Palm Pre Touch

Palm Pre Plus, Verizon Wireless

Since the creation of the iPhone touch screen technology is EVERYWHERE. I had a second generation touch phone from Samsung and when I first got the phone I was thrilled, the touch was so exciting. But then the touch became an issue for me, I could not stand to use the phone. At times when I would be talking on the phone and I would rest on my shoulder the touch would have a life of it’s own. At my earliest opportunity I found a way to get a new phone, so I ran toward a Blackberry for the fact it was NOT a touch and has all the capabilities I needed as a busy woman and mom of three.

Palm Pre Plus, Verizon WirelessBut then I was introduced to the Palm Pre Plus from Verizon Wireless. I do admit I was very leery and hesitant of the phone because it is a touch. I told myself I would not get attached to the phone, I would not like the phone, I would avoid falling in love with the phone. Admittedly I lied to myself.

The touch of the Palm Pre Plus is very precise. Upon touching the screen, the touch response graphics resembles a water drop into a pond. No miss touches, no slips, no mistakes for the touch option. In the event you touch the screen to touch an application or option and you do not touch it dead center the correct application you are looking to operate in the PalmOS will open or nothing will happen. Now the “nothing will happen” is a HUGE plus to me.

I had a touch phone previously that when I touched the screen and it was not precise, it would just decide “Oh hey let’s open this application or option.” Which generally meant NOT the option or application I chose. I enjoy and completely appreciate the fact that Palm allows for a certain level of human error.

Furthermore the touch scroll is controllable. Again the problem with “traditional” touch is when scrolling, the screen would either creep at a snails pace or the screen would scroll so fast and out of hand you would have to creep at a snails pace to reach your destination. The Palm Pre Plus scrolls easily and in the event if the screen is scrolling a bit too fast you can grab it and slow it down allowing the user to find their destination and what they need.

What else is great about the Palm Pre Plus is that the screen goes into a sleep mode when speaking on the phone so that the user does not accidentally touch the screen and options sending the phone into an operating tizzy. The screen also reappears upon movement if removing phone from ear to allow for hangup or dial pad use. However, the screen does go right back into sleep mode again in the event the user is not finished with the call.

If you were like me and have lost faith in the touch screen; have a little faith in the Palm Pre Plus with the responsive, error buffer, and ease of use for operation.

Thursday Tips and Tricks

I apologize for my scatter brain as I was trying to recall all the questions and topics from memory as the Dynamic Duo were invading. You can hear and see them in action…so if nothing else…this video is at least entertaining!

Again any questions regarding taxes, mortgages, you name it….I hope to vlog an answer for you. We can also explore the dark world of organizing! Yes…my OCD tendencies would LOVE to vlog about organizing and how to get organized. Let me know. Or heck…we can just vlog about whatever! Send me your questions and again be sure to fill out the form for the Featurette Friday!

MyFreeCopyright.com Registered & Protected

I admit I am shallow

I feel I have failed to be honest on my blog. After a very strong discussion with The Chad I had the ultimate slap. I put on a happy face for the blog because in the event I post that my life is not all roses and rainbows….well let’s face it…you would rather watch the damn news than read about some woman on the internet.

Truly my blog and persona are me, but to some degree they are lacking luster, a true persona that screams I am coming back for more on this blog. While I am not one to sensationalize by any means in the manner of feeding off of others pain or disadvantages for the fact to make me feel better I do feel like to be completely blunt.

Maybe my fear of rejection is what is holding me back in really laying everything out to tell you that I make fun of myself by calling myself little Miss Perfect. While I do TRY to do everything perfect….I am the most damaged human being I have had the pleasure to meet every single day. I fear being rejected because I am not perfect, because I really like to use the F word as a noun, adjective, conjunction, pronoun, and verb to name a few. I used to smoke. I like to drink when I am in a mood….which is actually rare but at least once a year I like to get a good buzz on that the next day I look around like….Um…who was that broad?

I also would like to get to know you. All 721 of you. Yes…even if that takes me years I would like to do it. A guest post from you at least once a week. You may think…has she completely lost it? But I haven’t. I know so little about you as readers that I want to hear about you…an insight into your psyche, who you are, what makes you tick, unique, if you enter a helluva lot of giveaways or you are a fellow blogger or hey you like to just read blogs period I want to know.

So no more Little Miss Perfect from me…though she is my alter ego…be prepared for a whole new year of posts. Oh and yes I will still have some KICKIN’ giveaways and what have you….but I want you to come here and read about some jaw dropping truths that say “sweet…I am so not alone!”

Please fill out my form for the guest posts….otherwise I will hunt your ass down and email it to you…and hound you weekly if not daily until you return it and I can feature you on my blog. Because that’s how I roll.

MyFreeCopyright.com Registered & Protected

Did We Need to Go There

My blog has never been one for controversy. I leave controversy to many face-to-face communications. Body language can be read and understood, as can eye movement, facial expressions, tone. Tone is often hard to communicate in writing. One must be a skilled author to have the finesse to emit tone in the conversation. So controversy as I said is left to the true verbal arena so as not to encounter miscommunications or to misunderstand.

So my tone is about to go to a beaten path NEVER taken before. EVER. I will probably lose blog followers and I am deeply sorry. I will not yield nor apologize for my personal life, my personal decisions, something that completely affects me, with the exception of my husband as he was a very intricate part of my life in this decision.

Once upon a Thanksgiving in 2009 a young woman who spent two days prepping, cleaning, cooking and baking, not to mention caring for her three children. Might I add, two of which are twins in case you are just tuning into the Fish Film @ 11, and I work a full-time job, a real. full time job. Not just the job of mom, you see that is my first job, my real job is my third job, my second job is wife, and my fourth job is business owner. So you see I truly have FOUR FULL time jobs….ah hell five if you add all the housework. So back to it, I was cleaning up after a much enjoyed pie hole stuffing event. Family was gathered on my couch, every seat taken,  reading Black Friday ads, friends were conversing, laughs shared abound. As the crowd began to simmer and disperse I thought I need to call my dear friend who so lovingly called to share in her thanks and love on this day. But in addition to the love to be shared was the hate that this ugly world can bring. Not hate by my friend, the hate of strangers, the hate of those who put up a loving facade to avoid confrontation, the hate spewed behind anonymity to win out in some delusional war of words.

Please be advised that the images you are about to see are repulsive, obscene, disgusting, and horrid. All directed AT ME. I debated on posting these images and by rehashing information I so prayed to disappear, but the glutton in me took pictures of the proof of hate generated by people.

For privacy reasons the images were removed and can only be viewed by invitation only.

As I said. I apologize for any and ALL of you to read this ugliness. I was so physically ill on Thursday I could barely sleep. I was shaking, I was borderline inconsolable. My husband, bless his heart, reassured me to ignore this. It would go away. It did not. The pain did not go away. These people have NOT. GONE. AWAY! The Twitter account STILL EXISTS!!! I thought the account had been deleted, however, I was wrong and hatred breeds and multiplies and yet another account can be created in anonymity so as to further the cause of hatred.

Now here is my beef. I have no problem with someone gossiping at or about me. Whatever, sticks and stones okay. But a FULL ON CHARACTER ASSASSINATION will make this Lionesses blood boil! My sweet little guppy fish exterior will molt into the full on lion bitch I am! What else….NO ONE. I do stress NO ONE has any of this information in the blogging community…oh wait. With the single exception of my sister.

YES. You know her. Brittany Greer. Brittany Hudson Greer over @ The Greer 5.

My flesh and blood. I had attempted to try to keep this between the family. A family feud that she clearly took too far in divulging my personal information to sheer strangers for their personal use to attack me. To belittle, to judge, to bring me shame, to destroy my character, to inflict pain, I can go on and on. Clearly a reprimandable offense correct? One might think considering that a third party went so far as to assassinate my good character, to attempt to destroy my friendships, my networkings, or maybe because the cretin who created this account thought it may be funny to bring pain to someone such as me. If you believe in this…..keep on being a subscriber to your community that is “generously” run and operated by Mom Dot. Because my information seems to have been so “generously” shared and detailed…although I will state that the details in these tweets are clearly misinformed, out of time line, and clearly NONE OF ANYONE’S FUCKING BUSINESS. I also encourage you to continue to be a member of a community that does love to breed controversy as my personal life so clearly became a hot topic in a forum for enjoyment. Or hell maybe just in an email but regardless, the two involved ARE members, very active members of that community. Which further suggests that the negative behavior of public humiliation, belittling and degradation is A FUCKING OKAY with these people. I would love to publicly humiliate…man…I would be such a big girl to do that.

To post pictures of random strangers and discuss their situations may they be unfortunate with other random strangers and call it “fun” or “comedic” hell albeit fucking hysterical right…just a joke.

FUCK YOU and you know who you are. Are those tweets a fucking joke to any of you? If so….I dare you to leave me your FULL NAME to leave up for public humiliation. I also dare…..no….I challenge the lowly individual who so PROUDLY created this account with the original intentions of bashing MY friend Kristin, whether you like her or not, who then decided to turn the object of their desire to me…I CHALLENGE you to come to my blog and apologize to me. Furthermore I CHALLENGE the cretin and or CRETINS who acted in such a distasteful, vulgar, unbecoming, and plebian manner to PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE to myself and Kristin on Twitter and on a blog post that shall stay posted for AN ENTIRE WEEK. To allow those who read it to show their disdain to you. To show you how much of an uncouthful coward you were and are for hiding behind anonymity, your keyboard, and indecency. I also challenge Miss “I am the Community and this is my blog” so shoot me an email…we’ll discuss the details like adults.

Who’s Got Your Back

Name three people. THREE. Influential or not, name three people in your life that will always, and I mean always have your back. Not three people you can count on for a beer, a cup of sugar, not those types, but THREE strong, permanent people in your life that you can rely on at all times.

Hard to do?

If you can name THREE people without hesitation and one of those is not your “lord and savior” then chances are you have found the three strongest people in your life and will have your back at all times. These individuals will not always bail you out of jail, lend you sugar, enjoy a pint at your local pub, these (at the very least) three people will have your back in some of the best and the worst low down times in your life.

The time and place of our world now is a setting of instant gratification, our worst times can be relieved at the quick stroke of  a keyboard or the click of the mouse, a pill, or a bottle, even our best of times are celebrated in such a way where the intimacy of person to person relations is completely removed.

Long gone are the days of having to thumb your way through the black laden and dyed yellow paper of an actual physical yellow pages, the warm printed scent of inked, dusty paper. Long gone are the days of nights for coffee, long chats on the phone often resulting in exorbitant phone charges and fees. Long gone are the days of an actual face-to-face interview, conversation, or meeting.

We have webinars, Twitter, conference call interviews with panelists, email, blogs, texts, and IM (Instant Messenger).

Truth be told I attended a function held by a local fellow blogger here in Phoenix, Kelly Loubet, you know her on Twitter as @Childhood and I was nervous. I. was. nervous. Why? Because I was actually going to meet face-to-face with someone who I had only acquainted myself with online. I was nervous and ecstatic all at once. The experience could probably compare to the first day of school or a mom date (moms night out). We held good conversation for being so late and only really talking online. I thoroughly enjoyed actually meeting someone who I had only met online. A thrill. A completely new realm for me.

My instance of meeting Kelly is out of the ordinary to some, even for myself. I have always had fresh meetings with people I had never met before through mutual acquantainces or friends, a meeting with someone that I had met online was very foreign, scary, new, exciting and wonderful all at the same time. Some people spend their entire existences talking only online, never engaging in face-to-face moments or settings, but rather a proverbial sea of type-written text.  However, others do meet in a standard fashion, some positive, others not as positive. But one would have to wonder, have we really lost the personable touch, the guarantee of the people we meet that certain individuals may be subliminally and quite possibly divinely chosen to be our guardians, the ones who always have our backs or maybe just friends, casual acquantainces, best friends, future colleagues, networking associates.

I recently experienced a tragic loss. A loss I have never felt, experienced, and I know more are coming in my life, I am bracing for these losses. I did not know who to turn to first in my grief, in my loss, who did I pour my heart and soul to, WHO had MY BACK?

1. My husband. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I married my best friend. I turned in my shock, my awe, my silenced sadness and grief. Burning eyes and breaking heart. The empty filling my chest. The inability to take a full breath as if the weight of the world was placed on my chest. The slow taste of bile rising in my throat with every swallow I took in my grief.

2. My step-dad. I drove to my mothers the night of my loss. A loss truly that I did not share alone, shared truly with some many others, but all I felt was my pain, and I needed to be with my family. On my way to my mother’s house I picked her up from a gathering she was at with my step-dad. I needed my mother, her aura of comfort and the consciousness of “everything will be okay” even though every cell in my body felt otherwise. She was at a gathering with my step-dad. We waved our hellos as I chauffeured my mother to her house, but I knew I had to stop. I honked the horn got out of the car and ran into the arms of my step-dad. I needed a hug. I knew I didn’t have to say a word. I never have had to say much to him, he knew. He knew my pain, he knew my loss, he knew I needed his strength and that he always had my back. Despite all of our differences, pains, and angst’s we have shared together, he has always had my back.

3. Jen. Our friendship began as a “friend of a friend” but as time has passed a bond has developed. One I had not ever truly taken notice. I have found in my growing age that I do a lot more watching, listening, I am more aware. I became more aware of the bond I had formed with my friend. That her pain that she felt, is feeling, is still reeling to control as waves splash over her from time to time, are now my pain. The burning emptiness, the drive in life that we both share, our unyielding love and loyalty to our friends and family, she and I are one in the same. Unlimited amounts of time can pass and we would never know any different. I knew at this point in my life that Jen had my back. I KNEW I could confide in her at all levels. No matter what. Day or night, even if I never did confess my deepest confidences, I knew I always could.

I am also lucky enough to share a growing bond with a few groups of women on different spectrums of my life. More and more as time passes and with each encounter, I know, I can count on these women. But sadness will wave over me that the people I thought I could confess to are not who they appear to be. Blood is not always thicker than water and those bonds, quite frankly are saddening. With the loss of my dear love, my grandfather, I too lost dream. That one day a family would be united. At the services I watched. I watched generations of family bonded by blood and divided otherwise. Knowing that the other did not have their back, generations of siblings and parents, children and grandchildren, bonded and divided. I wasn’t sure what really was more wrenching, the pain in the loss of my family patriarch or the loss of ties, bonds, love because you knew no other because of the genial ties that bind. Saddened too because of the lack of connections. Our family had now become a network, “just Facebook me,” “send me a text,” “tweet me,” “email me” the time felt as if we no longer had that connection. We now were just rolled into the sea of social networking, no longer a famillial unit, but networkers within our own genial lines.

So when you think you know who has your back you might possibly be mistaken. In times of loss and greatest successes do you know who has your back, who shares in your joy, knows your pain. The sixth sense is always the gut instinct, your gut will tell you of friends and foes, confirm your fears and doubts, and will enforce that the human touch, the human interaction, the ability to sympathize and empathize are beyond more than an email, a text, a Tweet. Something very few can exhibit personally and virtually.

With that I am blessed to know that “durdles” will mean more. A laugh is the cure for the soul. Not only do we have friendships but we have been chosen as the ones to watch each others back. These fabulous individuals just know. They know your fears and doubts, give you a hand up when you are down, respect you.
And we know who’s got your back.

My Conversation

The virtual diary. The Weblog of old and blog of new. A typepad diary to release inner demons, woe on politics, spew nonsense on the grandest scales, possibly invent a new comedy facet even Shakespeare could revel.

Diaries are not always meant to be read while others are published; some are for shock value, some are for reciprocal relations (not feeling alone in the world), and some are just written diarrhea that communicate nothing but allow us something else to stare aimlessly into a monitor.

While I am not “expert,” self-proclaimed “guru,” or self-proclaimed “top blogger” I do claim to be full of shit. Honestly. I have a lot of minutiae in my life that has molded me into the productive human being I am today. For example, I have been laboring in the employment arena for over 15 years. I am also an adult-child of an alcoholic. You want to know about alcoholism and how the “disease” (for lack of a better word) can destroy a family ask me so, I can tell you first hand. I can also share with you the art of being proactive, rather than reactive. Although sometimes reactions can be fun if you really want to spice up your dull suburban life. Other experiences include the loss of lives, lives I took part in creating but clearly an upperhand had other plans beyond my control. Experience life on drugs, the detox, share how even a prescription drug to keep you from feeling nuts can send you into a downward life spiral of dementia, then rising again anew.

Sometimes my blog makes sense. Sometimes my blog is a surprise of epic proportions where I can show the Skittle rainbow and then taketh away by showing you the dark depths of an inner child scorned by hurt and deception, smoke and mirrors. Sometimes I engage you in a comedic touch and others I attempt to engage you in a conversation and they aren’t always superficial or “socially acceptable.”  I also am in no way attempting to win any award, although I have some friends that I cherish who think I invented sliced bread and award me so, for them, I am full of heart, eternally grateful. (aka Ally,

Which brings me to a blog post I read today from a bloggy friend of mine who feels she is not of influence. What is influence really? Influence as I understand the meaning is that an action will have an effect. Sounds scientific…possibly not. I look at influence and the laws of cause and effect from a Buddhist standpoint.  For every cause there is an effect. Example: A lonely cow is in her field, she sees a herd pass, she joins the herd. The cause a herd passes your path, the effect, you become part of the cattle. (see where I am heading)

For example, the effect of turtling (hanging in one spot and one spot alone) where the flow of any traffic is impeded, the effect is that traffic will begin to gather around. That is not a gravitational pull, but your wide ass obstaining from moving, thus preventing in some cases bloggy constipation. However, if you act as a honey bee, visiting flower here and flower there, the results may not be immediate, but the effect is cross pollination, pollination period, the want of the flowers, for you the honey bee, to return each and every time. I felt my bloggy friend is very much the honey bee, while others are turtling excrements merely taking up space.She is the steady and constant bee on her pollination route, and one season soon, she will reap the rewards of all she has sown.

Blogs, emails, posts, Tweets, texts, and phone calls can all be a conversation. Short and sweet. Long and meaningful, or merely scripted fum is chum or is it Chum is Fum for the masses to gobble. (Yes that is a SpongeBob reference…..) Either way, the influence is the effect that is caused by what was said, how did you resonate in that individual (the cause), good or bad, he or she is clearly reaching for conversation, whether you choose to listen or answer proactively is up to you, because I see that both listening and proactive responses are participation in a conversation. You cannot converse if someone is not listening, and even when you think you are alone in your conversation, someone, just someone may be listening. Hold steady, hold true, and do not lose your love and feeling for your conversation. The cause of conversation is in effect influence.

Picking

Like we have always said here at The Five Fish, some Jedi mind trick wisdom:

 

nose picking
Courtesy of Flickr. https://goo.gl/WVSmCG
You can pick your nose

& You can pick your friends
BUT YOU CAN’T PICK YOUR FRIENDS NOSE!!
Dedicated to my awesome friends. (You know who you are)

Gratitude

Have you met the people who blog? I haven’t. I have met them through their beautiful writings, tweets, Vlogs, emails, and IM’s. Through these people I have seen beauty and strength. I have to say that bloggers are some of the coolest people around. Pat yourselves on the back, cheer, hoorah, because really I know that I am in the presence of greatness with some of the coolest, most genuine people. I am also super dooper UBER thankful for all the kind words, thoughts, prayers, kudos, MoJo, etc for myself during this time and for my family.

Seriously….some of the nicest and greatest people ever! You folks are awesome!

Now as a token….who wants to take a day off and come guest post? I would love to have some guest posts!

A Day Made Better, For a Phoenix Teacher

OfficeMax developed a program in 2007 that helps erase teacher funded classroom, that program is called “A Day Made Better,” Office Max teamed with Adopt-A-Classroom to aid teachers for supplies for classrooms. This program is so much more than just donations for a teacher, this is to help enrich the lives of our children and is a tremendous movement. For more information go HERE.

I got involved with A Day Made Better and Office Max by participating in the Girls Night Out on Twitter with Jyl Pattee of MomItForward. I have to say that was a great party! But on top of the Twitter party, I had the opportunity to go party for a teacher with Kelly Loubet. Have you met Kelly? If not, you should! She is a heck of a woman with a big heart, a fellow Arizonan, Phoenician, and blogger..ya herd! She is helping her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, who was nominated, to enjoy A Day Made Better!

On Saturday October 3rd Kelly held a soiree at Scrap Happy Sisters in Glendale so we could “scrap it up” in, what I have to say is the coolest scrapbooking store EVA eat some YUMMY Organic pizza from ZPizza, guzzle gallons of water and wine, and have a great time for a great cause! But don’t let me ruin the good time for you! Be sure to go Tweet up Kelly and read her story over at Whrrl!

Thanks so much Kelly, I had a great time at the party (and our super cool after-party at Applebees) and I am glad I could help be a part of your Adopt-A-Classroom and A Day Made Better with OfficeMax!

BIG THANKS to Office Max and Adopt-A-Classroom to help erase teacher funded classrooms!

The Phoenix Rises

With every life there is death. The story and life of the Phoenix is my favorite. Not only for the immortality but for the story that the Phoenix seems to die a painful death in it’s very own flames, and rises anew from it’s ashes. Today, I feel like the Phoenix.

I created a very painful death for a part of my life, for personal relationships that exist in my life, some with bearing, others with no bearing, so no real loss, however a death of me nonetheless. As I said before a painful death, one I did not want to experience, but one I did bring upon myself.

The silver lining to all of this is I am risen anew.

I have seen the err of my ways, I have learned a powerful and valuable lesson and lessons. I have gained irreplaceable friendships in this forum that I cherish to every end and they are guiding me, sharing with me, feeling with me. They too share the experiences I do on so many levels. Which is the best part about blogging, is not being alone, knowing that being at home with your kids all day that other mothers share the exact same triumphs, failures, losses, and excitement.

So here I am before you with my fledgling wings, ready to fly again. Having risen from my own fiery death, molten in my own ashes, to rise and have a life of rebirth in my blog, in my writing, and in my life. My lessons learned:

  • Know your audience. I from now on will no longer post anything beyond my immediate family or the family that blogs together (sister, sister, etc).
  • Know your friends and know your enemies, sometimes the friend is a foe.
  • Never regret (which I never did, but started to, if you regret, you regret the lesson learned or fail to learn it altogether)
  • Never apologize for your feelings, only apologize for hurtful actions, not the hurtful truth.

With that I am creating a new blog, completely private which I love. I will invite readers of my choosing or those who want to read it, or maybe, an idea I was kicking around in the shower, a blog by invitation only where we can share all the crap we are afraid to share anywhere else in a private, trusting, secure forum, we write what we want with no fear of reprisal or retaliation. If you are interested in becoming an author or reader please feel free to email me.
The title is rightfully titled “Letters We Never Intend to Send” where we post everything we want to say so we get the negative feelings out, no one gets hurt, and we ease the personal pain, frustration, anger, etc that we feel in a safe and secure forum.

I am back, I am ready to blog. I am finding peace in my actions, I have learned a lesson, I was the firebird who died among her life and is reborn of the ashes she left behind. Now I am leaving you with the quote that I enjoy so much from the Feng Shui Handbook, a quote that I believe fit me and the way I see myself in my own life and surroundings:

“A mythical bird that never dies, the phoenix flies far ahead to the front, always scanning the landscape and distant space. It represents our capacity for vision, for collecting sensory information about our environments and the events unfolding within it. The phoenix, with its great beauty, creates intense excitement and deathless inspiration.” (feng shui Master Lam Kam Chuen)