May 2008

Welcome to the Month of May!- did my stretches and ran a mile. It’s still windy, dang it.
        Today’s Weather: Temps of around 52 to 75, N to NW winds at 7-16 with gusts up to 25, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 78. North northwest wind between 3 and 8 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 52. North northwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming west southwest.”
        Was mighty windy outside so I got to work on the weekly updates to the Copper Mountain Mesa website and got it all done and uploaded to the web. This took an hour or two and the wind had died down enough for me to work on the patio! While I was trying to work I was interrupted five or six times by the phone ringing and people wanting to talk. It seems that I usually get calls when I’m in the shower or up on a ladder. Worked on that till 4pm and then I went over to Stoney’s for dinner. He had cooked up hamburger steaks with fried potatoes and gravy, and a pea salad that was mighty good! When dinner was done I took the old nonfunctioning washer out of the laundry room and moved a new one in. Stoney is 88 years old and has been feeling kind of down these past few weeks, but today he went to the Doctor’s office and got some new medicine and a B12 shot. He was feeling pretty perky today! We sat around and jawed (without the TV on) for some three hours about everything under the Sun. From working on cars, quitting drinking and smoking, family and friends, and those no longer with us. We covered it all! Yes he was mighty perky today!
        Got home and went on my evening walk just as the Sun set. Read some of the “Black Holes and Time Warps” until “CSI” came on CBS about people with green blood. But during the commercials I kept switching to “Carrier” on PBS. And when “CSI” was over I watched the ending to the ten part “Carrier” series. I have kind of gotten away from “CSI” after Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) left. The show, to me, just hasn’t been the same without her.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went on my nightly run under the starry sky. The temperature was already down to 49 degrees when I went for my run: a cold night. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Last night I had a weird dream that I was watching a movie and couldn’t remember the actor’s name, and I spent most of my dream trying to figure his name out. It was Harrison Ford. Like I said it was a weird dream. No more Benadryl for me! It has been giving me really strange dreams lately, but this last one was enough. I’d rather suffer my hay fever than this!

Friday 02- did my stretches and ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. Nice day.
        Today’s Weather: Temps of around 49 to 78, NW winds at 4-9 MPH, humidity around 14 percent, clear skies overhead. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 80. North northwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming southwest between 17 and 20 mph. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 56. West wind 17 to 20 mph decreasing to between 8 and 11 mph. Winds could gust as high as 28 mph.”
        Sent out the Copper Mountain Mesa Newsletter and did a little computer work. I had to rearrange my day because Brenda emailed that she be by after work to pay for her Internet; she never showed. Then called to say she’d be over later in the evening; she wasn’t. But I didn’t waste my day because I got the last panel of the roof installed! I made a stop to feed my friend’s dogs and then over to Stoney’s for a quick chat. Then back home again to wait for Brenda.
        Called my sister Shiela to wish her a Happy Birthday. Then called my brother Kevin and yapped at him for a while. Read a chapter in “Black Holes and Time Warps” about the golden age of the physics in the area of black holes: a little history of the Russian, British, and American teams of physicists working on problems and properties of black holes: spin, pulsate, store energy, and having no hair. The “having no hair” was coined by John Archibald, which means that a star with a magnetic field, or having an irregular shape will implode down into a perfect spherical singularity and not an irregular shaped one (nothing sticks out from its surface).
        Watched “Numbers” on CBS about a cult that was poisoned by arsenic. Then did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 03- did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather: Temps of around 54 to 84, NW to SW winds at 4-16 MPH with gusts up to 35, humidity around 16 percent, clear skies overhead. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 81. South southwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming southwest between 18 and 21 mph. Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 58. Southwest wind 18 to 21 mph becoming west northwest 7 to 10 mph. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph.”
        I’ve been feeling a little pain in my right thigh when running and I believe it was caused by putting up those panels for the roof on the patio. I had to stand on a ladder and push really hard and I think I may have pulled a mussel there. So I will take a few days off from doing my runs to let it heal. I worked on combining all my files from all my computers into one place and getting rid of all duplicate files. Brenda came by and paid for her internet! She been working pretty hard at her new job and also helped out at the community center’s breakfast this morning.
        Called some Family and Friends and yakked at them for a spell. Andrew called to tell me that he had picked up Wessel from the airport but had to take him to a hospital because he had a problem with his foot. Our friend Wessel is from Holland and comes to visit us once in a great while. They were ordering food at Pizza Hut when they called. I’ll mossy on over for a visit tomorrow.
        I watched “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (2005) Kind of an alright flick with talking beavers and other critters that talked too. Some how ABC turned a 143 minute movie into 3 hours with lots of commercials. I especially liked the White Witch, played by Tilda Swinton, who was evil beyond belief. When the Witch was going to battle in a wagon pulled by bears (I think that it was bears) she reminded me of Boudica attacking the Roman Army at the “Battle of Paulerspury”: the best scene of the whole movie and well played by Tilda. It was more of a children’s story where everything came out good in the end.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 04- did my stretches. I’m starting to feel kind of sluggish not being able to run these past few days, but the pain in my thigh seems to be going away. I also won’t be doing any running on Monday.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 53 to 86, W to SW winds at 6-14 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, altocumulus clouds later in the day. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 78. Northwest wind 5 to 13 mph becoming east. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 55. South wind 5 to 10 mph becoming northwest.”
        Did some work on the new patio putting up two sheets of plywood on the sides, but I ran out of nails and two by fours. Called Family and Friends to yap at them for a while.
        A lady who lives in our area named Mary called to ask about helping the family that I wrote of in my column in the newspaper. She has some recyclables and food to donate, so I took down her phone number and will pass it along to Egie.
        Went over to Stoney’s for dinner and we watched “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel where Mike Rowe was helping the folks at the San Francisco dump recycle trash into fuel.
        Wessel called and I drove on over to Andrew’s house where he is staying for a short visit. His foot is still giving him problems and the Doctors at the hospital gave him some pills to fight the infection and told him to stay off of it. I stayed there jawing with him about stuff going on in Europe and his travels in the USA and mine throughout Europe. His Daughter Nicky who is three years old sent me a package of licorice from Holland: she is so sweet!
        Got home just in time to watch “Monk” on NBC when my friend Kula called asking about the meteor shower tonight. I all most forgot all about it! I will be going out at 2am tonight to watch it, and Kula will catch it when she gets up an hour before dawn. “Monk” was about a lady found stabbed to death on a nudist beach and of course Monk has a phobia about naked people.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, and posted it to the web early so I can get outside to watch the meteor shower.

Monday 05- did my stretches. Tomorrow I will try to run and see how my thigh feels.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 80, W to SE winds at 7-15 MPH with gusts up to 25, humidity around 27 percent, altocumulus clouds throughout the day. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 80. Northwest wind between 7 and 13 mph. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 57. Breezy, with a west wind 20 to 23 mph decreasing to between 7 and 10 mph. Winds could gust as high as 31 mph.”
        Scrounged around in my yard for two by fours and nails to complete my patio. Found some old bent nails I had to straighten and some two by fours in the woodpile. I got the plywood sheets nailed up on the sides now! Little by little, bit-by-bit I’ll get it done!
Worked on my column getting stuff together for tomorrow when I’ll write it. Stoney called for me to come over and take some pictures of baby doves that are in a nest by his tool shed. So I went on over to take some pics of the doves but the Mom and Dad were both on the nest and wouldn’t let me see their babies. I didn’t want to disturb them too much so I’ll try again tomorrow. Sat around with Stoney swapping stories for a while. Then it was time to feed my Friend’s dogs. When I got there the dogs all came out to greet me but Wessel wasn’t there; I learned later that he went back to the hospital to have them look at his injured foot.
        Got home to find that Lee had left a message on my answering machine needing help on his computer; I’ll go over there tomorrow. Patty called to ask if I could fix her Mom’s computer; I said yes and they will bring it over next week. I read some Sci-Fi until “Bones” came on FOX about her father going to trial for killing the director of the FBI. Wessel called to tell me he was back and I went on over for a visit that lasted till midnight. We talked about global warming, buying and selling stuff over seas, gas prices and what has made them so high, and other stuff like that. We also had a discussion on meat and how the cattle is shot up with hormones and antibiotics that may be the cause of why Americans are so fat and other health problems. Wessel said that the way to find out if a restaurant makes good hamburgers is if the waitress asks how you want it cooked. Sounds like good advice! It was getting late and Wessel jokingly blamed it on me for talking so much, when in fact I was doing most of the listening!
Got back home at 12am and did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.
        Oh yes I almost forgot that I stayed up till after 3am last night to watch for the eta Aquarid Meteor Shower but didn’t see a single one! Dang! I had the telescope out and saw Jupiter shining bright on the eastern horizon so it wasn’t a waste after all.

Tuesday 06- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. My thigh is feeling better now that I gave it a rest these last few days.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 55 to 82, NW winds at 9-15 MPH, humidity around 30 percent, altocumulus clouds throughout the day. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 84. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 8 to 11 mph increasing to between 25 and 28 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 25 to 28 mph decreasing to between 10 and 13 mph.”
        Worked on my column for a few hours until I got it done to my satisfaction and sent it to the newspaper. Then I went on to read some Sci-Fi till it was time to feed my Friend’s dogs. They now come to greet me at the front gate wagging their tails and follow me into the house wanting hotdogs. Then I dropped on over to Stoney’s and jawed while we watched “Cosmos” on the Science Channel.
        Got home and went on my evening walk. I need to download some more lectures to listen to on my walks. Then I read for a little while longer and spent the rest of the evening just mindlessly surfing the web.
        Andrew called and we yapped for a spell. I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. I am kind of all wrote out tonight from writing my column for the newspaper!

Wednesday 07- did my stretches and ran a mile.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 to 87, NW winds at 8-28 MPH, humidity around 18 percent, altocumulus clouds until late afternoon. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 84. North northwest wind between 6 and 14 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 57. West southwest wind between 6 and 9 mph.”
        Went online to read my emails and doing this and that when I found out it will be Mother’s Day next Sunday and I haven’t gotten a card out yet, Yikes! So I wrote a nice card to my Mom, put a stamp on it, jumped in the Gross Polluter, and drove the six miles to the mailbox to send it.
        On my way back I stopped off at Lee Hines to put in the new license key on his Antivirus program, which would only have taken a few minutes, but when I went to open a folder on his computer an Alert Box came up saying: “Your computer is infected with a virus! Click here to download a fix” and refers you to a site that you’ll have to pay to get rid of the program that they have placed on your system. Oh No! This Alert Box was generated by a malicious program that you get when you are not careful when surfing at some of the unscrupulous websites on the web and a popup will appear telling you “Your computer is infected with a virus. Click here to fix”. And if you do unwittingly click on it, you will have downloaded an executable file that inserts itself into your Window’s system files and registry. Once on your computer it is a bitch to get off. It can also mess with your antivirus and firewall! I ran the antivirus program at boot to see if that would find it and correct it. It found forty-five Trojans on his computer and I deleted them. But it didn’t get rid of this parasite because the Alert Box came up again. I had already spent two hours there working on this problem. I will come back another day and either try a new restore point back before he got this malicious program and see if this works, or do a clean install of the OS. I tell folks to never click on popups just as they should never open spam.
        Went on over to Stoney’s and had spaghetti with him and Roger. Roger finally admitted that this year is the windiest that he can remember.
        Got home and went on my evening walk. Then I read Sci-Fi until Andrew came over to collect his new computer that was delivered here a few days ago. He was with his friend Dianne from England who is staying here at Andrew’s home while on holiday. I took some nice pics of his unboxing of the laptop: he was mighty happy! When they left, I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 08- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 to 88, NW to SW winds at 6-14 MPH with gusts up to 24, humidity around 18 percent, haze. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 86. West northwest wind between 8 and 14 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 56. West northwest wind between 11 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
        Did some work around the house and outside watering plants. Went over to Andrew’s to checkout his new laptop. Dianne was there playing with the dogs; she really likes the desert! We got the laptop online with his cell phone and went to Google Maps where Andrew showed me where Gina’s apartment is in Los Angeles, and Dianne’s flat in England. That was mighty cool that you can go all the way to street level to see people in crosswalks, fronts of houses and cars! Ain’t technology great!
        Went over to Stoney’s to help him eat all that spaghetti he made yesterday. There’s still plenty left and Stoney is going to freeze it for another day. I think I ate too much because I felt bloated the rest of the day. Stoney gave me a box of tools he had been putting together for me; I thought that it was mighty nice of him to do that!
        Got home and continued reading the Sci-Fi book. Joel came by with my mail and to say the lady that I fixed the computer for still has some problems loading her broadband disk. I told him to have her call me and if we can’t resolve it over the phone to bring it to me and I’ll have a look at it. Then I went for my evening walk around sunset. The wind was blowing pretty well and there were a lot of particulates in the air making the sky a kind of gray. Read some more until “CSI” came on CBS about a lady comedian that was found dead in her hotel room with a rubber chicken crammed into her mouth.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. As I jogged to the top of the hill there were car lights coming my way so I got off the road and stood in the desert waiting for it to pass, but it turned off its lights and stopped in the middle of the road not more than fifty feet from me with its engine idling; Weird! So I just stood there and waited, and waited some more. I could just make out in the dark that it was a truck, and it just stayed put. It felt kind of eerie to me; I mean what if someone had gotten out of the truck and was sneaking up behind me in the dark. That’s when I decided to blend into the desert and make my way back down the hill to the safety of my home. The truck with the dark silhouettes of several people on the inside drove by my house with its lights off a little while later; a murky sinister shape that slowly rambling on by and I was unable to make out what model it was. This sent chills through my spine!
        Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 09- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. Andrew and Dianne dropped me off some donuts in my mailbox while I was on my run. I will eat them all later!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 86, NW to W winds at 7-15 MPH with gusts up to 20 or more, humidity around 20 percent, haze. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 88. North northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 61. South wind 7 to 13 mph becoming west northwest.”
        Worked on the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and got it uploaded to the web. Sent out the newsletter but most came back as undeliverable! Dang I guess there’s some kind of new spam filter that rejects multiple mailings. I use “BCC” (blank carbon copy) on all my newsletter mailings so only the addressee sees only their address and not everyone else’s. I may have to change to a new email account with a different carrier.
        Did some more work on my new patio and it is really taking shape now. I put up a new sheet of plywood as a kind of fence and nailed it to a four by four I had just anchored in the ground. I just might build this all around the house because it blocks the wind and sun pretty darn good.
        Was reading the Sci-Fi book when my neighbor Carolyn came by asking me if I could turn on the water to her house that she is letting a friend use for a few months. She drove me over and I turned it on and met her new tenant Barbara who is writing a screenplay and needs a quiet place to work. I told her that this is the place to do it. I also told that her if she needed anything just give me a call, and that I go on evening walks around 6:30 and if she’d like to join me she is more than welcomed.
        I called my friend Joan to see how she is doing. I haven’t heard from her in a while. She is doing fine and was cleaning up her house when I called. Then I went back to reading the Sci-Fi book.
        Went for my evening walk. When I got back I was feeling kind of bad about not reading any “Black Holes and Time Warps” for so long that I read and finished a chapter. Andrew came by with Dianne who will be leaving and going back to England to finish her studies at a University. She gave me a big hug! Don’t get too many of them out here. Continued reading until “Numbers” came on about a Rap singer who was shot to death while leaving a club where he had just performed. I always wondered why CBS has put “Numbers” on so late at night where young folks won’t get a chance to watch the show. I guess CBS is more interested in Werewolves, Mediums, and the occult, than putting on something that would stimulate young minds to be more creative.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night

Saturday 10- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 87, NW to W winds at 6-9 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, more haze. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 86. Breezy, with a northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming west southwest between 23 and 26 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 60. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 26 to 29 mph decreasing to between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 37 mph.”
        Did a few things around the house and went online to answer some emails. Jimmy called just as his Dad Stoney drove up my driveway, so we sat in Stoney’s truck and yakked for a few.
        Went over to Lee Hines to repair his computer. I tried to reset the restore point back before he got all them viruses and Trojans but it wouldn’t take. So I did a quick format of his drive and a fresh install of Windows XP. Then I setup his modem and printer. Installed Avast antivirus, Sygate firewall, and Firerfox web browser. That took about two hours; all the while Marcie was feeding Lee and me Twinkies, cookies and ice cream, wow what a sugar rush I had.
        Went over to Stoney’s for dinner. He baked up a stew casserole with biscuits and cheese on top. We had watermelon for dessert. We sat around to jaw about the community center meeting he went to earlier in the day. He said they had decided not to have bingo or the breakfast in August; which Stoney was against.
        Went over to feed my Friend’s dogs and made some calls to Family and Friends while the dogs munched on chewy bones I gave them, making all kinds of racket that could be heard over my cell phone.
        I got home to find a note in my gate from Barbara saying that she had left her cell phone in LA and needed to borrow mine to make a few calls. I drove on over to where she is staying to find her car with all its doors wide open, the door to the house half shut! I called out her name but there was no response. So I looked around the property but she wasn’t around. Thinking there was foul play I entered the house without touching anything so as not to leave any fingerprints or mess up any left by somebody else; you know how the police are. Expecting to find her laying on the floor or something like that I looked around and called her name again. She answered from the bathroom where she was taking a shower! What a relief that was! She laughed when I told her of my expectations of foul play. She said that she left the doors to the car open to air it out after taking a sick cat to the vets a few days ago. I gave her my cell phone to use and drove on back home where she would come on by with the cell phone when she was done to go on an evening walk with me. I read some Sci-Fi while I waited. Barbara came over an hour later and I gave her a quick tour of my home showing her my solar setup that she thought was cool. Then we went on the walk. She told me about the screenplay she is writing about: the Hopi Indians, their culture, and mystical beliefs. She had actually been fortunate to go to on of the Hopi rituals for planting and given access to a Kiva where they practice these rituals. The rituals are performed by the men and since the ritual was about birth and fertility half the men had to dress like women. As they danced the women who were seated watching them would tease them. Sounds very interesting.
        Read some astronomy I needed to catch up on. Did my stretches, lifted weights, and did my nightly run. While on my run there was a snake on the road that I picked up and carried to the other side and let it go; didn’t want it to get run over by a car. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 11- did my stretches and ran a mile.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 60 to 89, W to SW winds at 3-19 MPH, humidity around 17 percent, more haze. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 82. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 9 to 12 mph increasing to between 21 and 24 mph. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 59. Breezy, with a northwest wind between 14 and 24 mph.”
        Did a little work on the patio. It seems that I have gone as far as I can with what I can scrounge around my yard and will have to purchase some building supplies. Called my friend Kula and yapped to her for a spell. She and Tom had just gotten back from attending a convention in Los Vegas.
        Went over to feed them dog some hotdogs and placed a call to Wessel who is now in Utah and was eating at Denny’s restaurant when I called. He has a long trip to Nebraska ahead of him where he’ll pickup some old style iron steam radiators that used to heat houses and ship them off to Holland.
        On my way to Stoney’s I passed by the house where a red car has been sitting for some time now and folks had thought the car was abandoned. Well there was somebody there now and it looked as if he was working on it. So I pulled the Gross Polluter in the driveway to have a look see. He is US Navy Corpsman HM3 Matthew Clupper and was stationed at Al Taqaddum Air Base in Iraq for the last ten months. They were helping the small village of Cabani with medical assistance, security, rebuilding a school, and furnishing the children with shoes and school supplies. They even had to rebuild the water treatment plant so that the residents wouldn’t drink the water from the lake anymore, which gave them worms. When he left the village was safe and the folks there could walk around without feeling threaten and grateful that Americans were there, and the children were happy; sounds like Matthew made a big difference there. He was letting his house dry out after a pipe broke and flooded all the carpeting, and putting new speakers in the red car; a little reward, he said, for coming back from Iraq. I told Matthew that he was lucky that nobody messed with his car, and that some folks around here were starting to eye it for parts. I even told such folks that it probably belonged to someone from the base, that it was none of their business and to leave it alone. Matthew told me that he wouldn’t know what to do if his car was stolen. He said that it would have cost him to store the car at the base so he just parked it here at the home he rents. That totally sucks, I said, that you have to go over to Iraq and the base charges you to store your car! Incredible! I told him that the next time he has to go overseas that I’d be honored if he’d park it at my home.
        Stoney told me that on Friday our neighbor Mike Villarreal plowed into the back of a school bus as it stopped to let kids out and injured the driver and a eleven year old boy; plus himself. I’ll have to follow up on this one.
        Got home and went on my evening walk. Then I read some Sci-Fi for a while. Went on online to do some mindless surfing for the better part of the evening till it was time to do my stretches, practice my guitar, write to my journal, post it to the web, and called it a night.


Monday 12- did my stretches: too dang windy for anything else.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 84, NW to W winds at 9-19 MPH with gusts some wheres around 50, humidity around 22 percent, more haze and a few high clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 78. Windy, with a north northwest wind 18 to 21 mph increasing to between 27 and 30 mph. Winds could gust as high as 38 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. North northwest wind between 9 and 18 mph.” GOSH more high winds tomorrow!
        The dang wind must have been gusting past 50 MPH! Every time I went outside I’d get dust and sand in my eyes. My front gate got blown over three times. I’ve been waiting for my new patio to fly off to Arizona. So I spent the whole day going through files of pictures I have accumulated over the years on several computers. I am sorting them all by month and year, deleting duplicates and thumbnails.
        Out of boredom I spent the evening reloading a fresh install of Windows XP on my IBM laptop. Wiped the sucker clean and loaded up Service Pak2. Stopped long enough to watch “Bones” on FOX about a good-looking singer whose body was found two weeks after he went missing by a guy riding a harvester of some sort that chewed up the body a whole bunch.
        Continued installing programs on the laptop and finished it around 11pm, went online to check it out and see if there were any problems. Firefox 3 beta 5 worked mighty well! Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Still the wind blows hard!

Tuesday 13- Got woken up early with the sounds of somebody walking with heavy boots on my roof, which turned out to be my patio trying to fly away. I quickly put on my shoes and made my way outside in the wind that was gusting out of the N-NW blowing sand, dirt, and anything that wasn’t tied down. I fixed the patio by propping up some two by fours to stop it from flapping around and coming loose. Did my stretches: still too darn windy for anything else.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 55 to 84, NW to W winds at 20-28 MPH with mighty high gusts, humidity around 23 percent, don’t remember seeing any clouds just sand and dust suspended in the air. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 88. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 62. North northwest wind between 8 and 15 mph.”
        Spent over two hours writing and finalizing my column to the newspaper; no matter how hard I try I always come up with another way of phrasing my words, find an error, or adding a little piece of info after I have sent it along to the paper, and by that time it’s too late. I wrote about the Navy Corpsman that I met last Sunday. The village that his unit was helping was call Kabani with a “K” instead of a “C” like Matthew told me; I wondered why I couldn’t find it when I did a search for Cabani online. I dropped the “C” and added the “K” and immediately found it.
        My friend Joan emailed me asking for help sending something she had written in MS Word, so I called her to walk her through how to “Cut and Paste” over the phone. Then Patty called telling me that she had been given a CD ROM drive for another computer that she has. She wants to let the computer she is currently using “rest” after I install the drive. That means that I’d have to do a complete install of the OS, I told her, and that would take a lot of my time, and that we should just wait until the one she is using dies. Thankfully she agreed with me. I got in a little reading of my Sci-Fi book.
        The dang wind finally let up enough for me to go on my evening walk. Afterwards I drove over to Stoney’s; he baked some cookies yesterday! I got home just in time to watch “NCIS” on FOX when Andrew drove up to hand me a seed pod from a Yucca tree. NCIS was about a man who was found dead on top of an elevator at a construction site. Then I watched “Frontline: Storm Over Everest” about the disastrous climb in May of 1996 that claimed five lives. Seems that they had too many people going up to the peak of Everest at once, which caused a delay coming down to the safety of their camp. Then a freak storm came with freezing winds of 80 MPH to catch a lot of the climbers on their descent from the peak. A very tragic but fascinating story and it is a wonder that more didn’t die. One climber was left for dead twice!
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and the wind had died down enough for me to go on my nightly run, which hasn’t been so “nightly” because of the high winds. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 14- did my stretches and ran a mile.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 59 to 87, NW winds at 4-9 MPH, humidity around 19 percent, high cirrocumulus clouds.According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 89. North northwest wind between 11 and 16 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 65. North northwest wind between 8 and 16 mph.”
        Decided to head into town to get some supplies. Got $25 worth of gas in Joshua Tree at $3.92 a gallon, which filled up the tank; It was $3.87 at Arco in Yucca but there are always long lines and I rather get in, fill up, and be on my way even if I pay a few cents more a gallon. Stopped off at the Joshua Tree Health Food Store to get a pound of yeast and talk to the pretty gals there. Drove on to Yucca Valley where I made a deposit at the bank. Went to WalMart and then to Stater Bros to stock up on supplies. WalMart had some Kodak 2Gig SD drives that came two in a pack for $24 and I couldn’t pass up a deal like that. I stopped at Home Depot to get nails and ended up getting five of each five and ten foot two by fours. I got them tied down on the Gross Polluter with some straps that I bought there and headed home. The straps turned out to be cheap and I will return them because as I pulled into my driveway the lumber had all slid forward onto the hood of the truck. I am lucky it had happened there and not in heavy traffic! I was mighty worn-out from all this and only wanted to lie down and read, and that is just what I did until I fell asleep reading the Sci-Fi book.
        Woke up and went on my evening walk. The guy with the pit bulls that he lets run free, which gave chase to me a few times, has been gone for a while along with his dogs, so I went that way for a change.
        Watched “Secrets of the Dead: Sinking Atlantis” on PBS about the lost civilization of the Minoans that flourished from about 2700 to 1600 BCE and then mysteriously vanished for reasons unknown until now. Seems like the volcanic explosion on the island of Thera coincides with the downfall of Minoan society, and a tsunami hit the island of Crete devastating Minoan cities, harbors, and their fleet of boats that they used for trade and protection from other nations states. Very interesting and the show gave compelling evidence that this is what truly happened.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 16- did my stretches and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 63 to 92, N to NW winds at 7-23 MPH, humidity around 12 percent, hazy skies.According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 88. North northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph. Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 65. East northeast wind at 8 mph becoming west northwest.”
        Did some miscellaneous stuff around the house and watered the plants outside. I’ve been sitting in the shade of the patio trying to decide how I should proceed on building the rest of it. I have a bunch of odds and ends: metal sheets that I got from Stoney and the new two by fours I bought yesterday. Now I got to figure out how to put them altogether.
        Sam the UPS man (and friend) brought over his sister-in-law’s broken computer for me to fix. It is a Dell Dimension 2400 desktop, or should I say a Dell Dementia because when I turned it on it wouldn’t load up right and all kinds of “Alert Boxes” were popping up saying this DLL (Dynamic Link Library) was missing or that file was gone; there was no graphic user interface. Knowing that her fifteen-year-old son was using it, and him and his computer “savvy” friend was trying to fix it, well I decided from experience to wipe the disk clean and do a fresh install of XP and not waste my time trying to hunt down all the bugs and viruses. But first I had to remove the hard drive, connect it to my laptop, and backup their user’s Document folder and any other folders that they may want to keep. When I got off all the user files I continued looking through their drive. On one particular file I was checking out my antivirus alert sounded. Well at that time I figured that I had all their files and disconnected their drive and ran a scan on my laptop to see if it had picked up anything malicious: the scan was negative. I put the drive back in their computer and will do the install of the OS tomorrow. I might mention that it was the filthiest computer I had ever seen. It was full of dust, hairs (cat hairs it looked to me), and dead little bugs. I had to use almost a whole can of air to blow it all out before I could begin to work on it! Fifteen-year-old boys are dang hard on a computer.
        Went over to Stoney’s for dinner. He cooked up some tacos and they were mighty good (I ate four of them). Then I drove over to feed my friend’s dogs. We are running out of hotdogs!
        Went for my evening walk. Worked on the Copper Mountain Mesa website preparing it for uploading to the web tomorrow. Downloaded a new astronomy lecture that was eighteen Megs and on dialup that takes a while. Read “Black Holes and Time Warps” then a little Sci-Fi. Did my stretches, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 16- did my stretches and ran two miles.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 63 to 93, N to NW to SE winds at 4-13 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies.According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 97. North northwest wind between 3 and 6 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 69. North northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph.”
        Got right to work on that Dell Dimension 2400. Installed Windows XP after formatting the hard drive. They didn’t give me the drivers for the video card and had a bunch of problems with the monitor going blank, so I ended up taking it out and used the video supplied on the motherboard. Installed all the Windows updates up to and including Service Pak2, and the drivers for the audio and network adapters. Runs pretty smooth now! This took up most of the afternoon because of the video card problems and loading back on all their user files, otherwise I’d have been done earlier. Tomorrow I’ll load up their word processor and a few other programs.
        Went over to Stoney’s for dinner to help him finish off them tacos. He told me that earlier he had unlocked his car with his phone by dialing a number, but was unable to demonstrate it to me when I asked him to do it. He also set a plate on the stove to keep the tortillas warm and forgot about it until it blew up into little pieces. Good thing that he had his back to it when it blew. He said it really woke him up.
        Went to feed my Friend’s dogs and ran out of hotdogs. I’ll have to check what he has in the fridge to see if there is anything that will keep the dogs happy till I can get a hold of some more.
        Got home to read and finished a chapter in “Black Holes and Time Warps” about the search for black holes in the 60s and 70s, and the efforts of many scientific fields that it required to find the first: Cygnus X-1. It amazes me that black holes went from an idea razed first in the classical era using Newtonian mathematics, to Oppenheimer in the 30s using Einstein’s relativity and quantum physics to create a hypothesis of a black hole, to an idea of what to look for when searching for one that was drawn out in chalk on a three by three meter blackboard by the Russia scientist Zel’dovich, to putting a X-ray detection device on a rocket in 1962 that found a source of X-rays from an unexpected area in space, to astronomers finding the source.
        Went for my evening walk. Wessel called to say he was in Indiana where his truck broke down. He got it fixed and was back on the road again. Then I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa website. Read some Sci-Fi until “Numbers” came on CBS, about terrorist’s cells in an Indian charity. Did my Stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Too bad the Moon is high in the sky washing out the stars. Otherwise it would have been an excellent night to take the telescope out. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 17- did my stretches and ran one mile.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 65 to over 100, NW to NE winds at 2-9 MPH, humidity around 16 percent, clear skies.According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 101. Light wind becoming south southwest between 11 and 14 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 72. West southwest wind between 8 and 14 mph. RECORD TO NEAR RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES SUNDAY THROUGH TUESDAY. EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY EVENING.”
        Stoney was honking his horn when I was coming back from my run. He had some problems that made me worry and we drove to his house to check it out. I helped him figure it out and promised to come back by later on.
        Finished working on the Dell desktop computer by installing: WordPerfect, Firefox, Avast antivirus, and a few other programs. Did some work on the Copper Mountain Mesa website updating “Karen’s Corner” and uploaded it to the web.
        Called my brother Kevin and yakked at him for a spell. Then Called Mom and Dad early, I usually call at 5:30pm, but I wanted to get back to Stoney’s. Hopped in the Gross Polluter to feed my Friend’s dogs. I found some hotdog substitutes in the fridge that made them happy. Made sure they had plenty of water and food, then headed on over to Stoney’s.
        When I arrived at Stoney’s I noticed that the temp inside was 95 degrees and I was hot, and I asked if he was hot also. He replied that he wasn’t hot at all, which made me suspicious that he may be over heated by the way he has been acting lately. So I got his swamp cooler connected and working, got him drinking water, and stayed with him until almost 10pm. When I left he was feeling a lot better and much more coherent than when I first arrived. Stoney is 88 years old and forgets that sometimes, and tries to do things of a much younger man. He is a cantankerous son of a gun and my Friend!
        Got home and fed Fat Cat who was waiting for me at the front gate when I drove up. He missed his dinner! Then I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my evening run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 18- did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 60 to over 100 again, light breeze, humidity around 16 percent, clear skies.According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 105. Light wind becoming west southwest between 17 and 20 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 74. West wind between 10 and 20 mph. RECORD TO NEAR RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES SUNDAY THROUGH TUESDAY. EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY EVENING.”
        Got up at 8am, early for me, and made the decision after sleeping on it, to call Stoney’s son Jimmy to let him know that I was worried about his Dad. He called me back later to tell me he was coming up here, about a three-hour drive, to check the situation out himself. Called Stoney to see if he was okay and if he had his swamp cooler on: he sounded better. Chris was over at the time I called getting the key to the community center; he helps Stoney setup the bags on the Sunday before the USDA Food Distribution, so I volunteered to help Chris set them up so Stoney could stay home.
        Fed Fat Cat and then drove over to the community center to setup those bags with Chris. We jawed while we filled the bags, about the center. Chris found the back gate open and marks on the door where we store the food. Somebody had tried to break in again the night before! We both agreed that we need heavy chains and locks on all doors because it is just too dang easy to pry the latches open; but will the board listen to us?
        Spent the rest of the day over at Stoney’s keeping him company, and stayed for a while after Jimmy arrived to eat some fried chicken he brought and give him a run down on current events. We were all eating the chicken while listening to Jimmy telling funny stories about his daughter’s guinea pigs. And about an episode of “Dirty Jobs”; where Mike Rowe was artificially inseminating turkeys and making subtle sexual undertones about the whole process. We all were laughing pretty hard throughout the story.
        On my way over to feed my friend’s dogs I noticed that Matthew, the Navy Corpsman I wrote about, was home and yakked at him for a spell. Told him that his story was in my column in the paper if he was interested in reading it. He told me that his house is infested with wind spiders; they are ugly looking bugs with big pincer jaws that belong to the scorpion family and crawl over you when you are trying to sleep: Yuck, I hate them things! Then I was on to feed the dogs and give them hotdogs and to make sure they had plenty of water; it was mighty hot today.
        Got home just in time to watch the sunset. I was pretty pooped out the rest of the night and watched “Men in Black” which I’d seen a few times before, but there was nothing else on and I didn’t feel like doing anything other than getting my mind off of things. Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 19- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 to 109 again, light hot breeze out of the NW, humidity around 16 percent, clear skies in the early part of the day with high cirrus clouds later on. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 99. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 5 to 8 mph increasing to between 25 and 28 mph. Tuesday Night: Areas of blowing dust. Mostly clear, with a low around 68. Windy, with a west northwest wind between 24 and 30 mph, with gusts as high as 41 mph. THE EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING WILL EXPIRE AT 7 PM PDT THIS EVENING. AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 12 PM TO 7 PM PDT TUESDAY.” So tomorrow we will have high temps and high winds at the same time! Wonderful! (I’m being sarcastic)
        Chris stopped by with a bag of groceries for me from the USDA food distribution, and to complain about some of the helpers not helping the way he wanted them to help put the food in the bags otherwise everything went well with the distribution.
        Watered my plants and did some yard work. Read some of “Black Holes and Time Warps”, about the invention of the radio telescope. Jimmy came to pick me up to go to town for Stoney. We first stopped off at Pizza Hut to get a large pizza to go. The young waitress there was very talkative and said she was sorry that it wasn’t cooler inside because the air conditioner was on the blink. I tipped her a dollar for being nice. We went on to Staters Bros to get Stoney some groceries and back home, where we sat to eat pizza and tell stories. Stoney is doing a whole lot better today! I was about to leave when “Dirty Jobs” came on with the turkey segment that Jimmy so hilariously described to us yesterday. It was funny but not as funny as Jimmy’s description! Jimmy has a way of story telling that makes you laugh. I decided to do my evening walk from Stoney’s to my house and the temperature was 105 degrees. Then I watched the sun go down over behind the mountains to the west with Fat Cat on my lap.
        Read some Sci-Fi until “Bones” came on FOX. About a jawbone that was delivered to Bones in a box, and the hunt for someone in the lab who had sabotaged an experiment so as to steal a skeleton from the lab.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night; and a warm one at that.

Tuesday 20- did my stretches, ran a mile.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 70 to 100, winds out of the NW at 7-19 MPH with gusts to 35, humidity around 18 percent, a few patches of altocumulus clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Windy, with a northwest wind between 24 and 31 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 61. Breezy, with a northwest wind between 16 and 26 mph, with gusts as high as 34 mph.” Looks like we’ll have a 20 percent chance of rain Thursday and Friday!
        Worked on my column for the newspaper for a few hours writing about Heat Exhaustion and the symptoms to look out for. I had to do some research before I wrote about it. Jimmy came over for a quick visit before his long drive back home. Ron Dehart called to say howdy; he just got back from his trip and we had a lot to catch up on. Finished my column and I think I did a good job on it and sent it to the paper.
        The wind is really starting to blow now, so I’ll skip my evening walk and read some Sci-Fi for a while until “Nova: Lord of the Ants” came on. A story about E. O. Wilson is an entomologist, who created the field of Sociobiology, and collects ants and is a professor at Harvard University. I have read a book that had chronicled his travels to collect new species of ants in the jungles of Central America, and found him fascinating. His dream was to start an encyclopedia of life where each and every species has a webpage dedicated to themselves. This has been accomplished in 2007 with the website EOL.org where scientists young and old can find just about any critter that they are interested in. Great story! Then I watched “NCIS” on CBS where director Shepard dies in a gunfight and the team goes out to discover what happened.
        Andrew left a message saying that he had left donuts in my mailbox; they didn’t last none too long! Called him to say thanks and yap about computers for a spell.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a windy nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 21- did my stretches, and lifted weights. I wanted to run but the wind wouldn’t let me. It blew my front gate down again.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 64 to 85, winds out of the N to NW at 21-29 MPH with gusts to 50 or so, humidity around 21 percent, dark haze from winds. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 72. West northwest wind between 11 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Thursday Night: A slight chance of thunderstorms before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 52. West wind between 12 and 15 mph becoming calm. Chance of precipitation is 10%.”
        Didn’t do a whole bunch of anything outside because of the high winds. What a contrast: having high temps one day then going to low temps the next. The only thing consistent was the high winds. So I spent my time online answering emails and reading Sci-Fi until I got cabin fever and drove on over to Andrew’s to look at some old computers he was given. He gave me one to work on for Frank and Mary to give to their grandkids. It was a Gateway desktop with a P4 processor that wouldn’t boot up; I’ll have to check it out later. Then I went on over to Stoney’s for a little while. Marcie had brought him over something he can eat for dinner and he seemed to be in good spirits today.
        Got home and it was way too windy for an evening walk so I plugged in the Gateway computer after reseating the RAM and checking the connections and was able to boot it up. It is running Windows XP Media Center as an OS and all went fine until it asked for the Administrator password. Well I tried the obvious simple ones that folks use but they didn’t take. Now I’ll have to figure out a way to reset the password before I can get into the system; we have our ways. But this can wait until tomorrow.
        Read and finished the chapter on Serendipity in “Black Holes and Time Warps” about the beginnings of radio astronomy that led to finding quasars, which are really super massive black holes surrounded by an accretion disk that can convert 10% of matter into energy as compared to the Sun’s 0.7%. By heating up this accretion disk with all this energy is the reason they shine so bright. They reside in the center of galaxies billions of light years away, and are the brightest objects in the universe. It is thought that all galaxies in the early universe, even the Milky Way, had started out as some sort of active galaxy like quasars, depending on the size of their black holes, and afterwards settled down after using up the matter in the accretion disk surrounding them.
        Watched “Secrets of the Dead: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists” about; Allied special forces going behind enemy lines towards the end of WII to retrieve Germany’s top secret information on their missiles, jet engines, atomic bomb plans, and scientists.
        Did my stretches; way too windy for a nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 22- did my stretches, and just lifted weights again; too dang windy for my run.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 54 to 70, winds out of the W to NW at 11-24 MPH with gusts to 40 or so, humidity around 30 percent, stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds: got a few drops out of them! According to the National Weather Service “Friday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 71. West wind 6 to 9 mph becoming south southwest between 18 and 21 mph. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph. Friday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 51. West southwest wind 18 to 21 mph decreasing to between 7 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.”
        Went to work on the Gateway computer, hacked into it and reset the Administrator password. Now all the files on the hard drive are accessible to me, but I’m an honest kind of guy and deleted them all without reading them. Let that be a lesson to all! Oh, I could have just taken the hard drive out and hooked it up to another computer to access them, but this was on their own computer and overriding their password. Found out that there are no drivers for the Creative Labs audio, and the audio on the motherboard just isn’t available. So I went online to find the driver, but it was a 39.3Meg download! I’m on dialup and that would take a while; a long while. Called Andrew who has a faster connection and he will download it and bring it by later today. Did a bunch of housework uninstalling useless programs and cleaning up the registry. Enough of this computer stuff for the day, time to do something else.
        I signed up for a “Project Management” online course last week and needed to get caught up on the lessons, so I completed two of them in about two hours. I take these classes to try and stay current with what’s going on. God only knows what I’ll use them on, but the courses keep me occupied and busy: especially on windy days.
        Drove on over to Stoney’s for dinner after I fixed my front gate that keeps being blown over by the winds. We had just finished eating when Sue and Gail came by to chat for a spell. Sue has this small yellow dune buggy with a 250cc engine and asked if I wanted to go for a ride. Well I said yes, and she went tearing around the dirt roads with me hanging on for dear life: Sue likes to accelerate into the turns. I told her to slow down because I didn’t want to make my cat an orphan, but I don’t think that she heard me over the loud whine of the engine.
        I got home safely to my Fat Cat waiting patently at the front gate for me to feed him. Joel came by with my mail and I thanked him before he rushed off to chase down a truck towing a backhoe that had just passed by; he need to borrow one to fix his septic tank. I settled down for a night of mindless web surfing and was interrupted by Andrew when he brought over that audio driver I need for the Gateway computer. He showed me some pics of him on a motorbike he had rented last week when he and a friend went for a cruise around LA. Went back to my web surfing until it got late. I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 23- did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 68, winds out of the W to SW at 4-31 MPH, humidity around 39 percent, stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds: got a few more “drops” out of them! According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: A 20 percent chance of showers after 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 68. Breezy, with a west wind 7 to 10 mph becoming south southwest between 21 and 24 mph. Winds could gust as high as 31 mph. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. South southwest wind 6 to 14 mph becoming west northwest.”
        Andrew called asking if I had installed the drivers for the audio on the Gateway so he could come and get it. Well I hadn’t but I’ll do it right a way, I told him. Ron came by to visit and brought me some chicken gumbo that he made from scratch yesterday. About the same time Andrew came by to pick up the Gateway computer for Frank and Mary. Interesting: I hardly get any visitors. I can go days not having anyone come around. And now I have two that dropped by at the same time.
        It was cold, windy, and damp outside, so I spent the time reading “Black Holes and Time Warps”, but only after I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the newsletter. The chapter I’m reading is called Ripples of Curvatures and is about receiving gravity waves from colliding black holes: inventing and building a device, and formulating mathematical tools to receive and interpret the signal.
        Went on over to Stoney’s were we ate the chicken gumbo. I stayed around to jaw for a spell and watch the Science Channel. Then I went home to go on my evening walk.
        Kept reading until “Numbers” came on CBS about random freeway killings. It was a rerun, but I like the show. Did my stretches, went for my nightly run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 24- did my stretches and ran two miles. A nice cloudy day it is outside.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 to 66, light breeze, humidity around 40 percent, altocumulus clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 70. Light wind becoming southwest between 11 and 14 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 53. West southwest wind between 7 and 14 mph.”
        Called my brother Kevin to yak at him for a while. Then Dale from Landers called to complain on just about everything. I just lend an ear and let him vent his anger about the government and such things like that. Most of it is understandable and I can sympathize with his frustrations; besides he reads my column in the newspaper.
        Continued reading “Black Holes and Time Warps” and fell asleep with the book on my chest. Decided to go over to feed my Friend’s dogs. Fed them hotdogs while I ate a ham sandwich and watched the Science Channel, something about the La Brea Tar Pits and the critters that got stuck there many years ago: Sabertooth tigers, wooly mammoths, and a short-faced bear were among the prehistoric animals found.
        Dropped by Frank and Mary’s for a social visit and yakked about politics. I don’t usually discuss politics with anyone, but I had gotten sucked into it by Mary talking about how she would run the community center, which led onto the subject of the candidates who are running for President; I got away unscathed and with my morals intact. It was later then I thought and was a little late calling my Mom and Dad. So I went to my truck and sat talking to them in front of Frank and Mary’s house.
        Drove on over to Stoney’s where his daughter Judy had driven down from Pittsburgh California for a weeks stay. I haven’t seen her since Thanksgiving and wanted to say hi.
        Got back home and fell asleep again reading “Black Holes and Time Warps” but woke up in time to watch “Good Will Hunting” filmed in 1997. Very good movie, which gave me pause to think of my own life. It is very strange that the movie was broadcast when I’m having some of my own identity problems of a sort.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. The sky was clear, full of stars, and beautiful. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 25- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 65, light breeze becoming SE to SW at 8-19 MPH later in the evening, humidity around 28 percent, altocumulus clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Memorial Day: Sunny, with a high near 74. West wind between 5 and 8 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 53. Southwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming northwest.”
        Went online to do my course on Project Management and completed three lessons, which took the better part of the day to do, and now I’m all caught up. Did some house cleaning and watered the plants outside. Called some Family members to yak at them for a spell.
        Went to feed my Friend’s dogs. I fed them hotdogs while I ate a ham sandwich and watched the Science Channel for a live broadcast of Phoenix Mars Lander as it first approached the atmosphere of Mars. Everyone at JPL in Pasadena was all tense waiting for word that the parachute had deployed; when it did there was some slight cheering. Then the heat shield had been jettisoned; a lot of smiling faces. Then the drop as the vehicle disconnected from the chute and freefell for two and a half seconds; at this point they held their breath. The rockets fired to slow the vehicle and they counted off the meters: 100 meters, 90 meters, 40 meters, 10 meters, touchdown! The whole room exploded into cheers, jubilance, and relief. I wished I could have been there. It must feel really great to be involved and have contributed to something this historical and to the furthering of human knowledge. It would be another two hours before any pictures would be transmitted, so I left.
        Got home and went on my evening walk. Talked to Ron Dehart who called to jaw for a spell about the Mars landing and other stuff. Then I mindlessly surfed the web until the news came on at 11pm so I could catch the first pictures of Mars where the Phoenix probe landed to dig with its backhoe like arm and search for life in the permafrost of Mars polar region. I think this is just wonderful! The first pictures sent were black and white of the solar panels, a landing foot, and a panoramic of the immediate area. Then I did my stretchers, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 26- did my stretches and ran a mile.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 to 78, light N to NW at 10-15 MPH, humidity around 28 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 80. North northwest wind between 3 and 11 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58. South wind 6 to 10 mph becoming west.”
        I kind of just wanted to stay home and read and that’s just what I planned to do after I finish lesson 6 of the online class. I was online most of the day doing updates to my laptop, and the best part of that is nobody could call and disturb me as the updates downloaded. I read “Black Holes and Time Warps” and finished chapter “Ripples of Curvature” about detection of gravitational waves using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory or LIGO for short. The LIGO shoots a laser beam at a mirror that splits the beam in half to send one down a long L shape vacuum shaft and one down the other. These two beam’s waves would then cancel “interference” each other out by the time they reached the photodetector at the center of the L. But if a gravity wave should come through and affect the beam’s wave by increasing it on one side of the L and shorting the beam’s wave on the other side of the L, which would cause the beam’s waves to overlap and be detected by the photodetector. Then I read a chapter called “What is Reality” about curved spacetime and flat spacetime. Where the measurement of one is useful in relativity, the measurement of the other is useful in astrophysics. And how they both are correct and are two different views of the same thing. Curved spacetime is like a bowling ball sagging on the center of a bed; where flat spacetime is the surface of the bed with a paper disk of the circumference of the bowling ball in its center. I guess it would be kind of like using feet or meters to measure the same thing.
        Went for my evening walk. Then continued to read. When I finished the chapter on “What is Reality” I caught up on some astronomy reading I was behind on. And when I finished that I finished the Sci-Fi book I had been reading for a few weeks. That was a lot of reading I did today!
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Saw a meteor shoot across the sky as I jogged up the hill! Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 27- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 79, light NW to SE at 4-12 MPH, humidity around 23 percent, high cirrus mare’s tails. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 85. Northwest wind 6 to 9 mph increasing to between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 21 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 61. South southwest wind 8 to 18 mph becoming west northwest. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph.”
        Stoney called to say he can’t get on the internet, so I went on over, but when I arrived he was sitting at his desk reading his email. He said it just started working. So I checked a few things to make sure everything was connected right and sat and chewed the fat with him for a while. Got home and went right to work on my column for the newspaper and I haven’t a clue what to write about, yikes! There just isn’t a whole lot happening in our little community that’s news worthy or fit to print sometimes. Well I did manage to pull some things together, made up a “Thought of the Week”; made sure it all sounded right, and sent it to them.
        Started reading the next chapter in “Black Holes and Time Warps” called “Black Holes Evaporate”. So far it tells the story of Stephen Hawking’s idea of an absolute horizon; that a horizon of a black hole isn’t apparent but absolute and its event horizon is created at a stars center before it collapses and information is able to escape, as compared to an apparent horizon that happens all at once. Anyways that’s how I understood it and I still have more of the chapter to read.
        Went for my evening walk and met Andrew and his dogs on the trail. We walked and talked as the dogs sniffed at this and that.
        Downloaded another Sci-Fi book for my PDA called “Pandora's Legions” by Christopher Anvil. I just completed another book by him called “Interstellar Patrol” and thought it was a good read. So I read into the night. I always wondered when I was younger what folks did before TV was invented. I grew up watching the “Tube” and like most kids of my time TV was the perfect babysitter. I wonder how we would be now if we read books and expanded our minds instead of watching cartoons and sitcoms like “I Love Lucy”? What if TV was educational back then? Would the world be a better place? Are we continuing this impulsive cycle of mindless TV watching on the children of today? Are we continuing it with ourselves? Maybe it’s time to take pause and do a little self-examination. Now I do watch a little TV. I have a few favorite shows, but I have made my mind up to limit what I watch and to a few hours a week. I may even cut this down some more. We all have a choice what we do with our time, our lives, what we become, don’t we?
        Then I did my stretches, lifted weights, went for my nightly run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 28- did my stretches and ran two miles.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 53 to 80, winds from the NW to SW at 8-14 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, cumulus humilis (fair weather clouds). According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 80. Calm wind becoming southwest between 10 and 13 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58. West wind between 8 and 13 mph.”
        Went online to answer some emails that have been piling up in my inbox begging for attention. Water my plants in the backyard while I did a defrag on the IBM laptop.
        Went over to Stoney’s to help him move some boxes into Judy’s car. He is looking much better everyday!
        Got back home to read the rest of the chapter called “Black Holes Evaporate” where I left off with Stephen Hawking’s idea of an absolute horizon. It seems that black holes radiate by means of vacuum fluctuation, where virtual particles pop in and out of existence in pairs. But because of the strong gravity waves at the holes horizon one of these virtual particles gains enough mass to become real and evaporates out while the other half of the pair vanishes. This evaporating increases the entropy (the randomness of ways particles can be distributed and interact with one another) of the universe and decreases it in the black hole. This evaporating will over a long period of time (more than the current age of the universe) cause the black hole to loose spin, grow smaller, hotter, and possibly explode. This all agrees with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and that the laws of black hole mechanics are the laws of thermodynamics in disguise. Okay, now my head is hurting now! There was much to remember in this chapter, I think I got it right, but this is how I understood it.
        Went for my evening walk. Then I watched “Secrets of the Dead: Herculaneum Uncovered” about the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius that covered and destroyed the Roman city of Herculaneum with Pyroclastic flows. Very good program!
        Read some Sci-Fi until 11:30pm when I put down the book and did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my evening run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 29- did my stretches, ran a mile, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 82, winds from the NW to W at 7-12 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 86. North wind between 5 and 9 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 60. South southwest wind 8 to 14 mph becoming west northwest.”
        There was just a light breeze blowing and I thought that I better get cracking on the patio. I had to figure out just how I was going to put the rest of the roof up with the new panels I scrounged up in Stoney’s backyard a few weeks ago. His backyard is more like a junkyard full of auto parts, fence parts, part parts, just about anything that you need you can find there. So this is how I spent my day; hammering, sawing, drilling, climbing up and down the latter, and added five more feet to the roof. Tomorrow will be about the same unless the winds pick up. Boy am I tired! Oh before I forget, I was working on the roof and I heard this buzzing noise that sounded like thousands of bees. It kept growing louder and louder, the skies darken, and it started to freak me out! I thought it was some new kind of aircraft from the Marine Base. But it turned out to be a big swarm of bees that flew right over my house and continued up the hill. Wow!
        Went for my evening walk. Got back and read some Sci-Fi for a while (I thought I’d take a break from the physics book to give my little brain a rest), and then went online to do some work. It got late so I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 30- did my stretches, ran a mile, and rode my bike. A very nice and wonderful day!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 90, winds from the E to SW at 4-8 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 90. North northwest wind 6 to 14 mph becoming south southwest. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 62. Southwest wind 11 to 17 mph becoming northwest. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph.”
        After updating the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sending out the newsletter, I went right back to work on the patio roof. I needed two more panels to complete it. So on the way over to Stoney’s to pick up a few more I stopped over to feed my Friend’s dogs, fed them hotdogs and made sure that they had enough food and water. Stoney knew I was coming and cooked up some leftovers for lunch. We had steak, roast beef, and potatoes with gravy! Boy was I full when I left there and almost forgot the panels.
        I nailed up the last of the panels on to the roof and now I’m done with that part of the patio. Now there is just a few things I need to do to strengthen it and then paint it!
        Read a chapter in “Black Holes and Time Warps” called “Inside Black Holes” about the history leading up to our present (1993) knowledge of what might be inside. As you approach the singularity quantum gravity takes over when the oscillation of tidal gravity, spacetime curvature, becomes so large that it totally deforms matter so much that time is stripped from spacetime. And since there is no time you can only deal with probabilistic values; you can no longer say that this will happen now or that will happen later, you can only say that there is a probability that it may happen. Some believe that a singularity is made up of quantum foam; where probabilistics are the rule. There was even a part that I read where our universe was created from a singularity; that surprised me because I’ve been thinking about this for some time now and I believe that the big bang is in actuality part of a singularity that has slowed down somehow; the Big Bang is like the sparks that fly off a fast turning grinding wheel when you put metal to it. And our universe is speeding to catch up and become part of the singularity again. Anyways this is all speculation on my part!
        Went for my evening walk and then finished the chapter on “Inside Black Holes” and then read some Sci-FI for the rest of the night. Then I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 31- did my stretches, ran a mile, and lifted weights. Another fine day!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 61 to 96, winds from the NW to SW at 6-12 MPH, humidity around 18 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 94. West northwest wind between 9 and 15 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 68. West northwest wind around 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
        Went online to read my emails. One nice lady I know who lives in the Philippines and has a dangerous job working for a construction company hasn’t emailed me in a week and I was starting to get worried, but she had just sent me one today. The reason why she hadn’t written was that Communist rebels had flattened her tires, so she called the police. She was given a ride home while the police investigated. She received a call later that a bomb had been planted in the car and had blown it up along with two people! Well that totally sucks! I only hope that this is a motivator for her to seek employment elsewhere. My good friend Mynor called to touch base.
        Called Family and Friends to yak at them until it was time to go to potluck at the community center. We had Thirteen hungry folks show up: Lee and Marcie Hines, Cal and his wife, Stoney, Bob and Rick Seeley, Ruth Molten, Rose, three folks from Landers and me. There was enough food on the table for everyone to have seconds. I liked the chicken casserole that we top off with a spoon full of sour cream. Mighty good!
        Went to feed my Friend’s dogs making sure they had enough food and water, and of course hotdogs. Stayed there to make a few more calls to Family and Friends, and kept the dogs company.
        Got home just as the sun was setting and went for my evening walk. A Friend lent me a copy of “National Treasures: Book of Secrets”. I had wanted to see it at the theater when it first came out, but things happened that prevented me from going. It was about treasure hunter Ben Gates who has to clear his family name. An old document from a diary had his great-great grandfather being the architect for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Great move! I liked the first one too!
        Been giving some thought about the chapter on “Inside Black holes” that I wrote about yesterday. It has occurred to me that there seems to be a series of limits to the oscillations and applied pressure of matter that leads from the birth of a star when it ignites its hydrogen, then on to helium and onto heavier elements ending in iron. Finally imploding to form a white dwarf supported by electron degeneracy pressure, or a neutron star that exceeds 1.4 solar masses (the Chandrasekhar limit) supported by neutron degeneracy pressure, or creates a black hole where quantum gravity takes over. Seems to me that these are all due to the squeezing of matter making them compact and excited until they are so squeezed together and so excited that when matter reaches the black hole stage matter achieves the speed of light that cannot be exceeded in our universe. And that’s when spacetime gets stripped of the dimension of time, and possibly (this is my thought) other dimensions as well to form a singularity that has infinite density and zero volume. This is where the laws of Relativity breaks down and enters the real of quantum physics. Is the oscillation from each of these limits I’ve mentioned comparable to, lets say, notes on a piano where they can be quantified in relation to each other? Hey it’s just a thought. I’m still learning and I have so many questions. Quantum gravity seems really interesting to me!
        Did my stretches and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to the month of May, you been a weird month!

Saturday 31- did my stretches, ran a mile, and lifted weights. Another fine day!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 61 to 96, winds from the NW to SW at 6-12 MPH, humidity around 18 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 94. West northwest wind between 9 and 15 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 68. West northwest wind around 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
        Went online to read my emails. One nice lady I know who lives in the Philippines and has a dangerous job working for a construction company hasn’t emailed me in a week and I was starting to get worried, but she had just sent me one today. The reason why she hadn’t written was that Communist rebels had flattened her tires, so she called the police. She was given a ride home while the police investigated. She received a call later that a bomb had been planted in the car and had blown it up along with two people! Well that totally sucks! I only hope that this is a motivator for her to seek employment elsewhere. My good friend Mynor called to touch base.
        Called Family and Friends to yak at them until it was time to go to potluck at the community center. When I arrived Stoney was sitting at a table outside jawing with a few men folk. He is back to his old self! We had Thirteen hungry folks show up: Lee and Marcie Hines, Cal and his wife, Stoney, Bob and Rick Seeley, Ruth Molten, Rose, three folks from Landers and me. There was enough food on the table for everyone to have seconds. I liked the chicken casserole that we top off with a spoon full of sour cream. Mighty good!
        Went to feed my Friend’s dogs making sure they had enough food and water, and of course hotdogs. Stayed there to make a few more calls to Family and Friends, and kept the dogs company.
        Got home just as the sun was setting and went for my evening walk. A Friend lent me a copy of “National Treasures: Book of Secrets”. I had wanted to see it at the theater when it first came out, but things happened that prevented me from going. It was about treasure hunter Ben Gates who has to clear his family name. An old document from a diary had his great-great grandfather being the architect for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Great move! I liked the first one too!
        Been giving some thought about the chapter on “Inside Black holes” that I wrote about yesterday. It has occurred to me that there seems to be a series of limits to the oscillations and applied pressure of matter that leads from the birth of a star when it ignites its hydrogen, then on to helium and onto heavier elements ending in iron. Finally imploding to form a white dwarf supported by electron degeneracy pressure, or a neutron star that exceeds 1.4 solar masses (the Chandrasekhar limit) supported by neutron degeneracy pressure, or creates a black hole where quantum gravity takes over. Seems to me that these are all due to the squeezing of matter making them compact and excited until they are so squeezed together and so excited that when matter reaches the black hole stage matter achieves the speed of light that cannot be exceeded in our universe. And that’s when spacetime gets stripped of the dimension of time, and possibly (this is my thought) other dimensions as well to form a singularity that has infinite density and zero volume. This is where the laws of Relativity breaks down and enters the real of quantum physics. Is the oscillation from each of these limits I’ve mentioned comparable to, lets say, notes on a piano where they can be quantified in relation to each other? Hey it’s just a thought. I’m still learning and I have so many questions. Quantum gravity seems really interesting to me!
        Did my stretches and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to the month of May, you been a weird month!