November 2006

Wednesday 01- Welcome to the month of November- did my stretches and ran about three miles (once around the block)- got a call from Stoney; he needs help getting tires on and towing an old trailer that he bought from Chad. So that’s what I did most of the afternoon- Joel dropped off some pics that he wants integrated into his website- went for my evening walk- Andrew came by for a visit and showed off his newest tech device- Joel came by with donuts-watched “Bones” on Fox- finished the night reading.
Thursday 02- did my exercises– Roger T. called about a laptop he wants to purchase- worked on the weekend update of the website- My truck’s clutch is slipping and I don’t want to drive very far till I get it fixed so my good friend Ron D. picked up the rice I had ordered at JT Health Food when he was in town- jacked up the truck and checked out the transmission fluid; drained some of it out to have a look see if it was bad, but it looked ok to me- did some reading- went for my evening walk- watched PBS “Visiting ... With Huell Howser” it was a pre-opening Griffith Observatory Special with Dr. E.C. Krupp. Then watched “CSI” on CBS. Gosh! A whole two hours of TV in one night- Mike from Hermosa Beach called and yapped for an hour- was online and found and a IBM ThinkPad 390X P II 400 MHZ laptop at a decent price and ordered it. Maybe I can fix it up and resell it and make a few bucks.
Friday 03- did my stretches and ran about three miles- wrestled with changing my “trusty” scooter’s tube on the rear tire so I’ll have some transportation around these parts since my “faithful” truck took a dump. I guess it is a dump truck now. Anyways something wrong with the transmission, I’ll have to contemplate on it for a while to see what’s the best way to deal with it- got an email from the company that I purchase the IBM laptop from last night and they state that they can’t deliver it to my address where I reside cause it doesn’t match the address for the credit card. I told them that I live in the desert and that I am 6 miles from my mail box. They want me to send a copy of my drivers license and credit card and fill out a form I told them no way and that I will call up Visa and have my home address added to my card. After I did that I called the laptop company back and they ran it through again and it still wasn’t added. The guy at Visa told me the change would happen instantaneously but the lady at the laptop company said Visa told her it would take two hours. So instantaneously in two hours would be if Visa were on Pluto sending it to Earth, I told her. Then she tells me that the laptops are first come first served and that the one I had ordered is no longer available and then tried to sell me a lesser model; well that ain’t happening and told her to forget the whole dang thing- rode the scooter over to Stoney’s, he and Sue were cleaning out the trailer that she just purchased from him- got home and Sam from UPS drove up with Stoney’s new Dell computer. Sam is a good friend and had suffered a knee injury a few months ago and is now back to work. I brought him up to speed on what’s been happening around here- went for my evening walk- watched “Numbers” on CBS.
Saturday 04- did my stretches and lifted weights- Joel came by with the mail- Stoney picked me and his new Dell up and took us all over to his house so I could setup the computer; spent five hours doing the setup and security updates from Microsoft. He also brought breakfast for me from the community center (pancakes, eggs and hash browns, biscuits and gravy, and bacon and sausages). I did my evening walk over at Stoney’s mostly to burn off that big breakfast- got home and found that my answering machine’s plug was loose and missed any calls- Dale from Landers called- watched “Rosemary and Thyme” on PBS and “Law and Order” on NBC.
Sunday 05- did my exercises– just did some cleaning around the house and did some reading- Joel came by for a visit and dropped off some vittles- went for my evening walk and tried to take a picture of the full Moon but the sky was too hazing. My idea was to include the phases of the Moon on the website’s calendar and use the pics of the Moon that I took myself instead of some generic ones I found on the web. I will keep on trying- messed around with my very old Dell laptop running Win 95 and was successful in loading Basic Linux on it.
Monday 06- did my stretches and lifted weights- Stoney came by to checkout my truck’s transmission and John M. came by also and they both offered me their help. We figured it was best to drain the fluid out of it and remove the pan and check and see if there is any metal shaving and if the filter is stopped up. After they left I drained it and will remove the pan tomorrow- Ron D. came by with some split pea soup he cooked up- Joel brought by some eggs he don’t need- went for my evening walk- just messed around with the computers and talked to Andrew for a while- found an astronomy program that will run on my very, very old Contura 4/25 laptop that runs Win 3.1 and loaded it up and it runs nicely. Now it may be useful again.
Tuesday 07- did my exercises– started writing column for the newspaper- called Stoney and he says he can’t makeup his mind to go to the store or not. I told him if he decides to go let me know; he was over in less than ten minutes and we went to Staters in 29 Palms- dropped the pan on the transmission and had a look see. All kinds of nuts, wires, solenoids, and gears, yikes! Not much in the way of metal shavings in the pan or on the magnet. Tomorrow I will take the filter out and check it- Stuart dropped by a note to put in my column- went for my evening walk- finished writing column and sent it in- watched “Nova” on PBS.
Wednesday 08- did my stretches and ran three miles- Mac called and we talked about my transmission and what may be wrong. I will need to study the mechanic’s manual before I attempt anything- worked on the bathroom which has a lot of construction left to complete- Ron D. called and told me about a car dealership in Palm Springs working on his car left him stranded and standing for three hours in front of Star Bucks. A Cop stopped and asked him what he was doing and a few men tried but failed to pickup on him, but he was able to asked for the use of their cell phone to call the dealership- went for my evening walk- watched “Bones” on CBS- watched “War Planes” on PBS, dang I watched 3 hours of TV in one night!
Thursday 09- did my exercises- Chuck, Joseph, and Andrew dropped by to look at the VW bus and to say hi- drove the scooter to my mailbox which is 6 miles away and dropped over to jaw with Lee a bit- did some reading on this new biology book I got. Reading about DNA, RNA, and Protein Synthesis, a chemical process. If you think I fully understand all this yer wrong, but I keep on struggling through it in the hopes that one day I may understand a little of it (Maybe I should just stick with computers)- went for my evening walk- watched “CSI” on CBS- started work on the website for the weekend update.
Friday 10- did my stretches- worked in the yard doing some gardening- some angry old woman, who didn’t give her name, called yelling at me over the phone about a story I had written for the Hi Desert Star where an Officer was shot a few weeks ago; I hung up on her (I get these kind of calls once in a while and have learned not to get in an argument with them)- got out my two telescopes and cleaned all the optics and swapped the mounts between the two. I put the 90mm Mead on the equatorial mount and the Celestron 60mm on the azimuth mount- Stoney dropped by after he and Mary H. went to town to pickup soft drinks for the Coke machine at the center and ate Chinese- went for my evening walk- talked with Andrew on the phone and he told me of a movie he had a small part in recently and emailed me a picture- was going outside and was putting on my tennis shoes when I felt something fuzzy on the bottom of one and pulled it off. Yikes! It was a mouse head that the Cat had left outside on the ground and I had apparently stepped on it and brought it into the house- got the telescope setup and did some observing. The cleaning I did on the opticals really made a difference- watched “Numbers” on CBS.
Saturday 11- did my stretches and ran 3 miles- went to our community’s annual meeting at 1:30pm, they had already voted cause they’d gotten bored and didn’t wait till 2pm for the vote. The board members are: President Steve Tuttle, Vice President Stuart Watson, Second Vise President Chuck Sercu, Secretary and Treasurer Mary Helen Tuttle, Ray Foyil, Lee Hines, Brenda Zimmer, and Bob Seeley. I took some pics and jawed with everyone, most I haven’t seen for a while and found that I had missed them much. All in all I had a fine time. Chuck gave me a whole bunch of ribs to take home that I took over to Ron and Linda’s to share and gave the bones to Seimi’s dogs. Took some more pics of Stuart and Terry at the new thrift store that is housed in the old fire station, picked up some mounts for my telescopes that they had there that Stuart gracefully delivered to my home latter that night (no room on my “Trusty Scooter)- got home and had a really nice message from Frances who liked my “Thought for the Week” and is going to cut it out and put it on her refrigerator, now that’s cool! I like getting messages like that instead of yesterdays angry old woman call- it started to sprinkle a bit when I went for my evening walk- watched “Rosemary and Thyme” on PBS.
Sunday 12- did my exercises- did some yard work and cleaned up around the VW bus getting it ready for Chuck to tow out- Stoney called and invited me over for tacos at 4pm and I told him yes- called Chuck and he can’t make it today, so we’ll reschedule. We yapped some on starting an Astronomy club, and for folks to donate old computers that I can refurbish and give to kids who live in our area that don’t own one- did my evening walk early and then rode my “Trusty” scooter over to Stoney’s. We sat around and talked about many things; from the community center to an old 1924 Rolls Royce he’d owned scores of years ago and wondering how much it would be worth today. He bought it for $350 and sold it for $550- got home and watched “Nature” and then “Prime Suspect” on PBS.
Monday 13- Jerry and Barb called to say howdy, they read this blog daily, and wanted to talk about the community Board elections- did my stretches and ran 3 miles- was working in my yard deciding where to build some wind blocks when Stoney drove up and asked if I had an hour to spare helping him cut out a new rug for that van he sold to Sue, I said of course, and it took more than a hour but we had it cut and placed in the trailer in under two. After we finished the rug we finished off the leftover tacos from yesterday and then I went for my evening walk from Stoney’s- Roger T. called and we yapped about computers- did some computer work, started my column, and read some.
Tuesday 14- did my stretches and lifted weights- when I went outside this morning I found that the high winds of last night knocked a few things over, one was my tool chest- messed around the yard cleaning up and also cleaned the computer room and spent 2hrs downloading security updates for XP on my ThinkPad- Barb and Jerry called and said they’d left a copy of the newspaper with my story of the “Grave” in my mailbox around 10:30AM- went for my evening walk- did some reading and watched “Nova” on PBS that was about a "Family That Walks on All Fours" and then “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” with Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe (I don’t care much for the other two new detectives)- wrote my column and sent it to the newspaper- downloaded WAMP Server and WordPress on the Toshiba laptop and installed and got them working. Now I have a blog that is on a server on my laptop; very cool.
Wednesday 15- did my exercises and ran an extra 2 miles- drove my “Trusty” scooter to collect my mail- went to Stoney’s and helped him some and he gave me the rest of the rug he had left over from the trailer that I’ll use to cover my computer room- Steve T. came by and dropped off two Honda scooters which he gave me. His truck runs on vegetable oil and smells like French fries. He may be interested in that Lister generator of mine and will save it for him and let him know first if anyone else wants it- went for my evening walk- did some reading in the biology book- watched “Bones” on CBS and then “War Planes” on PBS.
Thursday 16- did my exercises- Andrew came by and we just had to start messing around with them Honda scooters and found that the fuel regulators need to be replaced- went to Stoney’s and cut and positioned a rug in the bathroom of the trailer and then we ate watermelon- Ron D. picked me up some supplies from Staters and I drove to his home to get them and also to have a look see at his cement job he’d did on his foundation- went for my evening walk- read some and then cleaned and moved all the cabinets from the computer room to prepare it for the new carpet that I will lay tomorrow- watched “CSI” on CBS- did weekend update of website and uploaded it to server- it was a really nice night out with good “SEEING” so I took out the telescope and did some observing.
Friday 17- did my stretches- installed the new carpet in the computer room, which took the better part of the day, and it looks really nice- called my Stepmother and wished her a happy birthday (I actually sung it to her)- went for my evening walk- watched “Numbers” on CBS.
Saturday 18- did my exercises- washed clothes and hung them out to dry- setup my old Dell desktop in the computer room and it couldn’t find the hard drive and failed to boot after I added 256 meg of RAM, so I got to trouble shoot my own computer. After trying a different hard drive and a few other ideas, it finally came down to just putting in the boot disk and rebooting- Mike from Hermosa called and talked about computers- Dale from Landers called and we yapped- went for my evening walk- drove my “Trusty” scooter over to visit Stoney; he was in the trailer he’s selling Sue fixing a few things- jawed with Andrew for a while about people and computers- took the Celestron telescope out early tonight. I really like its 2 inch eyepiece that gives me a larger and richer field of view than the 1.25 inch on my other telescope- watched “Rosemary and Thyme” on PBS- worked on website and did some reading.
Sunday 19- Andrew, using my home as the halfway point, dropped over while doing his jog so I joined him on a jog back to his house and I continued on for a total of 3 miles- Andrew called later and asked if I would show him the old mines over in Copper Mountain. I told him to come on over- before we left exploring we saw a lady in the field behind my place and she appeared to be having car problems so we went there to help. Turns out that she is with her two babies and her husband checking out the property they had purchased and was trying to figure out where the borders were. Their names are Mike and Betty from Tarzana Ca. and they seem to be really nice folks so we spent the next hour helping them and answering lots of questions about these here parts-
finally made it to the old copper mines and it was a good thing that we took the Jeep cause there are some very tricky passages on the way there. The first mine went back about 200 feet and we kept hitting our heads on some outcroppings that hung from the ceiling. There were a lot of beer cans and places were folks had campfires and had painted graffiti on the walls. The next mine was farther up the mountain and went back about the same as the first but in the middle it had two passages that sprang to the left and right.This mine was a lot cleaner with more headroom but we still managed to hit our heads a few times. Got some good pics of the mines and then left before the sunset so we could navigate the ruff terrain going down the mountain- watched “Nature” and then “Prime Suspect” on PBS.
Monday 20- did my exercises- Stoney dropped me off some groceries and invited me over to his home to have dinner with Denny, Judy, and Dustin at 5pm- started writing my column for the newspaper to get it in early because of the holiday. Think I’ll write about the mines and the winter of 2004. Now I just got to come up with a “Thought of the Week”- paid a visit to my neighbor John M. who has his wife, daughter and son-in-law staying there for a while. Right now the pluming is stopped up and they are trying to locate the septic tank; there are holes they’d dug all over the place looking for it- Andrew dropped by for a chat and he went on my evening walk with me- went over to Stoney’s for dinner and had a great time yapping with everyone. Denny was barbequing pork steaks and they sure were good! Sure was nice visiting them, and Dustin is really growing up and I think he may even be a really smart kid. I ate so much that when I got home I laid down and fell asleep for an hour or so- finished my column and sent it into the newspaper.
Tuesday 21- did my stretches and jogged 3 miles- Andrew called and said he’d be over later tonight to pickup computer for Chuck, so I got it ready and put a modem in it- did some reading- Linda D. called and has a movie for me called “What The Bleep” and I drove my scooter over to pick it up- went for my evening walk- watched the movie and then “Nova” on PBS- Andrew came by to collect the computer and stayed a while when I got the telescope out and showed him the Andromeda Galaxy and Orion’s Belt.
Wednesday 22- did my exercises- rode my “Trusty” scooter down to collect my mail- fooled around the house- Mike from Hermosa called asking my opinion on a laptop. I told him that Dell, HP, Toshiba, or IBM are good brands- went for my evening walk- called to touch base with: Mac, Roger T., Ron D., and Andrew- messed around on the computers the rest of the night- got an email from my friend Kula with pics of her and Tom getting married! I am so pleased and happy for them. I have known Kula for many, many years. I sent her a reply saying that it looks like Tom is holding her up! What do you think?
Thursday 23- did my stretches and jogged 3 miles- Mike from Hermosa called to say Happy Thanksgiving- checking my emails there was one from a Kevin with the subject line: Fishing Expedition, and it had an attachment on it. Well I didn’t know any Kevin, I thought it maybe spam or a virus so I put it in the junk mail. Later I decided to open and read it without opening the attachment and what I found written was a life changing experience. And once I sort out this scattered jigsaw puzzle of my brain that this email has created I may share it or not with readers of this blog (if there are any). All I can say now is it is most private and personal to me - Stoney called and invited me over for Thanksgiving and I accepted- Roger T. called and invited me over and I told him thanks but I was going over to Stoney’s- Ron D. brought over a dish full of turkey dinner! I got some mighty nice friends out here and that’s what counts in life, not money, nor possessions, but friends- went over to Stoney’s and had dinner with his family and did my evening walk there with Dustin- did the weekly update on the website- watched “CSI” on CBS.
Friday 24- did the full workout and ran 3 miles (I meditate on things when I run)- most of the day is a blear to me after receiving more emails from Kevin with some more pictures and another very nice email, that made me feel wanted, from his sister Shiela. This is possibly the most marvelous event to happen in my life and I don’t want to mess it up, but I must tell them the truth and get that part out of the way even though it may hurt. I just don’t want to lose them now- got a call from Jimmy saying that he is going to be at his father’s (Stoney) tomorrow and asked me to swing by- went for my long evening walk- Ron D. called and I told him of the emails from Kevin and he said I am handling it right and is mighty happy for me- Andrew called and needed help holding one of his dogs down so he can tape its torn paw- went to watch “Numbers” on CBS but the UHF transmitter that we rely on was down (must be too cold for it) so I called Andrew who has Direct TV to tape it for me- spent the rest of the night thinking.
Saturday 25- did my stretches and only ran 1 mile (thought I’d better not over do it on the running and meditating part)- gotten emails from my brother Kevin, and my sisters Paula and Shiela today (I can call them that now because that’s who they are and have always been). Got the torn pictures of me that clinched it all and left no doubt in my mind. Received the reason “why” from Paula and Shiela that I’ve been searching a lifetime for, and that I accept without reservations. I have two more sisters Donna and Audrey, and Mom and Dad are still around. Life is a mysterious and wonderful journey. You see; I was adopted and didn’t know my real family existed until I opened that email from Kevin on Thanksgiving Day. There’s more to the story but that’s “Family” business- went over to Stoney’s for a visit with him, Jimmy, Cloris, and their daughter Angela. They are saving me a piece of pecan pie that Jimmy’s mother-in-law made (she was there too). They all went on to potluck at the community center and I went home to attend “Family” business (had a lot of emails to read, reread and reply to)- went for my evening walk- Mike from Hermosa called and I gave him the wonderful news.
Sunday 26- did my stretches- more emails from my family and more replies to do. I answer them all individually and it takes much time, but like I wrote Paula, it is worth it to me- Stoney called and I told him the wonderful news about my family. I told him to save me some of that pecan pie for tomorrow cause I’m to busy today- Ron came by with some split pea soup he made- went for my evening walk- Mike from Hermosa called and we yapped some- went back to the emails and tried to give a brief history of my life from age 17 when I went into the Army, till now. I have found that I do tend to drive folks away from me when I think they are getting to close; survival instinct I guess. I think this time it’s different. Besides being my family they seem like kind and decent folks.
Monday 27- I awakened at 11:40am! I had stayed up till around 3:30am writing and reading emails to and from my family. I’ve been going like this since Thanksgiving Day and my body said enough and made me sleep a whole 8 hours- really cold and windy outside today so I ran a mile and lifted weights. Oh yes, I did do my stretches first- called Stoney and was going to go over for some pecan pie but he has company over. I told him to hide the pie- was looking through some old boxes when I came across my old college notebooks that I will sort through and send the good stuff to my family(we got a lot of catching up to do)- went for my evening walk and it is still windy and cold- got a nice fire going in the wood stove and went back on the computer. I need to get started writing my column for the paper tonight.
Tuesday 28- dang cold outside again, but no wind- I did my stretches and ran 3 miles- went back online and finished replying to some emails and scanned some pics into my computer and emailed them to my family- Sam the UPS guy dropped by with my delivery of a SD Flash card for my Kodak camera and Fostex recorder and I played with them some- went for my evening walk- watched “NCIS” on CBS- it is getting mighty cold outside and the wind came up so I started a fire to thaw me old bones out- finished writing my column for the newspaper and sent it in.
Wednesday 29- did my stretches- Stoney called and asked for help loading up the stairs to the trailer he bought that is over at Chadwick’s and taking them over to his house. We picked up my mail on the way. Once we were done, we had turkey sandwiches and that pecan pie I’ve been eyeing since Thanksgiving day- the wind is really blowing and it is colder than yesterday. I went around the insides of the house looking for any drafts that may be letting in the cold- went for my evening walk and the temp is around 40- watched “Bones” on CBS”- worked on the website getting it ready for the weekend update- went outside to check the temp at midnight, it was 22 degrees and my fat cat is banging at the door to get inside!
Thursday 30- went outside and all the water that I put out for the critters was frozen. I was told that it had gotten down to 15 degrees last night- did my stretches, jogged 3 miles, lifted weights- Delores Jefferson called and told me she is doing well and to say hi to all her friends up here. She had some sad news for me too, Trudy Poe had passed on- was doing some final tweaks to the website before I upload it when Andrew came over. He had jogged from his house and we jawed for a while and then I decided to jog back to his house with him and watch the “Numbers” show he recorded for me on Friday night when the UHF transmitter went down. We also watched this show “Survivor Man” that was really funny. It is about this guy who gets dropped off in the desert and has to survive 7 days. Can you believe he finds a stream! Talks about how hot it is and how you can die of thirst, then later says its 70 degrees! What a laugh! Andrew needed a dog house and I had one that I ain’t using and told him that I’ll take my evening walk back from his house and he can drive on over to mine and meet me there. We got the dog house in the back of his Jeep and that was that- my friend Joel is back from the Middle East (Missouri) visiting his Dad- finished the website and answered some emails- Good Bye November you been a very interesting and wonderful month!