Spare Bedroom #2 – Purple Haze (click image for rest of album)
I can thank my daughter for the choice of wall colors in my library and the other spare bedroom on the top floor of our home. As you can see above, my daughter transformed an otherwise boring eggshell colored wall to eye-popping purple. Her other spare bedroom, which I took over as my library, she foreshadowed in green, perhaps predicting her eventual defection to the University of North Texas? (Go Mean Green!).
In the green library, with the brown lounger, on hardwood floors (Aug 2011)
I received news last week that my son and his wife will be visiting us the second weekend of August. This finally spurred me out of my summertime torpidity and got me to cleaning out the aforementioned purple bedroom. I asked Terry if we could get the hardwood floors installed before Derek and Royna arrive. He countered with “I need to paint the ceiling before I put the new floor in.” Why, you might ask? Well, because my daughter, with the impetuousness (and impatience) of youth, did not protect the white ceiling from her purple paintbrush.
I spent a couple of evenings last week sorting through empty boxes; old wrapping paper; even older clothes (a leftover tuxedo my son wore in high school ten years ago for a choir uniform); baseball and football trading cars; parts of a RC car; a skateboard; some stuffed animals; a laundry basket full of books; etc., etc. Some of it even made it all the way down three sets of stairs to the basement storage room. A few items just made it across the hallway into the master bedroom or the library.
I found the floor by late afternoon on Saturday, enough to sweep. Terry brought up the five-in-one ladder so he could start taping off the walls from the ceiling. This morning, I picked up where he left off and began putting rolled brown paper over the top of the first layer of painters tape to which we will eventually tape some plastic drop clothes. Terry should have the ceiling painted today.
Early Morning Trio – Venus, Jupiter & Aldebaran (click image for rest of album)
Cool, because at 72 degrees, that was as cool as it was going to get on Friday, but also because I could clearly see bright Venus (lower left of triangle), slighter dimmer Jupiter (top of triangle) and even dimmer Aldebaran (middle right of triangle). I like the cloud arrangement this morning a bit more than yesterday, but either one provides refreshing relief from the heat. Here’s a close-up of the trio:
I heard on the radio this morning our forecasted high was set for 105 degrees (our third or fourth day of excessive heat) with an extension of our heat advisory until next Wednesday. Ugh. My daughter in Texas is enjoying cooler weather than I am in Kansas. That just seems wrong.
Sunset Saturday 14 July 2012 (click image for rest of album)
I can blame nobody but myself. I gave up the opportunity to sit in an air conditioned smoke-free bar (Woody’s Watering Hole in Leavenworth), where I could have listened to my husband and his band buddies perform classic rock to support A Ride for the Wounded. I could have supported a worthy cause through my presence and donations and had a great time with old friends.
But no, I thought I would have a better time with my co-workers at our firm’s summer event, where the beer, barbecue and baseball were all free. And so was the scorching heat and unrelenting sunshine beating down on us on the unshaded Bud Light Party Deck in right field at the T-Bones stadium.
Sizzling on the Bud Light Party Deck
Since I don’t drink beer, I walked back down along the concourse to purchase a very tall and cold glass of lemonade. The bottle of water I’d gotten on the Party Deck with one of my two free drink tickets had been warm. I hung out with coworkers, many of them people I see everyday, Monday through Friday, in our small corner of the universe called IT. I ended up giving my other drink ticket to my of my female coworkers, but not before attempting to exchange it for something first (like another lemonade?).
I hardly noticed when the game started. The T-Bones played against the Wichita Wingnuts (who used to be known as the Wranglers when I lived there in the 80s and 90s, but that team name has since moved to Arkansas). Staring directly into the sun from right field and unable to clearly see the scoreboard behind my right shoulder, I completely missed the Wingnuts scoring a run in the second inning. I did notice multiple rookie errors on the part of the T-bones. The only scoring for the home team came with two home-runs (with no one on base). I gave myself a headache staring into the sun for nearly an hour, when it finally hid itself behind a thin cloud bank approaching from the northwest.
With no comfortable seating available on the Party Deck (and because I’d opted to take a ‘left over’ ticket for the firm’s summer event), I decided enough was enough and left the park during the bottom of the fifth inning. Five innings, two runs and five errors on the part of the T-bones. The Wingnuts had no errors and two runs. I could see where this game was heading. As I walked to the van, I could tell the sunset was shaping up to be a fiery one (click first photo above for entire album).
After taking a few photos from West Mary Street, I returned home to discover the bass player’s car parked where I usually park the van. I thought that was odd, since it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. I found Terry and Sean in the nearly empty band room, eating a late supper and reporting that the gig went extremely well. This perturbed me to no end. Since my home hosts most band practices for this group, I get exposed to the best and the worst of the amplified rock music. So I had a somewhat jaundiced view of this latest collection of musicians’ ability to pull it together. Who knows, if I had attended, I probably would have jinxed the performance. But it still would have been nice to sit in a cool air conditioned bar and drank something other than beer (or lemonade … unless it was Hard Lemonade) and listen to my husband sing Cumbersome (which he’s not).
Terry singing (and playing) Cumbersome (Sat 14 July 2012)
I woke up to a surprise this morning on my Nook Color. I had a little green ‘n’ showing up in my alerts pop-up window. Heh? Why had I not heard anything about this update? Perhaps, because even B&N didn’t have much to say about the latest software update, billed as version 1.4.2:
Under the ‘What’s New’ heading: “The NOOK Color Ver1.4.2 update provides minor system enhancements.”
With a little digging and Googling, I found that the e-mail application received and update and B&N has made it harder to root most of the Nook tablets (something I attempted back last summer, but decided it wasn’t worth the grief and headaches). I like my Nook Color just the way it is. Perhaps I’ll be more adventurous when my two-year extended warranty expires.
I haven’t used my Nook much today, except to read during lunch, so I can’t confirm any other glitches or fixes. The e-mail application does seem to respond quicker and not get hung up on the sync cycle now. If I find anything else this evening, I will return and post an update.
I should have known not to get my hopes up while driving westward home from work. I so wanted to see Mercury (something I’ve never observed with the naked eye, a camera, binoculars or a telescope) and a tiny sliver of a new Moon – both within five degrees of each other. I had hyped myself up earlier in the day thanks to a blurb from Sky & Telescope. The sun kept teasing me, peaking out between the clouds just enough to make me squint as I dodge traffic and dropped off my vanpool riders.
The first thing I did when I arrived home was to call my father and ask him if he knew of a hill with an unobstructed view to the western horizon within fifteen or twenty minutes driving distance of my house in Lansing. He delayed his response, since he needed to put up some wood cutting and splitting equipment, but promised to call me back in five or ten minutes.
Terry, my completely awesome husband, already had dinner ready. He prepared the most amazing steak fajitas, with perfectly grilled red onions and red peppers. I so wanted to eat more of them, but restrained myself so I could savor the leftovers another day.
I checked over my camera equipment and secured it in my camera backpack. I collapsed the tripod. I stowed the gear in the back of the van and said farewell to Terry and the dogs. I pulled out of the driveway and stopped at the Fawn Valley stop sign. The decision point. I surveyed the western sky and decided my best bet to capture the most of what was left of the sunset would be from Mt. Muncie Cemetery.
Ash Wednesday Sunset (click photo to see entire album)
About five minutes later, I had my camera on my tripod just west of the large Stillings monument (a circular plot with the cemetery access road encircling it). I took a few photos, experimenting with different aperture settings, letting the Canon decide how long to exposure through the shutter. I left the AWB setting to cloudy since, obviously, the landscape before me consisted mostly of clouds.
I called my dad back, since he hadn’t returned my call and discovered he was driving down the center of Leavenworth County on County Road 5, personally investigating sites he thought might have worked for observing Mercury and the Moon (had there been no clouds). I sighed, not meaning for him to waste his gas driving all over county back roads. I told him I was at Mt. Muncie and he said he was on the way. I continued to take a few photos, but for the most part, both the sunset and my prospects for observing the conjunction seemed an exercise in futility. Dad arrived and we chatted for a few minutes, eventually spying both Venus and Jupiter through the thinner clouds above us. I packed up the photographic equipment, showing dad the nice camera backpack Terry had bought me last year. I had offered to let him use it during an upcoming trip he was planning.
Sunrise Today
I woke up to another gloomy day this morning. On the bright side, it’s my mother’s birthday (and I finally remembered to mail her birthday card yesterday). On the dark side (and it was dark when I thought about it), today is trash day in Lansing and the first time for us to use our new trash and recycling bins. Terry, being the wonderful husband he always is, had already dealt with both the trash (taking it out of the old trash can and placing it in the new one) and recycling. Since it was spitting rain at 5:30 this morning, I was even more grateful than normal. I left my camera and tripod in the back of the van overnight, so I had ready access to my camera this morning during the commute, just in case the sunrise surprised me. Until Daylight Savings kicks in, the sun just starts to turn clouds pink and orange when I pick up my last rider near the Kansas Speedway. My final opportunity to take a photo until I reach my destination near the Country Club Plaza. The sunrise disappointed me this morning, just like the sunset did last night. More gray, with a glimmer of gold, but completely lacking in pinks and oranges.
The day after Valentine’s Day, I received an e-mail from Barnes and Noble alerting me to the impending expiration of my B&N Membership and their exciting ‘new’ member benefits. I clicked through the ‘ad’ and went directly to the Terms and Conditions where I quickly found the exclusion that has been sticking in my craw ever since I purchased my Nook Color back in May 2011:
“The Everyday Member Discount is not available on purchases of the following: … digital content (including but not limited to eBooks, digital magazines and periodicals); NOOK™ and NOOK™ related accessories; …”(emphasis added)
I immediately fired off an e-mail, not once but twice, since the ‘ad’ they sent me had a ‘no-reply’ throw-away e-mail address associated with it. My question to B&N Customer Service, which has not changed in several months, was:
Why should I renew my Membership with B&N? Is Nook content still expressly excluded?
Unless my Membership discounts now include savings on the purchase of Nook content (ebooks), I will NOT be renewing my membership.
To which I finally received a reply after I went to bed last night (so I woke up to this canned response, which I have received at least twice before from Customer Service):
Dear Customer,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding applying your Barnes & Noble Membership discount to NOOK Book purchases.
Because our NOOK Book prices are deeply discounted from the Publisher’s List Price, the Barnes & Noble Member’s discount is not available on the purchase of digital content (including but not limited to digital books, magazines, and periodicals); certain digital devices; downloadable Audiobooks in MP3 or any other format.
We hope you find this information helpful and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
(emphasis added).
I decided yet another reply would fall on deaf ears, so I became determined to write this open letter to Barnes & Noble expressing my disbelief in their delusion of ‘deeply discounted’ ebook prices. Let me be clear, on one point though, that I absolutely love my Nook Color. Yet, my Nook and I are feeling spurned and slighted, both from the supplier (B&N) and the publishers (the real reason B&N can’t offer discounts on digital content like they can on printed, physical content).
With yesterday’s announcement by Tor and confirmation by Brandon Sanderson that the final novel of the Wheel of Time series has a publication date (albeit nearly a year from now in January 2013), I would like nothing better than to load up my Nook Color with all thirteen ebooks. But what incentive do I have to do this? I have all of them in hard cover, many of them first editions, and the last couple of them autographed. I have spent a premium to follow this series and do not wish to further impoverish myself unnecessarily.
Here is a list of some of the books on my ebook wishlist and corresponding ebook v. printed book pricing:
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – ebook $21.99; paperback $13.46; hardcover $38.00 (it should be noted that I already own multiple copies in multiple formats of this classic epic fantasy tome).
Hambly’s The Silent Tower – ebook $8.19 (discounted from $9.99 retail); no printed new copies available (backlist out-of-print so ebook is the only option).
Jordan’s The Great Hunt (WoT #2) – ebook $7.99; paperback $7.99; hardcover $20.23 (I already snagged the first reissued ebook, The Eye of the World, when it was only sale for $.99 or $1.99 last year).
Willis’ All Clear – ebook $11.99; paperback $12.98; hardcover $18.27 (30% discount thanks to my current Membership)
I have many more examples but will stop there for now. Most of the hardcover prices listed above show up for me on B&N’s website with steep discounts already applied (which explains the very odd prices that come up for them).
The coupons I receive in the mail as a result of my Membership are also specifically excluded from purchasing digital content and/or any Nook accessories. I don’t need to clutter up my house with more ‘stuff’! I want to clutter up my Nook with more content.
I just can’t see the benefit to me this year of shelling out an additional $25 to renew my Membership, since I don’t plan on buying any more physical items that would require shipping (hence I won’t be able to take advantage of the free two-day shipping benefit).
None of this will really influence my purchasing choices for ebooks. I will continue to support my favorite authors. Case in point: Last fall, I not only purchased the hardcover new release of Initiate’s Trial when it was released overseas in the United Kingdom, but also immediately purchased the ebook edition to begin reading it as soon as I could (since it took several days/weeks for the hardcover to arrive from England). This way, I had my cake and ate it too, since the first edition hardcover has never been opened and will be pristine the next time I see Janny in person for her to sign.
All this leaves me wondering why Nook owners can’t have their own membership or rewards program. Let us buy one ebook a month at a discount (anything from 5 to 25 percent would be agreeable). Or offer a virtual punch card and let us have a discount on every 10th ebook purchase. I would gladly pay $25 per year (or more) for such a program without batting an eyelid.
Some might argue (including B&N) that the ‘Free Friday’ Nook Book is already meeting this need, but I would disagree. In fact, today’s free Nook Book has been free before (offered last May or June on a previous Friday) and actually has been free for several days. Re-gifting tackiness?
Monday started out innocently enough. I spent Sunday afternoon whipping up a batch of my favorite cookies (Chocolate Crinkles) for a cookie exchange and farewell party for a coworker Monday afternoon. January was ending on mixed notes for me. Unseasonably warm weather permeated the entire month and into the first few days of February. Yet, on the very last day of the month, I needed to ‘let go’ of a person who I have relied upon and shared more workdays with than any other person on this planet.
As I drove south from Crown Center Monday morning, the sunrise kept teasing me with highlights of pink and orange among the scattered wisps of clouds. I predicted I would miss the prettiest photo opportunities in the ten to fifteen minutes it takes me to drive to the Plaza. Some of the former glory shines through the photo (above) I took with my cell phone as I walked up the outside staircase of the parking garage.
Bon Voyage Marge (click photo for rest of album)
During the noon hour, with the assistance of our department secretary, we decorated our conference room for the cookie exchange and farewell party. Most of the department and many others stopped by to wish Marge well in her retirement and her planned travels around the country to visit her far flung family. Many cookies were consumed and even a speech from our illustrious leader extolling Marge’s sixteen years with the company. We sent her home with several dozen cookies.
Tuesday dawned much the same as Monday did, and doubled as Marge’s final day of work. Our team (well, most of our team), including our manager, planned to take Marge out to lunch at Gram & Dun on the Country Club Plaza. I began to get nervous when our boss failed to show up for work that morning. He did eventually call me, as he was leaving his physician’s office and rushing to the pharmacy to purchase the prescriptions to ease his sinus infection or bronchitis (or both … I didn’t quite catch the entire diagnosis). He called asking me to take Marge to the restaurant, where he would meet us at noon. While Marge and I could have walked to the restaurant, it would have taken at least fifteen minutes to do so, and neither of us wanted to add an additional thirty minutes to our lunch hour, especially when we had so many things to juggle at work. I drove us over in the van.
We enjoyed a pleasant lunch, starting with the Shishito Peppers appetizer. Marge ordered the Seared Ahi Tuna salad with a side of butternut squash (which we all tried). I ordered the quail and our manager had their prime burger and the Brunswick stew. While we waited on our food, I presented Marge with my gift (a giraffe pin – see photo at left) and card as well as the Southwest Airlines gift cards and retirement card signed by coworkers. The food was good, the company better but the memory will be bittersweet for me.
Marge and I returned to the office while our manager rushed to an appointment on the Kansas side. The afternoon flew by and before I knew it my time had come to leave the office. Marge happened to be on the phone doing what she did best when I needed to leave, so I did not get to say much beyond ‘keep in touch’ and ‘goodbye.’
Wednesday brought a new month and a new dynamic at work. Our team had lost a third of its resources. The two of us left had to temporarily bear the burden of the missing third. Even though I went to bed early (around eight thirty Tuesday night), I work up a couple of hours later and tossed and turned the rest of the night. Stress and worry does that to me. Not the most auspicious way to start a day, especially one that could potentially explode with problems.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, my day imploded with each passing hour. I had every confidence I could wrestle any issues that arose, I just did not anticipate the avalanche that crashed down upon my desk. I worked through my lunch and several hours from home that evening. By ten o’clock, I passed out and thankfully got a full night’s sleep.
Oh, and as if I didn’t have enough to worry about at work, I received a disturbing call from a very congested coughing daughter asking me to find her an urgent care facility near her. I looked up some likely prospects within five miles of her apartment. She managed to get into her doctor and received a prescription for antibiotics to combat the bronchitis she contracted. The timing couldn’t have been worse since her graduate school auditions were scheduled for Friday.
Thursday morning became a mirror image of Wednesday, only worse. A system I administer (since late Fall 2011) decided to freak out and lock up. Calls to tech support went unanswered (or unresponded to) for nearly two hours, during which time I tried a few measures to kick the servers and services back into line. Desperate to get people back into the system, I restarted all the servers, even though I could find no errors in any of the usual logs. Miraculously (or not if you have any experience with this product), the system came back online and hummed happily along, oblivious to the havoc it left in it’s wake. At least the afternoon calmed down a bit and let me catchup on items from the previous day and projects that needed updating.
Thursday evening, Terry and I had a few errands to run, so we grabbed a quick dinner at a local sub shop. Just as I parked the van, I spied a spectacular sunset in progress and snapped a quick photo with my cell phone. A far cry from last year’s Groundhog Day blizzard if I don’t say so myself.
Friday morning, I woke up about fifteen minutes early (roughly 4:45 a.m.). Just as I was rubbing the sleep from my eyes and stretching, Terry came up to tell me he was heading to the hospital emergency room with chest pains. I followed him a few minutes later. I did the paperwork while the emergency room nurses and doctors ran a battery of tests. I sat with him, monitoring his vitals (which looked fairly normal to me) until six o’clock, when I left to pickup my vanpool riders for the commute into Kansas City (I recounted some of this in an earlier blog post). Thanks to an unseasonable thunderstorm that produced torrential downpours, the drive to work couldn’t have been more stressful. By the time I dropped off the last two riders, Terry had called to let me know the hospital was releasing him on his own recognizance to followup with his physician at his first opportunity.
Work at least settled into something a bit more normal (or at least not a flash flood of problems). I even escaped for a lunch at my favorite local sub shop, taking advantage of a free sandwich courtesy of my full punch card. I almost laughed out loud, though, when my order ‘number’ came up the Queen of Spades. What a way to cap off this week! I did really enjoy starting Archangel by Sharon Shinn, one of the two selections for February at the Beyond Reality book club. For more information about the group and the great books we read and discuss, stop by the one of the group moderator’s blogs: Far Beyond Reality.
I didn’t get any exercising done Friday. By the time I made it home Friday evening, after a quick side trip to the local liquor store for a bottle of wine, all I wanted to do was collapse. I scrounged up enough energy to chop some celery and onions to combine with sweet relish, albacore tuna and mayonaise for a couple of tuna salad sandwiches for supper.
I spent Saturday not thinking about work. I made two loaves of bread, one of which came out of the oven looking and smelling completely awesome. I immediately took a photo of my fabulous Honey Wheat bread with my cell phone and uploaded it via Twitpic to make everyone jealous. The first loaf of White Sandwich bread was still in the oven when my father stopped by for a surprise visit. While the bread cooled on the rack, we chatted away on various and sundry subjects. I sent him home with one loaf and one cookie (the last of the chocolate crinkles) about an hour and half later.
Since the weather had turned decidedly more wintery (or at least early springish), with a thick cloud cover and constant drizzle, I filled the crockpot with a savory beef stew. The aroma caused our mouths to water whenever we walked through the kitchen. By five o’clock, we each had a bowl of stew and a couple of freshly warmed Hawaiian honey wheat rolls.
We topped off the evening my braving the drizzle (which rapidly morphed into spitting snow) and driving to the Moose Lodge 1999 for the early V.D. show performed by Phyllis Killer. (V.D. meaning Valentine’s Day). Finding that particular lodge proved interesting. Have you ever seen a driveway that actually connects to an exit ramp from a highway? Yep, we drove right by it the first time. Well, it was sleeting and it was dark. After we turned around on 65th street, we found the large arrowed sign pointing the way back down the exit/entrance ramp to Turner Drive. Against all logic, I followed the sign and surprisingly, back along the curve towards the highway, I spied the driveway that literally falls off the backside of the curve embankment for the exit.
We sat through the first set of music, most of which I somewhat recognized (Terry knew more of them than I did) and one original song. We introduced ourselves to the bass player, who happens to be the husband of one of my vanpool drivers. We said our goodbyes (not wanting to stay out too late in case the weather turned even nastier) and headed back north, past the blazing Speedway lights (wasting electricity to celebrate the ‘grand opening’ of the Hollywood Casino I assume).
Never have I been so glad to put a week behind me. I will miss Marge sitting in the cube next to me, but I will not miss all the extra stress (in and out of work). I pray this next week (and all the ones that follow it) will continue to improve. I look forward to getting back together with Marge in early March for dinner and a jazz concert at the Unity Temple on the Plaza. I do plan to keep in touch with her, as much as she will allow me to.
Contrived and over-the-top preachy. Yes, I know, it’s a Christian film so it’s supposed to be that. But I disagree. It could have been much better. It barely rose above the level of what I would see performed at a local church as a liturgical drama. I guess I just prefer a subtler approach and something that reaches people where the are right now with a bit more real world. You can still tell a great story and send your audience home with a message, without giving them a concussion (from the two-by-four of theology or Bible quotations you hit them over head with).
I am composing this quick reference guide (or workflow or flowchart) for persons who shall remain anonymous. I plan to refer them to this page (encouraging them to bookmark it in their browser) the next time I receive yet another request for how to get an ebook transferred to their Nook.
1. Barnes & Noble Nook Books: It is not necessary to click the Download button after you purchase a Nook Book. This is tempting, especially if you are sitting at your computer, browsing through the Barnes & Noble website and not actually shopping via your Nook Color (using a wifi connection).
(a) Press the n button on your Nook Color and select the Library item.
(b) Press the Sync button in the lower left-hand corner of the screen (which looks like two arrows chasing each other in a circular pattern).
(c) Any new books you have purchased will appear after the sync completes.
2. Non-Barnes & Noble eBooks: Anything you purchase from a non-B&N retailer, even if the price is ‘free’, will most likely be ‘protected’ by DRM (digital rights management), which actively prevents you from copying the downloaded ebook file from your computer to your Nook Color. If you are lucky enough to find an ebook without DRM protection, please skip down to the last step below. Otherwise, the only approved method for transferring ebooks you legitimately purchased involves using yet another piece of software called Adobe Digital Editions. This transfer process may vary depending on the vender and assumes you have downloaded, installed and activated both your copy of Adobe Digital Editions and your device (Nook Color) in that software.
(a) Download the ebook from where you bought it and make note of the file name (in case you have trouble remembering where your computer downloads file to – usually the Downloads folder). Windows may automatically associated the downloading file with Adobe Digital Editions, which is a good thing. Let it launch ADE after it downloads the file if need be.
(b) Connect the Nook Color USB cable to your computer, then connect it to your Nook Color.
(c) ADE should now display your Nook Color device as available in the left-hand navigation pane.
(i) To add the ebook you just purchased/downloaded, select Add Library Item (or press Ctrl+O to open) from the Library menu in ADE.
(ii) Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the file (in a Windows 7 environment, you may already have a favorites item called ‘Downloads’ available).
(iii) Select the ebook and click the Open button. ADE should now display the cover of the ebook as a thumbnail in the left-hand area. Or, if your view is currently set to the List option, then new ebook will be listed by Title, Author, etc.
(iv) Click the thumbnail of the new ebook cover and drag it to your Nook Color device (listed in the left-hand navigation pane of ADE).
(d) Close ADE and safely disconnect your Nook Color from your computer.
(e) Back on your Nook Color, there are two ways to find the ebook you just transferred from your computer:
(i) Using the Library application:
(1) Open your Library and switch to the My Stuff area (last tab/button along the top).
(2) Drill down to the Digital Editions folder and click on the ebook file name you just transferred from your computer to the Nook Color.
(ii) Using Search
(1) Type the file name or title of the new ebook.
(2) Select the ebook from the search results.
3. Library eBook Lending: Most libraries also use Adobe Digital Editions to managed the ebooks you borrow. Your library may already provide you with instructions and a tutorial. I know mine did:
(c) You can use the same process described above to find the file on your Nook Color (either through the Library application or by Searching for the file name or title of the ebook).
4. Public Domain eBooks (DRM-Free): Those ebooks downloaded from Project Gutenberg or the public domain section of Feedbooks, should be DRM free and thus will not require the use of Adobe Digital Editions to copy the ebook file to your Nook Color.
(a) Download the ebook and note the file name and folder location.
(b) Connect your Nook Color to your computer.
(c) When prompted (an Autoplay dialog box should pop up), click the ‘Open folder to view files’ option.
(d) Drill down to the My Files folder on your Nook Color and open the Books subfolder.
(e) In a separate Windows Explorer window, find the ebook file and Copy it (Ctrl+C).
(f) Return to the Nook Color window that should be open to the Books subfolder of the My Files folder and Paste (Ctrl+V).
(g) Close all Windows Explorer windows and safely disconnect your Nook Color from your computer.
(h) You can use the same process described above to find the file on your Nook Color (either through the Library application or by Searching for the file name or title of the ebook).
To manage all your DRM-free ebooks, I would suggest using Calibre, an open source software package. I give you fair warning, however, that Calibre is not as easy to use as it could be, but I have hopes that the user interface will improve with each update. I only recommend Calibre to people who are not technology challenged.
While searching for new Netflix titles to add to my queue, I stumbled across this movie, available for immediate streaming. My husband and I watch quite a few shows on the Food Network channel, so we thought it might be a good fit. I had hoped it would be similar to 2007’s No Reservations which I thoroughly enjoyed. Sadly, Love’s Kitchen fell a wee bit flat. We laughed occasionally, but did not feel the romance at all. I did, however, really want to taste that Trifle dessert that everyone in the movie thought was divine.
We enjoyed a pleasant lunch, starting with the Shishito Peppers appetizer. Marge ordered the Seared Ahi Tuna salad with a side of butternut squash (which we all tried). I ordered the quail and our manager had their prime burger and the Brunswick stew. While we waited on our food, I presented Marge with my gift (a giraffe pin – see photo at left) and card as well as the Southwest Airlines gift cards and retirement card signed by coworkers. The food was good, the company better but the memory will be bittersweet for me.
