Last Post- Not So Long but See You Later

This is my last post for this blog. I have now entered the world of "College" and it is difficult for me to maintain all these blogs. Actually I don't know how I did it before I enrolled in school. It has been difficult to come back as often as I would like. I think of this more as "condensing" my blog.

Mental Stimulation was one of the first blogs I did in 2006. Man, I didn't realize my butt has been sitting in this chairl that long. I probably have a carton of hemorrodial creme stuck somewhere. This was my baby and like most Moms, we don't want to have to see our babies go away, however all good things must come to an end.

I have started a NEW blog "Doing It 4 Me," which will focus more on my College life. I told you I was condensing. I hope my followers who have graced my presence these last couple of years take that journey with me to my new blog.

This one will have a little more substance, as I made it into a journal of sorts....you know my daily runnings in the world of Academia.

So follow Iriegal in her crazy College life....man, my life could really be this good sitcom. I hope ABC or one of those cable companies are watching..lol

Wordless Wednesday

If you are on a diet, I apologize in advance

Welcome to the Lunar New Year- The Ox

For many Vietnamese, the zodiac symbol of the new year is that of the water buffalo. For Chinese, Japanese and other Buddhists it is the Year of the Ox. The characteristics for those born during the year of the water buffalo or ox include thriving on hard work, self-discipline and order. That could well be the recipe for every one of us.

I was born during the year of the "RAT" ...last year actually was considered the Lunar Year of the Rat.

According to Wikipedia, these are characteristics of the Rat.

Rats are leaders, pioneers and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, determined, tenacious, intelligent, attractive, seductive, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Rat people are endowed with great leadership skills and are the most highly organized, meticulous, militaristic, and systematic of the twelve signs. Intelligent and cunning at the same time, rats are highly ambitious and strong-willed people who are keen and unapologetic promoters of their own
agendas, which often include power, wealth, and status.

I don't know about the "organized part.." or the POWER, WEALTH and SUCCESS part..maybe I was on the cusp..lol

Watery Wednesday- The Splash

Check out the other participants of Watery Wednesday, Click on Image below.

DayCare Madness

This story is crazy! However, sadly it happens more then we would like to think about. A woman broke the window of a Darwin, Australia, childcare center with a brick when she arrived to find the building locked, the lights out and her tiny son trapped inside.

According to Foxnews, " Yula Williams, 30, said she could hear her eight-month-old baby Xavier "screaming and crying," the Northern Territory News reported."

Apparently she had an errand to run, arranged for a relative to pick up her son by 6pm. Well, the pickup arrangement fell through. She tried calling the daycare center and could not get through. So she drives over there and hears her son screaming inside.

Now I was a daycare provider for many years and stories like this sicken me. I tell you it is so hard to fell comfortable when you leave your children at daycare facilities. You don't know what is going on. I always had a back up person if I had to run errands.

Sadly so many of these providers do it for the money....not the love!

Iriegal's New Pet

Okay, I have decided to adopt a pet. Okay, not a real pet (cause first off I don't really have anywhere to keep it) but a virtual pet. Visiting several sites I have seen where they have these virtual pets, so following one of the links, it took me to "bunnyherolabs." They have quite a bit of ads, but the pets are kinda cute.

So Iriegal choose a Spider. Yeah, Yeah, I know why a spider. Well, I was always a fan of "Charlotte's Web" growing up, so when I saw the spider I just went for it. I have never been a conventional person, so in reality, I probably would own a reptile or some really exotic animal.

Below is "iriespider." I will probably adopt a pet for all my blogs. Wait! maybe not I have 7 blogs and soon to add one more so yeah...that ain't happening right now. Maybe just two more blogs.

I also put him in my side panel, so he can watch the site while I am away. I mean who knows the types of stuff that crawls on your screen when you are gone. See spiders are useful. Perhaps, like Charlotte's Web, he will do something special. For now, I just like watching him weave that web back and forth.

adopt your own virtual pet!

Feedburner You Got "Googled"

I have been with Feedburner for 3 years now. Okay, now the kicker is I haven't been logging on to feedburner for awhile. I know that is sad, but well you know the old saying, "only 24 hours in a day." So I am perusing some sites this afternoon (sorry can't give you guys any link love, cause to be honest I can't remember all the sites that blogged about it,) and saw where Google merged with Feedburner. Wait, I guess that is the other way around, Feedburner has merged with Google.

Anyway here was their (FEEDBURNER's) explanation why.
Why is FeedBurner merging its product with Google's?

Our vision when FeedBurner joined Google was to help bring the best of what FeedBurner offered in syndication publisher tools and solutions to the AdSense platform, and vice versa. In the time since the merger, the FeedBurner engineering team has joined the Google engineering team (but still focuses on the same set of tools for RSS monetization, analysis, and optimization) and is not managed as a separate company or subsidiary.

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Why do I need to transfer my account?

We are moving all FeedBurner accounts to Google Accounts.

Since Google's acquisition of FeedBurner, Inc. on June 1, 2007, we have been moving the FeedBurner application to Google hardware, software, and data centers. This allows the application to scale and perform like most Google applications and integrate easily with other Google platforms. It also means more reliability in delivering your content, analytics, and monetization, as well as a more secure and consistent experience for your users.

In order to provide an integrated experience and to support the new features we have planned for our feed platform, as well as to improve security, it is necessary for logins to be handled via a Google Account.

Okay, since blogger merged about 3 years ago (or it might have been 2 years) with Google, nothing but problems. So do I forsee the same thing happening this time. YES I DO!

On one of the blogs I read the blog owner lost all her feeds with the move. For those of you who don't know what Feedburner is, it makes it easier for people to subscribe to your blog.

Wait! here is something else the Feedburner folks said, "

Yes! As we have previously announced, this change allows all publishers with an AdSense account to participate in AdSense for feeds, to help make money from the valuable audience that reads your feed on a regular basis. If you haven't already been moved from the FeedBurner Ad Network to AdSense for feeds by a Google representative, please login to your AdSense account, select AdSense for feeds, and initiate the transfer of your account.

The ability for publishers to distribute their feed via email has also been greatly enhanced. Email delivery now shares the same email delivery backend as other Google products, and you as the publisher can now search or page through your subscriber list to manage your email subscribers.

There are also some presentation changes to Feed analytics that we hope you will find valuable.

Additionally, this platform is built on a much more scalable and fault-tolerant infrastructure, which means we're doing things in the background that you don't notice. This includes being able to go back in time and generate historical stats for days in the past from our databases to correct analytical anomalies, and more importantly, being able to serve your feed content from multiple Google data centers when outages occur in internet backbones and other things that are outside of your and our control."

Has anyone who has Feedburner on their account received more traffic due to this merger?

Watery Wednesday-Time For Change

Check out the other Watery People here

The Inauguration

Okay, as I type this I have not even watched the inaugural on television yet. I had to work today, but my supervisor took the time to stop and turn on the television so we could see the swearing in. I thought that was so nice. It is an historic event.

It made me cry though because my mother and so many others have passed away and have not had the privilege to witness this event. My mother came to this country in 1941. She worked for many years scrubbing folks toilets and kitchens in Boston, Massachusetts. I never knew any of this. When she adopted us she faced so many stereotypes. He she was a single mom trying to raise twins in an era where Black Americans were just coming into their own.

My mother rose up above many challenges and received her nursing degree and became a homeowner in a country where in the 1960's doing that was difficult (for people of color).

When I saw the President place his hand on the bible and was sworn in, I just started crying. I couldn't help it. So many years we have seem this event time and time again (every 4 years), but today I see a NEW image of America. I see someone who looks like my son, like my daughter, my neices, my nephew, a neighbor. I see a new face of America. .....and I just cried.

Today all over the world people cried we all see it as hope!

Let us take time today and the coming days to pray for our President that he might have the wisdom of Solomon to move foward to help heal America and the foreign relations of so many other countries.

A Change Is Gonna Come

Today is the day....

I am on this Crab Bing

I love Crabs to death. As I am typing this I am craving it right now. I don't know what it is about me and seafood. I just love it. Last night I went over my girlfriends house and we just overdosed on crabs. She lives near this Marina in San Francisco and I got some fresh crab right off the dock.

The poor crabs didn't have a chance. We took them from their safe haven in the ocean and into our well seasoned pot. Am I sad about it.....HELL NO!..lol I LOVE CRAB ..oops I wrote that already huh.

Boy George at it Again

Boy George has sure started out his New Year well. The jury determined Boy George, 47, had chained male escort Audun Carlsen to a wall at his apartment in London's hip Shoreditch neighborhood. Carlsen had also said the singer beat him with a metal chain

I can't understand this. Here was an artist who in the late 70's and 80's was at the top of his game. I use to play my Culture Club album so much it wore grooves in it. I hope with this latest stint in prison he finally gets his act together. However, I doubt it, sometimes people just view incarceration as a novelty.

Wordless Wednesday

My Jerk Chicken Pot Pie Dish....YUMMY!

My Deer Experience

I can't believe they came so close to the house. The house I am currently staying in is on a 30 acre ranch so lots of wildlife are in the area. We have peacocks, coyotes, snakes, (although I don't know if you count that as wildlife), deer, racoons and the list goes on. So I was quite lucky to get this grainy shot of the deers ass as they walked away with me yelling...HEY TURN around I only have a cheap digital camera from walmart.

They didn't listen.

Macy to Close 11 Stores

I know that economy is in a bad state of affairs when "Macy's" (one of the leading retailers in America) is downsizing its stores. The Cincinnati-based department store chain (NYSE: M) said the closings will cost roughly $65 million, $12 million of which will be cash. Most of these expenses will be booked in the fourth quarter of 2008.

There is an estimated 960 people who will be without a job. In 2009, it expects to open three new Macy's stores and one replacement store. Following the store closings announced Thursday, Macy's will operate 848 stores, including 808 Macy's and 40 Bloomingdale's.

It is stated that them most recent holiday sales for the entire retail sector were the worst in decades with 80 percent of retailers expected to post negative same-store sales, according to the Massachusetts research firm Retail Metrics Inc.

I love shopping at Macy's. I always seem to get some good bargains. I hope that this year the economy picks up, because so many people are losing their jobs and their homes. It is so sad.

Source: Macys

My Daughter is Going To Italy

Wow, I was really surprised when my daughter(my youngest) told me last month that she applied for a "Study Abroad" program. She wants to be a museum curator. This is a child who has been singing and dancing all her life. I don't know where the museum curator thing comes in but I am happy for her.

The school that accepted her was the John Cabot University in Rome. She has always done well academically. I am so happy for her, but scared for her at the same time. I guess with all the news stories of what has been happening to young girls traveling aboard, I am just a tad bit fearful.
My friends tell me I am just being "MOMMA", but I think in any country that is going through their own political issues (and most countries are) that I wanted her to complete her studies here.

She qualified for full scholarship (based on her academic history) so that I am happy about. She is so much like me it is scary. I was always the "adventurous" one in my family. Always wanting to explore different places. I love the arts so I guess that is where she gets it from as well.

I am so proud of her. She has maintained a 4.0 average for her last 2 years of college. (this while working full time). I think most parents want the best for our children and our wish is that live a healthy and prosperous life towards the road to adulthood. She is 23 years old and I told her, "the world is your oyster baby." and I love her very much.