Nina Lewis

Archive for October, 2008

The cutest grandson in the world has turned into a vampire.  Eat your heart out, Edward.

sewing machine on ninalewis.com

At work, one of the straps on a new video camera bag broke. (Did you catch the word NEW?) So I went online to order a replacement from the company where we purchased the bag. The bag is no longer being offered. Just my normal luck.

I ordered a strap from a different company. Back on September 22. That was 39 days ago. THIRTY NINE DAYS AGO!!

I checked with the company and the strap is on back order and they don’t know when it will be available. Just my normal luck.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. If I can be a cobbler and sew shoes (and backpacks for my son, Tyler, and ski bibs, and mittens, and levis, and a plethora of other clothing, and quilts, and tablecloths, and curtains), why can’t I mend broken camera bag straps? Indeed. Why not.

I sat down at my trusty thirty-year-old Kenmore sewing machine. Put in a heavy duty needle and threaded it. Would the needle go through three layers of thick nylon webbing? Would the motor of my ancient sewing machine have the necessary power?

I’m happy to report that I was successful. Not only did I get the strap mended, it even looks nice! (Pleasing visual appearance wasn’t on my requirement list.)

Sewing is a skill that everybody should have. You’ll never know when you’ll need it — and for what!

Gabcast! Ttechnology Tips #1

I have a pair of shoes that I really like. And that’s pretty amazing since I really don’t like shoes . . .

Several months ago, the stitching on the toe of the left shoe came undone. The shoe looked worn. I felt disheveled when I wore them. So, they’ve been sitting in the back of my closet gathering dust.

I know I could have taken them to the shoe shop. But my last forays have been neither pleasant nor a source of quality workmanship.

I recently heard the saying “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without.”

I decided to gird up my loins, and ‘make it do’ by sewing the shoe myself. I’m happy to report that I was successful. I can now add sewing shoes to the list of items that I have sewn . . .

The quality of sewing is very nice (nicer than what I would have received from one of the shoe repair stores.) So, now I am happily back to wearing them. And I don’t feel disheveled — fashionable instead . . .

P.S. The above shoes are NOT mine . . .

In my travels on the Internet this morning (and don’t ask me the path that took me to where I finally ended up . . .), I came across a free (did you catch that word — FREE!) software for recording podcasts.

I already have software that I use for creating my podcasts on my wordsmithie.wordpress.com site. But, I was interested because I am always on the lookout for software that is free that I could share with the faculty at BYU.

I was impressed at how EASY this software was to create the MP3 file. The program not only creates the audio file, it creates the little player (which is seen on the webpage where you post the podcast), and it also has the ability to FTP the audio to your file server.

I’m sure that you, Dear Reader, really care about all of this . . .

So, you will see below my little test run of the software.

AudioFlash Test

Pretty cool, huh? Even if I do say so myself . . . (Next on my To-Do list is to see about improving the quality of the recording . . .)