Wednesday

light

 

I've read that sleeping in total darkness is good for you. It's never dark in my room. I've got so many little blue, red and green leds, you'd think it was a space ship. Or a Circuit City.

I like it, it makes me feel high tech, and like I, I don't know, have stuff. lol. A lot of the leds are on the same things and on very inexpensive things, but I like them anyway. And if I unplugged everything - please don't bombard me with eco-carbon-footprint stuff, (there's an Eastman Chemical Company on the other side of town), there'd still be a lot of light, because I have white blinds and thin white curtains, and there's a big ol' street light down the block.

I don't like it when some of these leds are attached to things that beep though. It took me forever to figure out that the reason my computer often sneezes, is that when one of my 'buddies' signs on to AOL, there's a sneeze wav that plays. I didn't know what was making my computer sneeze, until I started opening my buddy list and I looked up all the wavs and stuff. Actually, there's not a sneeze one, but I'm assuming, or just making it up...that at one time there was, and she got the wav then. Hey, when I "figured?" that out, it stopped driving me nuts anyway. And there are wavs like coughing and doorbells and dogs barking.

Once a few years ago, there was a very faint beeping in my house. Listening, repeatedly muting the TV, and sneaking around, eventually led me to the garage. In the garage, I tracked the noise down to a big, dust-covered box that had been packed away for a couple of years. I pulled it down off the shelf, and slowly and carefully opened it. (I grew up watching all those police shows where there was usually a beeping time-bomb involved.) And we don't want to talk about how umm...rich... my imagination is. So, I open the box, and start removing the contents, as the beeping is getting louder. A bunch of clothes hangers and empty baby food jars later,  I see an old smoke alarm. It was beeping to let me know the battery was low and needed replacing. So, of course, I went to Wal-Mart and got a 9-volt battery for it, came back and replaced the battery, put it in the box, piled the hangers and all but one of the baby food jars on top, taped it up, and put it back up on the shelf.

quiet

 

I've seen a few blogs on sound and quiet topics lately. Instead of getting carried away writing comments, I thought I'd write an entry myself. Quiet. Living in a small town in Tennessee, you'd think it was very quiet. But it's more of a - I can't say suburban, but it's a residential neighborhood. The lot size is 1-2 acres, so we're not right on top of each other, but it's close enough to hear each other's cars, dogs, kids, etc. And close enough to traffic to hear sirens. After midnight, it's much quieter, but there are a lot of shift workers here, and young people, so there's some traffic on the street all night.

The street....it's very narrow, barely big enough for two cars, and a horrible curves that I don't get used to. I can't see around them to see who's coming, and I hate that. I would not have chosen the house to buy for that reason alone, but...people here learn to drive on those curves as young teenagers, and they don't have a problem at all. I learned to drive in the middle of downtown Tampa, which made me a good city driver, but when I'm in the mountains, I'll pull over when I have a chance to let the locals by. They were more understanding when I got here with my Florida plates, but I guess by the time you have local plates you should be able to handle these curves and hills. And since my accident, I'm afraid of what 'might' be coming over the hill. Like a huge yellow speeding school bus.

So, anyway, back to noise and/or the lack of it. I lived in a little beach town in Florida, close to St. Pete, where I heard gunshots most nights. I've lived in city and rural environments. The noisiest place I ever lived was also the most rural. There were no houses or people for almost a mile. I rented, but it was on several acres of land, and came complete with a swimming pool, a pond, and 20 head of cattle. At night, the sound was deafening. The frogs and toads at the pond. Oh my. With the windows open, you couldn't hear the television. And the cows loved to come up to the bedroom window and moo in the middle of the night. Nope, I don't know why.

Question About Views

When I look at my 'Views', sometimes where the person came from is listed, but often it's not. If it's not, why?

Tuesday

Past Week

I had such a good time with my daughter L, and grandson. R is 11 years old, and owns 5 game systems, and of course spends a good deal of time playing video games. He had the best time here. We have a PlayStation 2, and he brought his WI and I have a Nintendo DS. He spent very little time with any of them. We even rented 3 new games for him. We went to Roan Mountain State Park, and he loved it. The weather was perfect for being outside in the mountains. We went on the Appalachian Trail, for about 10 minutes, while I told him some things about it, and now he can say he's been on part of it. And we talked to a couple of hikers and gave them a box of PopTarts. It's always a good idea to feed AT hikers, can you imagine how many calories they use a day? Then he stood with one foot in North Carolina, and one in Tennessee, and thought that was pretty cool. He hung out with me and his mom, and listened to family stories and history. At one point I realized there were four generations sitting in the living room talking together. Pat, L, R, and I played....BOARD games! I thought he would not be interested in that, but he found some, Outburst and a Monopoly game that was a Virginia State Parks theme, and wanted to play. We played both for hours. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention, he won Monopoly by about a gazillion dollars. He's very intelligent, and sat and told us all kinds of Virginia history. He lives in Newport News, which is by Norfolk and Williamsburg. His school class went on lots of field trips and taught them so much history! This is his first year there, after moving from Phoenix. I learned a lot! In the evenings, we made a fire in our little fire pit, and sat outside under the stars watching the lightening bugs and talking. It was so nice. I miss all my kids and grandkids so much. 

Thursday

Drunk Driving

An aquaintance of mine died Monday. He's driven drunk on a daily basis for many years. Sunday night was the last time. He wrecked, and didn't make it. He was in ICU for a few hours before he died. His funeral was tonight. I'm so glad he was the only one injured, physically anyway. There's a 21 year old girl, whose car he hit, and a 25 year old guy, whose pickup truck he was thrown under and who ran over him. There was no way to avoid it, I know it will affect the guy for the rest of his life, and probably cause quite a lot of trauma for the girl too.

Within the past week, two of Pat's relatives have also died. It was expected, but that doesn't mean it makes it easy. Rough week.

The GOOD part is, my daughter and grandson from Newport News are visiting! They came Tuesday and have brightened up my days that's for sure.   

Sunday

Saving Photos

I've been working on a photo project. I'm trying to get my photos into a digital format. I'm putting them on my computer, and backing them up on Picasa and on DVDs. This sounds so easy. It is extremely time-consuming. And you know what? There are so many pictures that I'm thinking...why am I saving this? I've always kept every photo, and at the time it seemed like a good idea. I have so many that are either not relevant to anything or anybody I know, or there're 29 shots of a birthday cake, whose I don't remember. Do I need 29 shots of a birthday cake? If it were the Queen of England's, I still don't think I'd need 29 photos of it.Would I dare throw a photograph away? Do you? Is it okay? Will the photosaving police come get me? Really? Will they take me for ice cream? Oh, got carried away. I have limited space where I live, in my little room, and I have 3 ginormic storage containers of photos.And I don't want to say anything about the organizational system I use with them. lol.     jan 

Wednesday

Okay, One More


Old, but I came across it and laughed again.

 

Tiger Puzzle               
A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please 
come over here and help me.....I have a killer 
jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started" Her 
boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished"? The blonde says "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger". He held her hand and said, "Second, I'd advise you to relax. Let's have a cup of coffee, then ..........." he sighed, "let's put all these Frosted
Flakes  back in the box."

Tiger Puzzle 
A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, "Please 
come over here and help me.....I have a killer 
jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started" Her 
boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished"? The blonde says "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger". He held her hand and said, "Second, I'd advise you to relax. Let's have a cup of coffee, then ..........." he sighed, "let's put all these Frosted
Flakes  back in the box."

 


 

Hunting Elephants – or What I Was Reading Instead of the Job Ads

 

HUNTING ELEPHANTS

Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.
Experienced mathematicians will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.

Computer programmers hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west.
4. During each traverse pass,
   a. Catch each animal seen.
   b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
   c. Stop when a match is detected.
Experienced computer programmers modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.
Experienced economists never saw an elephant, but they try to hunt one by controlling the interest rates.

Statisticians hunt the first gray animal they see N times and call it an elephant.
Experienced statisticians add that there is a small probability that the animal they hunted is a mouse.

Lawyers can let hunting a single elephant drag out for several years.
Experienced lawyers can make it last even longer.

Consultants don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.
Experienced consultants can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.

Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.
Experienced politicians take the elephant for themselves and blame the press.

Managers set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.
Experienced managers keep in the project file the advise that claims that elephants are just like field mice.

Sales people don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.
Experienced sales people ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.

Computer sales people catch gray animals at random, and sell any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.
Experienced computer sales people catch gray rabbits, and sell them as desktop elephants.

Sunday

Musical Chairs

 

My characters are playing musical chairs.

I'm working in the yard and every one of them are busy, doing mundane things, doing wild unbelievable things, with lots of physical activity...going here and there, causing all kinds of commotion, or at least shopping for groceries.

And I come in to write and everyone sits down and is still.

No activity, the same look on everyone's face, I'm the only one without a chair.

I'm painting a house across town, running from bees and watching bugs stick in the wet paint. I think of what Junior's doing, and worry that Sharon's gone over to her ex's, never a good thing, etc.

I get home, take a quick shower ignoring the remaining paint speckled on my hands and hair, and sit down to catch up with what's going on. Everything, everybody stops and sits down. Musical chairs.

No one's doing anything. junior, what were you doing in Norton today? "Aw, nothin'." So Sharon, I heard you were over at your ex's. Sharon nods her head, looking bored, picking at something on her jeans. Nothin', I got nothin'.

I sometimes write stories about a bunch of characters I made up, but the above happens most of the time I try to write.  Jan

Hillary

It surprised me when I cried watching Hillary's speech yesterday. I'm not really sure why it made me cry. I guess I just love her, and was sad she didn't get what she wanted, what she worked so hard for, and what she deserved. I'm not a big fan of Hillary being president, but it was our best choice in some ways. Obama is no one's best choice. McCain is the best qualified, and the most honorable and honest of the three-now two. But I don't agree with him on the issues. Do I vote for someone who says?? they will support some of the things I want? He's a liar and has been caught lying repeatedly, do I believe that he will work for things that matter to me? Or do I vote for the person with integrity and honor, even if they don't agree with what I think is important. After all, I only know what I know. I can say we all should have health care, no matter what, but I don't know what that entails or how to go about it. Private sector or government based, darned if I know. The war? Don't even pretend to know what to do. Jan

Wednesday

Stuff

 

    The weather warmed up, and all of a sudden the days go from 24 hours long to 6 1/2. I need much more time. We're having a cool spring, even if it gets in the 80's, which hasn't happened much, it cools off a lot at night. Neither heat nor cold bothers me, I love to be outside.

I have been working, painting, building bird houses and feeders, helping my neighbor who had surgery and isn't able to do much right now, learning Photoshop Elements, trying to learn Dreamweaver, spending lots of time at the gym teaching Pat to swim, working in the yard, and gathering information for web sites I'm building.

I'm also in a bad mood. I have to loose some weight, and I've never dieted. I hate to not eat what I want to eat. I'm two years old all over again. I'm mad at myself that I've let myself get so out of shape. I get quite a bit of exercise, I'm on my feet most of the day, I swim and workout at the gym a couple of times a week, I just plain eat too much. I still eat like I'm 30 and twice as active, and it's not working that well for me. I feel very spoiled to have food that important, I'm trying to work on my attitude towards food as well as limiting the junk and amount. As far as 'a diet', I'm just eating healthy foods and cutting out most of the unhealthy foods. I already have basically good eating habits, I eat lots of veggies, almost no fat other than olive and canola oil, I love fruit, and try to get enough healthy protein. The problem is, I eat too much of those foods and do eat junk food sometimes. Okay Okay, Sunday mornings I have biscuits and gravy from McDonald's. Luckily, they are the only biscuits and gravy I like, otherwise, in this part of the country I'd be biggeranna barn door.  Jan