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      Monday, May 01, 2006


otherstuff
08:33 AM - 05/01/2006
We found a dime and four pennies on our walk this morning

The topic: Sigh
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I remember my first computer, way back when. I reformatted the hard drive about once a month. *lol* But then, I only had about 710,000 disk space (that’s right, less than one megabyte). It didn’t run on Windows, it ran on DOS.

Right now I’m in the process of backing up my hard drive using the Windows backup (two weekends ago I used the backup that came with my Iomega hard drive and I’ll never, ever, ever, ever use that POS software again).  And when that’s done, I’ll reformat for the third time.

I reformatted on 4-22. Because I hit the master power switch instead of the monitor power switch on 4-23, during the download of Windows service pack 2, I again reformatted on 4-23.

Then I found my games would not work with this monitor. They worked fine before the reformat, but now, I kept getting an “out of frequency” message and the monitor would shut down. *sigh* It took 45 frustrating minutes to finally get a hold of someone at Dell who would take my $99.00 so that I could speak with a real live tech who spoke real live English without a real live heavy accent. Oh, and two of the numbers I called were actually porn lines. The 800 number on Dell’s front page and one of the numbers one of the outsourced heavily accented techs gave me. I actually kind of yelled at the woman who took my money. She kept butting in and wouldn’t let me finish saying what I had to say. I can understand that she has to get on with the show, but she’s paid by the hour, not the phone call.

My phone showed I was on the line for 121 minutes. When my conversation with tech support was finished, I could see the game. Then I rebooted. Heh. I transferred the games to the laptop.

Then I upgraded my QuickBooks, since Intuit was going to stop supporting the version I had. It went very smoothly, but now I had to log in and after the screen saver kicked in, I had to log back in. I put in a service request from Intuit and within a half hour, I got a call back. Support did what he could to help, I ended up doing two system restores while he was on the line.

I finally told him to call back later, as I had windows to wash (had an appraiser coming by Friday because we want to up our home equity line of credit and I felt we’d do a little better if the house was a little more clean). Between washing windows and sliding glass doors and screens, I found by searching the internet, that I couldn’t get rid of the program that was making me log in if I wanted to run the lates version of QuickBooks. Nice that support obviously didn’t know that.

Finally got everything running by Tuesday night. Then yesterday morning, my wireless mouse wasn’t running. The USB hub quit. And when I got a replacement, it wasn’t seeing it as USB 2.0. And then when I tried to browse the pictures on my picture card using Paint Shop Pro, it wasn’t opening the external hard drive. It saw it. But it wouldn’t browse it.

So, right now I’m backing up the hard drive using the Windows backup (I also find out the D drive isn’t working properly) and once that’s done, I’ll be reformatting and starting over.

I’m hating this. It needed to be done, but I wish it wasn’t such a PITA. Oh, well, my A is big enough to spread the pain out.

      Wednesday, May 03, 2006


otherstuff
09:02 AM - 05/03/2006
The current weather is cloudy and blah

The topic: I feel good right now
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I’m feeling more relaxed right now than I have in months.  I don’t know why.

Maybe because I was stressing myself about redoing the old Dell and knowing that I had to do something about the Gateway. 

Yesterday, I didn’t reformat the Dell’s hard drive, but I did the repair.  And it helped so much.  Even after all the work I did two weekends ago and the phone calls to tech support, things still weren’t working as they should.  The system wasn’t reading the CD drive, I couldn’t access the information on the external drive that holds my pictures and movies from any program except My Computer.  It just wasn’t right. 

So, I did that repair and got all of the service updates from Microsoft and Dell.  I got the newest BIOS from the Dell site and got that installed.  Where it wasn’t seeing the USB 2.0 card I installed within the past couple years as 2.0,  it now does.  So, the external drives are zipping along nicely.  I still had problems with one of the external drives, so I moved the information I wanted to save (the pictures) over to the other external drive.  It took almost twenty four hours to do this.  It shouldn’t have taken that long.  After I had the repair done and the Windows service packs and fixes downloaded and installed, I formatted that slow external hard drive.  Then I started the transfer of the information back to it. 

It took less than an hour.

Amazing.

Then, I realize the Gateway, the camera computer had frozen early yesterday morning.  I restarted it as soon as I noticed this.  Within hours, it was frozen again.  Very, very annoying.  It got so bad that it wouldn’t even boot up completely.  After the fourth time of it just hanging, I’d had it.

Since the Dell was running smoothly, I figured I’d do some tweaking on the Gateway.  First I removed a bunch of programs that I’m never going to use.  Then I removed all of the exteraneous files, like the temporary internet files, unneeded back up files, things like that.

Then I ran the Registry Mechanic from PCTools.  It found many errors during the deep scan of the system and it fixed them all.  Then, I booted up.  It came right up.  As it did again this morning. 

Now both computers are running without a hitch and it’s a load off of my mind. 

Another thing that was bothering me was the archives of the catcam images.  I wasn’t getting to them every day and by not getting to them every day, they were just piling up.  I figured the hell with it.  I changed the camera settings on all cameras to not save them.  And I deleted all of the saved pictures from the computers.  There were over twenty thousand since I last did anything with them.  I just don’t have the time to look at them every day.  I just don’t have it.  If I see one that catches my fancy, I’ll save it manually, but no more auto save.  No more of that “I really need to look at those”.  As much as I like the idea, it just wasn’t practical.

I think maybe that’s why I’m feeling more relaxed now.


catstuff
09:43 AM - 05/03/2006

The topic: Handsome’s not doing well
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He’s downright skinny.  He doesn’t beg for food like he used to.  He still eats, but doesn’t have that ravenous appetite any more.  He’s not throwing up as much, but maybe that’s because he’s not eating as much.

He does seem to be sleeping more, and more soundly, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part. 

I knew he had a disease when he came to live with us, one that would most likely shorten his life span.  He’s had a good life while he’s been here and I would hope he has more years with us, but FIV can do a number on the body.  I’ll keep an eye on him and keep giving him yummy food and maybe this will just turn out to be a bump in the road and not the final downhill slide.

Keep some good thoughts for this old guy.  He’s a great cat and deserves better than he’s gotten.

      Friday, May 05, 2006


otherstuff
06:39 AM - 05/05/2006
We found a penny on our walk this morning
The current weather is cloudy

The topic: Buh bye old Dell
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After two weeks of trying to get the Dell up to speed, and not having much luck, I finally gave up yesterday afternoon.  Reading from any of the external drives (CD/RW or zip) is sporadic and when it doesn’t want to work, it hangs.  I can’t shut down properly to get out of it, using task manager is little help.

Explorer just quits working.  I’ve started from scratch four times now and I’m not going to do it again.

Last night, we went to Circuit City and picked up computer. Now I just have to decide where to put it, as it's bigger than the Dell.

Update:

Well, guess what?  The computer that was in the box is not the computer that the box said was in it.  Oh, sure, the markings on the computer itself proclaim it to be the computer I paid for, but it wasn’t the computer. Well, maybe it was, it just wasn’t complete.  I called Circuit City online (the local store wasn’t answering the phone yet, even though supposedly it’d been opened for forty-five minutes) and they said to call Hewlett Packard.  And of course, I got an accented support tech at HP who said that “all computers are complete when they’re shipped” and to call Circuit City.

I know this was bullcrap because I was the first one to open the box.  The shipping label was across where the box tops met and it was intact.

So, when Brian gets home, we’re going back to the store.

*sigh*

      Monday, May 08, 2006


otherstuff
08:30 AM - 05/08/2006
We found a shiny penny on our walk this morning

The topic: Slowly, it happens
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Things get back to normal. 

The computer that was in the box is the computer I was supposed to have gotten.  It is intact.  The websites that list this computer are incorrect.  I was shown the computer that did have the parallel port by a snotty know it all kid.  Well, that may be, sonny boy, but this old cow knows how to read and the website was wrong. 

I didn’t want the upgraded computer, it had a Pentium processor and I figured I’d rather have the Athlon X2. But what I did do was to buy an adaptor cable for the printer.  Parallel to USB,  which will actually more practical since the computer and the printer aren’t really close together, and I do have a USB hub by the printers.  I’ll just connect it to that.

And what I am going to do is to send a letter to Circuit City and explain the problems I’ve had and ask that they reimburse me for the parallel adaptor, since their website was wrong.  I’m also going to mention the $100.00 rebate is not a $100.00, but only $90.00 when they’re totaled.  There’s a fifty dollar rebate from Hewlett Packard and a forty dollar rebate from Circuit City.  This is ten bucks short of the one hundred they advertise.  Of course, I printed out all of the web pages that I’ll also be sending copies of.  I’ll also throw in a few words about that employee.  I so wanted to kick in him the shins.  I’m old, not senile.  Oh, yes and gas money.  I will mention the cost of driving to the store.  We took two trips, I don’t count the first one, but the second one, I do.  That was about forty miles.  We get 18 mph, gas is $3.79 a gallon.  I figure twelve dollars oughta cover that.  Hey, it doesn’t hurt to try.  All it’s gonna cost me is a 39 cent stamp and some paper.

I spent Friday night and Saturday installing problems and I found something interesting.  This brand spanking new computer had the same problem with reading the external drives after I had installed Roxio’s Media Creator.  The reason I gave up on the old one.  I uninstalled the program and everything was back to normal. *scream*  Looks like I didn’t need the new system after all.  But everything’s installed, I’ll keep it.  And I’ll keep the old Dell, too, since I now realize there was nothing wrong with it.  *sigh*

Saturday, I reinstalled my graphic program and the filters with it.  Some of them no longer worked, so I took a couple of hours and removed them. Then yesterday I looked through my old bookmarks and went to one page that mentioned needing a seperate dll file to get the plugins to work with software other than Adobe (I use Paint Shop Pro).  There was a link to it, I downloaded it and installed it and all the plugins were working again, so I reinstalled all the plugins I’d removed the day before.  This is just so much fun.  Good thing I don’t have a life, eh?

And of course, since the new system had the new Java, I had to delete it and install the old Java so I could see the live cameras.  But I didn’t uninstall the update software, so it kept reverting to the old stuff.  Now, I can see them.  But I couldn’t see the live portion of the occasional cam and I spent hours tweaking my firewalls, but I was not successful. This morning it finally hit me, I needed to check the IP number in the push page, to make sure it was the right one. It wasn’t.  I changed it and now the live occasional cam is working splendidly.

And I think I’m about done.  Which will free up much needed time for laundry and cleaning again.  It will be nice to be all the way back to normal.

      Tuesday, May 09, 2006


otherstuff
06:41 AM - 05/09/2006
We found a penny on our walk this morning

The topic: Thought I’d share this
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I use CoffeeCup software for a lot of my web designs. Well, this morning, I got this [ CoffeeCup - HTML Editor & Web Design Software ] in my email. Check it out.

      Wednesday, May 10, 2006


catstuff
07:54 AM - 05/10/2006

The topic: Handsome
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I think he’s doing better.  A couple of days ago I realized that he does better lapping than eating (unless it’s human food, then, amazingly, he can eat just about anything). So, I started blending A/D.  I didn’t add any water or anything, but I just blended it to baby food consistency. 

The first time, I fed it to him with a spoon.  If you watch the cameras during the day, you may have seen my wide backside to the camera on the patio.  I was spoon feeding him.  He ate almost an entire can at one time.

This morning, I heated up the leftover from yesterday, set the bowl on the counter, set Handsome on the counter and he finished that.  Something else he really likes is goat’s milk.  Since my vet advises people bottle feeding kittens to use goat’s milk, I figured it wouldn’t hurt Handsome. I gave him a sample last week and he loved it.  So, he’s also been getting goat’s milk a couple of times a day.

Instead of shoving pills down his throat, I started putting terramycin ointment in his eyes.  It’s an antibiotic and one of my friends in rescue says that she’ll do this as a last resort for a cat who can’t be pilled.  Today is the third day of this.

He’s not drooling as much and he seems more comfortable.  I do try to keep him covered when he’s sleeping because he has no body fat and his fur is really thin.  I was checking on him just a little bit ago, all wrapped up like a burrito inside a thin fleece blanket and he had turned around from when I first put it over him and I started petting him through it and he started to purr up a storm. 

He’s warm, has a full tummy and he knows he’s loved. 

I think he’s feeling a little better.


otherstuff
08:03 AM - 05/10/2006

The topic: The economy
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I don’t often get political here. I’m not a ranter or a raver when it comes to politics, I’m not foaming at the mouth with disgust for our current reigning political party, although I did not vote for that man. 

But I have to say I don’t like the direction he’s taken the country. I don’t like the shoving of the far right Christian values down the throats of the American people.  What happened to seperation of Church and State?  I don’t like that he’s gotten the U.S. into an unwinable war.  I do like that Saddam is no longer in power, but I feel like G.W. was duped himself and turned around and duped the Americans.  I think he’s a sponge just soaking up the bad advice he gets from his advisors.  I don’t feel he’s a bad man, I feel he’s an easily led man. I don’t think he’s very smart at all.

I don’t like that the oil companies are getting away with what they’re getting away with. California has hit four bucks a gallon for gasoline.  We have refineries up the road a couple of hundred miles. Iowa has gas prices under two dollars and fifty cents and gas has to be transported to Iowa, which is most definitely more than a couple of hundred miles from the nearest refinery.  I saw on one local station yesterday that in January, the refineries were getting a profit of forty cents a gallon.  In May, it’s a dollar.  That’s profit.  Multiply that by the millions of gallons sold.  Who’s getting screwed?

Having an oilman in charge of the country is like having the fox guard the henhouse. Brian said before G.W. was president, he read an article in a market newspaper.  It said that by the end of G.W.‘w term, gas prices would be nearing the three dollar mark.  They would raise unchecked because he is who he is and his buddies are who they are. 

And you know who’s to blame for this entire mess?  The non voters.  The people who were too lazy or apathetic to get out there and put out the vote.  The people could have stopped this before it began but they didn’t care enough to take a stand.  The people who didn’t think one vote would matter. Well, you get millions of people thinking the same thing and before you know it, the fanatics have taken over.

If you didn’t vote, the high gas prices, the war in Iraq, the declining economy, they’re all your fault because you let it happen.

I always vote.  It’s my duty as an American citizen to vote.  And if you’re an American citizen, it’s your duty, too.  Do your job.  If you aren’t registered to vote, do it today.  If you don’t vote, you lose the right to complain.  So register.  Vote.  Make a difference.

      Friday, May 12, 2006


catstuff
09:42 AM - 05/12/2006
I'm watching Thunderheart

The topic: Happy birthday!
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How cats say "Happy Birthday". From 11:00, Richie, Oliver, Sammy, Opie and Sagwa. Richie, Sammy and Opie are brothers. Isn't this a sweet picture?

 


otherstuff
09:54 AM - 05/12/2006

The topic: I like this
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I find this very, very relaxing. To see how it was, click here.

Brian pulled up all of the railroad ties you can see in sets eight and nine.  He put down sod all around and I put down flowers.  I’ve got more pictures, just haven’t had the time to edit and resize them yet.  But it looks really nice down there, very peaceful.

What’s odd is water isn’t lost when the streambeds are on as long as the pool vac is operational.  But if the pool vac is off, there’s a leak somewhere.  Really strange.


otherstuff
01:14 PM - 05/12/2006

The topic: I want this!
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This! I want this!.

It would look beeyooteeful poolside.  But I’d never be able to convince hubby that it wouldn’t be a waste of money.  If only it wasn’t so visible and I could hide it….*lol*

      Saturday, May 13, 2006


catstuff
08:42 AM - 05/13/2006

The topic: Ciara still has problems
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We went to the chiropractor last night and took her with us.  He checked her out and adjusted her back.  He also asked some other questions about her and wasn’t surprised to be told she had the herpes virus.  He said we should get some calcifood at a health food store which is a powdered calcium supplement and start her on that.

He said calcium helps fight viruses.

I sure miss having her roam the house, rolling over for the occasional bellyrub.  She just sleeps all the time now.  I wish she’d feel better.


catstuff
11:11 AM - 05/13/2006

The topic: Check out this link!
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I just got an email from a site inviting me to add the cams and I was going through it to make sure there's not lots of porn site and I found this.

Oh, my goodness, I’m so enamored.

I’m watching baby kittens at the trough.


otherstuff
02:45 PM - 05/13/2006

The topic: My auction page
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I finally got my first item up.

I'm sure I'll get better at presentation as I go along. *lol*

It's pretty sad right now. lisaviolet auctions


otherstuff
03:47 PM - 05/13/2006

The topic: Catalogs, I get catalogs…
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One of them has lots of message teeshirts.  I like this one:

“I just emerged from my Y2K bunker.  Did I miss anything?”

I think that’s pretty funny.


otherstuff
04:35 PM - 05/13/2006

The topic: At the chiropractor’s
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I didn’t have any aches or pains and Brian’s doing better (he’s been lifting a lot of heavy stuff at work and he’s also under a lot of work related stress).  I’ve already mentioned Ciara’s little visit.

Brian told the doctor that I’ve been really tired, which I have.  I just brushed it off to allergies, but the doctor did the testing and said that I have a virus.  So, he had me hold different bottles of stuff against my chest to see which would help me out best and it turned out to be this forty-five dollar bottle of powdered greens.  He tested me with the bottle and my body needs two scoops.  He said don’t mix it with juice that has sugar in it. 

Brian left early this morning to help his bro out (our Saturday morning breakfast cafe is on vacation for two weeks, they’ll be back Monday…we ate at Denny’s last Sunday and we’ll be having Mother’s Day breakfast at IHOP tomorrow, as my mom doesn’t want to go very far) and I was on my own.  I had my Quaker cereal, then a little later I thought I’d try the powdered greens. 

First off, I read the ingredients on the orange juice and it was just orange juice, no additives.  So, I got the bottle down and opened it.  Two scoops?  Lordy, those are gonna be big scoops.  The first scoop mostly ended up on the counter, which I’d just cleaned.  I hit the edge of the glass with the scoop.  It was nasty looking stuff.  So, I did another two scoops into the orange juice and stirred it up. Oh, my gawd, it was nasty, nasty, nasty looking.  It didn’t taste too terribly awful, but it looked gross.  It kinda sorta tasted like grass.

And looking at it, I kept thinking “soylent green is people!”

      Monday, May 15, 2006


catstuff
08:00 AM - 05/15/2006
I'm listening to DMX smooth jazz

The topic: Stuff Handsome eats
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Always on the lookout for something that Handsome might like to eat, something that’s also good for him, we bought cottage cheese at CostCo yesterday. I tried it out on him when we got home, but he had a difficult time negotiating the curds.  So, this morning I blended it up nice and creamy for him.


Here he's getting to the bottom of the bowl

Yep, that's good stuff. Besides having a muzzle covered in creamy cottage cheese, he's also got some on his whiskers above his eyes.

otherstuff
10:46 AM - 05/15/2006

The topic: House is cleaned
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We’re finally able to get new house insurance.  We had Farmer’s for forever and we had a problem with the agent lying to us.  When we got the property, Brian asked about insuring it.  The agent said no problem, it would be covered under our current homeowner’s insurance.  Then the Pines fire went through and guess what? 

When Brian put in a claim to replace the fencing and fix the trailer, they said ‘nope, you’re not covered’.  They sent a check for $1027, but it wasn’t even close to what Brian put the claim in for.  The insurance company said that they’d cover part of the damage to the trailer, nothing else.  Brian kept calling the agent to find the status of the appeal and it finally got to the point where the agent wouldn’t return his calls or if Brian called and the agent was in the office, when the call was to be transferred to him, he was all of a sudden “with a client”, “in a meeting” or “on the phone”. 

What’s sad is Brian thought they were friends.  Brian helped him out with his cars, work done around the house, and other stuff. Then when push came to shove, the guy wasn’t so interested in being friends any longer. 

Because of the claim, no one else would insure us.  Homeowner’s insurers are funny that way.  There has to be a time period of x amount of years before anyone else would even consider covering us.  Well, a couple of weeks ago, Brian bought a used crane and it had to be registered and insured.  So, he joined AAA knowing he could do register it there.  While he was there, he spoke with an agent, and got quotes for all of the vehicles and the house.  It will be cheaper than we’re paying now and Brian set the wheels in motion. 

The agent just left. He took pictures of the bathrooms, the kitchen and the backyard.  The backyard impressed him.  He said we had a beautiful place.

Anyway, it’s nice to have a clean house.  One less thing hanging over my head.

      Tuesday, May 16, 2006


mailstuff
09:33 AM - 05/16/2006
I'm listening to the fountain outside the office door

The topic: In the mailbag
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Hay, I have a question for you.Why you always show people in pctures in the night?
I want to see how the cats are plaing and what they are doing at daytime.
A sleeping cat can i see at home to.I like all the cats but not if they are doing nothing..SORRY..........geetings from Christina

This was stamped 3:20am, from a country in Europe. I responded to her, but I offered no refund. *lol*

We sleep at night. Work in the daytime, sleep at night. Why would cats in the United States behave any differently than cats in Europe?
Cats sleep two thirds of their lives. That's what they do. So, if you don't like the subject matter of my webcams, you're always welcome to move on to another site.
I don't offer refunds.

What would you have said?

 

      Wednesday, May 17, 2006


disneystuff
09:21 AM - 05/17/2006

The topic: SWF movies
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Earlier this year I got a program that will take most forms of little movies and make them into flash movies.   I decided to play with it a little this morning and I found some Disney video I took last year with my Canon.  This one is of Brian on the Maliboomer at Disney’s California Adventure.  Just watching it again had me grinning from ear to ear and realizing, once again, that the anticipation is the worst part.  *lol* 

The movie is 20mb and will take a while to download on dialup, which is why it’s not on this page, so if you want to watch this horrendous ride go all the way to the top, click on the “more” link.


But wait! I'm not done yet!
I've got more to say!

      Saturday, May 20, 2006


catstuff
10:41 AM - 05/20/2006

The topic: Pee
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All of this time I thought Oliver was spraying against my toilet.  I thought he was tall enough so that the urine spray went onto the top of the toilet lid (we keep lids down), onto the seat and under the seat.

I was wrong.

This past week, I actually saw him peeing.  He stands on the lid.  He actually stands on the lid and pees. 

I wonder if he was taught to pee in the toilet at some point in his life, in a home where the toilet lid and seat were left up.

I’ve got my little bathroom trashcan on top of the toilet lid now so that he can’t get up there.

Brian said it doesn’t bother him, he’d rather the seat get peed on than a wall somewhere.  Not me.  I have to wash the seat thoroughly before I’ll sit on it and when you’ve really got to go, that’s not fun.

      Wednesday, May 24, 2006


otherstuff
01:04 PM - 05/24/2006
The current weather is beeyooteeful

The topic: Circuit City
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Circuit City called this morning.  Said they’d gotten my letter and checked into it. They called Hewlett Packard and found out the information that HP had given CC was incorrect, that there was no parallel port with that system.

So, Circuit City gave me a choice of a gift card (as if I’d ever use it) or a credit on the charge for the computer.

I went with the credit.  It will be for the cost of the adaptor, minus shipping and tax, plus gas money.  So, the refund should be for $32.00. 

That’s better than a poke in the eye with a stick.


otherstuff
05:30 PM - 05/24/2006

The topic: Auctions are up
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I've started adding items to the auction site. I had catnip up for about ten minutes before someone used the buy it now option. I was kinda hoping for a bidding war. Oh, well. Next time.

      Friday, May 26, 2006


catstuff
09:36 AM - 05/26/2006

The topic: How many?
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We had a little catnip party on the patio this morning and I shot a couple of pictures of the participants. This is one of them.

 

How many cats do you count in the picture above (if you click on it, you'll get taken to the full sized version)?

Here's a hint, unless you're polydactyl, there are more than you've got fingers and toes combined.

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Be sure to check out today's Friday Ark for more pet related entries.


catstuff
09:47 AM - 05/26/2006

The topic: The outfronts
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There’s something going on again.  I wish I knew what it was.  Carla just disappears. And sometimes I think KittyMeeze goes with her.

There are times when she’s gone and he stays here in our yard. Like he doesn’t know where she is. But there are other times, she’s gone and he’s gone. He’ll come for food, then he leaves again.  I think she’s not feeling well and he keeps her company.  The last time we saw her was Sunday night.  It rained quite a bit after midnight and she hasn’t been around since.

KittyMeeze wasn’t here Wednesday night or yesterday morning, but did show up last night.  Brian only put out one can of food which wasn’t mixed with dry and only a small amount of that was eaten.  KittyMeeze was there this morning for breakfast and he ate some of last night’s food as well as some of the canned I put out this morning.

Now he’s gone again.

And the possoms aren’t coming, either, as the almost full dishes in the morning lead us to believe.

When I talked to my mom, she said that a coyote was in her yard this morning (she lives less than a half mile from us, we walk next to her house on one of our weekday walks).  She finally wised up and gets both of her cats in at dusk, not letting them out until she’s out of bed for the day.  Bobby, her youngest, sat in the windows and growled (the windows are out of reach of a coyote).  Miss E ran under the bed where she stayed. 

So, it would seem the coyotes are out in force.

I hate coyotes. I think I might have mentioned that once or twice.

      Tuesday, May 30, 2006


otherstuff
06:20 AM - 05/30/2006

The topic: Heh
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Watching the KTLA Morning News from Los Angeles, they show traffic and an oil tanker/truck was in an accident and spilled the load.  There were five vehicles involved and no one was seriously injured.

Damn. Another reason for the oil companies to raise prices.


catstuff
06:22 AM - 05/30/2006

The topic: How many answer
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There are twenty one cats in that picture.

 


tales from the parkside
08:21 AM - 05/30/2006

The topic: New category
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I’ve set up this category to tell stories about my mom. 

Every once in a while, someone that I’ve “known” on the internet for years just strikes me as very sweet and sincere.  Someone who would never deliberately say anything to hurt anyone else and if by chance someone is hurt, she feels extremely bad. I’ve often wished I could be more like these people, who are very thoughtful and kind to all of those around them, just very considerate.

They take the time to listen, never in a hurry and always are supportive. If they can’t say anything nice, they don’t say anything. And they don’t remind you of that.

And I wonder why sometimes I can be such a miserable bitch.  I guess I can look back to my childhood and how I was raised for a fair idea of why I am who I am.  My mother.  My parents did the best they could with the knowledge they had and I don’t think I turned out too badly.  I obey the laws, I vote, I don’t shoot dogs and I don’t run over little children. 

So, I dedicate this section to the woman who made me what I am today.  My mother.


tales from the parkside
08:32 AM - 05/30/2006

The topic: The drain
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My mom lives in a senior citizen mobile home park.  She has a very nice home on a fair size piece of property for a mobile home. The park has been around for a lot of years and my mom has lived there since the year after my father died, back in 1987.

She ended up quitting her job, she sold their house, then found a place to live less than a mile away from us. She has a wonderful view of the Lakeside area, she’s got a peach tree, lemon trees and this year, has avocados growing on a tree that she started from a seed years ago.  She has roses, a car, a golf cart and she’s come a long way from the woman she was nineteen years ago.  She’s a breast cancer survivor and she worries that she’ll get another kind of cancer.  She’s a very nervous woman.  She’s a worrier. She’s highly energetic. I call her an “energy sucker”.  If I spend much time around her, I get drained. I’m sure we all have people that it’s hard for us to be around.  My mother is like that for me.

We speak on the phone five days a week.  Just to check in and make sure she’s doing okay.  She usually is. She’s pretty much a big fish in her pond and she loves her life as it is right now. She can do what she wants when she wants and she answers to no one.  For the most part.

She occasionally has problems with neighbors and it’s usually the same ones.  Right now, it’s the woman behind her. 

Mom lives downhill from this woman.  And like so many homes in this area, uphill drains to downhill. Across the street from us, there are drains in their front lawns to handle the water runoff from the houses uphill and behind them. The water drains into the street and goes into the drains at the side of the road.  Developers cannot do this now, but they did it then.

But it would appear that this drain in mom’s backyard is not a water runoff drain. It’s a gray water drain from the place behind her, for the washing machine that’s in their shed.   Mom watched one day and the water coming from the drain was soapy.  The woman behind her denied this.  Mom called the park manager, they had someone send a camera up the drain and told mom it wasn’t coming from the place behind her, it wasn’t washing machine water.

Fine.  Mom fixes it in her own way. 

She blocked the drain.

*lol*

Can you see where this is going?

One of mom’s best friends lives next door to the woman with the gray water.  And she’s called mom and told her to go listen.  There’s a whole lot of cussing going on at laundry time.  Seems whenever this woman does a laundry now, the water is backing up into her machine. 

My mother gets immense satisfaction from this. 

I think I’m a lot like my mother.

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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

May 2006
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