Welcome to the March 2005 BLOG. Didn't see the end of last month?
Click here: February 05 BLOG

Mar. 30, 2005 Wed

The laptop is like new! Fast. Reliable. Everything working, even I.E. Now, out of the available thirty gigabytes on the hard drive, only eight are being used. Instead of less than six being free. Re installing (recovering) the operating system accomplished this minor miracle. All documents were first backed up on the external hard drive, of course.

Ann's documents have been moved to Fae's old computer, which is also running like new. The CD read/write is still a tad fussy, but it works. We added a case fan, since it didn't come with one, just a small fan over the chip, itself. Can you say, 'cheapo'? Although, to be fair, this machine - with only 128 meg of RAM - will most likely never overheat.

This (my) computer seems to love win XP pro. All glitches have disappeared. We ran ('borrowed') XP Pro recovery disks to accomplish this. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem we'll be able to 'activate' the software to suit Microsoft. They can tell that I 'pirated' it. Oh, well. We have another 26 days to think about it. We can always go back to Win98se.

Mar. 29, 2005 Tue

Mardi sends along some pix from their recent vacation to St. Kits. Which might be in the Bahamas? Well, it's an island in the Caribbean. We think. Lucky them! Yes, we are envious.
Here is Jim perusing the big water. We doubt that he is missing home. . .

And Mardi, perusing a big sailboat. Count the masts! Dang, it would be just like Mardi to try and scam me in Adobe? Nah. . .

We are now waiting for pictures from ADAM, and BRETT. Both of whom have made promises.

Brett's old computer is in Jacob's hands. This might prove interesting?

Mar. 28, 2005 Mon

Here's a gang of Easter pictures. We'll try to get some names/descriptions soon.

Dick doing the carving - per usual.

Fae, Cassady, Ann, David and Evelyn. (Ann's children)

Dick, Heidi,Laura,Ann, Barbara

Evelyn, Dylan, Anna, Ivey

Lambie CAKE! by Ann - An Easter tradition.

Laura, Fae, Ann - three generations

Fae and Heidi - cousins born within a week of each other.

Jennifer, Fae and Heidi

Niomi, Barbara and Dylan

Anna, Evelyn and Ivey

Sandra, Justine and Jennifer

Whoa! Things are pretty strange. We are relearning our own computer. Now running win XP pro, hopefully. We don't have the correct program key numbers to enter yet, but hopes run high.

What has occurred? We are trying to run an XP Pro recovery program on an older win98se computer, is what. This software must be 'activated' (as it turns out, AFTER it allowed itself to be installed) on the microsoft website. Oh well.

Amongst other things, we've lost the location of the downloaded Easter pictures, from yesterday. These may yet turn up. . .
And they did, see above/\

Mar. 27, 2005 Sun

Happy Easter

Mar. 26, 2005 Sat

We got out walking by the water.

Most of the last two days have been given over to computer maintenance. Replace a hard drive for one of Ann's students, add LAN card to Ann's. Reformat the laptop. That particular chore is still going on.

Mar. 24, 2005 Thu

Spring fever. Fix up time. We started forming up the back yard gate entry, to make it a ramp.

Ann single handedly pulled out a railroad tie, about fifteen feet long, and drug it out of the back yard! It went at the end of the walk, from the far left of this picture to past the gate, on the right. It made a step up to get out into the alley. Then another step to that cement slab just inside the gate. This makes it difficult to get the wheel barrow, garbage cans, etc. out to the alley.

The last wee cement project was back in April 2003, replacing a missing piece of the walk itself. Looks like it's time to run the edger.

Here's how it looked the day we poured it. All the little doo dads have long screws caulked to their undersides, that seem to be holding them in place OK, after two years.

Mar. 22, 2005 Tue

Why, yes - it was a beautiful day. And, yes, we rode the scooter. And, yes, we hiked the new trail and took these pictures. This was late in the afternoon, after Ann got home. And, yes, the mountain was out. The trail goes by the refinery, but one cannot have everything.

After all that talk about 'don't use the digital zoom' we've decided that was incorrect, and bad advice. This is a digital on top of the maximum manual zoom. Which is 10 power. We like it. This (Mt. Baker) is a volcano, and a lot closer than Mt. Saint Helen's. This shot was about half the digital zoom's capability (which is thirty power), and about the maximum one can zoom without a tripod.

Ann took this of David standing on the end of a fifty foot long piece of drift wood that a storm has washed way up on the rocks. You have to look close to realize that he is about eight or ten feet in the air, above the beach.

Then she tried the zoom affect.

Then I tried a self portrait, forgetting to unzoom first.

Mar. 21, 2005 Mon

Turning into a beautiful day. This bodes well for getting out and about a bit. The last few days were pretty grey and windy, if mild. Still pretty broke out.

After trying for hours to get the laptop right, without total success, it occurs to us that this is why folks decide to reformat. Maybe if we'd caught each little thing as it occurred, and fixed it - but now - it's really a mess. Partly just full - only 7 gig left free on a thirty gig machine. Only 256 meg of RAM in the first place. And, running that dang SIMS stuff! So, it's gotten a tad slow. IE doesn't work at all. We have an XP disk, so, why not? The thought of trying to reload all the software on this machine is pretty daunting - finding all the passwords and 'open' codes for downloaded software, etc. But, it wouldn't be so bad for the laptop. Most of that software is on disks.

Ann is going to try using Fae's computer, that Fae gave to Evelyn, but Evelyn never used. To be fair, the cd R/W on it is a bit touchy. It's an HP, 1.2 gig chip 128 ram. For what Ann does at home it should be adequate. Then she could take her identity and files off the laptop. Reformat it and call it Evelyn's. Evie would love THAT!

Article in today's paper:

Atop the Cap Sante Bluff was where we took the zoom pictures of the house.

We've been watching this boat take shape at one of the local (Dakota) shipyards. This place builds more commercial stuff, unlike the place that is building that giant yacht   we saw while out walking a couple days ago. That place is at the other end of town.

They've added these openings since we last looked.

Mar. 20, 2005 Sun

What a sad thing. Folks out there writing software that attacks and disables computers. Viruses, worms, etc.

As the adults get smarter about opening unsolicited files and attachments, kids are becoming the focus of these attacks. In our case, Evelyn. They are coming thru MSN Messenger. It will appear as though one her contacts is sending a 'file' to share. They are given names like; DRUNK_LOL, WEBCAM, HAHAHAHA, ME_2005, SISTER, titles that might appeal to a young adult. When she accepts the file and then attempts to open it - voila - the virus is installed. She is trying to remember to ASK kids IF they actually sent a file to her, BEFORE opening it. McAfee catches these things during a scan, but by then the damage is done. It takes hours, literally, to unscramble the trail of corruption.

Sister Mardi and spouse return from a swell vacation (so they say). We won't believe it until she actually sends those promised pictures.

Mar. 19, 2005 Sat

The Mayor adds to his
darkroom page. 

Jim also has a Photo Blog,  you may recall.

We're embarrassed to admit that we've lost track of who sent this link, but think it was Steve. None the less, it's a great page of:
Opps! pictures, etc. 

Mar. 17, 2005 Thu

We went walking. There is a new trail down by the water. We saw this multi million dollar yacht under construction.

We saw this somewhat older yacht(?), too. It sunk some time ago, and has been rotting on the bottom ever since. The tide is out in this picture. When the tide's in, only the superstructure is visible. We get up to twelve foot tides.

Whoa! Am I broke! Why is this such a bad month?

Brett sends along some recent pictures of his son, Hogan, and wife, Amy

Sure is hard to get a picture with Brett in it!

Mar. 16, 2005 Wed

Some months ago we installed this device

which holds a hard drive. In fact, it's holding one now, a Western Digital 80 gig. It is used to back up one's computer files. One needs merely to have lost all ones files at some point to see the validity of this notion.

This device (below), although very similar in appearance, will not read a hard drive. We have learned this the old fashioned way, sometimes called: the hard way.

This device (above) operates CD and DVD reader/writers. The one on top will do both CD readers AND hard drives. It cost a bit more. Now we know why. We managed to spend just enough to fail. 

Mar. 14, 2005 Mon

A little slow posting doings from the weekend.

Happy Birthday Eric. Eric's birthday, which is tomorrow - was celebrated yesterday, at Barb and Paul's.

Barb, she of the 'Totes'!


Eric and the cake his Aunt Ann made.

Eric's inlaws, (Diana and Mac) wife Debra and sister in law, Kaitlin

Paul and his son, Eric

Eric with his inlaws

Mar. 13, 2005 Sun

Was this a famous day in history?

Another effort to 'find' our house in the ZOOM lens.
The Saab is a clue



Mt Baker

Mar. 12, 2005 Sat

Happy birthday to Niomi!

Barbara's canvas
Tote Bags 
are going on Ebay today. Check 'em out! What the heck - BID! They'll never go this cheap again.

Niomi's birthday present! Whoa!

Yes. All real.

Mar. 11, 2005 Fri

Spoke with the cable Co today. The bill went up a few bucks. Why? Asked I.
Because, said they. You were on a promotional deal for the last three months, and it ran out. Bill went up eight bucks. We've been with them (Comcast, in our area)(they're like Ma Bell used to be - the only game in town) for a year or two. I've been seeking out these 'deals' all along. One must. Or pay top dollar.

My main issue was that upload speeds are so much slower than download.

Well. I am in a minority, there. Most folks don't do much uploading. Still, the discrepancy between the two speeds (uploading and downloading) is major. 10 to 20 times.

Well, here's a good thing - we're all (here, locally) getting a free upgrade. BOTH speeds are going up.

But I couldn't get another 'special' monthly rate. When I asked what specials were being offered, I was informed that the current discounts were only for 'new' customers. No problem, says I. Cancel my account.

Sign me up again at the new discounted rate. Always worked before.

Not this time. They got wise. Now, they charge one to 'handle' the account, and it cancels out any savings. Which weren't all that much to begin with. Unless you add it up over a year or so. We do.

None the less, they won this round.

Regarding 'speeds'. Uploading or downloading. They advertise (legally, we found) the highest speeds that are possible. Even though you or I will NEVER achieve these speeds. Somewhere in the small print it says, under some dream state ideal circumstance, you might possibly achieve such and such an upload or download speed?

Right. You might. On a cold day in a hot place. The small print also advises that a more realistic (read; what you're going to get) speed, might be a small fraction of the advertised speed.

This is the real world, folks. Welcome.

Yes. I am a slow learner, why do you ask?

Mar. 10, 2005 Thu

Re thinking this. About the sound. Before Mozilla was Netscape. Couldn't get the sound to work there, either. Same error message - missing plugin. This was SIX YEARS ago! Not six months.

OK. I'm slow.

Just happy to be making progress, I guess.

Never posted the 'lazy days' observation from yesterday. Now, THAT's lazy.

How good that Evie is coming back to life. She's been laid low for the whole week, so far. Fever and cough. Finally broke last night. She'll still need another day to get right.

Mar. 08, 2005 Tue

Pleasant, lazy days.

Mar. 06, 2005 Sun

Here's a strange thing: The RRDave site is playing sound in Mozilla, something we've been trying (unsuccessfully, we might add) to accomplish for six months. We don't know what this means? We think it means that somehow a plugin was installed, that will play AU files. Too tired to fool with this phenomenon any more tonight.

This does bode well for eventual success in getting player controls to show for embedded sound files in the Mozilla browser.

Mar. 05, 2005 Sat

After reading more about plug-ins than we ever wanted to know, we have succeeded only in making this page appear weird looking, when displayed in the Mozilla Firefox browser.

So instead, let's look at some pictures. Fae was cutting hair today. She did Ann's and Evelyn's last night. Ivey and Niomi this morning. Then Barbara. Then yours truly, then Cassady. Here are Niomi (before hair) Ivey (after) and Fae (during?).

Niomi, in an 'after' picture.

David, before.

The 'after' haircut look.

Cass skated in and out too fast, as did Barb.

Mar. 04, 2005 Fri

Dang nice weather.

This is the video, off the camera. If it works we're happy, but you must push the play button. Rather a large file for dial up. We're guessing almost a minute, thirty? The idea is: too nice to be in the house, (one) and listening to songs that were sent to us by Jim (two). We can compress these using programs Ken showed us, but the browsers (I.E. nor Mozilla) don't support the files, so far?

As long as we're at it, this is music, only - no picture. An old Beatles tune, 'Matchbox', by yours truly. Now this we will try to get around to compressing. PLEASE let us know when these files become too simply ponderous, and it is taking the fun out of visiting this blog?

Oh yeah, we haven't figured out how to get this to play in Mozilla - I.E. only, at this point. Except through the expedient of making this a separate link. Can't get it to 'embed' and display the controls, like the movie above. HELP!

click to play

Fae is stepping out!

Mar. 02, 2005 Wed

Hello.

Cats from outside the window, through the screen. This was the first day since last fall that we could open this (the front/computer room window). Thank goodness. I was sneezing my brains out, until we got some fresh air.

Further. This picture didn't work. It's a way too big file, and yet still doesn't capture the full affect. In the original, one can see the cat's blue eyes. It must be the 'screen' affect, screwing things up? We've compressed this picture to where you see it, which is to say - we lost the effect. We're tempted to load it again at a higher resolution, but probably wont! Would you believe us when we say it was a cool picture?

Chico, waiting for Ann - watching out the window. This is from the living room. He knows when it's time. . .

Girls on the way to get those dang braces adjusted. Not as bad as last month.
braces 

Mar. 01, 2005 Tue

Hey! I forgot to say: "Another month is almost over!" Snuck up on me. . .

This was part of the cat collective. Big rascals. They love being dangled by their wee throats, too. Photo by my Darling Ann.
I forgot to mention that Roma, the one on the left, (and also Evie's cat) with her ears down? Bit me!
Well. I suppose maybe I deserved it. Ever since they were little, when one of them would yawn, I would have to stick my finger into that gaping maw. When I tried that the other day, she just gave a little added jaw pressure, and broke the skin in two places! Lesson learned. Ouch! Cats actually have VERY strong jaws, easily capable of crushing small skulls, etc. These girls have never, ever, had anything to eat but dry cat food. No table scraps. And, they don't go 'out', Cat's wirehouse  except in the cat wirehouse.

Evelyn in the fuzzy top.

This is a great! Dad (via their Plymouth address) gets a letter from the city of Ferndale, addressed to me. At the time I was renting out the Ferndale house, (two years ago) I had left Dad's, as a contact address. Then I moved west. The city of Ferndale wants one to renew a rental license every two years. This, on top of the grief they gave me the first time around. Ferndale House  It's been two years. Dad gets the renewal letter.

He reads it. It says; this and that needs to be taken care of, etc. Send a check, get an inspection, all by March 2. Since it's already close to the end of February, Dad makes notes to himself on the envelope. 'Send by priority mail!' 'Read to David!', 'Due date is near!'

Here's what makes this so dear: See those little dots on the left hand side of the envelope? That's braille. Fran made notes on the envelope, too, in order to help Dad remember. Teamwork!

Between the two of them, I got the letter and was able to deal with matters.