap and we would still be paying up the yang.

Mike Strizki has not paid an electric, oil or gas bill—nor has he spent a nickel to fill up his Mercury Sable—in nearly two years.
This seems to be a great idea where maybe a community can share in this...
























3. Biodiesel -



High hopes are in line for this type of fuel with some recent breakthroughs.  No more doom and despair because we are shutting down off shore drilling or the OPEC has us all by the groin.



Click on the below links to Popular Science articles concerning Biodiesel





With a Little Help, E. Coli Turns Biomass Directly to Biodiesel 




Get on the Beef Train: Amtrak Unveils First Biodiesel Commuter Train, Powered By Animal By-Products





Those against this are trying to say that we still are using up resources and affecting the environment by using water to grow the biomass that biodiesel can be made from
.
Or you can just do like this lady below....She is driving a Mercedes diesel rigged to use regular store bought oil!


B100 is 100% biodiesel
B20 is a mixture of biodiesel and petroleum diesel.



Click below for a graphed comparison of CO2 emissions


Biodiesel versus Petroleum

4. Wind Generators-



Where I live it gets pretty windy.  Windy enough to try to get the fuck off the grid and keep all that money the companies are making us pay!

Those who have the know how can tinker and make their own generators.
YouTube is full of DYI guys. This channel seemed most attractive to my concerns.

It is called the Poor Mans Power Channel  !
I want one!  Nobody could complain about the looks of that porch turbine...And he is quick to answer your questions.  He listed parts and he described to me via e-mail what kind of conversion to use:
"It all depends on if you want a off the grid system or a grid tie system. If you want an off the grid system you will have the turbine hooked up to a charge controller and the to some deep cycle batteries, then that goes to a inverter which makes it ac. If you want to have a grid tie system you need to get a grid tie inverter. The turbine hooks up the the inverter and then you plug the grid tie inverter into a electrical outlet in your wall. I hope that helps and I will be putting that into a video soon."







And what about this 'we don't want these ugly things in our neighborhood' people?







5. Et cetera





Click here to Culture Change and read the article "The Hype About Hydrogen"

Click here to Skeptic and read the article "The Hydrogen Economy Savior of Humanity or an Economic Black Hole? by Alice Friedemann"

The link below is a busy sort of conspiracy theory like place on Bio diesel and more Some are bizarre, but on the topic of alternate fuel.
hydrogencommerce.com






so this was my direction of the day...I learned a bit about what all that was about...and now I am gonna have a smoke and wastes some fossil fuel...