I PASSED!

The studying and sacrifice paid off. I took the test this morning and passed. I needed a 170 and earned a 178. I was pretty stoked. I reviewed the information again this morning before the test and then went to the facility. It was all computer based and they wouldn't let you even wear a watch into the testing area. So I take the test, and yes, it was as hard as they made it sound. I must have marked 20 questions to go back and review. It took me about an hour, but we get 2 hours to take it. Then another 10 or 15 minutes to go back and review the marked questions. Then it was decision time. Do you hit the "End" button or review more questions? I hit the end button and it popped up with a bunch of information about the test and scoring and I couldn't find my score. Then I saw it. I didn't know if that was my score or not. But it was, and I was ecstatic. Now I am Cameron Denison, AIC, CPC, LEED AP. (Yeah, all construction stuff that doesn't mean diddley outside of the industry)

Study, Study, Study

I am studying for the LEED AP test. I have been studying for 3 weeks and I'm still at it. From what everyone tells me, this test is extremely hard. Most people are having to take it a second time before passing the test. There are so many little things that you have to memorize and a thousand other things that you have to know and understand. I've read the 400 page guideline book twice so far. Now I am going to start going through the flash cards to see how I do. I'm also going to take the practice exam tonight. I've got 2 days of work and tomorrow night to study before taking the exam on Wednesday morning. Man, I sure hope I pass!

Rewards Cards for Smart-Phones

I got this idea from my wife's iPhone. There is an "app" for the iPhone that will let you enter your Rewards Card barcodes into the phone and then the phone stores the barcode. When you need it, you pull up the application and the card you want. The checker can then scan it right from your phone. I haven't found a program that can do this on Windows Mobile yet, but I think I have a work-around. There is a website called Barcoding, Inc. that will allow you to create a barcode from any number/letter combination and save the barcode as a .JPG. I suggest taking your Rewards Cards and recreating the barcode on the card using this website. Then save the file as the name of the place of the Rewards Card. Save these files on you phone and just pull them up when needed. I don't know if it will work, but I think it's worth a try.

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.