What's New This Week?   Many of you have commented in the past on how much you enjoy the travel writings of Ken's brother Ron. He and his bride, Lolli, just returned from their spring break in the desert and they had a blast. I've included a thumbnail image of the first picture of his travelogue just to tweak your interest. You can click on the picture or go to www.blabberon.com and click on "The latest entry April 19, 2004". He writes a good story so allow yourself a little time to enjoy it.

His last statement is in regards to us being the family repository for old photo albums. Some day I would like to get them all onto CD's but that will never replace the actually pictures.

     With summer coming there will be a lot of pictures bouncing around the Internet. It's amazing how easy it is to send a picture these days using email. The only bad news is how long it takes for pictures to download, especially if you are using a dial-up network.

You can do your friends and yourself a favor if you downsize your pictures a little bit before you send them. How on earth do you do that you ask? Well, you use a nifty little program called JPEGCompress.

JPEGCompress is a fast and easy way to compress any Bitmap, JPEG, GIF or PNG using JPEG compression. With an easy preview area, it's a wonderful way to prepare images for viewing on the web or through email. This program is freeware so feel free to use it as much as you would like.

Images fresh from the newer cameras can be as big as 3 meg, which is huge. You really need to cut these down to around 50K in order to send and receive them fast. Just follow the easy instructions in the help file and you'll be sending pictures to everyone in the country.

Go to www.dreamscapesoftware.com/products/soft_jpeg.html and download your free copy.

Clothespin Kids

     Here's a little project that's fun for the kids or if they are too little you can make them and have the kids play with them. They make great pocket pals, or book marks, or just make hanging out the clothes to dry a little more fun.

Here's what you'll need:

Clothes Pins
Acrylic Paints
Paint Brushes
Non Toxic Clear Sealer

This is another one of those creativity projects where you are encouraged to let your inner artist come bubbling forth!
Paint faces and clothes on your clothes pin kids.
Let the paint dry and then spray with a clear, non toxic, paint. This helps protect the little kids that love to put these in their mouths. Speaking of which, DON'T let tiny kids play with these because there is a possibility of chocking.

That's all there is to it. No put on those creative hats and get to painting.

     We hope you enjoy Marilyn's Corner and look forward to all the fun things she brings you each week. If you have a fun project that would be suitable for our newsletter we'd love to share it with our readers. Just contact marilyn@runnerduck.com and we'll do the rest.

Remember we have all of our past projects archived on our web site at www.runnerduck.com. Just click on the Projects or Kids Only Eggs.

The Imaginarium Baby Store is offering playthings to keep your busy baby engaged and drooling with delight? For a limited time, take advantage of free shipping on select toys in our Imaginarium Baby Store.

Check out the Free Shipping.

Don't forget, the Tempos will be performing for your listening and dancing pleasure at the Knights of Columbus benefit on May 1st. Just one week away the dance will be held at the Knights of Columbus Counsel 676 building at 722 East Union Street in Seattle, Washington, beginning at 7:30. All proceeds will go to the restoration and maintenance of this wonderful old 1913 building.

Tickets are only $5.00 per person and there will be a no host bar. You can make reservations by calling 206-325-3410. We'd love to see you and we think you'll love hearing us.

Album Pick of the Week

"The Best Of Kay Kyser and His Orchestra [Collectors' Choice]"
by Kay Kyser

Back on April 9th we lost one of the old time big band singers that many people didn't even know. Although his songs were memorable his name wasn't. Harry Babbitt, nick named Handsome Harry, was 90 years old and over those 90 years he recorded many old favorites. Try some of these titles on for size. "The White Cliffs of Dover", "Three Little Fishies," "On A Slow Boat to China," "(Lights Out) `Til Reveille," "He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings," "Jingle, Jangle, Jingle", "The Umbrella Man" and "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth." He recorded all of these songs with the Kay Kyser big band. This CD has many of those songs and we think if you remember those days, you'll love it.

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RSS News Feeder One of the best ways to get our newsletter is to have it delivered to your door step. Actually it would be delivered to your desktop! Highlight the XML link (right click and drag over it), select Copy and paste it into your newsreader. Or just paste http://www.runnerduck.com/runnerduck.xml into your newsreader. A good free news reader is Awasu and you can download it at www.awasu.com. Don't know what this is all about? Check out our little tutorial HERE!

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See if you can figure out this riddle before you read the solution. This is a detective story so pay close attention!!!

Three elderly ladies are excited about seeing their first Cardinals baseball game. They smuggle a bottle of Jack Daniel's into the ball park. The game is real exciting and they are enjoying themselves immensely mixing the Jack Daniel's with soft drinks. Soon they realize that the bottle is almost gone and the game has a lot of innings to go. Based on the given information, what inning is it and how many players are on base?

Think!

Think some more!!

You're gonna love it......

Answer: it's the bottom of the fifth and the bags are loaded........

   THIS WEEK'S FREE RECIPE

Remember, if you have a recipe you'd like to share please send it to marilyn@runnerduck.com.

     Every month we post a new recipe on our web page. Be sure and check out the April recipe at the RunnerDuck Kitchen Store.
We'd be happy to post your favorite recipe there or in our newsletter and give you credit. Just drop a line to marilyn@runnerduck.com.

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Be sure and visit the RunnerDuck Cookbook Store for other great savings on cookbooks and cooking supplies.

Saw Horses

I have to apologize this week because I just flat ran out of time to complete a project for you. I did manage to get started on it but not far enough to get you started. Next week we'll have this project for you.

Many years ago, like about 30, an old friend of mine made me a set of saw horses that have lasted all this time. I have not done anything special to protect them. They have sat outside most of their lives and believe it or not they still sort of work. The biggest problem is that the bottom of the legs are starting to rot off.

Since I've used them so much and they've lasted so long I decided to make a new identical pair. By next week I should have them done with instructions for you to make your own pair. Until then here is a picture of the one I'm retiring.

We hope you liked this project. If you build it and your friends ask where you got such a clever idea, please tell them that you got it at RunnerDuck.com.

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If you have a project that you would like to share please send us an email and we'll help get it published in the RunnerDuck review. We are looking for woodworking, gardening, crafts and kids projects so send us your thoughts at projects@runnerduck.com .