Camy Tang's Blog, page 129

Praise God Hallelujah! I finished my synopsis/outline ear...

Praise God Hallelujah! I finished my synopsis/outline early!

Code Ninjas - learn computer code

I got information on this opportunity from my friend John Olson. In case you were remotely interested in learning computer code, here's your chance!



From John:



If you’re interested in learning PHP (the language Facebook and Amazon.com are programmed in), my good friend Carl Nasal, the owner of Camna LLC (www.camna.com), is running a similar small group class in PHP. I’ll be helping Carl with his class, and he’ll be helping me with mine.





If you’re interested, please visit our site at http://www.codeninjas.com



Here’s the important info:



Dates:  June 19 – August 16  (NOTE: We’ll video tape sessions in case you have to miss a few weeks)



Commitment:  2 hours per week



Java Course Times:  Thursdays 1-3pm PT / 3-6pm ET



PHP Course Times:  Tuesdays 1-3pm PT / 3-6pm ET



Location:  Your own home through live, interactive webinars. (Which means you’ll be able to talk to everyone in the group and watch what the instructor is doing.)



Cost:  $360 for the 9 week course



Ages:  14 and up



Programming Experience:  No programming experience required, but you’ll need to be able to install software on your own computer.



Requirements:  Access to a computer with high speed internet



Questions:  Visit http://www.codeninjas.com or call 510-357-4441.



Sign Up:  Visit http://www.codeninjas.com





Here’s my bio in case you’ve received this as a forward and don’t know who I am:



John Olson is an award-winning novelist, software engineer and entrepreneur. John has a Ph.D. in computational biochemistry and has been programming in Java for over a dozen years -- including eight years as the Director of Application Research and Design at a major scientific software company. He has published six books: Oxygen, Fifth Man, Adrenaline, Shade,Powers, and Fossil Hunter and has started three internet software companies: HuDDleFish, DitDat and CodeNinjas.

Climactic scene = girdle

I’m writing the synopsis/outline for a cozy mystery for Guideposts, and trying to think of a “climactic scene” for the end is starting to feel like trying to squeeze yourself into a girdle two sizes too small. You shove and twist and try different positions like a yoga master and nothing is working.

Going "green" in leading worship

I lead worship music for my church’s Sunday service twice a month, and my team is mostly junior high, high school, and/or college students except for me and Captain Caffeine. (The Captain plays electric guitar, I play acoustic guitar.)



One Sunday, one of my high school singers arrived at church and instead of bringing printed out pages with the lyrics, she had the music on her iPad. I thought that was brilliant!



So this past Sunday, I took the chord sheets (they have the lyrics and the guitar chords on top of the words where you change chords) and put them all in one document. Then I made the document into a .pdf file and loaded it into the iBooks app on my iPad.



I had my iPad on the music stand during service and used that instead of sheet music. It worked great! I had to make sure my iPad’s settings had it falling “asleep” at 15 minutes and not 5 minutes, or else I would spend time needing to wake up and unlock my iPad, and I didn’t want to do that in the middle of a song!



The only thing I need to be more careful of is to make sure the music is correct. I realized that I have corrections on the paper sheets that I’ve made before, and since I reuse my paper sheets, I just had the corrections there, but they weren’t on the electronic versions. So now I have to make sure my electronic versions are up to date. :)



What do you think? Now I’m trying to brainstorm other ways I can use my iPad instead of paper.

Quinoa in my rice cooker!

Yes, I am the epitome of lazy. While making quinoa on the stovetop is not hard, I wanted to know if I could throw it into my rice cooker and leave it. And it worked!



I don’t know if my rice cooker had anything to do with it, although my cooker is not a super fancy one. It is nicer than the aluminum ones, but not as expensive as my parents’ rice cooker which has a million settings on it. Mine is a 3 cup rice cooker.





I put in 1 cup of quinoa and 2 cups of water and turned it on. After it had cooked and switched to “keep warm,” I let it steam for about 15 minutes (which is what I do when I make rice in the rice cooker) before I opened it.





Voila! Perfect quinoa!





I especially like quinoa because it has a nutty taste and it has more protein than rice.

iPad Mini

I heard this rumor several weeks (maybe even a few months) ago on CNET.com’s Apple Byte video podcast, and at the time, I really didn’t think Apple would do something like this. It’s not as trendsetting as Apple usually is with their products--a smaller iPad would seem more like Apple is keeping up with the trend, instead.



But then I read this article about rumors that the iPad mini is coming maybe in the fall. Granted, I really can’t believe everything I see on the internet, but now I’m starting to wonder.



I don’t know if I’d buy a mini iPad since I have my regular sized one, and I like the larger screen for watching movies. But if choosing between an iPad mini and a Nook color or a Kindle Fire, I’d definitely go for the iPad mini because the screen and software would be so great, plus the connection to iTunes.



What do you think?

10 Reasons You Eat When You're Not Actually Hungry And What You Can Do About It!

I just read this article on SparkPeople.com and could really relate, especially the clean plate syndrome. I’ve only recently gotten to the point where I am no longer hungry and I can leave one or two bites of food on my plate, although I still sit there in agony to not eat it. I’ve had to get up and dump the food in the garbage FAST or else I’ll stare at it. Which point did you relate to the most?

Went to Five Guys burgers

I knew from the Yelp reviews that some people loved Five Guys and some people hated them. I didn’t hate them, but I was disappointed in the food.



For one, they messed up the order: I ordered a single patty with mayo, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms. Captain Caffeine ordered a double patty with lettuce, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, and A-1 steak sauce.



Also, there was one order ahead of us and no one behind us, they were in a lull between rushes of people. I would have though that with only two orders, they wouldn’t mess up anything.



What was got was a single patty with lettuce, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms and no sauce, and a double patty with lettuce, tomatoes, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, mayo and A-1 steak sauce.



It wouldn’t have been a problem if we could just exchange buns or patties, but the A-1 steak sauce had been slathered between a patty and the lettuce, which was also next to the mayo. I hate A-1, and Captain Caffeine gets sick if he eats mayo. So even though we exchanged patties and I tried to wipe the A-1 off, I could still taste it. Yuck!



I considered asking Captain Caffeine to complain to a manager, but the bigger problem was that the patties themselves were really dry. Even if we’d gotten the correct orders, I wouldn’t have been happy with the burger because of the dry patties.



Other people on Yelp complained about dry patties, but others had said the patties were great, so before we went, I wasn’t sure who to believe. I am now with the ones on Yelp who say the patties are dry.



However, making up for everything was the fact that their french fries are DA BOMB!!!! The potatoes have the skin on and frying them in peanut oil makes them taste completely awesome.



Would I go back? Maybe only for the fries, definitely not for the burgers.



I was also really proud of myself because I only ate about 2/3 of the burger and only 20 strips of fries rather than the entire thing!

More unpopular thoughts about The Hunger Games

I am in the middle of Mockingjay so if you’ve already read it, PLEASE don’t spoil it for me. But for what it’s worth, here is a thought that came to me yesterday:



In The Hunger Games (book one), Peeta doesn’t actually know that much about Katniss because he never spoke to her much before the games, yet he said he’s in love with her. That’s not really love.



I know, all you bleeding romantics will be complaining. But it’s true. How can you love someone when you don’t know them? That’s not love, that’s attraction. Or infatuation, which starts going into stalker category. (Yes, I know Peeta’s not a stalker.)



Infatuation doesn’t live long in the real world when you realize how different the two of you are, or when you see him pick his nose while farting.



Infatuation can grow into love, but I don’t think someone should say they love you if they hardly KNOW you. If someone says they love you, it should mean they know you, your good side AND your faults, and they love you anyway. That’s the kind of love Jesus modeled for us.



I’ve just got to the point where they discover Peeta is … ahem, sick.

There are times I don’t know where my brain was.

I just finished doing edits on devotionals I wrote for Mornings With Jesus 2013 edition (published by Guideposts) and most of the questions my editor had are stuff like, “I don’t really get how the conclusion of the devotional ties with the verse/first line.”



And I looked at it, and I was like, “Hmm, I don’t know how the conclusion ties with the verse/first line.”



Ever had moments like that?