A street sign on the Long Island Expressway led me to the I Love NY app. If you allow it to access your location, it will show you several of the things to do, places to eat, etc in the region that you are in. You can also save certain regions as favorites or go to the region that you’re looking into visiting.
I had fun playing around on the app, and it worked flawlessly on my smartphone. I can’t wait to try it out in my home region.
Visit their website to download it for free.
On Facebook, I’ve been following Dwayne Johnson, known from his wrestling days as The Rock, for maybe a year now. I enjoy his upbeat, positive, motivational view of life. He is one of the most encouraging people I have ever had the pleasure to see even if it’s only been on social media and through his acting roles.
I loved him in the Escape to Witch Mountain reboot. That was my favorite book and movie as a child, and if the original pops up on the television, I will sit and watch it again no matter what else I’m supposed to be doing.
The most recent movie I’ve seen was The Game Plan on the Disney channel. I don’t know when the movie was actually released, but it was recently re-aired on one of the Friday nights in the last couple of weeks.
Following his Facebook, I get to see posts about his new baby daughter, Jasmine, his upcoming Disney animated feature, Moana, still in production (with music by Lin-Manuel Miranda), and most recently his Rock Clock.
I hadn’t realized that The Rock Clock was part of a new venture called Project Rock.
I’ve been using the Rock Clock for about a week now. All in all, I like it, although I need to adjust the volume, and it doesn’t have a snooze button. The Rock doesn’t believe in a snooze button. I actually do, but I’ve been adapting to give it a try.
If you like, you can even get up on Rock Time, but I’ll warn you: that’s about 4 or 5 in the morning. I have not attempted it and don’t plan to.
After you get up and at it, whatever time you’ve set the alarm for, there is a daily inspirational message from The Rock. I’ve seen two that he filmed in the gym right before his workout, one driving to work in his pick-up truck (he loves his pick-up truck), and one still picture with a motivational phrase as a graphic.
I have to say there are worse ways to wake up. Even if I’m tired, and I don’t really want to get up, I still get a positive vibe from the app, and from The Rock.
I know that whatever time it is that I’m viewing his daily message, I will see his smiling face, his positive outlook, and hear the joy in his voice to begin another day.
It rubs off.
In this morning’s message, he dropped whatever he was carrying. He laughed it off, kept walking and narrated that he was going to keep walking. What a great message to keep moving forward no matter what tries to get in your way. He even mentioned that he had to clean up the spill, but the smile didn’t leave his face.
One word of caution: his language is on the adult side. He is uncensored, but there’s no bullying, no denigration, just pure and honest, and unadulterated happy to be alive, and happy to share his day with you.
There are twenty-four options for your alarm sound; I use the one of him singing Good Morning, Sunshine. I’ve also tried the regular beeping alarm, which he also voices.
Here is what he has to say on his home page of the Project Rock website:
WE ARE ALL A PROJECT.
We all have hopes, goals, dreams and aspirations, and I’ve officially made it my project to help as many of you get after your goals as possible. Let’s get after it and chase greatness… together.
-Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Ironically, today on Amazon, the free app of the day is White Noise. It works on the Kindle Fire and your devices that have the Amazon apps app (like phones, other tablets and PC’s).
I’ve been using the MediSafe App for about six months. It is really genius. It helps me keep track of my medicine, when I take it, when I skip it (I sometimes skip the supplements, but never the prescriptions). It’s especially great if you take medication for chronic conditions and can also keep track of when you need refills.
You can also add a third party notifier, which is great for people with memory problems.
It will let you add doses for when you take Tylenol for a headache and that way keep track of ‘as needed’ medications.
It has other features that I haven’t even looked into yet because I was trying out the alarm function first.
I’m not sure how I managed my medication before this!
My first smartphone wasn’t smart at all. It looked like an iPhone, but none of the icons were actually apps. I could surf the net but it wasn’t until the Android system that I finally understood and began to use apps.
I’ve been using apps for a few years now, and my favorite, most useful, the one I recommend to all, glowingly and effusively, is Evernote.
I have the app on my phone, my Kindle, and my computer plus I can access it from any computer by signing in at Evernote(dot)com. It is all synched and ready each time I open it up.
While I was still experimenting with this type of organizational app and trying out different ones, I was always drawn back to Evernote.
It really is the best one out there.
Evernote can be as general or as specific as you need. You decide how many notebooks you create. You choose and create your own tags. You can save things to a top menu for shortcuts if you’ll be using something more often for a period of time. You can even share your notebook with others if you want or need to.
Currently, I have seventeen notebooks and way too many tags, and I’m working on paring it down.
In addition to my long-hand notes, I also use it for checklists and collecting photos and links for other projects. It’s an all-in-one app; there are things it does that I haven’t even discovered yet.
I find it essential for my writing as well as organizing the information in my personal life.
It’s also free if you use the basic program.
Give it a try. You won’t be sorry.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 