The role of intuition in relationships between males and females is unrealized.

I began writing an article entitled “Should Women Travel For Their Men” when I came across the word intuition and found that people were wondering when, where, and if,  intuition should factor into their relationships. Continue Reading »

When it comes to July 4^th celebrations, the place to be is Hermosa Beach, California.

My friends and I celebrated our independence last year on The Strand in Hermosa Beach.   The Strand is the sidewalk area just behind the beach but in front of the houses.  The Strand carries weight.  People use and abuse this term regularly, so much so that it’s often met with skepticism. Continue Reading »

As I have been Crackle Barrel Travelin’ through the Southern States, I came across someone my many years in California nearly made me forget:  The Southern Redneck. Continue Reading »

I met her on the beginning of my journey from St. Louis, Missouri to the Florida Panhandle.  My parents, who were riding with me, already seemed to know her.

From the moment she said “hello”, I felt something different, new, a sense that we would be together for awhile. Continue Reading »

A drive through the deep south affords you plenty of opportunities to eat at Cracker Barrel, so named because the mid-section of all the patrons resembles the shape of a barrel. 

These people are normally found at the local All-You-Can-Eat in their hometowns, but on the road Cracker Barrel has won their affections with extremely large portions and a country store that sells baseball caps saying things like, “I Do It In a Mustang.”  Continue Reading »

My uncle just came by for a visit.  My uncle is a priest, a Jesuit priest no less.  If you want to get technical, they’re super-priests.

My uncle has like 5 masters degrees.  Jesuits are uber-educated as they have to study for like 13 years before becoming full-fledged Jesuits.  It’s great-you to get to keep going to school well beyond when you’re suppose to stop going to school and get a job.  Your only trade-off for this?  A lifetime vow of poverty and celibacy. Continue Reading »

I decided to create a blog about 3 months ago.  I decided to completely ignore the one piece of advice given to make your blog successful.

Today, I will probably spend about 3 hours writing this post: Blog Topics:  Blog About Everything or Find Your Niche?  In all likelihood, writing about blogging about everything will produce practically nothing.  Why? Continue Reading »

How to Connect Your Laptop or Desktop PC to Your Digital/LCD TV

The other day I was considering buying a new LCD monitor to use with my laptop.  At the time, I would either use my laptop monitor or connect my existing monitor, one of those old clunkers with the big huge back on it (that I bought only 3 years ago!).  I was tired of this old monitor.  It took up too much space and it just wasn’t cool anymore.  So, I did some research and decided what I was going to buy.

On the way out the door, I noticed my 46 ” LCD TV and thought, “Why can I not just hook up my laptop PC to the my big screen LCD TV?”  After all, I was only going to buy 22″ LCD monitor and here, in my living room, I have a relatively new 46″ Toshiba LCD TV–over twice the size of the monitor that I am going to buy.

How difficult could it be to connect my PC to the digital/LCD TV?  It turns out that it is not difficult at all to learn to connect computer to TV.  You only need one thing to connect your laptop or desktop PC to your LCD high definition television.  Yep.  That’s it.  Just one thing.  And with this one thing, you turn your TV into your PC monitor.

And it looks fantastic!  So what’s the one thing?

The One Thing You Need to Connect Your Computer to Your TV

So, on that day, when I had the revelation of using my LCD TV as my computer monitor, I looked on the back of my TV.  I could have consulted the manual, but I don’t like to RTFM (Read The F*&cking Manual) .  It’s kind of like asking for directions.

There on the back of my TV was something that looked just liked a VGA port.  A VGA port is typically what you use to connect your computer monitor.  These ports come in two varieties:  Male and Female.  This is for obvious reasons.  Take a look below:

Obvious no? Now, these are 15-pin VGA cables, called so because…yes, they have 15 pins. The female, the reciever, has open spaces for the 15-pin male. Normally, your standard computer monitor has a 15-pin male VGA connection, which fits snugly into the 15-pin female connector on your laptop or PC.However, in this situation, my laptop had a female 15-pin connector AND my LCD TV also had a female 15-pin connector. What do these two female receptacles need? You guessed it–they need males, two to be exact. Two strong 15-pin male connectors to fill their holes.

This got me wondering…Which cables do i need to connect my PC to a TV? And so…here is what you need to buy to connect your Laptop or Desktop PC to Your Digital/LCD TV hopefully big screen TV.  One VGA (also sometimes called SVGA) cable with male 15-pin connectors on both sides. What, you say, where the heck do I get that? How am I suppose to know?  You’re not.  That is why I am going to tell you. You can buy this VGA cable here. Did you click the link or pass right by it?  OK one more time: Buy the Belkin F3H982-25 Pro Series High-Integrity VGA/SVGA Monitor Replacement Cable (25 ft.) here.. I don’t know how, but Amazon currently offers this for $9.89, which is a savings of $35. However they do it, I like it!I bought my mine at the local store because I was so excited to test it.  I went to several places to find it:  Office Depot, Office Max and none of them had it.  Do you know who had it?  WalMart.  Yep.  I was surprised…they actually have a lot of technical stuff.  Go Sam, no wonder you’re worth billions!  And it was pretty cheap there too, but not as good of a deal as on Amazon.com.  I suppose I should have bought mine online. If you go to the store, you are looking for a Belkin HDDB15 Male/HDDB15 Male SVGA Monitor cable.  It’s part #F3H982A06.

For more information on cables, including finding the best HDMI Cable if you want to go with an advanced connection, please see the article Connect TV to PC for graphical illustrations.

After you get the cable, connect your laptop or desktop to the LCD TV with this cable, hit the INPUT button on your LCD TV and choose computer, and then find out how to switch your computer over to the LCD high-def big screen TV.  On my Dell and almost all Dell laptops, you hold down the FN (function) key and press F8 a couple of times. For a desktop, you’ll probably have to go into the display card settings by right-clicking on your desktop. We also have how to videos on this topic in this post: How To Connect Computer To TV.

You’re off and running now. Enjoy the experience of using your LCD TV as your PC computer monitor.  You may also want to get Satellite TV on your PC.  I did this, then cancelled cable TV, and saved $900.  Plus, if you read my blog, you know I like to travel.  Now I can watch TV anywhere!

Live On-Line Coverage of the Playoff Between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate in the 2008 US Open from Torrey Pines

Monday, June 16th

Continue Reading »

As Barack Obama has earned the Democratic nomination, we have to ask the question: 

Will America vote for a black president?

It is a question that should never have to be asked, but sadly it is a question that must now be examined.

I hope that the answer is yes.   

As I watched and reacted to the final Democratic primaries, I was filled with the hope of a new time ahead, a new destination for our country.  If Barack Obama’s speech was filled with electricity, John McCain’s speech was fossil-fueled.  There is no way Barack could lose this election.

Unless…unless there are too many people like Jim: Continue Reading »