Life in Weyers Cave

This is the worst Halloween ever. No kids, no costumes, no candy. Well, we did have blood. Dianna wanted pumpkin for dinner and while she was cutting it she got a good chunk out of her finger. I tell you, you gotta keep the sharp objects away from that girl! I loved this essay from Orson Scott Card , even if he is a Democrat. Please click on his name to see his essay. Personally, I think the election should go to someone who will do the following. These is my platform: 1) Admit global warming is a farce. Believe in conservation because it is the right thing to do anyway, just not as crazy as the zealots. 2) Believe in nuclear energy 3) Get us off foreign oil. Drill here, drill now AND look for better alternatives 4) Have a good score from Citizens Against Government Waste 5) Balance the budget 6) Immediately stop all government payments to illegal aliens. Send those who get medical care or are in legal trouble home as soon as they are able. Others will go home once we stop paying them...

Hours and hours of testing and trying and patience and I have learned some things about my dead computer. The master hard drive is bad - I think. The computer said there was no operating system and when I plugged it up as an external hard drive on another computer, you could read the file structure, but not access the files themselves. This of course is the big fancy super fast, super expensive drive I got and now read on NewEgg that many are busting after 18 months - two years and I got almost two and a half years. But is that all? No, I can't put in more than two gig of ram. For some reason, when the hard drive went funky, I got ram problems. Does that mean it is the ram or the slots? I don't know. I also can't start the computer with both monitors plugged in, only the smaller one with the blue plug. Maybe if I put the blue plug in the larger one it will work, but both monitors work fine on other machines with blue or white. If I put in a diagnostic disk, it just hits an ...

I am really overwhelmed with too much to do right now, and seem to hit a lot of brick walls along the way. First, my own computer is in miserable dire circumstances downstairs and I think the motherboard is out, but it is too much for me. I can't even get in to BIOS and it says there is no operating system. Then, I got one last night "just to put some ram in" -- a present from a her brother, used, but he just stripped the ram out. I thought it was XP but she said it was 2000 and it says it is 98. I don't do 98. It won't turn on. No operating system as well. It is really not worth my time to do squat with a 98 machine. I had a client Ron last week want me to set up the wireless router he had just bought. I had someone else from the company go, but then the next day he got a power surge that zapped it and it won't work. I went over to check it out. The modem is fine, but the router is a new top of the line thing I had never seen before and I couldn't get it ...

I went to see Dr Glick today, a really cool guy who went to William and Mary AND majored in Chemistry like I did, but he was a couple of years ahead. He is a doctor who works with some guy you may have heard of -- Patch Adams -- and often takes off on international trips with him. How cool is that! He punched me with needles and told me there is a ying and a yang and my yang is off. Gone. Well, not much. My yang is taking care of myself and relaxing and looking for quietness. He said I am so busy trying to do stuff for others that I leave myself out of the mix. Which makes me feel even more guilty because I am not earning much money right now so where the heck does my time go? He's right that I do very little for me. But I still don't know where it goes. Well, today it went to doctors. And bills. And Facebook. And talking to people on the phone. Hmmm. On the way home I stopped and bought myself a new blouse and some Halloween socks and some bamboo socks. I haven't bought an...

The link for stopping annoying email forwards is http://www.stopforwarding.us You put in a first name and email address and it will send an anonymous email politely asking them to stop with the forwards.

On Saturday, we had another day at the Biltmore House. It took us over an hour to just get through the basement! There is one huge room that is a normal basement room where the young Cornelia who grew up there apparently had painting parties with her friends and painted huge murals on the walls. How cool is that! There are exhibits of how the house was built. It has very little wood and none in the structure, so that it is safe from fires. The kitchens, pool, bowling alley, exercise rooms, refrigerators, and laundry are there as well. I was amazed at the relatively small kitchens sizes for such a large home. The views were no less spectacular there than the rest of the house. After that we went through the greenhouses and some gardens. Wonder where my camera is? Pictures later... After that, Riverbend Farms on the estate was a lot of fun. It was interactive adn we saw the demonstrations of making butter, the smith, and the woodworkers. A country store, some clogging, live country musi...

Dianna and I drove down to Raleigh on Wednesday and picked up my mother to take her to Asheville. We met up with my sister Tammy who drove up from Atlanta at a Bed and Breakfast for a few days of girls only rest and relaxation. We got in yesterday afternoon and went to dinner last night at a restaurant on a little street full of small restaurants that reminded me of Europe. Most of the food is grown within 100 miles and it is green -- solar hot water heat. The food was outstanding. Dianna had duck which wasn't very fatty and well prepared. I had a veggie plate. We got back to the B&B and a small string band was playing in the foyer. Afterwards, they showed off their instruments. They let Dianna play the mandolin and tenor guitar and she did great. Now she wants one, of course. This morning we had breakfast downstairs, and then went to the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Lots of neat stuff to look at -- quilts, pottery, furniture, calligraphy, woodworking, baskets, et...

One thing I have learned as an adult is that ALL kids are jealous of the others. If you ask all of my kids who is "the favorite" they will point to someone else. Okay, now that they are grown and understand it, they will kind of point to themselves. We all thought when we were growing up that Jeff was the favorite. After all, he was the cutest. He was the one the charmed the free bunny out of the guy with all the bunnies at the display counter. And dad was so overwhelmed he built a way cool bunny cage. And Jeff was the one who got a trip on a private plane to Atlanta with Dad for the whole weekend. And he had the private handshake with dad "Friends together, pals forever." And he got the special Dingo boots. And the pants with the most pockets EVER. My grandma Gretz said she was allowed to have favorites and made no bones about the fact that Jeff was IT. Jeff had a special book about him called Jeffie's Party that she found and always had to read to him. He was...

Today was the long-awaited performance at the local Black Friars theater in Staunton. The only reproduction of the famous Shakespearean theater in the US, maybe the world. What fun! It was a matinee, so we got there at 1:00 in costume of course. I have a long flowing gold cloth on my hat and I always feel very rich with it on. Several of the players were concerned at the lack of light. There is one other youngster in the group (only 50 years old like me!) and most of the others are late 60's, 70's, and 80's. So low light is a problem! The theater said they couldn't do anything for us, so we squinted, but I think we played well. Maybe we were trying harder because of the light. We went through our program, just fifteen minutes long. The last piece was a "bird" song where we do lots of trills. For the last verse, I slyly got out the "bust your ears" tiny garklein (half the size of a soprano) and went at it! It was a lot of fun and I made no mistakes...

Yes, it was a good morning. One of the good/bad things about being a Mormon is that without paid ministry, everyone gets plenty of experience speaking in front of people. This morning, I had to give a talk about my company in front of 20 people. In my 20s, I would have totally freaked out. But now, it was just talking to a roomful of friends. I talked about the company and our "If we don't fix it you don't pay" policy. Then went on to more important things like top ten list of things techies wish nontechies knew. Most didn't realize: Don't put magnets around computers, thumb drives, cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, or anything else you don't want deprogrammed. I also talked about backing up offsite, viruses and how to close a page that pops up saying you have a virus that is NOT from your virus protector, how to send an anonymous email to those who constantly send annoying emails, and David's favorite: how far can someone read an unprotected wifi si...

And the tradition is to come up with something gimmicky for the letters. Her call is KJ4HFM so we have everything from Huge Furry Moose to Hog Fetchin' Mama. Any good suggestions for her? I of course am the Weird Purple Elephant. David is King David's nine Little Alligators. I taught a class at church tonight to the 8-11 year old girls. They are wonderful bunch and it is always a treat. We made some ornaments out of hand-woven material that one lady in church made. I got a new computer to fix today and am finishing up one right now. Bad hard drive, and the new operating system had a driver for the video card which was bad, so I had to reload the whole mess three times.

  I had trouble with this computer and had to replace the hard drive, but the stupid computer didn't recognize the replacement either. I had trouble because the plugs didn't seem right. In fact, what is that in the 3 1/2 inch floppy hole? Oops. I .... am .... an .... idiot! No problem. I got a call from a friend whose laptop I have been working on and thought it was okay. She said it wouldn't turn on at all. I asked her to reseat the battery, try a different wall outlet in a different room and told her I knew it HAD to be a power thing. Turns out I forget to remind her that the plug in the back of the computer and the wall aren't enough. The cord has to be plugged into the power supply. Oops.

I have been getting some physical therapy and working hard on my back and legs to try to get out of pain. The PT told me to lie on my ball for two minutes twice a day, but of course Allen (with Faraday's aid) broke it the second day. He went out and got another but it was PINK and too small. Pink! I ordered a new one, which was black, and it came yesterday. Dianna decided to blow it up. Those things take a LOT even with the pump to blow up, and she got it half full and decided that was enough. I showed her the measuring tape and she dutifully went back to work. It is now mostly blown up, but when you take the pump out to close the hole it wooshes out about three inches of air. It is very, very, VERY firm. When I went to try out the new ball, I didn't realize how slippery and firm it is. Note to self, don't get on a large slick bowling ball with a floor full of sharp computer equipment. Oooh. Ahh. I hurt. I flew headfirst into the television. Not a pretty scene. Skinned one ...

You will love this no matter WHO you are voting for! Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Between David and I (and admittedly some pictures I scarfed from Cathy), we have a pretty nice repertoire of pictures that make great backgrounds or wallpapers on the computer. Just click on the picture to make it large, right click the larger image and select "Set as background". Any of these will beat that silly Teletubbies one that comes with XP! The album is the bottom entry on my links to the left listed as Wallpapers. Someday I might get around to labeling them all, but for now, enjoy!

So one child bought a computer in January with a one-year no-interest option. He had the money to pay it off, but heck, a year of just minimum payments means he can use the money in the meantime. NO! This is a snake's option -- they are out to bite you! They said they would do a automatic deduction from his checking account, but it would take two to three months to kick in. The first and second month he made the payments, and to be on the safe side, sent in a check for the third month as well. For MORE than the minimum, I might add. But the finance company posted the third check to the second month and therefore there was "no payment" the third month. (The auto deduction never kicked in.) BOOM! $39 dollar no payment fee. $29 late payment fee. Interest automatically goes to 26%. He didn't even look at the statement for a month, then saw what was happening and called the finance company and said "Tell me the balance and I will pay it all now." They did, he ...

Here's my law that I think Obama or McCain ought to push! Any time a corporation fails and must be "bailed out" by the government, the top salary (including ALL benefits) is to be capped at $100,000 per individual, limit to one individual per family. No stock options are to be given, period. The President, Vice Presidents, CEO and members of the Board of Directors will have their salary cut to the wage of the lowest paid full time employee of the company. If a state asks for a bailout (like California just did), the same will be true for state employees, including the Governor, and State Senators and Congressmen. In the case of California, of course, they could probably bail themselves out if they would just stop giving all their money to illegal aliens and start drilling off their coast. I think if those in charge had consequences to their actions, the companies might be a bit better managed. Just a thought.

One of my defining personal characteristics is the degree to which I absolutely hate waste. I believe strongly that we should use the limited resources on this planet to live well within our means and share with the less fortunate. I hate conspicuous consumption. (For you young people, that means owning something with a brand name just so you can show off that you have the "in" brand, or having oversized homes, SUVs, designer clothes, ridiculously expensive meals, etc. that you don't need.) No, this doesn't make me a Democrat! (Although I don't like being called a Republican either, but that is another post.) So I was secretly beyond delighted when Dan, the leader of the Dog Show, asked me (in charge of concessions) to make it a "green" event. We had to follow "green" protocol, including recycling of paper, metal, plastic, etc. We had to use as little disposables as possible. Right up my alley! The Community Center is a huge place with full, wo...

I started to write my to do on the white board and realized it wasn't going to work. For one thing, it is hard for me to reach and I have too many to do's and it would get too full. But I was going nuts because every time I started something I would just think about all these other things I have to do and then go start one of them and I had so many things going on at once that I couldn't do ANY of them right. So I took some old business cards and wrote ONE job on the back of each and taped them to the cabinet doors in the kitchen I know I am forgetting a bunch, but just having them written down helped, and I can organize them by importance. I have SIX computers in the house in various stages of repair. Two of them I just have to save what I can on the hard drive. I got a new thingy-dingy that I can plug a hard drive into and plug the other end into a USB port and pretend it is a thumb drive. Way cool and I am looking forward to playing with it. But haven't had a chance...

I finally have a definitive diagnosis of my back and leg pain, and it isn't quite what I thought it was, but it explains so much more. I guess they call it lumbar stenosis and instead of the lower back having arthritis, it is really more degeneration and bone spurs within the spine causing pressure on the nerves in the spinal column. Now I don't feel so crazy when I say that sitting in a backless chair kills me, that if I am in a store, I am better off with a shopping cart to lean on, that the ice packs feel good, that both legs hurt, and that it helps to flop over my big ball. Good news is that exercise can really help. Bad news is bad, so I'm not even going to say it. It is great to finally have a real direction and diagnosis. Allen is home and working hard for me. He planted ten mums out front and did work for me in the basement and has been a godsend when it comes to picking up and moving heavy things. I will sure miss him, even if he spends most of his time playing on ...