My New Key Ring

OK, another moment of geekiness...

The truth is, every day I am stunned by the power of the little phone in my purse. When I first heard about computers it seems they were these giant things that filled up a room. They spit out papers with gobbledy-gook as far as I could tell. Now, I have one I can hold in my hand. I use it every day and I realize I will likely never really comprehend the knowledge available to me. It really blows my mind.

This past week-end I went to PetCo for dog food. The girl at check-out asked, as they always do, if I had a PetCo Card. I did not. I reached my limit of those little cards! I hate having to carry them around then scramble through my purse to find the one I need.

The girl told me how much money I would've saved if I'd had the card.  Rats. I love saving money. She then told me about a phone app called Key Ring. It changed my life! OK, that is a bit dramatic. It did make me kind of happy, though.

I went online and learned about it, then started setting it up with the cards I already had. That went pretty well. I even signed up for a few more rewards programs!

Once you've got it all set up, you can easily scroll through them and see if any have special offers or coupons available.

When you click on the name of the store where you currently are shopping, it brings up your barcode. You can then have it scanned to get your savings. If they can't scan it, they can just type in the barcode number.

I don't think I've explained it too well but if you are interested, here's a little video to help explain it.

OK, that's it. That's all I have for you today. Anyone else have a great app we should all know about? Anyone tired of me talking about phone apps?

Almost Like Star Trek

 I am soooooo excited! As I've mentioned, I have been trying to learn Spanish to help me better serve our Spanish-speaking patients. Last Fall I enjoyed a Spanish for Nurses class. Since then I have been working, rather off and on, with this...

It is called Instant Immersion and I really enjoy it. I actually find it rather relaxing. That is part of the problem, I suppose. I would try to work on it after a long work day and I often dozed off! 

Still, I felt I was learning a lot of words. However, I have not put enough time into it to be able to count on remembering what I've learned. My occasions to use it have been too few and far in between. I do plan to keep working at it. It's fun! If you are interested in learning a language on your own, they offer it for many other languages as well. It is rather inexpensive and definitely worth the money.

However, if you are like me and need something a bit easier sometimes, here's some news!

I just found another really, really useful tool! It is called iTranslate and it is for smart phones, both Android and iPhones. There are several others like it, such as Google Translate. I can't speak to which one is best but they all remind me of Star Trek!

Remember, they could use that device and understand all languages? It seemed like an impossibility at the time... just Sci Fi.  Well, I have almost that same power in my little phone now. I can speak a sentence and have it translated into other languages. It shows up in print, both in English and the chosen language for translation. I can check to make sure it heard me right before I show it to the person to read in their own language.  For many languages I can also click to have it speak the translation. That is wonderful in case the other person does not read well, is too young to read or maybe can't see well. Below is an example in Korean.

This is just a few more of the choices.

I was just so excited, I wanted to share my new fun with all of you! You are welcome.

Now, I have a little side note for Allen, who is having his 10 year check-up after his heart transplant:

  Best wishes, Allen! 

I won't be surprised if they make you 

the poster child for heart transplants!