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Open Office - The Free "Microsoft Office" Alternative

If anyone is looking for a Microsoft Office alternative, check this out Open Office from Sun Microsystems.

free office suite:
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, Open Office can of course read all your old Microsoft Word documents, or save your work in Microsoft Word format for sending to people who are still locked into Microsoft products. The product is free to download, use, and distribute. Open Office includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, database program, and graphics program.

The download is huge and can take up to seven hours with dial-up Internet...so don't attempt it unless you have a fast connection or a lot of time. If you only have dial-up but are still interested let me know, I can send you a CD.

Finally, here is the most stunning comparison: Microsoft Office - Student Teacher version: $150.00, Professional Edition: $332.00. Open Office: FREE.

More Snake Stories

Origins: The photographs displayed evidently originated with the Silent Valley Game Ranch in South Africa.

The snake had eaten an impala ewe and was trying to go through the electric fence when it was killed by the electric fence. The pictures were taken on Silent Valley Ranch in the Waterberg mountains of South Africa. If you go to the site you will see the images of the impala that was removed from the pythons stomach.

Replacement Themes for Camp Snoopy

My personal favorite

Happy Birthday Jessica!

My baby girl turned 18 today.

Mayberry on the prairie

A beloved TV show inspires a Wisconsin couple to create a residential replica.
Kim Palmer, Star Tribune

It could be the setup for a wacky sitcom: Arkansas music teacher and Wisconsin funeral director, both fervent fans of an old TV show, meet online in a chat room, then decide to make a life together in his small town.

Marsha Scheuermann's friends and family thought she was the wacky one when she told them she was moving to Clear Lake, Wis., to be with her future husband, Dave Scheuermann.

"Then they met him, and said, 'You guys are made for each other.' "Why? The obvious answer is that both are "crazy fans," in Dave's words, of "The Andy Griffith Show." Their devotion is so complete that they've fashioned their home as an exact replica of Andy's TV dwelling, from the big front porch right down to the Blue Willow china in the hutch and vintage school supplies in Opie's room.


The deeper answer is the couple's shared values and nostalgia for the idealized small-town way of life that the show celebrates. Their home 40 miles northeast of Hudson is their haven, a respite from the rush and rudeness of modern life. And now that the house is completed, they plan to share their little piece of Mayberry with others by operating it as the Taylor Home Inn (www.taylorhomeinn.com).

If you're thinking that there can't possibly be enough hard-core Andy Griffith fans to keep an inn in business, you might be surprised. The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club (www.mayberry.com), which hosts the chat room that brought the Scheuermanns together, boasts more than 1,000 chapters and 20,000 members worldwide.

Jim Clark, the club's Nashville-based founder, is already planning a visit to the Scheuermanns' home later this year. "I can't wait to get up there and see it," he said. "I've seen pictures of their place. Obviously, they've gone to great pains to get the small details exactly right."

Dave Scheuermann made sure of that. He designed the house himself using a computer design program, a foam-core model that he built and "a little Andy" figure that he used to measure 6-foot dimensions on a smaller scale. He spent more than a year getting the plans just right.

It wasn't easy. For starters, Andy's TV "home" never really existed. The exterior scenes were shot on a California studio back lot originally built for "Gone With the Wind." The interior scenes were taped on TV studio sets, not in real rooms with four walls.

"It was a challenge to fit the interior into the footprint of the exterior," Dave said. "I had to stretch a couple of walls." The house has more square footage than Andy's, including a separate innkeeper's quarters, as required by state law. And, like many 21st-century nesters, the Scheuermanns weren't content with a '50s kitchen. "We upgraded it a little," Dave said. "It's Andy's house with a facelift."

Still, the dwelling feels vaguely familiar, even if you aren't intimately acquainted with the show. It could be your childhood home, or maybe your Grandma's house. Although built in 2003, it has a definite '50s vibe, from the old-fashioned radio to the vintage magazines on the coffee table. The mantel clock above the stone fireplace has stopped, a metaphor for the bygone ambience of its setting.

In fact, when Marsha hosted a holiday gathering for some teacher friends, one of them said, "I feel like I'm in 1957," which, to Marsha, was a high compliment. "Exactly!" she said. "That's what we want."

The home has modern conveniences, but they aren't immediately visible. The computer is behind a door that, on the show, led to Andy's entry. There's a TV, but it's discreetly located upstairs in a room stocked with videos and DVDs of you-know-what.

How did the Scheuermanns develop their obsession with all things Andy? Marsha never even saw the show during its original '60s run. But in 1979, she watched some reruns and got caught up in the characters and the setting, which reminded her of her childhood in the Ozarks hamlet of Calico Rock, Ark. "I grew up in Mayberry. Andy looked like my dad, and Opie was within a month of my age."

Dave also felt that nostalgic connection even though his own hometown, Burnsville, was nothing like Mayberry. "It's like going to a small town every time you watch ... the friendliness ... the slower pace."

But finding like-minded Andy-philes was difficult -- until the Internet came along. When the fan club launched its chat room in 1997, Dave and Marsha were part of a core group that decided to meet at Mayberry Days, the annual festival held in Griffith's real hometown, Mount Airy, N.C.

"All of us were thrilled to know that there were people out there who were as into it as we were," Marsha recalled. "It was a magnet for all of us." Once she met Dave in person, "it was like at first sight."

After their 2001 wedding, which featured the "Mayberry March," the couple decided to build an Andy-inspired house where friends and members of their blended family could visit them. (Dave has three children and Marsha has one.) "As a funeral director, I can't take off and go for a two-week vacation," Dave said.

Some of their fellow fans have already visited to critique their efforts. Don and Joyce Kernan of LaSalle, Ind., gave it a thumbs-up. The Kernans didn't even need the address to find the house, according to Don. "My wife said, 'There it is. No doubt about it.' The entire house is true to the show."

To amplify the total Andy experience, the Scheuermanns plan to turn their basement into a replica of the Mayberry courthouse, complete with jail cell. They study old episodes for fresh details.

"We watch it almost every time it comes on," Marsha said. "We can quote it line for line and still laugh, even though we've seen it 100 times."

Only now they watch with a slightly different perspective, she added. "It's like they're standing in our house."

People forgetting basic U.S. freedoms

Brian Beck | January 17 2006

If you support a king-like presidency, if you don't believe that due process is important for everybody, if you don't recognize a right to privacy, if you think freedom of religion means freedom to use public money to support the most popular religion, if you don't think it matters that our leaders lied to us about reasons for going to war, if it doesn't bother you that we torture prisoners, what exactly is it that you think makes this country great?

We have been a beacon of hope for more than two centuries because there was always the idea that these things are not acceptable in our government.

There have been stumbling blocks of course, but there were guiding ideals and the potential for what we could be generally outweighed the sins that were committed.

I get the sense now that those guiding principles are being thrown away. As the tyranny that sparked our existence gets forgotten in history books, we have collectively forgotten why so many of our rights were so important to the founding fathers.

It's not necessarily that they were smarter than any of us, but they saw first hand why those rights were so valuable.

Now, out of fear and ignorance, many in this country have decided that those rights really aren't that important. I hope it doesn't take another round of complete tyranny for people to again realize the importance of the liberties that we have been given. U.S. Constitution

We can still do something about it

Green HAM and Eggs

This week scientists in Taiwan announced that they have successfully injected fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs producing glow in the dark pigs. These pigs don't just glow on the outside. Every organ in their body also glows green.

Other than helping pig shepherds track their herd in the open prairie, there is little practial reason behind this revolutionary development...or is there? Full Story

Blazing mouse sets fire to house

As long as we're on the subject of reptiles and rodents:



A US man who threw a mouse onto a pile of burning leaves could only watch in horror as it ran into his house and set the building ablaze.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, found the mouse in his home and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," he was quoted as saying by AP.

Though no-one was injured, the house and everything in it was destroyed.

"I've seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one," Fire Department Captain Jim Lyssy said.

Full Story

AP News Service

Reptiles and Alcohol

I spoke with Dr.Safdar who was in Taiwan, in a marketplace (next to a brothel) there were live snakes hanging by their tails. You choose your snake by the strength it has to hold it's body erect. They would then cut a black sack out of the snakes body and mix it with an alcoholic drink -slam it and go to the brothel next door. I thought this was interesting-Dr Safdar is from Pakistan and Dr. Maddurri is from India. Dr. Maddurri was raised in a grass hut in India and as a child remembers seeing Python in his village. He said they looked different than this one but about 6+ feet long.

Thank you Jeffrey for the unique gift. Very fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jana

North Dakota News

FARGO, N.D. — Diamond earrings stolen from a college fundraiser were recovered when a Minnesota man tried to have them appraised at the jewelry store that donated them, authorities said.

Police said the man was arrested after he brought the $4,600 earrings to Wimmer's Jewelry. Store owner Brad Wimmer said the man had the original box along with the description of the jewelry.

"It was all very goofy," Wimmer said. "The value of the earrings was right on the description."

Charges were pending. Police did not release the man's name but said he was a 23-year-old from Ada, Minn.

Wimmer's donated the earrings to the North Dakota State University Development Foundation for its silent auction. They apparently were stolen from storage during the October event, a development foundation spokesman said.

When he came in to get an appraisal, Wimmer said he was told it would take a day, and the man left his name and phone number.

Wimmer called the man Wednesday and told him the appraisal was finished. When the man came to the store, Wimmer said he pretended he was on a long-distance phone call until police arrived.

"He knew the jig was up when police came in the store," Wimmer said.