Tonight Kylie and I decorated our Christmas tree, and I have to admit this was the most fun I have had decorating a tree in a very long time. For starters I am very proud of the try I got, as this is the first year I have had a tree at my place. The tree was actually free, I got it from a local web community where people recycle things they no longer want or need. This particular tree is 6′ tall and is pre-lit with 400 multi-colored lights. The previous owners where parting with it because there cat had chewed through one of the cords for the lights, so 1/4 of the bottom lights were not working. I picked up the tree Thursday after work, and last night Melissa helped me find the break in the cord after Kylie went to bed. Once we found it I was able to repair it, now all 400 lights work. So this morning when Kylie woke up she was surprised to see a Christmas tree up in the living room. So today her and I spent some time and put all the ornaments that I currently have on the tree. I would hand Kylie an ornament and she would find a place to put it, and if need be I would lift her up to place it in a spot she couldn’t reach. We still have a lot of empty space, but Nana is going to send us some ornaments that she has made, and when we get them we will add them to the tree.
Monthly Archives: December 2008
The tags have arrived
I have started using a new way to categorize posts that will only be noticed if people view the Archives page. A new section has been added on that page called Tag Cloud. What happens now, is when I write a post, in addition to choosing what category it will be filled under, I can add whats called Tags. Wikipedia describes a tag cloud as:
A tag cloud or word cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, used typically to describe the content of web sites. Tags are usually single words and are typically listed alphabetically, and the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. The tags are usually hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with a tag.
Most likely I will only use this for the rare and random posts that end up in the “General” category, but we will see what happens.
Stem Cell Research and Cord Blood
When Kylie was born Tiffany and I had the option to save her umbilical cord blood in an umbilical cord blood bank.
Umbilical cord blood – collected at birth – contains stem cells, which have the potential to become any kind of cell. Because they are an exact match to the person they are collected from, they are used to “reboot” immune systems after cancer treatment. Experimental treatments are also using stem cells to treat a range of inherited disorders, type-1 diabetes and brain injuries.
And while we discussed having this done, as we both thought it was a good idea, unfortunetly at the time we did not have the money. The possabilities of the uses of cord blood and the stem cells are numerous, and personally I am and have been a supporter of stem cell research, and here is a good example of why. Today I found this article which illistrates just one of the many possabilities for both cord blood and stem cells. The story is an amazing one of a childs second chance at life due to a cord blood transfusion.
Be Claus
This year Macy’s website had a little section called Be Claus where they let you take a picture and turn the person into the picture into Santa Claus. Kylie thought this was really neat and had lots of fun (with Mommy’s help) turning herself into Santa Claus, and sent me the below Santa greeting.
In the event that the above little flash animation ever stops working, here is a couple of thumbnails of what the final picture looked like:
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- KylieClaus
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- Kylie Claus
You can click on the two thumbnails to see larger versions.