November 2008

Welcome to the Month of November! - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 60 to 83, NW-SW winds of 4 to 11 MPH with gusts up to 24, humidity around 37 percent, lots of altostratus clouds through out the day. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 75. Southwest wind between 5 and 11 mph. Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 51. West wind around 7 mph.”
        I’m going to make this a quick post because I’m really tired tonight! Mostly I worked in the shop again sorting and throwing away stuff. I also called a few Friends and Family during the day.
        I forgot to write in yesterdays journal that my friend Joel brought my mail just before I went on my nightly run. My order for the Bluetooth mini dongle was among the letters, cools! This was the first time I had to set one up using Microsoft’s Bluetooth Wizard and I screwed it up by selecting “Fax Modem” instead of “Dialup Networking” and I wondered why it was so slow, duh. I quickly found the trouble and fixed it, now its running much faster.
        Went for my evening walk and then settle down to do some webwork.
        I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night after I set all the clocks back an hour.

Sunday 02 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 62 to 79, W winds of 9 to 14 MPH with gusts up to 27, humidity around 40 percent, lots of altostratus clouds throughout the day. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Light wind becoming southwest between 11 and 14 mph. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 50. West wind between 9 and 11 mph.”
        I messed around with my computers much of the morning. I wanted to see how far away from the Bluetooth modem I could go before the signal died. I was still getting good reception from my camper that sits in the front yard and that seems to be over 30 feet away.
        Called a few Friends and Family throughout the day. Leanne called and we had a nice chat. Last week she was off the coast of Mexico in international waters when I tried to call her and the cell reception was lousy.
        Went for my evening walk. The wind was gusting pretty well out of the west; there were plenty of clouds but not a drop of rain.
        My friend Mac came by for a short visit. He’s been out of town for a spell and hasn’t seen my patio yet so I gave him the grand tour.
        I watched “Point Break” (1991) Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey, and Lori Petty. It’s about a bunch of surfers who rob banks to support their lifestyle, and an undercover FBI agent who infiltrates their gang and becomes passionate with the surfing culture. Great movie! Makes me want to go out to do something exciting instead of my mundane day to day life I lead! Hey, I did skydived once but ended on crutches for two weeks or so.
        Watched “Monk” on NBC about a rich philanthropist who is murdered by his wife during an earthquake to cover up the crime.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 03 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 79, W-SW winds of 4 to 11 MPH with gusts up to 18, humidity around 36 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 68. West wind between 11 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 47. West northwest wind between 13 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.”
        Ron Dehart dropped off a pair of his old running shoes for me: I don’t mind hand-me-downs!
        I printed up a voting guide for Mac who came over to pick it up. Did some work around the house, gathered my dirty laundry and went over to Stoney’s to use his washer and dryer. We sat around jawing and watching “Cash Cab” where this guy drives around in his cab picking up contestants for a quiz show in the back of his cab. One woman got so excited when she and her friends won that it made me laugh. I thought it was a very original idea having a quiz show in a cab. Stoney liked it too.
        Got home to go on my evening walk. The Sun now sets an hour earlier because of the time change and I still haven’t gotten used to it yet. It seems like I run out of day before my day starts.
        Joel dropped by with my mail and $75 towards the computer I sold him. He is happy with the computer and that makes me feel mighty fine that I could help him out.
        Had a brief chat with Kevin. Then read a few chapters in “Pale Blue Dot”. I also got caught up on my astronomy reading that I’ve been neglecting lately.
        Watched “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles”. Their home is robbed and all the diamonds and IDs are stolen. Summer Glau who plays Cameron, a former Skynet Infiltrator reprogrammed by the future John Connor to protect present day John Connor, she is hot!
        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.

Tuesday 04 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 70, W-NW winds of 10 to 16 MPH with gusts up to 30, humidity around 37 percent, skies were mostly clear. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 62. North northwest wind around 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 42. North northwest wind between 8 and 10 mph.”
        Seimi came by with some National Geographic magazines that had articles on astronomy he wanted me to read. I printed out the answer from steve98052 to his question: are there more atoms in a glass of water than glasses of water in the oceans? I rounded up all the parts for a small telescope I have and will repair it and give to Seimi.
        Wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in.
        UPS delivered the 2Gig replacement from Crucial.com. I installed it in the Dell Mini and it booted right up with no problems at all.
        I read another chapter in “Pale Blue Dot” and then went for my evening walk.
        Kevin called to tell me about his day. When I got off the phone with him an hour later I turned on the TV to watch the election results. I got so interested in what was going on that I stayed glued to the tube until Obama gave his victory speech in Chicago. Obama gave an elegant speech and all our hopes now reside with him, and I tend to believe him. Lets us hope this is a new beginning for our nation and not just a bunch of political hype.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a windy and cold nightly run. It was so windy that sand was stinging the back of my exposed legs and I had to put much effort running down the hill against the wind. Practiced my guitar. I was writing to my journal when Andrew called and we jawed for over an hour about the election and other things. Finished my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 05 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 67, N-NW winds of 6 to 11 MPH, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 68. North northwest wind between 8 and 14 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 47. Northwest wind around 9 mph.”
        I jumped in the Gross Polluter and headed on into town. I needed to stop off at the post office to pick up a package and send out that bad memory chip back to crucial.com. I got all that done and headed over to McDonalds to use their WIFI, Dell Taco doesn’t have free WIFI anymore, to download some critical updates to the Dell Mini. It cost me $2.95 for two hours but it was worth it because it would take days instead of minutes to download them on dialup. I spent the whole two hours there and ate a double quarter pounder with cheese (I felt like treating myself). After I got all the updates, I went over to Bank of America to deposit a couple of checks. I went to get some supplies on over at WalMart and Stater Bros.
        I got back home just in time to go on my evening walk before it got dark. Then I yakked at Kevin for almost an hour. Read a few more chapters in “Pale Blue Dot” until “Bones” came on Fox. It was about an artist who was found crushed in a automobile in a junk yard that was one of his artistic creations.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 07 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 to 73, light breeze, humidity around 25 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. North northwest wind between 5 and 9 mph. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 51. West wind between 9 and 17 mph.”
        I updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website, sent out the newsletter, and finally put last month’s Potlucks pictures up.
        Worked around the house doing little knick knacks here and there. Watered the plants and did some yard work.
        Got a call from a nice lady who has been receiving my mail at her PO Box and wanted to know what to do with it. It turns out that it is my old box from seven years ago and I gave her my “new” address to forward my mail and thanked her. I thought that very nice of her to be so concerned.
        Went on my evening walk and listened to an astronomy lecture about the life cycle of our Sun. To make a long story short it will go through a few phases after it falls off the main sequence five billion years from now; burn most of its hydrogen fuel as its diameter expands to form a Red Giant. Helium replaces hydrogen in the core. Hydrogen still fuses a layer around the core as it condenses and heats up. At 100 million Kelvin helium starts to burn in the core producing carbon and oxygen. While all this is happening the outer layers are being breathed out forming a planetary nebula. When all the helium is turned into carbon, the core collapses down into a White Dwarf with electrons packed tightly together (what is called electron degeneracy). Basically a White Dwarf is a diamond and does not fuse matter but shines under its stored heat.
        Kevin called and we yakked for a spell, then I read a few more chapters in “Pale Blue Dot”.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, and then watched “Numbers” on CBS. It was about a lady magician who disappears for good after doing one of her illusions.
        Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 08 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 74, slight breese , clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Areas of blowing dust. Mostly sunny, with a high near 65. Windy, with a west northwest wind between 26 and 30 mph, with gusts as high as 41 mph. Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 42. West northwest wind 13 to 16 mph decreasing to between 5 and 8 mph. Winds could gust as high as 22 mph.”
        Did my chores around the house sweeping up this and that, making it all pretty. I called Family and Friends throughout the day. Some were home and some were not.
I drove the Gross Polluter over to the community center for their annual general election where we elect the members of the board. About twenty folks showed up- the Board outnumbered the audience. I got there at 1pm just in time to catch the food that was laid out for us members, and it was quite a spread of grub. Someone made some peanut butter cookies that were mighty fine. There was a vegetable plate with dip, ham and beef sandwiches, and a fruit platter. After lunch, order was restored and the Board was back in session. There wasn’t anyone willing to run against the board so there was a motion to reelect the Board members, somebody second the motion. Therefore, we had a new Board of directors for our community, which was the old Board members, but that’s okay. They shuffled around the leadership a bit and Steve Tuttle, who is now President, said that we only have enough money in the coffers to run the community for two more years. He is going to see if he can get a grant from the county to try to extend it at further a bit. We all said our goodbyes and I was off for home with a couple of sandwiches I absconded from the leftovers.
        I got home and went on my evening walk listening to “The Life Cycle of the Sun” again. I’ll have to add to what I’d written about it yesterday, but not now because it is late and I am tired.
        Went online to do some webwork that lasted until very late. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. The winds are just now starting to blow pretty hard!

Sunday 09 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 47 to 68, NW winds at 23-25 with gusts that will blow yer outhouse down, humidity around 38 percent, dark altostratus clouds but no rain for us. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 64. Calm wind becoming west between 11 and 14 mph. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 43. West wind between 5 and 7 mph.”
        I called my old boating friend Richard Pearson, Hotise, to talk of old friends and times gone past. There was a friend of ours who lived out on the moorings on a Columbia 22’ sailboat and we couldn’t figure out his last name. Well I thought about it after we hung up and it was Fletcher, Larry Fletcher. After Larry moved off the moorings he found a house on PCH just south of Torrance Blvd in Redondo. This was in the mid 80s and he had a Commodore 64 computer that he used to communicate with others around the world by using Fido Net. He would receive data for a BBS (Bulletin Board System) from a computer in Australia via modem and relay it to another in New Mexico, who would then relay it to some other computer on the net. I thought that was rather intriguing! I think this would be considered the precursor to the Internet we all love and use today.
        It was cold and windy outside so I messed around inside sorting through some old memorabilia. I called Stoney and he said that he was in the process of baking peanut butter cookies. I jumped on my Trusty Scooter and was over there to eat them while they were still hot out of the oven! I must have eaten six or seven of them. While I was there we watched a hilarious movie Starring Will Ferrell called “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” about a NASCAR driver who loses his ability to race.
        It was too cold and windy for an evening walk so I read a few more chapters in “Pale Blue Dot. Called up my friend Larry Carlock and yakked at him for a spell.
        I watched “Monk” on NBC about a passenger on an airplane that Mr. Monk was on, who murdered his wife and replaced her with a double. Then “Secrets of the Dead: Escape from Auschwitz” came on PBS about the escape of two Slovak Jews Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wetzler from Auschwitz to warn others of what the Nazis were doing to Jews in the camps. They may have saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from a horrible fate that would have been awaiting them at the hands of the SS.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 10 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 46 to 66, NW to SE winds at 4-8, humidity around 47 percent, altostratus clouds later in the evening just passing by. According to the National Weather Service “Veterans Day: Mostly sunny, with a high near 66. Calm wind becoming east northeast between 4 and 7 mph. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. Northwest wind between 6 and 14 mph.”
        I worked on the Gross Polluter fixing a problem that has troubled me for some time now. When I start the engine the battery light comes on and I have to pull the cable off the battery and then reconnect it for it to charge, this shouldn’t happen! The engine keeps running with the battery disconnected, which is good, and when I reconnect the battery the engine bogs down showing that it’s charging the battery, weird. I found out what was wrong the other night when I was leaving Mac’s after dinner. When I went to reconnect the battery I saw a light coming from the alternator where there shouldn’t be a light. It was where the cable connects from the wiring system to the alternator. So today I took it apart to clean and found that the light was caused by a bad connection that was arcing. Now the truck runs fine and the problem solved.
        Stoney called to say that he made spaghetti and I should come over to help him eat it. So I did a few other things around the house, went for my evening walk and listened to an astronomy questions and answers lecture, and got caught up on my astronomy reading. Then I went on over to Stoney’s. The spaghetti was great; I had two plates full, and ate a few more of his homemade peanut butter cookies. But the spaghetti western we watched “God’s Gun” (1976) was so bad it was worth watching to see if it got any worse, and it did! It starred Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, and Richard Boone, three fine actors who should have left this one alone! It was one of the worst westerns I ever watched that was worth watching.
        When I got home I had a message from Joel Levy asking if I copied Iron Eyes Cody’s pictures to CD for his trip to Hollywood tomorrow, I hadn’t, so I did that right away and gave him a call to pick them up.
        I watched “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles” where John goes down to Mexico with his girlfriend and ends up in jail, with the evil Terminator hot on his trail.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run.
        Read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot” until late. Did you know that if the Sun was suddenly turned off that the atmosphere of the Earth would freeze and plummet to the surface creating a layer 30 feet thick! Then I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night

Veterans Day - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 to 69, NW to NE winds at 4-10, humidity around 30 percent, light clouds later in the day. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Northwest wind between 9 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 54. West northwest wind around 11 mph.”
        I wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it to them.
        I spent a little time working on Joel’s old computer that won’t boot. It turns out that the Ram had died and I replaced it with a good one I had laying around. It works fine now but it is an old 500Mz Pentium III white box with XP Pro trying to run on 128Megs of RAM: it is very slow!
        I decided to get out my electric guitar that I haven’t played in a few years. There was a broken string to be replaced and I did that. I’d start playing and another string would break, and I replaced that too. After the third string broke I gave it up for the day.
        I went for my evening walk and then over to Stoney’s to help him and Roger Smith try to finish off that spaghetti from yesterday. Roger updated us on a trial he was a witness in, of a lady in our area who shot an evil old man in self defense who was about to attack her. The story goes something like this: he threatened her and she pulled out a 22 handgun. He said to her “you ain’t going to shoot me with that pea shooter” (these were his last words) and lunged at her and she shot him several times. This evil man was known to the area as a bully and killed dogs by hanging them with barbed wire. At first no charges were filed because it was self defense, but an aggressive prosecutor, wasting our tax money, changed all that and she spent almost a year in prison awaiting trial. Well she was finally acquitted and set free just a few days ago. Good for her!
        Got home and watched “Nova: Alien from Earth” on PBS about the discovery of the 18,000 year old remains of a new human species of hobbits who thrived on the Indonesian island of Flores hunting dwarf elephants. Very fascinating!
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and was on my evening run when Chris dropped by to give me the list of winners from tonight’s bingo. We jawed for a while and then I continued my run.
        When I got back there was a message on my answering machine from Joel who is in Hollywood for an interview with a Canadian TV production crew doing a special on Iron Eyes Cody. Joel said that he had just pulled over to make the call to me when a car pulled up in front of him. The driver got out and approached a lady standing on the sidewalk and talked to her for a minute, then he went over to his car, opened up the trunk, and a man emerged from inside! The driver, the lady, and the trunk guy proceeded to go into a nearby restaurant. Joel now calls this town Hollyweird!
        Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 12 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 78, winds NW 4, humidity around 33 percent, light clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday...Sunny. Highs in the lower 80s. North wind 10 to 15 mph. Gusts up to 35 mph in the afternoon. Thursday Night...Clear. Lows in the upper 50s. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph. Gusts up to 25 mph after midnight.”
        I had to go to town today to send off a couple of birthday cards. I did a few things around the house first before I went. Then I hopped into the Gross Polluter and headed off to town. I mailed off the cards and hung around Joshua Tree looking for a WIFI hotspot that I could hook into: there were none.
        I stopped by the Health Food Store to pick up some yeast for my oatmeal, but they only had a little bit left, not even a pound, and I bought it all. The kind lady said they’d get some in next week.
        The Beatnik Café was one place that had WIFI but it is close down over a dispute over a long term lease the sign said on the door. I went to the library but all they had was a row of computers on Ethernet and no WIFI. They did have some 1Gig USB thumb drives they were selling for the low price of $7 and I bought me one. One problem with the library now is that there was no place to sit down to read a book because the computers take up so much space. I didn’t count them but I believe there are ten computers there and they were all occupied by folks tediously pounding away at the keyboards.
        I wandered the streets of Joshua Tree just taking in the sights and the people. I stopped in at the Teacakes Bakery. I was going to buy a loaf of their excellent bread but they were all sold out, so I settled for a peanut butter cookie (I like peanut butter cookies) and ate it around back where they have a little outside alcove with tables and chairs.
        Got back home and went on my evening walk. It was such a nice day with the temps into the mid 70s and a light breeze.         Went online to do a little webwork and then watched “Bones” on Fox about a man who was blown out of a confiscated crack lab trailer during a police training exercise.
        I then read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot” until late. Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 13 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 54 to 81, winds NW 4 to 10 MPH, humidity around 30 percent, light clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 79. Breezy, with a north northwest wind between 14 and 22 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 54. North wind between 8 and 11 mph.”
        My friend Kula called from Hawaii where she is on a “business” trip with her girlfriend and working hard at having fun.
        I worked on Joel’s computer saving all his files to CD and doing a little clean up of the system. He called, while I was doing this, to say he is back from Hollywood and the interview with the Canadian Production company went very well. He’ll pick up his computer tomorrow.
        Did a little work in the yard and watered the plants. Then I went on my evening walk with no lectures to listen to- I’ll download one tonight.
        Called my brother Kevin to yak at him for a spell, and then I read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot”. Afterwards I started reading a Sci-Fi book called “Black on Black” (1999) by K.D. Wentworth, about an alien who was kidnapped off his home world and returns 30 years later to find out why.
        My old friend Bob Vandenberg called to say he and his wife are going to visit me here at my home this Saturday, cool! Now I’ll have to clean the place up, bummer!
        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 14 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. Saw a tarantula while I was on my run. I haven’t seen one of these in years; this one was brown and about the size of a kindergartner’s hand.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 to 80, winds NNW 6 to 18 MPH, humidity around 26 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 76. North northwest wind between 8 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph. Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 50. Northwest wind around 7 mph.”
        I did the weekend update for the Copper Mountain Mesa Website putting up a bunch of pictures and sent out the newsletter.
        I then spent most of the day cleaning the house getting it ready for tomorrow’s visit of my friend Bob Vandenberg and his wife Linda. If Bob came by himself I wouldn’t need to do all this dang cleaning.
        Went for my evening walk. When I got back I called my Mom and Dad, I usually call them on Saturday but I will be busy with company.
        Joel came by to pick up his computer and brought a pizza! We sat around eating and Joel told me all about his trip to Hollywood.
        Read two chapters in “Pale Blue Dot” and the Sci-Fi book. I did my stretches before “Numbers” came on CBS. It was about a park ranger who was found dead on his surfboard.
        Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 15 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 76, light breeze out of the NW at 4-8 MPH, humidity around 24 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 76. Calm wind becoming north northeast around 6 mph. Sunday Night: Clear, with a low around 50. Northwest wind between 3 and 6 mph.”
Bob and Linda Vandenberg showed up around 1pm and I drove out to Border Ave, to meet them. It has been almost 20 years since we seen one another and I was really thrilled that they would come all this way from Temecula for the reunion. They had brought their wedding album from 1978 where I was the “Best Man” and I scanned then into my computer. We looked so young in them days and that 70s show has nothing on us. I gave them the grand tour of my property and my solar home. We sat around in my patio reminiscing on old times and bring ourselves up to date with the present. Bob and I hung around back in the late 60s and early 70s and we got into all kinds of mischief. We all have amended our ways and don’t indulge in any kind of mind expanding things now except books. Well it was the 70s! After we got all yapped out I suggested that we go down to the Sizzler restaurant in Yucca Valley for dinner before they had to leave for home. So they followed me in the Gross Polluter with their car down to the “Big City”. I was buying and we all decided to have the salad bar. We got mighty stuffed out on the variety of grub that the salad bar offered. Before they left we picked up a copy of the Hi Desert Star that has my column in it for a keepsake. Then it was all hugs and then they were gone from my life again, for a little while I hope! It was worth all the cleaning of my house for their visit!
        When I got back home to find Fat Cat at the front gate waiting to be fed. To wind down from all the excitement of the day, I went online to read my emails and mindlessly surf the web until late into the night. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 16 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 55 to 80, light breeze out of the NNW at 4-6 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, clear but hazy skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 77. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 48. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm.”
        Basically I didn’t do a darn thing today but kick back to yak at Family and Friends on the cell phone.
        I went for my evening walk and listened to astronomy lecture on Nebulas. A Nebula is interstellar dust consisting of hydrogen, helium, and other trace elements. Nebulas are formed by dying stars that blow out their atmospheres; from Red Giants or Supernovas. New stars are born in Nebulas. There are two kinds of nebula: reflecting and emission. A Reflecting Nebula reflects light from a nearby bright star, and its color is blue. An Emission Nebula is usually the process of new stars being born within and the light from these stars or protostars excites electrons in atoms of the Nebula to higher energies to emit photons. Emission Nebulas are red in color.
        My friend Kula called to ask about the Leonid Meteor Shower that peaks on the 17th and 18th of this month. I told her that the Moon would probably washout any meteors and the smoke from the fires would be another obstacle. I’m not going to bother with this one but I might go out to take a peak just in case!
        Bob Vandenberg called needing help formatting and restoring his computer, and I walked him through the process: he had a bad virus on his system.
        I read some “Pale Blue Dot” until “Monk” was suppose to come on NBC, but instead they put on “The Office” that I find very boring, and then “Saturday Night Live” that I don’t care to watch anymore. I did watch the news about all the fires in Sothern California, some that I wasn’t aware of, and then I went back to my reading cursing NBC!
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar and came up with another verse to the song I’m writing, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 17 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 54 to 78, light breeze, humidity around 22 percent, clear but hazy skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 81. Calm wind becoming east southeast around 5 mph. Tuesday Night: Clear, with a low around 47. South southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm.”
        My credit card company’s fraud department called asking me if I made online purchases of a couple of items last week, and I told them I didn’t. They had called me last Friday telling me about the fraudulent purchases. At that time they canceled the account and had me cut up my credit card. I guess this was a follow up call and they are sending me a form to fill out and sign. The new card should arrive in about five days or so. I hate thieves!
        I decided to extend the patio a little more in the front of the house. So I was outside digging holes, cutting wood and pounding nails for the better part of the day. I had to quit before the Sun went down and I still have much to do, but the hardest part is done.
        Went for my evening walk re-listening to an astronomy lecture on the life of the Sun. Then I read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot”.
        I had a quick chat with my brother Kevin. He was trying to fix our Sister’s daughter’s laptop and asked my opinion on what may be wrong.
        And then Bob Vandenberg called needing help on his computer. I needed to talk with him anyways about a girl in one of the wedding pictures that I posted on the web. I had a number of folks send me emails about her and if I ever went out with her; I didn’t and it’s been haunting me ever since. When Bob and Linda came for their visit and I first saw the picture of her I wondered the same thing, why didn’t I ask her out? She never married he told me and lives in Washington. Well hell it’s been thirty years and the worst that can happen is she can turn me down, so I asked him to have Linda get in touch with her for me.
        Watched “Terminator: The Sara Conner Chronicles” on Fox. Dang good show! Saw an advertisement for the new Star Trek movie that will be out in May! I can’t wait!!!
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. When I got back I stayed out looking for any meteors from the Leonid Shower until Moon rise but didn’t see a one. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 18 - did my stretches, ran a mile. I had to cut my exercises short because Mac needed a ride to pick up his truck that was in for repairs in Twentynine Palms. So I drove over first thing after I did my run and ate my breakfast.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 77, light breeze, humidity around 23 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 79. Light north wind. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48. Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph.”
        When I got back from Twentynine Palms I went right to work on my patio and finished it all up but the painting, which I’ll hopefully do tomorrow.
        I completed my exercises: rode my bike and lifted weights. Took a shower and went on my evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture on the “Lives of Other Stars”. I’ll have to re-listen to this tomorrow and write about it then.
        Read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot” and then a little Sci-Fi until “NCIS” on CBS came on. It was about a sting to find the mole in NCIS.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. I practiced my guitar. Wrote my column for the newspaper, that I usually write in the mornings, and sent it in. Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 19 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 to 79, calm winds, humidity around 23 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 49. West southwest wind around 6 mph becoming calm.”
        Got right to work on painting the new addition to the patio. Dale from Landers called and I talked while I painted. I gave it some thick coats of white paint and then screwed on the lattice panel after I let it dry for a spell. That should block a lot of wind and dust from reaching my house from the dirt road that runs past.
        I read some Sci-Fi after I had a nice chat with Jimmy. He just went through a long process of becoming a expert rifle trainer and will be forming a class for the 4H club after the first of the year. He already has around fourteen youths signed up for his class and needs .22 rifles for the kids to practice with, I told him he could borrow mine that been gathering dust in the corner of my bedroom. He may come out after Thanksgiving to visit his dad, Stoney, if he can get his family schedule in sync.
        I went for my evening walk re-listening to the lecture on “Lives of Other Stars”. Smaller stars with 0.26 solar masses, our Sun is one solar mass, use convection unlike larger star’s Radiative Transport , and mixes the hydrogen in their atmospheres like a lava lamp which causes these small stars to burn all their hydrogen efficiently into helium and are not hot enough to burn helium (what is called helium flash). Their life span can be over 100 billion years and bypasses the red giant stage and goes right to being a white dwarf with a helium core. Stars one and a half time larger than on solar mass also use convection and smoothly transitions to burn heavier elements. Stars with over five solar masses, depending on Mass Loss, go supernova turning into Neutron Stars or Black Holes. Depending on how large a star determines what elements the star eventually burns, the degenerate gas pressure which holds the core from collapsing, and what element ignites a supernova. Population three stars were the first stars to ever form, with over 250 solar masses, and used proton/proton chain reactions to fuse hydrogen into helium to form the first heavier elements. These stars had a life of a few million years and enriched the early universe with these first heavy elements so that smaller stars could form.
        Did some webwork online until “Bones” came on FOX. It was about a body of a woman found in a large microwave over aboard a jetliner headed to China.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar and broke a string when I was into a heavy jam, dang I hate when that happens! Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 20 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 to 80, dead calm winds, humidity around 23 percent, high cirrus clouds with lots of moisture. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Calm wind becoming southeast around 6 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 47. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.”
        Mac called asking me if I wanted a couple of hot water solar panels, all I need do is help him unload his trailer. I drove over to his place, hooked up his trailer to his truck, drove it to my house, unloaded the panels, then drove back and unloaded the rest of the trailer in his yard. This all took about two hours and when we got done there was only a few hours of daylight left. It seems that my day runs out before I get started!
        Did a few minor chores around the house that I’ve been procrastinating on and needed to get done. Then I went on my evening walk and re-listened to “Live of Other Stars” Podcast. I was especially interested in Mass Loss of stars and one class of star, the Wolf-Rayet, have over 20 solar masses, are very hot, and their stellar winds exceed of 1000 MPS which eject a lot of matter giving it a high rate of Mass Loss. If you remember that large stars, with over five solar masses, Mass Loss plays an important role in determining if the star will become a Neutron star, a Black Hole, or even (some believe) a white dwarf. So there is more to this transition to a Neutron star, a Black Hole, or a white dwarf than I was led to believe. And it isn’t set in stone depending on just how massive a star is.
        I read a little bit of “Pale Blue Dot”, restrung my guitar and played a few songs. Then I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run early so I finish just in time for “CSI” on CBS. It had the Miniature Killer back on and I wanted to see what that was all about.
        Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 21 - did my stretches, ran two miles, rode my bike, and lifted weights. George dropped by for a short chat in the middle of my exercises on his way to Wonder Valley where he lives. He might have a rear hatch for my camper shell so we measured it and I jotted down the dimensions on an old envelope for him.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 75, dead calm winds, humidity around 26 percent, high cirrus clouds with lots of moisture. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 73. Calm wind becoming southeast between 4 and 7 mph. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 46. Southwest wind between 5 and 8 mph becoming calm.”
        I worked on the weekend update for the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter.
        I need more places to store my books and other stuff so I started installing more shelf space in the living room. There was screwing, sawing, and sanding going on till the Sun drew low on the western horizon. I only have the painting left to do tomorrow.
        I went for my evening walk and gave my lectures a day off. When I got back I read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot” and only have a few chapters left to read. I read a few chapters in the Sci-Fi book and got caught up with my astronomy reading too.
        I did my stretches and then watched “Numbers” on CBS. About a train that was carrying hazardous materials derailed and then a passenger train plowed into it. The hazardous material was leaking and there were passengers still trapped inside the wreck waiting to be saved. I thought it was the worst Numbers I have seen only because it was the FBI instead of the fire department that saved the trapped folks. I would believe that the fire department would be better trained and equipped to do the rescue.
        I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 22 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 to 71, winds are calm, humidity around 24 percent, high cirrus clouds with lots of moisture. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 75. Calm wind becoming southeast around 6 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 46. Southwest wind between 3 and 6 mph.”
        I was doing the painting of my shelves when Joel called needing some help putting a trailer hitch onto his truck. He came and picked me up and we drove to his house. I got the hitch hooked up with no problems. He was just moving the trailer out to the front of his yard near the street so folks driving by would notice the for sale sign on it. Cool, no problem, I thought. Then he drives right onto the soft dirt, I told him not to go any farther or he’d get the truck stuck, but he did it anyways and the truck was stuck. It kind of pissed me off because I’d be the one digging it out, and I did, all the while tell him what a dumb thing he did. I kind of felt bad about that afterwards, but not too much.
        While I was painting the shelves I decided to paint some of the patio that I haven’t gotten to yet. You know the saying: a little here and a little there gets the job done. I got whole lots of “little heres and a little theres” to do!
        While the paint was drying on the shelves I called a few Friends and Family and chatted with them for a spell. Then I took the dry shelves inside and screwed them into the brackets that hold them onto the wall. They look really nice and will wait until tomorrow when they are fully dry to load them full of books and other knickknacks.
        Went for my evening walk and called my folks when I got back. Then I went online to do some webwork until late into the evening.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 23 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 to 65, winds are calm, humidity around 27 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday...Mostly sunny. Highs in the lower to mid 70s. Northeast wind around 10 mph shifting to the southeast in the afternoon. Monday Night...Mostly cloudy. Lows in the upper 40s. Light wind.”
        I did a few more of them knickknacks around the house, always busy doing something. I did some yard work too, watering plants, digging, and picking up trash. There is a possibility of rain this week starting around Tuesday sometime so I spent time getting ready for it. I hope the leaks I patched after the last rains don’t leak again!
        Called some Family and Friends and chatted with them for a spell. I kept Kevin on the phone for an hour when he started talking computers.
        Went for my evening walk and then read a chapter in “Pale Blue Dot” and a bunch of chapters in the Sci-Fi book.
        Joel brought me over a steak dinner that he cooked up and it was dang good! Then “Monk” came on NBC! I thought that NBC would screw it up again and put another show on, but they didn’t. It was about an actor who was stabbed on stage in front of a live audience by Sharona’s actress sister.
        Did my stretches and was practicing guitar when Mike from Hermosa Beach called to jaw for a bit. Then I wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 24 - did my stretches. I banged my ankle a few days ago and now there is a rainbow of colors there, plus my shoulder is hurting again. So I decided to take a vacation from any running and lifting weights until next week. It looks like we’ll be having bad weather for this week anyways and also the Thanksgiving Holiday too, so it’s as good a time as any to take a break to let my poor old tired tatter weary worthless useless body recuperate.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 48 to 68, winds are calm, humidity around 30 percent, altostratus clouds lingering most of the day. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 67. West wind 5 to 14 mph becoming south southeast. Tuesday Night: A 50 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 49. South wind around 6 mph becoming north northwest.”
        I needed to pick up some stuff for Thanksgiving and headed over to Stater Brothers in Twentynine Palms. I checked out the new store nearby called The Dollar Tree. I was looking at an item but it had no price, in fact nothing I looked at had a price label. So I asked a worker there what the price was. She looked at me like I was mentally challenged and told me that everything in the store was a dollar. Well now I felt like an idiot! They actually have some decent stuff and I ended up buying a bunch of needed knickknacks. Then I went down the street to Rite Aid and finally found the long sought-after shoe horn I’ve been looking for, and I tried many stores and not a shoe horn in the lot. Most of the young store workers, when I ask for a shoe horn, think I mean some kind of musical instrument. Imagine playing a shoe!
        Got back home and put everything away and then called Stoney. I had picked up his mail when I was on my way back and left it on his chair in the living room because he wasn’t home at the time. He said he figured it was I who left it. Stoney’s daughter Judy, her husband Denny, and their grandson Dustin are over for the holiday. Judy and Dustin are at Disneyland right now leaving Stoney and Denny to fend for themselves until they get back sometime Tuesday.
        I went for a short evening walk and when I got back I made sure everything was put away for the rains we might get tomorrow and the next few days.
        I read my books until “Terminator: The Sara Conner Chronicles” came on Fox, about: a lead to the three dots that has Sara obsessing over turns into a scam. Then I read some more till late into the night.
        Did my stretches, wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 25 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 to 64, winds are calm, humidity around 39 percent, altostratus clouds throughout the day. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Rain likely, with thunderstorms also possible after 10am. Cloudy, with a high near 63. Calm wind becoming south southwest between 4 and 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Wednesday Night: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 10pm, then a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 48. West wind between 6 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.”
        I went for a visit to Frank and Mary’s and talked about the passing of Barbara Turnbough last Thursday, such a sad thing to have happened. It hasn’t been a year since her husband Jerry had passed, and she had been depressed ever since. I’m going to search my files for any pictures of her and Jerry to present them to their son. I’ll even write something nice in my column if the family gives me the okay. We sat around jawing and eating hotdogs for a while. I left to check out my friend’s home nearby; while he is away on vacation- everything was in its place.
        Stopped off at Stoney’s to see him and Denny. They were in the living room watching “Bat Masterson” on the Western Channel, so I didn’t hang around long. Judy and Dustin were on their way back from Disneyland, what fun that must have been. I’ll hear all about it from Dustin when I come over for dinner on Thursday.
        When I got home I double checked everything outside to make sure I didn’t miss anything that could have been left out in the rain that suppose to be coming later tonight. Then I read my Sci-Fi book till it was time for my evening walk. Called and yakked at Kevin when I got back.
        Joel came by with my mail and an apple pie for me! I’ll try not to eat it all tonight.
        Read a few chapters in “Pale Blue Dot” until “NCIS” came on CBS. About: Agent Lee who was caught spying and now helping NCIS to catch the master spy who has held her sister threatening to kill her if she didn’t turn over top secret info from the Defense Department. After NCIS I continued reading until I finally finished “Pale Blue Dot” which is a heavy book (five pounds). Most of the book was classic Sagan covering much of what he had written before in his other books. One thing of interest to me was that he mentioned a Gravitational Lens that is 550 AU out from the Sun (One Astronomical Unit= the distance from Earth to the Sun). I’ve never heard that one before and will check it out. With the Gravitational Lens and the right instruments we should be able to possibly see planets of other star systems and see further into the past closer to the Big Bang.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 26 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 65, winds out of the SE at 4 to 12 MPH, humidity around 69 percent, low stratus clouds bringing rain throughout the day. According to the National Weather Service “Thanksgiving Day: A 30 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 64. Northwest wind between 6 and 10 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 45. Northwest wind between 8 and 10 mph.”
        Went outside to have a look-see if there was any leaks from last night’s rain that started falling from our skies around 2am this morning. There were a few leaks but nothing major. I had to fire up the generator to charge my batteries and run the refrigerator because the clouds were so thick and blocking out any light from the Sun. Then I did the usual stuff like checking my email while I ate my oatmeal.
        Patty called; her computer monitor died and wondered if I had a spare to lend her till she finds another. I did have an old 15” that I use for testing and hopped in the Gross Polluter to take it to her. She smokes in the house and after I installed the monitor and left I could smell the burned tobacco on my clothes which lingered throughout the day. I hung them outside when I got home. I sometimes don’t like making house calls!
        I stopped by Lee and Marcie’s on the way back from Patty’s and yakked at them for a spell. They had these Christmas ornaments, little solders with bells strung together with wire that played Christmas songs! Very cute!
        I got home and went on my evening walk. Then I did webwork on the computer till “Bones” came on Fox. About: parts of a skeleton found in a tree.
        Called Andrew to tell him about the passing of Barbara, but he already knew about it. We jawed for over an hour!
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. As I write this the rains started falling very heavily around 11pm and are still falling right now at 12:30AM

Thanksgiving Day - did my stretches. My ankle that I banged up is feeling much better and going back to its original color, also my shoulder is better too! I guess I really needed this break from exercising, but next week its back to my exercises for sure.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 65, winds out of the NW at 8 MPH, humidity around 47 percent, mostly clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 70. Sunday Night: Clear, with a low around 46.”
        Late last night and early into the morning we had a few downpours, especially around 3am when it came down really hard. I went outside after I woke up to check on any damages and leaks. It looks like I need to go back on the roof of the shop to patch some more holes. The storm left the streets with crevasses where the water rushed down the hill in front of my house and gathered into ponds at the bottom.
        I have two obligations today: One is to go to the community center to take some pictures and eat turkey, the other is to go to Stoney’s afterwards and join him and his family and eat ham. So I decided not to eat any breakfast this morning and to eat as little as I can at the two dinners; fat chance of that but I will try.
        I called Friends and Family to wish them all a happy Thanksgiving. The ones that were home we had a nice chat, and the others who were not home I left messages of good cheer.
        As 1pm was rolling around I got ready to go to the center with an apple pie and some cans of peas and corn to contribute to the feast. I arrived a little later and started taking pictures. There must have been over twenty folks there. I counted three turkeys that Steve and Ray had gotten started cooking when they arrived at the center at 6:45am. Maryhelen was in exceptionally good cheer as she coordinated the goings on in the kitchen. Bob Seeley led the group in silent prayer to give thanks for what we are thankful for, and then it was everyone for themselves as we lined up to fill our plates with turkey, mash potatoes with gravy, stuffing, and all the usual Thanksgiving fare. The food was very good and everyone praise the gravy; I ate a little more then I should have eaten because it was all mighty fine!
Before I went to Stoney’s I stopped off to feed Fat Cat some turkey, and then paid a visit to Frank and Mary’s. They had their whole family over and they had already eaten dinner, which was fine with me. They offered me pie but I declined. Mary’s Mom, Dad, and Sister were there and I got a picture of all of them together. Then I was off to Stoney’s.
Denny and Judy had cooked up a fabulous meal of ham, scalloped potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Dustin is thirteen now and has grown a foot since I last seen him a year ago; he made the marshmallow fruit salad. Johnny and his wife were also there. Well I think the pecan pie that I had after the meal did me in! I was mighty stuffed when I left.
        Got home and fed Fat Cat some ham and he ate all that I had, which was a nice big slice that should hold him over till morning. I spent the rest of the night watching the new “Indiana Jones” movie that I got from Roger today at the center. Great movie!
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. I’m still feeling stuffed!

Friday 28 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 to 65, winds out of the NNW at 4 to 12 MPH, humidity around 35 percent, mostly clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 67. North northwest wind between 11 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 47. Northwest wind around 11 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph..”
        Didn’t do a dang thing today but mess around with computers! I think I’m recuperating from all that good food I ate yesterday, so I just lazed around the house like a slug.
        Went for my evening walk and noticed that there were some folks working on an old abandoned shack down the road from me, so I went to investigate. A lady called Ginger had bought the property had her kids outside digging a trench for the waterline. Her oldest son Chris and his wife lives in JT and when she decided to move from Utah she looked around up here and bought this place. She has several houses that she will be bringing up and she plans on living here. She seems to me to be a nice woman.
        Updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the newsletter.
        Finished the Sci-Fi book “Black on Black” and then watched “Numb3rs” on CBS, a rerun that I’ve seen before. About a young call girl that was found murdered in a bathtub at an actor’s home.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 29 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 to 65, winds out of the NNW at 5 to 10 MPH, humidity around 29 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 71. North northwest wind between 11 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Sunday Night: Clear, with a low around 48. North northwest wind between 7 and 9 mph.”
        I called Mom and Dad early before I went off to Mike and Stevie’s to attend their dinner party that they have every year for neighbors and friends.
        I arrived a little late but dinner was to start later in the day. I went around taking pictures of the guest, some I’ve seen from last year; there were over twenty-five folks who showed up. Mike and Stevie’s home looks like something out of Knox Berry Farm with a lot of rustic decorations out of the old west: wagon wheels, old lanterns, and stuff like that. My good friend and neighbor Joyce Ware showed up and I gave her a big hug. A gal named Cherry who works with Stevie down at the Hi Desert Medical Center showed up on a horse that she rode from Landers that took two hours to traverse. The ride back at night will be pretty cold one but she seemed to be prepared with extra warm clothing. There were lots of kids running around and they seemed more interested in Cherry’s horse than anything else.
        I met Dick the butcher who carved the turkeys and found out that he has the buffalos that I used to babysit. He told me that Scott traded them in and that Chief, Buffy, and Sally were doing fine. I’ll have to go out to Dick’s ranch for a visit to my old friends.
        Samuel showed up later than I and he showed me an album that he had put together of his family that he hadn’t seem in many years. I am glad to say I played a part in getting him and his father reunited. We started eating around 3:30pm and I was one of the first in line because I had to go to the community center for Potluck. Here I am eating to meals again just like on Thanksgiving, but this time I just sampled small portions of everything, and it was mighty fine grub too! I said my goodbyes and was off to Potluck.
        We had a better turnout at Potluck than I expected, nineteen desert folks showed up! There was plenty of good grub to go around and again I just sampled everything. There was: Dana and Karen brought their son, Dyan and her mother Dorothy brought scalloped potatoes, Lee and Marcie Hines had something there but was all gone by the time I got in line after taking pictures, Chris Jonas brought his fantastic macaroni Salad, Bob Seeley contributed a vegetable plate. There was more there but I didn’t find out who brought what, I’ll ask Marcie later if I write this for the column.
        When I arrived back home and my belly was mighty full but not as much as it was on Thanksgiving. I think I’ll just lay off on food for a while! I spent most of the rest of the night just mindlessly surfing the web and mellowing out from today’s activities.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 30 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 70, winds out of the NNW at 3 to 8 MPH, humidity around 27 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 73. West northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph becoming calm. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. Southwest wind between 6 and 8 mph.”
        It was kind of another slow day just calling a few Friends and Family. I messed around with my computers installing a TV interface on the Asus 701 EEE laptop so that I can watch television on it. The Asus 701 actually has better speakers than any laptop I’ve ever heard. The 7” screen is small but crisp and just right for individual viewing. If it had a decent keyboard I wouldn’t had needed to buy the Dell Mini 9, which I’ve been using to type all my journal entries lately. I do like the small form factor of the Mini. You can toss them into your backpack and be off to town, and they aren’t too small to make them unusable for typing out long documents. A big plus is the Flash drive that loads programs fast like MS Word 2007 that takes forever to load on regular IDE drives.
        I burned to CD all the pictures that I took over at Mike and Stevie’s party and drove my Trusty Scooter to their home to deliver them. They were mighty happy and gave me some pecan cookies, yum!
        Went for my evening walk, started reading a new Sci-Fi book called “Stars on Stars” a continuation of the book I’ve just finished. Then I watched “60 Minutes” on CBS on my laptop, and then “Monk” on NBC where an accountant for a girly magazine is found dead and Monk is called to figure out if it was murder.
        Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to November, you been a very fascinating month!

October 2008

Welcome to the Month of October!- did my stretches, ran three miles. My shoulder has been giving me problems so I’ve decided to go on long runs on Wednesdays and not lift weights or ride my bike on that day. We’ll see how it goes.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 72 to 96, calm winds, humidity around 30 percent, a few cumulus clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday...Sunny. Highs in the mid 90s. Northwest wind around 10 mph shifting to the southwest in the afternoon.Thursday Night...Mostly clear. Lows in the upper 60s. West wind 10 to 15 mph. Gusts up to 25 mph in the evening.”
        Updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website’s calendar to October and a few other updates to the site.
        I went outside to work on the east side patio cutting wood and hammering nails. I really need to get some more nails because I ran out of the ones I use and had to scrounge some up that were bent, and then had to straighten them.
        Went for my evening walk listening again to “Nucleosynthesis”. It starts with the “Big Bang Nucleosynthesis” at ten billion degrees where high-speed collisions occur in a soup of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons. A free Proton catches an Electron and becomes a Hydrogen atom. The Hydrogen atom fuses with another Hydrogen atom to form Deuterium with one Proton and one Neutron, and releases a Positron (antielectron-antimatter that is annihilated when it encounters and Electron, producing two high-energy Photons- Gamma Rays), and a Neutrino (an elementary particle that has little mass and doesn’t carry an electric charge). Then the Deuterium fuses into Helium-3, and two Helium-3 fuses into Helium-4 that is very stable. An increase in energy was released as heavier isotopes and elements were fused. In the first three minutes after the Big Bang most of the Deuterium was converted into Helium and small amounts of Lithium, and nothing heavier because things cooled down and the process stopped. I’ll listen to it again hopefully tomorrow and write about Stellar Nucleosynthesis.
        Called my brother Kevin and yakked at him for a while. Then I watched “Bones: Crank in the Shaft” (very appropriate title) on Fox about an office manager’s body parts found in an elevator.
        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.

Thursday 02- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 72 to 93, winds out of the NW to SW at 4-20 MPH, humidity around 32 percent, high altostratus clouds with a lot of moisture as seen by the contrails left by jets. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. West southwest wind between 8 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 67. West wind between 10 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.”
        I didn’t do a hell of a lot today but I did get on the roof to patch some places where it leaks into the shop. Messed around with the Asus EEE for a while. I downloaded IE7; I hope that wasn’t a mistake. Got it all loaded up with the programs that I need to make a functional laptop and still have 1.5Gig left of 4Gig on C: drive! Practiced writing in Word 2000 to get a feel for the keyboard: it is small!
        Went for my evening walk but didn’t take my iPod because the wind had piped up making it hard to listen to. Besides, I needed to give my ears (and my brain) a rest.
        I actually watched the Vise Presidential Debates! I’m really apolitical but was interested in how Palin would fair against Biden; I think that she did mighty well. Who won? I don’t think that anyone lost, and I don’t think that it will change any minds either.
        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 03- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 70 to 89, winds out of the NW to SW at 6-25 MPH, humidity around 36 percent, high altostratus clouds again. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Partly sunny, with a high near 78. Windy, with a light wind becoming west between 27 and 30 mph. Winds could gust as high as 41 mph. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 57. Breezy, with a west wind 23 to 26 mph decreasing to between 11 and 14 mph. Winds could gust as high as 37 mph..”
        Did the update on the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the newsletter. I also added an update to Roger’s Garden to it, and put up the pictures from last month’s Potluck- there was a lot to do.
        Stoney called asking that if I was out his way could I stop by to fix his TV. So I went over to check up on my Friend’s home who is on vacation and then went by Stoney’s. The problem with his TV was that the captions were set for “on” and I unselected it to “off”, it was no big deal. He gave me a tour of his new garden that Roger Smith is building for him. He finally has two small tomatoes after two months or more. The reason why so few tomatoes, he says, is that he has been over watering them.
        Got back home, but because of the wind, I really couldn’t do much work outside so I decided to go on my evening walk early. The wind was blowing really hard out of the southwest and blew my hat off a few times and I had to chase it down, no astronomy lectures for me today!
        I went online with the computer to get caught up with some of my correspondents and mindlessly surf the web as I do every Friday night. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. I’m feeling mighty tired tonight!

Saturday 04- did my stretches. It was a beautiful day outside but windy.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 70 to 89, winds out of the W to SW at 12-25 with gusts to 35 MPH, humidity around 41 percent, cumulus clouds here and there. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 80. North northwest wind between 5 and 9 mph. Sunday Night: Clear, with a low around 57. Calm wind becoming northwest around 6 mph.”
        I went outside to work in the “shop”, gathering all my tools into one place and cleaning them. I have this old rusted vice that I stripped down to clean, grease and oil. I got it looking almost new! Fat Cat just laid around watching me while I was doing all this work- lazy cat!
        Ron Dehart dropped by while I was in the shop. He brought me some yogurt and carrots I had ask for yesterday when he told me he was going to town. I showed him all the new stuff I’ve been adding to the patio.
        I went for a nice evening walk despite the high winds. When I got back, I called Family and Friends. Some weren’t home and I left messages, others were home and we yakked for a spell. I just mainly wanted to touch base, to say, “Hey I’m still alive!
        I thought I just kick back tonight to watch a movie. I decided on “Alien” (1979) starring Sigourney Weaver and Tom Skerritt. I remember when it came out; it was just after I got back from a two-month visit to Europe. Before I left for Europe, I saw an article about “Alien” with some of its artwork by H.R. Giger in Omni Magazine and I couldn’t wait to see it! It was one of the best Sci-Fi movies at the time, right up there with “2001 a Space Odyssey” (1968). I still crack up every time I see “Mother” the state of the art computer from the future 2122 with cathoray (CRT) screens! Then I watched “Alien 3” (1992). I skipped “Aliens” (1986) the second one in the series and the best because I had watched it a few weeks or so ago. I might watch “Alien: Resurrection” (1997) tomorrow. Yes, I do love my Sci-Fi movies!
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 05- did my stretches. It was another beautiful day outside. I think that the wind from yesterday has brought on my allergies. I don’t like taking allergy pills because they give me weird dreams. I took one last night and dreamed about an old girlfriend of mine. She was quite special to me a long time ago and the dream left me a little melancholy.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 to 85, winds out of the N to NW at 6-15, humidity around 35 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 87. Northwest wind around 6 mph becoming calm. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 59. Calm wind becoming northwest between 5 and 8 mph.”
        Frank and Mary came by to pick up their laptop I had fixed for them. For fixing the laptop, Mary brought me a bottle of wine that I politely turned down. We sat around and jawed some and then they were off to visit other friends before they have to leave to go back down to the big city.
        Dale from Landers called to tell me about an article in last Wednesday’s paper about his fight with county officials to take care of a problem with his neighbor’s dogs that she lets run loose. He and his neighbors have been trying for some time to rid their neighborhood of these vicious animals that are threatening and killing their pets. Maybe they’ll get some action now that it was printed in the newspaper.
        I hopped on my Trusty Scooter and rode on over to my friends Danna and Karen’s home for a visit. They showed me a DVD, which had a PowerPoint presentation of their Grand Daughter Katrina’s graduation from high school. It was done very nicely; it showed Katrina when she was a little baby all the way up to a young woman with a bright future ahead of her. I wonder if I might be able to create a PowerPoint presentation like that. I got the program and took a few online classes on it! I just might give it a try.
        Danna was watching a NASCAR race where the cars were tailgating really close to each other. Danna said that the speed limit of the track was reduced to something like 195 MPH and drivers had to use drafting to maneuver into position. Driving so close at that speed there was bound to be an accident and there was; we saw something like fourteen cars in a fantastic collision with racecars going every which way! Fortunately, nobody was injured.
        Before I left, I took a tour of their garden to get some ideas building and planting mine. It seems that okra, squash, and bell peppers are the way to go up here in the desert. I rode off with a bag of okra and bell peppers that they had given me.
        Stopped off at Stoney’s to give him some okra and sat and jawed for a bit. When I left I noticed that my Angels baseball cap had fallen out somewhere on the way to his house and had to drive all the way back to Danna’s before I found it in the middle of the road.
        I went on my evening walk and then watched “Alien: Resurrection” (1997). When that ended, it was time to watch “Monk” (2002) on NBC. This was the end of a two parter that I had seen last week about a plot to kill a politician running for office.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. I took another allergy pill earlier and I hope I don’t have any strange dreams tonight!

Monday 06- I called my brother Kevin when I first woke up only to find that he was in the hospital during the weekend. He is okay now and is on his way back home. This has me a little worried!
        I did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. I think that the pain in my shoulder was caused by doing pushups so I’m going to stop them for a while and when I start them back up, I’ll just go easy.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 68 to 87, light winds, humidity around 31 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 91. West northwest wind around 6 mph becoming calm. Tuesday Night: Clear, with a low around 60. Calm wind becoming northwest around 6 mph.”
        I started gathering info for my column, getting it ready to write, edit, and send it to the newspaper tomorrow.
        I downloaded a free ebook from Baen press called “The Course of Empire” (2003) by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth, and installed it on my Sony PDA. I read a few chapters in it during the day. It’s about an alien race that conquers Earth and is trying to retrain humans, for what I don’t know yet. It looks to be a page-turner!
        I went for my evening walk re-listening to “Nucleosynthesis”, but my mind was on other matters to remember much and my allergies kicking in didn’t help either. I did get a little more on the “Proton-Proton Chain Reaction” where Lithium quickly finds a Hydrogen atom and breaks down into two Helium4 atoms. Then the process suddenly had stopped by the cooling of the Big Bang, and if this process was left to continue, I believe they said that there would be nothing left but Helium4 atoms and the universe wouldn’t be as it is today (I’ll have to recheck this).
        Watched “Terminator: the Sara Conner Chronicles”. Another evil robot from the future is sent back to terminate one of John’s key lieutenants in the future, who is in the present, just a kid in a military school.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar and finally wrote a second verse to the song I’m presently working on: What ever happened to the girl I used to know from dawn of early spring. I had you, you had me, and that was all we really need (something like that). Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 07- got a call from my dear friend Kula who was at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago waiting to fly home. We yapped for a spell. She says that it is faster to go through O’Hare from Iowa then Denver. Kula was in Iowa visiting her Mom.
        I did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 66 to 90, light winds, humidity around 25 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 93. West wind at 7 mph becoming south southeast. Wednesday Night: Clear, with a low around 62. South southwest wind between 4 and 7 mph becoming calm. Special Weather Statement A MAJOR CHANGE TO THE WEATHER WILL BE SEEN LATE THIS WEEK AND INTO THE WEEKEND. A STRONG PACIFIC STORM IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP AND MOVE INTO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ON THURSDAY AND THEN SOUTH INTO THE GREAT BASIN FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. ALTHOUGH SHOWERS WILL BE SEEN. THE MAINAFFECTS OF THIS SYSTEM WILL BE WINDS AND COOLER TEMPERATURES.”
        I worked on my column for the newspaper. I had one wrote up but I decided to go with another story; got it edited and sent it to the newspaper. Then I worked on Ken’s website for a while and have it completed. There’s be some tweaks I’ll want to do later, and changes he might want to make, but as far as I am concerned, it’s done.
        I got an email from my friend Karen Van Noort saying: “On Thursday night; Oct. 9TH, the power in our area will be shut off around 9pm, until about 6am Friday morning; Oct. 10TH. We received a notice in the mail from the power company, saying that they will be working on stuff & upgrading things in our area. Anyway, I know you like to star gaze, so that could be a good night for you, depending on the moon phase of course.”
        Yes! I believe I’ll take advantage of this outage and get out the old telescope! There will be dark skies for sure!
        Joel Levy delivered my mail and there was a check from the newspaper for $49 that was for the article “Legend of the High Desert” that I wrote last month, whoopee! I feel I’ve made the big time!
        I read a chapter in “The Course of Empire” and then went on my evening walk. I did re-listen to “Nucleosynthesis”; it is only a half-hour lecture but jammed packed with so much info that it is hard to put it all together in my tiny brain. In addition, I’m getting behind on my other lectures but I want to get this one down pat! I just might have to sit down and take notes instead of listening to it on my walks.
        Had a nice talk with my brother Kevin who is recovering nicely from his stay in the hospital.
        Watched “NCIS” on CBS. It was about a woman naval officer that was found dead shot in the back. An old Desert Storm Marine buddy of Gibbs now a Senator who had an affair with the dead woman wants Gibbs to keep his name out of the investigation.
        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.

Wednesday 08- I got up early, fed the cat, and jumped in the Gross Polluter and headed to town.
        Just a note on yesterday’s post: It occurred to me that my post about receiving $49 for that article “Legend of the High Desert” I wrote for the newspaper may have sounded like sarcasm. It was not! I was really thrilled to get paid for something that I love to do! And that something is to put words together in a meaningful way so that other folks may understand my stories.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 69 to 100, calm winds, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 87. West southwest wind 9 to 12 mph increasing to between 17 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 59. West northwest wind around 17 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.”
        My first stop was to fill up on gas. It was $3.29 at Arco and I spent $30 filling up my truck and a five-gallon container. Then onto Bank of America where I deposited some checks. I always take off my Angels cap and sunglasses when I go inside because I look too much like a bank robber and folks appear nervous around me.
        WalMart was next and I went right in to get what I wanted and got out. Stater Brothers was a different story; they keep changing it around on me. My Brother says it’s a marketing ploy to get you to spend time looking around other places in the store, and possibly buying items you wouldn’t otherwise purchase. Well I know what I want and seldom vary from my list. I used to be able to find it quickly and get out. I may do my shopping somewhere else if they change it on me again. By the way, they replaced my missing yogurt from my last trip there that they forgot to replace after the bag ripped and everything fell on the floor.
        Home Depot was my last stop on my way home. That place is enormous and hunting down things there is worse than Staters. I don’t like to spend too much time in there because when I walk down the aisles I can see all these items I need for my home; kind of like Staters marketing ploy but done in a different way. I was so frustrated going from one end of the store to the other that I caught myself talking to myself; I’ll have to watch that being I don’t get out much. I got my nails, paint, some lumber, and two 4x8’ molded plastic lattices that I’ll put up as wind blocks.
        Funny thing is that I ran into Lee and Marcie Hines at WalMart, Staters, and Home Depot. Marcie jokingly asked if I was following them around.
        Finally got home, unloaded and put everything away, and started to paint my patio. Spent two and a half hours in the heat of the day painting until the Sun started going down. Took a shower and went on my evening walk.
        I was mighty tired after all this work; my whole body ached. I sat down to relax, called my brother Kevin, and yakked at him for fifty minutes. Then I watched “Bones” on Fox about a woman’s body that was found washed up on a beach.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. I’m so tired that I think I’ll sleep a sound sleep tonight.

Thursday 09- did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 66 to 87, winds out NW-SW at 6 to 19 with gusts to 40 MPH, humidity around 27 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 78. Breezy, with a west northwest wind between 13 and 23 mph, with gusts as high as 34 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 50. Windy, with a west northwest wind 30 to 33 mph decreasing to between 22 and 25 mph. Winds could gust as high as 49 mph.”
        I was watching the stock market plunge below 9000 and listening to all the doom and gloom being said like this is the end of the world, as we know it. I decided to invest $5000 from my IRA Money Market Fund, where it has been sitting for years waiting for this opportunity, into the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund. I might be nuts but like the man said about the secret of the stock market, “Buy low and sell high”. It’s just trying to find where the lows and highs are. Well the DOW closed at 8579 today from a high of over 14164 on Oct. 09, 2007 and I believe this is a good place as any to dollar cost average into the market even if it keeps falling from this point on. My rules are to buy when everyone is selling and to sell when everyone and their brother is buying, and don’t get greedy. With all the negativity in the press and the economy going into the dumps with bank failings and such it was my time to enter the market. I didn’t like doing it but them are the rules I follow!
        Did a little work on Ken’s website correcting errors he had found, some from the info he typed up and sent to me but I should have caught them. No matter, this is expected, and we’ll do it until it’s right.
        It is too dang windy to go out and paint my patio so I just cleaned up inside and played with some electronics. I read a few chapters in “The Course of Empire”. Then I went for my evening walk; it was too windy to listen to a lecture.
        Went on over to Stoney’s for spaghetti dinner. Roger Smith was also there and brought a salad. Stoney makes some of the best spaghetti I’ve ever had and to prove it I ate to much of it!
        Yakked at my Brother Kevin for almost an hour. Afterwards “CSI” came on CBS. Sara Sidle, played by Jorja Fox, was to be on the show and that’s why I tuned in to watch it (I stopped watching after she left). They killed off Warrick! Very sad show, but maybe Sara and Grissom will hook up again!
        Did my stretches and lifted weights. It was excessively windy for a run. I did go outside and used a little trick I learned in Meteorology- if you stand with your back to the direction the wind is blowing, and then bring up your left arm sideways to shoulder height and point, that’s where the low is. The wind was coming out of the NW and my left arm was pointing NE and that’s where this particular low coming down from Canada is located. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 10- did my stretches; too dang windy for anything else.
        Last night the electric company was suppose to shut down all power in our area, but they changed their minds and decided to do it some other time.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 79, winds out NW at 12 to 25 with gusts to 50 MPH or so, humidity around 29 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 65. Breezy, with a northwest wind between 18 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 42. Northwest wind between 9 and 13 mph.”
        Updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the newsletter. Then I watched the Stock Market until it closed to see what my buy in was for the S&P Index Mutual Fund. The Dow was down 128 points after a rollercoaster ride throughout the day dipping into the 7000range, climbing above yesterday’s close and then settling with a loss. I think I made the right decision, buying in when I did, but only time will tell.
        The wind died down during the afternoon and I went outside to do some painting and touch up of the patio until the wind started back up again a few hours later. It was really blowing when I went for my evening walk.
        When I got back I went online to work on Ken’s website; he found some more errors which I corrected. Then I watched “Numbers” on CBS about a bunch of thugs who go and kidnap women and have them withdraw money out of ATM machines.
        The wind is trying to blow my home away! I decided not to go on a nightly run and just did my stretches. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. I’m feeling pretty tired tonight!

Saturday 11- did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 48 to 60, winds out NW at 14 to 18 with gusts to 40 MPH or so, humidity around 29 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 68. North northwest wind between 13 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 44. North northwest wind between 10 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.”
        I didn’t do much of anything but talk to Family and Friends on the phone today: Larry, Lynn, Ron, Tom and Aki, and Mom and Pop. It seems that either I was calling them or they were calling me. This is a good thing but it takes up much time. It was windy outside so it really didn’t matter much anyways.
        I reminded Larry of our first beach dive in our scuba class back in the 70’s. The night before the dive, we got really plastered and felt pretty darn sick the next morning while waiting for everyone to show up for the class. I dug a hole next to me and barfed into it. Ah, those were the days!
        I did have to tinker with my electrical system; there was a weak connection to the inverter from the batteries and caused my refrigerator not to start when I turned it on this morning. It took me a little while to figure it out and I’m thankful that the inverter or refrigerator weren’t going bad.
        Went for my evening walk into the high winds that were blowing out on the NW. My walk was a fast one with the wind to my back but made for a long hard march on the way home.
        Jimmy called on his way back from a rifle handling and safety training class where he is studying to be an instructor for the 4H club that his daughter Angela belongs to. Then my brother Kevin called to yap for a spell.
        I watched a scary movie called “The Grudge” (2004), about a house where a family died a horrible death and their spirits still linger around killing folks; either in the house or following them elsewhere. After the movie, I made sure my door was locked!
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, double checked the door was locked, and called it a night.

Sunday 12- The Day My Internet Connection Died!- did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 48 to 62, winds out NW at 6 to 12, humidity around 25 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Well my telephone is down and I don’t have an internet connection so I really can’t find out what the Weather Service says!”
        I was talking to my friend Kula when my phone went dead; that was around 2pm. I called her back on my cell phone and talked a little longer. When I was done talking, I checked my phone and it was still dead. I then took a phone out to the service box and hooked it up to that, still no dial tone. I called my phone with my cell and all I got was a busy signal. Called Stoney with my cell to see if his was working, it was, and he invited me over for dinner to finish off the spaghetti from Friday.
        In the meantime I called Verizon and got a hold of their evil robot to setup a service call. I tried to get a hold of a human but the evil robot wouldn’t let me (I wonder if she’s from Skynet!). The robot told me to wait a minute while it ran diagnostics on my line and came back telling me that the test was undetermined as to what was wrong. The Verizon evil robot informed me that there would be a Service Tech over Monday between 8am and 5pm and that I should be there to let him in, and if they had to reschedule I would receive a credit.
        I went for my evening walk. It was a little breezy and cold but it was a nice walk. Got back and checked the phone; still no dial tone.
        Hopped on my Trusty Scooter and drove it over to Stoney’s. Roger Smith was there and we ate up all the rest of the leftover spaghetti. We sat around the kitchen table jawing about the economy and other stuff until the Sun started going down.
        I got home just before it set and I checked the phone line again; it was still dead, dang! That means no internet for me and any folks who call will only get a busy signal and think I’m online with my computer.
        I called my brother Kevin and told him my woes of not being able to get online. So he got on his computer and read the news to me and surfed around checking on computer wireless plans from cell phone companies and ditching the landline. It looks like T-Mobile has the best plan; I couldn’t afford it at this time anyways, but it made me feel better. I do a lot of work online: web design, my column for the newspaper, my journal, my dialup ISP, updating the community website and need a dependable connection. If I got cell broadband wireless for my computer, I could use VOIP to make and receive calls and have a faster connection too! However, at $50 a month I really have some thinking to do before I commit.
        After reading a few chapters in my Sci-fi book I watched “Monk” on NBC about a Police officer who is framed for a murder of a drug informant at a carnival.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, and didn’t post it to the web cause my dialup is down and this is the first time in years that I haven’t been able to connect; I feel so lost without the internet, and called it a night.

Monday 13 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. It was 49 degrees when I went for my run; burr!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 47 to 64, winds out NNW at 12 to 18, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 74. North northwest wind between 14 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Tuesday Night: Clear, with a low around 53. Northwest wind around 9 mph.”
        Got a call from Randy the Verizon repair person telling me that the problem with my phone line was a bad MOX (whatever that is) and he reset it. If I have any more problems with it to call his supervisor, Randy said. Okay, now I got my phone and internet back! I called my friend Ron Dehart, who was experiencing the same problem I was having, and told him it was fixed. While we were catching up on our lives, swapping stories, the dang line went dead! I immediately called Randy’s supervisor Brian and explained the situation to him. He said he’d check on it and it would be tomorrow before he’d have an answer. The phone came back on, died, came back on, died again, and then came back on and stayed on for the rest of the day.
        I went online to get some work done that I wasn’t able to do yesterday because of the dead phone. Lots of emails to read and reply, blogs to post, and web work to do. It felt great to be online and connected again!
        I drove the Gross Polluter over to my Friend’s home to check on it while he’s away. Then I went over to Ron Dehart’s to pick up some old chairs he has for me. Ron was watching Boston Red Socks vs. Tampa Bay Rays. I watched it for a little while with him; Boston was down by five runs and Ron being from Boston was none too thrilled about that! We carried the chairs to my truck and I was off for home.
        It was cold and windy when I went for my evening walk but not too bad.
        I watched the news about the fires in Southern California and to find out what the Stock Market did; the Dow closed up 936.71 points! I made money on my little $5000 investment I made last Friday when the Market hit its lowest in six years or so, cool! Ron and I felt that it would rise on Monday; we’ll just have to see if it continues to rise. If it drops, I’ll throw more money into it, otherwise I’ll just hold.
        Yapped at my brother Kevin for a while, and then went back online to work for a while.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for a cold nightly run! I guess that I’ll have to hunt up my winter running gear. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 14 - when I woke up there was a message from Randy the Verizon repairperson telling me that the problem with my phone line was fixed again. He went on to tell me something else but I accidentally erased the message when I went to rewind it, dang! Well as long as it’s working that’s all I care about.
        I did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights. It was a really nice outside and a lot warmer than yesterday.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 53 to 84, winds out NW at 4 to 10, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 84. North northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph. Wednesday Night: Clear, with a low around 54. South southeast wind 5 to 7 mph becoming west northwest.”
        I wrote my column for the newspaper, it took longer than usual because I had to hunt down info on Ruth Denison, the subject of my story. I called Ron Dehart who is a friend of Ruth’s to clarify a few items. Ron came by with my telescope I’d lent him and brought me some split pea soup, too!
        Tomorrow is Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty and I wanted to write and help: I believe that there is too dang much greed and indifference in our world. We expect our governments to handle these things, but they seem to just help themselves, while we go about our daily lives trying to earn a living and focus on our next purchases that are presented via media commercials: buy this fast car; buy this latest computer; buy this new and improved whatever! Buy, buy, and buy! We have been programmed by our society to be consumers: work, spend, work and spend, while less fortunate people of the world and in our nation go without.
        Greed can be seen in the recent bailout of financial institutions: the American International Group (AIG) went on a retreat in California spending $440,000 on its executives after getting an $85 billion bailout loan from our government, that’s you and me the taxpayers! Greed is what got us into the crisis that we’re in today and it was cause by such “executives”!
        Indifference can be seen in our country with the lack of health care coverage for the poor and working poor. We have the best medical care in the world if you can afford it, and some can’t. I believe if we had national healthcare it would take the burden off business of providing it and create more jobs. I also believe that our government should try a trickle up instead of a trickle down approach.
        What can I do about poverty? I live off a meager income that took many years of hard work to save. First of all, I’m trying to leave a small footprint on our world. Secondly, I look around at all the stuff I have acquired in my life that’s sitting in boxes stacked in storage. I’ve even took an online class on how to rid myself of clutter! Yes, I am caught in the same consumerism as the next person, but I’ve been trying to change these last few years. I’ve been donating my “stuff” to charity, I find that it’s hard to let some of it go, but I do keep trying.
        I believe that we as a nation will go through a paradigm shift, if we aren’t already in the beginning of one now, and realize our consumerism cannot continue as before, bleeding the Earth of her resources, and creating wide gaps between the rich, middle class, and the poor. Thank you for reading!
        Went to work on my patio putting up the lattice paneling I had bought at Home Depot. First, I had to cut, fit and nail 2x4s across the top of the posts. Then I had to paint them and screw the lattice paneling up. I was pretty dang tired when I was done. I washed up and went for my evening walk.
        My brother Kevin called to tell me about a class he is taking once a week. Then I watched “Nova” on PBS about the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 2003.
        I read a few chapters of Sci-Fi until it got late. 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.

Wednesday 15 - last night I had a toothache. The tooth was loose and I thought I could pull it out myself. I took a pain pill, got all the instruments together: pliers, kite string, stuff like that, and tried to yank it out, ouch! I found that the pulling of the tooth exceeded my pain threshold and I had to come up with a better option, maybe I could have Stoney pull it out, Nah! So I decided to setup a Dentist appointment when I woke up in the morning. And that’s just what I did.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 55 to 86, light breeze, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 85. North northwest wind between 5 and 7 mph. Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around 55. Calm wind becoming west northwest between 5 and 8 mph.”
        Did my stretches and some online work until it was time for my dentist appointment. I arrived at the dentist 2pm and was headed home minus my tooth a half hour later. It was painless because of all the Novocain he injected into my gums; my face was numb for several hours afterwards.
        I got home and read the instructions from the dentist that I am to follow: no hot liquids, no exercising, rest, don’t spit, and a few others that didn’t pertain to me. After a while, the Novocain was warring thin so I took a pain pill and made a few calls before the pill took effect: one to Stoney, another to Ron Dehart, and one to my brother Kevin. Ron dropped by to get some bug spray I have so he could use it on the termites that are invading his fence. After he left, I read a few chapters in the Sci-Fi book before I got drowsy. I hardly ever take pills but when I do, they really affect me in a way that I ain’t good for anything other than mindlessly surfing the web. And that’s just what I did for the rest of the night.
        I couldn’t do my exercises because of the list of rules from the dentist, and it also felt like my head would roll off if I did. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 16 - did my stretches and that was all the exercise I did because of my dentist’s instructions. I’m not feeling much pain from the tooth extraction and that is a good thing!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 88, light breeze, humidity around 2 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming southeast around 6 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 57. West wind between 5 and 9 mph.”
        Did some computer work and then went outside to a beautiful day! I did some painting of the patio and it is looking great.
        Joel called and is having a little trouble with his computer and I told him to bring it over. Seems that he accidently deleted a program he uses for his addresses called CardFile.exe. The system is an old Dell Optiplex GS+ with a Pentium 166Mz processor that I gave him for his birthday a few years ago so he could run his old programs from Win 3.1. After searching the web, I found and downloaded the program. I will install it tomorrow and he can have his computer back.
        I went for my evening walk and then watched the sunset with Fat Cat; it was such a beautiful day!
        My brother Kevin called and we yakked for a spell. We were wondering about our friend Ted who was supposed to have been back from Philadelphia earlier today. I asked Kevin to put me on hold while he gave him a call. He made it home all right and we three were on a conference call with Ted doing most of the talking. He went to an Obama rally there and gave us the whole story and more (over two hours!).
        I watched “CSI” on CBS about a woman who got a telephone call, put on a bathing suit, walked over to her balcony and dived off landing on a bus many stories below. Sara Sidle was in this one and back with Grissom but it looked to me that she was leaving in the end.
        I did my stretches. I was practicing my guitar when Joel came by with my mail along with a DC-to-DC car adapter I had ordered for my ASUS EEE laptop; I plugged it in and it worked just fine. Wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 17 - only did my stretches again today because of my dentist’s instructions.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 91, light breeze, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 88. West wind 5 to 8 mph becoming southwest between 13 and 16 mph. Winds could gust as high as 22 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 56. West northwest wind between 9 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.”
        Updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the Newsletter.
        I went outside to a glorious day to do some more painting of the patio. Looks mighty good!
        Worked on Joel’s computer and found that the Ram was no good; it came up with a parity error when I tried to boot up the system. I took the two bad memory chips out and it booted up just fine. Now he has only 32Meg and I don’t have any replacements. I got him interested in buying my Dell Inspiron 2350 for $200 and I think it will be a good machine for him.
        Went for my evening walk and got a pic of a Jackrabbit sitting on the trail posing in front of me, cool!
        Read my Sci-Fi book until “Numbers” came on but there was something wrong with the broadcast- several channels were frozen in frame including Numbers. Therefore, I wasn’t able to watch it, dang! And read some more Sci-Fi instead.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 18 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 59 to 93 winds out of the NW to SE at 3-11 MPH, humidity around 26 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 84. Northwest wind at 10 mph becoming south southwest. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 56. West wind between 7 and 13 mph.”
        I worked on the Dell computer that I’m selling to Joel, cleaning all my stuff out of it and deleting a few programs he won’t be needing and updating a few that he might.
        It was such a beautiful day that I spent much of my time sitting outside doing nothing but enjoying the nice weather. It seems like the flow of time slows a bit when I listen to the quiet activities of critters buzzing and flying around on a lazy day in my front yard.
        Called my sister Shiela and yakked at her for a spell. She decided that retirement was excessively boring and got a new job at a school for kids, and is doing quite well there, so far.
        I called my Mom and Pop to yak at them about their week. Then my brother Kevin called, he had just gotten back from his daughter’s where he did his laundry. He spent most of the day helping John our brother in law store boxes of telecommunication equipment, and then went on the road to servicing his vending machines. He is getting back into bike riding on trails and that makes me happy.
        I spent most of the rest of the night reading my Sci-Fi book and got a bunch of chapters read. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 19 - did my stretches. Tomorrow I start my regular routine again- I haven’t done any heavy exercises since last Wednesday when I had my tooth pulled.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 89, light winds from the NW and SE, humidity around 31 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 86. North northwest wind between 6 and 10 mph. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 55. West northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph.”
        It was another beautiful day but not as hot. I couldn’t just linger sitting around and went to work on the patio. I did some framing on the front getting it ready for the lattice panels I’ll pick up at Home Depot tomorrow or the next day. I also did more painting too. While I was doing that, I was also working on Joel’s computer doing a system clean and defrag. It is already for him now to pick up but I think that I’ll have to schedule some time to set it up for him in his home.
        I went for my evening walk and just meditated on a lot of stuff while I walked getting my mind in order. It amazes me how a walk everyday does so much good to the body and mind.
        My sister Audrey called and we chatted for almost an hour- we had lots to catch up on.
        I messed around trying to find a driver that would work to run an Apple USB modem on the XP OS but found that there is no such animal. I wanted to use the Apple modem on my ASUS EEE, which doesn’t have a modem except for the Bluetooth I currently use.
        Watched “Monk” on NBC about a rich guy who was shot pretending to rob a friend. Then “NOVA: Saved by the Sun” came on. I’ve seen it before but I enjoyed it last time especially when a so-called “Physicist” said that solar cells are only good for powering calculators! I thought that was funny since my whole house is powered by them and I am able to watch him say that on a TV that is run on solar. So much for any credibility he may bring to the table! Experts! They’ll get ya every time!
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 20 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 88, light winds from the NW and SW, humidity around 30 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 88. North northwest wind around 7 mph. Tuesday Night: Clear, with a low around 56. Northwest wind around 7 mph.”
        I got up late today, I stayed up until 4:20am last night lusting over new computers online (the Lenovo Idea Pad S10 looks mighty nice but so does the Dell Mini 9), and I have much to do today!
        Patty called thinking someone got into her files while she was away, but it turned out not to be the case: Yahoo messenger had added some files to a new folder.
        While I was exercising Stoney came by with Sue to deliver a bag of groceries to me from the USDA food distribution. Sue had just got back from Mexico City where she and Gail had got themselves stranded for a few days until Stoney wired some money to them.
        I went online to check my email and news while I ate my oatmeal. Then I jumped in the Gross Polluter and headed to town. I stopped at the Post Office to pick up an 8Gig SD for my ASUS EEE that I ordered a few days ago.
        I got to Home Depot and spent some time there getting the things that I need to complete my patio and some other stuff too. I bought eight lattice panels, one pier with ears, ten 2x4x8s, screws, nails, LED lights, and ten red pavers. It all rang up to over $260, yikes!
        I arrived home around 3:30pm. I was hungry and made myself a peanut butter, jelly, and mayonnaise sandwich. Then it was back to work hanging the two lattice panels on the front fence. That took a while because there wasn’t enough lip on the frame to screw them to. So I had to hunt around for some wood that I could nail to the fence to make a lip then paint them before I screwed in the panels.
        Went for my evening walk. Tomorrow I will listen to an astronomy lecture; I’ve been preoccupied with other things lately. I really need to get my focus back on the things I like.
        My brother Kevin called for a short chat. Then it was time for “Terminator: the Sara Conner Chronicles” where the evil liquid lady executive robot takes the child she inherited from the women she took the form of, to see a psychologist. John Conner is seeing the same psychologist to find out why Skynet is interested and protecting this psychologist.
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. It feels so good to be running again!
        The sky was clear and I thought that I might view a few of the Orionid meteors that should be streaming across the heavens late tonight, but I guess it was too early because I didn’t see a one. I will try later before I go to bed when Orion will be up higher in the NE sky.
        Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and I am on my way outside to catch some meteors.

Tuesday 21 - last night at 3am before I went to bed I went back outside to view the Orionid meteor shower after an unsuccessful attempt at 10pm when I didn’t see a one. Orion was higher in the Northeast sky and I wasn’t let down! Even though the third quarter Moon was washing out the smaller meteors I saw many quickly shoot across the sky in bright white streaks, too cool!
        I did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 59 to 84, winds from the NW to SW at 3-12 MPH, humidity around 26 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 82. North northwest wind between 8 and 13 mph. Wednesday Night: Clear, with a low around 51. North northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph.”
        I wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in. I went outside and installed three 8x4” lattice panels on the shop’s east wall. I unloaded the truck of all the 2x4s, cement pavers, and other stuff I bought yesterday. I laid out the pavers to widen the walkway in the west patio.
        I took a shower and got caught up on my astronomy reading. Afterwards I went for my evening walk and listened to the astronomy lecture on “Nucleosynthesis”. They discussed the process of Stellar Nucleosynthesis where heavier elements are made by the proton-proton cycle that creates lighter elements in cool stars, and the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle in stars that are larger than 1.4 solar masses. These larger stars burn and create elements all the way up to iron 57 that needs more energy than the star can produce to burn and there is no pressure holding up the stars core, and the star collapses (depending on its size) into a neutron star or a black hole. This is called Explosive Nucleosynthesis. The collapse takes less than a second and creates a tremendous amount of energy to bombard iron and other elements with neutrons to create heavier elements like gold, uranium, and the like. There is another Explosive process: one that involves an accretion disk that surrounds a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. In each case, it involves a binary system where the dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole sucks matter from a neighboring large star, the disk reaches critical mass, and goes nova repeatedly. In addition, there is one other process where an old star that is rich in neutrons speeding from its core hit other atoms in the stars atmosphere to combine into heavier atoms. I’ll have to combine all that I have written so far on Nucleosynthesis and add to it later when I have time, but right or wrong; this is how I understand the process at this time. We are indeed made of star stuff!
        I messed around with the ASUS EEE laptop updating a few things: installed Potable Firefox to save memory on the main drive, did a clean and defrag, while I was reading a few chapters in my Sci-Fi book.
        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.

Wednesday 22 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 82, winds from the NNW at 6-9 MPH, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 82. Northwest wind between 7 and 9 mph. Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around 51. West northwest wind between 6 and 9 mph.”
        I did a few things around the house: cleaning this and sweeping that. Ron Dehart is coming by at 1:45pm and we’re going to the movies so I want to get something done before we go.
        Andrew called and we yapped for almost an hour, mostly on the economy. I don’t talk politics anymore and neither does he: we’re both fed up with the current elections.
        Ron arrived and we drove his truck to town to watch “Appaloosa” Starring: Ed Harris, Robert Knott, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Timothy V. Murphy, and Directed by: Ed Harris. I thought it was a great western. The set had many historic replicas from the windows in the building that were bleary to look through and the old train that was used. Renee Zellweger did some fine acting and had me fooled: I didn’t realize it was she until a little bit into the film. It wasn’t on the scale with “Unforgiven” (1992) but it held my attention throughout, wasn’t too long, and had me longing for the old west. I am glad I went to see it!
        We stopped off at Santana’s Mexican restaurant for dinner before going home. I had the No. 7 entrée on the menu, which were two beef burritos with beans and rice on the side. Ron had a No. 5: beef taco and cheese enchilada. I took the second burrito home to snack on later,
        Got home just as the Sun was setting and I quickly changed my city attire for my bum around clothes and went for my evening walk.
        My brother Kevin called and we talked briefly. Then I went online to mindlessly surf the web and get some work done.
        Did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 23 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 53 to 81, light breeze, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 85. West wind 5 to 8 mph becoming north. Friday Night: Clear, with a low around 51. West northwest wind between 3 and 9 mph.”
        I did some more work on the patio and that’s about what I did all day. Put up another lattice panel and did some more painting.
        Went for my evening walk and listened to an astronomy lecture “Nucleosynthesis” again.
        Read my Sci-Fi book until late into the evening. 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. I know this post is short but I’m tired!

Friday 24 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 51 to 81, light breeze, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 84. North northwest wind between 3 and 5 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 52. Calm wind becoming north northwest between 4 and 7 mph.”
        I worked on the weekend update for the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the newsletter. I thought that I would share my “Thought of the Week” with you who read my journal, so here it is: Thought for the week: I watched “NOVA: Saved by the Sun” last Tuesday. I’ve seen this episode before but I enjoyed it the last time because it featured folks like me who are trying to leave as small a footprint on our environment as possible. One so-called “Physicist” said that solar cells are only good for powering calculators and other small devices! I thought that was rather amusing that I am able to watch this guy say that on a TV that is run off my home’s electric that’s powered by solar cells, which also runs my refrigerator, computer, lights, and other “devices”. So much for any credibility this particular Physicist may bring to the table! Experts! They’ll get ya every time!
        I messed around with the ASUS EEE laptop for a while. Trying to delete some unneeded files and programs, off a system with only 4Gig of flash drive space. I only have 1.6Gigs left and want to make the best use of it. I’m still lusting over the Lenovo S10 and the Dell Mini 9 laptops looking for a deal. I like the S10 because it has a 10.2 screen, but the Dell mini 9 has a flash drive and Bluetooth, which the Lenovo does not. But then again the HP Mini has a better keyboard! So many choices, so little money!
        I needed to get outside for a while so I went to check on my Friend’s home who is away on vacation. Drove the Trusty Scooter over and all was well with his house.
        I called Stoney and he invited me over for dinner. It was getting late so I went on my evening walk before I took the scooter over there. We had fried chicken with potato Salad and watched a little TV.
        I messed around on the computer some until “Numbers” came on CBS about an imposter who gets jobs at large companies to still money. Charley got his FBI clearance reinstated in the end,
        I did my stretches, practiced the guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 25 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 81, light breeze, humidity around 21 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 85. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 52. Calm wind becoming north northwest between 4 and 7 mph.”
        I stayed up late trying to make a decision between two mini laptops: Lenovo S10 and Dell Mini 9. After reading many reviews and hunting deals, I finally found a Dell Mini 9 at $329 (and that ain’t bad!) at the Dell Outlet Site. This is brand new mini laptop was sent back and recertified. A similar one bought new but with 1Gig RAM, that I’d have to replace anyways with 2Gig, would have cost $399! It has an Intel Atom Processor running at 1.6 GHz- 8gig flash disk- 512RAM that I’m upgrading to 2Gigs for $32through Crucial.com- XP Home Edition SP3- Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600) bigger than my ASUS EEE 701’s 7” screen that is just a little too small for me- It has no camera or Bluetooth but that’s okay. One reason I’m buying from Dell is that they maintain a great service site where you can get drivers, updates, and manuals on any of their computers, even very old ones- and I ought to know because I’ve fixed many of them! I’m getting the money from selling off some of my old computers (I have too many as it is) and from funds that I receive from doing webwork: so I won’t be dipping into my savings.
        I spent much of the day calling Family and Friends, as I do every Saturday, until it was time to go to potluck. Stoney called to ask if I’d like to ride down with him and I said that would be fine. He drove up and honked and I was out the door with my mac and cheese that I made. Eleven folks showed up, but there was plenty of food to go around: Marcie’s cheese and beef enchiladas with a side of Spanish rice; Chris’s famous macaroni salad; Rose brought peas; Pat cooked up a tuna casserole, Bob Seeley’s fruit platter; and of course my mac and cheese. There might not have been that many folks attending but the quality of their company are what really matters in the end, and these are all fine folks!
        I got home and went for my evening walk, and then I yakked at my brother Kevin for a long spell. I settled down to read my Sci-Fi book well into the night. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 26 - did my stretches. Tomorrow it’s back to the exercises!
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 to 91, light breeze, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 89. Calm wind becoming east southeast between 6 and 9 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. South southeast wind around 6 mph becoming calm.”
        I was outside watering my plants when my friend Sherry stopped by for a short chat on her way to Wonder Valley. What a beautiful day! It reminded me of spring, but it also reminded me that winter is just around the corner bringing the cold with it.
        I took my laptop into the shop to test the range of the Bluetooth to the modem in my bedroom and had no trouble with the reception.
        Called my old friend Bob Vandenberg to talk of old times. It is funny how time flies by, when he called up a few months ago after a lapse of twenty years or so, I asked him how his kids were doing now- I was thinking that they were still little kids- he told me that they are in their thirties with kids of their own, yikes!
        Called Joel to come and pick up the Dell desktop that I’m selling to him. We sat outside under the shade of my new patio and yapped for a spell; he will be going to Los Angeles sometime next month to be interviewed by a Canadian TV production crew about his friend Iron Eyes Cody. Joel is taking them to Cody’s old home and other haunts that the actor liked. Joel has many stories of Iron Eyes that will give the writers a lot to go on.
        Went for my evening walk. When I was back called some of my Family and Friends to yak at them: Leeanne was on a cruise ship somewhere in international waters and her cell phone was breaking up badly, so I’ll call her next week. Paula was home and awake and we had a nice talk. Shiela was making spaghetti for dinner and we talked with the noise of banging of pots and pans in the background. I quickly jawed with my brother Kevin, who was on his way to a movie.
        I watched “Sixty Minutes” on CBS about the real reason behind the collapse of our economy. However, I suspect there is more to it then what they presented, and I believe our economy has hit the “Perfect Storm” of many origins.
        I read my Sci-Fi book well into the night and I’m almost finished with it. I think it’s time for me to leave these fantasies of alien spacecraft conquering Earth and move onto something more enlightening. I just have to figure out what new subject I want to spend time studying.
        Did my stretches, practiced guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.


Monday 27 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 58 to 94, light breeze, humidity around 23 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 87. West wind 5 to 8 mph becoming east southeast. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 57. West southwest wind around 7 mph.
”
I was online getting my email and checking to see if my Dell Mini 9 had shipped, The email said that it was out for delivery! I had only ordered it Friday morning at 3am and it was already on its way, cool! I had no longer read the email when I heard a truck pull up, it was DHL with the laptop, double cool!
        I quickly opened up the box, put it on the table, hooked it up, and took some pictures of it. I set my ASUS EEE 701 next to it and as you can see by the pictures the Dell is slightly bigger and the keyboard is laid out in a much nicer arrangement. It has a glossy display: you can see my arm reflected in the picture (I had no problems with the display I found out later on after much use). The first thing I noticed was that there was no “F” keys at the top but imbedded on the third row from the top. You an get to them through the “Fn” key. No F11 or F12 keys! Another thing I noticed was the rugged hinges that holds the screen and body together. This is a well thought out and crafted machine.
        I fired it up and went through the process of setting up Windows XP. When that was done I hooked up my Bluetooth dongle and Bluetooth modem (I’m on dialup out here) and went online. This sucker is fast! Programs load quickly. I thought that I’d have problems with having only 512Meg of RAM but so far it performs like a sports car compared to the ASUS EEE and that has !Gig. I have 2Gigs of RAM being shipped from Crucial.com that should arrive in the next few days and I will then load Microsoft Office 2007 onto it and we shall see how that runs.
        I uninstalled bloated MacAfee antivirus and firewall to install Avast antivirus and Sygate firewall. Then of course Firefox with Adblock Plus and Flashblock addons.
        My friend Seimi called to ask a few astronomy questions; are there more atoms in a glass water than glasses of water in the oceans? I told him I’d find out, but I believed so.
        After playing around with the Dell Mini I called Stoney and he invited me over for dinner at 5pm. That gave me just enough time to go on my evening walk and ride my Trusty Scooter over to his place. We had sausage patties that we got from the USDA food distribution with potato salad and cottage cheese.
        Got back home to feed Fat Cat who was patiently awaiting me at the front gate. I got in the house to find a message from Joel that the Dell I sold him wasn’t booting up, it would just get to the Windows screen and die. I had him pick me up and drive me to his home to have a look-see. It turned out that he had it on a really old monitor and XP wasn’t recognizing it. So we switched monitors and it booted up just fine. What a relief, I thought he blew the power supply with all that old Mickey Mouse wiring he has in his home. I installed his AOL for him and got the machine online and I left him a happy man.
        Than I went back to setting up the Mini when I got back making it do all the stuff that I need to make it comfortable to work on. It comes with SP3 but right away it started doing updates, many updates.
        I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal on the Dell Mini and found that the keyboard isn’t all that bad once you find where they hide all the keys. Posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 28 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 59 to 89, light breeze, humidity around 25 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 89. West wind 5 to 9 mph becoming east. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58. West southwest wind between 6 and 8 mph”
        Seimi came by with “Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan for me to read. I gave him “Field Guide to Stars and planets” by the Audubon Society. Seimi is getting interested in astronomy and I want to help where I can. He went on my mile run with me and then I showed him my telescopes. It would be really nice t have someone to stargaze and share the adventure with! There’s not many up here that are interested in things such as this.
        My online friend Steve98052 at LiveJournal sent me an answer to Seimi’s question of yesterday: are there more atoms in a glass of water than glasses of water in the oceans? Here is Steve’s answer: The glass of water isn't that hard to estimate. First, how large is a glass of water? Let's use a small one, one-quarter liter, about 8½ ounces. How many atoms are in that?
By definition, a mole is the number of atoms in 12 grams of Carbon-12. That's approximately equal to (within 1% of) the number of molecules of water in 18 grams of water, because H2O has a molecular weight of about 18. The quarter-liter glass of water has a mass of about 250 grams, so it contains almost 14 moles of water molecules, or almost 42 moles of hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
And how many glasses of water are there in the ocean? The diameter of the Earth is about 12000 km. The area of a sphere is 4πr2, so Earth's area is about 4π(6000 km)2 = about 450 million km2. About three-fourths of that is covered by water, if I remember correctly. I seem to remember reading that the average depth of the ocean is around 12000 feet, or about 3.6 km. So, (450 million km2)×0.75×(3.6 km) = about 1200 million km3.
Time to switch to scientific notation. 1200 million km3 is 1.2×109 km3. But that's cubic km; we want quarter-liter glasses. A cubic km is 109 m3, and a cubic meter is 1000 liters. So 1.2×109 km3 is 4.8×1021 quarter-liter glasses.
A mole is about 6.022×1023. The glass of water is around 2.5×1025 atoms of water. Thus there are about 5000 times as many atoms in a glass of water as glasses of water in the ocean.
Even if I'm way off on a few of the figures, the atoms win by a few orders of magnitude, unless I've slipped decimal places too.
Wow Steve you must have spent a lot of time on that one! Thanks!!!
        I wrote my column for the newspaper and spent a couple of hours on that one before I sent it in.
        Went for my evening walk. Such a nice day outside!
        My neighbor Ron the Graphics Designer dropped by for a spell. I showed him my new patio and shop then took him inside to let him have a look-see at my new Dell Mini. He was quite impressed with its small size.
        I watched “Nova: Hunting the Hidden Dimension” on PBS about the new geometry of fractals and Mandelbrot set found in all nature. A very interesting show and worth following up on.
        Chris came by after Bingo to give me a list of winners so I could put them in my column for next week and post them on the website. We stood outside and jawed for a little. Chris used to be a cook and told me some stories of the places he worked. One was the bowling alley in Twentynine Palms where he had a Friday night special of fish that would pack the small café. His liver and onion dinners were to die for they were so good, he said. Maybe I can get him to cook up them liver and onions some day!
        Did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run. Practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal on the Dell Mini; it still takes some getting used to, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 29 - did my stretches.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 88, light winds from the NW and SW, humidity around 30 percent, clear skies. According to the National Weather Service “Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 85. Calm wind becoming south southwest between 13 and 16 mph. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 60. West southwest wind between 6 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
        I did some painting outside on the roof. The frames that I built to hold my solar panels haven’t been painted yet, and it’s been over a year since I constructed them. So I had the paint to do it, I did it.
        FedEx delivered my 2Gig Ram for the Dell Mini 9 and I stuck it in and powered it back up. All it did was beep at me with a blank screen! I put the 512Meg back in, powered it back up without a problem. Well I thought it might be the BIOS so I updated Version A00 to A01, put the 2Gig back in, powered it back up, and still beeped at me- I got a bad 2Gig RAM and will call Crucial.com tomorrow to have it replaced.
        I went ahead and installed Office 2007. I wanted to wait for the 2Gig RAM to be installed, but Office runs just fine and loads quick on the 512RAM with over 200RAM left for other programs to run and that was a surprise because Office 2007 runs like an old dog on a hot day with my Toshiba laptop that runs a Celeron M 1.6Ghz with over a Gig of RAM. I like my Mini!
        Went on my evening walk and then called my brother Kevin and we yapped for an hour or so. I got caught up on some astronomy reading and then watched the Obama infomercial. To tell the truth I was quite impressed with the man.
        Did a few things on the computer. I finished my Sci-Fi book and started reading “Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan.
        I did my stretches, practiced guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 30 - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 57 to 86, light winds from the NW, humidity around 29 percent, clear skies with clouds forming later in the evening. According to the National Weather Service “Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Calm wind becoming south southwest between 10 and 13 mph. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 59. Southwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming northwest.”
        I called Crucial.com first thing when I got up. I was put right through to a Tech without any waiting. I told her that the 2Gig RAM was DOA and she asked to explain. I told her the laptop just beeped when I booted up but had no problems when I put the 512Meg back into the Dell Mini 9. She asked me to try it again, I did, it beeped, she heard! Crucial will be sending me a new 2Gig RAM with free shipping and I’m to send the bad one back for a refund. I really like Crucial and their service- I don’t buy from any other company when it comes to memory.
        I went out to the shop to sort through all the junk and get it organized. I ended up throwing much of it away and keeping odds and ends that I might use later. I spent several hours doing this and got mush done. There were a few items that go back 20 to 30 years to bring back some old memories of when I lived on a boat in Redondo Harbor. It was nice to have my memory jarred and to reminisce on my life on the water.
        Went for my evening walk. Some clouds were starting to come over the mountains to the west making for a wonderful sunset.
        My dear friend Kula called asking me for her friend in Hawaii about WIFI and if it was legal to receive signals from a neighbor without them knowing it. I know that in some states it is illegal, but I also believe that it is unethical to do so in states without these laws. Plus it could leave your computer open to attacks. A few minutes after I hung up her friend from Hawaii called asking me the same thing. It seems that she can get online by using a neighbor’s WIFI. She is new to computers and I told her the same thing. She had some other questions too and I was glad to help her out.
        Read “Pale Blue Dot” well into 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.

Halloween! - did my stretches, ran a mile, rode my bike, and lifted weights.
        Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 59 to 83, light breeze, humidity around 31 percent, altostratus clouds. According to the National Weather Service “Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 82. West southwest wind 6 to 9 mph increasing to between 17 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 29 mph.

Saturday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 59. West wind between 11 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
        I spent the morning working on the Copper Mountain Mesa Website. I changed the calendar to November and updated Karen’s Corner with her new story on Roadrunners. I still have to put October’s Potluck pictures on the site but I need to get some stuff done around the house.
        I went outside to the shop to sort through more stuff, as I did yesterday. I got a bunch of boxes out of the battery room that were full of this and that and began going through them. I’m putting everything where it belongs and a lot of it is being tossed away; I’ve filled up one trash can already.
        Seimi called as I was sorting and we talked about the Moon and how the craters were formed. He has many questions since I gave him that “Field Guide to the Stars and Planets”!
        Then late in the day Lee Hines called having problems printing forms on his HP printer. I stopped what I was doing and he picked me up for the drive to his house. I spent an hour trying to figure out why it wouldn’t print. I even reloaded the HP software but it still wasn’t printing when I left. I told him we would print it on my computer tomorrow. An hour after he dropped me back off at my home, he called to say that it just started printing by its self and he won’t be needing to come over tomorrow! That’s fine with me.
        Went for my evening walk and then read a little of “Pale Blue Dot” for a while until my brother Kevin called. We weren’t on the phone for a minute when his friend Laura called and he put me on hold. When he came back I asked what she wanted. He said that she just wanted to talk. I was thinking its Friday night and Halloween to boot, so I pressed on with my questioning. He said she asked what he was doing and he replied that he was talking to his brother. You fool! Does a lead weight have to fall on your foot, I said, she wants to go out, call her right back and find out! He did and called me back telling me that they’re going to a movie, too cool!
        I went back to reading my book till it started putting me to sleep (Carl Sagan does that to me sometimes) and started writing in my journal.
        I did my stretches, lifted weights, and went for my nightly run.
        “Numbers” came on CBS about robberies of a parcel company involving an autistic savant who works in the dead letter department.
        I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Well goodbye to October! We’ll see you around next year.