newest stories

newest stories

Cross-posting, by Paloma Cruz

Shameless promotion of headlines in my other blogs:

Bilingual Life

• undocumented immigrants being charged with criminal trespassing
• 16 years of Café Tacuba/ "La Vibra, the Houston Chronicle’s Spanish weekly entertainment supplement, has Café Tacuba as their cover story last week. The story is, of course, in Spanish, but it covers their career and talks about their next concert (last Saturday in Houston)."
• a brief history of anti-immigration. "Metroblogging’s Paul Chavez walks us through the history of anti-immigration sentiments in this country in a post about the Minutemen coming to Houston."

Houston Life

• City events

Library Life

• A Texas Digital Library. "Four Texas university systems and Rice University will collaborate on a digital repository whose goal is to offer online resources, such as teaching aids, dissertations, and practical information, although not books."
• Sunday hours added to Houston Libraries
• returning library books on time. "LifeHacker recently published a post entitled How to finish library books on time which has a link to a tabbed system to… well, finish library books on time and (here’s the important part) return them on time as well."

Ordinary Life

• I’m in a mood - welcome to retail therapy. "These posts will be things I want to buy, but can’t. It’ll be a virtual shopping bag, just shy of actually taking things to the checkout counter to pay for them."

Pasadena Life

• watching Emily. "In case you haven’t been paying attention, Hurricane Emily is headed to Texas."
• senior health workshop. "If you’d like help in understanding the new Medicare Prescription Drug Program taking effect in 2006, the Madison Jobe Senior Center is teaming up with the Pasadena District Social Security Office to host a free workshop, Tuesday, July 19th, 2 - 3 p.m., to explain the details to you."
• great Pasadena photo. "Houston Photobloggers has a fabulous photo of Capitan Theatre, in Pasadena. As far as I can tell, it’s the only photo of Pasadena in their collection, but certainly worth a look."
• the city of Pasadena has a budget… sort of. "At first glance, Pasadena’s 2006-10 budget forecast may look bleak. However, the document is intended to give the city a starting off point to plan for the future."

Public Relations life

• work for Gizmodo. "Gawker Media is expanding its technology coverage, and is seeking to fill the following positions. All these roles are full-time, and paid accordingly, though we take a relaxed attitude towards external freelance."
• do I own this brand? "The redesign of the Diva Marketing Blog has prompted a discussion centered on the question who owns a brand?"
• are bloggers journalists? "This is a question that comes up frequently in my life, from both ends of the issue. If I’m covering a topic in one of my blogs and request information from a company or organization, should they treat me the same as they would a Houston Chronicle reporter? At the same time, if a photoblogger calls my office wanting to set up a shoot of one of my clients’ buildings, would I give him or her the same consideration as… say, a photographer from 002+ Magazine?"
• the wonderful world of media relations. "John Wagner’s comments in Now It’s The Corporate PR Folks’ Turn To Be Slammed about his experience with the media has had me thinking about the adversarial quality of my daily dealings with the members of the press. And I’ve been thinking about the many things I do, every day, to make those dealings better."
• PR blogging isn’t ego polishing…"…or so says John Wagner in his post PR Bloggers Not All In It For Self-Promotion. In it he responds to some recent criticism and attacks that public relations professionals have received, in particular PR bloggers."

teaching life

• Operation Backpack. "It’s the city’s largest ever school supply drive."
• more seniors are raising their grandchildren. "I come from a family of teachers, so I’ve pretty much heard every teaching story you can think of. I know, my sisters know, and all teachers know that more children are being raised by their grandparents these days than ever before."
• back to school at Pasadena ISD. "The Pasadena ISD Web site has a Back to School Guide up to help parents get ready for the August return date. Here you will find everything from enrollment processes to meal prices and school holidays. Worth a visit."
• a blog to save Fort Bend ISD. "A good example of how a community blog can generate conversation and interest in a grassroots initiative."

Web Junkie life

• the value of a wiki. "The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog has this wonderful post describing the true value of a wiki, Disaster Response, via Wikis."
• how to be a more productive blogger
• the 50 Coolest Websites of 2005
• productivity tip: stop checking your email
• now I’ve heard everything… Wayback Machine is being sued

news posts, on the new site - 7/11

Here are the wonderful posts you've missed so far at the new home of stories from an ordinary life:

• news about the armed forces
• updating my resume

moving to Word Press

(...reprint from Paloma Cruz...)

After testing Word Press for several weeks, and comparing it to Blogger, I've decided to move my blog projects to the palomacruz.com domain and update using WP. What that means is that I'm going to begin reposting everything from the blogspot.com sites to palomacruz.com. It also means that all new posts are going on the new locations.

Reasons why I'm making the change

More control over posts. The ability to track statistics. Trackbacks. More control over commenting. Hundreds of themes.

I like it better.

I'm thinking about moving this update log from MovableType to WP as well.

I'm still thinking about it.

***

The new address for stories from an ordinary life is: ordinary.palomacruz.com.

Could you pass the U.S. Naturalization Test?

(...reprint from stories from a Bilingual life...)

Today's InfoPlease has a great topic: Could you pass the U.S. Naturalization Test? In it they have a sample test, and you're invited to go through it to see if today you have enough knowledge to be a US citizen.

My sisters and I are wearing down my mother on this particular topic. We want to make sure that she takes the test, and becomes a US citizen, while she still can. After seeing what Congress, under the direction of our current president, are doing... well, let's just say that I think time is an issue.

miscellaneous topics

PBS funding

As Josh Silver writes, in The Huffington Post, "Public broadcasting has been under siege." Here's some coverage:

• From The Huffington Post, PBS Controversy: The Bottom Line.
• From Matt Ashley in The Huffington Post, Public Broadcasting Wins $100M Battle ....
• From Click2Houston.com, Supporters Of PBS Fight Budget Cuts.

Stuff about MoveOn

• From Tom Hayden in The Huffington Post, Letter to MoveOn re: Iraq.
• From Byron York in The Huffington Post, Wasn't Rove Right About MoveOn?
• From Wonkette, The Big Burden of PBS.

More tools

• Found via LifeHacker, Guide to household items’ shelf-life. "Real Simple’s got a helpful guide to the actual shelf-life of food, beauty and cleaning products. Did you know maraschino cherries last as long as it takes to get an undegraduate degree? And that your bottle of honey could outlive you? Bet you didn’t. Thanks, Steve!"
• Another one found via LifeHacker, USB thumb drive projects. "Tech news site PC Stats has a great roundup of ways to use your USB thumb drive. Turn your pluggable keychain disk into a portable arcade, boot disk, web browser, email encrypter, network drive, media player or word processor. Especially helpful for people in IT lockdown offices who can’t install software on their computer (like Firefox, for example.)"