Things almost always seem funnier in retrospect, don't you agree? For example, last Saturday I was cutting the grass on my newly repaired yard tractor (by the way, why is it called a yard "tractor"?) and generally enjoying the morning. After running it for 1/2 hour or so I was cutting near the house and noticed there was a lot of smoke coming from under the hood. I stopped got off and opened the hood to find a nice little fire right under the carburetor. HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!! I ran to the outside faucet and put some water in the bucket that happened to be lying there (It pays to not put things away, see?), ran back, threw the water on and the fire went out. After three or four minutes I tried to start it and it actually started and I was able to finish the lawn. Of course, I took it to the garage and ran it for a while to make sure it wasn't going to happen again. Now, I know what you're thinking...you never put out an oil fire with water. But trust me, if you are faced with that situation you would probably try that as well, and it actually worked. Thankfully it was a small fire and there was no plastic or rubber in that area to melt. Since I'd had the carb rebuilt a few days before, I assume it was from gasoline that had been spilt on the engine, and possibly some oil/grease buildup on the engine exterior. Whatever the cause, I'm hoping it was a one-shot deal. It reminded me of the day I had just dropped Rosalie off for work at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu and was returning to the apartment. As I rounded a curve I saw on my left a fellow standing and watching as the tractor he had been riding stood and blazed away. I'm sure it was a gas leak, and all he could do was watch it go up in flames. So since I was able to quench the fire on my tractor, it seems humorous at this point. I wonder if that fellow was ever able to see the humor in his situation.....
The other thing that happened on Saturday was annoying but mostly harmless. I was getting ready to leave for a picking party at Bob's house on Sugar Island when Jonathan came to me and said that he thought there was a bird in the furnace. We went downstairs to check it out, and sure enough, a starling had managed to crawl into the air inlet and once he dropped down the vertical section of the pipe wasn't able to get back out again. We ended up cutting the pipe (3" pvc) and getting it out that way.
I caught the 2 am ferry and went to wait for Rosalie at M-28 and I-75. She was just returning from her trip to Italy, and would be arriving around 4 am. Well, I got there and managed to drop off to sleep just in time to be awakened by her phone call. Oh, we were going to meet at 6 mile and Mackinac trail instead. Wonderful.....so I woke up enough to drive over there, park, and wait. She was dropped off around 4, and she drove home since I was out of it, and according to her internal clock it was 10 am. She kept talking about her trip and I even remember a little of what she told me. I'm happy she had a good time and that she had the chance to go. It prolly won't happen again............
Age of Aquarius...remember that line? A time of "sympathy and understanding" as I recall the song goes. We were all just going to get along, and live happily ever after. That was the 1960s, when anything seemed possible. Woodstock was the culmination of that dream, at least the myth of Woodstock reads that way. I didn't get to go (a little too young) but I really identified with the idea of "3 days of fun and music" that became a symbol to the youth of America. Of course, Vietnam was also going on, and the same people that espoused the peace and love of Aquarius also spit on the soldiers returning from overseas. Babykillers and murderers were a couple of the labels given to young men sent to a place they didn't want to be, fighting a fight they wanted no part of, and doing things that I'm sure still haunt them to this day. I entered the military in 1971, just out of school, since I had no plans to attend college and figured that it's what I should do, since I would prolly get drafted anyway. I was fortunate, since I spent my time mostly in Michigan.
During my time in the Air Force, I got to participate a couple times in what were called "incentive flights". The base commander had authorized a KC-135 to be filled with anyone who wanted to go, and flown to March AFB in California in the dead of the winter. A free weekend in sunny southern California was a great relief to a Kentucky boy fed up with all the snow. The first trip out, I had a friend at Beale AFB, that came to pick me up, and gave me a place to stay for the weekend. It was great. We went to Disneyland, drove all over the area, saw the sites, etc. The second trip was much different, a bit darker, but still worth it. On this trip I was with several friends, and we had to take buses, stay in a motel, buy all our food (since we weren't on a base), etc. At one point we went to one of the local UC campuses to see a Frank Zappa movie called "200 Motels". I still remember the looks we received from the students, like we were diseased or something. You see, it was obvious we were military (the hair, you know). The weekend was pretty good but I was happy to get back, cause it wasn't nearly as much fun as the first trip.
So even then, the "sympathy and understanding" promised didn't show itself very clearly, but at least we didn't have Westboro Baptist "Church". This group, in the name of God, harasses, insults, and judges everyone around them. They have the legal right to picket wherever they want, and so they choose funerals of soldiers that have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places. It's enough to make you sick, and angry, and wonder how long it will be before someone gets fed up with them and takes them out. Any volunteers?
Some months ago I decided I was going to take the plunge and set up a video recording station to capture and edit high definition video. After looking around, I decided that the Hauppauge HD PVR was the best unit available (in my price range), so I ordered it from NewEgg (my favorite on-line store). I received it, installed it, and had been using it with good success until about 3 weeks ago. It just stopped working...no lights, no action, the computer didn't register that it was connected, etc. So after contacting the company (they have an e-mail address for support, but don't bother since they don't seem to check it) I received a RMA number and sent the unit in for repair. After about a week I got it back (today, in fact). Way cool, since I wanted to record some music stuff on Paladia. The video works fine and looks good. The only issue is that there's a terrible static in the audio channels that no amount of driver reinstalling will take care of. This really sucks! WTF, Hauppauge. Now I have to send it in again? I'd read some of the reviews that were somewhat negative, but didn't worry about it because that's not going to be a problem on my unit, right? At this point, I'm not happy, and can't recommend it as a good buy. How disappointing......
We had quite a day today. Xander had birthday #1 at the house, even though it's still a few days away. Nathan and Alex are here until tomorrow, primarily for this party. The food was really good, but MY GOD, was it crowded. 10 kids under 10 years, most of them my own grandchildren. It was nice, though, and it's always fun to see them together. After everyone left and Caleb was readied for bed, I held him to try and get him asleep. It had to have been no more than one minute, and he was out for the night. Cool!
The weather turned poor again a few days ago, but it's melting and should be gone in a couple more days. It'll be muddy again, but the moisture is needed and it's really not that bad. The attitude is the worst. Here it was, the last week in March and no snow............. Almost too much to believe. And that turned out to be the case, but that's ok too. We adjust. Looking forward to summer, and that's no lie.
Gabi's getting set to move to Rhode Island soon. I guess we'll get to see that part of the country sometime this year. Maybe.
The Sugar Island Festival site is mostly complete, at least until they provide more content. It was a small project, but interesting. They always are. To tell you the truth, I think building sites is one of the more fun things I do these days (aside from playing music with friends). Not much money in it, at least on the level I'm at (I don't advertise and rarely get someone that want me to do a site for any real money) but I don't even care, really. As long as my day job is solid, I can look at this as a hobby, or a labor of love, if you will. I'd much rather learn a new technique and try it out than to pursue those folks willing to pay (usually less than it's worth) but every now and again, someone comes along that is interested and interesting. I'm supposed to do a redesign of the Sugar Bush web site this spring, but nothing has been firmed up yet. It's supposed to involve a new inventory system on the site, and payment processing, so there will be a learning curve, but that's fine with me...
It's over 6 months now since Jon, Kimberly, and the kids (and Burno) moved in. There have been a few issues, but for the most part it's been a good thing. The economy in Michigan is still pretty weak, so there are few opportunities for them. For now Jonathan attends LSSU, Kimberly subs when she can, and we all try and make room for each other. As I said before, I love having them here, but I also miss the freedom and solitude I had before. I must admit it's pretty special to hear Caleb yelling a greeting as I come home, and Trenton is lots of fun, but also pretty trying on my patience at times, so maybe this is a good thing on multiple levels. I hope they'll be able to get on their own before too long, but for now, I'm enjoying the situation.
Ronnie and I did the radio show today. It was a lot of fun, and I'll prolly do it again sometime. Veronica did well and seemed pretty comfortable with the whole thing. She did "Leader Of The Band", "Dream A Little Dream", and "House On Pooh Corner", all favorites of mine. Of course, since I was playing the guitar, I sort of got to pick the songs. Hee hee. George is a good guy and tries hard to make you feel comfortable.
I've played with George several times now and they've mostly been good times. There was that one "Music in the Park" show, though. I'm sure glad Gil was there to play the steel, since he was able to cover for me. I didn't know much of George's material, so I mostly played chords, and Gil did the leads. In fact, I was "Dave #3" since Dave Stanaway was unavailable, and Dave O'Gorman was already booked. The wedding reception we played the following Saturday night went much better, though. Playing with George was where I met Ken, and we've become pretty good friends since then. If I ever were to use the term "zany", and since I won't it's sort of a moot point, but if I did, I would use it to describe Ken. To know him is to be struck by some of the twisted thoughts he shares with the world. I mean that in the nicest way, of course.......
It's a quiet night, beautiful, with clear skies and the stars thick. Since we got rid of the security light, the night skies have become a wonder again, and remind me of our days in Anderson County, when I would take the kids out to lay under the stars and talk about what they were seeing and other things as well. The best of times......
I was out admiring the skies a few minutes ago and noticed something I hadn't before. There were lights crossing the sky, and I knew it was a plane. Since we live under some cross country flight paths, it's not unusual to see lights in the sky at night or vapor trails during the day. The difference tonight was that I could also hear the plane, or more correctly, feel it as it passed. It was a low frequency hum, for lack of a better word. Perhaps that's a common experience, but it was a first for me. It reminds me of one day at home when we were living in the 'grey house', as Gabrielle and Rachel used to call it.
I had the day off and was home alone, because Rose and all the kids were in Michigan for their summer visit. It was about 10 am and I'd gone outside for some reason. While I was outside I was enjoying the quiet. I could hear cars traveling down the road about a mile away, and combined with the birds and the cattle, it made for a very relaxing morning. That's when I noticed the pulses. At random, but fairly often, I would feel a 'thump'. I realized that was what Barbara (a family friend) had been telling me about earlier that year. It was caused by artillery practice at Ft. Knox, about 50 air miles away. In some parts of Kentucky, the bedrock is close to the surface and I suspect that's why the vibrations traveled so far. After a time it stopped. They ran out of shells, I guess......
Tomorrow I'm going on the radio, on George Snider's show. He's a local fellow that's been playing and singing for the last, oh, I don't know, 50 years. He has also been doing a radio show for some time, and has always had an open invitation for me to come. Well, tomorrow's the day. It's kind of neat, I suppose. The neater part, in fact, the TOTALLY AWESOME part is that Veronica is coming with me, and is going to make her singing debut. We've spent the last couple nights in the basement picking out songs and going over them. I'm quite excited about the whole affair. Not going on the radio so much, but having one of my children participate in this activity I love so much is more than I'd hoped for. Now if I can get her to pick up the guitar, my life will be complete..............
The biggest news of the year, so far, is that Caleb had heart surgery and is making a good recovery. This means that Jonathan and Kimberly will be leaving N.D. soon and coming to stay with us until they get established on their own. That should be fun, for the most part. We're all hoping that they will find gainful employment, but that part will have to wait and see. In the meantime, the prospect of having some assistance in keeping the driveway clear this winter is pretty appealing (remember how the snowblower works, Jonny?). Having Jonathan and his family close at hand should be a very good thing, and one we're all looking forward to.
The summer is done (what there was of it) and will be missed by all. I've been very busy, and have been gone quite a few weekends (I know because Rose keeps telling me how much I've been gone). Blissfest, Sugar Island Fest, and Wheatland last weekend were the main events. I finally managed to get to the Grand Marais festival and heard some pretty good music (and some not so good as well). I swear that this group called New 3rd Coast were channeling Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The big disappointment was that there was no picking in the camping area after the stage shut down! I couldn't believe it. It's not too likely I'll go again, since the after-hours picking is the main reason I go to these things. The Sugar Island Festival was really good this year, at least the music was good. The attendance was not great, but the number of people camping seemed to be quite a few more than last year. Buz actually missed our first set on Saturday, and didn't really have a good reason. We harassed him mercilessly about it of course. It was sure fun, and playing with Gary, Wayne, Josh, and the others was as good as I thought it would be. Joel (from Alpena) came and picking with him throughout the weekend was a lot of fun as well. Joel, we usually don't mix music and politics. You have been warned.
Gabrielle is pregnant again, so that will make...let's see...Laini, Sara, Leia, Charlotte, Sofia, Sam, Natalie, Xander, Isabelle, ???, Taylor, Trenton, Caleb...13? Oh oh, somebody needs to step up and make it a nice round 14. So who's it gonna be? I can't keep up with all the birthdays, that's for sure. That's Rose's job, I guess. It's amazing how she can keep them all straight. I'm beginning to suspect she's got it written down somewhere.
We all like surprises, don't we? Good ones, at least. Some surprises are harmless fun, like the skeleton jumping out of a closet in a haunted house. Others take our breath away (I'm thinking of the bear I narrowly avoided hitting with the work van a few months ago). Some change our lives (we've all had those). One winter afternoon in Texas, when Lindsey was less than two years old, fits in the first category.
 | Rosalie, Lindsey, and I had gone to a playground on base to let her play on the swings, slide, etc. One trip down the slide was unlike any of the others. I was at the bottom, waiting to catch her. Rose had brought her to the top and, when I was ready, let her go. Part of the way down, she just disappeared!. It looked like she dove over the side, about 8 feet up. As quick as I could I ran around the end of the slide to find her hanging by her mitten(you know the type, through the sleeves, connected by a yarn string). |
Have you ever been sent to bed without supper? Have you ever sent someone to bed without supper? In days past, it was deemed a punishment fit for serious infractions. For some reason I was thinking of an event that allowed Lindsey to learn about this first-hand.
She was around 3 years old, and tried our patience on a daily basis. I had upset her somehow, so she decided to get even the only way she could, by destroying something of mine.
 | When I found her, she was hiding in my closet in the middle of destroying a carousel full of slides. For those of you who don't know what a carousel is, it holds slides for display in a slide projector. It is one of the few times in my life I've been absolutely speechless. Here's my beautiful, precious daughter crunching up some of the most valuable things I owned, and for a few seconds, all I could do was watch. Once she saw me, of course, she made a run for it. |
Time flies when you're having fun, don't it? It's been since Dec of last year that I made an entry, so lots to catch up on. Let's see now... New grandkids (Sam and Isabelle), knee surgery, the Hummingbird, the (apparent) demise of the Bait Shop Boys, festivals, festivals, festivals, 3 more grandchildren coming, an historic election, another year almost gone, a new kickass computer for my video stuff, and lots of little things.
I was listening to All Things Considered a couple days after the election, and was amused and somewhat astounded by the answers to the question "What do you think will happen now that Obama has been elected?" "A quick end to the war", "My tuition will go down", "Racial tensions will be less", and my personal favorite "I expect him to work some magic". Huh? So now he's Harry Potter, and since he defeated Voldemort (Bush by proxy) he'll make the world a better place. Of course, to some, he can already walk on water and fly faster than a speeding bullet.
No, that does not mean I'm a racist or a bigot (no matter what you think G. B.). It means that he's made so many promises that he won't possibly be able to deliver on a lot of them. People need to understand that he's a great speaker, and knows and says what people want to hear. I've heard him compared to Ronald Reagan in that regard, and I can't disagree. I always thought of Reagan's time in office as the best acting gig he ever had. I know a lot of people think of him as a great president, and maybe he was. I just don't happen to think so. I hope that Obama can pull off even a fraction of what he's promised. God knows the Republicans have screwed things up royally, so now the Democrats get their chance. I'm afraid of what the next 4 years will bring, but he was elected in what appears to be a fair and well-conducted election, and as such deserves his chance.
Early this year, I found a 1976 Gibson Hummingbird in a store near Detroit (I was going to buy strings for my other guitar). It called to me, and I had to buy it. It's a bit more ornamental than I like, but what a guitar! It sounds great, and plays as well as any acoustic I've ever had a chance to try. It's inspired me to practice and learn some new material, which has been an on-going effort.
I made it to three festivals this year, Blissfest (my first one), Wheatland (been there a few times), and my personal favorite, the Sugar Island festival. At Blissfest I learned about the three-second rule (if you don't have a song ready in three seconds, I'm playing one). This has been a great source of amusement for my friends, and a pretty workable solution to the question "How long is it polite to wait before I do another song?" So get on with it or expect to listen...a lot...
There's more, but I don't have the time right now. I gotta go get a pack of smokes and pick up Rose's tokens.
Preparation for the picking party continues. Here's hoping I followed the recipe for Rose's chili adequately. The last batch was great, but if methane is a greenhouse gas, I helped contribute to global warming all by myself. You have been warned.
I was recently reminded that kids, even the best kids, will sometimes, shall we say, prevaricate, to cover themselves. My understanding of an incident some years ago involving one of my children and friends drinking (no names, you know who you are) was corrected by another child when I was told that, in fact, XXXXXXXXX had been drinking and was drunk, but after coming home that night, assured Rosalie and I that they had not. Being the trusting fool that I am, I accepted the story at face value, because I wanted to believe it. I was so proud that he/she had been wise enough to resist, and relayed that pride to people over the years. When it was mentioned to a sibling, the response was laughter and a comment like "He/she couldn't believe that you bought the whole story and didn't get in trouble" or something to that effect. It was hard to accept that I had been fooled that way and had used the event over the years as a anecdote about maturity, responsibility, blah, blah, blah. If the culprit was still at home, I would exact retribution, but the opportunity for that is long past. I can remember a few times growing up where I chose to "misrepresent" the facts to get something or get out of something, but I guess I wasn't very good at it, because I always seemed to get caught. I'm sorry, Mom and Dad, for those times (there weren't too many). Did I ever tell you the one about the night I had a carload of girls and was trying to get away from the carload of guys that wanted the carload of girls?
It's been busy at the house the last couple days. I've invited over some people for a New Year's Eve picking party again this year, which means lots of cleaning and getting the basement up to snuff. It's been in need of this anyway, due to the mess left after our remodeling project wound down. Bob pointed out that this will be the 3rd New Year's Eve in a row we've gotten together, so how could we not do it?. The one in 2005 was in Burt, and what a hell of a party that was. We had one of the "ladies" trying to ride the mic stands (yes, that's what I meant to say). She showed up with this guy, and after a bit, he left. No one knew her, but that didn't slow her down at all. We were just waiting for Cheryl to do something when her mic stand started getting the treatment, but it didn't happen. I was happy too, because it was entertaining as hell to watch......Later on the guy that brought her came back and they left together. One of the fellows that had been cozying up to her just about cried when she took off. I'm sure he thought he was gonna get lucky, but that's the way these things go. As it is, he probably was lucky cause the guy showed up. I mean...she looked like trouble with a capital T.
Anyway, as I said, it was one hell of a party. The 2006 party was a good time too, and a lot more productive musically. No mic stand dancers, but we got a cd with about 20 tracks on it. Not all of them deserved to be saved, but I did anyway. I have to smile every time I listen to it, thinking about the evening, especially the last track, called "Bob crashes for the night". It involved a dog bowl and unintended contact with the floor. Perhaps I'll post it sometime.
Speaking of unintended contact with the floor, I found that I can't, or at least, shouldn't, drink tequila, especially the real good stuff, since it has the effect of putting me in a horizontal position when it's least expected. I lost count after 4 (or was it 5?) shots. I just sort of lost the will to stand, and there wasn't anything to do except fall down, which I managed to do quite nicely, thank you very much. No permanent damage, thankfully. I explained it by saying I tripped over a worm.....
I recently found a add-on to Firefox that allows you to download flash videos from sites like YouTube and JibJab. I also found a Flash video player called FLV Player that acts as a standalone flash player, so all those funny videos that you like so much can be saved and viewed at your convenience. It's quite handy, and works as advertised. I'm busy filling up a spare hard drive with the best videos I've found so far. Most of YouTube is garbage, but there are some diamonds in there as well. JibJab has a bit higher signal-to-noise, but truly funny stuff is still hard to find.
Firefox has many useful add-ons; it's well worth your time looking at which ones might help fill a need you have. For example, I've been using NoScript and AdBlock since I first heard of them. There's also a developer's toolbar that WILL help you build and debug web pages, and the download status bar and download helper add-ons are both excellent tools. Do yourself a favor and check them out.
I'm sitting here trying desperately to think of something to say. You'd think it should be easy, since it's been ALMOST A YEAR AND A HALF since I made an entry here. There's certainly lots of things to catch up on, such as Jon and Kimberly's new son Trenton, and Gabrielle's marriage and pregnancy. I don't know if a name has been chosen, but this will be grandchild number eight, supposedly a girl. That would make it seven girls, one boy.
Gabrielle asked me at one point "How many grandchildren do you need in Texas before you'd move"? Of course, she won't be in Texas once Tom gets back from Bagdad, so it's a moot point. At this point in my life, picking up and moving, starting over again somewhere, isn't something I would willingly do. Of course, if the economic situation in Michigan doesn't improve, that may be easier than I thought.
The remodeling project is coming along, although slower than I'd hoped. We're hoping to get most of the rest of the siding on by the end of this weekend, but the rain is slowing it down a bit. All the windows are done, but I still need to work on closing in the entrance to the addition. Kevin's done a good job so far, and except for the weather lately, has made good progress with the siding. We had something happen last weekend that put a damper on things, that's for sure. Lindsey, Kevin, the kids, and the dogs were over and everyone was outside, working, playing or otherwise occupied. Jack (the 5 month-old Jack Russell terrier) had wandered off, but no one really noticed. The sun had just set so it was starting to get dark, and Lindsey, noticing that Jack wasn't nearby, started looking for him. She saw he was in the middle of the road and yelled for him. I was up with Kevin on the backhoe bucket, helping to mount some plywood, and looked up to see him in the road just before the truck hit him (insert tears here). It was a terrible moment, and one I relived over and over during the rest of the weekend. Laini saw it happen as well, and the next few days were quite painful for everyone. He was such a character, and will be sorely missed.
Our pets become such a part of our lives. We've had three dogs hit on the road in front of the house now, and it's so hard to deal with when that happens. I don't regret for one second spending the money to buy the shock collar that Loki wears, and if there are objections from people (there have been a few) I let them know very quickly that it's because we love our dog that we have him wear it. I really don't care if others approve. It's the best $300 I ever spent.
Having a five year old grandchild can be such a wonderful experience. Last Saturday Laini and Sara were at my house, and while Sara was napping, Laini and I were outside. We were checking out the chickens and she told me that "you can tell which ones are hens because the red thing lays down (the comb). The rooster's sticks up. Dale (a family friend) told me." "Well, Laini, I'm happy you told me that. I never was quite sure." Laini said "You should tell Grandma so she'll know too." I suggested to her that she should tell Grandma herself because I'm always telling Grandma stuff. A little later she asked me "Poppa, do you know much about farming?" "Not much" I had to admit. "Well, if you need to know anything you can ask me. Mom will tell me and I'll tell you." She sounded so serious, and right after, said "Mom says I'm learning responsibility." She reminds me so much of Lindsey at that age, it's almost like I have a chance to make up for lost time when she was young. At least that's what I'm telling myself.
Playing music has taken on a life of it's own. Some of the picking friends I've made wanted to start a band, so I've gotten involved with that. We've been picking like crazy the last 5 or 6 weeks trying to get ready for a benefit show that happened last night. It went well, all things considered. At least we can back off practice for a while. Three nights a week gets old real quick, and I'm ready to start doing a little recreational picking again, that is, once I get rid of this cold I've picked up. I feel like crap right now, so it may be a few days until I'm back to normal. It's funny, because all this advice I've been handing out, you know "Don't apologize on stage", "Don't let someone else's mistake throw you off", "Watch the facial expressions" get forgotten in the heat of battle. I actually apologized twice last night after mentioning repeatedly to Steph (the queen of apologies) to avoid doing that. It's enough to piss you off.
We're still waiting to hear when Jon gets to come home. It's kind of annoying, but it must be really annoying for him. Lost records should be a thing of the past by now, but apparently not. Gabrielle started her training, finally, and will hopefully be happier with her situation. Camping season is almost upon us, and there's some discussion about going next weekend. Track is in full swing, although I've missed several meets due to other obligations, and it looks like tomorrow will be another no-show for me. Such is life....
Lots to report. Gabi is in Arizona waiting to start school. Jon's married now and in Texas at Air Force advanced training. Nathan's daughter is doing well, and photos are in the Gallery section.
I was thinking recently about my first memories. I can remember looking up at my father while we were both in the bathroom. I remember being very sad one day because I missed my father so much and longed to see him. I remember sticking a fork in an electrical socket, which started my lifelong fascination with all things electrical. I remember stepping into a picnic basket onto loaves of bread (that didn't go over well at all). I remember my father taking me fishing once. We caught these little sunfish (I think). I remember riding in a car with several of my aunts once, and saying that going up and down the hills makes my "peepee tickle".
Not much else to say right now. Sometimes I'm so uninspired.......
We now officially have two children in the military. Jonathan left for Air Force basic training on Monday, and Gabi gets done with Army basic training this Saturday. It's impossible not to be concerned about their safety, but as adults, the decision was theirs to make. I'm happy that they are both taking steps to do something real with their lives, and as both Rose and I were in the military (she in the Army, and oddly enough, I in the Air Force), we find it difficult to be too critical of their choices. It's not even that different, as we both enlisted while the Vietnam War was still going on. Still, the mess in Iraq is enough to concern any parent whose children are entering the military. George Bush has gotten us into a situation we can't possibly win, and I think the decision to overthrow Saddam was made very early in his presidency. I hate the fact that I voted for him, but the position on abortion the Democratic party espouses makes it impossible for me to support them. I can't simply sit out the elections, so there you are.
The annual Thanksgiving trip to Kentucky was very nice this year, for the most part. Lindsey and her daughters came with us, which made the trip a lot more fun for me. Ronnie and I knew that Rachel, Taylor, and Justin were coming from Texas, but no one else did, so that was kind of neat to see the reaction when they walked in the door. On the way, we made a stop in Grand Rapids to see Neal and his family. They were visiting for a 50th anniversary party, so the trip was very special, because we were able to see all of the grandchildren for at least a day or two. I got to spend some time with my sister and her (relatively) new family, and enjoyed that very much. The last night we were there, Bill, Bret, and I played guitars for a bit. We all encouraged Tawny to play the guitar, so she did, at least for a few minutes. Bret is quite good, so I hope he continues to play and improve. Hopefully he'll get over this idea that he can't sing. The family reunion was pretty good, and I was able to see some people for the first time in many years.
What?! 12:25??? Crap, I gotta work tomorrow. More later.....
WHAT A WEEKEND!!! We drove to Lansing, where I got to pick out a new mandolin, drove to Sterling Heights to drop off Rose, Ronnie, and Tara, drove to Blanchard to visit Nathan & Alex and pick with Milo, Al, and Dave. Saturday it's back in the car to Birch Run and my long-anticipated visit to Bob's place. After a tour we hopped in the car and were off to Otisville to pick with Ken and Buzz. It was a typical session, and we got back to Bob's around 4 am. Up at 8, eat breakfast, go to Sterling Heights, pick up the girls, head home. We got back around 8 o'clock Sunday.
The biggest thing for me, of course, is my new mandolin. It's a Michael Kelly, not the top of the line, but pretty close. I played a $5,000 Gibson mandolin just for comparison. My M.K. didn't look, play or sound as good, but it is close in every respect. Good workmanship, low action, and a nice round sound. I'm pleased with my choice and would recommend the line to anyone looking for a good mid-priced mandolin. Elderly's is such a cool place, and worth a visit to Lansing just for the experience. Walls full of guitars, banjos, mandolins, violins, etc. Vintage instruments mixed in with new instruments, all waiting to be played, and no one will mind (unless you abuse them). I was able to find my ideal guitar (Martin HD-28) and play it for a while. An altogether satisfying experience. I wanna go back.
I haven't spoken with Gabrielle yet. I know she's ok, but it would still be nice to speak with her. You know, little questions...How's the food? Stuff like that. I doubt we'll be able to go there for her graduation from basic training, but I'm thinking that's not really expected anyway. It would be nice to know what job she's going to get, but we'll have to wait for that too. Hey, Gabi. Give us a call sometime, OK?
We're about halfway through the girl's basketball season. The JV team is having a good season, winning most of their games. Ronnie is a starter and seems to be having a great time playing this year, other than the scratches and bruises that mysteriously appear after the games are over. Some of those girls play rough! She landed hard on the floor during the last game and ended up with a bruised hip. It's a little worrisome at times, but basketball is a relatively safe sport.
During the picking session with Bob, he got the urge to call Stephanie (at 2:30) and have her sing a song with us. It was so funny listening to their conversation. The whole night was a blast. We're fixin to do it all again, this time Steph will be there, since we're picking at her house. Buzz and Ken won't make it, but Tim, the Baitshop Boys, Rudy, Jennifer, Gilbilly, Tom, and who knows who else might show up. So Saturday at 2:00 it's off to the ice cream store in Pickford for a session, and then around 5:30 heading to the Soo to pick with the others. It sounds like a plan.....
Wheatland Music Festival happened again last weekend, and I had a blast. The weather was perfect, and having the camper along was a good decision since I didn't have to deal with the fermenting porta-johns. I had extra room in the camper, so I was asked to watch a little girl whose mom was working as a volunteer on the night shift. She is a sweetheart, and reminds me so much of Laini. She woke me about 6 am and cried a bit, but went back to sleep soon after.
The Partly Brothers played every night, so there wasn't as much picking as I had hoped, but I made up for it at some other campsites. Playing the mandolin with Al, Milo, and Dave1 was a bit of a challenge, and I was able to demonstate my technique of wandering about the neck trying to find some notes that fit. It was pretty funny at times. The food was good, the ribs were excellent, the music was abundant, and the beer was cold. What more could you possibly ask for? I'm sure it's safe to say that a good time was had by all.
I was able to stop by and see Nathan and Alex's house. It's a nice little place and should suit them very well. Alex is handling the pregnancy very well and Nathan is so excited by the new baby coming. He has suffered no ill effects as a result of the accident, seems to be settled in his job, and now has a house to tinker with. The next few years should be very interesting for them.
Gabi heads off to basic training today. I wish I had been there to see her off, but there was no way to do that. Talk about changes! Gabi, if you get a chance to read this, here's a way to get a great shine on your shoes: put a thick coat of polish on the leather and use a lighter to get it warm enough to flow a little (don't burn the leather). Rub it in with cotton balls until it shines shines shines. Of course, your mother got into trouble because the drill instructor thought she had used floor wax. I thought it was pretty funny, actually. Anyway, I wish her well, and offer this piece of advice: KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN!!!
Camping at the fair was good, with the exception of my trip to Ky. for Jeremy's funeral. That was hard, and my sister will be a long time recovering. There were so many people there, well over 500 that came to the wake (or "viewing") on Monday. He had many friends and will be missed by everyone that knew him. Tuesday, the day of the funeral, there was a downpour most of the day, until we went to the gravesite. The good part of the trip was spending time at Elaine's house and getting to know some of her crazy friends. I kept myself entertained on the trip down and back by singing along with the cd player. It's about 11 cds down and the same back. That's a trip I hope to not soon repeat.
My friends and I have been picking pretty often this summer. It's so much fun playing the mandolin with these folks. I've developed a real attraction with the older bluegrass and country and look for opportunities to play it. The Baitshop Boys are a local group that plays out and jams once a week on Sunday afternoon. We played a bit together at the shooting range last Saturday, and they invited me to join them whenever I could. They even have a web site - The Baitshop Boys. I think I'll take'em up on the offer.
It really has been 5 months since I made the last entry. Suffice it to say that this year has been quite busy. I have another granddaughter, Taylor, and she and Rachel lived here for the summer while Justin was working at camp. It was so nice to come home after work and get to see her and play with her. But she, her mother & father, and a big part of my heart just left for Texas on Saturday. I'm ok with them going; everybody's gotta be somewhere. I just wish they were a little closer so we could visit when we wanted to. 1500 miles is just too far to make a weekend visit worthwhile, though. As I was told, it's all the more reason to go to Texas for a visit.
Nathan and Alex are preparing to have their first child sometime around the end of the year. I hope they're ready. I think they are. It's such a life-changing event, though. I'm not sure anyone is really "ready" for children. You just hang on and do the best you can.
I had gone to the Sugar Island Music Fest this last weekend and had a great time there. I got up and played a few songs while Lise White and her group were getting set up. That wasn't a big deal. I didn't care whether I played on stage or not. I was there for the picking around the campfire after the stage shut down. Well, I wasn't disappointed. We played for several hours. A good part of that time I spent playing the upright bass. It's such a great instrument to play on, and Steph's bass is quite similar to the one I played in the bluegrass band 25 years ago. Jennifer has a Englehardt bass that is a wonderful instrument as well. The neck has a great feel, and the action is excellent. I left around 2:45 am, and ended up getting home around 4 am. A few hours of sleep and we were to head south for the party on Saturday.
It seems Nathan called last night to tell us he had wrecked his car. He didn't go to the hospital Friday night but he did go Saturday morning. He has a mild concussion and a really nasty looking bruise on his neck, but otherwise he is fine. One of the lessons learned out of this is to always try and secure stuff in your trunk, or don't carry loose metal objects, especially when the rear seat folds down. He was carrying a small floor jack that ended up through the front windshield because it came through the rear seat. Yep, he was lucky. We all were.
So the party was fun. Milo and Marie did a great job with the party. They had even set up a stage. We played until around midnight. I'm officially a Partly Brother now (the name of their band). We'll get together at Wheatland again this year. Something to look forward to.
A few of the other highlights....Gabi is scheduled to go in the Army in September, and Jonathan is talking with the Air Force recruiter. I'm a bit nervous about my children going in the military, but it's not my decision. We bought a 5th wheel, and have been doing more camping this summer. My studio is now usable, although it's not done. I really like having someplace to go when I want to practice that won't disturb anyone.
Lot's more, but no time.....
Not long ago I realized my old Fender amp had gone missing. The last time it was used was at a friend's house, so I called and found out that, sure enough, it had been left there. Better than that, it no longer worked. Since it's at least 30 years old, I'm sure age is what did the dirty deed. When I looked at it, I found the main filter cap burnt up and a couple other components as well. Crap! Looking around at new amps was fun, but a new all tube amp isn't cheap, and I won't consider solid state. So off to the web to look for repair parts. There are several choices for rebuild kits for a Princeton Reverb, so I was able to compare notes from one site to another. Torres Engineering has a good selection of kits and a custom bias kit available for the Princeton Reverb amp, so they got the order. More than I wanted to spend for sure, but I should have a sweet amplifier at the end of the process. I plan to start the rebuild today.
Today is also the baby shower for Rachel. I guess it's a tradition, but I'm gonna be hiding while it's taking place. Lindsey's been doing the Lion's share of the work, since Rose's back is really bothering her these days. I hope they have fun.....
Sara is so funny these days. She's right on the cusp of intelligible speech. Laini is creating new words and phrases on a daily basis, such as wondering what a "piling cabinet" was, or telling her mom that she was being "annoring". I can't help but wonder what great stuff I'm missing because Charlotte and Sofia live so far away. We'll get to see them at the end of the month. I'm sure not looking forward to the drive, but that's the price of admission. I can hear her now;"Maybe we can stop at Graceland again". Sorry dear, I don't think so. Elvis has left the building and he's not coming back.
I received a nasty shock when I checked my credit card statement on-line last night. I noticed a charge from my telephone company of $762 dollars for the December billing (it was posted on Jan 25th). Holy shit!!!! How'd that happen? Did my dialer get hijacked? Nope, because I use IPCop for the proxy server. It's not subject to that kind of attack. As I looked at my setup, I noticed that the number being dialed was a Sault Ste. Marie number. But since it's now a 'local' number, what difference does that make? Well, as I found out today, that only applies to the first 2000 minutes. After that it's $.03 a minute, and for December there were over 24,000 minutes used. Not only that, it's been that way the whole of January, so altogether, I've gotten almost $1500 in charges calling what I thought was a local number. Of course, they claim that all their customers were informed of the change, but the people I asked today were clueless regarding this little gotcha.
Nowhere on the bill is a mention of the 2000 minute limit, and so I'm going to fight it, but I'm concerned about it, no question there. I can think of several things to say to them...I specifically had the line set up with no long distance when I ordered it, and for two and 1/2 years there have been no problems, but I'm told that calls to the Soo are not long-distance anymore. So why am I getting charged then? The people I spoke with were nice enough, but I have to wait until someone calls me back, a process that could take up to a month. Why wasn't I alerted to the change in the usage by the telephone company? Why in Hell should they care, since it is revenue to them, and who gives a crap what it does to their customers. Their defense was 'It was what the Public Service Commision and the company agreed to'. I didn't agree to it!! There needs to be a method set up so that when usage patterns change dramatically, the customer is notified by e-mail, telephone call, or some other positive method.
So, kids, if you're reading this, don't call home about it....I'm still trying to figure out a way to tell your mother.......
My studio project is proceeding slowly. I did manage to get the computer room in some reasonable order, though. It's so much more open than the old space, even though the room is two feet shorter.
With the new insulation, vapor barrier, and drywall, lots of small air leaks are gone, so when it's done the basement should be a bit warmer in the winter. Laini also gets a great hiding spot out of it.
She's already got it furnished with a blanket, pillow, and a box of toys her mom dug out from the storage room.
Of course, the big news is about the accident last Wednesday. I was heading to work, about 1/2 mile north of Main Street in Pickford, going about 40 mph (speed limit is 55). I noticed a car a few hundred feet in front of me with his brake lights on waiting to turn left. I pressed on the brake pedal and immediately went into a slide. Once the left front tire hit the icy snowbank, my Jeep flipped right over. I managed to get unhooked, turn the engine off, open the door, and crawl out within about 30 seconds. Amazingly enough, I wasn't hurt, just a little sore. There's no exaggeration in the reports of how easy SUVs are to roll. I didn't think I was going fast enough to roll it, but that's what happened. Perhaps I hit the brakes too hard. Or not. It doesn't matter now, I guess.
One of the more annoying aspects of this whole affair is that the state trooper issued a ticket for 'Failure to use due caution and care'. He told me 'the road is never at fault'. What? In other words, weather is never a factor. Tell that to the people involved in the 200 car pileup near Lansing. Is that what they're teaching our state police these days? Well, I wrote a letter to the local magistrate and asked that the ticket be invalidated. I hope that happens.
Winter drags on. It has been pretty cold the last few weeks. Yesterday wasn't quite as cold, and a good thing too, since Loki and I were locked out of the house for about 4 hours. I got back to the house about 2 pm yesterday and decided to clear the driveway and walkways of drifted snow. After changing clothes, I went out to get started, and brought Loki outside so he could relieve himself. When I tried to get back in, I found that the doors were all locked, and the keys were inside. I cleared the snow, and spent the next 3 hours sitting in the car, Loki and I trying to keep each other warm, and trying not to get upset, since it was my own stupidity that got me there. I was almost successful. Along about 6 pm the rest of the family showed up, had a good laugh, and I went inside to get warm. I'm so happy they could see the humor in this......
I'm off on my latest project....to convert an underused storage room into a recording space. Of course, in order to do that I need to move all the "stuff" that's in there right now. Next it's build a floor, followed by some walls, electrical, soundproofing, etc. I've got about 130 square feet to work with, so I should be able to come up with a nice little music room. There have been so many times in the past 18 months that I wanted to set up my recording equipment again, but I haven't had a good place to do it. I expect I'm at least a month away from actually hooking things up, but the project is on it's way.
Speaking of projects.....the latest project was widening the stairs. Since we moved in here, we've had continual problems with people slipping on the stairs. I finally got the motivation (thanks, Rose) and time to do something about it. Each stair is one and a half inches wider now, with new carpet laid by my friend Fran. The first day was spent widening each stair, but I ran out of time before starting on the bottom step. It was a bit of a dilemma because the first step was about 13 inches high, which would create real problems getting on and off the stairs. A little thought produced this temporary fix:
I always knew that old computer would be useful for something. Here's the completed project, minus the baseboard:
Yesterday was my first day with glasses. I don't care for them, but the world looks a little sharper when they're on. The big surprise in all this is that I can see better without them when working on the computer. For closeup and distance, they seem to help, but for distance of 2-3 feet, my unaided eyes still work best. At least I can read the liner notes on cds again.
We got our first real snowfall of 2004 last night. 6-8" of the white stuff, and more to come. It's been no secret over the years that I hate snow and get depressed when it happens. For the last 15 years I've used a snow scoop to clear paths around the house but recently decided I'd had enough, so I bought a used snow blower. Today was the day I decided to head into the Sault to pick up my newest toy, er, tool.
After unloading the fuel tank (that's another story) I was driving my pickup truck and needed some air in one of the tires, so I headed to Skinner's. As I was coming to a stop sign, I pressed on the brakes, and felt something kind of "pop". The brake pedal proceeded to the floor with no sign of slowing the truck down. Fortunately I wasn't going too fast and was able to slow down by downshifting. I wasn't able to stop at the intersection, but did slow down enough to avoid going out in the intersection by turning sharply to the right and hitting a snow bank. I managed to limp it home and park the truck without running into the garage. So here I am with a broken truck and the snow to thank, at least in part, for not driving into an intersection and possibly causing a traffic accident. Talk about conflicted!
It's been over two months since the last entry. Lot's of reasons for it, none very good. Since the last entry, we've made a trip to Kentucky, sold the old property, moved the site to a new hosting service, learned that I have two more grandchildren coming, bought a new camera, completed a computer upgrade, and wrote and sold a major best-seller (just kidding on that one).
Timing is everything. It was never so apparent to me as the day Rose and I were at the laundomat shortly after we were married. We were busy carrying several baskets of dirty clothes to the washing machines and had just passed one another in the middle of the room. Fortunately, neither of us paused for a PDOA (public display of affection). Suddenly the wall exploded, throwing broken concrete blocks all around the room, with most of the debris landing right where we had passed not 5 seconds before. What happened was that a lady driving by had lost control, jumped the curb, and buried the front end of her car in the wall we so narrowly escaped getting buried by. She had some kind of problem, a heart attack, a stroke, or whatever. I never found out for sure. She was unconcious when we went outside, and an ambulance had to be called to get her to the hospital. Timing.....if we had stopped or even slowed down as we passed they would have been digging us out from beneath that wall. I think about that day whenever I drive by that building.
I finally managed to replace my aging Sony Mavica FD-91 with a new Minolta Dimage A2. I'm still getting used to the settings and how to interpret the display, but it's a pleasure to use so far. I'm starting to experiment with some of the neater features like exposure bracketing. While we were in Kentucky for Thanksgiving I went out on a clear night to play with it and managed to get some pretty decent shots of the night sky and the moon. I've put a couple of them in the photo album, along with a picture of a rare Gibson Les Paul that my sister's new husband happens to own. Man, what a sweet guitar. Bill seems to be a good guy, and I look forward to hanging out with them the next time I make it to Hawesville.
I'm still picking up the pieces from the move to a new hosting service, but Blue Domino pissed me off one too many times. Here's hoping I can get the RSS page working properly again soon, because that was my favorite spot on the site. Something about the cache file......
Pickford beat Brimley last night (football). We expected it to be a tough game, and it was until the last 5 minutes, when Brimley seemed to just collapse. The score was 8-2 going into the 4th quarter, which made for an exciting evening. Within 6 minutes, Pickford scored 3 times and it was over for sure. It sure was fun to watch for a while though. Jon played a good game and got a couple pretty impressive tackles. We actually got to bring Laini along for the game. Not only that, she was able to stay at the house last night. That's been a rare occurance, and one I would like to have happen more. It's not our call, though, so we'll take it when we can.
The Wheatland festival was excellent...beautiful weather, excellent music, good food, and a view you couldn't beat (we were near the showers). The main problem I had was with my foot hurting, so I didn't walk around as much as I would have liked to. The area is pretty big, with half-a-dozen separate campgrounds, and at least that many activity areas. Workshops, how-tos, demonstrations, and 3 or 4 performance areas all added up to one hell of a lot of activity. I had thought about trying the open mic sessions, but it didn't work out. It didn't matter though, because I was having a good time at the campsite, so what do I need an open mic session for? Besides that, my foot hurt, and I didn't want to walk up there again.
Al (guitar player in the band) and I sat up till 2:30 Saturday morning, watching the parade go by. He's a funny guy, and kept me entertained most of the weekend. We were near Lost World (each campsite has it's own personality, and Lost World is well-named). From time to time as the night wore on, one of the camps would start making a lot of noise which was picked up by a camp nearby and so on. The effect was very much like a wave. It was still pretty noisy when I went to bed, but it's all part of the experience, you know? Then Saturday came bright and early, and we started picking about 1 pm. On and off (mostly on) for the next 14 hours. I finally packed mine away about 3:30 Sunday morning. There was a small but appreciative audience, and I got to pull out some old and dear songs. It was great. I wanna do it again next year.
Last weekend my brother Larry came to visit. I was quite surprised when I found he actually was coming, since it had been discussed for many years, but hadn't happened. We played tourist, and Rose had a dinner for him Sunday. Monday we left early, went to Canada (to the casino), Whitefish Point, Marquette, and then to Gwinn to drop him at the motel. It was a nice visit and I'm glad he came. Too bad he couldn't stay longer. Next time bring Nanhee along, ok?
I'm going to take another shot at my balky computer downstairs. The disk error has just about got me stumped, but, the Windows XP class I just finished gave me the chance to ask a few questions regarding this problem so, armed with some new ideas, I'm on my way to try again. Wish me luck.
We're home from the fair now...8 whole days of non-stop fun. There were a few moments, such as yesterday morning when the water pressure dropped to somewhere in the neighborhood of 0 psi. It seems a water line had broken near the horse barns, and water had to be shut off for a while. A minor inconvenience in what was otherwise a pretty enjoyable week. A little rain, few biting insects, spending quality time with my guitar AND grandchildren. All in all, it's been a good week. Next weekend is the Wheatland Festival. Nathan and Alex will be there, as well as Alex parents. Milo (Alex's father) plays bass guitar in a band, so I expect he will have an instrument along. There's also an open mic session on Friday and Saturday night that I plan to try. Only two songs, though, so I would probably do "Warts and All" and "Shadows of the Past". It should be fun. It will certainly be the last blast of the summer, so let's make sure it's a good one!
Football is in full swing, with games every Friday for a while...ditto for basketball, except those are twice a week. Basketball season is a bit like track, except longer. We look forward to it, waiting excitedly for the season to start, and then before too long, wait excitedly for it to end. I love watching track; it's my favorite school sport. We've had some very good athletes in our family, with Rose's gene contribution being the primary reason for that (her father was an excellent runner). All my children have participated in track at Pickford. They've had varying levels of success, but all put in a great deal of effort and are better people for the experience. Veronica is the only girl that's stuck with basketball, and by the way things look, she will be a good addition to the team as she moves through high school. I have some film of her in the 5th grade, and even then could tell she would be a good basketball player. It remains to be seen how far she takes it.
The pig is gone now, sold at auction on Saturday. Ronnie received $2.60 a pound on the hoof, which is better than I thought she might get. It was my first time to the auction, and was interested in exactly how it worked. The auctioneer sat in a high chair and "sang" out the bid, and the bid spotters would shout out when a bid was placed. It seemed to work pretty well, except when the animals were a little balky. Laini asked me "Is that a song, Poppa?" when she heard the auctioneeer start the bidding. "Well, it's the auctioneer's song" was my response. She danced for a while and then we went for a walk to find Ronnie, who seemed a bit nervous about how it would go. I think she had visions of not getting a good price for her pig, but that went well. It's a great compliment to the local businesses in our area that they support the 4-H club auctions so generously. A cage of 3 or 4 chickens were selling for over $100, amazingly enough. The Grand Champion steer Was over $3.00 a pound, (all 1200 pounds of him) and the reserve Grand Champion was almost $4.00 a pound (1400 lbs). That's a lot of money! But, it's all for the kids, right?
Work on the site has dropped off a bit, what with all the other stuff going on in the last month. I added a thumbnail slide show to the home page, and got the calendar working again. Next project is to get some new pictures in the album. I have quite a few that Neal has sent, and more that I've taken. I'll be sure to work on that, I promise. I plan to get the "sort by date" option working again, which died when the site was migrated to a new server. It's an interesting technique, and perhaps when it's working again I'll write an article about how it works.
It was a bit of a whirlwind weekend. Friday night it was off to St. Paul, Mn. to pick up Jonathan. We drove through the night and arrived around 9am. Since he was busy until 10:30pm, we were able to visit the Cathedral of Conspicuous Consumption, otherwise known as the Mall of America. It's huge, and has some stores that you have to see to believe. There's a store called "The Endangered Species Store". I wanted to add a sign that said "Get your skins before they're gone!" but it seemed like it might be in poor taste. Then there's the "Video Buddy Store". They had three walls full of the Video Buddy. Must be a popular thing, whatever it is. There were doughnuts as big as a Frisbee (the "Paul Bunyan"), an amusement park inside, and Ashley Simpson, live on-stage(???). It had it all!!!!!
So after wearing my knees and feet out, we ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday's, where I had the absolute best broccoli I've ever had. It was perfect, tender yet firm, beautiful color, and a flavor that was just...perfect. I could be a commercial for them. And the buffalo strips...ummmm. After that it was back at it in an attempt to at least see all the stores. It didn't work, by the way. I missed one whole level, unfortunately it was the level that Hooters was on. We left the mall, found the University of St. Thomas, where Jon was at, and hung around there for a while. We eventually found a shady place to park, and managed to get in a nap. Did you know that Minnesota's cigarette tax is so low, you can buy two packs for about a quarter more than one pack in Michigan. I think I see a business opportunity in the making:-)
While worshipping at the Cathedral, I had a chance to play with a Nikon D70. What a great camera! 6.1MP, 3.2 fps, external flash, interchangable lens, exposure times from over one second to 1/8000. I almost bought it, but came back to reality before it was too late. Too bad.
Anyway, after picking up Jon, it was off to Lansing to drop him at the Mi. State Police academy for the week. We made it with an hour to spare. We were one of the first to arrive, and Jonathan was in the first group of five. The letter he received had very specific instructions about how he should be dressed when arriving: blue jeans, t-shirt (tucked in), belt, tennis shoes, no jewelry, watches, cell phones, snacks, etc, etc, etc. Most of the kids got yelled at because of shirts not being tucked in, jewelry, sunglasses, and hats, but Jonathan won the prize. He showed up wearing the wrong shirt, the wrong pants, the wrong shoes, but at least he wasn't wearing sunglasses. I'm sure the point of the very specific instructions on how to dress for check-in was a test to see who was paying attention. Jon's mantra of "what's the big deal" will be challenged this week. At least I hope so.
It's been a quiet week in Lake WoeBeGone....oh, sorry. That's Garrison's line. It has been a good week though, with Neal and his family visiting. I decided to take the whole week off (except Monday) and have been puttering around the house, doing little things, and enjoying the visit mostly. I even got over to the property and did some fairly extensive clearing, complete with a bonfire, a few nights ago. Of course, without Kevin's help (his tractor and bushog) I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done. As it is, the area that's been cleared is about what we used to keep mowed when we lived there. I really miss it over there and keep having these recurring thoughts of building a house and moving back. I kind of hate the thought of starting over though. We're so close to being mortgage-free that it just doesn't make sense to start again. It deserves some thought.
The bonfire I mentioned was a nice evening. Everyone except Jon was there, and we sat around and reminisced about earlier times and events. I ended up staying until about 1 a.m. (had to make sure the fire was really dead). It would have been better if I hadn't broken a string on my guitar about 11:30, but that's sometimes the way it goes. The next hour and a half consisted of poking and prodding the fire, petting the dog, and thinking about all sorts of things. Surprisingly, I noticed almost no mosquitos. It was wonderful.
Neal and Jaclyn are leaving today. I've certainly enjoyed getting to know Charlotte. She's loads of fun and loves to cuddle. By this time next year she'll have a brother or sister. That's when the fun really begins. There was some discussion about meeting in kentucky for Thanksgiving, which would be wonderful, but not certain at this point.
The redesign of my site is almost complete, with most of what's remaining on the invisible level (at least to the public). The majority of change has been with the home page by adjusting it to match the other pages, and adding the tagboard. I do miss the guitar graphics for the buttons, so the next little "project" will be to modify the nav bar for graphic buttons. I'm already excited about it.....
Where were you when the Challenger exploded? Some people view it as a pivotal moment in history. Like the JFK assasination, many people can tell you with uncommon clarity about the moment they heard of the event. I was on my way home after leaving work early that day, because of the swelling in my face from poison ivy exposure. We had apparently burned some wood laced with poison ivy (or poison oak, perhaps), with Neal and I getting the worst of it. Just as I got on I-75, the radio station interrupted the music to make the announcement of the accident. 9/11 had that same effect. You knew that this was a pivotal moment in history as well, and would never look at the world in quite the same way. The United States has enjoyed a long period of relative safety, at least from outside influences. These days, however, everything is at risk. Our water supply, our power grid, and many other systems we depend on to maintain our lifestyle are all potential targets. How long can it be before something else happens as dramatic and tragic as the World Trade Center attack? The world is becoming less safe by the day, it seems. I sometimes wonder how much longer it will all last.
Stargate has turned into a bit of an obsession with me the last year or so. I'm not sure why, the storylines are sometimes silly and far-fetched, but the idea of it is so cool I just have to watch. Friday night...Stargate night....gotta go.
There are times I have to wonder just what the hell is wrong with me....
Yesterday I went to Marquette to hear President Bush speak at a "pep rally". It's the first time in 94 years a sitting president has come to Marquette so there were lots of excited people all around, and all I could do is wonder when it was going to be over. There were some protesters too, few in number but noisy. The fact is I hate politics and all that goes with it, including big affairs like this one. I guess I would have been more excited about it if I believed that he was the person that should hold the office, but the only thing that makes me more nervous than George Bush being president is John Kerry being president. Or maybe Al Gore. Or Bill Clinton. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to emulate my wife's approach. She decides who to vote for based on their position regarding abortion. Everything else is irrelevant. I'm usually not that black and white about things, but since most of what they say is bullshit anyway, it tends to cut through the crap.
I've started using version 0.9.2 of Firefox and really like it. Version 0.9.1 seemed to have a problem that caused pages to complete before they were rendered properly. Refreshing the page would usually fix it, but it was quite a pain. The current version seems to have that issue resolved, as well as blocking the shell exploit that was discovered a few days ago. In addition, there is a web developer plug-in that is proving to be pretty handy, and I've only begun figuring out all the stuff it can do. I highly recommend it.
I ordered the tickets today for the Wheatland Music Festival in September. It's a big affair, with 15,000 people attending last year. I also found out they have open mike times. If I get brave I might try it. Rose said something about singing with me. I'm not that brave.....
Summer seems to have arrived. It was a beautiful, warm day yesterday. Not many of those so far this year, that's for sure. I should enjoy it while we have it, but usually end up doing inside things. I'll have to work on that. Yesterday was the ceiling in the living room. Repairing the ceiling after a section of it collapsed has been a long drawn-out job, not because it's been especially hard, I just haven't devoted much time to it. A few weeks ago the drywall went up, and a few days ago I put on the joint compound. I saw in a hardware store this stuff that claimed to cover over very rough surfaces and would have a finished surface similar to our current ceiling, so I bought it, hoping it would let me avoid putting on another layer of compound and feathering, sanding, etc. Well, it didn't cover well enough (false advertising..the shock), so now I have to do it properly anyway, except it's going to be harder now that the other stuff is there. To top it off, the clerk at the hardware store gave me the wrong color paint. I wanted white, but for some reason she gave me bright white. This little episode has reminded me of a couple of life's rules: Never ever assume the clerk knows what they are doing, and don't cut corners just because you don't feel like doing it right.
I finally caved in and set up a browser detection script on my site so a stylesheet can be applied based on the viewing browser. There are just too many subtle differences between IE and Mozilla (my main browser and what I use to test with) to keep fudging the code so they come out close to the same. I did discover that the doctype declaration really does need to be there. I had a page that looked funny in IE until I added the doctype declaration to the page (left off by accident). Oddly enough, it rendered just fine in Mozilla.
Sara is crawling all over the place now. It should be lots of fun watching her and Charlotte get to know each other when they are together next weekend.
I saw a bear a few days ago on my way home from Jared's birthday party. I was on my bike and headed home when I noticed him off to my right, about 40 ft away and walking along as if he had an appointment to get to. For a fleeting moment I considered riding over to get a closer look. Fortunately, common sense kicked in and I watched from the road. This particular bear was a young one, just a bit bigger than Loki, but still would be in possession of a set of big teeth and several sharp claws (what's a drunken hillbilly's last words? 'Hey y'all, watch this'). I've not seen bear in the wild before, just the poor unfortunates that end up in zoos. The most cruel display I've ever seen was right here in the good ol' U.P. over around Christmas, Mi. There was this bear locked in a cage behind a bar. The cage he 'lived' in couldn't have been more than 200 sq feet total. I felt so terrible after seeing this. It would have been a kindness to put that poor animal out of his misery, since releasing him wasn't an option. I thought about that bear from time to time, but never stopped again, even though we passed by many times over the years. I heard he finally died some years ago. Thank God for that.
Neal and his family will be here soon, just a couple weeks now. It will be good to see them and the baby again. You can really see her father in her face. Getting Sara and Charlotte together should be fun. Hopefully the weather will be agreeable during their visit. I had thought about camping during the visit, but Neal didn't seem too interested in that. Oh well, we'll have to figure something else out.
I finally got the navbar working properly on the Flying Ball of Aluminum site I'm doing for Fran. I had used the CSS trick of changing backgrounds on a mouseover for the nav bar buttons, but IE and Mozilla displayed them differently. I ended up needing to detect the browser type and loading a different stylesheet for Mozilla than for IE. Last night I figured out how to vary the graphics for each button instead of all of them being the same. I'm not sure how I'll use that yet, but it's nice to know these techniques.
Sunday morning must be my 'official' blogging time, since on average that's when it happens. Since I can't stay in bed once awake, I often will be up by 7 am. It gives me time when the house is quiet and thoughts come a bit easier. I also like getting up early, which turns out to be a big surprise. When I was younger, my mother could not get me out of bed, much like Jon is these days. In fact, there are so many similarities between he and I when a teenager it's kind of disquieting. Let's hope he learns more quickly than I did. Right now I have my doubts about that.
We had a visit from the MSP last night. Seems there was a complaint filed regarding an event that Jon happened to be at, so he was interviewed. We were told he wasn't in any trouble, but it's very disturbing to come home and find a state police car sitting in your driveway. I thought at first that he was going to tell me about an automobile accident (Rose was on the road yesterday). Thankfully, it was nothing as serious as that. Thinking about the event afterwards, I came to realize that we've managed to raise five children without having to deal with the legal system. I hope it continues for the other two, but you never know for sure. It's so much easier these days to attract official attention. I can recall an incident with a motorcycle that, if it happened today, would likely mean a visit to the county lockup (no license) instead of being told to take it home and not ride it again until properly licensed. In that case, I was absolutely responsible for the violation, but the local sherrif decided not to pursue it. In the current situation, Jon just happened to be there, and really didn't do anything wrong, other than the place and time. We've told him more than once to choose wisely when picking his friends. I hope he eventually listens to that advice.
I bought a bicycle yesterday. It's a 21-speed Schwinn 'mountain' bike. It was a lot less than I was prepared to pay, only $132.00. Of course by the time I added the replacement seat, bottle holder, rear-view mirror, and lock, it was closer to $180, but that's still less than what I was prepared to pay for the bike alone. Rose is interested in getting a new bike as well, so we might be able to go on some rides together. I hope so, and have been thinking of the possibility of overnight bike trips, riding to Lindsey's house, trips to Kentucky (just kidding about that one). I bought a bike in 1975, a real nice one, suitable for racing. I rode that thing everywhere. Back and forth to work, to visit friends, shopping, etc. I remember one evening I was peddling around Hawesville and saw a friend of mine in a car. He asked how fast I could make it go. At the time I didn't know, but of course we had to find out after that. I peddled my ass off getting up to speed, and he drove beside me in his car. I seem to remember him telling me we were going 'about 30 mph' at the fastest point. It's doubtful I could have kept up that pace for long, but that wasn't important at the time. In fact, it still isn't. Yesterday, on my inaugural ride, I was blazing along at what was probably no faster than 10 miles an hour. It was such a beautiful day despite being a bit cool, and there was no particular reason to be in a hurry. I'm hoping that is the first of many.
Pickford Schools brought home another trophy last night. We went to the U.P. Finals to watch Jon and his team compete. Damned if they didn't win the meet. They beat Rapid River by 2 points. It's been 12 years since the Pickford boys last won U.P. Finals, so they were pretty excited. The girls didn't fare quite so well, as Rapid River won by 99 points (is that a record?). Three of the four years Gabi and Rachel were in H.S. track, their main competition at finals was Rapid River. Pickford won those meets, with the combined point spread for the three years at 10 points: 2.5, 2.5, and 5. Well, Ronnie and company will be there next year and should help make the team more competitive. I wanted to stay for the whole meet, but the 3200M runs (3 divisions, boys and girls, 2 hours scheduled) were just starting, Jon was done with his events, and we had a 4 hour drive to get home, so we left. A stop in Escanaba, and also at Lindsey's house, and we were home by 10 pm or so.
The funniest thing yesterday I saw happen was during the 400M relay. On the second handoff, the baton was passed, and apparently Curt didn't have a good grip on it, because he dropped it. I saw him slow down and reach for something, and then take off running full speed again. He had somehow caught the baton when it bounced. I got it on tape, and we watched it 3 or 4 times because I couldn't quite believe it. The best part was they still placed in that event.
Beautiful weather, no rain, and I had my hat. Quite a day, all in all.
Gabi made it to Marin's. She left on Thursday evening and stopped at Nathan's house for the night. She was getting ready to leave when she called Friday morning at 9:30, so I expected her to call Lindsey sometime Friday night or Saturday morning (we weren't home) to report the successful completion of her trip. Well, by Saturday morning, we had left 3 messages on the cell phone, woke up Lindsey and Kevin, tried several times to call Marin's, and gotten slightly frantic because we hadn't heard from her. During the track meet, Rose went on a mission to find a phone and make some calls. She was gone for what seemed like hours, which gave me lots of time to invent numerous nightmare scenes. I mean, surely if she found out Gabi was ok, she'd come right back to tell me, right? So if she's gone a long time that means she's still trying to get hold of someone, or she found out that the car had been found abandoned, and the police were on their way to the track to get me because someone found my wife collapsed by a pay phone..........See what I mean? The longer I waited for her, the more nuts I became. She eventually showed up and mentioned that Lindsey had heard from Gabi around noon (it's now 2:30). I asked her why she didn't come back right away to tell me. 'I went shopping'. SHOPPING!!! I was pretty annoyed, but let it go. At least Gabi is safe.
As Gabi was leaving Thursday evening, Laini pleaded to go with her 'I won't run away, I PROMISE! Please let me come with you!!!' It just about broke my heart. On Friday, as we were getting ready for our trip to Kingsford, Laini kept repeating 'I want to go on THE TRIP. I want to go on THE TRIP' as if it were some sort of mantra. We would have gladly taken her, but it wasn't likely her mom and dad would agree. I doubt I would have either if she were my child.
I've finally begun building a links database. I'm tired of modifying pages just to update links, so this should help. I probably should just convert over to one of the CMS systems available for PHP, but I'd really rather build my own. I learn more and it's simpler to maintain. Now all I need to do is figure out what I want.......
I saw "Shrek 2" last night....what a hoot! There's some truly funny scenes, some "been there, done that", and some jokes that don't work all that well. Overall, though, it's a funny, intelligent work. There's a little clip after the first set of credits that is quite funny, so make sure you stay for it. I don't often go to the theater, so it's always refreshing that a movie I pick to watch is actually worth watching.
I got to do a little target practice over the weekend. Rose ended up with Gene's 22 pistol. Since I was going to Salt Point for an overnighter, the pistol came along for the ride. We sat on the balcony and shot balloons, bocche balls, footballs, tables (Anthony gets credit for that), and trees. It was quite entertaining, almost addictive. I had to get the pistol out on Monday as well. I was determined to split at least one of those bocche balls, maybe both. I did hit it a number of times, but it was Tony that got the kill. He managed to split one of the balls, so the other is now sitting, all alone, waiting for us to come back and try again. I really like shooting Rose's pistol. It's easy to load and unload, has a nice balance to it, and is pretty accurate. It's also kind of neat to know that this pistol was probably one of Gene's most precious possessions. I'm sure he spent many hours firing, cleaning, and "playing" with it. Gloria reminded me that the last time her father shot it was on the beach at Salt Point in 2000. He had to be carried down and carried back, but it was a good day for him, I'm sure of that.
I'm home today (a normal workday) because this is my FDTHBTSB day (free day to help balance the state budget). It could have been worse (I could be looking for a job), but it still hurts a bit to have a forced day off. I wonder what the legislators had to give up.....nothing is my guess. When you write the rules, why would you write them to hurt yourself? Working for state government can be very positive. Dealing with the technology we use to run the networks has been a learning experience for me, and might become even more of a learning experience in the near future. The downside, however, is having so much dependency on tax revenues, public policy and politicians, the latest "grand idea" from Lansing, and the constant reorganization my department has been dealing with for the last 3 years, and which is likely to continue for another 5 years or more. Most people I deal with are trying to keep a positive attitude about it, but there is a possibility that our duties will be contracted out. There's also a possibility we will be absorbed back into our original departments, but that's not likely at this point. Going back to Corrections wouldn't be such a bad thing in my view. I'm not alone, by the way.
Laini and Sara should be here any minute. While Gabi is home these few days, she's trying to spend as much time as possible with them, and who can blame her? Once she leaves for her new position, I'm sure it will be quite some time before she returns home. It's a good thing to see your children go out and start trying to make their way in the world, but it's hard at the same time. It makes it even harder when you just know they don't have a clue about what it takes to be independent (it's not necessarily Gabi I'm referring to). That's something almost everyone eventually figures out.
Rachel called a few days ago and told me how unhappy she was. It seems there's more to being a nanny than watching children. That's no surprise to me...there has to be some housekeeping, food prep, laundry, etc. I'm sure it was no surprise to Rachel either. For the woman Rachel worked for, however, it was carried to an extreme. Rachel told me she was made to iron "nightshirts". Iron pajamas, for Chrissakes?!?! When I dropped her off, I had an uncomfortable feeling about this family, and it was little surprise that it ended the way it did. Oh, I didn't mention that? Allow me to digress.....
It seems Rachel had been trying to talk to the mother for at least a couple days to let her know it wasn't working out. She was planning to let them know that she wasn't the right person for them, that she was too close to the children's age to be an effective supervisor, especially since there didn't seem to be a lot of control from the parents. I even saw that in the short time I was there, the evening we dropped her off. There was this little thing with a cd player that showed me the parents didn't have good control of the boy (the youngest). According to Rachel, it's the kids that run the house. After being avoided for a couple days, Rachel finally cornered the mother, and told her they had something important to discuss. Again, according to Rachel, at that point, she was told "No we don't, because you're fired". Rachel called her friend, packed her stuff, and got the hell out of there. She understands now why there have been 16 or so nannys in the last nine years (according to the mother).
It's disappointing that things didn't work out. I want to see her succeed at something. It's pretty common these days for young people to drift from one thing to another, not having a clue what they should be working toward, and I can see Rachel is part of that group. She wants to give this Nanny thing another try, but in a situation she is better able to handle. I wish her luck.....
I'm in the middle of an upgrade to my main system right now. I found this ASUS motherboard, the A7N8X-E that seemed to be all that, and then some. It was $95 bucks from M-Wave, where I usually buy components. I bought a AMD 2400+ processor as an upgrade last year but was unable to use it since the system became unstable after replacing just the processor. The ASUS motherboard will handle up to a 3200+, so I can wait until the price of those come down and pop one in eventually. The motherboard seems to be a solid piece of work. It's got everything but a coffeemaker interface...SATA, IEEE1394 (firewire), 5.1 surround sound, AGP8X, dual lan ports (gigabit), and what appears to be a full suite of media creation tools (WinDVD).
The only problems I've had so far were ones that I created, mainly because I was trying to upgrade without redoing the boot disk. My video capture card (ATI Radeon) seems to be fairly picky about how the software is installed and then upgraded. There are 8 or so entries in device manager for the components on the card, and unless it's done correctly, all 8 will turn into unknown devices after upgrading the control panel software. That's my only complaint about the card, other than the 800X600 resolution limit if you want to use the TV out. It does a nice job of capturing, though, which is the reason I bought the thing to begin with. If the upgrade gives me enough horsepower, I plan to start capturing in a compressed format, instead of uncompressed AVI. Them files are SOOOOO BIG. 2 hours of uncompressed video will fill up the 230GB disk array with a little to spare.
well, I gotta go check on my disk format (60 GB takes a while to format no matter what you have it connected to)....
Dear Diary,
Time to play catch-up. It's been weeks and weeks since I last wrote you. Hard to believe until I think about all the stuff that's going on.
Track is going full-tilt. With both High School and Junior High, the average is three meets a week. Sometimes more. That's going to decrease though, since the last Junior High meet is next Thursday. Veronica had a meet yesterday, and did very well. She was so excited after running the 200 meter and coming in 3rd. 'I cut 3 seconds off my time, and I beat that Ellsworth girl'. Ronnie lost to her in the 100M at Ellsworth, so it was a big thing. Her relay races were good too, except a couple handoffs slowed them down a bit. Ronnie's a great kid. I'm quite proud of her.
I love track. It's so much fun to get out and watch the kids run, throw, jump, etc. It's always a plus when the weather is good. Lately the weather hasn't cooperated too much. Well, after all, it's only the middle of May, right? It's a relief when the season's over, as well, because of the number of meets so close together. They have to do the whole season in seven weeks, so they have to be close together. It's hard on team supporters, but it's harder on the kids. The end is in sight, since Ronnie just has 4 more years, but by then Laini will be in school, so I guess it never really ends, does it?
Right after the meet, we went to the Rye's farm and got a pig. yes, she's doing it again.....I wasn't asked, so didn't get to say no. Since I apparently have no input into this, I decided that I get to move a computer upstairs (Rose has been against having anything but a laptop upstairs. She just lost her vote). The media computer comes up here, finally. I doubt she knows that includes the stereo (hee hee hee).
The trip to New York came off without a problem. Kevin and I drove Rachel to her new 'home' and met the family she is living with. As we drove away, I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of leaving her there. But, this was her choice, and she is old enough to make decisions for herself. Well, she called last night. Apparently, she's uncomfortable there, and is thinking about calling the Nanny service to help her find a new family. She still wants to do this, but it appears that this is not the right family for her. I really wish she had been able to meet them before deciding, but it didn't happen. It's hard to stand by while your children go through these inevitable growing pains, but you do them no favors by trying to bail them out whenever a problem occurs. We're still trying to figure out what the right amount of involvement is......
While we were in the 'Empire state' we were going to check out Manhattan, so on Saturday morning, we headed by train into the heart of New York City. Once we arrived at Penn Station, we walked the 4 or so blocks to the Empire State building. I knew it is a huge structure, but you have to see it to really appreciate the SIZE of it. Tickets to the top can be had for only $12 a pop, follow this line, please. At least some of the workers were polite. They have the cattle-herding process down pat, but I'm sure it's necessary. We waited in line for 20 minutes to buy tickets, then another 30 minutes in various holding pens until we got to step out on the observation level. During the whole process, I couldn't help it, every now and agin, a 'Moo' or 'Baaah' would slip out. I don't remember any of this from 'Sleepless In Seattle'. What's up with that???
Anyway, it was a nice day, very clear, visibility at 25 miles, and the view was spectacular. I plan to post some composite pictures from my trip to the top, just as soon as I get them done. After coming back down to earth, we found a subway station and got on, heading to the World Trade Center site. We were told that Canal Street is the place to get off, so we did. As it turns out, that's about 12 blocks from the site...12 BIG city blocks. By the time Kevin and I got there, we were both limping. It sucks getting old.....I'm glad we decided to go there, but I was a bit disappointed with the inability to see much. The fencing was not camera-friendly, and was too far back from the edge. I'm sure they need to worry about crowd-control, and keeping people from exercising their own stupidity, but it was still a little disappointing to be so restricted. Oh well, I'm sure they're upset I was disappointed (not).
Getting back on the subway (at the station right by the site, by the way), we found it was too crowded, and there were no seats. That was ok with me, it's walking that hurts. Kevin, however, was trying to not fall down from his sore ankle. A seat opened up fairly quickly, and he was able to sit down then. When we got back to 34th Street, we had about 4 blocks to walk to Penn Station. Four very crowded blocks. There were people everywhere, and one lesson quickly learned is that you can't be polite when trying to move. You have to walk as if people will get out of your way, and generally they will. We finally got back to Penn Station, caught our train back, and headed back home. I've had an experience I've wanted for a long time, and as far as I'm concerned, once is quite enough, thank you very much.
I found this image here.
 | Accompanying text from the article: 'This image shows the differences in daytime land surface temperatures collected between July 2001 and July 2003. A blanket of deep red across southern and eastern France shows where temperatures were 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter during the summer of 2003 (Credit: NASA).' |
Working on the site today. I've been interested in putting a calendar on the site, and found one that works well at the Codewalkers web site. It installed easily and, with a little tweaking, fits in very nicely. Once it was up and running, I started entering the 2004 Track schedule. At least now I won't need that piece of paper to keep track of when and where the meets are at. With both High School and Jr High meets to attend, it's non-stop until June, but I do enjoy it.
It was a beautiful day today. Around 60 degrees, sunny, with a bit of wind out of the Northwest. A couple more days like this one and the front yard will be completely dry. It can't come too soon for me. Of course, now we can see all the crap that the snow had covered. The coming of spring brings with it spring cleaning. A small price to pay, all in all.
The following little tale is a result of several hours in a car with the DITheads I work with. We were telling stories and this one popped out, so I thought I'd write it down. When I was in the Air Force, I worked on the B-52 aircraft that were stationed at Kincheloe Air Force Base, where I happen to work now (it was converted to a state prison in 1977). I was on flight status for a while, and flew missions when there were problems to evaluate. My first flight was so cool. I had a ringside seat right behind the pilot for the whole flight, and got to watch everything from takeoff roll to parking on the flightline. I had been given a headset to listen in with, but didn't hear anything. I remember thinking "These guys really know what they're doing. They don't even need to talk to each other". I eventually figured out it was because I had the headphones plugged in wrong.
Everything was fine until we went low-level (about 4 hours into the flight). Flying at 500 feet will shake you up pretty good, even in an aircraft as large as a B-52. Of course I had eaten my lunch, including the milk they so thoughtfully provided. Well, it wasn't long before I was puking my guts up. Note to self:Don't EVER drink milk before flying. The thing about air sickness is that you really don't start feeling better until you're back on the ground, so for the next 3 hours I was sick sick sick.
My next flight was better; at least I didn't get sick. I did, however, get a good look at the runway. For this mission, I was riding downstairs with the navigator and radar navigator. The r.n. noticed the latch wasn't completely closed on the belly hatch, and asked me to close it. Well.....instead of closing the latch I somehow opened it instead. The hatch swung open and I could see the runway rushing by (we were on takeoff roll at the time). Holding on to a support with one hand and the hatch handle with the other, I struggled to get the hatch closed so it could be latched. I was finally able to get it closed and latched without alerting the aircrew to what happened, but I've always wondered if the ground crew watching the takeoff noticed the hatch pop open.
I had a 'Wow....that's my kid!' moment last night. Without going into details, Jon was in a potentially bad situation and made a good decision about what (not) to do. He demonstrated common sense that I probably wouldn't have given him credit for, and it both surprises and pleases me. I've whined in these entries often enough about my relationship with him, so I figure I should crow a little when he shows that he really is capable of making good decisions. He's still in trouble, but.....
Track starts next week. Jon is all geeked up about it. Ronnie is not as excited, but seems to be looking forward to the season. With both High School and Junior High meets to go to, it looks like I'll be taking some time off. It's just so much harder than it used to be. I used to be able to just go whenever I wanted, and I can still do that, but it's so much busier at work now, it's hard to feel good about being gone too much. As it is, I doubt I'll be able to make them all, but I will try.
I mentioned something about a van window a couple entries ago, but failed to give any details. Somehow, one of the rear windows in the van was broken while in the school parking lot. Heresay evidence shows that a bb or pellet gun was responsible, but I have no firsthand knowledge of the event. I do know a bb gun can break a car window, based on empirical research Neal and Nathan did some years ago involving a new bb gun and 'Spot's' rear window.
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This is great! Except for the woods and where snow was piled from plowing, the ground is just about clear. I lived through another one! My favorite time of year is just about to start....you know, the weather is nice during the day (still cold at night), no bugs, and the world starting to grow again. I just hope the lake levels go up a little this year. It's kind of disquieting to see how much they've dropped. It's supposed to be somewhat cyclical, but it's unnerving, none the less.
I supposed I should continue my little narrative about our trip to Texas and all....
 | Charlotte is wonderful, a real joy. We watched her while Neal and Jaclyn were working. |
 | I've been to the Alamo before, and although it is a historical site that is interesting in that regard, it hardly rates as a 'shrine'. They require you to take off your hat, for crying out loud. Anyway, I was in a pissy mood, but I was trying to be nice and not bitch too much. |
 | We went down to the riverwalk area of San Antonio and ate lunch at a Tex-Mex place. It was kind of neat...lots of people, lots of restaurants, boat tours, no Mariachi bands, ok food. The bathrooms weren't (they smelled a little funny, y'know?). |
 | Gabi made note of a restaurant called 'Dick's' we walked by where the waiters were supposed to be rude to the customers. I think it's supposed to be funny. |
 | After lunch, we made it back up to street level a few blocks away from the 'Shrine to Liberty' and found this sculpture. I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to represent. Any hints would be appreciated. |
 | The old mission we visited was pretty interesting. I would have been perfectly happy not stopping, but since I was just a passenger....I was pretty adamant about not going to the second one, but, again, I wasn't driving. The compromise was that we drove around the grounds of the second mission. You see, it was starting to get late, and we really did need to get going. |
Where to begin? It's been fairly eventful since I last put fingers to keys, webloggingly speaking. There's been a trip to Texas, meeting granddaughter # 2, and having a van window shot out.
A few days before leaving for the trip, Kevin discovered a leak in the heater core Jon had neglected to mention. I suppose it's too much to expect that he might notice the fogging windows and antifreeze smell, or that he might think to mention it to me. I hardly ever drive the van, so hadn't noticed it. I guess I should have checked it out more thoroughly. So here we were, three days before the big trip and the dashboard has to come apart to replace the heater core. The last time I did this, it was just about a week to get it all back together. Thankfully, Kevin was able to help me (he actually did most of it) and we were back on the road by the next day. There was one leak, easily fixed (or so I thought). While the van was down, it got a tune-up, spark plug wires, rotor and distributor cap, oil change (synthetic oil, no less), a new serpentine belt (that just sounds sexy, doesn't it?) and a new air filter. All the attention paid off, because the trip to Texas went swimmingly. I drove most of the way, with Rose relieving me for about two hours, and Jon taking the midnight shift, about 4 hours worth. We were on the road a total of 27 hours, including a detour in Oklahoma City to find a fish place for dinner (it was Friday, after all). Surprisingly enough, we found it (about 10 miles out of the way) without getting lost in the process.
Once we crossed the Texas border, I started singing all the Texas songs I knew (not many, admittedly, and only pieces at that) to get the kids in the Texas spirit, but they didn't seem to appreciate my efforts...I thought all along they liked music, but it seems I was wrong...
This was my first time to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and was pretty excited about going to an area I hadn't seen before. About 25 years ago, I was stationed at Sheppard A.F.B., near Wichita Falls. We never made it to Dallas, lack of money or interest the most likely reason. Neal's instructions were pretty good, so I only got lost once. Coming over a small rise, the lights of Dallas/Fort Worth spread out before us. It's a
Have you ever wanted to strangle someone? I mean REALLY strangle someone? My hosting provider was recently on my short list of candidates, as much for the indifference of the problems created as the actual creation itself. Not so much the support staff...they turned out to be fairly helpful. The company president, however, never bothered to respond to my e-mail, which bothers me A LOT. I'll need to look at other options when it comes time to renew. The problems started with the migration to a server that had a different directory structure, and a different MySQL config, so pretty much everything on the site died. It broke the photo album sorting too, because I depended on the date of the picture to place it in the sort order. Well, they all have the same date and almost the same time now, so no more sorting from newest to oldest. Damn.....I really liked that feature too. That's the biggest loss out of the whole mess...that, and the fact that the version of PHP doesn't seem to support the RSS feeds from the forums anymore. I'm trying to figure out a workaround for that. It took about a week to get everything functional again, between working, doing family stuff, and trying to figure out what in the hell happened. The upside? I have all the database connection info coming from the same file now, so I'll only need to worry about changing one file in the future.
We keep crawling toward spring. It never comes fast enough. At least the trip to Texas will help us get out of the snow for a few days. Supposedly we have had an average amount of snowfall this year. It sure doesn't seem average. I know the snow we get helps keep the lake levels up, but I don't have to like it, do I? The other night we had one hell of a windstorm. I don't know what the windspeed was but it sure did put a lot of snow in the air. I hope I didn't lose any more shingles....
Jonathan's first winter of driving is "interesting". The van has gotten stuck in the driveway 3 times this winter now. Oddly enough, Jonnyboy was the driver all three times. I'm not sure why it's happening so much, but I don't think it's the van's fault. Maybe I'm wrong.
Laini and Sara are doing great. Sara is starting to "verbalize" a lot now. She's making lots of noise and will be talking before we know it. Lindsey was very verbal when she was young, and Laini and Sara carry on that tradition. Lindsey called the other night, and I actually thought Sara was crying, but she was just talking to Mom. Laini is becoming more active and difficult to manage. Don't get me wrong...she's a sweetheart and a joy to have around. I love having her over. It's just that she gets upset if you tell her "no". Oh well, Laini, you better get used to it.
I'm pretty excited about the trip to Texas. I'll get to see Charlotte for the first time (I hope she's not afraid of my beard),and of course I'm looking forward to seeing Gabi, Neal, Jaclyn, and Linda and her family. It's a part of the country I've not been to yet, and a road trip in general is something I've wanted to do for some time. I sure hope the van works ok while we're gone. Nothing sucks like having a breakdown on a long trip.
There's some discussion about Rachel joining the military. Rose seems to be in favor of it, because she has this idea that women don't get sent to or near a combat zone. While that used to be true, it's not anymore. Equal rights, you know.....I can't say I'm in favor of this, but I wouldn't try and stop her if that's what she wants to do. Maybe it will give her the direction she seems to be lacking right now. We've made it clear that there will be NO parties at Gene's house (she's living there now), no exceptions. I hope she pays attention.......
Damn I'm tired. It started out a fairly normal day and quickly turned to shit. Brian left at 9am for a school function. Cathy was gone so I was watching her email and the trouble tickets. Along about ten came the first hint of trouble, which turned out to be the Bagle.B virus. All told, it wasn't too bad on our local lan. I have a feeling other areas of the network didn't fare so well. We probably received a dozen or so live payloads; after that it was notices that a virus had been caught and killed. There were several hundred of those, I'm sure. One of the ladies in another area ran the executable, and then realized what happened. She called and I told her to 'pull the plug immediately'. She did, and after reimaging, she went back on the network, a little wiser for the experience. Lots of email, phone calls, etc, advising people about the problem, and what to do with the e-mail. Add that to an already busy 'Monday' and it's easy to see why I'm tired. After work was shopping (can't find those ink cartridges anywhere in town. Damn) and once home, making dinner. Play with the grandkids for awhile, load the dishwasher, and before I know it, it's almost bedtime.
I made a mistake recently. I know it's hard to believe, but it really did happen. We (Tony, Jonathan, Anthony, and Garrett) were cleaning out Gene's house last weekend and in a frenzy of cleaning and pitching stuff, threw away a couple items that were apparently not on the 'pitch it' list. It seems there was this old safety deposit box that Rosalie had wanted to bring home. I'm also told there was a chair that Gloria wanted that didn't make it either. To me, the stuff was just junk....more things to clutter up my life unless I got rid of them. I had no doubt in my mind that their fate was to become part of Rose's ever-growing collection of stuff....unless I intervened. And intervene I did. We hauled away seven loads from the house...not everything but the majority of it. When I told Rose how much we hauled away her face got kind of white. It was almost funny. When she found out that part of those seven loads was her 'safe', it was anything but funny. She was furious. I guess I can't blame her...it seems that item was especially sentimental to her, because that's where her father kept all his important papers. I don't regret pitching it, I'm just sorry it hurt my wife.
Of course this means I'm on her 'list'. I'll probably have to do something to make up for it, like take that stupid Ballroom Dancing class....
Happy President's day, or is it merry President's day? I've never been able to keep that straight. But then again, I can't remember having a President I would classify as merry, so it must be door number 1. I get the day off for it, so dead presidents are ok in my book. At least I don't have to buy 'em flowers.
So did you get your honey a gift for Valentine's day? No? Me neither. Rose was working Saturday, so the big plans were unneccessary. Not that there were any big plans, but you know what I mean. This, by the way, is one of the things that annoy the hell out of me. Made up days, you know, like Valentine's day. A little research tells me that Valentine's day has been around for a LONG time, but not in it's current form. There is some thought that it was brought about to supplant a Roman fertility rite. YEA!!! I'm for the fertility rite, myself. All I know is it's one more day that I'm expected to do something.
Taxes....BAH!
There's been more discussion amongst the Home Recording crew regarding assembling a compilation disc of tracks from those that wish to contribute. So far there are two tracks offered. Sonic (Nilton) has offered one, and I've offered one. If the list is too short come the end of May, I'll can the whole idea, because it will be obvious that there isn't suffient interest or material to do a full cd. I suppose it would be possible to build a cd out of multiple tracks from each of the contributors, but then it gets into more money than I wanted to spend and the 'community' aspect of it gets lost.
When I first stumbled across the Home Rec chat room, it was so interesting. Sometimes I'd find 15-20 people in the room and all chatting about how to make and record music. The skill levels of the participants were all over the place, with much of the material being offered in styles I don't care for. It really didn't matter about that, and most people were supportive no matter what was being offered. Gradually, though, the room died down and now is just a shadow of what it was for a time. In the meantime, there's some excellent material I collected from the folks that made up the crew. It would make me proud to have a track sitting alongside stuff by Nilton, Jason, Steve, the Evil Rivethead, 8-bzag, error, and the others. It would be an audiograph of a group from summer camp. That was what it felt like at times, sort of. You know, you get stuck in a cabin with a group of kids from who-the-hell knows where, and you're expected to get along. It usually works to, unless you have a jerk in your cabin named 'Hollywood' or something like that. Not that that's ever happened to me, of course.
Gene's house is almost empty now. Five truckloads to the compactor, a load of old burnable stuff, and a load of furniture to my house. Two more loads should finish it off. I wonder who'll do it? It's very unlikely we will buy the place....it will most likely sell for more than I'm willing to pay. Of course, I chose a low value for two reasons. One, I didn't want the place to begin with. Too much work. The other reason, of course, is if we were going to put all that effort and time into it, I wanted to make a decent profit when it was sold. It seems, though, the housing market in Sault Ste. Marie is pretty good for these old 'fixer-uppers' and people are paying a whole lot more than I would for the honor of reconditioning houses that really should be torn down. I've had my stint in 'homeowner hell', thank you very much, and I'm not interested in going back for another stay. Anyone want to buy a house? It's got new plumbing.......
Winter drags on. The snow is knee-deep in the back yard, and it was plowed not long ago. I read it's an average winter, but it sure seems like a lot. The spring thaw beckons, but it ain't here yet.....
I learned a neat little trick the other day. At the site The Javascript Source I found a script that will zoom an image when clicked. Pat wanted a page that showed 6 pictures without scrolling. They are displayed at 160x120, and clicking an image would 'zoom in' to full-size. Clicking again reverts back to the thumb size. The images are only 320x240, so they load fairly quickly. Because the page doesn't need to be refreshed, it's much faster than opening a new browser window. Pat seemed to be pleased, I learned a neat Javascript trick, and got paid in the process. How cool is that? I bookmarked the site and expect to visit there often.
I was on hold with TurboTax tech support for almost one hour tonight. Of course, it was a chat window hold, so at least I was able to play cards while I waited. They must be real busy right now. It appears they removed the spyware thing this year, as was promised, since none of the spyware programs seem to find anything. Can we trust that? I sure hope so!
We had a hoard of locusts descend on our house last night in the shape of teenagers. Jonathan had a birthday party and we ended up with 7 or 8 boys. They showed up hungry too, because when I looked this morning, all but 5 pieces of pizza had been eaten. Rose brought home 4 huge pizzas last night, each had 12 pieces. I had 3, Rose had two, Ronnie had a couple, minus the 5 left....that's 36/8....4.5 pieces apiece. add to that the birthday cake, ice cream, pop, and the oranges. I sure am happy I don't have to feed a large group of kids very often. Rose would have to get another job (hehehe).
I found a bunch of weblog RSS feeds on John Udell's Infoworld site, so I'm slowly adding the ones I like to my RSS page. There's some great stuff there. I was reading a discussion about an application called "RSS Bandit". It's a desktop RSS aggregator. That means it can pull down RSS feeds to your desktop without opening a browser. I prefer using the RSS page on this site; I can get it anywhere and others can see what RSS is about, but desktop delivery of web content will likely be the "next big thing". Once you use it, you can easily get hooked. Monitoring the forums used to be a lot harder, but now I just check the RSS feed. You owe it to yourself to explore RSS feeds.
We're headed to Mount Pleasant this morning to visit Nathan and meet Alex's parents. He must be pretty excited since he's called several times this week. We were talking about leaving by 9 but it's already 9:11. Damn these computers......
It's my fault, I admit it. I should have come home right away after driving to the Soo to not start Rachel's car (she managed to get it started all by herself, but not till after I left). Instead, I chose to stop by and visit Fran, who now is living in Sault Ste. Marie. Well, one thing led to another, and the first thing I know it's 5:30 (when Fran's recording, the time just seems to fly by). Since the weather was really crappy at the time, and I had some shopping to do, by the time I got home it was after 6:30. Hmmm, Lindsey's car is in the drive, running. As soon as I walked in the door, everyone's (sort of) yelling at me, even Laini. "Where you been, Poppa?" You see, I had initially invited Lindsey over, and then thought I cancelled it when the damsel-in-distress called, but it seems Lindsey came anyway. "I'm getting ready to leave. I've been here for hours"..."I know, I smell like a cigarette butt"..."I know, I should have been home hours ago"...Geeze-O-Pete, now I gotta answer to my children and grandchildren. I'm too old for this shit.....
Emma called to see if I would take Sunday's masses at OLS and St. Stanislaus. I've been trying to end that obligation for some time now. I hardly ever play guitar anymore, so I'm always out of practice. My voice is not what it used to be either, mostly from lack of practice. Sometimes I think I sound like an old frog, just croaking away when I'm singing. Most people either don't notice or are too polite to say, but I notice. The main reason, though, is internal. Without going into detail, I'll just say it's harder than it used to be to stand in front of the church and sing these songs about faith and belief in this or that. Of course, when I was playing in a bar band, I sang about all sorts of things I didn't necessarily believe in. This seems to be different, though. At least, it feels different. In the 28 years I've been playing at church, I've easily played at over one thousand masses. Probably over fifteen hundred. Isn't that enough? Anyway, Rose talked me into it, so in about 15 minutes, I need to leave to be there for the 8:30 mass, and then on to St. Stanislaus for 11:00. I wish I could do it and be happy instead of all knotted up inside.......
Laini's birthday party is today. Thankfully, Kevin's feeling better. It seems he developed a case of salmonella poisoning, he thinks, from some meat eaten last week, so Laini stayed at our house while Lindsey took Kevin to the E.R. He must be feeling better now, because our driveway just got plowed about 30 minutes ago. Not a lot of snow, but enough to be an inconvenience. It's good to see he's up and around again.
I've been working on a web database for Fran to use as he compiles the info for a book he wants to do. The book will be about Iron Maiden's touring history, and the recordings available from them. The list of shows is staggering, but considering the length of time these guys have been around, and the devotion to touring they have, it shouldn't be surprising. The funny thing is that I've never liked Iron Maiden, and still don't list them in my top 50 musical acts. The fun of building the pages, databases, etc, is what's in it for me.
Fran's introduced me to this whole sub-economy, using Iron Maiden stuff as currency. Bootleg recordings are prized, as is the official memorabilia. Got a concert book? That's worth 4 bootlegs. Or maybe 3. Or something like that. I even saw a program someone had written that he called "bootware". The cost of registration is a bootleg recording every so often. Amazing that so many people are collecting this stuff. Maybe I should listen to some of their music, so I could then understand where this devotion comes from.
Raising teenagers is never easy, but some are harder than others. Even though he hasn't been the most difficult (the twins win hands down) Jonathan tries my patience on a daily basis. Does he really think there should be no strings attached for the care and feeding of the vehicles he drives? I want him to take care of the recycling and keeping the basement presentable. It would be a good way for him to make some money. But, no, it's "ridiculous" for us to actually expect something from him when he excercises his "right" to drive a vehicle. We were talking (that means I was speaking and he was ignoring) about how parents should treat all their kids the same. It's impossible, of course. There is no way you can treat seven children exactly the same. That little bit of wisdom reminds me of a line from the very forgettable movie "Love Story". The female lead says something like "Love means never having to say you're sorry". What a load of crap!!! If you love someone, you damn well better say you're sorry when you screw up.
Being a parent means making the best decision you can at that time. The idea that you are limited in your options because of decisions made in the past is not only stupid, it's dangerous. For example, the decision to allow a child to drive in bad weather. Not everyone drives with the same level of skill or attention. My children are no exception. I worry every time Jonathan takes one of the vehicles. Not that I didn't worry about the others...I did. But it's different. He told me he drove the speed limit last night..."the road wasn't bad"...after I had called and told him I wanted him to come home earlier than he wanted to. I ended up taking his friend home and felt comfortable driving about 40 mph. I probably could have gone a little faster, but that was the speed I was comfortable. Is Jon a better driver than me? No. Why did he feel it was OK to drive faster than me? Because he has poor judgement. Should I allow him to drive in the same conditions I would let Lindsey or Neal, or the other kids to drive in? Therein lies the rub.
This idea bleeds over into other areas as well. I was discussing the Catholic Church with a family member some time ago that isn't Catholic. His position was that if it isn't in the Bible, it can't be from God. He was referring to the fact that the Catholic Church has introduced numerous concepts that aren't in the Bible. My response was "Why do you place limits on God?" He was taken aback by this idea. "I don't place limits on God" was his response. "Well, if you assume that God can't interact with man in ways that aren't recorded in a set of books almost 2000 years old, then you are certainly placing limits on what you think God can do" was my response. I don't think I convinced him of anything, but then again, that wasn't my goal. I've never doubted the existence of God, and identify with the priest in the movie "Rudy". He made the statement: "There's two things I know, there is a God, and I'm not him". All the rest is just guesswork.
How are these related, you ask? God can't change, and neither can parents. Is there a relationship here? Probably not.
I did a little "consulting" recently and had to get down into the guts of the PASIII accounting system. I mentioned to the bookkeeper that working with it for twelve years had become "like lying in my bed at home". You know, it's so familiar, it's like second nature figuring out the problems. Oh, you got the wrong dates? No problem! Just open a text editor. Transaction deleted by mistake? No Problem! Notepad is the ticket. Of course, the newer accounting systems can't be adjusted in the same way. I'll miss that ability. There's more discussion about upgrading to a newer version, so it looks like I'll need to learn that package soon.
Fran and I were recently talking about a recording session we both worked on a few years ago, and I was reminded about the fellow that was recording. I noticed the sound of his guitar was very dull, and discovered that his pick was a matchbook cover. I found one for him to use. It helped a bit, and at the end he returned the pick. I said "Keep it. You get a free pick with every session." He appreciated it, and left. Fran and I got a pretty good chuckle out of it, and laugh whenever it comes up. Fran mentioned he came back for another session, and not only had a pick, he also had a new set of strings. He knocked out a cd's worth of material in a few hours. Way to go, Ed.
It looks like we'll be buying the old house, problems and all. Rose is set on it, and I guess I can understand that. She really doesn't have a clue how much work there is coming up, but then, she was never reluctant to work hard. Anyone have any extra kitchen cabinets? Cheap?
I figured out how to sort thumbs on an album page by the date of file creation. The advantage, of course, is that now the latest photos added will show up at the top of the page instead of in a random order. How did I do it, you ask? When loading the thumbnail page for any album, the directory is read into a two-dimensional array that holds the filename and the filedate. The array is sorted by the filedate and the thumbnails are displayed based on that order. I could have done the same thing using the date field in the photo database, but wanted to use file system functions instead, primarily for speed. At least I hope it's faster. Looking at the usual sources didn't yield any real help, so I was left to figure out the methods to make it work properly. The end result works nicely, and since the photo albums listed and the thumbs shown on each album page are determined by the file system as well, it fits nicely into the scheme of things.
When I decided to build the photo album from scratch, I had several goals in mind. First and foremost, I wanted an easy to maintain photo album. I can't say I've gotten there yet, but it's coming along. The steps to create a new photo album are:
1. Create the album, thumb and slide directories using wsftp. Don't forget to change the permissions.
2. From the original images, create the slides(640X480) and thumbs(120X90) that go in those directories.
3. Upload them into the unsorted directory.
4. Insert them in the database. This renames them as well.
5. Move them out to the various albums.
My next goal for the photo album is to combine steps 3, 4, and 5. It should be fun.
I got a picture some time ago from Scott of a service call he or one of his friends made.
I think the snake got the worst end of the deal.
I had a chance yesterday to check out a HDTV for the first time. WOW!!! The picture was incredible. You could see depth in it. It's a Sony 32 inch set, connected to a hd satellite system. Of course, this all comes at a price. The tv set is 1300 dollars, and the upgrade to our satellite system would be at least $200. As much as I like the idea of 3-d tv, we went for the 35 inch Sanyo with the 10% discount (thanks to Rachel). Total cost:$428 (the thing weighs 168 lbs. Good thing Jon and Chris were here). Much better. The reason we were looking for a new tv is because our 'old' set had failed. The picture was dark and could not be adjusted any brighter. The part that's so annoying is that it's less than 7 years old. Pisses me off. It is an RCA.
My DVD player is also an RCA, a christmas gift from the kids 3 years ago. About a month ago a problem started that I had to work on. There's a small friction pad that rubs against the motor shaft, perhaps for vibration dampening, or to stop the disc quickly when you want to open the tray. Anyway, I found that if the tension was reduced, it would work normally. So I reduced the tension permanently. It's been working fine for the last month, so I guess it's 'fixed'. Since these last two events have occurred, it seems to me that RCA might be a brand to avoid. I know I'm going to in the future. Too bad too, because RCA used to make some pretty good stuff.
I'm constantly reminded that you can't ever believe what you read unless you check it out yourself. Rose got these little two-way radios for Christmas (she had been wanting a set for a while). The packaging claimed 'up to a 5 mile range'. Perhaps if it was 2 miles straight down and back up and you could see the other person, then maybe it would reach 5 miles. Otherwise, in a real world trial, we got about 3/4 mile range out of them. This is the Cobra Microtalk 2-way radios. I hate false advertising. It just PISSES ME OFF!!!. Other than having approximately 1/6 the advertised range, they work pretty well. We used them yesterday to track each other down at the mall.
I was playing with some ideas for the Thank You card and came up with this:
I thought it was funny and touching. When Rose saw it she started giggling, so I knew I had a hit. Anyway, I'm going to do up a couple cards and show them to the family today to see what they prefer. I guess we'll see who has a sense of humor.
Things are beginning to settle back down again. Gene's funeral was yesterday afternoon at St. Joseph's in the Sault. It was much easier than Belva's funeral three years ago. No one was surprised this time, and the relief of the family was obvious. He suffered a long time, and it's good to know the waiting is over and he's no longer in pain. I know he was ready to go because he told me that several times. It was hard at times to visit him and watch him struggle just to sit up. Last night we watched a video from 1991. He was 72 years old then and was playing football with the kids in the backyard. At 72! He was not what many people would call an educated man, but he taught me a number of things: how to find Honeydew and Morel mushrooms...how to call the pocket on a 3-rail shot...how to have pride in even the little things my children do...how to persevere in spite of pain and loss. Gene was a special man, and even though I'll miss him, it's hard to feel bad about his death.
Toward the end of the funeral, the song 'Unforgettable' by Nat/Natalie Cole was played on a cd player. Near the middle of the song, a section started repeating. It was caught in a loop and did that for about 10 seconds. It started playing again and the song finished normally. Cliff's opinion was that 'It was just Gene having a little fun'. I'd like to think that's true. Gene, wherever you are, I thought it was funny too.
The family is scattering now, heading back to normal life. Rene, Linda, and the kids left this morning about 6. They're dropping off Gene in Grand Rapids on their way to visit Rene's parents in Detroit. Cliff and Belva are headed back to Virginia today, and Nathan and Alex are headed back home as well. It was a good visit, despite the circumstances. Now we need to start planning our trip to Texas sometime in the near future. There's still a grandchild I haven't seen yet.
Rose has expressed an interest in buying her father's house. I'm not sure why, other than 'It's sentimental'. This woman gets attached to rocks, for God's sake! If it happens, it will turn out to be a BIG hole that Dave will be dumping lots of time and money into. I don't want to, but if she really pushes it, we'll probably end up buying the house. I told her my services don't come cheap, however. We'll have to work out something.
It's been a long haul, especially for Rosalie. Last night was the first time in about the last year she hasn't needed to go to her father's house to check on him. Gloria & John did a lot for him, Charlie too, but Rose always wanted to keep an eye on him as well. She was able to sit down last night and really relax, and it took about two minutes for her to fall asleep. That might have something to do with the severe lack of sleep she's had in the last week. I hope she sleeps all day today.
Someone mentioned yesterday that I was "real domesticated" because I was carrying a clothes basket of unfolded towels. Yea, I guess I am. After all, I get dishes dirty, I get clothes dirty, I eat here, etc, etc....Why should I expect anyone to wait on me? I'd be a lot thinner if I waited for my wife to fix my plate and bring it to me.
The best gift you can give your children is the realization that they can clean up their own friggin messes. I only wish my own children had learned that lesson a little better(some are better about it than others). Even after the kids have been living on their own for a while, once they are at the house, old habits resurface. Recently one of the kids got tires on their car (no names, but you know who you are). Well, because the tires weren't purchased where they were mounted, there was a cost to get rid of them. So what happened to the tires, you ask? I got home from work to find four used tires right by the sidewalk near the front door. The culprit couldn't even take them around by the back door. And what was the reason? "I was in a hurry." So what? Clean up your own mess, dammit!
Anyway, the funeral is Monday, which works out nicely since everyone is already here. It's such a relief to know that Gene's suffering is over. Now it appears the next issue is going to be what to do with the house. Rose wants to buy it, which means I will be responsible for rehabilitating an old run-down house. Can you spell "money"? I knew you could.
Peyton is such a sweetheart. She loves to feed Loki popcorn, and pet him as long as it's in the safety of an adult's arms. Of course, since he's taller than her on all four, I can understand that. She's sharp too, and has an excellent memory. When they arrived, Peyton came right to me and let me hold her. I was expecting a little reluctance, but there was none. I hope I get to see her again soon.
Cliff was telling me about the newest efforts to get broadband out to homes. It's a commercial version of powerline networking, and it seems that Manassas is one of the first places in the country to try it out. If it can be sent down the electrical wires and run at broadband speed, the answer to ubiquitous broadband will have been solved. The prospect is so exciting I can hardly wait. Here's hoping the technical issues aren't too difficult.
Gabi left this morning. She's on her way to Texas to live with Neal and Jaclyn. She'll be taking care of Charlotte once Jaclyn goes back to work. It's very hard to see her go, but at the same time I'm happy for her. She's excited by the idea of moving to a new place and seeing a new part of the world. If she was going without a support system in place I'd worry more, but I know she'll have a safe place to stay, and Neal will keep an eye out for her. Despite all this, I'm having a tough time dealing with her leaving. The combination of Gene's impending death, Rosalie being gone all the time, Gabi leaving, our trip to Texas cancelled, and here it is Christmas morning and I'm alone and feeling sorry for myself has been almost too much for me. I've been crying all morning. Like a little girl. And, interestingly enough, now, I feel better. The act of crying has both a physical and psychic cleansing effect. I've never understood it but know it to be true.
When I was sixteen, my father died. We were supposed to go and pick him up at the VA hospital in Louisville on the morning that the phone call came. It was about midnight or so (details are fuzzy) when the phone rang. The hospital was calling to tell us that my father had died that night. We were told that he had been walking the hallways because he was restless. Excited about coming home? Perhaps. He knew something was up? Maybe. There are a few things in my life I regret, and one of them is not getting to know my father better. I certainly would have appreciated the chance to be with him at his death. But that didn't happen. I found my mother lying in the hallway where she had fallen when the news hit her. We got the family doctor over (yes, really, a house call) and he gave her a shot of something.
The next week was such a blur of activity, it's hard to remember much. One thing I do remember, clearly, is that I didn't cry. At all. Not one tear. How odd is that? My mother assumed it was because I was being "strong" for her, and she told me over and over how much she appreciated it. In reality I was numb. I felt nothing. It's hard to describe, although I've thought about it often enough. It was like this whole section of myself had been paved over. Around the edges I was "normal" (whatever that is), but in the middle, I was flat. It's not that I didn't enjoy life; I certainly did, but at a surface level. I never figured out why I couldn't let go of my feelings, but about four years after his death, the dam finally broke. One evening while home on leave (I was in the Air Force) I took a walk over to the cemetary and brought my guitar along. Before that, I could not bring myself to visit his grave. I sat by his grave and played a bit. The tears finally started coming and didn't stop for a while. I wanted to (and almost did) smash my guitar on his gravestone. I thankfully was able to get a grip on my emotions before that happened.
I wonder where the idea "Real men don't cry" came from. From the movies, most likely. I wonder how many little boys have been forced to hold inside powerful feelings that should have been released, only to resurface later in life as some form of agressiveness or physical/mental illness. That's unknowable of course, but this nonsense that men aren't supposed to cry needs to disappear. We all know that death is inevitable. No one gets out alive. I've come to understand that having the opportunity to assist in the process of a loved one dying is a gift. If I had been able to talk with my father before his death, would I have had 4 years of emptyness before dealing with my feelings? I doubt it.
It's the day after Christmas, Gabi is on the road, Gene is still hanging in there, and I'm feeling much better, thank you very much. Children grow, parents go, things change, and there's very little we can do or say to make it easier. One thing for sure...I'll never look at Christmas in the same way.
My (internal) alarm woke me up at 7:00 this morning, so I should get up and update my weblog with all the latest happenings. Let's see, where should I begin.....
Gene, my father-in-law is about to have the greatest question answered...What comes after I die?...perhaps before Christmas day. I just spoke with Rosalie and she told me he's gasping for breath. He's ready to go; he's told me that several times. 'I would have been dead already, but my daughters won't let me die' or words to that effect. His health has gotten much worse in the last three years, although it wasn't all that good in the 5 years prior to that. The funny thing is, we moved here 15 years ago because Rose wanted to be near her father (and mother) before they passed on.
Gene was a real fighter. He broke his back when in the Coast Guard, and has lived with that for the last 60 years. He had heart surgery (valve replacement) over 30 years ago, and has lived longer than anyone else (that we know of) with that type of surgery. I'm sure it's because he was in such good health when he was younger. He was an amazing runner, and at one point was invited to move to Canada and try out for their Olympic team. We had one of his trophies (no longer, we lost it in the house fire) he won when he was younger. It was engraved 'Eugene Rogers, 100 yd dash, 9.8 sec'. I wonder what he would have done if he'd had the support of an organized athletics program.
The first time I met Gene was the day he ripped the telephone off the wall at his house (I'm assuming that was the only time). I was visiting Rosalie, and had been there for a few hours. Gene came storming into the house, raging about 'Can't anybody answer the $&#*$%#_)# phone!!!!!' He had been visiting his friends at the local pub and had called repeatedly for a ride. Belva and all the kids told him several times the phone didn't ring at all. Just then, the phone rang. I guess that was too much for him, so he 'answered' it. Uhhh...Hi Gene. Pleased to meet you...
With the impending death of her father, Rose decided there was no way she could go to Texas as we had planned. It's disappointing for all of us, and for Neal and Jaclyn also. Neal had planned for he and I to upgrade his computer, visit book stores, computer stores, etc. I want to see my second grandchild. We were all looking forward to a road trip, and since I've not been there before, I was planning to enjoy visiting a new place. I guess we'll have to make other arrangements. One of the good things about this, of course, is that the kids (9 brothers and sisters) and families are all coming home. Belva/Cliff/Eric/Elliot are here, and Linda/Rene/Rafaelle/Michael/Peyton are coming. Eugene (Genie) is coming too, although he had to be coaxed. Everyone else lives in the area.
Charlotte and Sara are both doing well. Charlotte looks to be quite alert and interested in the world around her. Sara is still in the new baby stage. She sleeps a lot, and is still not very interested in things she can't suck on. They both appear to be healthy, and that is the most important part. Let's hope they both have healthy, happy lives ahead of them.
The Russells are home now. Sara and Lindsey were released today with a clean bill of health. I hadn't been aware that Lindsey was taking antibiotics for her pregnancy because of a strep infection she had early in the pregnancy. The doctor wanted to keep Sara for an extra day just to be sure. I took some things over this afternoon to make burritos. It was a good dinner, and there was enough left over to make another dozen burritos. Guess what I'm having for dinner tomorrow? I showed Veronica how to build them and let her take over the assembly line, so I was able to hold Sara for a while. It's uncanny the effect an infant has...I almost started tearing up, I was so overwhelmed with emotions. If I was alone, I probably would have started crying. Lindsey is so happy...you can see it in her eyes when she looks at Sara. Laini will do fine, I'm sure. She's in for a major change, but so far is more protective than jealous. I'm sure she will be a big help to Lindsey in caring for Sara.
After playing with the style sheet, I was finally able to get the background property working for both IE and Mozilla. I wish I could point to a specific change as THE one, but I'm not able to. It's interesting how touchy it all is. One method works for IE but not for Mozilla, sometimes the reverse is true, but if you play with things long enough, a solution can usually be found. For example, I use a H4 element that controls , size, color, etc. For Mozilla to use it, it could be placed before the beginning of the link. IE, however, required the H4 to be placed in the link text area before it would work. It's an on-going investigation of a moving target. So it goes......
Ho ho ho. I've spent the day getting lights working and putting them on the tree. One bad bulb and the whole string is bad....it's enough to piss off the Pope. But fortunately I have the 'Equalizer'. I use a multimeter to locate the problem, pop in a bulb from the extras, and, lo and behold, it works again. Damn, I'm good;-).
Once the lights are on, the ornaments are next. Laini was here to help with that, and she did a fine job. One of the great things about having grandchildren is experiencing and appreciating 'firsts' again. It was fun watching her get excited about choosing an ornament to hang, and then finding a spot for it. We had a few disagreements, which Laini would usually win
but I had the last laugh (they got moved after we were done). At one point, I was hanging lights around a doorway, and stepped on a plastic santa Laini had laid on the floor. It felt like stepping on tacks. I was hopping around saying a few choice words and Laini took off for the safety of my bedroom and Gramma. I guess she thought she was in trouble. She wasn't, of course.
I didn't visit the hospital today. I'm feeling a little guilty about that, but I 'll see them tomorrow. I'm sure Lindsey appreciated having some time alone to rest and get to know her new daughter. Babies....they bring out the best in people. I can hardly wait until I have a chance to watch her.
Lindsey is very close to delivering her second child. She was dialated 8-9 cm when I spoke with Kevin this morning (about an hour ago). Laini stayed with us last night (a first) because she was bouncing off the walls at the hospital. We happened to be at a Christmas party at the casino in town, and Rose tried to call Lindsey on the phone. 'She's not at home; I'm calling the hospital'. I had in jest left a message on her answering machine a few days ago 'You're not at home so you must be at the hospital', but Rose was serious. Well, wouldn't you know it, they had gotten there a short time ago, and were still checking in. Woman's intuition or lucky guess?
When we got to the hospital, we found Lindsey wandering the halls, with Laini and Kevin in tow. Laini was pretty happy to see us, and ran screaming (a good scream) down the hallway to Gramma. We eventually got settled back in Lindsey's room, where we gathered Laini and her equipment and proceeded to bring her home.
 | On the way out of town Rose and I were discussing something or other, and I said 'Rose' with some emphasis. Laini piped up 'Don't call her Rose, call her Gramma'. 'She's not my Gramma' was all I could manage, trying not to laugh. Since we were heading in the right direction, Rose wanted to take Laini to see 'THE' house on Mackinac Trail. |
 | As you can see, it's quite a production, and Laini was suitably impressed. |
Well, that's settled, at least for now. I won't be pulling my weblog from the xml file. The latest little discovery was made when I displayed the full text (or so I thought it would be) in the RSS page (it's a XML parser, after all). I got only a portion of the text, and no pictures, no links, etc. So, obviously, I'm missing something in regards to the parser. One more thing to look into.
I got some depressing news last night...Rachel is testing positive for tuberculosis, and as I understand it, will need to take medication for an extended period of time. She'll never be able to take a TB skin test again, because of the possibility of a severe reaction. There's no danger of her spreading it to anyone, though, which is a relief. It's so difficult watching your children go through these situations...whether it be health, job, personal relationships, whatever...I'm sure my mother (my father died when I was 16) suffered in silence when things weren't going well for one of her children. There's nothing to do for it, though, except to help her be faithful to the medication schedule.
Well, I gotta go to a volleyball game today in Detour. Gotta support the team, you know.....
There seems to be (at least) one absolute rule when it comes to building and maintaining a web site....it's a never-ending job, especially when new techniques are added that interact with old content. I've been slowly going through the pages and incorporating the style sheets I began creating earlier this year. CSS is a great help when building web pages...if you build web sites, you should be using CSS. It's too bad there isn't more consistent support in the current browsers, but that should get better as time passes. It's actually pretty good right now and, sad to say, for some things, IE6 supports the CSS standards better than Mozilla. For example, I've tried to create a style that sets my logo as the header background. In IE6, it works just fine. In Mozilla, I have so far been unable to get it to display the graphic. There's a trick to it I'm missing, because numerous sites out there do this successfully. I'll eventually figure it out, I suppose.
Another issue is converting entries from a database into a RSS feed. Well-formed XML demands that all tags be properly closed, or the parser will fail, and complain bitterly about some malformed something or other. I've been working on a feed for my weblog, and found that the creation of the xml document would not complete normally, because some of the tags imbedded in the text (to display pictures, offer hyperlinks, etc) weren't properly closed. The two main culprits were the line break and the image tags. Once I closed them properly (and removed a few characters the parser didn't like) the xml file could be created. Closing the line break means using < br /> instead of < br >, and a properly closed img tag has /> at the closing bracket. I'll be interested in finding whether the weblog loads faster using the rss feed or pulling from the database.
I just finished deleting the last entry I made a few days ago. I was reading it and thinking how boring it was. If I'm bored with my own writing, it would bring tears, or sleep, or worse to anyone not me, so out she goes. I suppose the reason for that is because the entry was 'forced'....you know....I hadn't done an entry in a few days and felt almost obligated to write something. So I wrote some drivel about my day at work. The point I wanted to make was valid, about how it's possible to troubleshoot network problems using a little thought and the minimal tools that come with Windows. Of course, since I'm not responsible for the network/servers anymore, why should I get worked up about it? It's because I'm still possessive of the networks I used to run, that's why. Oh well. Let's hope something changes soon.
I can't help but feel that, as a species, humans are here for only a limited term. If you think about it, it's pretty obvious. We foul our air, our water, we use up natural resources, we hunt other species to extinction, we kill our own kind for sport, etc, etc. Issac Asimov wrote a very short story many years ago called 'Silly Asses'. The point of it was this: man is a short-lived species. We will be the cause of our own destruction, and I haven't seen anything in the last 50 years to dispute that prediction. We are so proud of the things we create, yet we ignore the things we destroy. Prognosis - the patient is dying.....
At lunch today, Brian was telling me about the gift he got his oldest son for his tenth birthday. A Red Rider bb gun. He said he probably shouldn't have gotten it...you know...'Kid, you'll shoot your eye out'. I was reminded about an incident that happened one Christmas morning about 12 years ago. We had gotten that very same Red Rider bb gun for Neal and Nathan. After the gifts were opened, my wife and I went back to bed (we had gotten very little sleep). It wasn't long before the boys came to tell me 'Something happened to my car'. It seemed they were outside trying out the new 'toy' and somehow, a window in my car had broken while they were outside. The glass didn't just break, it shattered, almost like it exploded. I was picking glass out of the back seat for 6 months after that. They had no idea how it happened of course. 'It must be because it's so cold outside'. It was about 20 below zero. I decided either a bb bounced off the tree they were shooting at(they both stuck with that story, anyway), or they were actually shooting at my car. I guess I'll never know for sure.
Of course, I'm telling Brian this story, and I'm sure he's sitting there running over all the reasons why he should return it before it's too late. But I guess it already is. I'm sure the boys will have fun with it, kill a few birds, break some bottles, etc. Let's just hope they don't shoot an eye or two out.
Neal's a father!!! They had a little girl, 8 lb, 1 oz, born yesterday. Christened Charlotte Noelle, she came into the world at 9:12 am. Everyone survived the experience, and my newest granddaughter is healthy and has all her fingers and toes. We're anxiously waiting for pictures to arrive. As soon as I get 'em, they'll be posted in the photo album. Even though a child complicates your life tremendously, there's nothing that compares with the joy of a small voice saying 'I love you, daddy'....until you hear 'I love you, Grandpa'. That's pretty neat too. I can't wait till Christmas.....
We had one hell of a storm last week. Lost electricity for about 20 hours. Some local areas were 3 days without power. That's gotta suck. No internet for 3 whole days. Fortunately, it wasn't too cold. We turned on the propane fireplace, lit some candles, and tried to treat it as a big adventure. The worst part, of course, was no bathroom. It's one of the few times I've been thrilled to go to work ;-)
Laini was over today...she helped me replace a seat for the upstairs toilet. She was so excited, she just had to try it out. It was pretty funny, and she was oh so proud of having 'helped' me. Lindsey came to pick her up, and was complaining how much weight she'd gained in the last two weeks. She looks ready to pop, and so it's safe to say that within the next 3 weeks, we'll have another one to add to the count.
Isn't this an unusual drawing?
We had another birthday party today. Veronica's birthday was actually not today, but Rose wanted to have the party today. It was a fairly normal one, pizza (homemade), cake and ice cream, kids, family, cousins, etc. Ronnie mostly got some clothes, and a couple odds and ends.
Rose makes this sponge cake that is sort of a 'hand-me-down' recipe. Her mother and her aunt used to make it (probably learned it from Rosalie's grandmother). It's quite good, and is sort of a piece of family history. I take it for granted, but one day some years ago, we had a visit from Colleen and Don, two of Rosalie's cousins (15 kids in that family). We happened to have some sponge cake left, and Rose offered some to her cousins. I remember Don asking 'Is that the cake mom used to make?', and they both had a piece. Watching Don, I could tell that eating that piece of cake was a real trip down memory lane.
I was just listening to a commercial for the 'Treadclimber'. It's yet another exercise machine, and might be worth using, but the commercial must have been written by some marketing genius. One part of the spiel declares that you get 'twice the workout with one effortless motion'... Effortless motion??? What value can it have if it's effortless? Stupid commercials.
My connection problems seem to be resolved, at least for now. I called and bitched at Lighthouse about my connection problems, which have been getting worse lately. They assured me the problems are the phone systems in the area, not their equipment. It all sounded like 'yada, yada, yada' to me, but I decided I should at least call and have it checked out. The repair guy came out and checked the line, but couldn't find a problem. He did mention a problem they found at the local office, though. Something about the computer saying the line was 'loaded'. Stoned? Drunk? What's that mean? Well, apparently, when a phone line extends past a certain length, there's some kind of load that has to be placed on the line. My line wasn't long enough to need a load, but the computer was configured that way, so they corrected it. He did tell me that this could cause a problem. Since it was reset, I haven't had any problems connecting. Excellent.
I was checking out a couple web sites about mapping the internet. Some of the maps generated are quite beautiful. Check out the Internet Mapping Project web site. This is typical of the maps available there.
Check it out, it's pretty interesting.
It's funny how we see events when we're children. One of the events I remember very clearly is when I was about 6 years old. The whole family was in the car one evening ( I think we were visiting relatives) and we stopped in Cannelton, Indiana so my father could buy some wine. The reason he had to go to Cannelton was because Hancock County (where we lived) was a dry county and wine, beer, or any other alcoholic drink couldn't be sold there.
Now, I had never seen my father drink anything alcoholic, and was a little bit freaked out thinking he was going to become a wino. I found out afterwards that the doctor had suggested my father try drinking a glass of wine at night to help him sleep. At the time, though, it was kind of traumatic.
Some years later, I remember I was given a 12:00 curfew, and was running late (I was on foot). I arrived home about 15 minutes late, and figured I was in trouble. When I walked in the house, my father was sitting in the living room with my Uncle Armand from Indianapolis (his family was visiting for a few days). They were polishing off a case of beer. That was the only other time I saw my father drink anything alcoholic. I didn't know until years later how unusual that was.....
It's not that I haven't wanted to post any entries the last month...I think of things daily that I want to comment on. It might be a memory of my father, or something one of my kids said, or how interesting that tree is on Tone Road.
My only excuse is I've been busy with other stuff. Most of my web time is being taken by building the photo album. It's coming along nicely, but there are so many features I need to add. Currently I'm working on adding mid-size pics (640X480) for faster loading so you'll know if you want the full sized picture. I really liked that feature of Gallery and want to use that scheme. Hope I'm not violating any copyrights (haha).
Nathan and Alex are now engaged to be married, sometime in the next two years. I like Alex; she's quiet, and doesn't seem to put up a front. She's attending college and working. It's tough to make it when you do that, so she still lives at home. They've discussed their plans a little, and it looks like Rose is going to have at least one of her children married in the Catholic Church.:-)
In my search for an answer to my question 'What the hell am I going to do about a photo album?', I found a program called JAlbum. I don't use it as it was originally intended (it will create a complete photo album) because my photo album is based on PHP and MYSQL, but the image generation it includes is quite handy. I drop pictures in a directory that are prepared for the web and let JAlbum create the thumbs and midsize pics. It's a Java-based application, so you need a recent version of Java installed, but there is a version of the d/l that includes Java if you need it. If something better comes along I'll change, but for now, JAlbum works pretty well.
I found this linux-based firewall/web-cache/proxy server thing called IP COP. It's a ISO image, 25-30 MB. Burn it to a cd, and you can boot and install it in about 20 minutes. It's way-cool. It was installed on a P-166 with 64 MB of memory and an 8 GB hard drive, sitting in the corner doing nothing but gathering dust. If you try IP COP on a dial-up, you might want to use an external modem, or one that you can set the IRQ, address, and com port, because the internal modem I first tried wouldn't work. The support boards for IP COP are pretty good though, and within a few hours the answer to the problem was posted:'Some plug and play modems install with Com 5 or higher, and IP COP can't handle that without changes'. An external modem worked fine, and now the dhcp server, proxy server, web cache (Squid), and firewall work without a problem. It has a setting for 'transparent proxy', so you don't need to make any changes to the clients on your network. They just use it. It's better than I expected. Now if only my ISP would fix the friggin connection problems.
IPCOP includes SNORT as the IDS (intrusion detection system). The logs not only tell me when attempts were made, they tell me what kind of attempts, and where they originated from. There is a lot of shit going on out in the wild, and you'll be part of it whether you want to or not if you don't take precautions. All I can say is, if you don't run a firewall, you're asking to be hijacked.....
It was a brief love affair....so intense, so full of hope and promise. But just like so many others, she demanded too much. Full access, and nothing less would do. 0750, or even 0755, just wasn't good enough. No, she had to have 0777. Give her what she wanted, though, and she would be yours to use as you wished. If only I had known before I fell for her. I'm slowly picking up the pieces, but after having been in love, it will be a long time before I'm again content.
Gallery, of course, can't help herself. The ones that made her what she is today probably thought they were doing her a favor. 'Give her full access' they thought 'and she'll do everything for you. She will fulfill your dreams and secret desires.' Was that a wise choice? In retrospect, I suspect not (I've since discovered that ANY use of a web browser to add, delete, move, etc, files around on a web server requires the same permissions, unless there's some way to log in as root. If there is, I'm not aware of it). So, friends, unless you have full control of your web space, or at least are allowed to set the file/directory permissions to chmod 0777, don't bother installing Gallery, or you'll be disappointed too.
Hey!!! I need help!!! Anyone out there know how to set up Squid? Maybe I should call Cliff.
I finally took the plunge and converted my Netware 4.11 server to Red Hat 9.0. It took 3 tries to get it set up properly, mostly because I kept making wrong choices and didn't know how to fix it. The graphics selected by the install was close, but not exactly correct. Also, Linux didn't like my choice of mouse. I finally connected a serial mouse; after that it was happy. Considering it's a 200 MHz Pentium Pro (228 MB ram), it runs pretty well.
I am having problems getting Squid to pass traffic.
Squid is the proxy server, and one of the reasons I wanted to convert to Linux. I've been running Netware for 6 years now. It's been a stable, solid file/print server the whole time, but a lot of the neat things available won't run on Netware 4. MySQL, PHP, Apache, etc. I've also been wanting to learn Linux, and since I have a copy of Red Hat 9 (thanks again, Cliff) now's as good a time as any to upgrade.
The more I work with Gallery, the more I like it. It's so easy to get pictures in an album, move them around, add text, and all those other things you need to do for an on-line photo album. I still need to figure out how to change the default look of the pages, but for now, it's an excellent addition to the site.
Well, it's late, and I gotta get to bed. More to come.......
Whew, I need to catch my breath. Lots of stuff happening lately. Neal called to tell us he got a fulll-time job working in the Special Ed section at the same school as Jaclyn. He's pretty excited, and I don't blame him. I'm happy to see things working out for him. They now have their own apartment and are getting prepared for the new baby in November. As if you can ever REALLY prepare for something like that. I think we are heading to Texas in December, right after Christmas. It should be an interesting trip.
I decided to put in my resume for the General Manager's position. It's been eating at me about whether I should or not. But I decided it would be stupid not to try. I've not had experience managing a company before, and this would be a learning experiience for sure, but the primary responsibilities would be the financial management of the corporation, responsible to the board.
Kevin and Lindsey are pouring the floor for the new pole barn. In fact ,I should be there right now, but I'm bringing the coffee, so I need to take care of that. It's going to be a pretty big job....about 50 yards of concrete. I'm really looking forward to it;-)
Haven't heard much from Nathan lately. I'm not sure what to think of this. He wasn't able to take 30 minutes out of his busy day to go see his mother when she was in Mt. Pleasant a couple weeks ago. As I said, I'm not sure what to think of this. He had time to drive north to pick up his laptop.....hmmm...it deserves some thought.
My job continues to piss me off on a daily basis. It just keeps getting better and better......
I finally gave up on the photo album article I was working through and went straight for the big time. I downloaded 'Gallery' and installed it on the site. I still haven't changed the default look, but have been playing with creating albums and uploading images. It's an amazing piece of work, and includes lots of features, including the ability to order prints on-line. I can also create accounts for friends and family to create their own albums and upload pictures if they want to. Click on the 'PICTURES' button near the top of the page if you want to see Gallery in action.
I'm struggling with the need to make a decision. I have an opportunity to apply for a position managing a small retail company, with 3 locations. I've been doing their network and accounting support for a long time now and, having some experience in that industry as an office manager, am considered a 'strong' candidate for the job. More responsibility, more hours, more money, more personnel management, less (read little) technical stuff, etc. I really don't know what I should do. I'm beginning to get pretty frustrated at work, because of all the bullshit things that are happening. Not locally, but it still affects things locally.
For example, in the past (pre-DIT, Corrections only), when a change to the network, to major applications, to policies, whatever, was implemented, it was done with the involvement and cooperation of the local 'DPC'. Now, the changes are simply pushed out from DPO, Model Office, or whoever else has control of the networks, but the Field Service staff are no longer responsible for servers. We just have to pick up the pieces when things start breaking. Recently, many folks at a facility were unable to use the MSOffice suite for 2-3 days because changes to the app objects reacted poorly with the workstations, primarily due to the workstations having not been re-imaged with the updated images released sometime last year. Is that Model Office's fault? No. However, if the Field Service folks had been involved we could have done small scale testing, as was done in the past, to determine the impact of the change before opening the floodgates. That's the way the old system worked, and it was, in many ways, superior to the clusterf*ck we now have.
My wife's never been a big fan of my computer habit (she'd more likely call it an addiction). She seems to think that if I work on them at my job, I shouldn't need to mess with 'em at home. She recently said 'You need to stay off the computer when I'm gone' (she works out of town and will be gone 2-3 days at a time) so I can 'get things done'. I could also quit breathing, I suppose. I hope she doesn't push the point too much, friends and neighbors, because it ain't gonna happen. So it goes.....
I just had the most surprising event happen. My brother-in-law sent a laptop to me that he no longer needed . It's at least 3 times faster than my AST. 'Dude, I got a Dell'......It's running Red Hat 9, which is great, because I wanted to start playing with Linux anyway. Just don't mention it to SCO.
Well, school's back in session. Our committment levels always kick up a few notches, and this year will be no different. Jon's playing football, Ronnie's in basketball and band (I think), I'm on the school board, and a couple of committees. These things can just keep piling up until it seems your days consist of keeping your committments instead of living your life. Some people thrive on it, I just want to be left alone....
The newest section of the site is the RSS feed page. So far, I've collected 36 RSS feeds, and am on the lookout for more. RSS is one of those 'This stuff is so cool' things you find periodically. I found the 'Onyx-RSS' XML parser on one of the code-sharing sites, maybe the Codewalkers site. Anyway, the interface page needed some adjustment to work the way I wanted, but the heart of it, the 'onyx-rss.php' file, works great, without any changes. Simple, easy to modify, and it just works. Ya gotta love it.
Currently, I'm working through an article on photo albums found on the PHP Developer site. The main attraction is that the author built a class that supposed to use GD to create thumbnails as the pictures are uploaded. There are some errors, for example:In the table creation sql statement, it creates a table called 'album'. When the table is called in the code, it is looking for a table called 'albums'. It will probably be the same with the 'photo' table. In another section, the filename the author gives for a particular script is different from the filename the code calls, for example, the 'del_albums.php' script calls the 'edit_album.php' script, but the file is saved with the name 'edit_albums.php'. These are minor problems, so far, but for a newbie, it could be pretty frustrating. If you are interested in this sort of thing, you should definitely check out the site.
Well, Cliff talked me into it. I got a wireless nic for my laptop, and a router to connect to the rest of the network. It was a bitch setting up, because I couldn't get all the computers talking to each another at first. I could ping the crap out of the other systems, but my Win 2000 computers wouldn't talk to each other for love or money. I tried tearing down and rebuilding the connections...no joy. I tried disabling the firewalls...again, no joy. I tried bypassing the wireless link, thinking that had something to do with it. Nope. Finally, I consulted the Oracle, the font of all knowledge, Google. I entered 'Win 2000 + can't ping' and lo and behold, I had the answer on the first page of links. It turns out that the firewalls (Zonealarm, if you don't use it you should), even when disabled seemed to block the traffic. Also, I had to disable the LMHosts setting buried within the TCP/IP settings of the connection properties. After that, I was able to ping everyone from everyone else.
I'm using the AnalogX proxy server I read about in one of the forums to share the internet connection on Vid (my downstairs computer). It seems that the ICS service built into Windows isn't all that reliable, and this one was recommended. It seems to work just fine, although I haven't figured out the e-mail settings yet. The readme recommends a SOCKS-compliant e-mail client (time to install Mozilla). To get around the problem, I'm using VNC (Virtual Network Computing) to remote-control Vid, so I can check my e-mail that way. No more wires!!! I love it. Thanks, Cliff.
It's been pretty crazy at work the last week or so. The MS Blaster worm (and variants) have wiggled their way into parts of the state wan and are giving some areas problems. It's the first real test of our new department, and so far, it's not pretty. This too shall pass, but it certainly pisses me off that all this time and effort (read 'money') is being spent to repair the damage some cowardly bastards created. There's no difference between creating viruses/worms and keying a car. It just costs more.
Boy, we had some kind of fun yesterday...Kevin's building a pole barn for a garage, a simple little 30x80 foot building. Thursday the trusses went up and yesterday we attached the purlins. I fell off a ladder in 1976 and since then have been a bit leery of climbing on them. But here I am 20-30 feet in the air, hanging on for dear life to the rafters. It was a beautiful, (almost) cloudless day and, as usual, I didn't bring a hat. I'll never learn.
At lunch, we were talking about the roof. It will be metal, and so I commented that it'll be fine as long as they put the fasteners in the peaks. Kevin told me the company recommended the fasteners go in the flats(in case you don't know, metal roofing looks like this - /\___/\___/\___/\). I found that surprising, because about 20 years ago, when I was building a house in Ky, I had a metal roof put on a building. One evening while I was working on the wiring it started raining, and the roof leaked in at least a hundred spots. I talked to Onis (my neighbor, an older fellow, a farmer, and not one to stick his nose into someone else's business. A good man. His wife's name was Lavinia. Nathan called her 'Littlevinia'. She always got a good laugh from that). He had noticed they nailed in the flats instead of the peaks, and commented it was small wonder the roof leaked. Well, Gary replaced the roofing, and I never had leak problems again (until the wood stove went in, that is. That one was my fault). I'm not sure about nailing in the flats, but the company recommended it, so what the hell do I know?
A friend of mine at work has this set of 24 cds. They were made from audio tapes of a 24 hour broadcast some years ago called 'The British Invasion' and include songs, commentary, and interviews with many of the early British rock and roll bands, managers, etc. I borrowed and have been turning them into mp3s. It should make for some interesting listening.
I just heard from Cliff. He e-mailed to let me know they made it home ok. He also couldn't pass up the chance to correct my simultaneous arguments equation offered earlier. What's most funny about this is that it appears he actually thought about the question, and the following is an excerpt from the e-mail I received.
Oh, the number of arguments would be something more like:
p(p-1)
a = ----------
2
or for us computer folk: a = (p*(p-1))/2
Where (p) is the number of people and (a) is the maximum number of resulting simultaneous arguments :-)
In any case it makes for a noisy drive!
I think I'll try to graph it.;-)
Look for the expanded article in the next issue of Scienterrific American.
It's been a busy time, these last two weeks. More family visits, camping, a music festival, etc, etc, on and on. I just got back from the Sugar Island Music Festival last night. What a great weekend! The weather was beautiful, the beer was cold, the skeeters were manageable, and the music was good. The chance to see some old friends again made this weekend just about perfect. I do wish my wife and kids had come, but Rose had to work, and a 12 and 16 year old wanting to do something with their father??? Are you nuts??? They might actually have fun, and then where would they be?
We stayed at Salt Point (Rose's sister's cabin) this last week. It was fun once we got there, but the trip there was an absolute ordeal. It was the trip from hell. The dog came with us, and as we were leaving, Veronica was giving him some water. Now, you have to understand, I've told her over and over, when the dog is riding in the car, we aren't to feed him or give him water. Well, I got on her about it, and she took it pretty hard. Also, Jonathan wanted to drive, so I let him.
Well, to make a long story short(er), about 20 miles into the trip, Loki starts puking. Five times. Five separate times that dog threw up. In the meantime, Jon's doing his Jon thing in the van, and I'm ready to strangle him, because he's still not listening!! I tell him not to rely on the brakes so much. He waits until the last minute and assumes the brakes will always work properly. I tell him to go the speed limit. 'Everybody goes at least 5 miles over the speed limit here' is his response. He's all over his lane and gets yelled at about that too because I'm already pissed (although I have the same problem in the van, because it's hard to drive on a windy day). He drives using two fingertips on the steering wheel. You know, stuff that just drives me nuts. It goes on and on.
So have you ever given thought to the question: How many arguments are possible, given that everyone is going to argue with everyone else? The equation should be N=2^p, where N=number of arguments (simultaneous) and p=number of people. Of course, this doesn't consider time frames, layered arguments, or other extraneous factors. Some other method to compile total arguments over a timespan would be required. I'll leave that as a homework assignment.
The main reason we were going to Salt Point, of course, was to visit with Cliff and Belva before they headed back home. I never seem to spend enough time with them when they come for a visit. Cliff's a computer geek too, so we get along very well, and never lack for something to talk about. It was a good visit. I took Loki down to the beach early the next morning (I can't sleep in anymore) and let him go. He ran down the beach, until he was almost out of sight(about half a mile), and then turned around and ran back. I swear, I could see a smile on that dog's face. Of course, he also took a detour into the woods and stayed gone for about an hour, but made it back with no parts missing. He also puked in the van again on the way home, but this time only once. I guess you'd call that progress....
We started moving furniture and appliances, etc, over to Lindsey and Kevin's new house last night. This house was built in the late 60's by the couple that just sold it. The washer and dryer hookups are in the kitchen, and must be a real nuisance to dodge every time you walk in the room. Also, the kitchen/dining room is yellow, the color of a lemon, but just a little darker. We (Lindsey, Kevin, and I) were discussing how much we disliked the color, and how moving the washer and dryer was the first order of business. My wife got there right around that time, and commented how much she liked the color of the kitchen. We just sort of looked at each other, and then she saw that the washer and dryer hookups were in the kitchen. 'Wow, that's really nice. It's so convenient'. We started laughing, we just couldn't help it. Kevin proceeded to tell her that the things she liked about the house were the things they disliked the most. I'm not sure whether Rose was trying to be polite, and make positive comments, or if her tastes really are that different from mine. I suspect the latter.
I read something recently about something called a 'Wiki'. What in hell is a Wiki? To find out I went to the source of all knowledge - Google. I found the site called Wiki Wiki Web. It seems that it's kind of a community blog, allowing anyone to add to, edit, delete from, or otherwise screw up the pages. It looks like it could be fun.
Another interesting site I recently visited is the Celestia web site. Seems this fellow has created a '3D Space Simulator' and offers it as a free download. There's a forum with some pretty high-level discussions about life, the universe, and everything. It looks cool as hell, and has an active community that adds new objects on a regular basis. I wonder if anyone has done Mote Prime yet......
I often visit The Weblog Review to find new (to me) weblogs to visit. Today's catch is called The World According To Pete . I laughed out loud at a few of his comments. The entry about turning in change and getting change back was TOO funny. If you are looking for entertaining reading, this is a great place to start.
I was recently reminded of a time long ago, when my link to the world was a small AM radio. I remember listening to a station in Louisville Ky, and one in Nashville Tn. If the weather was just right, I could even pull in WLS in Chicago (about 350 miles away). I can't even guess how many nights I drifted off to sleep with the songs of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Herman's Hermits, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and others playing softly in my ears. I used to think that people were at the radio stations, playing the songs while I was listening to them. As I said, it was long ago. I loved that little radio and, when it finally died, felt the loss as if it was a family pet.
Later on, after I started playing the guitar, I would set my amp out on the porch and practice. I never turned it up to 11, but it was loud enough that people downtown could hear it (at least that's what they told me). I remember that my grandmother Nugent always wanted me to bring my guitar to play for her. She was a passable piano player and was happy that someone else in the family showed an interest in playing music. Well, I never took the time, and not long after I joined the Air Force, she passed away. I'm sure it was my loss much more than hers........
Ah, Saturday........the day I look forward to all week long. I seem to be wishing my life away, living for the weekend, but it helps keep me sane. The rest of our visitors left this morning. I really enjoyed their visit, and I'm sure the kids had a good time. Peyton is such a sweetheart.
Lindsey and Kevin sold their house and bought another one this week. Pretty exciting stuff.
I've been playing with building panoramas lately. The two I have so far are of Hessel Bay
and Salt Point
Fran asked if I would do the engineering thing for their next disc. It should be fun.....
I hate money. I hate dealing with it. I hate worrying about it. I hate keeping track of it. I do, however love to spend it. It's almost like a drug. If I'm feeling a little down, I can go to Wal-Mart or Office Max and get a quick fix. There's nothing like the satisfaction of heading to the register, carrying an item that, until now, I didn't realize that I JUST HAD TO HAVE IT. I sometimes shop on-line, but the instant gratification just isn't there. Sometimes I'm so shallow....
I've been told before 'money isn't important'. It isn't important unless you don't have enough of it. What's even worse is when you think you have enough of it but discover you were wrong. Take checkbooks, for example. If you don't balance your checkbook every now and again, you're going to have major problems sooner or later. And your problems can become others problems. For example, Neal and Jaclyn were recently married, and received money from friends and relatives. Well, one of the checks bounced because the account was closed. Why? Because there were too many bounced checks. Why? Because they never balanced the checkbook. Why? Because they didn't have time. So now they get to deal with trying to get by without a checking account because they can't get another one for a while. Talk about a pain in the ass!
So anyway, Neal called and told us he was bouncing checks because he had written checks against the deposits that included the bounced check. The only ones coming out ahead in this whole deal are the banks, because of course they charge a ridiculous fee every time they do anything. Go into any major city and look at the biggest buildings. What are they? Banks and insurance companies. There's a reason for that.
So one of the little 'this drives me crazy' habits my wife has is writing checks and not entering them in the register. I almost never use it (it's 'hers' after all. If I ever want the checkbook, I have to pry it out of her hands). She takes care of it, other than balancing against the bank statement. Well, the other day I had to enter at least 25 checks in the register because she 'didn't have time to do it'. Then I realized it hadn't been balanced in several months. Damn....it takes much longer to do it if you don't keep up with it. So I finally got it balanced and was relieved to find we weren't close to the edge.
'I still have some checks left, so that means I still have some money left...'
When does the responsibility to guide/cajole/control your children's action and behaviors end? Is it determined by age or location? If an adult child (over 18) lives at home, is it reasonable to demand they attend church? After all, we are no longer legally responsible, so why should we be morally responsible? Is there any value in forcing a child (adult or not) to attend church? I don't think so. My wife does. It's a basic difference that will never be reconciled.
The visits continue. Linda (my sister-in-law) and her family are here for the next few days. It's great to see them again. Neal and Jaclyn are going to live with them for a while after the move to Texas. There were 15 people at the house last night. Bodies lying everywhere. Right now everyone's out somewhere except me. It's so quiet. Except for the pig oinking and grunting, the dog barking, the chickens clucking and crowing, and the cars passing along the highway. I like it. It's certainly better than having the kids running around the yard chasing the pig. Jon let Olive out of the pen so he and his cousins could chase her. It's now official;he really is an idiot. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about him doing stuff like that. I was a teenage boy once too.
I captured this from a videotape, so it's not all that good a picture. I've heard about albino deer but never had the chance to see one. I had borrowed a videotape from someone for some track events a few years ago, and found it by accident. I hope no one shot it....
It's been a busy week here...constant procession of family coming and going. First Nathan picked up his new laptop and stayed several days, then Neal and Jaclyn are visiting before they make the big move. Linda and her family are visiting (they live near Dallas). Gabrielle is living at home again and Rachel is staying here this week to spend time with Neal and Jaclyn. She'll be moving back home soon (that was the only way she could afford to buy a car). So it's been fun here, trying to make sleeping arrangements for everyone.
It's surprising sometimes to find out how easily annoyed I am with things. The other day I had to make dinner for everyone. No big deal. I've done it LOTS of times. This time, however, Rose had planned the dinner, and since she wasn't home, guess who got to prepare it? I don't mind cooking, but if I'm gonna cook, I want to decide what to make. One of the dishes was a little more elaborate than I would normally do (involves potatoes and parmesan cheese, seasoning, butter, etc). OK, so I'm already tired, and when I get home I find I have to make this dinner for 12 people and the only thing done so far is the potatoes have been boiling for a while. OK, fine. I'm cooking dinner. Then she calls and gives me all these instructions about 'You gotta do this and you gotta do that...blah blah blah'. I'm already pissed off and here she is on the phone giving me a list of crap to do in addition to taking care of the dinner she had planned. I heard about 10% of what she said. I think I even hung up on her.
The reason she wasn't home, of course, was that she had worked that day for the home health care place and was finishing her paperwork (lots of paperwork). Did that matter to me? Not at that point. I was pissed off and I was going to stay pissed off, at least for a while. If she had called me at work and mentioned that I needed to make dinner, or called and asked me nicely to make dinner when I got home, I wouldn't have been upset.
I'm all better now. It's funny how writing this crap out helps me get rid of it. I've heard that over and over, in interviews with authors, poets, and songwriters. It seems they weren't lying to me after all..........
I found this picture while I was poking around on my server...
 | One of the kids took their fingers and rubbed off most of the dyes on the original picture. It has a neat effect, so I scanned it in. Rachel ran better that year than other years (not by much) but it was because Jessie was always right on her butt, making her do her best. |
One of the most difficult things in moviemaking has got to be creating a sequel that captures the audience as well as the original (assuming the original was any good). LOTR sets the standard for this. Lethal Weapon 1 and 4 (2 & 3 were mediocre). The original Star Wars series. There are others, but you get my point. One of the others is the Terminator series. I saw T3 last night. If you don't want to know ANYTHING about it, stop reading here. I won't give away any of the story, just my reaction to it.
All in all, it was a pretty fun ride. It had some funny lines and little bits, but mostly it was a roller coaster ride, with the predictible explosions, smashed cars, destroyed buildings, etc. It was a bit disappointing though....you have to suspend your disbelief when you watch a movie like this, but the action on the screen should still make sense. There were a few scenes where the director asks you to not only suspend your disbelief, but forget about logic as well. For example, the remote-controlled vehicles that were chasing our heros from the vet clinic, how is it that the TX was able to control the steering, brakes, gas, gear shift, etc? Most of the mechanisms need physical movement to operate. Was she able to grow servos for all those mechanical devices? From what? If you can apply the Clarke (Arthur C.) rule 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' then, perhaps, you can get around this problem, but it feels like a cheap thrill. Instead of developing a rational series of events that would move the story along, you're forced to accept the premise of 'magic'.
I enjoyed the movie, and can recommend it, but it doesn't have the same feel or story quality of Terminator or T2.
Well!!! I think I finally figured out my computer problem. The P.O.S. would crash every time I tried to process a video file. I went through a very painful and drawn-out troubleshooting process. I reinstalled Win 2K 5 times, pulled out and reinstalled just about every component in the box. Updated drivers, reformatted the drives, etc, etc, on and on. As a last option, I removed the new processor (AMD Athlon 2400+) and put the old one back in (AMD Athlon 1.2 GHZ). For the first time in about 4 weeks, I can process a video file again. At least it hasn't crashed yet (3+ hours). I guess that's what I get for installing the fastest processor the motherboard would support(according to Gigabyte). The video app would crash with what looked like a memory read error, so perhaps the bus speed was too fast for one of the components. It just reinforces the idea of not changing too many things at the same time. Processor, memory, RAID controller, new hard drive. I should know better.
My wife is so nice to me sometimes.....
One of my coworkers has a source for odd and funny pictures. Here's a sample:
Here's another one that's gotta be a fake:
If I knew the original sources I would credit them, in the meantime, thanks, Scott.
My wife's off on a 4 day strech. Which means she won't be home till Tuesday. She works at a hospital about 85 miles away, and is on duty from 7pm to 7am. Because of the long drive, she rents a room and stays there. She usually works a couple days in a row...no big deal. This is the first time she got scheduled for 4 days in a row, and I don't like it. I know she doesn't.
When we used to live in Kentucky, Rosalie would come to the U.P. to visit her mother and father in the summer. She would bring all the kids and usually stay a month or so. Well, let me tell you, that first week was GREAT! I could put things down and they'd be there when I came back to look for them. I could read a book from cover to cover without being interrupted. Nobody nagging me about this or that. I could do whatever I wanted to do. It was awesome!!! The second week it was about the same: movies, books, sex with strange women (just kidding, I've been a good boy). The third week would find me calling, wondering when she was coming home. The fourth week was no fun at all. I'm sure that our relationship was made stronger because of these separations. It showed me what my life would be like without her and the kids complicating it, and I didn't care much for it. You might want to try it sometime.
The St. Ignace Car Show is this weekend. People from all over the place come to this thing. It's almost in my backyard, but I have no intention of going. There's somewhere between 50-80,000 people that come to this yearly event, and that's too damned many for me. I used to get called on car show weekend to service the register system at a grocery store in St. Ignace every year. What a miserable experience!!! The traffic, crowds, etc were terrible. Why would people do that for fun? They're just cars, after all. I guess I should be happy I never made it to Woodstock (the REAL Woodstock festival). Although, it seems that this aversion to crowds has gotten worse as I've gotten older. That may be typical.
The noise is also an issue. I used to love going to concerts, but now I doubt I'd go if I was paid. I want to protect the hearing I have left. The last concert (Steve Miller) was great, but it was actually painful. The Moody Blues are playing somewhere south of here next week, and I would love to go, but I probably won't. I've loved the Moody Blues since I first heard them, and haven't seen them in concert yet. But, the noise issue again. Perhaps some earplugs would help.......
I guess I can mention that Lindsey is pregnant now. Due in December, just 5 days after Jaclyn. I learned about it 4 days ago, and she told her mother today. The reason for waiting was that she didn't want to preempt Neal and Jaclyn. First the wedding, then the baby coming. She's considerate that way. She's a good daughter and a great mother, and we get along very well. And, yes, I'm quite proud of her. Can you tell?
I remember when she was just a baby, probably about 1 year old. During her visit to Michigan she had learned that banging her head on the floor got her what she wanted. Of course, that was a wood floor with carpeting. Our house in Kentucky was tile on a concrete slab. Shortly after she and her mother returned home, Lindsey was sitting on the floor and wanted something she wasn't getting, so she banged her head on the floor. It should work, right? After all, it worked at Gramma's house. Well, her head hit the floor and bounced back up. For that second or so before the screams started, she had the oddest look on her face. Of course, she was crying because her head REALLY hurt, but it was hard not to laugh about it.
I remember another time that her mother was complaining because she felt I wasn't giving Lindsey enough attention (it was her imagination, of course...I was a doting father). She overheard the comment and proceeded to yell out 'I want my attention!!!' She had no idea what it was, but it was hers, dammit, and she wanted it.
We had a picture of Lindsey that had a setting similar to a picture of my sister Elaine when she was around the same age. It was amazing how much alike those two pictures looked. They could have been of the same child. My sister told me once that it was God's punishment - I had been so mean to her when she was young (we're 9 years apart) that I now had to raise her. She was right, at least the part about being mean to her. I had to get even with her somehow for breaking the neck on that guitar I hadn't even paid for...
Guess what....I'm gonna be a grandpa again. Neal and Jaclyn came to the house a couple days ago and announced that Jaclyn is 4 months pregnant. The timing is a little off (wedding was 3 weeks ago) but no matter...I'm happy for them. That will be two, with another coming soon after (more later). Adulthood has hit Neal with a vengence...graduate from college, get married, and begin to anticipate the birth of a child, all within 2 months. Good luck, son.....
Meanwhile, the summer progresses and life goes on. My recently upgraded computer is giving me fits. It simply will not burn a DVD. It throws an error that seems to indicate a memory conflict. It's probably a driver conflict, though. All I know is, it's frustrating having this loaded computer that I can't even burn a disc on. Oh well, I'll tackle it a little later.
These machines are so complicated anymore it's a surprise any of them work. My sister-in-law called earlier tonight (one of about 25 calls) (I want to rip that thing off the wall sometimes) and told me she had an error when the kids tried to play some of the games. I suggested she download Directx 9. She did and that corrected the problem. I'm sure it's because one of the games installed overwrote a critical file (that's called DLL HELL; look it up on Google ).
Dll files have code shared among many programs, and are a prime target for careless software producers. Microsoft has to take a big share of the responsibility because they built it so it could happen, the dummies. It's supposed to be a thing of the past. I sure hope it is.
I was repairing a drawer for the kitchen yesterday. You know what happens, the front comes off because the sides have broken apart where the staples are at. It's a good way to spend a Father's day. I couldn't help remembering the time when Nathan repaired a drawer for the same thing.
It was not long after we moved into this house so he would have been about 15. I'm not sure how much time he spent on it, but the drawer is still in working order (it's probably the most-used drawer of all). Now, you have to understand that Nathan did this on his own. He never said anything to me, asked me for help, or anything else. It came apart when he opened it and he felt obligated to repair it.
Before we moved to this house we lived a couple miles east of here, by a river. Down by the river was an apple tree surrounded by other trees and thorns that made it hard to get to and also blocked out the sun. One summer Nathan decided he was going to clear out the area around that apple tree so the apples would grow better and we could get to them. Every day he hauled down to the 'worksite' the tools he would use that day. No power tools, mind you (he was too young for that). He spent several days, perhaps as long as a week, clearing out around that apple tree. His determination to help that tree was a pleasure to watch. I went down to the spot a few times, and remember being impressed with the amount of brush, etc he had cleared.
He learned a hard lesson though. At the end of the summer, instead of the bushels of apples he imagined we would harvest, the tree had hardly any fruit at all. He told me 'That tree was better before I did anything'. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere....
It's done now. Neal and Jaclyn were married last week....it was a lovely ceremony....no surprises thankfully. It was held in a beautiful old church, about 140 years old, with this tremendous pipe organ installed around 1905.
The rear pipes have trumpets that were used during the recessional. I was quite impressed with the sound. I have to admit I got a little misty during the ceremony. It's hard to believe this young man standing at the front of the church is the same little boy that gave my steering wheel a shave when he was 3.
I remember a time when he wanted to help 'daddy', and cleaned ashes out of the wood stove. Well, he did get them out of the stove, but they went everywhere in the room (our living room at the time). He was so proud and came to get me to show what he had done. When I went into the room and saw the ashes everywhere, I couldn't supress it. 'Oh, Neal!' was all I could say. I'll never forget the reaction he had to that. The smile disappeared, he ran to his room. I think he was crying. I found him on his bed, and I picked him up to console him. I tried to explain that I wasn't angry, and I appreciated his help, and he could help me clean up the ashes that got spilled. It was one of those moments that last a lifetime. I still can't think about it without a twinge of regret.
So, anyway, it's been a bit of a tradition that when an older sibling or cousin was married the younger kids (approaching 18) had permission to drink beer at the reception. Neal did when Lindsey was married. Nathan did when his cousin Katrina was married. It was Jonathan's turn this time, and he took advantage of it. At least he waited until we were back at the hotel to lose his cookies. 'I'll never do that again' was almost all he had to say about it.
I never seem to have my camera with me at the right time. I miss so many opportunities. You can never have too many embarrasing pictures of your children. Like that time Nathan got his...uhhh...private parts...caught in his zipper. I've never seen a child's face turn so red. If I'd only had my camera..
I got to do something over the weekend that I hadn't done in a while...take my camera out to shoot pictures of whatever looked interesting. Using a digital camera is the only way I can afford to do it the way I like. Generally I shoot several pictures using slightly different settings and choose the best one. If I was still using film, I would probably still do that, but it would hurt more. Even a low-res camera like mine (under 1 megapixel, after all, it's 5 years old) can provide some pretty good pictures if you don't need to print larger than a 4X6.
Memorial weekend provided the perfect opportunity, because I went out to Salt Point to my in-law's cabin. While I was out there, I saw the biggest anthill I've ever seen
It was about 3 feet across the top. An amazing site. We walked over to it, but changed our minds when the ants got a little stirred up. Damn....lots of ants. There were some beautiful flowers along the way (I especially like taking pictures of wild flowers). A little later I spotted a tree that was being slowly disassembled by woodpeckers.
All in all, a good weekend.
On Saturday, my youngest mentioned that an egg had hatched in the garage (it's home to a family of Robins now). Well, I couldn't pass up the chance to get a picture. You can see the chick pulling itself out of the shell.
I can't ever remember seeing a picture quite like it. Mom wasn't happy. She sat in a tree and yelled at me the whole time. As with my mother, I ignored her...
I guess I'm getting used to the idea of having a rabbit around.
She's cute, no doubt of that. Her cage now occupies a spot in the basement. When I come down to work on the media computer, I let her out and watch as she moves all around the room, running around and around the trashcan, alternately hiding from and then teasing Loki. I saw her run up behind Loki, and sniff his feet. When Loki would turn to look at her, she would run away. As soon as he looked away, Poppy would run up to his feet and start sniffing them again. It sure looked like a game to me.
I got my first taste of the increased security at the US/Canadian border today. Going into Canada was pretty much normal, a short line, a few questions, and we were on our way. 2 or 3 minutes and that was it. Coming back, however was a different story. The line was pretty long, even though there were three lanes open. Lots of questions, we had to show our IDs (my wife and I went shopping), pop the trunk, produce a sales receipt, etc....all pretty standard stuff except for the feeling I got being there. It felt like going into a police station...you know...even though you know you aren't in trouble, there's that lingering feeling that these folks could make your life miserable if they wanted too. So don't piss 'em off.
I remember when I was 21 and had just gotten out of the Air Force (1975) I was over in Cannelton, Indiana, just tooling around on my bicycle. I saw the brother of a friend of mine, so I stopped to talk with him for a few minutes. I hadn't been there more than 5 minutes when this pissant sheriff's deputy pulled up in his car and announced I wasn't allowed to stand around on a public street...'loitering' I believe he called it, and ordered me to leave. You understand, I wasn't doing anything wrong, just talking to this 12 year old kid, but pissant didn't like it. I
guess I didn't leave fast enough because he came roaring around the corner and threatened to put me in jail. Well, I left, but I was so pissed off....I had volunteered for the U. S. military during the height of the Vietnam war, and this hick bastard was telling me I couldn't stand on a public street in 'his' town. Well, I decided to see how far he would go, so I went back. I bought a Dr. Pepper and sat down on the opposite corner to drink it. There were probably 3 or 4 old men on the other corner, taking all this in. I hung around for about 15 minutes, but he never showed up.
Probably off bullying some other taxpayers. I guess it was a stupid thing to do, but I couldn't just walk away from it. I've often wondered about what happened to that guy, and what his real problem was. I hope he got fired, because he had no business being a policeman. I've never really looked at the police in the same way since. It's not that I distrust them, I just try to remember they are people too, except they have permission to put holes in you if you piss 'em off.
I'm sure there are a million songs that go something like this 'It's 4 in the mornin', I can't sleep tonight, cause me an' my baby done got in a fight' or something like that. It sucks when your life feels like a bad country song, but, you know what they say (whoever 'they' are) 'Shit happens'. Wait, I got another one...'It sucks to be you'.
I'm sure that arguments (we'll call them a 'difference of opinion' or 'doo' for short) are a part of every married couples' life. Cause folks, if you don't have doos you can't work out the little shit that flows through your life, then it turns into big shit, and everyone knows that if you don't have a doo every now and again, you get all bound up, and who needs that? You end up with somebody poking their finger up the butthole of your life, trying to get you to have a doo which if you didn't let it get to that point to begin with you never would have got to the finger-in-butt stage (metaphorically speaking, of course).
Damn, there should be a song in here somewhere...... 'It's 4 in the morning, I'm lyin' in bed, those words you were sayin', still run through my head......'
In less than two weeks my oldest son will be married..... He just graduated from the University at the beginning of May. So did his fiance, Jaclyn. After the wedding, a move to Texas is planned.....may as well change everything at once. I know I find it easier to deal with lots of big changes happening together than lots of changes happening one at a time. Changes sort of numb you, so it seems better to try and get through them quickly and move on. Unfortunately, we're going to miss the U.P. Finals this year, since the wedding is on the same day. That's too bad, too, because Jon qualified in three events. The coach was a little bummed, but there's nothing we can do about it.
I've been posting like crazy to the family forum lately. Larry is sending waves of e-mail with bits and pieces of data he's collected over the years. I don't know how many hours he's got in this project, but he's traced back to the original immigrant, John Morrison who came to the US around 1723.
What is it that drives people to want to know their ancestry? Since I was never motivated to study that, I guess I'll never know. It's probably due to some belief that, in order to know yourself, you should know where you came from. I have to admit, it is pretty cool reading stories about the family that are almost 300 years old. But it's not likely I would take a lot of time to do the research. So, Larry, keep on pumpin it out, and I'll keep posting it. It seems like a fair trade to me.....
We had two track meets in the last two days...it would have been ok if it wasn't so freakin' cold.....and raining....they ran out of coffee and hot chocolate....damn. I ended up sitting in my truck for much of the meet today, waiting for my kid's events. That's ok, at least I can smoke there (they frown on smoking at a track meet for some reason).
Random thought....There's a sign along the highway as you drive into Pickford...the original looks like this.
Of course I couldn't leave it alone (the sign is a few years out of date)...here's what I changed it to..
...of course, I'm a few years out of date too, because the girls also won in 2001 and 2002. I have to admit I'm curious as to why the accomplishments of 20-50 years ago are worthy of displaying to the world, but the accomplishments of the last 5 years aren't. Perhaps it's that the people the signs are referring to are the ones deciding what the signs should refer to. That deserves some thought.
Loki (Lucky, Licky..he answers to them all) got a haircut a couple weeks ago. He's a golden Retriever, which means he has a beautiful coat, but it also means if he's inside, there's hair everywhere. When my wife first mentioned getting his hair cut, I thought 'Oh, no, here we go again'. But surprise, surprise, it was actually an excellent idea. He doesn't shed now(not much to shed) and he can stay in the house without upsetting anyone (except the rabbit)...Yes, God, we have a rabbit now. The offical census is now 4 people, 11 chickens, one turkey, one dog, one pig (Olive), and Poppy, a rather cute floppy eared rabbit. I've given up hope of limiting the animals my children (and wife) inflict on me.... I'm holding out though......I'm not taking care of them....oh, wait...I think Poppy needs some water.... be back later...........
It's raining....hard.....But I love storms. I love to watch the lightning light up the sky and listen to the thunder roll, so loud it rattles the windows. It reminds me how small and insignificant I really am...and somehow that's reassuring...Have you ever really thought about how big the universe is? Current estimates predict the Milky Way galaxy has between 200 and 400 billion stars. It is one of the larger galaxies, at least in our local galactic group.
The Hubble space telescope has helped us expand our understanding of how big the universe is, and how much...uhh...stuff is out there, and how weird some of it is.
The Hubble telescope was aimed at the darkest point in the sky (just above the lip of the big dipper) and, in a series of images, reached out to the limits of it's capabilities. Know what they found? Hundreds of galaxies.
HUNDREDS OF GALAXIES!!!!!!!
Think about what that implies. You could pick a spot, any spot, in the sky the size of the head of a pin. Behind that spot could be found hundreds of galaxies. It staggers the imagination.
There are estimates of millions of galaxies, perhaps tens of millions in our universe. It would be disappointing to think that the rest of creation is there as a light show for us.
I ordered a DVD burner today....a welcome addition to my ever-so-slowly growing collection of tools, toys, trinkets, and trash that seems to consume more and more of my time and energy. I'm not complaining, mind you, I've been lusting after a DVD burner for the last year. I know, though, that the mere fact that I now have one implies that I will use it. Time and energy.....it means I'm going to recapture all that video I already did, because, compared to DVD quality video, VCD is chopped liver.
I've decided there are really only two kinds of people...those that want to raise pigs and those that don't.....Nothing is less appealing to me than raising a pig in my back yard, but that appears to be what's going to happen....my youngest is in 4-H and she wants to raise a pig. Her name is Olive.
Well, since she's got to live somewhere, I'm told I will be building a pen tomorrow. We'll see. We're (my wife and I) are in 'negotiation' about this issue. Although in the end, I'm sure we'll be raising a damn stinkin pig in the backyard (behind the garage), however, I'm going to get something (or perhaps a few somethings) out of my capitulation. It's only fair, don't you agree?
I was watching my granddaughter tonight....what a sweetheart! She's two years old now. She has to see everything, touch everything, and generally try to get a piece of everything going on around her. I got a cup of cereal earlier and she wasn't satisfied until I showed her what was in the cup. My telling her just wasn't good enough.
A little later she wanted to listen to some music so I let her listen to Warts and All . She's heard it once before (that I know of). Before the intro was halfway done she said 'Poppa'. Does that mean she recognized the song and remembered her mom saying it was me? I think so.
She's probably a normal two-year old child, but it was a surprise to realize she recognized my song after hearing it once. It demonstrates to me how true it is that a small child is like a sponge, soaking up everything that happens around them. It's such an amazing process, watching a child grow up. And despite all the mistakes that parents make, most of the time the kids survive the process just fine. One thing I can say with some authority;it's much more fun being the grandfather than it is being the father.
A quiet Sunday afternoon. I'm all alone, something I'm enjoying more of lately. Having seven children means you don't get much time alone. It's something I've missed. It always amazes me how difficult it is keeping a good relationship with those you care the most for. When you try and deal with all the nuances of relationships that exist in a large family, it can overwhelm you. But, I keep plugging along, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes mad as hell at, well, myself usually, with a little left over for those around me. I'm trying to work through that. Well, I gotta go clean the basement.........
Sleep? Who needs to sleep?I should be in bed....but here I am chipping away at the site again. It seems that it's almost become an obsession...if I don't do something to my site, it's like I'm neglecting one of my kids.
The message board I recently added is an impressive bit of work. I got the package from PHPBB It installed smoothly once I read and understood the instructions. Only took 3 tries to get it right.....My next goal is to get my new logo to play nice with colored backgrounds. And build a page that automatically displays pictures in a directory. And build a links page from a text file. And......
Damn....I'm really starting to get into this blogging thing. I've found weblogs that are full of teenage angst, thoughtful essays of all manner of subjects, photoblogs, and numerous other subjects. The power of this simple tool is amazing, overwhelming, sometimes boring, but it's real.
The same thing's happening in music. So many musicians are putting material on the web, hoping someone, anyone, will download and listen to their music. The opportunity to collaborate with musicians you've never met is an awesome thing. The song 'Smokey Bar' with Peter and Sonya is exactly that. I met Peter in the Home Recording chat room, gave him the original (also available on the download page) and a few weeks later got back the song with the main vocal track the only thing left from the original. It feels like a different song....this stuff is SO cool.
I'm being pulled in so many directions...there's not enough time to do everything....I want to learn PHP, write and record my music, absorb the web, and work, sleep and have a little fun too. Any ideas?
The first entry into my weblog. I haven't done a diary or journal before, so this should be an interesting experiment. I plan to talk about my music, my family, my interests, and my life in general.
I just put a new song on the download page called 'Warts and All'. It's kind of my salute to John Prine. I wrote it one afternoon, sitting in the van, watching Jonathan and his friends play paintball. That was a good day, and a productive week musically. I finished one song, and wrote two other songs that week, a milestone for me. I had a ball recording it, except for the computer problems I was having at the time. I recorded some parts five or six times because the freakin computer kept locking up. I had to put it away for a while and work on other stuff because I was so sick of it. I'm still having lockups, but after removing the cover, it seems to be more stable. I'm pretty excited about getting the new Behringer microphone. I haven't recorded anything with it yet, but will soon.
The stuff I'm trying to write about now is really giving me problems. Life at home has been pretty hard lately and I'm trying to work some of that out in my music, but it all just seems to run together and sound the same. Well, enough whining for now.
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