Thursday, January 22, 2009
Getting ready...
We're getting ready to go to the "big" ultrasound here now. It's an early morning appointment, but hopefully that will mean little wait time. I bought one of those monster energy drinks, something to jolt the baby into being active for the ultrasound. How do people drink these? Talk about gross!!! I bought the orange flavored one... and it friggin tastes like that crap they make you drink to check for diabetes lol
Monday, January 19, 2009
Check up
Only a 45 minute wait at Dr. K's office today. Not to bad all things considered! Another great check up, everything looks good!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
NL science center closed down :(
This weekend we were looking for some stuff to do and thought of the NL science center. Turns out it's closed down. The website says under construction and hasn't been updated since November. The phone number is disconnected. I tried to call 411 to see if there was alternate number... but they couldn't even find it in the listings. DH posted on the general boards and it is indeed closed. I wish they had of made some noise. I for one certainly would have rallied to help them get a little extra funding or what not. So sad :(
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Immersion or not?
This is a huge topic of debate for a lot of people these days. I think we have pretty much decided on st Theresa's french immersion for d. Love the idea of walking / driving him to school and also they have the only string program in the city... so if he keeps the violin thing up that will be nice too!
From a parent perspective I look at it like this. If they go into early french immersion and they struggle or hate it or whatever... then they can always switch to mainstream English. But it doesn't swing the other way. From an ESL teacher perspective I simply feel the sooner the better!
There is of course late immersion and late french immersion has the advantage of the child being able to make the choice for themselves.. taking the decision making pressure off the parents lol
Oh and it doesn't hurt that statistically french immersion students on the average have demonstrated to perform better. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/200406/6923-eng.htm
We will have to sign d up this spring. Hopefully it's not a big issue to get him into the immersion program. I have heard some schools parents go to line up like 5am.
From a parent perspective I look at it like this. If they go into early french immersion and they struggle or hate it or whatever... then they can always switch to mainstream English. But it doesn't swing the other way. From an ESL teacher perspective I simply feel the sooner the better!
There is of course late immersion and late french immersion has the advantage of the child being able to make the choice for themselves.. taking the decision making pressure off the parents lol
Oh and it doesn't hurt that statistically french immersion students on the average have demonstrated to perform better. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-004-x/200406/6923-eng.htm
We will have to sign d up this spring. Hopefully it's not a big issue to get him into the immersion program. I have heard some schools parents go to line up like 5am.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sir cuts alot (scal) review
http://www.craftedge.com/
Figured I would review the sir cuts alot software for the cricut users on here. Not a lot of people know about the software or know of it but not alot about it. I was dead against buying anything that required cartridges... so be honest this was the selling point for me.
Cricut is a provo craft product and is in no way affiliated with sir cuts alot. The cartridges for cricut can be used with the scal program... in other words you can not add any cartridge images into the scal program.
The cost is $75us to download it right to your computer. For a little bit more you can have it shipped out on a cd to you. (I downloaded)
First off ... it works great and is worth every cent! I won't be buying any font cartridges EVER! And eventually I hope to not feel a desire for shape ones either. You do need one cartridge... as the cricut machine will not work without a cartridge with or without scal.
The cord required to hook your cricut up to your computer does not come with the cricut and it is not the regular usb cord that comes with your camera etc. Its called an a/b type and is the kind with one square end... if you have a printer... it likely uses the same cord. I picked up an extra cause unconnecting the printer just was not convenient for me. They aren't expensive.
There is a little computer know how required to getting the program working initially. You DO NOT need the cricut program "design studio" to run scal. However, most cricut machines will require the firmware to be updated and to do this you need to download the free trial of design studio (if you don't have it). There are great instructions for all of this right on the SCAL website.
You will also want to be familiar with the process of downloading fonts and dingbats and installing them on your computer. There are 1000's of free online resources out there. Most scrappers already do this for printing purposes anyways. The ttf fonts installed on your computer will automatically show in scal.
I had a slight problem at first... DH and i between us had an excessive amount of fonts ( like 4000 or something). So I had an initial problem with not being able to see certain fonts /ding bats i wanted to us. I just deleted a bunch of them... problem solved.
The scal program is really user friendly. There are pop up windows for selecting your font and you just type or select your item right on the screen. The screen is like a cutting mat... a big grid. So it is very easy to size your item (s). There are some screen shots here http://www.craftedge.com/products/screenshots.html
For the more involved... with scal you are not limited to the fonts and dingbats you find online, you can also make your own files using programs like abode illustrator or a free program called inkscape. I've played with this but haven't really had the time to get knee deep yet... it's on my to do list for this year. The products from these programs are call svg files.. and can be imported in scal. This getting to be very popular around the web it seems...people share svg files they have created and some people are even selling them now. I mainly want to learn how so i can divide up the layers of images (this is done for you on cartridges)... for example so a snowman's nose, hat etc are separate from the main image.
Making your own images is not something you need to have to know how to do... nor is it what makes the program worth the money. The limitless amount of fonts at your finger tips really is the seller!
I don't know if I've helped or made it sound extremely complicated. Once installed it is really used friendly. If anyone has any other question I can try and answer best i can... but I'm still learning lol
Figured I would review the sir cuts alot software for the cricut users on here. Not a lot of people know about the software or know of it but not alot about it. I was dead against buying anything that required cartridges... so be honest this was the selling point for me.
Cricut is a provo craft product and is in no way affiliated with sir cuts alot. The cartridges for cricut can be used with the scal program... in other words you can not add any cartridge images into the scal program.
The cost is $75us to download it right to your computer. For a little bit more you can have it shipped out on a cd to you. (I downloaded)
First off ... it works great and is worth every cent! I won't be buying any font cartridges EVER! And eventually I hope to not feel a desire for shape ones either. You do need one cartridge... as the cricut machine will not work without a cartridge with or without scal.
The cord required to hook your cricut up to your computer does not come with the cricut and it is not the regular usb cord that comes with your camera etc. Its called an a/b type and is the kind with one square end... if you have a printer... it likely uses the same cord. I picked up an extra cause unconnecting the printer just was not convenient for me. They aren't expensive.
There is a little computer know how required to getting the program working initially. You DO NOT need the cricut program "design studio" to run scal. However, most cricut machines will require the firmware to be updated and to do this you need to download the free trial of design studio (if you don't have it). There are great instructions for all of this right on the SCAL website.
You will also want to be familiar with the process of downloading fonts and dingbats and installing them on your computer. There are 1000's of free online resources out there. Most scrappers already do this for printing purposes anyways. The ttf fonts installed on your computer will automatically show in scal.
I had a slight problem at first... DH and i between us had an excessive amount of fonts ( like 4000 or something). So I had an initial problem with not being able to see certain fonts /ding bats i wanted to us. I just deleted a bunch of them... problem solved.
The scal program is really user friendly. There are pop up windows for selecting your font and you just type or select your item right on the screen. The screen is like a cutting mat... a big grid. So it is very easy to size your item (s). There are some screen shots here http://www.craftedge.com/products/screenshots.html
For the more involved... with scal you are not limited to the fonts and dingbats you find online, you can also make your own files using programs like abode illustrator or a free program called inkscape. I've played with this but haven't really had the time to get knee deep yet... it's on my to do list for this year. The products from these programs are call svg files.. and can be imported in scal. This getting to be very popular around the web it seems...people share svg files they have created and some people are even selling them now. I mainly want to learn how so i can divide up the layers of images (this is done for you on cartridges)... for example so a snowman's nose, hat etc are separate from the main image.
Making your own images is not something you need to have to know how to do... nor is it what makes the program worth the money. The limitless amount of fonts at your finger tips really is the seller!
I don't know if I've helped or made it sound extremely complicated. Once installed it is really used friendly. If anyone has any other question I can try and answer best i can... but I'm still learning lol
Sunday, January 4, 2009
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