Gustav, Palin...and Missy's 5-Hour Ride

I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. Missy did get home. It took her 5 hours to drive a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 10! One of the things that make people down here get upset about having to evacuate is the fear that the traffic will be like when Rita hit. And, I'd say poor Missy got a deja vu. She was livid, but what can you do? It's a stretch of straight road with cross roads that lead only to small hamlets and no real alternative routes, so she was stuck. Me, I'd have had to tinkle after the first hour...sigh.

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Well, Gustav ended up sparing us, although up until the very end after landfall, he was tracked to turn west and hug our coast. So, I almost wasn't believing it when he went north instead of west. I do not believe we even got one drop of rain. I'm grateful, but I still feel one of those storms has our number this season...

I have been trying to keep the good folks on the Florida, Georgia and Carolina coasts in my prayers. The one-two-and-maybe-three punch of this current string of storms in the Atlantic is just ridiculous-scary. Hope it's the only pattern of its kind, evah! Stay strong safe and tough, East coasters!

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Well, let us get to the real hurricane in front of us, shall we? LOL



No, I don't assert that the Palin women are storms, but they sure are causing one, or two, or three of them!

The chat out there in message board political threads and blogs is contentious. The Palin pick has brought out a lot of debate. Now, being someone who wanted to experience this and see for myself if it was hype or real, I immersed myself into 2 communities. I have been having problems with stiffness in my fingers and the doc told me to exercise them. Plus, I had the political urge. I had the urge to spread my (poly) ticks, as Yellow Dog Dems down South say. I can now say I've BTDT. Enough for me, at least in that high concentration. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime, seriously.

I do believe that the Obama campers have the internet covered and the McCain campers are just too outnumbered online to give their oppo a real fight. (Voters who hang on message boards and blogs, though, are still in the clear minority of total voters, so that means nothing in the way of predicting an election outcome.) And, if the number of emails and private messages that were sent to me was any indication, a lot of women just do not want to enter the cyber fray but hold positions just as dear and passionate as the posted ones. I cannot tell you how often I was privately thanked for voicing others' opinions. No, doesn't make me right. I simply appreciate validation and connection, that's all, as well as being reminded that the hyena in front of my face is not as huge as it appears, LOL.

I think it's a great thing to say for our country that I never ran into even a hint of racism, although there were posters who, were they any quicker on the race-baiting trigger, they'd be in jail for discharging a firearm. Someone used the word "uppity" to describe the look Obama makes sometimes, and Lord, never mind that that's been a term to define "stuck up, conceited, self-absorbed" for my entire life. It was "did you mean to say .....", and you can finish the sentence on your own. Of course, it was sometimes a test for me to stifle my snarkiness, as with that example, I was dying to reply, "Wait, wouldn't that be "uppity wegro, he is half-white, ya know." LOL No, I saved that for here. Yeah. That kinda thing.

And I will say this: I never thought I'd ever see this or come to believe it, because as a lifelong Episcopalian I am used to tolerance and inclusiveness to the very point of nausea, but of all the poli-posters who waved their religiosity in front of my face, the most unkind one was Unitarian for goodness sakes. I would have at least guessed a religious denomination less connected with liberalism, but shows what I know.

Actually, I think it shows what we might need to know as concerns this election. I am going to assume that you, dear reader, knows by now that many of the Obama-supporting women out there are back-peddling on women's rights now. I'm gonna say right up front that I don't believe them for one second and that it's a pretty sad day when you have to abandon all that you believe to in order to make points for your candidate. (I'm talking about all the Dem women and some GOP women too who post that Palin shouldn't be running because of her kids, and all she has on her plate, etc).

I find that argument insulting, frankly. Not from the conservative women who truly feel that no matter what their candidate espouses, but the idea that it's ok to so hypocritically flip-flop as an argument against Palin by the Obama supporters. I will assert that this is just further proof that Obama has no real empathy or support for "women's issues". *He* (meaning his supporters and the media, who is in his tank) has already shown this in trashing Hillary, in trashing his 'typical white' grandmother and now in this. And it also shows me my opinion of the ruthlessness in some GenX women is very real. The Obama Boomer women have surprised me, though.

It shows me that you only get support as a woman from the Left if you support the politically correct candidate / platform. Wow. At least Gloria Steinem opposes Palin for her political views and for Steinem's opinion that she lacks experience, and has enough of a conscience to chastise those who are using sexist arguments about her family. At least someone worries about their legacy and record as well as obvious logic, lol.

As for Sally Quinn, what can I say? That woman has been a DC political whore for 30years, so her pitiful little WaPo essay is no surprise. (Click on the whore link for a great read in Salon that dishes the real dirt on Sally. Then tell me this women wouldn't sell herself to get Obama elected.) And, Earth to Sally: when her hubby is WaPo publisher Ben Bradlee, that kinda explains why you get to have published essays at all.

My low opinion of Quinn didn't stop me from emailing her, though, lol. Here's what I wrote her:

Ms. Quinn, I am a 52-y.o. married white woman with a daughter in college. I have voted Dem all my adult life, the first time in 1976. I was tutored in old-school feminism and abortion became legal the year before I became sexually active. My parents were equal partners in their marriage and still are, as I am in my 21-y.o. marriage. I am also a lifelong Episcopalian and have never been born again or fundamental about anything. I say all of that as background for my opinion of your essay about Palin, which is, as I was reading your arguments against her, it suddenly occurred to me I was reading a logic eerily similar to the arguments given my mother in 1959, when she unsuccessfully applied for a teaching position that she was well-qualified for, but it was before I was old enough for 1st grade (there was no daycare back in that day and the official line on working women with young children was almost identical to what Palin is getting thrown at her now, as I am sure you well remember since you are now elderly). By the way, the arguments my mother was given for refusing to hire her back then are illegal for an employer to espouse today.

I am filled with nausea that you are so, so filled with partisan hunger that you cannot see what glares at me. Your stance reminds me of the old withered feminist spinster, who is offered many proposals and career opportunities, but who turns them all down because none are perfect or pure enough in motive.

Out of Biden's lips today (in reference to Palin's red-meat criticism of Obama in her convention speech):

"What do you talk about when you have 8 years of failure? You talk about the other guy!"

Well, Joe, which ticket are you talking about, really? Think about it, hehe.

Yeah. There is sooo much I could point out, but make no mistake. One has only to read about how ruthless Obama was in his Chicago and Illinois election contests to know how ruthless he is now. He thinks nothing, nothing of creating chaos in our cobbled-together culture for the sake of his ascendency. We now have generational, racial and sexist divides so deep I think it might have set us back years. And that was all before he declared in June he had enough delegates. If you wonder what got into McCain, believe me, he didn't want to have to fight fire with fire, but nobody else has against Obama, and McCain, being the fighter and profile in courage that he really truly is, is not about to step back from this.

More tomorrow. I'll be regular from now on because there is just too much to write about and better to do it here than on a freakin message board! Stay tuned....

I Like Her!

My brain is really too fragmented right now and has been all day. Having spent yesterday digesting info on Palin, I spent the better part of today digesting commentary and reaction to McCain's new running mate, as well as keep a running command central infodesk concerning Missy and her continually-changing hurricane plans.

Let me just dispense with Missy's story. She is off at school about 70 miles away, at Lamar University in Beaumont, on Interstate 10 at the Tex-La border. For the last two days, we've been getting the connect-ed automated phone calls detailing any changes made on account of the storm. First, they cancelled classes thru Tuesday for a tentative Wednesday re-opening. Then as Gustav crossed Cuba and the Cone of Uncertainty shifted east, a county-wide mandatory evac was ordered as of 6pm today. Meanwhile, Missy is working a double shift at her restaurant job, and the owner is shuffling his feet about deciding to close. Finally he decides to close thru Tuesday too, and Missy is allowed to leave and make her own plans. But she crosses over I-10 on her drive back to her dorm and it's super-clogged. So now she is waiting til tonight when it hopefully will have finally tapered off. She only has about an hour drive to get home to us, but during Rita an hour drive turned into 10 hours, and she would rather stay put given that chance. I don't blame her, so we are watching and waiting. She'll get here, we just don't know when yet.

Now for the fun:



Just some thought fragments of my reaction to McCain choosing Palin, which was very positive initially, then grew once I began reading more about her. She's not unblemished and not perfect, but to me her positives outweigh her negatives.

You or someone else might ask, how does a pro-choice Democrat embrace Sarah Palin? The entire crux of why and how for me is that as I got older I recognized that culturally, abortion has become a legal taboo compared to my heyday feminist years (yes, it really has), and then I realized that the only solution to this is compromise.

So, comprising on the Supreme Court declaring the federal guarantee of right to abortion in the matter of Roe v Wade is the worst that can happen, right?

So I think about it, definitely not for me, but for my daughter, should she ever want that choice. A conservative majority declaring Roe unconstitutional kicks the legality of abortion back to the states. Period. And I think it's safe to say that NY and CA will be tripping over each other to enact legalization laws if that were to happen. And, hey, it's now a plane trip away. So, to me, the compromise is just that. Worst case scenario.

Poof! Not that big a deal to me. And this is after polling Missy and her friends. Newsflash: the Millienial Gen is conflicted over it and is not ga-ga passionate about it like feminists of my generation were.

Here's the other thing. I've already posted about how dear fiscal conservatism is to me. So, this really explains my embrace. If I have learned anything from being a voter for 34 years and this one will make 9 presidential elections I've voted in, it's this: you have to learn to vote in compromise, and sometimes vote against as much as vote for. You have to vote no matter how much your choices might disgust you. And you have to realize you are voting for 4 years, not forever. What is needed now that can realistically be done in that time frame and who can deliver it best?

So, cultural issue difference pale in comparison to me right now. We are on the verge of economic disaster unless we reign in spending. Game over. For me, anyway.

I think that represents one interpretation of "politics makes strange bed fellows."

More later. Missy's on her way...

Hell Hath No Fury

...like former presidents scorned. But that fury can be placed impeccably or very badly.

Take Jimmy Carter. His latest attack was on McCain, saying he is "milking" his POW experience, most notably at Rick Warren's Saddleback Debate. Just for the record, that was the first time McCain had gone into that much detail about it during this campaign...or ever, really, according to many pundits. So, "milking" must take place at the very first "udderance"? (oh, huge GROAN, but I couldn't help it). ROFL

Take Bill Clinton. The day of Hillary's speech at the DNC this week, while speaking at a conference of one of his foundations, he "riffed" (as ABC's Jake Tapper described it): "For example, you're a voter, and you have Candidate X and Candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything. But you don't think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that, on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver. For whom will you vote?"

Ohhhhhh, Bull's Eye. Now, THAT's a well-placed cutdown. I should note that McCain's campaign soon issued a statement stating they felt McCain was surely Candidate Y in that example. Hehe. Obama's camp couldn't say anything because the timing for the insult was brilliant -- neither Clinton had spoken yet at the convention, and there was already scuttlebutt about Bill being pissed at being told to speak on national security when he wanted to speak on economic matters, the hallmark of his presidency.

Bottom line: I can't deny it...Bill's "example" pretty much describes my take on the two candidates, so I can only assume that it connected with at least a few million other voters. Well-placed, Mr. President. Yup, back during the primary when Michelle Obama was stumping in South Carolina and kept insinuating in her speeches that Hillary couldn't handle the White House because look how she handled her own house (wink wink). This is what the insiders on the HRC campaign say egged Bill on to give his infamous comment that Jesse Jackson won SC too and then was labelled a racist for it, and curiously, Michelle never mentioned that publicly again.

Shouldn't have gone there, Michelle, tsk, tsk. Paybacks will just keep coming, I promise. Hell hath no fury like a former president scorned. Gotta love it, ya know? (Oh, and the other thing I hear from the old campaign gang is that Bill really truly only meant that sure, Obama can win SC by a landslide, but SC is a red state in the general due to a humongo amount of whites who are Republican, so an Obama primary victory means squat in the end. That's not racist, that's statistics, but the politics of smearing took over.)

McCain's VP Pick Today ...

Well, onto a different topic. I'm gonna say right off that my first druthers on this was Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindahl. I love this guy! He's earnest, level-headed, young yet experienced, and he can talk a mile a minute and not let anyone else get a word in (good for debating and tv sound bites). However, he has said he's taken himself out of the running, so we are left with Romney and assorted others on the short list.

Given that, my strategic choice was Romney and my reason is a bit stereotypical, but hey, it's allowed in politics. I know from lurking on the 2peas boards and then blog-hopping that a huge amount of Mormons have moved to the Southwest states surrounding Utah...they are branching out to Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, states up for grabs right now. And Romney's a Mormon. Now, I'm not saying that Mormons would do what blacks have done with Obama and older white women with Hillary (aka blind allegiance), but WHY WOULDN'T THEY (and more power to them). In a word, Romney brings his people with him. This could be strategically brilliant, because this year, the religion vote is not automatically in the GOP tank.

But Fox just reported, it's not Romney. SO, the suspense heightens!

The outside choice was, for a while, Minnesota's Pawlenty, whom I am sure is a very fine man but there is just something about him, I'm sorry. Just my shallow impression. I've watched him speak several times, and he has seemed either angry or boring (although, not at the same time, LOL), and is kind of slow...a thinker perhaps, but not an asset in a Biden debate. Plus, it is doubtful he could deliver MN to McCain.

Pawlenty took himself out this morning, though, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We need a snazzier pick.

Then there is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (pronounced with a long A). Hmm, will McCain bet the farm on the women vote?



And, does picking her deliver it? I don't know her at all, but she's pretty sexy looking, especially when you discover she just gave birth to kid #5. Dang, she can fry it up in a pan, fo sho. If I were an embittered Hillary Dem and on the fence, would this make me jump off on the Red side? I honestly cannot answer, but I know one thing: it's not gonna turn me off and there would be points for McCain that at least HE chose a female running mate...

We will find out later today, so I'll just leave it there. But here is my little observation: if McCain goes with Palin (McCain/ Palin...sounds good), that means the numbers are clearly showing that we Hill-Raisers are crucial, and Obama blew it with us, and it might just mean the election. Man, I would just love that if it turned out to be true. We shall see...

Storm Clouds are Coming

I don't know about you, but my week has been getting a little bit worse with every day. I want things to stay the same for a while, but no one is asking for my input. ;-) It seems like it's getting harder to stay positive, just as I decided to be positive, LOL.

So much for fate and that which we call the randomness of life. I've been keeping up with all of the challenges that have hit me these last couple of weeks, smiling through the rain, always looking at the half-full glass. So, dang, I'm really wanting things to stay the same for awhile!

Gustav's headed for the Gulf and this time we need to finally stock up and do the preparation routine, since we've been given 2 dry-runs so far. To ask for 3 would be reckless without being prepared. It might seem mindless to not have stocked up yet, but it stresses us out bigtime to go through the motions because it causes us to have to think of the worst. The current guessing game has it reaching land on Monday, so we adopt that and change as the guessing changes, because even though it may not hit us at all, we still have to operate AS IF.

Hub's mother called and just like every time she calls, our To-Do List got added to. Family stuff that I have to go to, too, for some reason. Why is that? She wants us all to meet on Sunday afternoon at the cemetery as it is his dad's birthday that day. That is totally approriate, except that it doesn't stop there. It's all fricking evening. We all go out to eat afterwards, then a quote-unquote family meeting. Oh, Brother. She doesn't want to be alone, but can you tell I'm just tired of it? Why can't Hubs just go spend time with her? I'm gonna be n-e-r-v-o-u-s by Sunday and I really don't even want to go I may be feeling too badly to go, and I say that sincerely...because whenever I think about what the heck it could be about, I feel like I'm gonna be ambushed somehow. I'm so apprehensive about it that I am halfway hoping if that storm's coming, then come on Sunday.

We're worrying about Missy. She's begins her hardest courseload yet this semester. She also begins something called Ad Fed, which is like a student advertising debate team, except it's a strategy team that does competitions. Many colleges that have decent advertising schools have Ad Fed.

So cool...except if you also have a job and you're trying to work your way through school to help mom and dad pay for it. Missy is so determined to pay her share that her logical next step should things get too hairy is to quit Ad Fed, and so I'm trying to find enough time to talk to her and make her see she needs to quit that restaurant job, not Ad Fed, if need be. Plan B is student loans which we have not yet tapped. And Hubs and I can pay help pay a little more than we are doing, we will just adjust plans we have, if need be. Or borrow from Hubs' 401K.

So, she basically does not have enough hours in the day, what with the restaurant wanting her to work 6 days a week and then take some stupid training classes on day #7. What good is having a job and earning the money to go to colage if you cannot get out of it what you need? So, I dunno, my mind is stressing over that, and for now, she's going to try to juggle it and hope they hire some more employees. Oh, yeah, and today was only her 4th day of class...

We're needing to spend some money to make a few serious household repairs, but we're afraid to! Geebus!

Just a lot of weird stuff piling on...and I want it to be last week again, even though I had a dead computer. Because I was happier then than I am now. I don't know, maybe it's a cumulative effect.

So, I bet at least some of you wanted me to write about the election, especially now that I have my blogs separated and all. LOL But, I'm just kind of calm about it all now. About the only opinions I have right now about the convention are that Hillary was awesome and it sort of made me nauseated to watch all the black people at the convention treat Bill Clinton like they used to back in the Pre-Obama Day...now that Bill's towing the Obama line...like he's not a racist now or doin' to them what he did to Monica (their words). Right...You know me, the hipocracy angle always shows itself...

I still continue not to rule out 100% that I won't vote with the Dems, unlike Hubs. It's not like the end of the world if Obama wins, but I'm still not empassioned to believe, or to stay home and not vote. Like Hubs says, this is an election year where you are voting AGAINST someone more than FOR someone. At least here it is.

I think one reason the Obama message doesn't convince me is because I just don't see things as all that bad. If just everyone would be more frugal over the long term. Bear in mind though, we live within our means totally and always have, so we are not overextended anywhere. Plus, Hubs has a job where his area and what he does is pretty freakin indispensible to the refinery process, so I think it's prudent to assume he has job security until he retires sometime in the next 5 to 9 years. Not a totally sure bet, but you have to assume one way or another, cuz what else are ya gonna do? You cannot save an alternate job in the bank, ya know?

I'm just a hopeless expense cutter, I guess. There's a lot I disagree with him about, but I see McCain being the only one of the two with any hope of actually cutting our expenses, and I feel strongly we need to do that, yesterday. This country freakin needs to live without a whole lotta crap for awhile. With Obama, I see lots of new domestic programs that are just going to cost and cost, and to what end, in the end? Plus, I feel safer with Grandpa in charge. End of story, pretty much.



So, that's that. Kinda blue, isn't it? Blame it on the dog days. It's August, after all. ;-)

Lessons in Safe Computing, Part 2

And now, the conclusion to the long, laborious and boring saga of my latest computer travails...

I am now waiting with bated breath for the arrival of my new Gateway Laptop computer, an external hard drive enclosure case, and a replacement power supply and graphics card, all courtesy of Amazon.com, whom I love deeply and loyally. Yes, you can even buy a power supply for your computer model, or atleast I did. Isn't online shopping wonderful? Here's the official photo and stats of my new baby:



*Color: Slate Grey Ridgeview™

*Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor1 T5750 (2.00GHz, 667MHz, 2MB L2 cache)

*Genuine Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit) SP1

*Operating System Backup Media: Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium Media (64-bit)

*RAM: 4096MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-2048MB modules) (Memory Capacity Maximum 4GB)

*HARD DRIVE STORAGE: 320GB 5400RPM Serial ATA II hard drive with 8MB cache (1-320GB)5

*External Ports: (3) USB 2.0 Ports, VGA Connector

*Expansion Slots: One ExpressCard™ Type 54 Expansion Slot

*Display: 15.4" WXGA Ultrabright TFT Active Matrix (1280 x 800 max. resolution)

*Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 with up to 384MB of Dynamic Video Memory and Intel® GM965 chipset

*Optical Drive 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW with DVD-RAM featuring Labelflash™ Technology6

*Backup Media: Cyberlink Power2Go with Cyberlink Label Printer for Windows Vista

*Wireless Network: Integrated Intel® 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N Wireless Networking

*PAN (personal area network): Bluetooth® 2.0+EDR

*Integrated Modem: 56k ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem (RJ-11 port)

*Integrated Network: 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)

*Integrated Keyboard and Mouse: Full-Size Keyboard, Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Pointing Device and Dedicated Multimedia Panel

*Finished Goods: Brushed-metal precision-touch multimedia control panel, featuring smooth-cut keys and touch-sensitive volume adjustment.

*Web Camera: Integrated 1.3 Megapixel Web Cam

*Digital Media Manager: 5-in-1 Digital Media Manager (Memory Stick™ (MS), Memory Stick™ Pro, Multi Media Card™ (MMC), Secure Digital™ (SD), xD-Picture Card)
Dimensions (Box) 17" (H) x 13" (W) x 6" (D) or 432mm (H) x 330mm (W) x 152mm (D)
Dimensions (System) 1.1"-1.50" (H) x 14" (W) x 10" (D) or 28-38mm (H) x 356mm (W) x 254mm (D)10

*Battery: Primary 6 Cell Lithium Ion battery w/ 1 Yr. limited battery warranty

*65 Watt AC Adapter

*Software: Microsoft® Works 9.0, Microsoft® Money Essentials

*Warranty: 1 Year Parts and Labor Limited Warranty9

*Weights: 6.29 lbs. (2.85 kg) system unit only / 10.28 lbs. (4.66 kg.) box11

l) the Intel logo, Intel Core, and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
2) Windows Vista® 64-bit versions are intended to work with 64-bit drivers and peripherals. Windows Vista® 32-bit compatible applications work in Windows Vista® 64-bit versions. Visit Microsoft's page on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows for more information on upgrading 32-bit applications and hardware.
3) HD requires ATSC digital antenna (not included). HD signal reception depends on multiple factors.
4) Intel, the Intel logo, Centrino and Centrino Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

The best part is, I got ALL THAT for $780. Did you see, 4 GIGS of RAM and 350 GIGS Hard Drive? Vista Home Premium 64-BIT? Optical drive DVD BURNER? BLUETOOTH wireless personal network? Plus, the only other notebook I ever had was a Gateway back in 2000, and I LOVED it and the support. Missy got a lot of wear out of it as a hand-me-down, and we even took it to Europe with us in 2004. So, if this baby is anything like that one, I'm gonna like it a lot.

I did spend $230 more than my tentative budget of $550. But, for what I got with that extra outlay, I think it's a wise investment. I may even buy an additional 2 year service contract, because this thing's got the power to be around in 3 years...I think (who really knows?).



So, Life is looking good again. I am still going to be up to my ears in computer set-up, research, and instructions, but at least I'm travelling down the lit hallway to the end of the tunnel.

Only one mystery remains (and it's a big one, which is why I'm trying to think good thoughts): will I be able to access my hard drive data? Stay tuned for installment #3 later this weekend.

In the meantime, let's concentrate on more pleasant quandries, like this one:

Lessons in Safe Computing, Part 1

Hey there! Well, Friends, it finally happened to me...I got caught with my computing pants down.

In other words, my computer died on me and I have no recent back up of my data. :-(((

My computer has been sharing the symptoms with me for a few weeks now, but I ignored them. My cooling fan in my desktop cpu began whirring randomly. What did I do? Banged the cpu with my fist until it stopped and went on with my life.



I was so smug. I researched and determined it definitely wasn't my hard drive, because that would be a grinding and I would not be able to make it stop like I did. But, did I stop to wonder what in the heck it could be?



Yes. I finally discovered it was my fan, but my mistake was thinking it would go on forever like that or I would know when it quit working. Wrong.



Then, my monitor began acting wonky. And my screen began to blink black, which was highly annoying, but when it started blinking every 3 seconds, I finally got scared.



You shoulda seen me. I was able, using remarkable perseverence brought on by panic, to navigate through a black screen every 2 out of 3 seconds onto the internet, find my latest video graphics card driver, download it, and then install it! After rebooting, problemo solved!



Or so I thought. It lasted about a day. Did I use that day to do a backup? Oh Hell No. No, I spent that day looking for computers online, taking my usual turtle-speed time. Then, I went to sleep for 10 hours and left the machine on. That is pure D confidence, lemme tellya.



It proved to also be stupid and fatal, cuz Monday morning the blinking started up again and when I rebooted, I got the Dell screen, then the Windows XP screen, then...a blue screen. I could hear the familiar sounds of the hard drive accessing the programs to load them at startup. Just could not see crap. Dead screen.



So, the bottom line is, I am pretty sure that my hard drive is okay, but I needed to figure out a way to be able to access it. I would have to, at the very least, replace the fan and the video card...and I also read that a few people had their ram cooked, too, so just repairing the pc innards might not let me see my info.



Missy to the rescue! I've been able to use her laptop when she is at work. I learned all about hard drive external enclosure cases that connect via usb. I learned that I could take my hard drive out of the desktop, put it into one of these cases, and then it becomes an external hard disk to my new computer. I can then access all my old files: my emails, my address book, my bill receipts, my usuernames and passwords, my photos, and last but not least, my personal and client tax return files.

Well, this concludes Part 1 - stay tuned for the exciting conclusion! ;-p

New Banner Here + New Blog #2!

Hidyhoyo!

(This is the current greeting among Missy's pals this summer...it's so hokey, it makes me chuckle every time I hear it.)

So, how do you likey my new banner? I have been wanting a banner-lift for a while, and yesterday I just rolled up my sleeves and made something I'd had in my head. I dunno, I kinda like it.

And hey, guess what? What's a year without me creating a blog, right? So far this year, I haven't done that. But, wait! LOL, yup, I did it again, hehe.

Seriously, I've been wanting to separate my life and opinions from my art. This blog has a good title for my life and opinion posts, so it became apparent the the new blog #2 needed to be the art one. That's how Paper Paisleys art journal blog was born!

There is still tons to do over there in the way of transferring links and decorating here and there, but I'll fill in those things as I go. Please go visit and see the banner I created for that blog, too. :-)

Meanwhile, here at the ranch, I need to catch up. I was blessed to have been given no less than 3 blogging awards in July, and I have them displayed on my sidebar.

Karyn awarded me the Twinks Award.








Then, Benita and Jill both awarded me the Brillante Award. Thank you very much, Ladies! (And Happy Birthday, Jill!)





The rules for the "Brillante Weblog" award are:
The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
Link to the person you received your award from.
Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
Put links to those blogs on yours.
Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated.
I am giving the "Brillante Weblog" award to the following bloggers:

1. Cheryl - she needs a tiny little pick-me-up right now
2. Lynn - I've been thinking about arthritis and wrestling lately, and that fits only one person I know! ;-)
3. Noelia - I've been working on a special sumpsump for her, a year overdue {hangs head in shame}, but good things happen for a reason and ever since I decided on something I loved, I finally started it last week. Soon, my friend. And hoping you are having fun on your trip. :-)
4. Maureen - she's funny and I have so many of her posts to catch up on {hangs head once more in shame}
5. Vicki - love this woman...and she and her DH need some healing thoughts right now.
6. Theresa - because she is the only female golfer I know :-)
7. Texas Kim - this girl needs another job and maybe this will be good luck. :-)

Onto other items of note, my health has worsened a bit since the spring. The arthritis needs strong meds and then I get complications that are a pita as much as the disease.

I definitely have to close up my tax shop and there'll be no more working for the next several months. I'm embarrassed to say that I have ADD now as one of those treatment complications. Lord, I'm really glad I didn't have this my entire life. They tell me it will go away once I finish the therapy protocol, but part of me wonders about it. And I'm also told that it gets better as I learn to deal with it better. Hope so. Typing is still a real chore some days.

I've really had to re-think my involvement in almost everything in my life this year. This is why I've not been blogging so much. That saved energy works better for me if I put it into my art because that calms me down and helps me practice focussing. Since "focus" was my Word for 2007, how creepy is that, that I would be taught the following year that I was then a pretty good focusser, after all, before I really needed work now.

Making things also helps me stay more positive. It's been tough to lose your previous life-as-you-knew-it, in bits and pieces, inch by inch, slowly. It just never stops, ya know? I am going to write more frequently though. Just maybe in shorter spurts. And then just upload images to Paper Paisleys with few words. On those days that a big old post (like this one! Already breaking my rules...) seems too complicated and hard to do.

That's my cue to sign off for now...Sooner and Laterz!