My attempt to use proper grammar in my daily writing

I participate in online discussions on Apple Inc's website for their iPod Touch product. It's a user-to-user forum where you can ask questions and try to get help from fellow users from around the world.

My attempts to use proper grammar have not started this year with my MComm class--it really started last fall with four classes requiring papers to be written throughout the semester and my wife, who is an English major, becoming my editor and giving me some insight. I will say, however, that MComm's focus on grammar has helped me understand grammar a lot more than I did, and I have become more confident as I try to use more punctuation and other grammar in my writing.

While I was in the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brasil, a member of the branch presidency told my district before we left that in order for us to become fluent in Portuguese, we had to make 50,000 mistakes in the process in order to learn and refine our language skills. I submit, just as this counselor said, that in order to become "fluent" in grammar, I also must make mistakes in order to learn and improve my writing skills.

The following is a post that I wrote in the Apple iPod Touch forums in response to a user who reported issues with alarms not going off as they should. She later reported that the problem had reversed itself, but she did not know what she did to fix it. I'm sure there are still many mistakes in this post; however, I also know that there are not nearly as many as there could have been because of a few simple grammatical changes I've made in my writing.

"I accidentally replicated your problem this evening. My voice control didn't make it's normal ding and an alarm didn't play its sound; however, I figured out why it did this. 

What you need to keep in mind is that there are three volume levels that are controlled separately by your iPod: 
(1) the built-in speaker
(2) headphones(when they are plugged in)
(3) paired Bluetooth audio devices

If you unplug the headphones, turn the volume down completely for the built-in speaker, and then plug in headphones and adjust the volume, the volume is still off for the speaker, and is consequently off for alarms--and the voice control ding as I discovered tonight--and they won't play/sound even if you are listening to music or a podcast with headphones. 

It used to say speaker when you adjusted the volume without headphones plugged in, but it does say headphones when you adjust the volume when headphones are plugged in. The volume control for paired Bluetooth devices, I believe, is new with iOS 4(at least that's when I noticed it). It also doesn't say anything when you adjust the volume. The key is to remember that the three volumes are controlled separately--which ever you are using at that time. 

Hope this helps explain your problem."

What do you think?

Do you think it's broken? It sure feels like I would imagine a broken bone to feel like and it looks plain ugly, so it has to be broken, right? I've never broken any bones before and I'm not an expert, but I will say, with as much confidence I can muster, that I did in fact break my toe.

To tell you the truth, I was pretty surprised at how easy it was to break. I've taken a lot of falls in my life and played a lot of sports when I was younger, and since I never broke any bones, I always figured it was harder to do than I thought.

I can blame this one on my inconsiderate neighbors who keep thinking that they are better than everyone else. See, my wife and I are the On-Site Managers for our apartment complex. A week to two weeks ago we saw that a stair had broken on one of the only two staircases in the complex. Fulfilling our responsibility, we let the main office know about it and they came and blocked it off with caution tape and started the process to get the step replaced. Well, some jerk tenant, and believe me thats the nice name I've come up with, keeps cutting or ripping the caution tape down every day. On Wednesday while I was home during the day with our son, I thought I heard someone pull into the complex and was making noise on the end of the building with the broken step. I stood up quickly and hurriedly went to slip on some shoes to go and see if I could catch the ^#&%* tenant in the act and swung my foot right into our coffee table.

Needless to say, I did not find anyone outside and my toe is now damaged. Thank you jerk tenant!

History of me, myself, and I.

For those of you who know me-of which I am sorry-I am not writing to you now. I wanted to write a little bit of my history. Hopefully, I won't go on and on to the point of boredom.

I was born in Salt Lake City, UT, but I was raised in Phoenix, AZ which is where I call home. I may call it home, although, as I currently live here in Provo, UT, I don't believe I will ever be going back to Arizona, unless it involves the pursuit of a career. I served a mission in Brazil and while I was away my family decided to move back to Utah, also in pursuit of a career, so when I finished my mission I didn't really have a choice but to come back here where they were. I am glad I didn't fight this. I was able to meet my wife through a member and a friend I had made in my last area in Brazil. She had been emailing my now wife trying to refine her English and French language skills with my wife since she served in France. After a few months of communication between the two my friend, that I was also keeping in contact with during the same time, suggested that my wife and I write because she thought we would be good friends. Good friends we have become! We've been married for a little over two years now and we have a son that will turn one year old this month. It is amazing to me how fast time flies when things are right.

Well, that is enough for now. This short history is enough to give you a little insight into who I am and where I've been. Future posts will definitely let you learn more about me. I know, I've already got ideas for my personality and opinions to run wild!

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. For now, this will be the theme of my blog. I am sure that as this semester passes I will continue to add gadgets and other cool things to the blog to make it "cool"; however, for now it is WYSIWYG.