iPhone and Ringtones

Yesterday we went and picked up a new phone for Linda. She wanted to step into the technical age and get a "high tech" phone. In my mind there was only one choice, the iPhone. WOW! This thing is as awesome as all the hype makes it out to be. There is an application for everything. Plus, the majority of them are FREE! The only downside I found was the ringtones. You have to buy them from iTunes and cannot make them yourself, or so I thought. With a quick Google search I found that you can create them in iTunes, with a little bit of manipulation. Here is what you do.

1. Open iTunes and locate a song you want to make into a ringtone.


2. Listen to the song and determine what clip you want to be the ringtone. It must be less than 30 seconds. Make note of the start and stop times.


3. Right click on the song and go to Get Info.


4. Under the Options tab, you can adjust the start and stop times of the song. Enter the start and stop time of your clip.


5. Listen to the song again to verify this is the correct start/stop times. If not, repeat steps 3 through 5.


6. Right click on the song and go to Create ACC Version.


7. After iTunes completes converting the file, right click on the newly created file and go to Show In Windows Explorer.


8. Move this file from where it is, to your desktop.


9. In iTunes, right click on the newly created file again and delete it. This will remove the clip from iTunes, but won't remove the file that you put on your desktop.


10. The file that was moved is a .m4a file. Rename this file to a .m4r extension.


11. Move the .m4r file back to your iTunes folder, or just add it back to iTunes.


12. Once moved, it will show up under Ringtones and you can copy it to your iPhone.

If you want to take that same file and make it into an MP3 ringtone, try out www.media-convert.com This worked really well for me. You will need to change the file back to a .m4a by changing the extension then just follow the directions on the website.

Public Records

Just a quick note. Marriage Licenses are not public record at the State level in the State of Missouri. However, they are public record at the County level. Or, in other words, if you know what County someone was married, you can get a copy of the marriage license by contacting the Recorder of Deeds in the County at which the person was married.

DSS Comes Through... Now We Wait

Got the confirmation phone call from DSS today. They received the Certificates of Death and will now enter my information into the Adoption Registry Database. Then we just wait. They don't actually contact anyone, they wait to see if there is a match to a Birth Parent or Sibling that also enters their information into the database. If there is, they will contact us. If not, we will not hear from them. Hurry up and wait. That's the way life goes.

DSS

It's been two weeks since I sent in my information to the State to see if I can get my adoption records, or any other information. I guess I didn't send in all the information because I got a letter in the mail over the weekend asking for me to have my parents sign a consent form in front of a notary and send it back. I sent them back a Certificate of Death for each parent along with a letter. Hopefully that will suffice.

Adoption

So most everyone knows that I was adopted. I was told this when I was very small (like 5 years old). Mom and Dad told me right after dinner one evening. It's odd that I remember it so clearly. They told me that I was adopted and assured me that they love me more than anything. They made sure I understood what they were telling me and I did. Then when they asked if I had any questions, I didn't but I wanted to go back outside and play. I think I was playing with TJ and Amie across the street. So, as I grew up, I never questioned my adoption. I never cared. I did not have any desire to find my birth parents. Mainly because I didn't have a reason to. It's not that I was mad, upset, I just didn't have any feelings towards it. I grew up like everyone else I knew. However, when I became a father myself, I started to wonder what type of health history my family has. Not so much for me, but for my daughter. At the same time, I would never ask my Mom about that. I always felt that it would break her heart. I thought that if I were to ask questions about my adoption, she might feel that she did something wrong that caused me to question things. I can tell you that my Mom did nothing of the sort and that has nothing to do with my search for my birth family. Needless to say, I have started my search for my birth family.

So far, most of my information has come from my Uncle Jeff. Turns out, he played a part in my adoption. He had my birth mother's first name, and I found a document between my parent's lawyer and social services that named a Male Infant Bryson so I had her first name and last name. I also know that she was a student at UMR, has a brother, and was from the Rolla area. I don't know much about my birth father. He did marry my birth mother, and they did have other kids, so Uncle Jeff says. My birth father was military, possibly an officer. My birth mother was 20 years old when I was born, and my birth father was 24. So this is about all I know. Oh, my favorite part, they have written down that they were Irish-German, both of them. I always knew I had Irish in me!