I won an iPod nano! Yaaaayyy!!!!   When I switched ISPs to Cox cable, I was automatically entered into a contest for new subscribers and surprisingly came in 2nd place, which meant a free iPod. I was shocked! And really, really thrilled! I never thought I could afford an iPod, so I'm incredibly pleased to have one. It's a sleek silver color. I'm learning how to use it, those ear buds are strange and the vlume & other controls are adjusted by the slightest finger tip pressure.     I'm trying to decide which songs to download from iTunes, without getting too carried away. I know they can add up on the credit card, so I'm choosing the ones I want most.There's a way to transfer music from CDs, but I haven't figured out how yet.     It's all kind of overwhelming, but in a good way.

It's International Vulture Awareness Day!
Don't make that face, if I said it was international robin day, you'd be smiling.Vultures get a bad rap, but they perform a necessary service.I think they are kind of fascinating & like to draw them. The turkey vultures are common in Ohio, arriving every year in mid-March & leaving for warmer climes in mid-September. I see them perched on telephone poles all around the suburban neighborhood where I live. There's one ice cream stand where they perch on a high communications pole by a fire dept. & I always imagine they are eyeing my ice cream cone when I'm eating it at the picnic tables there. The turkey vultures are also called buzzards in Ohio, though they aren't really. European buzzards look like hawks. But a local radio station used to have them as a mascot back in the 1970's, calling itself "WMMS-Home of the Buzzard". The WMMS Buzzard abounded on t-shirts & bumper stickers all over town.
   I like to watch vultures fly, which is riding on thermals like eagles do. Except eagles hold their wings flat & turkey vultures carry theirs with a slight V as they soar. It's beautiful! They are so big, that if they go across the sun as they fly by, there is a huge shadow. My sister was with me once when that happened & said it was scary and prehistoric. Maybe that's why I like it?
    Anyways, I hope you'll join me in celebrating a strange looking and underappreciated bird today and maybe  not think so badly of them in the future.

   September started well for me as I finally am back online at home AND with high speed internet. Yay!  It's quite a change from dial-up and now I must explore all that stuff that i wasn't able to do before, such as downloading music & watching video clips, etc. I installed Google Earth,which I'd long wanted to do, haven't learned how to work it properly yet. I'm still trying to catch up on email that I missed not having a connection at home for so long.
   It took the cable guy over an hour & a half to install it, because he had to run the wire all the way to the other end of the apartment, a good part of it under the carpet. He did that by sliding the wire under the edge & then pulling it through using a powerful rolling magnet. At one point in the living room it kept getting stuck, but finally he got it to go through. The modem is a spacey looking vertical box with round lights on. It's very futuristic.
    While I wasn't connected, I tried to keep busy so I wouldn't feel so isolated, but towards the end, I was starting to get kinda depressed. I did get a lot done artwise, which was good. I'll post those pics & others once i've downloaded them from my camera. For the next few days, though, I'll be making up for lost time. It's good to be back with my cyber friends. i missed you!