New blog

I'm moving my blog to my own website at www.juandelreal.com

DNA Testing

I heard a radio commercial for a home DNA kit which can be used t find out who your baby's daddy is. The announcer goes on about how you can receive the results in a about two weeks. It made me think, doesn't it take months for crime labs to get DNA results for what sounds to be a similar, if not the same, test? Yet, this company can do it in a couple of weeks. I don't remember the name of the company in order to look it up.

Mole

Lately I've been on a mole kick. It started a few weeks ago and prior to that, it had been a long time since I had any. Mole (audio pronunciation) is a Mexican sauce made from chiles, nuts, spices, and chocolate. Traditionally, mole is served over turkey or chicken, but you can find it served with enchiladas at Mexican restaurants - which is the way I've been eating it lately. So far, Casa Lupe in Campbell has the best mole enchiladas that I've tried. Although I'm told Maria Elena's in Alviso are better. I need to find out soon.

lower case

i like writing using only lower case text. i like how sentences and paragraphs look when they are written in lower case only. i think they are easier to read and they look cleaner too. i've been writing like this for years. especially when writing emails and comments on message boards and blogs. lately, as i've been reading more blogs and their comments, i've noticed more people writing like this. i don't know their reasons for doing it, but it's good to know i'm not the only one.

Insanity

I get the following emailed to me every so often and I always find it entertaining. I wouldn't mind doing a few of them.

20 Ways To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with That.

4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It 'In.'

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch To Espresso.

6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write 'For Smuggling Diamonds'.

7. Finish All Your sentences with 'In Accordance With The Prophecy'.

8. Dont use any punctuation

9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10. With a serious face, order a diet water whenever you go out to eat.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme.

14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play Tropical Sounds All Day.

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In The Mood.

16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream 'I Won!, I Won!'

18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking Lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!'

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'

20. And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity.......
Send This E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile. Its Called therapy.

Driving citation : follow-up

Back in December, I wrote about a driving citation I received. Two days before my scheduled court date of January 10th, as written on the citation by the officer, I received a letter about by the city. In the letter I'm given three options. 1) Pay the fine, but it goes on my driving record, 2) Schedule court date and contest the citation or, 3) Pay fine and go to driving school to remove citation from my driving record. I opted for option number 3. So I'll be going to driving school - and writing a post about it.

Transferring photos from Motorola RAZR V3

After much trouble, I finally was able to transfer the photos I had taken with my Motorola RAZR V3 cell phone to my pc. You can see some of them on Flickr.



The owner's manual doesn't cover how to transfer or download photos. Cingular's and Motorola's website aren't any help either. Cingular offers a media package that includes internet access. If I had also gotten that with my phone service I could just email myself the photos. But that is an additional service and cost i don't need. So I figured out how to transfer the photos by searching the web and by reading othe blogs.

When I got the phone (as a gift), I thought all I had to do was connect it to my pc using a mini-USB cable and somehow I would be able to transfer the files. I assumed it would work as a flash memory stick. Wrong. I learned that I needed some software that would allow for the transfer of photos and other files/data. I figured out that I needed Motorola's Mobile Phone Tools software. Cingular doesn't sell this software as I suspect they would rather prefer you subscribe to their media plan. Motorola sells it through their website at around $30 - without the cable. Lucky for me (so I thought), I was able to find it and get it for around $7 on eBay. However, after I received it and installed it, I wasn't able to get it to work. It just wouldn't connect to my phone. I couldn't get it to work. I concluded that the version of the software I got wasn't compatible with my newer phone.

After looking for other solutions on the web, I read in a blog how someone else was using software called DataPilot to transfer data from their phone to their pc. I was able to get this software at Fry's Electronics. I installed it and it too wasn't connecting with my phone. I was following instructions and doing everything right, but it just wouldn't work. By now I was frustrated. I tried different cables thinking that might be the problem. I re-installed the drivers. Nothing I did worked. On a whim, I tried Motorola's Mobile Phone Tools software again. This time around, it used the drivers that were installed by the DataPilot software. Only then was I able to transfer photos from my RAZR V3 to my pc. So for now, I will continued to use the Mobile Phone Tools software to transfer photos.

Motorola RAZR V3 - update

I've had my Motorola RAZR V3 for several weeks now. Here are some thoughts on it:

• a lot of times, I find it difficult to flip it open, especially one-handed. This is due to it being thin and wide.
  
• because of how thin and light it is, I like how I can easily carry it in my front pants pocket without it being bothersome.
  
• I still haven't received the software I bought online that's needed to download photos from the phone to my pc. So I don't know how good the quality of the photos are.
• the plastic used to make this phone feels and looks cheap. even the "metallic" keypad looks cheap.
• as cheap as it may look, it seems to be scratch resistant. I've dropped it twice (by accident) on a concrete driveway and there are no scratches on it. My old Motorola T-720 was full of scratches from everytime I dropped it.
• most times when i talk to my girlfriend, there's a constant background noise which interferes our call. I don't know if its our phones or the Cingular service we both use, but I only experience it when I talk to her. This has been occuring since before I dropped the phone, so I know it isn't because its been dropped.
• I like how I was able to customize what the buttons are used for

Driving citation

I got a driving citation on November 8 for not making a complete stop at an intersection (which is debatable) and I still haven't received whatever paperwork they send in the mail. I've gotten speeding tickets in the past and received mailed instructions on what to do - pay bill or go to traffic court. On the citation I had to sign, the officer wrote down a traffic court date of January 10. I'm thinking of showing up to traffic court on that date and let's see what happens.