Well, I made the plunge today and bought an iPod Nano.  I decided on the Nano because I was just going to listen to music, but from time to time I would take it jogging with me.  Getting an iPod with flash memory was key, as I didn’t want to jar and damage one that had a hard drive in it.

The transaction seemed pretty simple.  I picked the color, made sure to ask the clerk if everything was in the box, and I was on my way.  When I got home, I was so excited, I ran into the house opened the box, and looked at my new toy.

What?  Only the iPod, headphones, and a USB cable?

I guess that was it.  I was under the understanding that the common iPod Nano accessories would come with it like an armband case and maybe a charging cradle, but I guess I was wrong.  Now, I had planned to buy some stereo speakers for iPod later on, but what about the other stuff that I expected that would be in there?

My last MP3 player was one from San Disk - and it came with everything you would need.  I should quit complaining and try it out.

Well, it seems that the iTunes software is not included in the box either.  Once I downloaded it, my iPod worked great, but I think that Apple should include an important warning on their iPod boxes:

"Accessories Not Included"

Well, I can remember as a child always saying that I wanted to be different than my parents.  There were things they did that I didn’t approve of, and I just didn’t want to be like them.  Sure, they were good parents, but they had some habits that I thought were silly like doing crossword puzzles everyday.  I just couldn’t understand why they would want to do something boring like that.

Well fast forward fifteen years…

Guess what I do every morning? 

Well, I am a little different than them (or at least that is what I tell myself) as I do free online crossword puzzles instead of doing them out of a book.  I find that doing it this way is more environmentally friendly (kills less trees) and gives me a larger selection.

It has even got to the point where I use a free crossword puzzle maker to make puzzles for my parents to try out - and so far they like them.  It is neat for me to create these puzzles as it is challenging to piece together many different fact together and turn them into a puzzle.  I find making the puzzles almost as hard as doing them.

So, I hope that I don’t pick up any more of their annoying habits - but I am sure I will as I grow older….

I attended a speech competition at a local school in our community.  Children from the fourth grade to grade twelve were competing through both their presentation and their creative writing skills.

Now, most of these speeches were about common day things: their dog, video games, computers, and different diseases.  But there was one speech that stood out, mainly because of its’ originality.

I can remember this boy’s name was Billy and he was in grade ten.  He started off with the title of his speech: "How to Write a Eulogy…"

What?

I thought I might have heard him wrong, but that was not the case.  He proceeded to tell us about the history of eulogies and their origins.  Then he began talking about ways to write a eulogy, and how funeral poems can often add the right beauty to a sad moment.

When he ended his speech, the room was quiet.  I stood up and started clapping - and the rest of the room followed.  He ended up winning first place in his age category and best of show.  All I can say, even though it was weird, it was perhaps the best effort I had ever seen.

In this busy world today, there just never seems to be enough time to do everything.  I mean between the busy careers we live, the activities we put our children in, and some attempt to have some time to ourselves, we cannot expect to get everything done.  There is one solution to this: outsource what you do not need to do explicitly yourself.

A good example is recently I was looking for a new career and I needed a resume.  Now, it has been years since I have written a resume for myself, and I wanted it to sound professional.  Instead of trying to flounder through it, I outsourced it to a professional resume writer.  This saved me a few hours from writing resumes that I could have wasted.

To be honest, the time I saved by paying someone to write it, was worth more the money I spent to do it.  Keep this in mind: you can get as much money as you want, but you only have a limited amount of time.  Live for the important moments, outsource the rest.

On the internet today, there are so many serious websites.  Such sites deal with cold hard facts, the sale of items, or even something as simple as email.  I’ll let the secret out: Not all sites need to be boring.

In fact, sometimes you just need a little dose of funny with your website.  Sites that offer funny videos are a good example: they are not so much there to sell you something, rather they are there to entertain you.  Come on, everyone needs to laugh a little bit each day.

Even those comics that you read in your paper each day can be found online.  Funny comics can also be very applicable to your everyday life - a good example is the workplace politics presented in Dilbert comics.  Being an engineering student, and Dilbert being a comic written by engineers, I definitely get the humor.

Lets also not forget blonde jokes.  This is of personal interest to me as I am a blonde (when my head isn’t shaved).  Even though these jokes just don’t describe me, I have had a few dumb blonde friends in my life.

In conclusion: don’t forget that websites do not have to be boring all the time.  Fun and humorous sites have a place on the internet.  In fact, you will get more visitors to your website if you entertain them - who wants to look at facts and numbers seven days a week anyways…