Goal
of the Month: To
stop trying to get caught up with everything,
and fix Steve's computer.
-
August 30, 2007 -
My
birthday, and an A+ day- I got a number of neat
things today; Went out to lunch with Jesse, Wendy,
Letha
& Teresa; I also nearly figured out my browser
alternative for the research room at work... It's
been a real maze... I was close to finally solving
the problem with my Plan E this morning... and
by the end of the day I discovered something that
made my Plan A viable again. Oiy, it sure would
have been nice if I would have just stumbled upon
that to start with, but I nearly a number of good
things along the way.
I
saw a rather disturbing story on the news the
other day concerning Russia. President Putin has
rolled back a number of reforms, and it seems
every journalist or critic who talks out against
the government has been killed- some in rather
gruesome slayings... The story was about Russian
"Nashi" youth camp, where high school
age students are fed propaganda glorifying the
days when they were a strong communist country,
and how they must return to the old system to
become a great superpower again. In the camp there
are huge banners bashing all of Putin's political
opponents, and they are given equal doses of hard
exercise and political indoctrination. With Putin's
blessing the youth have taken to the streets to
help crush pro-democracy rallies.
-
August 27, 2007 -
Today
I give a C+. It was potato bar day which was OK,
and I made some headway on our public access computers,
but no headway on the Fuji scanner. I can tell
that the main hard drive in Tachyon is going bad-
it started to tick tonight, and that's never good.
I tried to run scandisk, but it gets stuck in
the fourth pass at 33%. It will still boot though,
so I'm backing everything up.
-
August 26, 2007 -
Another
nice relaxing weekend; Friday Teresa and I went
over to Lin & Brian's to do some stuff, Teresa
organized and scanned some photos, and I burned
a CD of some of Teresa's photos and I picked up
Lin's Sister's computer which could no longer
boot.
Saturday
I worked on the computer I picked up Friday- it's
hard drive was completely trashed, I couldn't
get it to boot, or format, or anything, so I put
a new one in it and put the OS back on and it
seemed to work again OK, I was a bit concerned
when she said that several things broke in her
house that day, and usually if it's an electrical
problem the power supply, modem, and motherboard
go before the hard drive, but in this case only
the hard drive died- but it's always bad when
all your data is lost.
I've
had a few technical problems of my own.... I think
either the VPN client or Novell messed up my home
network. It just seems to stall a lot, so I went
and uninstalled both, and then the internet connection
sharing went down- I can still send files over
the network, but if I try to get to the internet
on one, it will now try to call in, and I've told
it a number of times that it doesn't have a modem,
and it must use the network for the internet...
but it just doesn't seem to work. My other system
has taken to spontaneously rebooting a lot more
frequently than it use to as well.
-
August 19, 2007 -
I
renewed my cell phone today- I have a tracfone,
one of those pay as you go phones, which you only
have to buy minutes for every three months. Before
I added any more minutes to it I got a double
minutes card... it was $49.99, but now any minutes
I buy to add to it are doubled for life.
I
got a lot done this weekend- mostly cleaning but
I also did some work on Heavenly
Pet Memorials, the website I've been working
on recently, and I set up a new e-mail for myself,
I don't want to get spam to it so I'm not going
to post it, but it's craig@ and then my domain
name.
-
August 18, 2007 -
Bose
headphones... just how much do they cost I wonder!
There was a commercial on for them, they reduce
ambient noise, and you can listen to the music
with them... and they never mentioned the price,
but did say that there were twelve payments.
Friday
was Kristen's last day so there were lots of eats.
Cynthia is also getting ready to leave so Teresa
& I took she and Joe out to eat.
-
August 12, 2007 -
The
judge that filed a lawsuit against a dry cleaner
for $54 million after they lost his pants has
now lost his job because of it. Yup, just from
watching Judge Judy you should know that you can
only sue for the cost of what you've lost- and
pain & suffering, at least because of lost
pants, isn't going to get you very far in the
courtroom.
Republicans
seem to be trying to stay out of the eyes of the
public. The top three didn't attend the Iowa Straw
Poll, none of them attended the Gay Debate (but
I don't think anyone really expected any Republican
to go to that), but surprisingly the Republican
YouTube debate on CNN also seems to be falling
through as only a couple agreed to participate.
-
August 5, 2007 -
Teresa
and I meandered about today. We went and ate with
Lou, and stopped by Alan's to get him started
on putting photos on a CD so I can make a DVD
slide show for him, and then we were off to Lawrence
to see Wendy. We went out to the Thai House, which
I found to be slightly "less better"
than Zen Zero.... and after that we went to see
the much anticipated (only by me) movie Sunshine.
As with so many movies I pondered it could have
been a good story... had it just not been gone
over the edge of junky ideas. The basic premise
is: In some distant year the Sun is beginning
to dim, and most of the story focuses on the second
ship sent to re-ignite it. Well they discover
the first ship along the way, which was lost seven
years ago, and all the crew is dead, except for
the Captain, who is a gooey sunburn of a fellow,
but he's also homicidally mad, and very strong.......
and we just didn't get how he could live on his
ship, with a radiation burn so bad it should have
killed him, and yet it seemed to give him super
strength. It just seemed to poop all over what
could have been a good movie. Meh.
-
August 4, 2007 -
Saturday,
and it's my day to rest up and get things done.
I slept in, and then I did some of the normal
weekend chores, ran on the treadmill, and worked
on Steve's computer some more.
-
August 3, 2007 -
After
work Bob, Lou, Teresa & I went out to eat
at Cook's on Gage, it's a very Mom & Pop sort
of place... and then we went to see DonnaRae's
photography exhibit. She had taken some beach
scenes and printed them on canvas- I've never
actually seen that done before so I thought that
was really neat. After that we went to the Sundown
Film Festival at work... I'm happy it cooled off
for it- it was a very nice evening.
-
August 2, 2007 -
Barry
shared a profound ponderance with me today that
I agree with.... We've poured so much money into
the Iraq war for the cause of fighting terrorism
in order to protect America, but in doing so we
have neglected things that are now causing us
just as much harm as if there were terrorists
here blowing things up and causing havoc, be it
a bridge or a steam pipe in New York. There are
hundreds of thousands of bridges that have received
the same inspection rating as the bridge that
collapsed- today the government urged the states
to re-inspect all steel truss bridges.
Tonight
was dinner out with Sandy night, this time at
Olive Garden. Kristen also announced today that
she got a new job- it sounds like a step up from
what she was getting from us, so I can't fault
her.
-
August 1, 2007 -
It
is parade night as the fair is going on this week.
I came home and took a nap though- I've only gotten
five hours of sleep each night Monday and Tuesday
mostly because I've been helping Brent after work.
After my nap I watched the news coverage of the
bridge collapse in Minnesota.
I
brought Steve's computer home tonight- it has
a number of problems.
