I miss having a partner to parent my daughter with, to tell the truth. Discipline is easier, there more of a balance. You get the breaks you need and have more opportunities to walk away if you are feeling taxed in a stressful situation.

On the other hand, parenting solo means no conflicts in deciding parenting policies. It mans a lot more one-on-one time with my kid, and it means when she is wither dad I get to spend a day or two alone on projects that can be difficult if you have your child right there with you. I miss my daughter tremendously, I cannot deny that. However, I have to make the most out of a bad situation. A situation I did not choose.

Of course, there is still a lot of input on her father’s part. He commented yesterday on a facility he heard had the best medical diagnostics in the region. He pointed out it is on my daughter’s insurance network. I’ll keep it mind and assume he is sincere, since he has his daughter’s best interest in mind (Even though she tends to come third as far as his time commitments go, right after himself and his older, childless, attention-seeking new wife).

This is my life, though, and no matter if I remarry, I will still be essentially parenting my daughter alone. I cannot expect a new spouse to have the same sort of authority over my daughter as her own father has, not can I expect him to have the sort of bond her read dad has. Unlike my ex, I respect the roles of the mother and father and teach my daughter she will always have one, and only one, mother and father.

I voted for Ross Perot. Twice. I happen to love the man. And, I miss having him around the political arena like he used to be.

I take some comfort in his recent public comments that our nation needs to focus more on national debt. Not that I take comfort in our astounding national debt, but I do take comfort in knowing Ross is still out there trying his best offer solutions. Of course, politicians refuse to listen to his wisdom.

Back when Ross ran for president in 1992 he garnered 20% of the vote. That is impressive and I wonder if it is not the absolute best anyone not affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties has done in the recent future. (As an aside, it pisses me off to no end when people refer to the USA as having a two party system. We have two dominant parties, but endless other BETTER parties that would do our nations a lot of good if the money of our two mammoth parties would stop trying to crush the little guys.)

My man Ross has a new website all about our national dent. You really ought to check it out. He conjures up lessons we should have learned after the Great Depression. I suppose too many people who lived through the Depression are dead, otherwise we would not be on such a collision course to repeat history.

A lot of people say that all you need to know when shopping around for something is that you “get what you pay for.” I happen to disagree. When it comes to web hosting, the most expensive is not always the best. It’s a mixed bag and looking at price is only one of the factors you should consider when you are looking for a web host.

First of all, take your time. Look around, read, ask questions, use search engines to dig up old and current forums discussing any of the web hosting companies you are considering. Listening to the actual customers reviews about their service experiences is the best thing you can do. See what people have to say about uptime, customer support and response, usability of the site, and billing practices.

I have a budget in mind, as well. I want to get a good deal as much as anyone else. I used a lot of web hosting review sites to start my research. Some gave honest reviews and allowed customer input. Others were simply portals for the sites to make commissions. The Web Hosting Geeks site, for example, is a great starting point. You can look at the table of hosts and just eyeball what they each offer in terms of price and overall benefits. You will quickly see that finding a free domain forever and the ability to host unlimited domains is becoming pretty common – I made sure that was something that was a part of the host I chose.

Additionally, I did research to make sure the host I chose was located here in the US and had customer service people I could understand and who were available anytime of the day or not. That was just some thing that was important to me and it ended up ruling out several companies.

In the end, my research paid off. I have been with my current host for over a year, added on many domains and called the poor guys on many a Saturday night. Downtime is generally never more that a minute and in general, I’ve been thrilled. Thanks to my research, I feel confident.

So, today Jamie Lynn Spears had a daughter. She is 17, unwed, and has a questionable career in entertainment. She was handed on obligatory place in the spotlight simply because her older sister is Britney Spears. It’s much like Ali Lohan thinking she is entitled to a show biz career because she is Lindsay’s sister.

And now all she has accomplished is to give birth to an illegitimate child. And, she is still a child herself. I have not spoken to a single person who actually thinks that the lifestyle she portrays is acceptable. People roll their eyes and say things that are absolutely unprintable. It’s a shame her ordeal actually garnered top headline real estate.

She has effectively ended her chance at a career in entertainment. I’m sure she realizes that. Her show on Nickelodeon, “Zoey 101,” is not going to continue. She is a bigger laughing stock than her sister. It’s a shame, really. The birth of a child should be beautiful news, but most people don’t care to be reminded about the teen pregnancy rate and the carelessness of young Hollywood.

The new airline luggage rules are really cramping my style. Usually, we take books and toys for my daughter. We will have to leave all of that behind. I generally take work boots, too, so that I can muck around down by the river. I will have to either make do with my lightweight Crocs, or borrow boots when I am up there.

I’m only bringing enough clothing for a few days, and we will just wash it over and over. Plus, I usually buy clothes up there at one of the stores I love and cannot find in Florida. So, I am counting on needing empty spots in my suitcases for the return rip.

I was going to take a lot of the clothing my daughter has grown out of to give to my niece, but again..,.those pesky weight restrictions have been second guessing everything that goes in the suitcases.

*sigh*

I have been a victim of road rage before. Granted, most of the time it is just some crazy man (yes, it tends to be makes in my opinion) who tailgates me down the road or blares his horn or flips me the bird. Usually, it is because I am going the speed limit and the drivers want me to go faster. Whatever. I have a kid in my car and no desire to get speeding ticket.

Back when I was graduating college I was actually assaulted. I was on my way to graduation and a woman pulled out in front of me from a parking spot on a city street. I beeped my horn at her. Apparently, she felt the beeping of a horn to be a deep insult. So, she followed my all the way across town, honking and gesturing. I could see her teenaged daughter in the front passenger seat, slumped down in shame.

She followed me all the way to the hotel my dad was staying at and when I parked, she got out of her car and hit me in the face. Can you even believe that? I just looked at her and told her I had her plate number and would call the police. My dad has seen the whole thing from the hotel window and came out to try and help. The woman got in her car and attempted to run over my father. Again, can you even believe this woman? My dad, in defense, pushed off her car and I guess the palm of his hand hit the driver’s side windshield just right, because it shattered into the car.

Heh. Served her right.

She has the balls to drive to the police station and bring a cop back to the hotel. The hotel manager has already told us just to remain in inside and sent my boyfriend ahead to graduation in my car and told the police there was nothing to report. Of course, had we gone outside I am confident that foolish woman would have been arrested for bodily assault. What a flake.

This is all to say that I read an encouraging story in the paper today about a road rage victim who led his attacker right to the cops. David Carrillo was riding his motorcycle when a Lincoln Town Car suddenly swerved into his lane. To avoid being sideswiped, he had to swerve as well. Out of frustration, he slipped the driver of the car the bird.

People do that all of the time and I am pretty sure it’s not illegal. However, what the driver of the car did in response WAS illegal. He swerved again at Carrillo and pursued him.

So, Carrillo went straight to the Dade City, Florida police station and pulled into the parking lot where he was able to report the incident to a police officer.

The fool in the Town Car, 21-year-old Christopher Alan Akins, stopped in front of the same parking lot and yelled profanities at Carrillo. Heh. In front of the cop. Real smart.

But it gets better. When the police officer followed Akins, Akins tried to hit the officer’s car with his Town Car. Then, he drove off, stopped on a dead end street, abandoned his car and then fled on foot.

Piss off a cop, though, and they will find you. Police used search dogs to track him to his home where he was then arrested. Akins tried to tell the cop a girl had been with him and driving the car when the incident with Carrillo occurred. Then, he tried to say his car had been stolen and he had been in a different car at the time. Finally, he told the cop he had not seen his car all day. What a bad liar, that Akins.

Akins faces two counts of aggravated assault and one count of fleeing to elude police. He is being held in Land O’Lakes jail. Bail has been set at $25,250.

I’m looking back at all of the money I have spent this year so far on prescriptions for me and my daughter. I thought I had a terrible case of adult acne and went to my dermatologist. OK, so it does look like from time to time I get acne like most people did while they were teens. The issue I have is that the medications I spent hundreds of dollars on are nowhere near as good as some of the natural treatments I have wither found online or been told about by friends. The best acne treatment, therefore, is not always the most expensive.

And, then there are the tubes and tubes of ointments we went through looking for something strong enough to treat my daughter’s eczema, only to find out last week that it is NOT eczema after all. I’m not going to go into all of it right now, but let’s just say that moms know best. I had a gut feeling about her skin problem and it took three different doctors before I finally found one that agreed with me and ONLY NOW is her skin beginning to heal.

I had this book when I was a kid called The Friendly Alligator. It was one of those personalized books where my parents sent in the order form along with my name, address, birth date, names of my friends, some of my hobbies the name of my school, etc. and the book was printed to include all of this personal information about me written right into the storyline.

I loved that book. I still love that book. Despite the fact that I grew up with hundreds and hundreds of children’s books, this may be the only book I kept from my childhood.

When my daughter was born, I was anxious to get her at least one personalized book, too. I actually ordered her a version of the Little Mermaid from the Kids Personally website, based more on the original Hans Christian Andersen version of the story than the glittery Disney version. She adores the fact her anme is in the book, as are the names of her cousin and her best friend. The book names our hometown and all sorts of other personal details. She is as thrilled with the book I ordered her as I was with mine. Of course, I still read her MY Friendly Alligator book, too. She loves to see her mom’s name in a story.

The teaser headline on CNN’s website said, “Firefox fans celebrate release of new browser.” I remember wrinkling up my nose. What an image that conjured for me. Are there people out there on the internet so thoroughly devoid of a real life that they actually CELEBRATE the new version of an internet browser being released? Did users actually put on party hats, blow up balloons, and bake elaborate cakes? Maybe there is a faction that exchanged greeting cards or even those who got together and went out to see strippers last night to express their glee.

Maybe these are the same people who wait in line for days for the newest versions of Apple’s iPhone, just so they can pay significantly more money than other people will pay for even better products only a couple of weeks later?

Apparently Firefox 3 had 1.6 million downloads by last evening. Firefox’s Web site says there are about 9,000 copies of the free web browser being downloaded every minute.

OK, that’s fine. It’s a decent browser. I happen to like Opera better, but whatever floats you boat, you know?

While I like geeks as much as the next person, this next tidbit of info actually soured my stomach: Firefox are allegedly trying to set a world record for most software downloads in a 24-hour period.

What? Who cares? Really, WHO cares? In a world where everyone seems to want instant fame, is this really the coolest thing someone can find to be known for? Most software downloads? Ew.

I am finding my cup of green tea more exciting that a new Firefox version, but that’s just me. I actually have a pretty full like that does not involve placing my rear end in the computer chair

I say Time for Wimbledon for two reasons. First of all, I’m excited that it’s almost time fro Wimbledon again. In fact, it begins June 23. I also used Time, because as much as I like to watch the tennis at Wimbledon, I rarely actually have the time to see everything I want to see.

Of course, Wimbledon for me still means Boris Becker, but the new players are almost more powerful and dynamic.

How cool is it, then, that MediaZone is working with the Wimbledon Championships to give us what they like to call “Wimbledon LIVE”? What is it? It’s an online service that gives you a way to watch live and on-demand Wimbledon matches. In fact, you can watch up to EIGHT courts at the same time. Seeing Wimbledon live won’t even bring you that kid of perk. You can get a super package rate for only $24.99 and even go back and watch last year’s matches if you need to catch up on your Wimbledon.

At my age, I thought I knew pretty much everything about myself, especially about my fears. I know I have an irrational fear of snakes and there is pretty much nothing I can do to put mind over matter when faced with one of those slithering creep shows. However, I had no idea I was claustrophobic. I have been on elevators and airplanes with no problem. I know I cannot get out of those situations until I’m told I can get out, and still I’m not bothered.

Today I went to have an MRI. I went once before to have my kidney stones looked at, but it as an open MRI. Today I needed to wear the TMJ “coil” to they can take pictures of my clicking jaw. Therefore I needed to be in a fully enclosed torture chamber, or so it felt. They got me all situated, explained everything in detail and slid me inside. Immediately I started to hyperventilate and freak out in general. I asked to let out and it took a long time to get calm enough to try again. One of the techs in training needed to stand there the entire time and hold onto my leg for me. For some reason, having another human touching me helped so much.

It took me at least a half hour after I left to get my heart rate back to normal. Now, I did have one indication that I might have claustrophobia. I was watching that episode of Desperate Housewives when Lynette gets locked in the freezer of her restaurant with that chef who had the hots for her. Anyway, the angle of the shot when the door slammed closed and they realized they were trapped was so realistic, so accurate in how it portrayed the small, enclosed space that I found I had to pause the show and get up to walk around until I felt calmer.

I’ve worn my fair share of cheap watches throughout my life. In high school, I loved going to some of the shadier parts of DC and buying knock-off watches from the street vendors. They were in my budget, looked pretty good, and tended to work for long enough to make me happy. I think I still have some of them in an old jewelry box. They still look just a cool, but I am pretty sure all of them have long since stopped functioning.

I’m older now, and more into quality. When I buy something, I want it to last a long time. My mother bought me the most amazing necklace watch thing I can wear why teaching. It’s fun and glittery and enclosed inside of a sparkly moon face. I love it.

However, I also want a wristwatch. And, I want one that is absolutely going to be able to take a beating. I will be wearing it in the classroom and I cannot be bothered with worrying about bumps and spills. It needs to tough it out; just like everything else I will take into the classroom with me.

Citizen Watch has a new campaign featuring their very own Unstoppable Ambassadors. They are men and women from the world of athletics and I just happen to adore the watch that is in the ads with Nicole Vaidisova. It’s the Palidora Diamond. They had me at the fact that it never needs a battery and that it looks more feminine that I ever imagined something that tough could look. And, as far as good watches go, it’s not actually unaffordable.

It’s a given that teen drivers are one of the hazards of the roads. The Tampa area is number one in a recent Allstate study of teen crashes. The study took a look at crash data, claims data, and teen population size in the top 50 metropolitan areas in the nation. Nationwide, car crashes are the number one killer of teens.

Today, there were around 20 local teens from area schools who took turns standing on a lifeguard stand at a busy Tampa intersection. They were looking for distracted drivers who were doing things like driving while they talked cell phones, ate, drank, and did text messaging.

A running count was logged and fed into an 8-foot message board drivers could see while they were stopped at the intersection.
I think this is a worthy exercise for the teens and I can only hope it made at least one driver out there today stop and think about their focus they were placing, or not placing , on their driving. Kudos to the kids who were doing this project. May it remain ingrained in their minds forever.

If you think identity theft is only something that happens to someone else, or to people who are careless, think again. It happened to me a few summers ago and as far as anyone can tell, it was an inside job at my bank and I was one of the poor, random souls who got targeted. The bank backed me and I got all of the money back, but not everyone is so fortunate.

Shopping online is by far one of the most common ways that you can put yourself at risk for ID theft. Even when you ship with large retailer who has a solid security reputation, there are risks.

There is a new product available called Shop Shield®. They purport to be the most complete protection and privacy solution you can have to combat identity theft when you are shopping online.

The service is actually free right now, because it is in Beta testing and they are looking for users to help the usability of the service. That does not mean the product does not work yet, it means that the company wants to test how easy it is for the average user to actually USE. It has already been pilot testing and they know the security is solid.

If you visit Shop Shield®, you can see for yourself how the system protects your credit card numbers, bank accounts, billing address, e-mail address, and login information. With Shop Shield®, not only are you not actually even entering your personal information into the databases of the online stores where you shop, you are also preventing those companies from ever being able to sell your personal info. Why? It’s never really sent to them in the first place.

Unlike products like Mastercard Secure Code or Google Checkout, you can use Shop Shield® on any site. Intriguing, huh? Shop Shield® offers a full guarantee on their services, too. In fact, they will reimburse you up to $10,000 above the coverage your credit card company or bank provides. I’m signing up. I highly suggest you visit the site to Learn More.

So, Nick is in jail. Hulk dated a friend of his daughter’s. Hulk and Linda are going through a divorce that has become very public. Brooke has her own reality show coming down the pike, and she actually seems to be the ONLY same member of the family.

And now, the most entertaining news so far: Linda is 48 and is dating 19-year-old Charlie Hill, who went to school with her kids. Yep, he was a year behind Brooke and a year ahead of Nick. Some sources says that Linda met Charlie years ago at church, and while Nick and Charlie were playing sports together. I have to wonder if the school where they met was Clearwater Central Catholic (where Stephanie Ragusa also attended, oddly) or when Nick was younger and went to St. Cecilia Catholic School in Clearwater?

First of all, I am 10 years younger than Linda and I could never, ever date a 19-year-old. A guy that age is still a kid, period. Period. Don’t give me the argument that they can vote and smoke and go to war. Put them in a relationship with a 48-year-old woman and you have another-figure toting around a tot, nothing more. A 19-year-old is a great boyfriend for a teenaged girl or maybe a woman in her early 20s. After that, you’re looking at more than an age different. You are looking at a generational gap that can only be remedied in time.

And is it any surprise that the kid looks like a Hogan? He is overly tanned, bleached blonde, and has probably been to the dentist’s chair for tooth bleaching more than he has for his regular cheek-ups.

Says Charlie as he nervously fidgets with the buttons on his cuffs, “We’re not dating, though. We’re just chillin’.”

I’ve heard he is a local dock worker or an employee at a Wave Runner rental place. He certainly looks like he spends time out in the sun.