Mishmash Musings

I swear, I keep going back and forth on what I want to do with this site. On most days, I just feel like closing it down and consolidating this blog with one of my others. But on some days, I feel like buying powerful tools such as this dashboard product from InetSoft so I can really make a concerted effort to turn this site around, drive more traffic here, and make it worth my while overall.

Hmm… decisions, decisions. Should I stop now or keep going for a little while longer? I just have no idea!!

Is it just me, or does the Facebook user interface change with practically every login?? I can’t even keep track of all the things that are new/different these days. And yeah, I know it just takes some getting used to and before long I’ll forget all about what the old version looked like. But I can’t help but feel that all these timelines/connections/scrapbook things are getting more and more invasive with each update. Seriously, who wants their entire life online like that???

My profile has absolutely ZERO personal info in it and I’m going to keep it that way. I only have a Facebook account to keep up and message with friends, not to turn my life into an open book for everyone to have access to!

Have you noticed the disturbing trend of various websites asking and/or requiring people to use their Facebook login to leave comments on articles? I don’t know about you, but there’s absolutely no way in hell I’d want to use my real name to say something about Angelina Jolie’s newest purse or whatever. Yet so many others do just that. Aren’t they worried about their names showing up during Google searches by prospective employers? That is just not something I would EVER do. Maybe they’re all commenting under fake account names. That would be the only scenario in which it sort of makes sense to use Facebook on those sites.

I think it’s high time to give this blog a new look. I’m kind of tired of the dark and dreary color scheme, so I’m going to have to spend some time looking for a new theme to use. I might even do other things to dress up my site, such as learn how to use wix to add flash capabilities. I know some folks don’t like flash sites, but I don’t mind them.

Or, instead of doing all the work myself and likely screwing a lot of things up in the process, maybe I can hire a professional web designer to come in here and spruce things up a bit. To be honest, blogging has become a bit of a chore lately, and I think a big part of that has to do with the tired looks that all my sites have. Maybe the changes I’m thinking of will give me the kickstart needed to renew my passion for writing and blogging!

I was cleaning out my pantry today when I came across several half-full bottles of one a day vitamins that I’d apparently forgotten about. I sometimes don’t eat well enough to get the full RDA of important vitamins and minerals, so I used to try to take supplements. But I could never really get used to popping those big pills every single day, and I’d quit soon thereafter.

Well, I think I’m ready to start taking my vitamins again. My question is, do they ever expire? There’s a date on the bottle that guarantees “freshness and potency” if the contents are consumed by then. But is there any actual harm in consuming old vitamins? And how much potency could actually be lost if the pills are just sitting in the bottle in a cool, dry place?

When I was younger, my dad used to collect coins. He didn’t have anything very valuable, just a bunch of wheat pennies and buffalo nickels (none of the rare ones). But it was still fun for my 8-year-old self to look through all the coins, books, and magazines. I remember being particularly taken with a picture of this Liberty Head $20 gold coin that I saw in one book or other. I just thought the piece looked so elegant compared to the pennies and nickels in my dad’s collection, and of course to a small kid $20 was a fortune (especially 30 years ago).

Why am I thinking about this now? I’m trying to figure out a hobby that my son and I can participate in together. All he seems interested in these days is video games and sports. While that’s OK to a certain extent, I would like to get him involved in something more cerebral. Any ideas?

Now that I have a Kindle and iPad, and now that ebooks are pretty popular, I’m thinking about converting my personal library of physical books into electronic copies. I don’t have any expensive editions or anything like that. I usually just buy cheap paperbacks, so I wouldn’t have any qualms about ripping pages out to scan them. All I think I need is some scanner software that can format ebooks, right? There shouldn’t be anything else to the process.

Would converting my own books to electronic format break any copyright laws? I would NOT be distributing them illegally or anything like that. I just want to free up some of the clutter on my shelves and be able to enjoy my books on my Kindle or iPad instead of having to thumb through the musty old volumes.

I need to check into this some more. Sounds like a good idea, though. I’m sure other people have done this or thought about doing it. A few quick Google searches should let me know if it’s possible or not.

Coming into the season, most experts agreed that this was the Chicago Blackhawks’ year to win the Stanley Cup. They were a very talented, skilled, young hockey team with more depth than any other squad in the NHL. And thanks to the salary cap era, they had a very small window of opportunity to keep this group together.

Well, the Hawks played with the kind of urgency required in this situation, and won their Cup. Now the summer negotiations begin, and we can be sure that we’ll see a vastly different team when the puck drops on the 2010-11 season in October. There’s simply no way to keep everyone around and stay under the $59 million salary cap.

Kane, Hossa, Toews, and Keith are signed long-term, of course, but the Hawks will have to part with some big, significant players. Guys like Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg, Troy Brouwer, Brent Seabrook, Brian Campbell, and Dustin Byfuglien could be moved in order to free up cap space. While I think the Hawks could survive the loss of Brouwer, I would HATE to see any of the other guys go. I think they need to find a way to keep Sharp and Seabrook especially, and then work on Versteeg and Byfuglien.

Niemi needs a raise, Huet is gone, Madden is gone, Burish is gone, Eager is probably gone, Fraser, Sopel… And who knows what’s going to happen with Hjalmarsson.

The only good thing here is that Stan Bowman has known (hell, everyone has known) that the day of reckoning is coming, so he probably already has a plan in place. At the very least, I’m sure he and the coaching staff have identified the players they want to keep and will work around that.

The bottom line here is that the Hawks and their fans need to savor this moment. The team will not be the same in October, so enjoy the great memories that the guys delivered last season.

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)