At 16:42 on October 9th 2009, Ruby Siketa, a girl just 17 years old, passed away. She has been suffering from Leukemia.

Diagnosed at the age of 12, she underwent chemotherapy and eventually a Bone marrow transplant. It seemed she had beaten the disease, and three years went by. Unfortunately for Ruby, she relapsed. Despite the best efforts of her doctors, her family and her own willpower, the disease was just too strong, and she succumbed to it.

A lifelong Harry Potter fan, she died alongside “her family and friends, with her beloved Harry Potter playing”. The love and support of the whole fandom is with her family at this most terrible time. I know not everyone here at yublog is a…

Hey there everyone,

As many of you who follow my Twitter feed know, this coming Sunday, October 11, I am going to be competing in the Royal Parks Half Marathon in London (UK).

I’m running for Book Aid International, a charity which, as a Leaky Staffer, has grown very close to my heart over recent years, so when I was looking for a charity to run for, this was always the obvious choice.

Now I know that in the current economic climate, people may not be as disposed to give money to charity, preferring to keep it close to them - understandable of course.

But if you can give as little as £1 ($1.60) to the cause, it would be hugely appreciated.

To put that in context:…

Ok, so this guy @mike_elgan Twittered about how there’s a new GPS watch out for kids. Then he links to an article he wrote about how it can save America because kids get to play outside and not be stuck inside watching TV or playing video games, etc.

Now I agree that being able to track your kids via GPS is amazing and I mos def will be doing that once my kids start going to school & such. But at what point is this safety and at what point is this “too much.”

Is this going to let paranoia take over those worry-wart moms & dads? “OMG my child is 5 feet from school! Call 911!”

Or is this going to give…

Most, if not all of us, remember the show “Cheers” and the theme song which had the line “Where everybody knows your name”. And of course who could forget every episode where Norm walks in, says hello and everybody shouts “Norm!” I always thought that was kind of fun but never really thought it would/could happen to me. At least until recently. I work in a fairly small city and the majority of the time I bring my lunch and sit in our break room and eat while reading and listening to my iPod. But sometimes I like to get out of the building and go out to lunch. Now, I used to just run to the nearest fast food…

David Carradine.  Michael Jackson. Billy Mays.  Dom DeLuise.  Ed McMann.  Steve McNair.  Walter Cronkite.  John Hughes.  Ted Kennedy.  DJ AM.  Patrick Swayze.

There’s been a lot of celebrity deaths this summer.

Natasha Richardson and Farrah Fawcett were literally the only celebrities who died this year whose deaths I did not find out first over Twitter.  (I followed the Richardson story on actual websites and I was watching the news at work when I heard about Farrah.)  But their deaths were all over Twitter and Richardson’s was before the “Trending Topics” feature was a universal Twitter trademark.

I’m not going to even get into how the majority of us find out news firsthand through Twitter, because we’ve already touched base on that.  (For the record,…

Social network sites for many of us have become part of our everyday lives. Here is a rundown of some that I have used.
You will be familiar with some of them and some you may never have heard of.

Facebook is the one that is the most widely known. It seems these days that everyone is using facebook from teenagers to grandparents.  My wife was the first in our family to have a Facebook account in our house. I would walk by the computer and see her on it messaging friends or playing games. I never thought it would be something I would use. She had her account for about a year before I decided to give it a try.  What made…

Two years ago around this time my wife gave me the most incredible news of my life, that she was pregnant and after nine years of marriage we would be expanding our family. I had spent the first nine years of marriage trying to talk my wife out of wanting kids. I would argue with her that our lives were perfect and we would lose all of our freedom. We were fortunate enough to be able to travel at the drop of a hat and experience the world but little did I know what experiencing the world truly meant.

During the pregnancy my wife was incredibly fortunate and had no complications or morning sickness. It was a very easy pregnancy by some standards, for which…

Pretty much everywhere in the U.S., it’s that time of year. Depending on where you live, school is either starting, has started, or will be starting soon. This means that school zones are now in effect around the schools. Now don’t let the title of this article scare you. You might think I’m ranting about the school zones themselves but in actuality, I’m ranting about those drivers who choose to ignore the school zone signs. I say ignore since, at least here in Texas, pretty much all of the school zone signs have flashing lights on them that are pretty hard to miss. You also might think that the majority of folks who ignore the school zone signs would be…

That’s right. I’m going to tell you how you can get free health care in a couple of easy steps. Don’t believe me? Just keep reading, you know by the end of this article and if you’re still not convinced, then go ahead and keep eating fast food because, as the saying goes, you are what you eat.

You body needs substance in order for it to do its ‘thing’ properly. Lack of nutrients can seriously deteriorate the body’s ability to grow, fight disease, maintain energy, and lots of other things.  Fast food, that bag of chips you had last night… pizza, soda, alcohol, doughnuts, cakes, and fries all are all classified as junk food because they are exactly what they…

Here is my rant!!!

OK, I am a city girl and not the best street crosser but when I have my lil ones with me I cross with the utmost care.

At the back entrance of my job’s garage, when you come out, it is a one way street.  I am walking with the kids on the opposite side of the street, coming to the end of a parking lot we cut through to get to the back of my job and the one way street.  Now I SEE the cars all coming out of the parking garage (cause it is 5pm and you know them f*ckers wanted to be out of there) and they’re taking the left as they should.  So the…