New Contest Title: "Help, I'm stuck in your computer monitor!"

Entry #2 (Deadline has been extended through the end of this week)

Entry #1

I have been thinking about a new prank to pull on people. While they are gone, you post a desktop image on their computer that looks like you are inside their computer monitor.

They can either convey a sense of "help, we're stuck in here", or "just popping in to say hello".

Small children could do a good job, and I feel that group photos could be awesome as well.

These images can be achieved in a variety of ways. For this picture, I held a pane of glass up to my face and took a picture through it. The trick is to have the scale of the people relate to the actual size of the computer screen.

I am sponsoring a contest where you can submit your own. Email them to me and you could win a prize. Submit your entries by October 31st.

You don't have to have computer icons on your picture, or anything like that. My picture was just an example of how it could look when on your desktop.

Good luck.

Letters

When Grandma Martineau died, we inherited a box of letters and cards and everything we had ever sent to her, including a super soaker key chain that I sent her for her birthday. There were tons of letters from Jeffery City and Grants. I copied some highlights into my journal at one point:

April 25, 1979

"Bethany must be related to her grandmother. In primary today I was having some kids introduce themselves. She said, 'I'm Bethany Martineau and I ride cows'."

May 8, 1980

"Tell Martha Mandy calls her "Martha Jane Pumpkin"

Another Mandy/Martha reference:

May 23, 1981

"There are two Marthas - one in the Jesus book and one in Pocatello."

Feb 14, 1981

"Mandy seems to be influenced by TV. She asks if the shampoo will make her hair bounce, if John's diapers are saggy, and if our soap is an eye opener. She sings 'I've got to wash that grey right out of my hair'."

April 9, 1979

Joel had a dream that President Kimball came to see him in Jeffery City. He asked him to do missionary work with him. He said "Lets go talk to your neighbors and share the gospel with them." "I couldn't say anything, so we went to my neighbor next door. We began to teach and when President Kimball saw that I was successful, he smiled and departed from my dream."

Same letter:

"Mandy kisses raw pieces of Sunday Chicken and calls bunnies bummies."

16 June 1981

"Jesus doesn't want people to leave their beer bottles around; they should just drink it."

Separately:

"I don't like them to drink beer. They should just do it in Colorado."

Sept 1981

"When we bare our testimony in church we say 'I know this church is true', but when people in other churches bare their testimony, do they say: 'and I know this church isn't true'?"

Wiiiiiiiiiiiii!

I just purchased a wii and wii fit with the money I saved from only doing half of my trip.

See what kind of fun I'm in for:

http://utube.smashits.com/video/_iYBmAVuBns/Wii-Fit-Parody.html

Autumn

I visited Amy and Autumn yesterday. She just joined "Fan of Sleeping" on facebook, Amy tells me.

Autumn is looking at her monkey mobile.

We call this video "cooking with Autumn"

Videos from my trip

I didn't take much video, but here are a few to give a better feel for where I visited:

This lighthouse is on the island where my car got stuck on PEI. My car is stuck just off to the left of the field of view in this shot.

The red fox at the east point light house on PEI. No tourists (no matter how dumb) were injured during the filming of this video.

Fall Trip Day 6

Looking at money, stress levels and what I had already been able to see, I decided to cut my trip short. I re-booked the flight home and left a large layover in Boston. I flew into Boston and took a bus, then a subway into downtown. I took a duck tour on a converted WWII amphibious vehicle that could drive on land and water. Our tour guide was a stand up comedian by night, Duckdriver by day.

I also walked around until it was time to return. I had on a sweater and coat and was carrying my camera and my laptop in my backpack. I felt quite bulky as I hurried about. I was able to see the John Hancock tower, which we studied in school. The windows in it kept falling out. Pretty Exciting. None fell while I was there. I also saw a cool cemetery where Paul Revere, 3 signers of the declaration of independence and Benjamin Franklin's family was buried.

It was a long flight back. The airline shouldn't put garlic in the pita dinners they sell. The garlic permeated the re-circulated air. I watched TV without sound. I made my own commentary in my head to a cooking show. It is amazing how little that lady knew about cooking. I made it home, and slept 10.5 hours straight. Park Street Church: "America" was first sung in this church and speeches for the anti slavery movement were given here.

The duck boat
The Church where they declared indepence from Brittain

Comic Tour Guide

George Washington at Boston Commons
John Hancock Tower

John Hancock Tower next to Trinity Church (That started sinking during the excavation for the tower as the water table was lowered and the wooden piers supporting it began to dry out).

Park Street Church

Granary Burial Ground

The Subway

Fall Trip Day 5

Rain, Rain, Rain. I stopped at some souveneer shops before crossing back over the bridge ($42 toll round trip). Once back to New Brunswick and saw how close I was to Nova Scotia (New Scotland). So, I drove down to the town of Amherst and took some pictures of the train depot there and a statue of a Scotsman in a quilt. Driving back through New Brunswick I saw a covered bridge on the side of the road. Getting off the interstate, I found another. I crossed over the border without problems. The fall colors in Maine were nice, but hard to photograph. I made it to Bangor and found my hotel without too much difficulty.

Anne Tribute Outside Souveneer Shop

PEI License Plate

Scot Tribute in Amherst

Bloomfield Creek Covered Bridge between Moncton and Saint Johns

Fall Colors Near Bridges

Moosehorn Creek Bridge

Maine on Route 9

Fall Trip Day 4

Today I drove up the eastern side of PEI. I listened to the Sunday Morning session from last April during the drive, since conference wasn't on the radio. I first stopped at Greenwhich National Park at St. Peters Bay. It has walking trails and board walks. I picked wild rasberries on the trail. I saw reindeer moss. The trail led through fields, forests, marshes, dunes and the beach.

Next, I drove up route 16 to the East Point lighthouse. On the way I saw cool abandoned houses. I really liked the east side. It was more wooded and less populated than the west end. At the East Point a "wild" red fox begged for food. He would eat out of people's hand.

It started to rain, and never stopped. I got the car stuck at Panmure Island photographing the lighthouse there. A couple from Oregon noticed and towed me out.

I saw the cape bear lighthouse and lastly, the Wood Island lighthouse. It was getting dark, so I worked my way back to Charlottetown. I saw the basilica in downtown Charlottetown. It was quite dramatic.

I grabbed dinner from Tim Hortons, a fast food chain that makes sandwiches, soups and donuts. I ate it in my hotel while watching the afternoon session of conference with the high speed Internet at the hotel. I found out that you need loonies (one dollar coins) to do laundry. I met two ladies from Oregon in the laundry room.

I've managed to stay away from the north central part of the island. Lucy Maud Montgomery's grave is there, and supposedly the green gables farm house that the story is based on, but there are also so many tourist traps and tourists there. Shop Keepers dress up like Anne (men and older ladies alike) and they have plastic indian villages and wax museums.

Today was a good picture day. That is the news from Lake Wobegon.Greenwhich Haunted Woods (Anne of Green Gabels Reference)

Greenwhich Sand dunes

Greenwhich boardwalk

Abandoned Farm House between Greenwhich and North Lake Harbor

Boat houses at North Lake Harbor

Red Cliffs at East Point

The begging red fox at East Point lighthouse

Eastern Coast (I love the mix of ocean, farm and forest)

Panmure Island Lighthouse (Where I got stuck).River at Murray Harbor North

Cape Bear Lighthouse, Kings CountySand Sculpture at Wood Island Lighthouse, Queens County

St. Dunstan's Basilica in Charlottetown

Fall Trip Day 3

My All -American car has no km/h listed on the speedometer. I jotted down a rough table of conversions in the front of my guide book (1mile = .62 kilometer). I used that all day long. It reminded me of daddy in Mexico. Saint Johns accepted my 50 US cents to cross their tall, swooping toll bridge. It looked cool at night. I liked New Brunswick. I drove on a free way through it. Very wooded with a mixture of evergreens and red and yellow leaves. Further east, farms began to appear. It is a slower pace.


I crossed over the bridge into Prince Edward Island. PEI is divided into three counties: Prince, Queen and King. The Prince is to the northwest, Kings is in the southeast and Prince is in the middle. The bridge takes you to the middle section.

I drove northeast, first. It is mostly farm land and small farm communities. Churches with graveyards next to them are everywhere. I wonder how full they (the churches, not the graveyards) get on Sundays.

I saw a minor lighthouse (Cape Egmont Lighthouse) and a very popular one, (West Point). There were windmill farms on the western side. I drove through the middle on route 2 to Charlottetown. The moon was full and very large on the horizon. With help from a gas station attendant, I found my hotel (Holiday Inn Express). It is very nice. Amy and I stayed in the same kind in Portland. I worked out tonight, then swam. They left a bottle of wine with two glasses on the coffee table in my room for me. How thoughtful.

I am frustrated by the difficulty in getting the pictures I'd like. What I've taken will have to do. They don't really do justice to painting the real picture of the place. It is hard to navigate and drive and find good places to stop. My passenger seat is covered in snacks, maps and camera equipment. I accidentally started chewing on the desiccant pack from my package of beef jerky.

The further east you go, french becomes more prevalent. The signs are mostly in french here.

Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island (8 miles)
During the off season for tourists, the summer side chamber of commerce came up with a game plan: Make fake tourists stuffed with straw.

A church by Union Corner

West Point Lighthouse (now a hotel)

Wind Farm by West Cape

Moon on country road

"Do they let you sleep in the bed?"