Wow, What a Wild Ride!
It is now 10 years later, and I sit here typing this very relaxed and unburdened. I just completed a year of serving as the Most Illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of South Carolina, the fourth year as a Grand Officer in the Grand Council. This year caps…
Musical Chairs!
At our December business meeting, we elected and appointed the new officers for 2009, and I was elected into the Junior Warden seat. It is quite an honor, as in doing so, I unexpectedly skipped a couple seats. For 2008, I was appointed as a Steward. The natural progression is to move the Junior Deacon…
Faster, faster, faster!?!
I had the opportunity to attend the Order of the Temple work at another local lodge, and I must say that I was very impressed. There were about 25 people with three candidates, and the work was done very well. One of the older men had been doing his part for many years, and he…
York Rite Degree Work – Some ponderings
The local York Rite membership is a very dedicated group of Masons, but like so many Masonic groups, it tends to be somewhat “older-leaning” in its membership. The group that with which I went through the degree work is a bit younger than most of the membership (though I don’t know if my age of…
Seeking More Light – Part Two
After completing the Royal Arch and Cryptic Masonry degrees, the final steps on the path of the York Rite are the “Chivalric Orders”. These Degrees (called Orders in this group) include the the “Illustrious Order of the Red Cross” which is an Order that emphasizes the lesson of truth; the “Order of Malta” which emphasizes…
Seeking More Light – Part One
Since my journey in Freemasonry began, I have always been interested in Freemasonry’s Appendant Bodies, specifically the York Rite. My father was a Master Mason, went through the Scottish Rite, and eventually became a Shriner. (In his day, it was a requirement that to become a Shriner, you had to go through either the Scottish…
The York Rite Background
The York Rite, like the Scottish, is one of Freemasonry’s Appendant Bodies which is open to a Master Mason to join to further his knowledge of Freemasonry. While Freemasonry officially culminates with the third degree of the Blue Lodge, the nine additional degrees of the the York Rite are considered to expand upon and complete…
Brother, take a seat!
Less than three weeks after being raised to the degree of Master Mason, I was installed as one of the Stewards of our Lodge. The new Junior Warden-Elect appointed me and the other brother who was raised with me as the new Stewards for 2008. I’m honored that the opportunity to begin moving through the…
Raised to Master Mason!
This past Saturday, another Masonic brother and I were raised to the degree of Master Mason, the Third Degree in the Blue Lodge. It was an interesting, informative, and certainly memorable degree. We had our Fellowcraft examination, followed by the Third Degree work. Our Fellowcraft examination went very smoothly despite not having spent any time…
I Think I “Get It”
Obviously I still have a lot to learn about Freemasonry having only recently been passed to the second degree. So until I progress further, I can really only comment on my current knowledge and exposure to Freemasonry as a Fellow Craft. But of what I do understand now, I think I “get it” concerning just…
Tip #21-WonderSilk Skins Installation and Startup
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Using WonderSilk Skins requires a specific, but simple process of Download, Install, Assign, Activate, and use. The following steps will walk you through the process. 1. Download and install the two main WonderSilk components onto your PDA: WonderSilk.prc, the Silk Plug-in Kinumaru_E.prc, the skin manager app. These can be found in the WonderSilk distribution found…
ReplayTV Tip #1-ReplayTV to DVD HOWTO
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If you own a ReplayTV 5000 series PVR, learn how to archive your shows to DVD. Follow these steps to transfer shows from your ReplayTV box to your PC, edit out unwanted content, and burn the "final cut" to DVD for viewing on any standalone DVD player! ReplayTV to DVD HOWTO: A step-by-step Guide to…
Tip #20-Add HandStory clips to your Website
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Did you know that you can create “auto-installing” HandStory clips to your web site? I recently noticed a “glitch” in the “mobile edition” of my web site, so I fixed the code and cleaned it up a bit. It’s cleaner and the download is smaller. But that’s not my reason for writing this… I was…
Tip #19-Convert Movies to your hard drive
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This may be an obvious one, but it had eluded me until recently. Did you know that you can convert movies to a format that the Clie Movie Player can play using the Image Converter program without converting directly to your Memory Stick? The other night, I decided to try converting some video into a…
Tip #18-WonderSilk Skins: Those Elusive Buttons
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I have received several inquiries asking how various buttons get assigned and defined in the WonderSilk app. The explanation, while definatly not intuitive, is actually rather simple. The main difficulty with WonderSilk Skin development is that there are no set “rules” as to what or how things are defined, specifically with regard to buttons that…
Tip #17-Some Clie and Palm Resources
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This tip isn’t so much a tip as a list of resources. Most are probably obvious to you, but for those who are very new to the Clie and Palm world, here are several good sources for information, news, and third-party applications. In no particular order: PALM APPS PalmGear.com This has been the “definitive” source…
Tip #16-Take it with you!
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My name is Jim Barr and I am a Mobile Information Addict. OK. There. I said it. I am a Mobile Information Junkie, and I’m not ashamed, in fact, I’m excited about it! The Sony Clie NX70V has given me the ability to have all sorts of information with me at all times. From Dictionaries,…
Tip #15-Sena Case tip
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I know this tip is VERY specific, but it has been VERY useful to me. I own a Sena Case from SenaCases.com for my Clie NX70V, and while I think it is a good quality case, one of its shortcomings is that over time, the leather “pouch” that holds the the Clie into the case…
Tip #14-Try an Alternate Picture Viewer
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The included Clie Viewer program, while good intentioned, suffers from lethargy. Take more than a handful of pictures with your Clie Camera, and you sit and wait, and wait, and wait for the Clie Viewer to generate thumbnail images. It doesn’t cache these thumbnail images, so the next time you want to view images, you…
Tip #13-One-button McPhling launch!
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One of my biggest complaints about the NX series, unfortunatly, is its clamshell design. I personally prefer keeping it in “tablet” mode, but doing so poses one significant limitation: No access to the four standard hard buttons. So, what to do? Try McPhling! This little app lets you pop up a small list of launchable…