…and now I can! This website shows you 33 different ways to lace shoes, and some of them are amazingly weird and/or creative. Yeah, not much of an update, but I thought it was quite interesting. :D

Anyway, WebEx seems easy. My only qualm with it so far is that it said I didn’t have to pre-load files I was planning on sharing; I could just get them as I needed them, but I found this to be untrue because it took me a while to load my presentation, and it’s not an exceedingly large file by any means.

1. Cars should be half of your annual income.
2. Car payments shouldn’t exceed 12% of your net income.

Well, wish me luck in finding something soon! In the meantime, I’ll be cleaning, organizing, and packing. I’m excited about starting work next week. :)

I’m still in the middle of watching but paused to type a quick blog about this new word I learned from it. It’s particularly striking in the show because it’s intentionally repeated twice, and the main character even defined it for her blonde best friend. “Perspecacious [...] means insightful,” she says. Here’s what good ol’ Webster had to say about it:

• Main Entry: per·spi·ca·cious
• Pronunciation: \ˌpər-spə-ˈkā-shəs\
• Function: adjective
• Etymology: Latin perspicac-, perspicax, from perspicere
• Date: 1640
• : of acute mental vision or discernment : keen

I would just stick with Jane Bingham’s more understandable definition of insightful.

• 1 lb ground meat
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup onion finely chopped
• 1 tbsp rubbed sage
• 1 tbsp ground thyme
• 1 tsp black pepper

The things that are crossed out are things that I didn’t have in the kitchen, but I still think they came out alright. After thoroughly hand-mixing the ingredients, I just fried them in a skillet and added it to the Prego spaghetti sauce. Yum!

Thursday, 8/27/09: How I like to prepare for an interview is to not only organize my thoughts on my own experience and skills, but to also research the company, position, and people with whom I’m interviewing. That being said, I had two interviews on the 28th that I was preparing for.

Also, that morning, I went to a substitute teacher orientation and training. I learned some pretty good techniques in dealing with both elementary and secondary students. What struck me the most was how it was often iterated that a sub follow a teacher’s plan for the day to the tee. I’m not saying that it’s a terrible rule to follow, but I would prefer being a regular teacher and coming up with my own lesson plan and ways of teaching rather than to follow another person’s. There was also a video on blood-borne pathogens that I need not repeat for y’all to understand, I hope. It’s important to understand, but I’d rather forget the vivid imagery and only hope that I never have to encounter such a bloody situation.

Friday, 8/28/09: During my web meeting, I found out about Obama’s stimulus plan for small businesses and entrepreneurs, which’ll help make it easier to get better loans. The help you get depends mostly on your business plan or idea. To read more about it, go here.

Today, 8/29/09: I’m excited about HTML 5, but I do admit to being a little hesitant in using it until it’s completely refined. Until then, read up on it so that when the time comes to revamp the code, you won’t be in for a surprise. It’s simple and intuitive, though, so there shouldn’t be many headaches unless you’re recoding a mega site. Here’s an HTML 5 cheat sheet from Smashing Magazine, which lists all currently supported tags since HTML 5 is speculated to not be widely adopted by most browsers until 2012, or 2022 as it has been recommended.

This one almost looks the previous one, right? But I created this in Photoshop going off of Fabio’s tutorial. I didn’t follow it directly; instead of using the pen tool, I just straight up used the brush tool with specified settings. Actually, I’m not fond of how it came out since it doesn’t look that realistic to me. I probably should’ve added a very soft glow to it.

I am relieved by this because I was furious when Discover raised my APR to almost 20% when I’ve been a loyal, never-late member since 2006. I had to accept this because it’s the first credit card I’ve ever owned and thus my oldest one, which helps my credit score. Fortunately, the second right (cardholders shall have their APRs reviewed every 6 months to see if a reduction in rates is warranted) should help me in this sooner or later. Only some of the CARD Act went into effect a few days ago, but the rest of it should go into effect by February 2010.

Check out the complete Cardholders’ bill of rights and see if any of your credit cards are compliant.

Sunday: I discovered something about myself (and others, too, perhaps?) that I never really noticed before, and it’s not something I like, so I’m not going to share. Ha!

Today: Take travel photos like a pro! I’m in a library right now, so as soon as I get the chance, I’ll test this out. I definitely need to improve my [limited] photography skills and pretend that I’m a tourist. No one needs to know…