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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. 
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| This feels strange. "What feels strange," you ask? Actually its a few things. Fist of all, being home on a Sunday morning. Then being in here and writing in my journal this early in the day, and finally, typing on my netbook. I will explain this further, starting with being home on Sunday morning. It's my job. When I started almost three years ago, I worked every other weekend. At least that was the principle, and the way the schedule was set up. In fact, the other person who worked the opposite weekends always took her weekends off, so the schedule was in constant flux, and I worked damn near every weekend. A few months later, I found myself promoted to the position of supervisor. The first thing I did was to uphold the schedule unless someone put in for and was approved time off. I also demanded that unless it was an actual emergency, they had to put the request in at least two weeks and before the schedule was posted. This helped get me a few more weekends off, but there were some emergencies and quite a few legitimate time off requests. Then, about two years back, I had to squeeze out some undesirable persons, and once again found myself working weekends. As I weeded out the bad and replaced them, I continued to have a difficult time finding anyone who was willing to work weekends. At best, it was every other weekend, except for one person, who was the guy who hired me. He worked another job and was only available to work on the weekends. He worked every Saturday and Sunday mornings. This coming May will be my third anniversary and the second year since this person left us. He got sick and had to take some time off. I would have been happy to have him take medical leave, but he wanted to terminate his position, which he did. I still asked him to put in a written two-week notice and to supply me with something stating his medical need to quit working. My intent was to use this if he was curable and wanted to come back to work for us. He gave his notice over the phone, but never worked any of the final two weeks. I understood, considering the nature of his sickness. But he never got back to me at all. I didn't hear from him for just over a year, when one day he shows up and wants his old job back. Of course, with no word at all from him, nothing stating why he even quit, and only his verbal resignation, I had no way to know if he ever intended to return. I had hired another, vamped the schedule to fit the new employees, and now worked every weekend, but only the mornings. My wife worked the afternoons, and the nights were split between a couple of other people. There was no way to grant him his desire to have his same shift back without taking time from everyone and changing everyone's schedules. I'm not certain, but I think I could count every Sunday I have not worked on my fingers. If not, then if I added in my toes I know I would be able to count them all. That's almost three years; in thirty-two months, I have had less than twenty Sundays that I have not been at work. At first, most weekends I worked at night, closing up. But, for most of the last couple of years I've worked mornings and opened. Now, there is some changing to the schedule again, and I'll no longer open on Sundays, but instead will close up. I still open Saturdays, but Rhonda now opens Sunday and I close. It's been a long tie since I've closed up, especially on a Sunda. That's why it feels so strange to be home this morning. That also explains in part why it feels so strange to be writing in my journal. The rest of this is just the fact that I work mornings and am not home to log in to WdC until afternoon. Even on my days off, I don't get a chance to log in until noon or later. But, since I don't go to work today until four o'clock and I got up early with Rhonda, I'm finding it nice to be in here and have this written already. Finally, it's very strange to type much of anything on my netbook. I do on occasion, but not very often. I usually use my laptop for this. It's not anything much, just ease of use, I guess. My laptop has a screen about twice as large so viewing is easier, and my laptop has a standard size keyboard and number pad. This makes typing very easy and very quick, with only minimal mistakes. Of course, I only type at about thirty-five words a minute, and I make plenty of mistakes. But, for me thirty plus words a minute is fast typing, and with the standard keyboard most of my mistakes are mechanics and spelling, not mis-typing errors. My netbook is smaller, so more difficult to view, it has a half-sized, if even that big, keyboard, and my speed is reduced to maybe fifteen to twenty words per minute. I've never timed my typing on here, but that sounds pretty accurate. It's a nice keyboard but it's very compact and I do not have the most graceful fingers when it comes to typing, so I also make many mistakes by not compressing the key down far enough or hitting the wrong key. I also tend to catch more than one key when I type on here. I have to slow down even more to type accurately. I know --- practice. But since I am so limited on time, I tend to just grab my laptop and put off typing on here. Today, again, I have a bit more time, therefore, am using it to become more familiar with this pint-sized keyboard. So, as you can see, today is much different for me. I'm at home instead of at work, I'm in here writing my journal before noon, and I'm writing it out with my netbook. Strange as it feels, it also feels good and I think I a going to enjoy this change to our schedule. |
| It's bedtime so this will have to be a short, quick entry. Not that I have to get up early for work in the morning; the first time I don't have to work a Sunday morning in a long time. Instead, Rhonda is going in to work tomorrow morning, and since it takes her a bit longer to get ready than it does me, she wants to get up at five, instead of our normal six o'clock routine. I will still work, but instead of going in and opening, I'm going in tomorrow afternoon and working till closing. It started when the guy who usually closes wanted to take the night off. But, then he got into a bit of a mess, and since he has had multiple written warnings, could easily gotten fired. I was nice and gave him one more chance to do things right. At the same time as he messed up, he decided he wanted next Sunday night off, too. With his write up, I easily could have cancelled his current night off, but didn't. But, I could not justify giving him another Sunday night off when he just messed up. There was only one way to get him his night off, and at the same time, show him that this is serious. So, from now on, instead of me opening and Rhonda working the afternoon, then this guy closing up on Sunday nights, Rhonda will open and work half some of the afternoon and I will take the rest and work until close. That's hopefully going to reinforce to this guy that he is on very thin ice, and doesn't allow any room for more screw ups. |
| Back to work today, and a pretty good day. It started out slow, but it got pretty busy as the morning progressed. I didn't come in to find any surprises, and that's always nice. But, after giving a guard his final warning yesterday and making sure he understood that if there are any more infractions, he's done, I wasn't sure what I would find. As it turns out, he called another guard and arranged to leave early, but refused to notify me. That would be enough for me to terminate him right now. It just doesn't make any sense, except that he wants to get fired. The guard that came in early also stated that he was asked ot work on Monday for this other guy. I guess I'll see what happens on Monday, but I have a feeling he'll find something, or someway to make sure he's out of a job. So much for my time off, and the extra time I thought I was going to have this winter to write and spend some time in here. I had one day set aside for fishing and spending with my brother, the other two were for spending some time with my wife, getting things done around the house, and of course, my time in here. Now, if this guy pushes it, I'll be lucky having one day off a week. Oh well, not much I can do about it, so I'll just brace for the worst, and hope for the best. |
| Well, I was doing pretty well at getting in here and getting things done. Not as much done as I would have liked, but it was a good start. I was sick, so had a little time off from work, and utilized it to get in here and get caught up. Then, it was back to work, which in itself would not have been a problem, but it seems while I was gone, someone had to mess up. Again, in itself this would not be a big deal, unless it was a major mess-up. But it wasn't. Unfortunately, this person has been written up three times in less than twelve months, and company policy is termination with the third written warning. I had a long talk and decided to give him another chance, and after talking to my boss, put him on thirty days probation. He made the thirty days, and then started in with being a few minutes late, and worked his way up from there. So, it was brought to my attention that he failed an audit by being out of uniform. Not a real big deal in most cases --- something that would warrant me having a long talk with the person and moving on from there. But, this person has been spoken to numerous times about this and written up for it before. Therefore, I should again be giving him his letter of termination. Instead, I put some time into thinking this out. I decided I would give one final opportunity since he did make it through the thirty days. It also meant putting in a lot of my time while I was off, and I even had to make a trip in to work, off the clock, and on my day off, to serve the papers on him. The sad part is, I doubt he will make it for one two-week pay cycle, a month at the best before he messes up and I have to terminate him anyway. |
| It was a beautiful day here, today. I worked until noon, then stopped at my brothers for a cup of coffee. He was getting ready to head out to the lake to do some ice fishing, and I seriously thought about joining him. But, since I've been sick lately, I decided to come home and take it easy again today. I worked on a project after I got home, and it left me exhausted in a couple of hours. So, after a sandwich for lunch, I took a nice hour nap. Now, hopefully I will be up to an afternoon of fishing tomorrow. It's suppose to be even nicer out On Monday than it was today, and we made some plans to spend the day fishing. Not sure where yet, it depends on how well he does today. But, it doesn't really matter, just as long as we get a nice afternoon in. If we do well, that's an added bonus, but if not, it will still be a fun filled day. I also have to do some unpleasant business for work, and I just hope this guy gets the picture. If not, I may soon be looking to hire another guard, and won't have much for time off until we find someone. That's the way it seems to go, there always seems to be one person to keep things messed up. Hopefully this time he gets the point, but I doubt it. For now, it's time to work on dinner, Rhonda will be home soon. |
| Wow! Four days in a row, I must be setting some kind of record. Okay, I've done much better in the past, but more recently, I've had a tough time at getting in here at all. It feels good to be back in here, getting my mail cleaned up, and actually writing a bit. I know, it's not a story or a poem, but it's writing, and that's what matters. For some, it's all work and no play makes them a boring person, or whatever the result may be. For me, it's all work and no writing makes T.J. feel stressed and down. Of course, once a person gets feeling stressed out and down, it's even more difficult to make the time to write, and the circle is then completed. Only by breaking the cycle and writing can things start to change again. At least, that's the way it works for me. The other big factor is sleep. Not enough sleep has been a big problem for me for quite some time now. But, I think I have that cycle broken now, too. I know there will be more challenges to keep things working in the right direction, but just seeing these few results is motivating and has me feeling positive and self-assured. I already have one issue at work that should have me stressed and looking at the very likely possibility of losing out on a lot of the limited time I now have. There's this knucklehead who just insists on doing things wrong, and he's done run our of chances. I have to go in and talk to him next week, serve him a corrective action that is also his final warning. Then, even the slightest infraction, and he will be out of a job. The sad part is, he seems to want to get fired. I've tried my best to get him to comply with proper protocol, and he does for a short time, but then it's right back to the same problems. Oh well, I know I've given him ample opportunities and it's up to him to make the right choices. In fact, by all rights, he should have been terminated last fall, but I gave him another chance. I even went out on a limb with my boss the last time he messed up. Now, he's getting strike four and still not out the door. But, knowing how things have gone so far, I suspect he will not make it through the end of the month. Sad, but nothing more I can do. |
| I may not be recovering from the flu as quickly as I'd like to, but it's at least given me time to do a bit more in here. As for the flu, I'm not nearly as sick as many are, but still feeling pretty tough. Luckily, I had my immunization again this year, and did not get real sick. I missed one day of work, yesterday, but managed to make it to work this morning. I only worked four hours, and that was more than enough. After work, it was a bowl of chicken noodle soup and then a nap. I woke to the phone ringing but didn't get to it in time. My wonderful wife had called to see how I was doing. On the way downstairs, our dog, Hyko, slipped and fell. He's getting up there in years and has some problems with the steps from time to time. Today, it wasn't just a stumble, though. He slipped at the top and slid all the way down. Luckily, he didn't try and correct his slip, but just rode it out on his stomach, legs out in front of him. He scared the crap out of me. Thankfully, he did not suffer any injury; he seems to be doing just fine. Being sick has given me more time to get in here and get some things done, like writing in my journal every day. I also managed to get my email cleaned up, and even wrote to a friend in Facebook. On the flip side, however, I'm getting further behind in other areas as a result of not feeling well enough to do much. Even so, I'm doing pretty good at keeping myself caught up with most of my work, and I'm hopeful that I will be feeling better real soon. |
| I got another day off from work this week, instead of being at work, I'm home sick. I'm not sure what I picked up, but it has me feeling pretty beat. I actually got sick yesterday, or at least, that's when I noticed I was sick, but looking back, I'd have to say I was feeling some of the symptoms for a few days prior to that. I had some aches and pains throughout my body, headaches, chills, and feeling run down for about a week. The last few days also had me retaining a lot of water, especially in my legs. When I add up all the symptoms, it's looking like I may have the flu, even though I did get my annual flu vaccine earlier this fall. It's not surprising, considering I work in a job that has me coming in contact with a lot of people every day, and most people do not even try to turn their heads or cover their mouths when they cough. It's also a bad year for the flu, and it seems like everyone is sick with something. Even the weather has been prime for spreading sickness and germs. The temperature fluctuates between sub-zero and thawing, just like the humidity goes from humid to arid. We just sent through a few days of very dry air, and temperatures that barely climbed into the teens by day and dropped well below zero at night. The wind blew hard for the entire time we had the cold temperatures. Then the wind switched to the south, the temperature climbed into the upper twenties or lower thirties, the humidity shot up to eighty percent range, and we had a complete turn-a-round in the weather. It's been doing this since November's arctic attack. Just the jumping up and down in temperature is enough to get people sick, and the extreme cold spells keep homes and buildings sealed up, spreading the germs to everyone inside. Even resilient individuals seem to be having a tough time with colds and coughs this year. It seems to be throughout the country, too, not just in a few areas or regions. It seems like this is my year to be sick anyway. I did pretty well through the summer but had a terrible time with allergies in the fall, and even ended up with a severe sinus infection and eventually pneumonia this past fall. I did get treatment and healed, but my sinuses have continued to give me problems. Part of it is the dryness, another problem is living close to a grain elevator and having some allergies. I suppose this had my immune system run down, and not getting enough sleep only made it easier for me to catch this when I was exposed. Since I did have my flu shot, and I'm getting plenty of rest, I'm hopeful that I won't get real sick and will be over this quickly. I didn't work today, and if I must, I can take tomorrow off, too. If I'm up to it, I may work a short day tomorrow and Saturday so that I can continue to get plenty of rest and recover quickly. One thing positive about being sick, it has given me a bit of time I wasn't expecting. |
| It's been a long time since I've made an entry in here, I just haven't had time. I had good intentions of writing in here daily, and was going to make a fresh start with the new year. Unfortunately time did not cooperate, but then, that is what time does; it slips past. I'm not going to let this be a setback, though. I still intend to make this a daily habit. In fact, I have even thought about the times when we are out camping and I do not have access to the internet. My idea is to still write a journal entry, but to do it on my computer and then upload it when I have internet access again. I also plan on doing more with my grammar and spelling, so that I can not only write better, but so I can edit my items I've already written. Now, it's just a matter of making some time to get this all going. I may have a jump on that this week, since I will get an extra day off, maybe more. I just hope I feel well enough to make use of this time. But, since it's time I'm taking off due to illness, I may not get as much done as I would like. Even so, it will be time I can use to write a little, and time to read. |
| For many of us this is Christmas Eve, and a very festive night. Tomorrow is Christmas, the day Christians, for the most part, celebrate the birth of our Savior. For many, Christmas has become something far out of context and all messed up. For stores, it's all about making sales. For public offices, it's all about not offending anyone, and for many individuals, it's about getting presents, Santa, and gathering together with friends and family. I have heard so many things about Christmas, but nothing yet has ruined my perspective of this holiday. I have heard that the time of year is wrong for the birth of Jesus. I have heard that this date coincides with a pagan holiday, possible a few different versions, and I have even heard that Satan himself promotes dear old Santa Clause. I have even looked into some of these things, as well as others. No matter what, there always seems to be something wrong with these arguments, and of course, even the arguers can't agree on any one argument against Christmas. I know that in the end, it's what is in one's heart that matters. In other words, it's what a person thinks. I think the birth of a savior for all mankind requires more than one day out of the year to be remembered. In fact, in that sense, everyday is Christmas. But, to pick out one day from the year and set it aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ is not a bad thing, and it does not matter what day is picked. Sure, it would be nice to know the exact date of His birth and celebrate it. But, I also believe that if that was important, it would be recorded in clarity within the Holy Bible. No, the exact date isn't important. In fact, it becomes a lesson in faith by not knowing the day and hour of his birth. In faith we believe, and in faith we live our lives as unto Christ. So why not use faith to celebrate His glorious birth together with other Christians around the world. And, if those who do not believe in the person of Jesus Christ also want to celebrate this day by giving gifts and adding a touch of magic through stories of Santa and Rudolph, what harm is done? I grew up believing in Santa, and we also always had gifts under the tree on Christmas morning, from that jolly old elf. It did nothing to repress my belief in God or His Son. In some ways, it added magic to Christmas until I was old enough to decide for myself to believe in the Salvation of Jesus Christ. Yes, lets keep Christ in Christmas. Yes, lets be politically correct and call the day what it is, Christmas. But, lets not push on others how they should celebrate, or argue with others what pagan days are also celebrated this time of year. I also say, to those who are offended by Christmas, be tolerant and let us have our holiday, just as you have your holidays. Merry Christmas to all, no matter how you celebrate, or what your beliefs. My wish is for everyone to have a day filled with love and happiness tomorrow, and for all the tomorrows to come. |
| I enjoyed a day off today, but didn't get to do much of what I had hoped. Instead I did some rearranging, some cooking, and some last minute shopping. It was a very good day, and I'm happy with how it turned out, but it sure is difficult to try and get enough time for everything. But, I have most of the week off, and don't have to be back to work until Friday, unless something happens. That should give me plenty of time to get some of the things I have had to put off, done. There are plenty others I won't get done, but at least I can spend some time with them, too. As for today, it was a good day. I was doing some last minute shopping and seen that the store I was in had some Android smart phones from Tracfone on sale. I looked through them, since I've been wanting to update my phone, and seen they had some real good deals on them. I was especially surprised to see one on sale for $11.99. I decided that I would get both Rhonda and me one, at that price. But, when I got to the check out, I was surprised to see that my purchase was over a hundred bucks. More than twice what I had been anticipating. I asked the casheer and was informed that the phones were indeed on sale. They were marked down to $39.99. I told her the sign listed them for $11.99 and she called back to electronics, and had this verified. I was just about to tell her I didn't want to purchase them at this time, but before I could, she said that they would honor the price, even though the phones were in the wrong place. I couldn't believe it! So, I got a very good deal, and an example of the magic of Christmas. |
| In here a lot earlier today, and still trying different browsers. This time I'm in here with Apple's Safari, and it seems to work pretty well. It supports some of the add-ins I use, but it also falls short in some areas. One plus is it allows me to use LastPass, which I depend on all the time. On the down side, the browser does not support drag and drop in here. I could just use Internet Explorer, it does what I want and need, but it tends to get bogged down and it constantly wants to disable my plug-ins. Sure, they may slow it down some, but come on people, if I didn't want them active, I wouldn't have installed them. It just kind of irks me when it flashes the message on the bottom to disable the plug-ins because they are making the program open slower. Yeah, but a second or two, and all combined, it may cost me a whopping six seconds to load them. But, they are there because I use them, and want the active. If I'm going to disable them, why in the hell would I even want to keep them? Oh well, just needed to scream that out, I guess. It's not so bad, it's just frustrating. I used Firefox for quite some time, but then all at once it began to have issues. Then, it was a switch over to Chrome. That was a great move, it was fast secure, and worked like a charm. But, I reckon all good things must end, and so it was with Chrome. Some things just didn't work anymore in certain sites. So, it was back to Internet Explorer. They had a new version out and it worked pretty good. I really didn't have any complaints, but it wasn't as fast as some of the other browsers had been, and it did not have the options and plug-ins available that the other's did. Even so, it worked and I found other ways to use the items I liked, often from desktop programs or through links. But, in time, Internet Explorer updated to a very unfriendly browser, it began to freeze, it wouldn't let me make many of the choices I wanted to, and it just bogged down my system. Once again I found myself trying different browsers. I had the new versions of Firefox and Chrome downloaded, and tried them both out. Again, Firefox was nice, but Chrome was faster and more reliable. So, I used Chrome, for a long time. Just recently, after an upgrade, Chrome stopped working with my bank site. It also began to have a lot of issues with freezing. I was always getting messages like, the program has become unresponsive. It could take anywhere from a half a minute, to a couple minutes to get the program to respond again. On top of this, I would also get messages stating the web page was unresponsive and given a choice to wait or kill the page. Again, it was a long wait, either way. I found myself waiting more than browsing, and I also found problems with some content working right. So, I turned back to Mozilla. It worked fine with the bank, and everything seemed to be good. But, it updated and then I was waiting for pages to open, I was stuck with frozen pages, and s*** just did not work. So, now I'm looking at some less popular browsers, and finding some that are lightning quick, and have a lot of benefits. But, they also have drawbacks, like no plug-in support. The one I like best has some plug-in support, but very limited, and only the ones they support. Like Roboform instead of LastPass. Or, like Safari, it supports the plug-ins, but it's slower and doesn't do as much of the other things. |
| It's late tonight, but I made it in. I'll have to keep this entry short, however. Let's see, a breif rundown of my day. I was up at three this morning, but I wasn't functional until about five-thirty this evening. I had only gotten two hours of sleep, and that wasn't even a hard sleep. I managed to get through work, even though I was very tired. After, I ate a sandwich, then took a little nap. Only, my little nap kind of extended into a long sleep. I didn't wake up until Rhonda called around five or just shortly after. I guess she called a couple of times, but I did not hear the phone until the second call. I woke, but was unsure of anything. My first thoughts were being late for work, and them calling. But, I couldn't even quite process that information right off. I came down stairs to get the phone and seen the kitchen light on, so I thought Rhonda must be up, but she was nowhere to be seen. I looked at the clock and seen the time, but couldn't process the information yet, thinking now, it's Sunday, and I'm not late. Then, as I pushed the talk button, I had a thought that it was a regular day, I was late, and Rhonda had gone it for me. I said, Hello?" It was Rhonda, she had gotten off work, and it was finally starting to sink in. I wasn't late, it was afternoon, and I had been napping. I still took about an hour to gain full functionability. Then, it was back to the task at hand, try and find a good web browser that doesn't hang up and give me so much grief. I found one to try, and am in it now. It's a freeware browser called Slimbrowser. I'm not sure about it yet, but it is fast, it seems to load all right, and it may be just what the doctor ordered. My only problem with it so far, is it does not support add-ons like LastPass. They have their own add-on that does the same, but that means I have to set up everything over again. I will have to look into this further tomorrow, when I have more time. If possible, I'll add LastPass, but if not, I may have to set up everything in Roboform or what ever it's called. For now, it's time to sit back, and relax. Oh, and before I forget, I apologize for my spelling and any other errors, I still have a few cobwebs clinging to my brain, and this browser does not have a spell checker active on it yet. I have to set that up, too. |
| Pretty tired today. Actually, it's tonight, since it's almost seven o'clock; evening to the normal folks, but it's night to those of us who start their day around three in the morning. It was a pretty good day, but I started out tired and only grew more so as the day progressed. the biggest problem was having yesterday off. Not that a day off is a problem, but how it's spent can be. Rhonda was doing some Christmas baking the last two days. Tuesday wasn't any problem, but yesterday kind of was. Not that I mind, it's just how things work out sometimes. The baking and everything else was fine, but it got a lot later than she had intended before she finished. Unfortunately, we had decided to hold off on supper until after she was done. So, we didn't' eat until around nine, then relaxed a bit to let our food settle before going to bed. So, we got to bed later than we should have, and then I didn't sleep very well, because of the big meal shortly before bed. I probably got a whopping four hours of sleep last night, although that was interrupted with a couple of trips to the bathroom. Also, I just did not sleep sound. I did have a good day at work. After, I stopped and picked up a few things, then came home. I was tired, but wanted to hold to the routine we had started, so I put things away then went to do my exercise routine. After, I cooked up a burger for lunch then sat down to relax a bit after I ate. I had turned the computer on, and although very tired, planned on getting online for a bit. But, I couldn't stay awake. I put my feet up and reclined back, planning on napping a little in my chair. Hannah jumped up on my lap to take a nap with me, and I was soon dozing off. But, I just couldn't get real comfortable. I also kept getting woken up by the trucks driving past. So I put Hannah down and went upstairs to nap in bed. I had a thirty-minute snooze, then woke to go to the bathroom. This was a result of drinking two glasses of water while exercising and a glass of milk with lunch. I did lie back down, and I did get another thirty minutes before waking again, to run to the bathroom again. The second time I stayed up, but I'm still very tired. It should result in a good night sleep tonight, which in turn means a better, and more productive, day tomorrow. |
| What a couple of knuckleheads! I'm speaking of our two dogs, but I suppose the description fits quite a few, and in different ways. In fact, I bet any one of you could name off at least two knuckleheads without taking any time to think about it. I also believe if I asked what you think knucklehead means, it would be a very diverse meaning between answers. The knuckleheads I refer to our dogs, but the term was picked up from our pastor, describing individuals who just don't stop to think before action. By his definition, I myself have been a knucklehead more than once and would feel safe in assuming that the term could apply to most anyone, at one time or another. It fits our dogs quite well, since they really don't have the capability to reason things out at all. Oh, they are smart enough, and sometimes too smart for their own good. But even with high intelligence, they just do not have the mental ability to reason out much at all. Our female Golden Retriever who passed away last December was one fo the few exceptions I have ever witnessed. She could be a knucklehead, but then again, she could surprise me with some of the things she came up with. She was always a fast learning. I would literally show her what I wanted her to do while voicing the command and she would then know a new trick. She may not do it quite right, but again, I would assist her, and after one or two tries, she had it down. Most of the time, just once. She also had an imagination far beyond what I would have believed, had I not seen and interacted with her. As a one-year-old puppy, she could entertain herself for hours with a toy. One memory that always stands out is when we first moved into a house over in Hayti. She was outside with me, and we had been playing some catch with her tennis ball. But, I had work I needed to do on the roof, and sooner than she wanted, I had to stop and climb up on the roof. I let her stay outside, even though we had no fence and she was not tied in any way. She was good about staying in her yard, most of the time, and I was in a good position to keep and eye on her, no matter what direction she went. I did some work, and looked up to see what she was up too, and seen her running across the back yard. Just about the time I thought she was after something and was going to yell for her to stop, she pounced. We had a small hole in the back, where a young tree had been removed and the fill dirt had settled. She pounced right into the hole. As I watched, she came up with her ball, tossed it up over her head, and then spun around and caught it. Next, she shook it real good, then dropped it back into the hole. She then turned and walked up to the house. I quietly moved so I could continue to watch her. She slowly walked to the front of the house, then dropped down into a crouch. Looking right and left, she began to prowl alongside the house, still in a crouch. Every time she came to any sort of cover, she would use it. Stopping behind a bush or the gas meter, or whatever cover there was, she would drop even lower and peek around the cover. Once she was satisfied that she was unnoticed by whatever she thought was around the house, she would creep to the next piece of cover. Eventually, she was all the way around the house and hiding behind her last bit of cover. She looked around one side of the clump of trees, then around the other. Digging her back feet into the soil just a bit for traction, she made her move. As fast as she could bolt from behind the cover, she attacked with all her might. It took about three or four leaps and she was upon her prey -- the tennis ball in the hole. Once she had captured it, she again tossed it up, caught it, and then carefully put it back. By now, I could not hold back and broke out into laughter. She took a minute to locate me up on the roof, then went straight around the side of the house to the ladder. By the time I had moved to that side, she was halfway up the ladder, tail wagging, coming to see me. I had to hustle down the ladder and jump free the last five feet to get around her. I landed well but still dropped down to my knees when I landed. Hurrying to get back up and get her before she slipped and fell, I turned to the ladder and seen she was not on it. Looking up, I see her bright eyes peeking over the side of the roof at me. Even as I see her up on the roof, she begins to "talk." I don't know just how to explain how Klarissa talked, but it was a combination of sounds. It was as if she was imitating what she heard when two people would talk. I climbed up and as I reached the top of the one-story roof, she moved back and made room for me to come up with her. I did just that, and then took a seat beside her on the roof. Side by side we sat, looking out at the town, and the sunset beyond. As dusk set in, I asked her how, "How in the hell am I going to get us both down from here. She was up and moving before I could react. Just as quick as she had climbed up, she went down, then turned and let out a bar as if to say, "Like this." I followed and was soon on the ground. I had brought down my tools and put them and the ladder away while she walked beside me. Once everything was put away, I went to the back door and opened it for her to enter, planning on following right behind. But, she stopped, turned around and bolted out across the yard. I called, but she didn't even look back until she had come to the hole and picked up her ball. Then, she turned and pranced back to me, in through the still open door, and up onto the couch, tucking her toy in beside her. She is greatly missed, but we still have our entertainment with Hyko, our male Golden Retriever. We also have a Dinger, who is still developing her own personality. Actually, she is a Labradinger, cross between a Lab and Springer. She was up to be euthanased as an unwanted guest at the pound, and had lived there since she was a puppy, about two years. They had posts on Facebook, and for whatever reason she had caught our attention. At the time, we did not know that the pound was set to have her put down the following day. We just knew it was very lonely for all of us after Klarissa passed away, and Rhonda convinced me to go look at this dog. We thought, because of her small size, she was a puppy, but found out when we arrived, she was about two years old. They brought her out, and she was quite unruly and wild. But, when I took her, she responded very well, and just wanted to stay with me. Because they were not set up to take a bank card, I had to run to the bank to get the money to pay for her, and she put up quite a fight when I tried to leave. Rhonda stayed and filled out the paperwork, and once I returned and paid the fees to have her transferred over to us, learned that this would have been her last day. That was just over a year ago, and she has continued to change and mature into a very wonderful companion. She also is very smart, learns fast, and can be as much of a knucklehead as Hyko. Many times, she will do something exactly the same way Klarissa would have done it, and I find myself wondering if somehow my old friend has merged with my new four legged friend. |
| Better get this written now, because I likely won't get this done later. My day did not go according to plan at all. Not that it was a bad day, just not quite as planned. Rhonda wanted to do some Christmas baking, so we started out with a nice morning of leisure and then did our Bible study. After, she got busy baking and I got busy on the computer. I was using my netbook, and things just did not want to work right. I was using Mozilla, the latest version had just been installed around the first week of December, and it was working fine. Then, it updated and things went awry. No matter what I had open, I would get a message that my flash player was out of date and needed updating. As far as I know, this was a legitimate warning from Mozilla. But, when I attempted to update my flash player, a whole slew of junk programs and apps began to install on my netbook. I quickly shut down connections to the internet and proceeded to clean things up. Many of the new downloads did not want to uninstall for me. I did manage to get everything removed, and had to also uninstall Mozilla in the process. Luckily, I have a current and updated antiviral program that blocked most of the harmful files as they downloaded, and quarantined the rest. I assume this was why some of the programs and apps would not uninstall properly, they were missing parts. The bad parts! Even though Bitdefender did its job properly, I still had a big mess to clean up, and once done, I had to run a very in depth and aggressive scan on the machine; a very timely task. While this is going on, since it's still running and only three-fourths of the way finished, I looked at my laptop. What a surprise to see that there were a few things on here that didn't look right. Again, the files seem to have appeared when I put Mozilla on. Luckily, these had not been accessed and did not install anything -- yet. Even so, I will be running a very in depth and aggressive scan on here, too. I also looked at Rhonda's computer, and found a few things that needed attention, but her computer had Mozilla in it from quite a while back. I think, if I remember right, it was early last year. It had updated and stayed current, but had not been subject to any of the infections my computers had picked up when I installed the program. I assume it was linked to the download site, not Mozilla, but I don't know for sure. All I do know is when my netbook tried to update Flash Player, it downloaded a whole gaggle of adware and such. My laptop seems to be clean of any of this, but there are a couple of files that downloaded on the same date. I also know that my Mozilla browser also has been giving the same message about Flash Player. I even checked on here to see which player I have, and what is the newest version, and I am current. So, just to be safe, Mozilla came off, the files from that day came off, and I reinstalled Chrome. I don't know why it's as slow as it is, but at least it seems safe. Now, the rest of tonight will be used up, computer wise, with an intensive viral scan. |
| I just have a few minutes to write and then it's time to go check the salmon. Yep, a late dinner tonight, but only because of someone driving like an idiot on the way home. Of course, I wasn't much wiser with my solution, and am also equally to blame for the late dinner. We had a winter storm hit today, and Rhonda had to work. She also has a couple of days off with me tomorrow and the next day, and wants to do some Christmas baking. But, she needed to get a few things, and was going to after work tonight. With the weather being so bad, and the roads very slippery, I decided I would drive her in to work, then pick up the stuff she needs to get, and then come back home and do my thing. This part worked fine, I drove her in and we got her to work just a little early. The roads were ice covered and it was slow driving, but we did just fine. After I dropped her off at work, I did the shopping and then drove home. On the way home, the weather got even worse, and it was a long slow drive home, but uneventful. But, by the time I got the stuff put away, made a slow cooker full of soup to go with dinner tonight, and did my exercises, it was time to go back in and get Rhonda. Well, it was a bit early, but I knew the roads had only gotten worse, so I allowed the extra time, and it was needed. I came up on a bad accident, but the emergency crews were already on the scene, and I passed by slow, but did not have to stop. Once past, I was able to speed back up, to about thirty mile per hour. That was it, maximum speed for highway driving. Of course, there were the other idiots out that like to drive way to fast for the road conditions, like the person the emergency crews were assisting. I was right on time to pick Rhonda up. I went in and walked with her as she picked up the last few items she needed, then I drove her over to HyVee to pick up a few items I seen we needed. I figured we were already right there, we might as well get what we need so we don't have to drive in again tomorrow. Then it was head for home. We took a different route, so we could drive extra slow and not have anyone ridding on our ass. We did good until we were just about to highway twenty-two, then an idiot began to gain on us. But, then he kind of slid this way, then that, and then he wasn't coming up behind us at all. I don't know if he went off the road or not, but he was slowed way down, and it took a bit for him to get caught back up to us. By the time he did, we had turned onto highway twenty-two, and he was gaining on us again. Soon enough, he was on my tail, much to close if he needed to stop for anything. I really didn't want someone rear-ending us, and his lights, on bright, where taking a toll on my vision. With the blowing and drifting going on, it was damn hard to see the road anyway, and this idiot with his lights on bright just made it worse. No visibility, high winds, and a road surface as smooth and slick as an ice rink. Not a good combination at all, and then add an idiot who can't dim his lights and wants to ride right on the back bumper, and it's looking like another serous accident could happen. So, I watched for a side road, signaled early, and began to slow down for the turn. Once we were around the turn, I started looking for a place to tturn around and get back on the highway, now behind this guy. We found an approach to a field, turned in and backed up. Only, we didnt' move. The ice was so bad, even the dirt approach was too slick, and we weren't moving. No problem, I'll just pull down into the field, turn around and get a little run at the approach. Only, the field was full of frozen clumps of soil, and we got stuck. It took quite a bit to get the van back out of the field, and then up the approach. But, with a ripped open bag of sand we had in the vehicle for weight, we were able to use the sand for traction and eventually got up onto the road, and were able to drive back home... were I'm staying for the next two days. |
| Pretty full day for a Sunday. I worked, but had a short day, eight until noon. Of course, by the time I got out, it was actually twelve-thirty. That put me at about one-thirty by the time I got home, let the dogs out, and put my stuff away. I fixed a quick lunch, then did some stuff for work, printed out a memo that needs to be posted tomorrow, and got ready to do some exercises. I also checked on the dove I rescued yesterday, and it's doing great. I probably could have turned it loose this afternoon, but it's very wet out. So, one more night with us, then tomorrow it will be released back outside to rejoin it's friends and family. My workout went well, and after an hour I was huffing and puffing, which is a good sign I had a good workout. This put me at about five in the afternoon, or at lest about ten minutes to. That meant it was time to start getting things ready for dinner. I did take a few minutes to rest up after the exercising, drink some water, and find a recipe for baked breaded pork chops. I had told Rhonda I would cook dinner tonight, since we have both been working and going pretty light on our dinners. Also, when we are both working, we don't get a chance to sit down and enjoy dinner together. But, I don't have to work tomorrow, so I decided I would cook us a nice dinner and have it ready when she got home. It turned out great, and was ready about the time she was. We sat and had a nice dinner, talked, and then fed the dogs a nice meal, too. Next, it was time to relax with a cup of coffee and log the foods in MFP. From there, I came here, and now that I have this entry wrapped up, it's time to turn on the television, watch a program, and then turn in for the night. |
| I can't believe how tired I am, even after taking a nap this afternoon. And, it's not because of not getting much sleep this week; I actually did pretty good at getting to bed early and sleeping well. I was up quite a bit Wednesday night, but I had went to bed on time and slept pretty hard. I didn't nap at all on Thursday, which had me in bed by nine and I slept most of the night, only waking up once or twice. Again, I slept hard, and I woke up right before the alarm this morning. It will be early to bed again tonight, and since I don't have to get up at an ungodly hour tomorrow, I should be back on track. I do still have a bit of a task before I can retire for the night, then it's a little television, a bowl of ice cream, and off to bed. But before any of that, I have to set up the dog kennel for a dove. After work, I took the dogs out and noticed a dove on the ground right close to Hannah. It didn't move, and luckily, she didn't see it. I put both dogs in the house and went to investigate. The poor thing was soaked, and unable to fly, but it did walk away when I got close to it. It didn't move fast, but it seemed to move alright, no limp or wing dragging. But, I was close enough to reach down and pick it up before it moved, and it only went a few feet and stopped again. I knew it wouldn't survive the night; if one of our dogs didn't get it, someones cat would. Also the neighbors dogs always come into our yard. If animals didn't finish it off, I figured it would freeze to death on the ground, being so wet and windy out. So, I went to the shed and found a hamster cage we had stored out there, and the net for the pond. It took a while to get everything, put the cage back together, and then go look and see if the dove was still around. I was hoping it would have recovered enough to get to shelter, maybe even fly up a bit into one of the pine trees. But no such luck, the poor thing was still right were I left it. It was not trouble at all to slip the net over it, and it didn't' even put up any resistance when I took it out of the net and placed it in the cage. It did well in the cage, and by the time Rhonda got home it was perked up and making quite a mess anytime we got close, but it still can't fly. I'm not sure why, it doesn't seem to have any damage to either wing, and we are hoping it makes a full recovery by tomorrow. but, the hamster cage is just too small for the dove, so we are going to transfer it over to the kennel. It will have a lot of room, and we can put a perch in for it to roost on, if it can get up on it. With some food and water, and a good rest, hopefully it will be roosting by morning, and we can return it to the outdoors where it belongs. I figure if it is able to get onto a roost, it can get up into the pine trees and get shelter. If it isn't, we will have to decide what more we can do for it. |
| It's getting late again, so another short entry. It's been a pretty good day, but some of the tasks I set out to accomplish ended up being more time consuming than I liked. Even so, there wasn't much choice, it was needed. I had been using Chrome for a browser, but it started messing up, loading slower and slower, and eventually, I had problems opening bank pages and other secured sites. I tried Mozilla and everything worked great. Then, it updated itself to the latest version, and I started to have some problems. It still loads fast, works great, but I cannot log into my bank site. I researched it and adjusted this, tweaked that, and still could not get the page to load. I had made quite a few changes to all sorts of settings, including some security settings, but nothing worked to correct the problem. I still could not log into my bank page, and now I had a messed up browser as well. So, I reset Mozilla, which fixed the browser, but it also removed all my plugins and add-ons. Out of curiosity, I tried my bank page and it worked. Great, I could now get into the bank again, and my browser was fixed. But, I still needed a few of my add-ons and plugins, so I set about installing them, and then restarted my browser, to get them all working. I seen there was a pop-up from my antivirus, and I clicked on ok. It said something about needing to shut down my browser. That was fine with me, since I had just shut it down, and was restarting it to finish installing my plugins. Only, now I couldn't log into the bank again. To make a long, story short, I went through reset again, then tried a few different plug-ins, one at a time to see what was causing the problem. Not a one made any difference until I came to the one that needed to restart my browser. Again, I shut it down, and again I seen the message from Bitdefender to shut down the browser. This time I ignored it, restarted the browser and it worked great, the bank page opened and everything was fine. Then, I clicked on ok for Bitdefender, it shut down my browser, and when I restarted it again, I couldn't log into my bank. It was Bitdefender all along, blocking my page. I don't know why, but for some reason, after the latest update to Mozilla, it won't let me log into my bank. I have a suspicion that it was Bitdefender causing this same problem in Chrome, too. Nothing like having total security, I'm so secure now that I can't even access secured sites. What's next? I suppose it's just a matter of time until Bitdefender decides that I'm a security threat to my computer, and blocks me. After all, if it won't let anyone turn it on, it can't get infected. |
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