THE NEW SENSATION

During the Daytona 500 race the tv announcers were talking about Twitter and how some of the drivers were using it during the race.. On yellow flags and the one red flag that happened.. The "new" social media medium is finally exploding and they changed the way it works.. Trying to search for anything doesn't work the way it did, but I must be the only one who can't figure it out because it seems to be the new rage for everybody.. I wasn't shooting to follow a thousand sites or people on Twitter but by the one year mark that is what I was doing, eclipsed that mark and now headed for two thousand quite quickly.. And tweeted my thousandth tweet recently or will shortly... Approaching having ten times the followers on Twitter than I have on Facebook.. My philosophy of the two are completely separate.. Facebook is more for family and people I know (mostly).. There are some I have never met but were "friends" by a common cause.. Twitter I use to gain information.. I started a Twitter account to try to get information about a radio show I was and still am listening to... And I thought after they signed their contract that I would ditch Twitter but the opposite happened, I dove head first into it..

Now I have two main ideas for watching sites.. If they have a twitter account I more than likely will follow them.. If they have an RSS feed I will follow them that way and possibly set up to follow on Twitter as well.. Rarely I will push the like button for Facebook but if they aren't on Twitter or have an RSS account then I will go FB and have it that way.. The RSS feeds have saved the day on i-Google homepage no doubt in my mind... I was on the verge of changing my homepage by the end of this month if I couldn't get control of the constant crashing going on on Firefox.. I can't use Chrome with i-Google even still, it is too much for Chrome to handle.. My ranking on browsers is 1 Firefox, 2 Aurora (Firefox development browser) 3 Opera (default browser) 4 Comodo dragon 5 Chrome 6 Lunascape6 7 Safari.... Now anyone that would ask, why do I have Firefox as my first but not my default?? Because Firefox is set to have i-Google as the homepage and it takes a minute or so to load where Opera loads fairly quickly with the homepage set as the speed dial setting, Opera also opens i-Google home page quicker but not all of the Gadgets are opened for whatever the reason.. In fact all the browsers open i-Google differently and have the gadgets all over the place.. Aurora and Firefox are the only consistent browsers that open the homepage the same ever time..

The final build of Picasa 3?? Might be the final version of Picasa 3 updated today.. They can add to the 3 by way of decimal points but likely they will have Picasa 4 coming next.. The evolution continues as they get ready to close out the pinik site...

Te Pirate Bay (se) changed to Magnet files today.. Something I knew was coming at the start of the month.. What this means is two things, with the recent update upgrade of the micro downloader is it will move with all sites that offer torrenting type of downloads.. The three new file formats are now doable by the downloader (I picked the right one those years ago, a strange feeling to be right for once).. It changes the way the rules are governed by all in charge.. Other sites were closing left and right just before today.. I was afraid they would clip TPB before today but because of this change this site is there in name alone.. They kinda don't exist anymore.. They are a phantom site, almost undetectable.. Acquiring the Magnet (torrent) is easy and almost undetectable by authorities.. In other words it is safer for all involved to do this type of thing.. The torrents take about five minutes longer to start but that is the only difference...

BH

MASTER OF DOMAIN

Lucy had this to say on her Facebook recently :

"I feel like Tangerine Dream.Old stuff, like Ricochet or Logos Live at the Dominon`82.............Funny how we always keep going back to stuff we love most despite fact that we are trying to explore new stuff and adjust to new reality..........."

Pardon the broken English feel.. She says she "loves" Tangerine Dream, but she has a taste now that runs towards the dance or dub (DJ) type of sound, and I have tried to get into any of it and except for a few songs by Kaskade and ATB I can't tolerate this type of music.. It is a high intensity type of faster beat type of music, with mixes of songs by artists that have a hit and in some instances huge hits.. I heard a mix version of a song by Adele and still think it is horrible.. Even songs by groups I like I have no tolerance for...

To me her saying she really likes (loves) Tangerine Dream and then listening to this dance dub type of music, one has absolutely nothing in common with the other.. I will admit to liking Tangerine Dream myself.. I got into their music at about the time of the Risky Business movie.. I always wanted that soundtrack and eventually I lifted the music from the movie itself.. I got the first album by TD back in the mid nineties and fell on my head for them.. That's the way for me, I try a group via a best of or live album then get an album with that song that turns me on the most.. In the case of Tangerine Dream the album I started with was 220 Volt Live which as it turns out was an album of all new material, there is (or was) no studio version of any of the songs.. That's how they worked.. And then I checked their catalog of back music and found that getting every album would be very difficult.. Then a guy started a record store and I got kinda friendly with him and he ordered some albums by TD for me.. I found the more I got by them the more I wanted.. The bad thing with their music is that different eras meant different tolerance for what they did.. They did and still do mix discs. These are alright but it is as far as I will go.. They do the mixes themselves..

My taste in music is pretty much my own.. There are no outside influences any more.. I still like the core groups that I have liked for years.. Those are Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, KISS, Led Zeppelin... And from there I dove into groups like Alice Cooper, Chicago, UFO, Rush... And from there experimenting with groups such as Tangerine Dream, Emerson Lake and Palmer, ATB.. If I was after any music that was like Tangerine Dream I kept it in that type or style.. I went more for the down beat or chill type rather than the high tempo of the music Lucy likes... I went more for artists like Craig Chaquico, and modern jazz that fits my liking.. I really don't get a song that drills the same idea for fifteen minutes of synti grabassed excess...


Bob stopped by Friday, and was here for a good two hours, and it was really nice and relaxed.. But there is still that tension in the room.. No matter how relaxed it might have felt, there is stil the elephant ( ) in the room.. A feeling of chose your words carefully, but I didn't really feel like that was there that much.. I think mom wanted to go from the pleasantries of this & that to let's settle things completely, or I felt like she could possibly want to do that.. She didn't say that at all afterwards but she did say she wished they could have continued the discussion the next day (the 26th)... I was leery and have been, I know there is something else but don't want to go there.. I want everything to heal, all egos and whatever to just take a breath and... Mellow out.. CHILL.. Completely flush that time completely away...

Like I said in an earlier entry, I was trying to write a reply letter to Freda to her letter and her entry on the family blog but every time I had written what I wanted to say it turned into an opus of sorts and at times my sense of humor got the best of me and I would go off on a tangent that ended up taking me away from the subject and I saw the humor in it but after reading it I thought that I very much doubted that she would see the funny in it so I shelved them.. All of them are shelved, at one point I came close to sending one but then thought better of it. So now all of those letter ideas are all entered into my private Myspace (three entries to load all of that) and now I think that is where they will remain... Only to be brought out and laughed at when everyone gets their sense of humor back.. So in other words never.. Just as well...

The triumphant return of the prodical son.. Or in this case the daughter, their daughter, eldest daughter.. Pregnant and all, suffering severe morning sickness.. The idea that after she got to her parents house she sort of fell apart and had as bad of morning sickness as she has had, made me believe it was the trip here.. A four to six hour drive (depending on who you believe).. It more than likely put the hurt on her.. Took too much and truth is it is a HUGE risk for her to have made that drive, and even though she says she is feeling better, she says she wants to return home tomorrow.. Just not my idea of a good time.. I think of what it is like to have a horrible hang over and I don't want to be out and away from a place to puke... Hope she knows what she is doing...

BH

GETTING IT AGAIN...

Starting on this past Thursday it seemed like groundhog day.. The movie, where the guy lives the same day over and over.. In my case I seem to make the same mistakes over and over.. AND OVER AND OVER... Here's what I meant.. Thursday I get home from watching the nephew and get on the computer to check some things really quick.. Really quick in computer terms is eventually before bed time hopefully.. I start to check the things and the browser freezes up.. Then crashes.. I use Firefox as my main browser of choice because I use i-Google as my homepage and Firefox seems to be the most consistent browser, meaning fewest crashes.. Well not this night it wasn't.. Sometimes the browser locks up because another program is updating and in this case McAfee was updating which I didn't know until I was in freakout mode.. Shortly after this short freakout The screen showed that in fact McAfee had downloaded an update.. Fine, so I get Firefox up and running and again it crashes on me, locks up big time.. I shut it down via the task manager (I have it pinned to the task bar right next to the browsers) and use it to shut programs down rather than the red X in the upper right hand corner.. This comes in particularly handy when you shut down some programs such as Skype.. Skype won't shut down by that red x in the corner EVER.. It stays running in some capacity to slow your computer down and even though it shows in task bar as running you won't receive calls.. Why is it still running then??

After getting totally frustrated with Firefox I do what I usually do when I get frustrated, I delete the program.. With the idea most times that I am deleting to try to reinstall later and see if it will fix itself, this time I delete with the idea that this time is for good so I have it remove all traces (passwords and everything).. Big assed stupid mistake.. I no sooner delete it then reacquire it.. But this time from a site that has an earlier version.. How early?? I went to the very first Firefox to see what the difference would be.. I'm not sure I had the very first version of Firefox and it didn't open the i-Google homepage.. Not completely right anyway.. So I delete that and go to C-net to get Firefox but I typed in Mozilla with the hope of getting that Mozilla browser.. They didn't have that, but they did have Aurora , the developers version of Firefox.. so.. I wrote about this already in an earlier entry.. But not about this..

Earlier today I was asked to get a song by mom, and she asked if that store in the mall was still open and I said let me see if I can get it via i-tunes.. And the concept of getting a song this way was beyond her.. She thought I needed a credit card, but it wasn't needed.. So I tried to get the song and when it needed a credit card to pay for it I said no.. Then tried again and held my mouth different and again it did the same screen.. I guess it has been a long time since I got music there and I did my usual freakout.. I tried to get a hold of i-tunes and tried to do a chat thing and when everything failed I did the next best thing.. I deleted i-tunes with the idea that I would NEVER EVER use that again.. Then I thought, I need it to get podcasts and do my music library although it isn't that needed, I don't have an i-pod... After I reacquired i-tunes I Googled my problem and found the answer.. Figures, it was something simple. Again I freaked out without need.. I have to remember I Google things on everything else so why freak out.. Just remember to Google and to word it right.. My first attempt garnered no ideas that were helpful, then I tried to word it a different way and wala.. There was the answer..

Speaking of wording it right... I spent the last few weeks off and on trying to write a response letter to Freda, and every attempt I pushed save to keep the draft and then went back and tried to either edit it or do a complete rewrite and sometimes it was better and other times it was too rambling.. I now have three drafts on seven attempts and all of them are on my myspace site and might eventually end up here.. Or not.. I think the more I let time get between the events of the end of last year (holidays wise) the better.. I think I'd rather just let things heal via time rather than force the issue.. After this past Friday I think things are getting more back to a normal but I doubt it will ever return to how things were before then.. But you never know.. I tried to comment of his daughters Facebook sites but didn't push enter.. I want to but am not sure how I will come off.. I kid around with Ian and think the day is gonna come where he thinks I'm an idiot.. Maybe that day is already here.. But I like to have fun.. maybe he will see that is what I am doing..

BH

BINKY THE WONDER HOARDER..

So Bob stops in yesterday and said something about their DJ business, that they were glad they weren't asked to play the local school winter ball because of a little problem they had last year.. Seems the sponsors didn't want any Lady Gaga (claptrap) to be played and yet the kids kept requesting they play some.. To me the kids should get the music they want played, but the sponsors pay the bills (I guess) and so what do you do then?? I always thought it would be cool to run a sound system like that.. Except for one thing, I would rather play what I wanted to hear and say to hell with everybody's wants.. If they have trouble filling what people want to hear using a DJ thing then a band is really limited.. The band I was in had a lot of songs but half were out own and the other half were covers.. And so we knew quite a few songs but rarely played all the songs we had, and couldn't have someone come up and ask to hear a song and then we go learn it on break, that wasn't those guys ability. Other bands can do that, some guitarists have a natural ear for songs and song structure, such as blues or whatever.. Some old songs are easy to pick up, I'd love to have been in a band that could do that.. Fake it somewhat and at other times just play the song from memory because we have heard the song a hundred times on the radio & all... To me that would be the ultimate, to be in a band that could play anything and be of a biker bar type of band... I've always wanted to be in a niche type like that, more readily able to play for a packed bar than to try to make our own crowd by writing music to force people to listen to. To me, I was in a band that wrote original songs and recorded them and marketed them and it was a waste of time.. We constantly practiced our songs and let the cover songs suffer.. To me I'd rather it be the other way around to the point of practicing cover songs exclusively.. but that's me...


What's with this wind?? 47 mph sustained, continuous, 67 mph hour gusts.. I put on the facebook when is the eye of the hurricane supposed to pass over us...

BH

MEDDOW MUFFINS AND CHEESEBURGERS

So in an entry earlier I said something about my older brother having diabetes and that would be the way he might die, the complications from that disease are many and if you ignore it or pretend you can do things that won't be a problem right of way.. Basically it all adds up, watching dad play with his insulin amounts is probably what caused his demise, and no it didn't happen over night but over a certain amount of time.. I don't know enough about the disease to say I am an expert but being around dad for the entire time he had diabetes there are certain signs of the same behavior...

I kinda think I know my own demise.. Probably something stupid, since that seems to be me in a heartbeat.. When I was younger I had to have an allergy test done and what that meant was to have these little scratches on my back with something like a grass or pine tree thing on it.. I had the hives way back then, and they would be the giant version where in the case of getting them in my eyes I would look like Rocky after the big fight with Apollo Creed at the end of the movie.. But this was years before that movie was made.. My eyes would itch at first then hurt and hurt for a few days after having the hives.. Anywhere there is soft tissue, skin wise, I would get the hives so behind me knees, ankles, toes (between and the toes themselves), bottom of my feet, arm pits, opposite side of my elbows, fingers, hands and the worst of all the entire of the crotch region.. Not much fun..

During the allergy testing the doctors found that I had a murmur of the heart and that would begin my long testing that meant going to Denver to the childrens hospital for a few years.. What actually felt like forever, having to go regularly every however months they wanted to keep an eye on it and the worst part was they wanted me to not play in P.E. in school, which was the worst part.. It made me different from the other kids, or special which I HATED.. So until I was in junior high we went to Denver fairly regular, from about first grade until seventh or eighth grade.. When they wanted me to continue on at another hospital and specialist I think mom & dad just decided to keep an eye on me for any symptoms of whatever might be there.. And there was something there but I didn't think it was important enough to bother them with (I hated going to the doctors as much as we did) so I stayed quiet about it.. What it was was a slight pain in my chest that wasn't that bad but was noticed by me and it was a pain like when you run hard and can't catch your breath.. After a while I didn't notice it and figured it was gone for good..

Now I take care of my nephew, which I don't claim to be a babysitter and doing this scares the hell out of me.. Every time he starts bouncing on the couches at his house I see him hitting his head on the table and me running him to the hospital looking like his head is severed from his body.. Little things like that.. What scares me more than anything else and I thought of this with my older brothers girls, is being accused of some sexual perversion and in this day in age the kids have all the rights, the parents have nearly no rights.. But to have an accusation of that type would just kill me.. My fear of having him say something like that to either his parents or his grandma would just kill me.. They more than likely would believe him because of what has been going on in the world such as the Sandusky-gate thing at Penn State, or any of the child related oddities with Michael Jackson.. I don't have perversions towards little kids, they have no defense against a bigger person imposing their will on them.. They have full trust in people who are older and they should trust adults but in the same sense they should be taught early on to be leery of certain situations.. I wouldn't have a clue how to tell a child how or what to watch for.. But like I said it would kill me to have this situation put on me, and with the imagination and dreams and seeing things in the news and what they teach at schools and everything melding together I do fear the day when something like that happens.. I would rather kill myself than to try to clear my name and reputation because it would be easier.. Then you might say that would look like guilt, or like saying I was guilty but even if I could clear myself that would be there forever.. So being his gaurdian, his protector.. A gigantic responsibility...


BH

NEW RULES FOR THE INTERNET??

When I got my video camera a few years ago the first thing I did was get a youtube account going and load a few videos just to get something up there.. A few weeks later I put a video up that had some music on it in the background.. Clearly I wasn't trying to make a music video, nor trying to make any money from the song but sure enough I get an email from youtube stating that I needed to write to the copyright holder of the song to keep the video up there.. I couldn't see having to pay royalties on a song that was just slightly more than the thirty seconds limit they give for that type of thing and the quality wasn't great either.. So I took the video down and now when I am video taping I turn the radio down to where it can't be heard, just in case I get something I really want on the internet.. I have had some videos recently that have music in the background but they must not be long enough to bother me about it.. Then there was the Christmas videos of Ian at his singing show thing.. I put those videos up in their entirety (almost all of them, I left a couple off) and waited to hear from youtube telling me those need to have a royalty set up.. Back in May or sometime like that I get an email from youtube saying something to the tune of if I wanted to I could place adds on my site and make money.. I figured why bother they really don't get watched without being linked to on my facebook page.. They send me emails telling me this is how to get more viewers to my page and I just want to tell them that it is mostly a private site.. Anyone who wants to see them can but for the most part it is a select few who can...

For the past week or so I've been trying to get my i-Google page set so that when I try to open it with the netbook laptop computer it will open fairly fast and not drag it down or crash it.. Part of that effort has seen me take a good number of the gadgets off via getting those gadgets set to the reader.. Strange how it went from having all those bookmarked on the page to now having them on reader..

Today I was messing with setting up the reader in yet another way to simplify it somewhat and the Firefox browser crashed. Upon trying to get it to start again it wouldn't.. So after trying to get it going a few more times I cut it loose.. I deleted it.. Then I went to a site and got an older version thinking that I would try to start from the very beginning and that meant Firefox 1 ... That's right Firefox ONE.. I'm not sure if I had the very first version of Firefox way back when, but when I got it and started it, it didn't start the homepage.. Didn't start i-Google.. That's not entirely true, it did start but only showed the outline, the header at the top (theme) is the Dark Side of the Moon prism design, and the gadget outlined boxes but none of the gadgets were working.. Too old of version of Firefox?? Then I deleted that version because it wouldn't upgrade to the next version, or the latest.. So after getting rid of that version I went to the site where I got FF 1 and decided (against my better judgement) to get the very latest version of Firefox (Firefox 11 beta 3) hoping that maybe things would work better in beta (usually a giant mistake but I did have the beta version of Chrome and it worked better than the regular release until it crapped out on me).. So I know I have a rule against beta but maybe this will be good.. I don't know..

BH

IT STARTS LIKE.. THEN GOES...

We went shopping the other day at a store that we thought might have some sales because they are closing out.. It isn't a closing but rather a merger so they weren't having those kinds of sales but did have some good sales going on... Looking at the toy section because the nephew has a birthday coming up in a little over a week.. Problem with getting anything for him is he has a short attention span or something like that.. We aren't sure what the deal is, he plays with a toy for a little while, maybe ten minutes total then gets more.. Biggest problem is he gets a tote box or basket type of thing and dumps all the contents out then plays for five minutes or so then goes and gets another one without picking the first one up.. Mom got him a little (actually fairly big) cardboard house type of thing for him for Christmas and he gets it put together the very first time and it has things on it to color and he wants us to color it because he can't.. and mom does some of it but I don't and tell him that it is his to color as he feels like doing.. I think he wanted it colored that day and completed.. And I told him it is his to color as he feels like doing and that he should do a little here and there.. He throws a fit and wants it colored NOW!! And i tell him to do as he can, and he tells me he can't.. And I just tell him to do it as he can and not to worry he can do a little at a time.. Part of this is from his mom, he seems more ready to give up than to try..

He came to me last week and he had a problem, one of the lights was out on his "bing-bing" (a bing bing is what he started calling the crossing gates of a rail road crossing)... He wanted me to go get another bulb for it NOW!! I was just finishing up something with the computer and needed a couple more minutes before I could go.. He has no concept of time, most little kids don't, and he wanted me to go right then, fairly insistent and I said just a second.. He goes stomping off and when I get done I go and check the bing bing.. I turned the bulb to make sure it hadn't come lose and when it didn't come on I went into the hallway and reached up and got the bag that had the replacement bulbs that I had gotten back in December and got the color I needed and got it replaced.. "I'm so HAPPY now".. One of his favorite things to say when he gets what he wants.. Holly terror when he doesn't..

Today I pick him up from preschool and he wants to go out and wait for his grandma where she works until she gets off.. Trouble with this idea is when we go out there on any other day and have to sit for a short time he starts wanting his grandma and starts singing his phrase "come on grandma.. I neeeeeed grandma" Other phrases as well.. He sees other kids with their parents and sees two boys or whatever config and says I want a brother and I tell him to talk to his mom & dad.. They are the only ones who can get that done.. Maybe someday they will do something but for now..... I guess they think they will be able to turn the clock back and give him a little brother after he gets into grade school or high school.. Just what he will want, a little brother or sister to guard his stuff from.. I know from experience, I had to try to hide my sticks from my little brother so he wouldn't wreck my drum set.. Not that he would have... Just the selfish side of me..

When I play the little boos drums, I wonder what he thinks when I do.. I wonder if he thinks I am just a good guesser at playing.. I wonder if he will ever get that if I had never played the drums that his dad would more than likely have never played them either.... So many dominoes in play there.. Interesting to think about, had I never played, Donald might never have played and all the people he influenced to play might never have played and my older brother might not have pushed his daughter towards the drums.. What a web.. but I got lucky, if you want to call it that, and got to play the instrument I wanted in school.. And everybody had a merry life of noise..

BH

THAT WARM, FUZZY FEELING

When you set down on your favorite chair with your snack or dink to watch your favorite show and hit the remote to find that show on the network that it is on and then can't find it.. Search another channel, it was here wasn't it?? Then you check on the internet to see if it shows in the tv grid and it isn't there... Where is it? Where did it go?? Since I've been on the internet my television watching habits have changed.. Some for the good and some not so good.. For the good, I've been able to read about the different shows on entertainment sites, and have bookmarked them and now have them on the reader.. What is good about this is I can see when a show is going to be on, if it will be new and worst of all is the series going to be cancelled.. The worst part of knowing if a show will have a full season, and some get granted a full season only after they are on for the three to four show initial run they are granted.. Then it is crank the production up on those shows which means three weeks before a new one is on and in the meantime the show is rerun or taken off in favor of trying another show in it's time slot.. Something I don't get at all.. And some shows are constantly being moved to different nights and time slots not to see if they will get better ratings but more to ditch the viewers that were watching that show so they can cancel it.. That has happened a lot lately.. A show that comes to mind is CBS Rules of Engagement.. This show was on Monday nights as a mid season replacement for that hard to fill slot after the massive lead in of Two and a half men.. They moved it to Thursday night after the Big Bang Theory.. They can't find a way to kill it, try as they might..

I watched Celebrity Apprentice two years ago when Bret Michaels won it (I really was hoping he would win and was pulling for him to) then last year John Rich won it and I was hooked on it last year and had picked him as the winner after the camp gear episode.. This year I watched last nights and knowing what Donald Trump is more than likely going to do after this shows run I think he is just a pile.. (I figure he will run for president when his boy Mitt shits the bed here shortly and no one is nominated before the convention this summer, what a shit storm that will be)..

Another show I started watching recently is Discovery channels "First week in" about the first seven days when people get sent to jail/prison.. More prison than jail although some are holding centers to process those who are there.. Really tough to watch, although I watched without dozing the past couple nights.. Watching the one I watched last night this big black dude was fairly upbeat although he wasn't facing the reality that he is a 21 year old kid who got convicted of attempted murder and will spend 31 years in jail.. Drugs were being used and god only knows what they were doing.. So he will be in jail until he is 52 years old.. They showed him and he was seemingly a nice guy, and fairly naive.. He was talking about when he gets out about all these plans he is going to do including getting a hotel built and all these things and he doesn't realize that in 31 years he will be a completely changed person.. He may not even be able to get a job then...

Another show I got hooked on last year was Gold Rush Alaska on the Discovery channel (shortened to Gold Rush, since one of the crews are actually in Canada this year).. Last year was habit forming to watch this show.. I hadn't heard of the show at all until I saw something about it on some site on line.. I watched last season via internet and then started watching this year. That Dakota Fred was a snake at first taking that claim away from the Hoffman crew, but over the season I have gotten to kind of like him, he has a certain John Denver like sound to him.. And then there is Parker Schnavel, 17 (18) year old and being a senior in high school as the season starts to run down.. I like the the kid a little but it is his grand dad John that is the jewel in this series..

Viewing habits have changed with the internet in the way I watch some shows that aren't available in America, such as shows on BBC (proper).. I acquired some shows by torrent and enjoyed the full season last year of the apprentice U.K. sort of a take on the apprentice with blowhard Trump, but instead features Lord Sugar, and English tycoon that is of true rich. He built his empire from the ground up, and didn't get it from his daddy like Trump did..


A lot of television shows anymore have maybe two or even three shows to get some sort of foothold somewhere.. And f they don't then they are gone.. I hate trying to start watching shows anymore.. Shows like Fringe that they are talking about cancelling after this season.. It's hard to get into some of these shows.. Fringe is a sci-fi show and is really out there but I liked watching it until they started talking cancel then I stopped watching..

BH

BACK TO THE FUTURE

So every now and then I do watch the Back to the Future movies, it's one of my favorite sets.. I watched the first part last week then part two last night and then maybe part three next weekend sometime.. I like the idea of going back in time, the idea of changing something that I felt might have changed the way I have turned out all these years later.. The nearer past, the one I wish I could have done different was when we redid the kitchen, and the prep work by sanding the ceiling and walls produced a shitload of dust and the house was sealed pretty much.. We did have a window open a little but this was late January early February when we did this and I wore a dust mask and mom didn't and shortly after we got done painting she developed a nasty headache that turned out to be a sinus infection supreme.. The type that needed surgery to correct.. My feeling was that had we waited until May that we could have had the windows opened and fans running to evacuate the dust a little.. So in hindsight maybe doing that then might have cost mom dearly as after the surgery she lost her balance via having antibiotics treatments for nearly two months.. The first two weeks were fine, then she moved to the local (dipshit) hospital where "We do things differently here" is their motto.. You'll notice their motto didn't include the right way.. Why would it.. I still remember me and Freda trying to make sure they were doing it right, and when I told mom what we were doing she told me (in no uncertain terms) and I stopped as every day I would go and see her little by little get worse and worse and the day I went in her room and she was hooked up to the monitor I wanted to freak and tell her idiot doctor that if she dies YOU DIE... She didn't die (obviously, I'm not in jail), and after a few trips to specialists here & there we found she has no inner ear, which means no balance...

Another instance of wishing I had at least tried something was the day my dad had troubles with a bowel movement, that fateful Thursday afternoon.. He had a few times of trouble that way and the doctors told him not to strain when he went but he did strain and I still think that is what started his final problem, the infection that killed him.. What I didn't know was an herb called Casa Sagrada that might have prevented that from happening.. A natural stool softener works naturally and better that the chemical variety.. I would have had him try that or talk to the doctor about it.. I bought a bottle of it to have mom try and she didn't want to so I thought I'd try it sometime. The only drawback of using this stuff is you have to drink eight 8oz. glasses of water with it which he couldn't do because of his dialysis situation..

That brings me to this tidbit. My older brother likes to put things on his Facebook from time to time sometimes a cryptic little thing, such as this :

Doc says kidneys are doing well for now...whew!

To which mom asks me what I think that might mean and I tell her he likes to do things like that every now and then.. My hopes are that he isn't screwing around with his diabetes like dad did.. Dad messed with his insulin and knew he would be able to eat more and very well did.. Bob reminds me so much of dad right now.. Dad had this indestructible way about him, but what he didn't know was that although he thought he had control over his diabetes, it was really the other way around.. It was a game to him at times.. When his kidneys started to fail he had to go and have dialysis done at Sterling.. Initially he had it done at the hospital in Fort Collins for a couple weeks then done at the dialysis center in Sterling where it seemed like no matter what day he went or what time of the day we got there he got the B team to do the procedure.. He would come out of there most times so rung out that it took all of the next day for him to recover, just in time to turn around and go again.. Every 48 hours.. .. The few times he came out and we went and ate somewhere were the few and far between times, most of the times going through the drive through. He would regularly sleep all the way home after having dialysis treatments.. I hope Bob knows that diabetes is more than likely what he will die of, the complications that arise from this horrendous disease, it's like a form of cancer...

BH

SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR AWAY

I was in the local walmart again the other day and just an off chance looking at the garden center section.. Was looking and thinking and figuring.. Trying to decide what the garden will be this year.. I came to the conclusion after last year that I want everything in a container and be able to move everything to a sheltered area, or al least a little bit more sheltered than out in the open to get royally .......... mowed down by nature let's just say.. I'm gonna try to get a starter kit and seeds for it and was checking again on them and then I saw this thing. The salsa garden starter kit, which was something I thought of last year when one of the peppers I had grown was a serious HOT variety.. I wasn't sure I had all the ingredients growing there.. I did have roma tomatoes or I should say HAD romas because they got mowed by the final hail storm in August.. Same as the jalepeno peppers, I had two varieties of those.. So I had the peppers and tomatoes, in this kit there are two peppers in Cayenne and jalepeno, as well as cilantro, white lisbon onion, and the roma tomato.. with the seeds is potting mix and the planter.. In this case the planter is called a self watering pot that measures maybe a foot long as oval shaped so the narrow area is maybe three or four inches wide.. Originally I wait and think about weather I want something like this and research and think more then either buy it or something like it or don't buy it and figure something else out.. I am more determined to start my own seeds this year just because I want to try that route again (gluten for punishment).. I went on ahead and bought it at the nearly six dollar price tag I thought it might be worth it.. Then after I got it I did some figuring and knowing that most of the seeds packets are nearly a dollar each and there are five in there that was worth it.. figuring everything separate would maybe run over ten dollars i figure I got something here.. Then I thought I might could put this into the Earth box planter.. But after talking to mom she wants me to try the kit as is and so I decided to do that and have the Earthbox be a shadow project, or in other words have it be the same thing on a little bit bigger scale and with the self watering system it will be interesting to see which produces better.. I don't think the Earth box was designed for this kind of project or I should say it wasn't shown to do this but with buying this thing I started thinking that if all these plants can be in that combined of a space then why not try them in the Earthbox.. So some excitement towards spring has started to be generated..

BH

TRIAL AND ERROR

A FEW THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT: Firstly on an earlier entry I wrote about discovering the Google reader and how great it seemed to be.. Truth is it has revolutionized the way I look at the internet, and in that I mean all of the sites I visited via all the links that I had.. Actually have.. I had them at Yahoo then they wanted everyone to get their toolbar to open the bookmarks site.. That was added to the firefox browser and caused it to crash so I already figured they were screwing up their system in this way so I moved all my bookmarks to Google.. Then three months later Google changed the way their bookmarks were searched/stored and I moved them to another site. When I got i-Google as my homepage I added links to it and might have over extended it and slowed the browser loading and causing it to crash if I opened too many tabs.. So I needed something better so when I tried the reader it changed everything.. I can now look at a site and either look at the new entries (things I haven't seen yet since my last visit) or look at the entire site without having to click to go to the next page.. Perpetual.. kind of like Twitter.. The biggest drawback is it made loading cool shit to Google+ easier than loading to Facebook so that it is almost not needed anymore..

We were lucky enough (if you want to call it that) to get to watch Ian Saturday into Sunday and then almost every day this week.. He can really wear on you after a while, I mean I love the little guy madly but he has a certain way about him that can be overwhelming at times.. Cute yes but.. He tends to go from one thing to another in quick succession.. I was in Walmart the other day and walking towards the dairy area and this lady had a kid about the same age (I'm guessing) as Ian and he sounds identical to the Boo.. He was telling his mother I neeeeed that.. Man sounded very farmilier...

I finally finished the Ace Frehley book "No Regrets" today and my main feeling is I believe what he wrote.. The biggest disappointment was the amount of drug use and abuse he did.. Started shortly after the breakthrough album Alive! by KISS and lasted until just before he wrote the book.. I could identify with his experience being in a rock band myself although no where near the success he had.. The drug use in the band I was in startled me a little.. I thought it was kind of a means to an end so I didn't say anything and wouldn't unless it got way out of hand, which while I was there didn't.. Drug use in rock bands must have been like a rite of passage back then. it doesn't seem nearly as bad now with most bands.. The way the book went about how the band was just before he left the first time, then came back, he negotiated a bad deal but decided to go with it for the fans. But when things deteriorated the second time he knew there would be no going back.. He got screwed by Gene more so than Paul.. Gene is such a money whore, and why?? He has enough to retire and spend like no tomorrow.. He keeps doing more things to put the KISS brand on.. I guess when you come to America dirt poor you try to make enough money to buy your way into heaven.. I've read the Gene Simmons book as well and wasn't as impressed as I was with the Ace Frehley book, but I do think you should read them both and hopefully the other two guys will write a book. Then we can all make a comparison as to who is really full of shit...

BH

PATCH DOUGH

So the final part of my last entry said something about trying the Google reader.. I had seen the RSS in a good lot of the sites I visit but never thought what it meant and just what does Google reader mean??  Truth is I didn't care before last night.. But I set a few pages to be in the reader and suddenly I was transformed.. Maybe that is a little overly dramatic.. When I started the i-Google homepage I went off my nut for the number of Gadgets to try.. I initially had maybe ten or so, then I looked at what was out there and suddenly there were maybe close to a hundred of them. I whittled them down gradually but ended up with quite a few.. I couldn't decide how I wanted my page to be and then I settled on the late news that runs sequencially as news weather sports and had maybe ten or more news weather and sports gadgets and a few other fringe idea.. That was too many so I found a gadget that I could load links to pages on and so I could get rid of those gadgets that seemed to bog the page down via the processor on the main computer and especially the laptop.. Then yesterday happened, I tried the Google reader.. What this will do is get rid of a great number of link type of gadgets and shrink my homepage by quite a lot (I hope) and in so doing will make my homepage load quicker and not crash so much.. That is the plan right now..

Some cleaning of the music has begun.. I don't know why I have such a deep track list on a lot of groups..  Currently I am on the P's.. More to the point I am on the group The Panics (from Australia).  The shear number of songs was mind boggling..  I'm not trying to brag, the number I'm at is over 11,000 songs right now.. Bragging would be to say I had over 15,000 songs.. And could possibly filled the hard drive of this computer, but I don't want that.. I rarely listen to the music on the computer.. A habit I got into with the last computer when it shut itself off with no reason or warning..


Valentines day this year I wished everyone a good happy one after finding a good video link to show my appreciation for that non holiday...  Yep thats a gogle

BH

With a certain amount of fear that someone might think this blog is becoming a tech or gadget type of thing, I enter yet another blog about some favorite toys.. Discovery is a nice thing, and exploring the internet is always fun.. Today I decided to download the Opera (or what I wrongly call the Oprah) browser.. A few years back I had this browser but could never understand how it worked.. When you use a certain browser switching to another can be uncoordinated (like shooting left handed when you are right).. But after the Chrome browser did what it did (again) in November I needed to get away from it.. What Chrome did was not be able to open any site.. Now you might say that this is the cookie cache being over full, and this was the second time this browser crapped out on me..  I tried all the tricks to get it to work right and then did  a full delete then reacquired it.. The second time I did this I went with the newest Chrome browser build, the beta which I have tried beta before and realized I don't have the patience for figuring out the bugs and all... When the Chrome browser did that the second time I went to the Google site and downloaded Chromium..  Chromium is the developers version of Chrome.. That might have been a mistake to try but I was desperate to have Chrome.. Two days later I started the Firefox browser, my old friend.. The best browser was now the default browser.. Firefox was like a dear old friend, I'd started using it when I got on the internet way back....  believe it or not I've only been messing with computers for about eight years now.. (earlier entry) I decided to try a different browser because I've always done things that way.. When everyone else bought a VHS vcr I got  a betamax.. And the same was true for browsers.. I wanted three browsers (besides IE) and so I had three in Chrome, Firefox and  Safari.. Safari is of course the Apple base browser (Their version of IE) only better, but limited..   When I went though troubles with Firefox in December I wanted to try other browsers so I did a search and found Netscape, Lunascape6 and Opera.. Netscape was a favorite from when I had Firefox way back when.. The support for it was discontinued, sadly, in favor of Firefox.. Lunascape6 (six being the sixth build) is nice but is limited almost like Safari, but is windows OS based.. Opera: I finally tried it and fell in love with the ease of use.. It loads pages faster and better than Chrome although Chrome loads pages the fastest (so they say).. I've found that both Firefox and Chrome are more consistent when loading the pages I need loaded when I load them..

Today I installed Opera browser on the laptop computer and it stunned me how much more better it works on there than Firefox does.. However Firefox has i-Google as my homepage and it continues to grow in shear number of Gadgets.. Sadly it overwhelms the processor I think and so it crashes the laptop if I open more than one tab.. And I'm a multiple tab user, a habit a formed a long time ago..  Opera has a thing on it called "speed dial"  and what that does is let you set up the most visited sites kind of like Chrome only better.. Instead of eight pages you can have as many as you want.. I try to keep it to just seven or so.. From those sites there are links to other sites.. Opera also has something called "portal" which has news and such sites that is a little like i-Google only limited to just a select number.. I like some limits but I'm sure that will change because I think it is fairly new..

New (to me anyway) from Google is a site called Pano.. Kind of cool.. I haven't messed with the site much at all but it is like Google Earth a little bit..  "Zygote body"; Something I messed with a little but haven't really tried much yet..  "Sketch up" is like that Blender program, the ability to work in Three dimensional type of sketches and other ideas.. Again this type of idea was so interesting to me but I just couldn't wrap my mind around even a starting point...  "Reader"; this might intrigue me the most.. I've seen reader around alot but never gave it much thought.. Supposedly it gives complete control over the sites you visit via making any new entries to the sites be placed in the reader which would be so handy in that I visit thousands of sites.. That isn't really true.. I go to sites like Reddit and sites of those type and they send me to quite a good number of sites.. Some I gather the link and add it to my homepage.. Talk about clutter.. I have to eliminate a good number of those links eventually and reader might be just what the doctor ordered..  That will be the next thing I try I think.. 

BH

PROGRAM TO GOLDEN

I remember when I first got my camera.. The digital camera, Kodak and I never even thought that I wanted one, but mom decided to get me one for my birthday one year.. At first I didn't think much of it but there was a time before my little brother got married that I wanted to borrow his wife to be camera and shoot pictures out in the pastures when I rode out there because I knew the day would be coming that I wouldn't ride out there anymore... Well I never did get up the nerve to ask and I haven't ridden out there since and so those pictures weren't and more than likely won't be taken..  I remember those old instamatic type of cameras and I got one for either my birthday or Christmas when I was a junior in high school.. Those took fairly good pictures, quality and everything but there were pictures that were just pure CRAP!!  I mean me a guy who has trouble holding still at the best of times (just the way I am, I've had the shakes "tremors" my entire life).. So I wasn't sure about a digital camera, I hadn't even messed with one or thought it was a good idea to have one.. However once I started taking pictures I found getting a good picture was very easy.. They build a stable system into the camera so unless you shake the shit out of the camera it still will come out relatively to what you were wanting..

The early photo program was the one that came with the camera, the Easy share by Kodak and it was quite good although extremely basic.. At the time it was good for what I wanted, and it emailed the pictures which was nice. Before too long I started looking for other programs to mess with my pictures with.. First was Picasa by Google and the early version was basic and was a viewer more than anything else.. In later versions it had crop and other things it could do.. On the old XP computer it updated to the point where it didn't work on that computer.. Locked up really regular.. Now the latest version has taken some of the Picnik (a site Google purchased with the sole intent of shutting it down) editing program that is really good for some advanced editing of pictures, it is a go to when I don't want an in depth experience..

Fast stone is the best program for viewing pictures, especially when I hook a flashdrive into the computer and want to view the pictures, without loading them on to the computer.. Paint dot net or PdN I discovered one day when I ran a search in Google for programs to edit pictures with.. The basic program is very easy to use and was very habit forming.. Then I added plugins and the program rivals adobe photoshop..  many things it can do are not available on the  adobe platform anywhere..  And it continues to expand with the latest upgrade build being scheduled for completion soon.. I thought it was this year but might be next year.. Trouble with this program is when I went to do some quick fix recently  I forgot how to do it.. It was a few months since I used it and forgot how to do that one thing..

Art weaver is another photo program, although I rarely use it.. It has a few art things such as sponge and other artsy fartsy things.. GIMP is one I got just to try once in a while but it doesn't have anything or offer anything that the others have..    PHOTOSCAPE Is another photo viewing program that as well has a redundant feel to it.. Just have it because it is free.. And I do have an early adobe photoshop program but there really isn't anything there that I don't already have..

BH

THE WEEK THAT WAS..

Just an odds & ends type of entry, about nothing important really.. The week started out alright, no super bowl hangover on Monday, hey I called it in an earlier entry the Giants by four... The game was good and I knew eventually the player to watch for, Manningham, would be the game changer and he was.. Although I called the winner I did look up the winner of the coin toss to see if that was relevant, which it wasn't but I thought it might be this year so when the Pats won the toss I kept that in the back of my mind.. Turns out they didn't win, shows what a waste that might have been..

Monday as well in the afternoon the strong smell of wood smoke penetrated the house and that isn't unusual as there are a good number of fireplaces in town but this was really strong.. I doubt that it was our neighbors stove, or if it was I'm not sure what he was burning.. I figure the town set their wood pile on fire as they do about this time every year.. I woke up Tuesday with a clogged throat.. Coughed and sputtered through the morning and when we went to town I went to Walmart and when I came back out to the car and hopped in the stench was still there.. Nasty odor.. We get back home later that afternoon and the house was still strong with that smell as well..

There wasn't too much that happened the rest of the week.. However while we were at Donald's house when Lucy came in she said a few things about the previous Friday weather situation that pissed mom off.. I told her you have to consider who she is and the fact that she is extremely selfish.. I tried to defuse the situation, she wanted to blow up and later that night said she feels like calling a family meeting and telling everyone exactly what she thinks of the situation with everyone.. I'm trying to keep that from happening because knowing what happened at Christmas and she is still kind of like a raw nerve.. I understand that, but why make things worse, we may have to eventually be in the same room someday..



BH

TECH WORK BY THE DOZEN

Cuteness comes to us today.. Watching the nephew yesterday this happened (AGAIN) and we were setting at the grandmas work place waiting for her to come out and he sees a little girl go into the place and again he states that he wants a little brother or a little sister.. And I tell him to tell his mom that.. Then I told him to tell his dad too.. He then starts to say something about wanting a brother and asked if I had a brother.. And my answer was of course yes, I have two.. His uncle, Bob.. And his dad are my brothers.. Then he says that grandma is my brother too.... Ok, I'll take that I guess.. Before we left yesterday he told his mom that he wanted a brother.. And she just shrugged it off.. I then told him to tell his dad that same thing...

Forward to today, and his cuteness boiled over.. He was working on a new toy that he hadn't ever messed with before.. I have an old VCR down here by the tv downstairs here to transfer "old" home movies and other things to DVD and just left it all there and today he got into it and messed with the cords and stuff.. I was oblivious to his actions until I got up and noticed he was messing with these old electronic "toys" of mine.. He was doing the patch cords and stuff. the audio/video cords, and he was doing this and that explaining to his grandma what to do with these cords and I said stop a second and ran to get the camera.. Anyone else would maybe have said stop messing with their electronics but I wanted a video of this tech work he was doing.. So I get the camera out and tell him to start from the beginning with explaining to his grandma, and now me, what he was up to.. He was then telling how to "tatch" this to there and that to here and.. He had seen his dad doing this any number of times because his dad is a tech guy, and has a fancy sound system and all.. Ian himself is fairly good at working with some things because he seems to be fearless.. He then takes the plugin and with his grandma no doubt holding her breath, plugs it into the outlet amazing her because she tried plugging in the vaporizer the night before and couldn't get it.. He nails the VCR plug in with one try.. Just a techie in waiting I guess...

BH

LOOKING AT ME LOOKING AT ME LOOKING AT...

When my brother decided he was going to buy his three year old son his first drumset I thought WHY?? Thuth is when I first started playing the drum(s) I was maybe his age, maybe older, maybe younger.. Mom & dad got me a little toy snare drum with a plastic head and little spring snare on the bottom but it was a drum.. I liked it.. My influence to play drums was the marching band that would march by our house once a year and because my dad (being a teacher) was friendly with the music teacher, he would march the band by our house for marching practice so I got to see them play.. I was, however, more interested in the drum majors and their whistle commands.. I think both mom and dad thought for sure I would be the drum major.. By the fifth grade I was old enough to be a drummer, and made that clear that I would be a drummer.. So no one else wanted to be a drummer in my class and that was fine.. I figure they all heard I wanted to play drums and all wanted anything but the drums.. This was one of those times that I was glad everyone really didn't like me much.. By the time I was in junior high I had seen a new way to play the drums, a drumset played by one Mr. Larry Stoll.. Not that he played super flashy or anything it was just the way it sounded.. I started playing ice cream buckets & coffee cans.. I had quite the set.. I played it out on the back porch.. Then in seventh grade I got a drum set for Christmas.. And by the time I was in high school I was getting fairly good at playing it..

When I was in the high school band I went from third chair snare drummer to first by the time I was a sophomore.. Thinking back to the snare drum I used in the school it had the same head from when I first started playing all the way through to graduation.. I never replaced it and am not sure how old the head was, or how many other drummers played on it.. There might be those who would say "well you must not have cared the way the drum sounded" and I say it sounded fine all those years, the top (batter) head was more than likely made when heads were made to last longer than they are today.. The bottom head was never replaced nor were the snares...

I do wonder how I might have fared challenging for the first seat while she was still there, but I didn't know that I could.. I thought it was seniority, older gets the seat until they graduate.. Turns out she would be first seat only one year, she was a senior.. Same with the second seat, but she kind of lost that seat to me after Christmas because she rarely showed for pep band which was fairly important.. And I was never challenged for my first seat at all.. I think all the other drummers were content being where they were.. Second seat drummer would alternate with another kid.. The timpany player was quite content being where he was, and he was good at it..

After graduating I was after being in a rock band. And it took three years to have that come true.. Though I was in a band when I was a senior, we never gigged.. Then the guitarist from that band started another band and asked if I wanted to join.. That was a no brainer but that band would eventually fold with only maybe three practices.. Then another guitarist from the band that was together while I was in school asked if I wanted to get into his band.. I really didn't want to because the other guy had me in his band, but the other guy assured me that they had talked and he oked me playing with them.. So the week after Memorial day 1984 I went to play for this other guy.. His brother was learning bass and his friend was learning guitar.. Great a four piece band and half the members were just learning to play.. We played and sounded alright. I wasn't excited because I figured we might be a year or even two from being able to play a gig.. But to my surprise we played in October and a few more times and got pretty good fairly quick.. We should be getting better we practiced hours a day.. I mean I was used to practicing for hours.. Many hours a day.. And I had developed my own "style".. Style if you want to call it that.. I could play loud.. I mean loud.. very loud.. I raised the drums up, after the first gig when I got cramps in my leg, I needed to try something different with my drums.. I raised the seat up to its highest setting and the drums as well.. I had watched or seen drummers in pictures and the drummer from the Police looked like he all but stood up while playing.. I thought I'd give that a shot.. I had never had a cramp in my legs before that night and I never wanted that to happen again.. Playing that way I raised the drums way up.. Another reason for raising the drums up I would have less angle on the stick on the head and that would lessen the heads being dented and therefor weakened by the sicks.. The sticks would stop being broken towards the top and begin being broken in the middle, and sometimes from the inside out..

The loudness would start to be my trademark (I guess) I played rim shots on all the drums.. Every drum set an the right angle to receive the stick on it and the rim simultaneously producing a sound upwards of twice as loud and with less effort..

I think I played loud to cover up the fact that I really wasn't that good.. I had many shortcomings, but was just ready to force my ability.. By the time I was out of that band I was practicing a new technique.. Moving the cymbals to overlap each other I was able to play the ride cymbal and a second cymbal to play sixteenth notes with one hand.. Then moving a cymbal over the high hat cymbal I could accomplish the same effect there as well.. Wish I would have thought of that sooner..

When I was in high school I went through what I called a burn out period when I stopped playing the drums one summer.. That was an odd feeling to have, but I started playing again and everything was just fine.. A year after leaving the band I was in for five years I quit playing the drums again and this time it seems to be permanent.. With nearly no desire to play.. I keep the drums but haven't had that feeling to set them up.. It just.... stopped being fun..


BH

FROM THE DEPTHS..

This post inspired by Rachel Brooke-Smith (The first part anyway):

"Rachele Brooke Smith

Why do we hold our selves back? Have you ever watched little kids and noticed how free and full of life they are? I was sitting in airport on my way back from the Bahamas (I only mention this because the trip opened me up to a much more "awakened state" where these ideas where able to flow more easily) and started watching this adorable 2 year old little boy run around, jump up and down, clap, smile, laugh, wave at people, and just have this beautiful curiosity about everything."

I watch my nephew and he is seemingly in motion all the time, constantly doing something.. He is learning all the time which is both interesting to watch and scary at the same time.. Scary in that I am one of his influences.. Scary because I know what I am thinking when I say something but he might not know what I am getting that from.. What I mean by what I say because sometimes what I say can be taken literal and I might be meaning quite the opposite..

Friday was a snow day, it was supposed to be a really nasty storm and had all the makings of a storm like that.. The night before there were blizzard warnings posted, we were set to get some twelve or greater inches of snow with this.. We were at the store getting stocked up and so were a lot of other people.. Went to bed and hoped if it snowed that there would be no question about weather or not to go down Friday morning.. Friday morning I wake up with a com on the scanner asking for a snow update.. They reported less than an inch.. I knew this was in the "burg" as it were, so I figured I would be going in.. I checked the internet and after checking all the weather sites I decided to get ready.. Before going I checked the local radio site for school closures and all the schools were closed.. Couple that with the forecast and I really wasn't wanting to risk it.. Call me crazy... When Lucy called she was put out by the fact that I wasn't coming down.. I was looking out for my own ass on this one.. Besides I'm doing this as a favor to them, they aren't paying ANYTHING.. Not even offering to pay for some of the gas.. So when she acts all put out and pissy then she needs to stop and realize that if I were working anywhere she would have to pay someone to watch him and she would be making only tips at her job.. The wages she makes would be paid to the babysitter or daycare.. So if it is important to make that money, she needs to SHUT... THE FUCK... UP!!!

But this really isn't new.. Her behavior is the same it has always been.. I've ofter said she has no real taste in music, she asks around to see what others are listening to and then if a friend likes something then she will listen and then really dive head and nut right into it. We had one thing in common at the early onset of my brother going out with her.. We both liked Tangerine Dream, and I had (have) a fairly good collection of their music.. But thinking back when I played some of the remixes she couldn't place the song.. I tried a few times, "have you never heard this song?" and then played the song from the album.. Yeah, she heard of it that way but not the remix way.. It was done the same way, main body/theme but she couldn't hear it..

In the beginning of me getting on the computer I needed help from everybody with how to do everything on the computer and the internet.. Lucy knew more than me at that time and she should have, she had been doing computer shit for quite a few years before me.. Forward one year and I was asking her about something and she hadn't a clue how to do that (I'm not sure what it was, something redundant I'm sure) but that is when I started using Google to find all the answers, and left her in the dust.. One of the questions I asked her was which web browser she used.. and she said she didn't use a web browser.. I knew then that she really had no clue how the computer or the internet in general worked..

Lucy is Polish immigrant.. Did I forget to mention that?? Did I forget also to mention that she was an illegal alien when she married my little brother? Did I mention that they had a baby BEFORE she got all that straitened out.. Did say that she tried to manipulate me into lying to get myself workmans comp or disability to try to show that I was essentially hopeless/helpless and thereby helping her cause to move her case along??.. They did manipulate the letters they wrote to ICE to make it sound like I was useless, that they helped mom every day.. She needed their help.. Yep.. Well then all the lies they told did help her get her status cleared up, but thankfully they didn't come and check on things in person or they would have found all the lies or truth stretching..

Last year before she left she made the comment that if she wouldn't have to go she would start trying to have another baby.. But well that will have to wait.. Six months was an eternity but she got back and within three weeks she was pregnant!!! NOT!!! That was just Lucy playing that card she always plays, (feel sorry for me) bullshit.. Donald became a catholic for what I'm not sure.. My older brother says they aren't doing anything to keep from being pregnant but Lucy has become an American in more ways than one.. She wants nothing more than to be working and be away from the little guy..

I was thinking of all the things mom and dad did without when we were growing up.. Dad wanted things I'm sure but he did without.. Family came first and that meant food, a house to be a home... they didn't get anything fantastic, if our shoes matched it was a good thing.. We wore hand me downs, second and third generation wearing the same coat, same shirt.. If my older brother wore it, I wore it, my little brother would wear it.. Just the way it was then.. Not now though.. Oh well I'm not a parent and I never will be.. That is just the way it is...

A bit ranty but oh well....

BH

THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES..

AMERICAN IDLE (spelling wrong for effect): I really don't care for American Idol, I mean I watch it here & there and a lot of people are jumping off of the band wagon left and right this year.. The thinking they were fixing it last year was a joke, but they thought they had fixed it and it was still the ratings juggernaut last year but was still losing ground.. Last year I watched some of the early auditions but it seems to only get good in Hollywood.. Last year I had that Pia Toscano winning the whole thing, her voice was golden.. What lost it for her? She did what the judges wanted to see her do, she sang an upbeat song and that cost her big time.. She still sang very well but alienated her base (I guess) and they voted her off.. Scotty won and stayed the course not doing a rock song but rather staying true to his voice and that is what won it for him.. This year I have watched all of two or three minutes of the auditions.. The same lot comes through, some get ridiculed and some have sad sob stories and others are just plain good.. There are a few things they could change to make the show better.. First off during the auditions let the judges know there are no fence sitters.. None of the "we put you through so do better in Hollywood" shit.. If they are barely good at the auditions they will likely suck in the bigger setting.. Another idea would be that at Hollywood, instead of "group performing" keep them as individual performances.. After all they got there on their own and after group week they will be back to one on one.. How to do that?? Simple, when they go to the audition towns, make it known there can only be 24 from each town total.. Then have the 24 each night and assign a phone number to each person for that night.. And do this for each of the towns.. So if there was six or eight audition towns they have that many nights of shows.. Would people give up their two hour night from FOX?? I think they would. From the 24 from each town you then will have six make it to the finals then vote like they do.. Two nights of performances and then a results show.. So three nights a week still.. Is this confusing??

Another way to figure it is 8 shows of 24 performers.. 192 performers.. Cut that in half and you get 96.. Then do that again four nites with 24 performers.. Cut that in half again and you get 48.. The next week would be four shows with twelve performers, and less of that frantic feel that was there in the other shows because this will be to decide the ultimate 24.. The beginning of the actual contest..

Anyway while that might draw the show out longer it would make the viewing audience feel like they are more involved with picking the contestants than the way it is done now.. And another thing, while Steven Tyler and "J-lo" are viable judges, they need something else.. Maybe a forth.. Or even five judges... It's starting to be a joke the way things are done now, and hardly fair at all.. I guess that's Hollywood..

BH

TO THINK...

Went to take care of the nephew Thursday, the Ian escapades or Ianscpades ... First off the weather was nice except there was a wind and we had the "blizzard of the century" bearing down on us, so that was in the back of my mind as I started to watch him.. After picking him up he wants to go to the park, he wants to go anywhere but HOME.. So I take him to the park and just as he is about to exit the car he gets hit with a wind draft and announces it is too windy, let's go home.. we get to his house and watch some blu's clues and then head out to get his grandma at the place she is working.. We get out there and we get set for her to come out.. We watch things going on, there's a truck stop next to us so there are trucks with all sorts of things on their trailers and he asks what this and that is and I can only hazzard a guess.. Then we watch as this little boy pushes the door open from in the store and Ian says "that's my brother" and I say "you think that is your brother hu?" and he says yeah.. I then said well wouldn't that be nice to have a little brother?? And he says yeah.. And I start to tell him to talk to his mom about getting him a brother... He said he will start talking to her about that.. We get back to his house and mom starts to read a book to him, and then he needs another book like it and while his grandma goes and looks for another book in his room he decides to read me the book that his grandma just read to him.. So he starts to tell me the story about whatever it was, and I'm watching him and he is saying this and that and he gets to a page that has a conveyer belt thing on it and he says conveyer belt.. Stuns me that he says that.. He continues on and gets done then reads (tells) the story again and on the same exact page where the conveyer belt is he says it again.. This blows me away, same page, same story plot sort of.. I just watched to see if he would repeat that conveyer belt line.. The rest of the story could have been completely changed and might have boon, I was listening for that conveyer belt line... Anyway sometimes little things like that just floor me.. His use of words like actually and mechanic, and now conveyer belt... Just a step above to me anyway..

Friday (today) is a snow day.. Couldn't make it down to take care of the lil guy.. I was all set to though.. Was listening to the scanner early this morning when a dispatcher for the sheriffs office asked for a snow update and the guy responded we have less than half an inch I thought we didn't get anything and probably won't.. Then I checked the internet and the radar showed what looked like a weakening system.. I looked at all the weather sites, the blizzard warning was canceled.. I though we won't be getting what they say we would.. Got up, got ready to go then checked one last site, the local radio station, checked to see if any schools had been called off figuring to make my mind up with that news.. Every school in the area was cancelled.. And not just the rural schools but the big city school that only cancels when the snow is up to your butt crack.. So that decided it, I wouldn't go it.. I was about to get my coats on and go but thought I'd wait and then after looking at that site I pulled back and decided not to go at all... Guess Lucy will have to watch the boo today.. Darn it.. Hey I do like watching him, he gives great ideas to write about..

BH

SO THAT WAS..

I watched the previous super bowl that had this years match up in it, the final five minutes anyway (the best part) and when the Pats scored with just over two minutes left I remember thinking well that's that, the Giants are screwed.. In trots Mr. Eli "dear in the headlights look" Manning to drive them to the promised land.. Watching that game replayed last night I tried to remember the close calls (some three of them) and couldn't remember exactly how it played out but there it was, that screwy catch using the helmut as the third hand thing.. The in the grasp that Eli got out of that a few years earlier would have been a sack.. The forth down run that resulted in a first down and the refs stopping the clock to move the chains ala college rules.. And oh yeah, the Patriots were undefeated until the end of that game..

This year I made the bold prediction before the conference title games that whoever went in the NFC would beat either team from the AFC by virtue of a better defense (defense wins titles as they say).. Then I was listening to some sports talk shows the other day and they are all saying the same thing.. while on paper the Giants look to be the better team and remember last time they played in the super bowl?? Well everyone was saying that when Billichick gets a second shot at a team he usually doesn't lose.. I really don't care who wins.. I kinda wanted the Patriots to win that other meeting to go 18-0 for the first ever perfect team in the new playoff system and the 16 game schedule.. But my pick, the G men 24-20... Sorry Tom, looks like Eli wins again.. And if I were a betting man, i'd go with the Patriots.. Why? because any team I've pulled for has lost recently in the super bowl..


BH