May 2009

Welcome to the month of May - As you may know, if you’re a reader of my journal, I took a week’s vacation. I’m back to writing starting today, Sunday May 03. Oh, and by the way I drove to Tucson to visit Family and Friends. It was a wonderful visit. Fat Cat stayed home while I was gone and made a mad dash between my legs to get outside when I first opened the door, only to come back when he heard me open a can of smelly cat food. I think I’m forgiven for my absence because he slept curled up by my feet last night.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 89 degrees, NW winds at 11 to 19 MPH with gusts up to around 50, humidity around 20 percent, mostly clear. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 88. West northwest wind between 10 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 63. West northwest wind between 13 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.”
Updated the COPPER MOUNTAIN MESA WEBSITE and sent out the Newsletter.
It’s very, very windy outside so I stayed inside putting stuff away from my trip to Arizona and did a major cleaning job on the refrigerator with bleach.
I worked on some computer projects that I have. One is fixing a laptop that seems to have lost its video or the motherboard is fried, I don’t know which yet, but I was able to take the hard drive out and make a backup of their files just in case the laptop is junk or is too expensive to fix.
I went over to Stoney’s for dinner. He made a tamale pie that was exceptional. While I was there he asked me to do a clean and defrag on his desktop. He wanted me to teach him how to do it on his own, so I walked him through the steps several time until he grasped it. I like it when folks want to learn instead of just having me do it.
When I got back home Fat Cat was waiting for me at the front gate, probably thinking I left for another trip- I fed him again. Called a few friends and then I watched “60 Minutes” on CBS.
Joel came by with a week’s worth of my mail that had accumulated while I was away. Then I went back to putting my home back in order. It’s funny how much work there is to do for a seven day trip!
I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 04 - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike. I needed to work off all that food I ate in Tucson!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 63 and 89 degrees, NW winds at 8 to 20 MPH with gusts up to around 30 or so, humidity around 21 percent, hazy skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 91. Northwest wind between 14 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph. Tuesday Night: Clear, with a low around 63. Breezy, with a west northwest wind 23 to 26 mph decreasing to between 11 and 14 mph. Winds could gust as high as 37 mph.”
I went to work on Mark’s laptop and found the reason for its demise; lint had collected around the vent inside blocking any cooling of the processor and video card. I will have to go online sometime later to price replacements. With that out of the way, I played around with Puppy Linux loading it on three laptops to see if it would find all the devices. It found the modem on my Toshiba and old IBM laptops and I was able to get online on both machines! I loaded it up on my HP Netbook but the audio wouldn’t work and it couldn’t find the USB modem- but I didn’t think it would.
Stoney called telling me he baked a pumpkin pie! I went over to his house after I went on my evening walk. Yesterday when I was backing out of his driveway I accidentally bumped into his SUV. At the time I thought it didn’t do any damage, but when I looked at it today I noticed that I had cracked his left tail lens. I told him about it only after I had a slice of that pumpkin pie! He said he get Denny his son-in-law to find a replacement and I told him I’d pay for it. We also finished off the tamale pie he made on Sunday. We watched a little bit of “Myth Busters” too.
Got back home and played around with the laptops until Kevin called to yap. Then I watched “24” on Fox where Jack is still trying to save the world from evil doers.
I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a nightly run. I practiced my guitar. Wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in. Then I wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 05 - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 63 and 89 degrees, NW winds at 11 to 16 MPH with gusts up to around 28 or so, humidity around 23 percent, mostly clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 94. Northwest wind between 6 and 10 mph. Wednesday Night: Clear, with a low around 67. West northwest wind between 9 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.”
I decided to install puppy Linux 4.2 on an old IBM ThinkPad running with a 300 MHz processor and a 2Gig IDE Flash drive. I ran Gparted to partition editor because I have Win98 running very well and I want to keep it and do a dual boot with Grub bootloader. I made the mistake of formatting the new partition to FAT16 and it wouldn’t boot, so I used EXT2 and it booted up just fine. I tinkered around with the system a bit getting the modem to work and a few other things. The modem is 56k but I don’t think that it was recognized as such; it is very slow! I’ll have to look into that. Puppy seems to work very well on these older systems and now that they made it easy to setup a dialup modem I may suggest it to folks who are running Win98 on older machines, since I now know how to install it to a hard drive.
I started reading “The Dork of Cork” by Chet Raymo, who also wrote “365 Starry Nights” that I been rereading every year for the past three years or so. In 365 Starry Nights Chet guides you night by night through the heavens and I found this book a help in remembering the fundamentals in astronomy.
Stoney called to tell me he made two more pies! He’s really getting into this pie baking thing. Well since I’m his taste tester I was obliged to ride my Trusty Scooter over to his house and do some sampling; they were mighty tasty and he is getting better at it too!
I went for my evening walk, but a short one because of the strong NW wind. I called Kevin to yap at him for a spell. Then I watched “NCIS” on CBS, and “Fringe” on Fox.
I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a nightly run, now that it has warmed up a bit at night I hope to do this more often. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 06 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 63 and 89 degrees, NW winds at 11 to 14 MPH with gusts up to around 26 or so, humidity around 21 percent, mostly clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 98. North northwest wind at 11 mph becoming west southwest. Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around 67. West northwest wind between 8 and 13 mph.”
I’m doing spring cleaning and got the kitchen done after a lot of hard work. I sat down for a brake to do a little reading.
Took my Trusty Scooter over to check on a friend’s place while he’s away on vacation- everything was in its place. Then I stopped off at Stoney’s for a short visit and ate some of that pie he has in the refrigerator. Then it was back home to do a little more work.
I went on my evening walk and listened to an astronomy lecture about how galaxies form; Some super galaxies had started after the big bang, while other smaller galaxies merged with others to form large galaxies like our own Milky Way, which is a conglomeration of smaller galaxies swap up by the gravity pull when they come too close or collide.
I decided not to watch any TV tonight and I just mindlessly surfed the web. Then I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, and called it a night.

Thursday 07 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 67 and 89 degrees, NW-SW winds at 10 to 12 MPH with gusts up to around 20 or so, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 98. North northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph. Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 66. West northwest wind between 8 and 11 mph.”
I got back to my spring cleaning tackling another small part of the house and spent most of the day doing this. I can’t believe some of the crap that I’ve accumulated and started to throw most of the crap in the garbage, while I listened to a bunch of old astronomy lectures.
Dale from Landers called to say that my column didn’t come out in its usual Saturday place, but was printed in Wednesday’s paper. The newspaper had put up a notice that they ran out of room on Saturday’s paper.
I watched the nightly news- sad to see all those homes going up in smoke around Santa Barbara.
Called Kevin and yakked for a spell. He accidently went swimming with his cell phone yesterday and had to buy a replacement for it. He said he was waiting for an important call and forgot it was in his swimming trunks. I told him that was one expensive call!
I watched “Bones” on Fox, then two “CSI” on CBS. I don’t much care for the new CSI that came on first, but the second one was a rerun with Grissom and I liked it very much.
Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 08 - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 66 and 89 degrees, NW-SE winds at 6 to 12 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 97. Light wind becoming west between 13 and 16 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 67. West northwest wind between 9 and 16 mph.”
Coming over a hill on my run there was a white truck with its engine idling parked in the middle of the dirt road. Then I spotted a guy holding some kind of long stick with a saucer on the end, so naturally I ran up to him to see what he was doing. His name was Frank, a surveyor from Orange County working for Edison, trying to find these little round surveyor markers that are placed here and there, some from as long as 1944. Frank said that Edison is replacing some electric poles that run to the Marine base.
Spring cleaning, more of the same as yesterday except another part of the house. This time it’s my living room bookshelves and computer desk. I had to take all the books off the shelves, dust them off, wipe down the shelves, and then put everything back up. I listened to more astronomy lectures while I was cleaning. It doesn’t sound like much, but it took the better part of the day.
Took a brake and went over to Stoney’s for some of that fine pumpkin pie he baked. While I ate the pie, we watched “America’s Funniest Videos”. It had me laughing so hard when they showed folks losing their pants while Wager’s “Ride of the Valkyries” played in the background.
I did a little more cleaning when I got home. I started reading a few chapters of “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” by John Boslough. I went for my evening walk, and then read a little of “The Dork from Cork”.
I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a nightly run. I practiced my guitar until “Numb3rs” came on CBS. It was about bank robbers that are re-doing old unsolved bank heists. I wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 09 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 67 and 101 degrees, NW-SW winds at 7 to 14 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 98. Northwest wind at 9 mph becoming east southeast. Sunday Night: Clear, with a low around 68. West southwest wind between 7 and 11 mph.”
I’m going to keep this post short because I am very tired from painting.
I updated the COPPER MOUNTAIN MESA WEBSITE and sent out the Newsletter.
Once done with that I went outside and moved everything away from the walls of the house and prepped them for painting. Then I spent the next four or five hours painting the outside walls with Snow Coat. The temp got a little over the 100s and I was sweating profusely and it seemed that I was getting more paint on me than the house. The dang handle broke off the paint roller and I had to improvise by drilling a hole in a broom stick and stuck the roller handle into that, it worked just fine. I completed the three walls and then cleaned up, but I still have some spots of paint that still linger on my fingers and a few places in my hair. What a mess!
I called a few Family and Friends but my arms was so tired that I could hardly hold the phone up to my head to talk. I spent the rest of the night resting- Then I wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 10 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 98 degrees, NW-SW winds at 6 to 12 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 97. West northwest wind between 9 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 68. West northwest wind between 14 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.”
I forgot to mention that sweet Sherry came by yesterday and we yapped for a spell, she sitting in her car and I standing outside without a shirt on getting a sunburn that I discovered this morning.
My body is still trying to recover from all that hard work I did yesterday while painting my house, so I mostly took it easy making Mother’s Day calls and messing around with computers.
Kula called to tell me that she had a problem with her HP printer cartridges she bought on eBay being expired and the printer wouldn’t accept them. She got mad and did a search with Google and found how to fix the problem by removing the battery from the printer that keeps the current date. I am mighty proud of her!!!
I went over to Stoney’s house to take a shower and eat some pumpkin pie. I stayed for a while and watched part of a western with him.
I got back home and tinkered with the computers trying to get a DVD that I own converted over to an AVI file that I can store on a thumb drive and watch on my Netbook. Unfortunately the program I was using didn’t have the codex for the audio. I’ll have to look into that later.
Mark called about his sick laptop and I gave him the good and bad news. The good is I’ll be able to retrieve his files off the hard drive. The bad is it may need a new processor or a video card. I tried all the simple things first and it still wouldn’t boot. I still have to search the web to see if there is some kind of fix that is unique to his machine.
I watched “Terminator 3”. I’ve seen it before a few years ago and like very much. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 11 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 98 degrees, NW-W winds at 7 to 15 MPH, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 96. West northwest wind between 9 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Tuesday Night: Clear, with a low around 65. West northwest wind between 13 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph.”
I put on my good clothes and headed out to Twentynine Palms. It’s my day to see the Doctor and get a prescription filled. I only go to see him once a year because that’s all I can afford. I first stopped to get gas for the Gross Polluter which was near empty, then over to the post office to mail a few letters. I got to the Doc’s ten minutes before my appointment at 2pm. They took my weight: 177- my blood pressure: 122/64- and I sat in the examination room for another twenty before the Doc showed. It wasn’t my regular Doc but a nurse practitioner, but he said that he could do everything the Doc can do except admit me to the hospital. I told him I don’t need no admitting and to go ahead with the examination. I told him my ills and he checked this and that and wrote me a few prescriptions and I was on my way.
I went to Stater Bros to get some supplies, stopped to get Stoney’s mail, checked my friend’s property to make sure it is okay while he’s away on vacation, dropped by Stoney’s to give him his mail and have some pumpkin pie, and finally got home and put the groceries away.
I read some of “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” until Kevin called and we yakked for a spell. I watched “24” on Fox where Jack still is trying to save the world but the evil doers keep getting in his way. Then I read a little more. Ron Dehart called; he usually doesn’t call this late. We had a nice chat that lasted over forty minutes!
I’ve heard that gravity is a weaker force than the strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism when dealing with particles at the molecular scale. But I believe gravity is the stronger force when a star collapses into a singularity, gravity rips away space time, and a singularity is as small as you can go. Just a thought I had.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 12 - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 100 degrees, NW-W winds at 8 to 15 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 92. North northwest wind between 6 and 13 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 66. West northwest wind between 9 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.”
I was riding my bike up the hill when the FEDEX delivery truck was driving down. I stopped half way up because I knew he had a package for me. I finished my ride, went online to answer a few emails, check the news to see if the world was in one piece while eating my breakfast. Only then did I open the package from Crucial.com that contained one 2Gig of Ram and one 32Gig SSD (Solid State Drive) for my Dell Mini 9. I have two Mini 9s; one with 512Meg RAM and 4Gig drive, and the other with 1Gig RAM and 8Gig drive. The plan is to swap out the 1Gig RAM and 8Gig SSD to the 512Meg RAM and 4Gig drive, and install the new 2Gig of Ram and one 32Gig into the other. Everything went well and was surprised that the 8Gig SSD that contained Win XP and all my files booted right up on the other machine that I replaced the 4Gig SSD without any errors or nag popups saying this is the wrong computer, cool! I now have a Dell Mini 9 with 2Gigs of RAM and a 32Gig SSD (This is the one with a camera and Bluetooth built in) and another with 1Gig of RAM and 8Gig SSD! I spent the better part of the day loading up Win XP and the drivers when I realized that I could do a clone from the Mini 9 8Gig SSD system that has Win XP with all the updates and all my files with a new cloning program I have and load it on the Mini 9 with the 32Gig SSD. I think I’ll try this tomorrow after I copy all Mark’s files off his sick laptop’s hard drive so I can mail the disk when I go to town in the next day or so- it be a neat test of the cloning program.
I went for my evening walk, watched the nightly news, and yakked with Kevin when he called. Then I watched “NCIS” on CBS, and “Fringe” on Fox; I still say the Mad Scientist makes the show worth wild to watch!
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.
Late last night after I wrote to my journal, I wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it to them.

Wednesday 13 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 66 and 93 degrees, NW-SW winds at 6 to 13 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 92. Calm wind becoming southwest between 10 and 13 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 69. West wind between 7 and 10 mph.”
Well sometimes simple things turn to calamity. I was trying to back up Mark’s sick laptop. I had it hooked up on the SATA adapter and all was well except my external DVD burner; the XP laptop wouldn’t recognize the darn disk, dang! So I took the SATA adapter to my MacBook that has a DVD burner build in. It recognized the DVD but would only show one partition on the SATA drive, of course it wasn’t the partition I needed, and no matter what I tried it always came up with the same partition, double dang! So I took everything back to the XP laptop and finally got it to recognize the DVD disk and was able to copy all his files to two DVDs and that took a while because I was going from one USB device to another. I labeled both DVDs and wrapped them up, addressed them to Mark and tomorrow when Ron and I go to town to see Star Trek at the theater I will mail them.
I called Stoney to see what he was up to. He went to town with Mary and had lunch at a Chinese joint. Good for him! He also said the Roger planted some cantaloupe and watermelon in his garden. So I guess we’ll be eating them in a few months if the rabbits don’t get them first.
I watered the plants and went for an evening walk. After watching the nightly news to see what other kinds of messes our government got us into, and talking to Kevin, I decided to just mindlessly surf the web the rest of the night. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 14 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 and 94 degrees, NW-SW winds at 9 to 15 MPH, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 92. Calm wind becoming south between 8 and 11 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 69. South southwest wind 6 to 10 mph becoming west northwest.”
I ate a small breakfast while I read my email, then I got ready to go to town with Ron Dehart to see Star Trek and go to the Sizzler for dinner and stuff our faces. We stopped off at the post office so I could send Mark’s backup DVDs and to check if there was a package for me from Kevin that was sent over 15 days ago; it wasn’t there.
Then we arrived at the theater in Yucca Valley, purchased our tickets, and watched one of the best Star Trek movies I’ve ever seen! It surpassed my expectations and the writers put a brilliant new twist in the plot that was unexpected by me, which will affect any future Star Trek movies or TV series that may come out in the future. It’s a whole new ball game! Yes it was that good! Enough said! Go and see it!
We ate at the Sizzler Steak House and pigged out. We stopped at Home Depot to pick up a few items. I bought a new paint roller handle that extends out to about four feet to replace the one that fell apart last week. Then we drove on home. What a fantastic day!!!
I returned calls that were left on my message machine, there were two, both want me to hook up their computers; I told them I might be available next week. Then I called Kevin and yakked with him for over an hour (must have been all that chocolate syrup I put on my ice cream at the Sizzler).
I did a bunch of reading of “Steven Hawking’s Universe” and “The Dork from Cork” until late into the night. I went outside for a bit. The sky was clear with no Moon. If it wasn’t for the wind I’d have my telescope out.
I did my stretches; I was still too full from eating and didn’t want to risk heart failure so I didn’t go for a run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 15 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 and 99 degrees, NW-SE winds at 7 to 10 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 99. Calm wind becoming east between 5 and 8 mph. Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 69. South southwest wind between 6 and 9 mph becoming calm.”
Ron Dehart invited me over to his house to take a look at his Martin Guitar he just acquired. I sat down and must have played it for almost an hour. Mighty nice guitar! We’ve been looking at getting satellite internet for some time now. I found one called Skyway that has plans that start at around $30. I called them up yesterday and yakked at them about the service but I couldn’t get any coherent response, so I wanted Ron to call them up and see if he could get some straight answers. He did, and it maybe the way to go for low cost high speed internet out our way.
I read a few chapters of “Steven Hawking’s Universe” and then went over to have dinner with Stoney and Roger Smith. We had a roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn bread, and barbecued beans. We sat around and talked shop for a spell, but I left when they started watching westerns on TV. So that makes two days in a row that I stuffed myself! I think I’ll cut down with the pigging out for a while.
I watched the nightly news, yapped with Kevin, and then read and finished the Hawking book. Read a little of “The Dork from Cork”, too.
I watched “Numb3rs” on CBS. The last show had left us with Anita being kidnapped by Manson like followers. Tonight it was all about her rescue. Good show!
I did my stretches, but didn’t practice my guitar because I had already played today and my fingers are sore. I updated the COPPER MOUNTAIN MESA WEBSITE and sent out the Newsletter. Then I wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 16 - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 and 101 degrees, NW-SE winds at 7 to 10 MPH, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 98. South southwest wind at 10 mph becoming east southeast. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 71. West southwest wind between 3 and 8 mph.”
I did a little watering of my plants and then went inside to try and finish some installs on the Dell Mini 9 that has the 32Gig flash drive. I installed Ms Office for students and the SP2 for Office, IE8, and a copy of the electronic full version of Encyclopedia Britannica. The QuickTime version 6 something didn’t want to work, so I’ll download a new version some other time. I was listening to an astronomy lecture on the expansion of space while I was doing the installs.
I called up a few Friends and Family and pestered them throughout the day. Then I went for my evening walk and continued the installs when I got back. I was a little tired so I just mindlessly surfed the web as I do every once in a while.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 18 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 72 and 97 degrees, calm winds, humidity around 22 percent, overcast skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11am. Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 99. North northwest wind 6 to 16 mph becoming east northeast. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 70. West wind 17 to 20 mph decreasing to between 8 and 11 mph. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph.”
I’m still recovering from the painting I did on Ron’s roof yesterday night and I’m mighty tired, so I’m going to make this post short.
First of all I didn’t get to sleep till 4am and awoke at 12:30pm; Fat Cat was banging at the door to be fed and woke me up. It was overcast outside and I heard that it rained in some places around in our area but not here. After my exercises I messed around on the Dell Mini 9 trying to fix QuickTime to play on the Encyclopedia Britannica. I found a fix for it last night but it didn’t work. I installed iTunes that comes bundled with QuickTime to see if that would get it working but it didn’t. I don’t like installing Apple software on my computers because they never work well, and iTunes come with a program called Bonjour that slows my system down to a crawl. I don’t want it, I wasn’t given the chance to unselect it when installing iTunes, so I have to disable or uninstall it. Maybe Apple improved Bonjour from the last time I had rid it from my computer a few years ago. We’ll see.
I went over to Stoney’s for dinner. We had leftovers from Friday’s dinner.
I got back home and went for my evening walk. I called Chris who is in charge of the USDA food distribution, he wasn’t there and I left a message for him to call. I want to get info for a story for the newspaper about the distribution. Then I watched the season finale of “24” where Jack finally saved the world form evil doers, until next season if he survives the deadly virus he is infected with.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal (or else ya wouldn’t be reading this), posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 19 - I did my stretches. I’m nursing a twisted leg from last night when I was trying to catch Fat Cat who for some reason didn’t want to go outside
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 70 and 98 degrees, NW-SW winds at 8to 14 MPH, humidity around 18 percent, overcast skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 91. West northwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming south southwest between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 67. Southwest wind between 10 and 13 mph becoming calm. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph.”
I went over to P’s to hook up a newer computer than the one she presently has. I got it up and going after I installed Avast anti-virus and put her user ID and password in for dialup. We found out that her gaming site she visits needs JAVA and we downloaded that too.
Then I went to Rose’s to checkout a computer she got from her sister to use. It’s a no-name (white box) that’s trying to run Win XP on a 380Mzh or something processor with 128Meg of RAM! I discovered that she didn’t have a mouse and I had to use keyboard commands to get any info. I suggested that she go ahead and purchase the newer one she’s been looking at. She showed me her cute little baby goat that’s going to the vet tomorrow to get de-balled. Poor goat!!!
I then stopped over at Ron’s house to help him install the Encyclopedia Britannica on his Mac. The first problem we had was that Norton kept scanning every disk that we put in and hung the system on the sixth and final disk. I hate Norton! The first thing I do on any system I work on is uninstalling it and put some other anti-virus and firewall on. Ron didn’t want Norton on his Mac either, so I went and found every occurrence of Norton in OSX 10.4, there were many, and dragged them into the trash bin. Then I left Ron to install Britannica once I made sure that Norton didn’t pop its nasty little head up again.
I got home and went on my evening walk, watched the nightly news, and called Kevin. Bob Vandenberg called asking me if I saw Star Trek. I told him I did but I’d be more than willing to see it again. He will come up sometime when his schedule is free and we’ll go to Yucca to see it.
I watched “NCIS” and then “The Mentalist” on CBS. I just felt like chilling tonight. I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 20 - I did my stretches, ran two miles, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 67 and 92 degrees, NW-SW winds at 6 to 14 MPH, humidity around 24 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11am. Partly cloudy, with a high near 90. Northwest wind 7 to 13 mph becoming south. Winds could gust as high as 18 mph. Thursday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 66. West southwest wind between 7 and 11 mph.”
I went to work sorting through clothes that I don’t want or never wear in an effort to get rid me and my home of clutter. After a few hours I came up with two large bags of clothes that I’ll donate.
I went for my evening walk and then went over to Mat’s home for dinner. We jawed about astronomy, computers, and such for a spell- so long a spell that I didn’t get home until 11:30pm! I was having a great time. We traded books that each of us thought the other would enjoy. It’s nice to have a chance to talk to someone who has much the same interests as I.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 21 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 66 and 92 degrees, S-SE winds at 4 to 9 MPH with a few large dust devils, humidity around 28 percent, mostly clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 91. Calm wind becoming south southeast between 7 and 10 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 67. West southwest wind 15 to 18 mph decreasing to between 5 and 8 mph. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph.”
Kevin called to say that the disk drive he sent on the nineteenth of last month finally arrived at the JT post office. He sent it a week before I went to visit him in Tucson and I could have picked it up there! I mean it took about a month for it to get to me! The USPS is very slow. So that’s where I went today, down to the post office to pick it up.
After the visit to the post office I went to WalMart to pick up a few items. The guitar player who normally sits outside there was nowhere in sight; I hope he’s ok. I stopped off at Stater Bros to get some raisins that I forgot on my last trip there; then onto home.
I called Stoney but his battery in his phone kept dying out on him. All I’d here was hello, hello, whose there? And it would go dead. Finally he switched phones and called me back. He is baking some pumpkin pies for tomorrow!
Then I called Bob Vandenberg and got the same response from his phone that I got from Stoney’s. Bob called me back when he got home to tell me he sat on his cell phone and it doesn’t work right anymore: he cracked the display on it, lost all his phone numbers, and basically needs a new phone. We yapped for a spell of friends and times gone passed. He told me that our friend Skip from grade school had passed away in 2006 and I was saddened to hear that. Also another friend Nick had broke his neck while working in construction and is unable to walk. When Star Wars came out we all teased Nick for looking like Chewbacca!
I decided to mindlessly surf the web all night till it was time to get ready for bed. I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 22 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 67 and 92 degrees, NW-S winds at 4 to 16 MPH with a few large dust devils, humidity around 32 percent, mostly clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 91. Calm wind becoming south southwest between 17 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 67. West southwest wind between 6 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.”
I was going to do a full workout but decided to put a second coat of paint on the exterior of my house instead. Now that I got the right tool (a roller with an extended handle) I was able to do the three walls in about two hours without getting white paint all over me.
I hopped on my Trusty Scooter and went to check my friend’s home who is on vacation and all was well. Then on my way back I stopped off at Stoney’s to sample the pumpkin pie he made. It turned out to be sweet potato pie- Stoney tricked me into believing it was pumpkin- and I thought it tasted much better!
When I got back home I filled up the bug sprayer and put down a layer of the deadly stuff around the house and especially inside the battery room where the last wall I need to paint is crawling with spiders. Tomorrow if I get time I will remove the boxes and stuff away from the wall and paint.
I’m was really behind on my astronomy reading and spent a few hours catching up. Then I worked on the laptop hard drive that I picked up yesterday and spent a little over an hour getting the files transferred over to my MacBook; Win XP wouldn’t recognize the drive. There were a few corrupt files that I couldn’t retrieve but I got the greater part off of it. When I get time I’ll put it all on DVDs and sent it out.
I watched “Numb3rs” on CBS. It was a rerun but I didn’t feel like doing anything else. Then I updated the COPPER MOUNTAIN MESA WEBSITE and sent out the Newsletter. Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 23 - I did my stretches, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 67 and 91 degrees, SSW winds at 2 to 15 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 90. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming southwest between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 66. West wind between 7 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.”
After I did a few morning chores I went to the battery room and moved all the boxes and stuff away from the wall so I could start painting. There were a few spiders still running around but I knocked them out with some more bug spray. It took less than an hour to paint the wall, and about another to move the stuff away from it.
I did a little reading of the computer books that Mat loaned me, called a few Family and Friends, and then went over to Stoney’s for dinner. He made chicken Alfredo that was mighty good.
When I got back home I transferred some of the files from my MacBook over to a 16Gig SSD drive. For some reason it wouldn’t let me copy them to my IDE USB drive saying it couldn’t change the format or something; probably had something to do with NTSF- I learn something new every day.
I did a little web surfing, and then I took my binoculars out to peruse the night sky. Afterwards I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 24 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 66 and 90 degrees, WSW winds at 4 to 15 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Memorial Day: Sunny, with a high near 94. Northwest wind 5 to 13 mph becoming east northeast. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 65. Southwest wind 15 to 18 mph becoming west northwest 6 to 9 mph. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph.”
I put the second coat of paint on the wall in the battery room. Now all I have to do is the touchup around the house and I’m done for a while. Called Tom and Aki to say hi but had to leave a message instead.
I went over to Mat’s on my Trusty Scooter to have a chat but he wasn’t there. I was on my way over to Frank and Mary’s when I got a call from Ron who said he was coming by, so I went back home and jawed with Ron. He bought me a pedometer and brought me his old running shoes- we wear the same size, he breaks them in for me. Then I continued on over to Frank and Mary’s. They are down for the weekend to enjoy our desert. I mainly yakked with Frank while Mary played Scrabble with the kids. On my way back home I checked on my friend’s home who is on vacation and all was well. I stopped by Stoney’s which was on the way and jawed with him for a spell. He was playing Spider solitaire on his computer and I was helping him make some moves.
When I got back home I started reading “CompTIA A+ Certification” by Mike Meyers. It’s an exam guide for computer techs. This is one of the books that Mat lent me. I read the first chapter that explained what the book and certification was all about.
Leeann called and we chatted for a bit. Her son is sixteen and has a 2006 Ford truck that he can haul his dirt bikes to races he rides in. He makes payments for the truck by working in the body shop that Leeann and her husband own.
My friend Kula called. She is going to New York the end of June to be with a friend whose father had recently passed. And then I talked to Kevin. He’s telling me all about dating the women he meets at an online dating service.
I started reading the second chapter of “A+” but fell asleep. I awoke and went for my evening walk and listened to a astronomy lecture on the expanding universe: about the Hubble constant (Law) where the universe expands at 72kmps per mega parsec. Meaning that you take a mega parsec of space and wait one second it will expand 72k- if I got this right. It's like baking a loaf of raisin bread; raisins farther apart will expand at a faster rate from each other. Raisins that are closer together will expand slower. The bread around a particular raisin most likely won't experience any detectable expansion.
I watched “60 Minutes” when I got back but it wasn’t very interesting this time around. About this time my neighbor Ginger called telling me that someone had stolen the tires from her trailer and broke into it and made off with an air conditioner after trashing the insides. I hate thieves and could only tell her that I didn’t see anybody on her property and offer my sympathies.
I continued reading and finished the second chapter of “A+”. It was very rudimentary stuff, but I did learn the technical name to some of the connectors and ports I didn’t know. I can fix computers, I have fixed many computers, but I don’t know some of the terminology.
I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a night run. When I got back I took out the small telescope. I was looking at Cancer and noticed an extra star which turned out to be Saturn. It looked like an olive with a toothpick through it. I forgot to say last night when I first looked through my binoculars I saw a meteorite flash by. I thought that was quite a greeting on my first night out in a couple of months!
I called Mike from Hermosa and yakked with him for a spell, then I wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Memorial Day - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 65 and 91 degrees, NW-SW winds at 6 to 14 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 93. Calm wind becoming south between 7 and 10 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 67. West southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.”
I did some touchup painting but still have the back of the house to do tomorrow.
I spent the day reading chapter 3 about CPUs in the “A+” book. There is a lot for me to remember in this chapter. I went on my evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture on the probability of other life forms in the universe. I went back to reading the “A+” book and started the chapter on RAM.
I did my stretches and went for a night run. When I got back I took out my binoculars for a while. Fat Cat kept bothering me to be petted and I obliged him. The night sky doesn’t seem that dark anymore. I guess that it may be from the particulates from the winds suspended in the atmosphere. I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Correction to yesterdays post: Saturn is in Leo and not Cancer!

Tuesday 26 - I did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 67 and 98 degrees, NW-SW winds at 4 to 9 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 93. Calm wind becoming southeast between 8 and 11 mph. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 68. West southwest wind between 5 and 14 mph.”
I did some more touchup painting on the outside of my home. Then I went back into study mode and read and finished four chapters in the “A+ Certification” book for computer techs. When I get intrigued by something all else seems to fade away into the background. I only stopped reading to go for my evening walk where I listened to another astronomy lecture on the formations of galaxies, and to watch “NCIS” on CBS; a rerun that I haven’t seen yet.
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 27 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 98 degrees, calm winds, humidity around 18 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 94. Calm wind becoming south southeast between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 23 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 69. Southwest wind 5 to 14 mph becoming north northwest. Winds could gust as high as 18 mph.”
I spent time mid morning replanting of the aloe vera that I have growing in small pots that have started to overfill with the plant. I also cleaned up some of the mess I made while painting the house.
I continued reading “A+ Certification” book for computer techs. This chapter was on power supplies and I wasn’t too familiar with the names of the plugs and the power each plug puts out; now I am! Now I know how to test them to see if the power supply is failing. Before I’d just swap out one and replace it with another and if the problem went away then it was a problem solved.
I went for my evening walk and listened to another astronomy lecture, this one was on gravity. Then I started a new chapter on hard drives.
Seimi dropped by to pick up that bag of clothes that I filled up the other day. He’ll go through it to take what he needs and the rest he’ll take over to Marcie’s so she can put them in the thrift room at the community center.
Stoney drove up and was honking for me to come out of the house. His phone went dead and needed to call the phone company to get a repair person out to fix it. I let him use my phone to make the call. I tried to call Stoney earlier a couple of times but it just rang and I thought it was that he left the answering machine off by mistake. The repair person will be out tomorrow. Stoney said he had made meatloaf and was trying to call me to come over when he found his phone was dead. I told him that I’ll hop on my Trusty Scooter and help him eat the meatloaf. While I was there I lent him my spare cell phone that I keep in my backpack for emergencies. Now he’ll be able to call out if he has any problems until his phone gets fixed.
I got back home a little late and read a little more. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 28 - I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 and 99 degrees, mostly calm winds, humidity around 20 percent, a few cumulus clouds here and there. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 95. Calm wind becoming south between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 68. West wind between 6 and 11 mph.”
Okay, I am in study mode and continued reading “A+ Certification” book for computer techs. I finished one chapter on hard drive technologies and partway through another on implementing hard drives. There are twenty four chapters in the book and I’m in the middle of chapter ten. I want to try to complete a chapter or more a day; I have another book on networking waiting in the wings to read. I guess some folks may think I lead a mighty boring life…
I went for my evening walk and listened to an astronomy lecture about bad astronomy in movies.
Stoney called to say that the phone repair person found that the problem with his phone was in the house and to repair it would cost Stoney $87 an hour and that because it was an in the house problem the repair guy had to charge $87 for the service call, yikes! Stoney said no thanks and got the phone partially working but it took him all day.
I called Kevin and we yakked about the new Star Trek movie- he just saw it today and thought it was mighty good.
I went back to reading “A+” until 11pm when I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 29 - I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 99 degrees, SSE winds at 4 to 15 MPH, humidity around 33 percent, a few rain clouds with sprinkles here and there. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. Light wind becoming southeast between 10 and 13 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 68. South southwest wind 7 to 9 mph becoming west northwest.”
Ron Dehart picked me up at noon to go down to the theater in Yucca Valley to watch the new “Terminator” movie that starts at 2pm. We first had to stop off at the optometrist so Ron could checkout different frames so he’d know what to get when he placed his order. Then on to the glass store to pick up a tempered glass table top to replace the one in Ron’s kitchen that he broke. We went to the Sizzler for the steak and salad bar special. After we stuffed our faces it was a little before 2pm when we arrived at the theater. Unfortunately we found that the movie started at 1:30! Ron had called yesterday to check and they said 2pm. The lady at the ticket both just looked at us like we were crazy and said that another showing would start at 4pm. As we left several other folks came in for the “2pm” showing and said it was printed in the paper as such. I went back to the lady in the booth and told her “See we weren’t crazy”. Well we had two hours to kill, so we decided to do our shipping at Stater Bros and take the glass table top back to Ron’s. We arrived back to the theater at 4pm, got our seats and were a bit disappointed with the movie. There was lots of action with stuff blowing up, but it didn’t seem to have much of a plot or much character building; it’s not the way I’d have done it or thought it would have be done. Of course I would never have missed it being a Terminator fan from the beginning, but the TV series “Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles” is a lot better than this movie. Enough said!
It was raining when we exited the theater. The smell of the desert when it rains is a wonderful aroma that most city folks have never had the chance to experience. God I love that smell! We stopped off at Big 5 on our way home. There’s plenty of merchandise on sale there. I bought me a pair of sandals and binoculars for pretty dang cheap.
When I got home Fat Cat was waiting to be fed and then I went back to reading “A+” until 11pm when I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, updated the COPPER MOUNTAIN MESA WEBSITE and sent out the Newsletter, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 30 - an old girlfriend I once had haunts my dreams every now and then, and she came again last night. I was young and in love with her back in the 70s. In my dreams we get back together or sometimes not. Call me naïve but hidden somewhere back in my mind I always believed we would get together again- I’ve never married. Anyways not to make this all drawn out and mushy for you, I wrote a poem when I awoke:
To Bunkey (my pet name for her)
Women may lose their attractiveness when age grows unkind, but retained with the utmost of clarity, her youth and her beauty, for all of eternity, in her true love’s mind.
I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 and 92 degrees, calm winds, humidity around 25 percent, a few altocumulus clouds here and there. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 92. Light wind becoming south southwest between 11 and 14 mph. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 69. West southwest wind between 7 and 10 mph.”
I mostly hung around inside doing this and that, and called Family and Friends. I added Kris from MySpace to the Copper Mountain Mesa Newsletter. Kris used to live up here but now lives in Florida. She reads my journal every morning, wow! Hi Kris!
I called Stoney to see if he was going to potluck and he was and would pick me up at 4pm for the drive down to the community center. I got to cooking my stuffing with raisins to take down there. We had about twenty-five show up! Mary Reeves and her son Mason brought chocolate cake, Rose peas and corn. Dyan Lemon cake and popcorn salad (which was delicious), Dorothy made a Mexican casserole and red lobster rolls, Susan had beans with hamburger mix, Marie brought baked beans and a Bundt cake, Marcie made a fruit salad and chip tray, Donna cooked up a taco bake casserole, and Bob Seeley had his fruit platter. We have two new members: Faye McAdams and Mike Jacobsen who live in Landers. And Marvin and Sharon Gottfried who have been weekenders here since 1976! I’ve never met them until today. They live down in Long Beach. What a great potluck!!! (I took lots of pictures and will put one up tomorrow when I get the time).
I got home to feed Fat Cat and called Kevin to see how his date with Nancy went and to tell him what I thought of the new “Terminator” Movie (it’s a great movie if you’re a thirteen year old).
I went for my evening walk and listened to an astronomy lecture on the strong and weak forces. And then read the “A+” book until 11pm. Tomorrow I’ll be halfway through the book!
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 31 - I did my stretches. I decided to relax today!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 and 93 degrees, NW-SW winds at 7 to 16 MPH, humidity around 28 percent, plenty altocumulus clouds flying overhead. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 92. Calm wind becoming south southwest between 15 and 18 mph. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 67. West wind between 7 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.”
I called Family and Friends and yakked at the ones who answered and left messages for those who weren’t. Messed around in the yard some; watering most of the plants and a little gardening.
I went for my evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture on the molecules in space and the chemical makeup of stellar dust and how they condense and form protostars.
I continued to read the “A+” book for computer techs and finished another chapter. I’m trying to read and finish a chapter every day. There are twenty-four chapters and so far I am ahead a few chapters, but they are getting harder as I go. I hit the half way mark today!
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to May! We’ll see ya next year!!!