Generations of Readers.

February 8, 2010 | By admin | No Comments »

Well you can’t get them started reading too young – Zyla and Grampa enjoying
another one of Dora The Explorer book series. Surprisingly(?) both appear relaxed.
One thing about being bald, little ones can’t mess up your hair ;-)

A couple of Dora The Explorer fans reading.<br title= Grampa says, "An... on Twitpic"/>

Some of the joys of getting older – grandparenting! What a joy our granddaughters are! We are fortunate they live very close (but, yes, that does involve a bit of babysitting). Hope you “distant” grandparents can vicariously enjoy the pic. Also, if you don’t have the means yet you should look into the various video conferencing tools that are available. These communication tools are improving all the time. Grandchildren are reason enough to techify a bit more.

More photos to come. Sharing is great fun.

- Val

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Grandpa’s Cheerios: Granddaughter Snack.

December 15, 2009 | By admin | No Comments »

Christmas ( or any other time ) doesn’t have to involve candy for grandpa and grandaughter to enjoy a little snack together. In the picture below you see
Zyla and Grandpa enjoying some of Grandpa’s Cheerios.

Looks good enough to eat!

Looks good enough to eat!

This experience has become kind of a family tradition. Both granddaughter’s know that there’s a very good chance that, if Grandpa is around, there are
some of his Grandpa’s Cheerios nearby. Maybe even a snack bag for each of
them. He’s not upset that a peek in the pocket may precede a hug but he
knows eventually he’ll get the hug as well. If he’s really lucky – a kiss on the cheek.

Doesn’t take much to make them: melt some butter in a sauce pan. Turn and tilt the pan to get some of that good stuff up on the sides. Pour a healthy couple of portions of Cheerios into the pan and stir to get them well coated.
Make sure you shake and stir enough to keep them from scorching. (However,
there are those of us who don’t mind a little of that for taste.) When they are well coated with the butter, pour a moderate amount of garlic salt on top and continue to stir to spread the seasoning throughout. (( Don’t overdue on the garlic salt – less is more in this situation.))

Yes, some of those pesky cheerios are likely to hop out of the pan in the
stirring – don’t burn yourself reaching for them and you may apply whatever
“10 second rule” applies in your house should one or two make their way to the floor.

Finally, make sure you have a lot of love and good thoughts in your heart when you are stirring – the Cheerios taste better that way. ;-)

Happy holidays my friend and may you and yours be healthy, hearty and happy with good prospects for the new year.

- Val Spangler, @SeniorTweet on Twitter.

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Cumulo B Nimbus: It’s Clear from Up Here …

November 14, 2009 | By admin | No Comments »

The best laid plans of mice and men … Started out thinking Cumulo B Nimbus would be a daily affirmation video. Well, so much for that time management allocation. So Plan B is to have periodical “It’s clear from up here…” videos with any topics I can come up with on a regular (but not daily!) basis. Well today’s offering comes as a response to all the bad news we are bombarded with on a daily basis. It helps to be able to laugh!

Cumulo B Nimbus agrees.

I figured you can get all the text quotes you want on Twitter. So, I decided to take the path less traveled and give Cumulo a bit more leeway with the same intent of stimulating people to think, or, as in this case, laugh a little.

I hope this little exercise at least brought a smile, if not a chuckle, to your face. Soon I will have a little tutorial available for you Logitech webcam owners to experiment with the video effects available. You’ll have to come up with your own characters – and that’s fun.

Until next time when Cumulo B Nimbus has anything of value to share … Laugh a little!

- Val Spangler, SeniorTweet on Twitter

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Old Dog – New Tricks. Learning Web Video!

November 7, 2009 | By admin | No Comments »

My new trick – using YouTube with my Logitech webcam software to facilitate the embedding of video in my blogs and websites. 2nd new trick is getting over the self consciousness and aging appearance awareness to allow myself to be myself on the video. Bald head? Glare from the shiny head? Put a hat on it. I learned that before for with my bio/profile headshot photo but still had to overcome the “old-school” self consciousness about
wearing a hat inside. Yes, no surprise to you, I am “old-school. :)

So here I am doing a favor (reciprocal back-scratching) with a testimonial for my old internet friend and mentor, Bob Dignard-Fung, of Freedom Webinars.com. Let me know what you think. I used to be a labor negotiator and mediator so I have a thick skin. Help this old guy learn some new tricks and how to improve my performance doing them.

(Note: No musicians or web site designers were harmed or injured in the making of this video.)

-Val Spangler, SeniorTweet on Twitter

Tilly gives good advice. ;-)

Tilly gives good advice. ;-)

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Twitter Milestones! Important for this Tweeter.

October 27, 2009 | By admin | No Comments »

The meaning of milestones! They say in social media and in this particular
case, Twitter, that numbers don’t mean anything. Well, I beg to differ!

Here’s the story – Today, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009, with my “trudge-along” – “particular about who I follow and who follows me” approach – I reached
a milestone (for me) of (Ta Da!) 3500 followers. This was done with no
“build your list fast” software, about 750 tweets and 1180 direct messages (DMs). A milestone for me – to hell with the know-it-alls.

On this date my Twitter Grader Score for SeniorTweet was 99.5 and in the TG “location ranking” for Mountain View, CA (Yes – Googleville), my SeniorTweet blog was ranked 25th!

Well folks, numbers may not mean anything to the gurus or other “experts”
but to this 70 year sole proprietor/entrepreneur, 3500 followers was a
real morale booster. The quality scores are also important – my “frosting”.

But that’s not the whole story or, perhaps, even the best part. It just
so happened that the 3500th Follower was Chris Money (@twitaddicted). Chris is associated with Hummingbird a Twitter management software.

I do believe in serendipity. So, I followed my gut and purchased
HummingBird2, the pro version, fully intending to leave my foot slogging
search process for Followers and automate the process. I will keep you posted on my progress, speed bumps and all.

Just to verify my data I am providing images of my Twitter Grader and
Twitter numbers for you to see. (As is the pattern, these numbers go
up and down – but the + and – are small – fortunately more + than -.
I still haven’t figured out the whys and wherefores of these fluctuations.
If and when I do, I will surely share that information with you my friends. ;)

From my Twitter Home Page.

From my Twitter Home Page.

Twitter Grader at 3500

Not bad for Googleville!

Not bad for Googleville!

Of course, you can make of these numbers what you will. But, for me,
they represent some diligence, dedication and integrity.

Hopefully, you will take heart from this and remember the old saying,
“What one damn fool can do, another can!”. I will also keep you posted on my progress from here and what I learn along the way.

Happy tweeting. Keep at it!

- Val Spangler, SeniorTweet on Twitter.

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