- Don’t mind me. Just testing the Twitter plug-in for TheKMills.com.

Some of you may recall how I stabbed myself in the hand last March. Then had hand surgery in May. Then all kinds of stuff happened and God’s been taking me on a whirlwind tour ever since.

I’ve written some stuff over the past few months, just snippets here and there, but I feel God’s wanting me to get more in-depth lately. Be specific. Share all the good stuff that the Teacher has shared with me.

So. Over the next few days & weeks I’ll be writing quite a bit more. My prayer is that somehow God will use my feeble words and attempt to share His love and goodness will come across to you, the reader. I pray that your life might be changed as drastically as mine has been the past six months.

I do NOT pray, however, that you stab your hand with scissors. Conversely, I instead pray that you’ll learn to SLOW DOWN your life to normal. Keep going at warp speed and you’re gonna burn out. Yes, I’m talkin’ to YOU. Put the brakes on and save yourself a few setbacks.

The bald one has spoken.

-Kevin

Continuing to have a blast writing every morning. Slowly making progress, but forward movement is key (and the reality). God continues to whisper that it’ll take time, that it’s not a race, and that I’m capable of accomplishing what He’s calling me to do.

I’ll finish the book this week, rewrite it next week, and work on the book proposal the week afterwards. Then I’ll spend December landing a literary agent and begin sending it out in January.

Bottom line? It’s all about the ideas and, more importantly, how they’re presented (and to whom). In the end, it’s a numbers game. A checklist, if you will. Fill in the blanks, check off the boxes and you WILL reach your goal. It just takes time, patience and the patience of a badger. Or a bull dog. Or something intimidating.

And me? I’m nothing if not one tenacious S.O.B. (no offense, Mom).

Kevin

I’ve started writing the Baby 101 book, and it feels good. After months and months of research & lists & organizing the thing, I’m finally at a place to begin, and I’m making decent progress. I should be done with the first draft by the middle to end of next week, and then I’ll work on drafting a book proposal the week after.

When I say it “feels good,” I mean it feels right. Natural. I’m doing what I believe I was designed to do (or at least a part of it). I’m writing. I LOVE writing. Playing with words for effect. Rearranging them, mixing and matching… it’s fun.

Kim’s in D.C. this week, so I’m juggling the boys by myself. Kaleb’s been teething the past few days, so he’s had to say home with me rather than go to his Nanny’s. Yet despite that, I’ve still gotten a lot done. I have a clear goal in mind, and I’m taking steps to get there.

There’s a chance a friend of my Dad’s is going to sell me his iPhone. It’s the original iPhone (not the 3G w/GPS, which is what he upgraded to). We haven’t discussed price yet, but if it’s under $250 then I can easily sell my Palm Centro and iPod Nano 3g to make up the difference.

I’m pretty excited, of course. I put off buying it this summer because of the unexpected cost of Kim’s visit to the hospital with her MRSA bout. Couple that with a $500+ ride in the ambulance (which insurance has yet to cover), and you can see why buying a new gadget wasn’t a high priority.

The only hitch about his iPhone is the silent ringer switch is permanently depressed. It was dropped on the corner one day (makes you wince), and has forever been silent. It vibrates, and the system sounds & speaker still works fine, but there are no ringtones. Which is sad, because that’s one of the joys of owning a customizable phone: assinging unique ringtones to each caller.

When I do some Googling, however, I find that a replacement switch is under $20 on eBay. The downside? I’d have to crack open my iPhone and muck with the innards to switch ‘em out. And that makes me… Hesitant. I’ve installed RAM, Hard Drives, screen protectors, etc., but intricate wires in an iPhone? Yikes.

I guess I’ll see how long I can go without the ‘tones before I make that purchase. First on the list will be a simple audio adapter to let me use MY earbuds to listen to stuff on it, rather than Apple’s default stuff. (Thanks,but no thanks.)

Kevin

Testing… ’cause last time I tried, this didn’t post…

Only the title posted… no text… no body… no fullness….
So I’m testing it again. To see if it’ll work.

Over.
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I’m always looking for better ways to write. Not so much the content, but just easier ways to capture my thoughts and get ‘em out there. Blogs, books, notes-to-self – the whole bit. My life runs on the written word, so the easier it is to write, the more my life is in sync with the way God designed me.

So with that in mind, I purchased an AlphaSmart Dana Wireless on eBay last month. If you’re unfamiliar with the AlphaSmart series, they’re basically keyboards with a small display at the top of them, usually 3-5 lines of text. They run on 3 AAA batteries for a long, LONG time and they sync easily with Macs & PCs. Their beauty lies in their simplicity. They’re designed for text entry. An’ that’s it.

Except for the Dana. The Dana (and the Dana Wireless, with Wifi capabilities) actually run the Palm OS. Thus, the thousands of apps that run on Palm OS 4.1 will run on the AlphaSmart Dana. My thining was simple: I’d have a full-sized keyboard that would also allow me to run all the apps on my Clie AND check e-mail in a pinch. It’d be the alternative to bringing my entire laptop places. If I just need to check e-mail and work on writing, it’s perfect.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. In fact, they sent the Dana – not the wireless version. That’s the first hitch. The second is the fact that I just didn’t like it. The keyboard action was excellent, as the reviews suggested. The screen angle, however, was unacceptable. I either had to lean over or scrunch the thing up on my crotch to get the proper angle for contrast. Neither option made for comfortable writing.

Add to this the fact that I couldn’t get it to save a simple text file as a TEXT FILE (rather than a .pdb), and the frustrations just kept mounting. All in all, I wrote to the seller and explained that what they sold me was not what was described in the title, and that I’ll be sending it back on their dime with the expectations of getting a full refund. I have yet to hear back. (That was Tuesday, though. I’ll give ‘em until Friday. Then I’m getting serious & going through eBay.)

All in all, however, I’m grateful. Not only did I get the chance to check out a genuine AlphaSmart myself, but I still had the option of sending it back. So I kind of rented it, I guess. And now I know that spending my money on one would’ve been a mistake.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that my current set up with my dated (but highly-functional) Clie TJ37 is more than sufficient. Not only do I get the color screen, the wifi, the excellent Stowaway keyboard and the ability to write and save text files, but it’s still small enough to take with me anywhere. PLUS it plays MP3s, MPEG videos, photos (including my scripture JPEGS), and so much more. It’s ol’ faithful.

I might spring for an old SJ33, though. Just to have a spare on hand if I ever need it. And I’ll readily admit that if Apple ever allows you to pair their iPhones with an external Bluetooth keyboard, I’ll be sorely tempted. Ah, I’m tempted already, I’m just unable to spring for it yet. (Insurance still has to say they’ll cover for the $500 ambulance ride for Kim’s Nasal brush with Death last summer.)

Kevin

Hhmmm…. I just sent the text (below), but when I visited “the link” and then the site, all that posted was the title. Nothing else. (As in, I just logged into WordPress to slap this stuff down.) More tweaking to come… after the kids & the gym are visited…

Kevin

_______

From:       kevin@thekmills.com
Subject:     Testing the spaces.
Date:     October 30, 2008 2:15:38 PM CD

Okay. So it appears this thing works. That I can write an e-mail, visit a super-secret link, and voila! Instant blog entry! Or, I can write and then… eventually… it’ll post itself. Either way, not a bad situation…

Now I just have to get used to hitting return THREE times to make a simple space between paragraphs.

Or is it four?

I’m gonna assume three, until I take a gander at this thing. Thanks for everyone’s patience. As if you had a choice… (snicker)…

Kevin

Okay. I’m going to test this again. The theory is, I write to my super-secret address and whatever I vomit up gets plastered here. No logging into WordPress, no formatting, no nothing. Just pure, undriven word snow.
Now, the issue I see from the last one is paragraph. This this is supposed to be on another newbie, complete with space between the last few thoughts. Makes me wonder how many times I need to hard return to get the look I want.
One?
Two spaces, perhaps?

Mayhap three?
We’ll see. The other punch is it took a good 24 hours to post from when I sent it. That might be tweakable in the “cron jobs” of the WP settings. Perhaps some PC geek can look into that later, if need be. (You know who you are…)
Kevin
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