Folks,

More aimless musing from me seems to be required at least until someone has had enough and posts a HWH story in self-defense.

I risk blatant redundancy when I say that today is another gorgeous day down south and that tomorrow is likely to be a carbon copy of today.

I love it when the old dog takes me for a long walk in the nearby woods, especially in the fall. Nature paints her world and coincidentally ours with such brilliant colors in fall. Even though it is a few weeks early yet for one to see the full palette of autumn colors, this morning was a real treat.

As we walked on down toward the river, a little breeze was rustling the drying leaves overhead and the sun sparkled through open patches in the broad canopy of yellows, reds, browns and greens. I swear if you listened closely you could almost hear the angels whispering. OK perhaps it was just the leaves rubbing their crispy shoulders together.

Not yet fit for more wheelbarrow duty, more caulking and painting was the order of the day today and a bit of trim work. The end result is rewarding of coarse but this is not the kind of painting I like most.

I really should pay someone qualified to slosh this paint about but there is something so darn satisfying about the look on the generally skeptical face of SWMNBN when she sees that I not only managed to cover the subject and not me with the correct color of paint but there were no runs, drips or errors in my work. Yes, I was careful that she did not get a close look.

Speaking of runs, drips and errors, I have had a busy morning and a satisfying lunch. So now I plan to RUN to my trusty hammock, my tongue will be DRIPping with the anticipation of a cold libation and unless I am in serious ERROR I'll enjoy an interesting read and a long afternoon snooze.

All,

JR2,

Your description of walking in the woods with your trusty ole pooch today was relaxing and gave some pause from what has been otherwise a normal stressful day in the office. Thanks for the hit of fresh crisp air.

Printer problem has been solved. Yes it was the 2 services, RMS and printer spooling that I turned off sometime ago when I optimized Win XP for gaming. Since I had no printer on that machine it the services were taking up some memory use for nothing. Course, that becomes a problem later on when one forgets they were turned off and then tries to install a printer.

Thanks for your suggestions. You were on the right track.

The workweek is nearly done and I can soon get to some fun things.

Folks,

SNAFU:

Well done. Here's a tip someone once suggested to me. Although I seem to remember that I might have a steel-trap memory, since 1985 I keep a little notebook on the computer desk just in case I don't. Every time I make a system change or add or subtract something (most anything) from my HDD I write the pertinent information and the date down in that notebook for future reference. When I find the solution to a sticky problem such as yours I enter that as well. You'd be surprised how many times that simple action has stopped me from having to re-invent the wheel so-to-speak. If you are a card-carrying member of the paperless office society you could keep a journal right on your HDD for the same purpose.

Today's walk SNAFU was every bit as soothing to the soul as was yesterdays. Unlike yesterday, five of the nine cats followed along on our long walk. Unlike most cats, these young boys will come running when I call them just like little puppies. Is it love or perhaps it is because I'm the one who feeds them? :rolleyes:

We made a grand procession as we seven fuzzy fellows ambled slowly along in and out of dappled shadows in a more-or-less line astern formation. On we tromped, over the grassy, leaf-strewn path. When I looked back at the parade of felines each cat had his tail sticking straight up into the air in a fashion that somehow reminded me of sails.There was a crystal-clear blue sky overhead today. Nature was draped in gorgeous color all around us and seven good friends were all enjoying each other's company. It was good just being alive together another glorious day down in beautiful Dixie.

I really needed that break to sooth my agitated nerves. I am truly pissed about something and it continues to grind my groin. Yesterday after painting and snoozing I went on-line to find a good photo re-sizer program. There are several good ones out there with excellent algorithms. I found what I wanted on what I believed to be a safe site. After downloading the demo. I took a few moments to update my virus definitions (I do that every Wed. or Thurs.).

After doing that I got off-line to install the program. Now, let's get this straight friends, I trust no one but you and me and frankly I am not absolutely sure about you... so I alway scan every download no matter where it comes from even if it's from my Mother-in-Law (especially my Mother-in-Law).

Well folks when I scanned that supposedly pristine and still un-opened file my virus-scan program blew a gasket. It found a copy of the Downloader.1stbar.4.AE trojan! Fortunately I had not opened the file. Anyway for some obscure reason that will remain forever a secret between the coder of this program and his conscious, my virus scanner (AVG) could not remove this abomination for me. Fortunately I have a program called Ad Aware that can successfully remove irritating adware like the D14AE.

I fired up Ad Aware and sent the trojan to the un-happy hunting grounds and while doing so I found that there were now no less than 16 similarly nasty critters residing on my more or less maidenly (OK spinsterly then) HDD. It looks like everything I had downloaded from those trusted sites yesterday, even the sites that specifically claimed to have no adware, were apparently knowingly or un-knowingly passing on infected software. Anyhow, follow-up scans by both my Virus scanner and Ad Aware gave my system a clean bill of health today.

This crap is unconscionable. And it is spreading. If you don't check your system regularly for both virus and trojan/adware infection IMHO you should.

SNAFU,
congratulations on your great new rig setup. Exciting stuff. Glad you were able to very cleverly correct the printer problem. I wish I had your diagnostic troubleshooting skills - (and your rig)
JRT,
Thanks for the play by play description of the nature walks. I need those, and it saves me having to go and do it myself. But the inspiration stays with me so that when time allows, I'm off like a dirty shirt to the wild places. No I don't mean the pub, the wild natural places. No Dux, not that either - I don't frequent nudist camps.
very odd that one sees a typo in your posts JRT, but glad you are operational again. But why are you going up a ladder, doesn't that make you spill the pint? And of course you would never hire someone to do that for you. Silly.
Not spilling and dripping the pint? I find that hard to believe. Especially after the first three or four. But to stop pinting in favour of a cold libation - isn't that excessive? No I suppose not.
Stickman, nice to hear from you. Good point regarding the oil and gas, not to mention the water which is much coveted in some places south of the border. The beef indeed has been problematical.
Our pharmaceutical drugs are very safe, but Bush feels somewhat threatened by our very generous healthcare system. I am thinking of JRT's operation which would have been free in Canada.
Sinsemillia is a good example actually, which is a very good and useful medication, and is available by special permission here. If one can get medicinal cocaine and morphine for example, why not less harmful drugs such as this?

Stickman, I was thinking of you this week as the Canadian navy lost a mariner in an onboard fire on one of its submarines, acquired only a day or two earlier. It is one of the diesel subs which Britain had mothballed ages ago. Thanks to Britain for selling us these death traps which the Canadian navy was stupid enough to purchase for exorbitant amounts of money. Another sailor is in critical condition in Sligo, and several others are suffering the effects of the fire as well, as the sub is now being towed back to Scotland.

Folks,

We were off to another T-ball game today. It was a morning like I remember experiencing only when we were hiking up in the Appalachians. Dense fog hugged the ground until just before 10:00 AM game-time.

Our little guy got two base hits, one RBI and caught one ball in a valiant but losing effort for his team. In spite of the final score, much fun was had by all.

One thing becomes crystal clear to me after witnessing the first of these games. My generation missed the boat when we wouldn't let the girls play on our boy's team. The girls are the best players. How could we idiot chauvinists have missed out on all that? :rolleyes:

C51:

Paint or pint, who really cares... as long as there is plenty of it to drink?

If you drink a pint of paint and then go wandering down by the nearby Humber River, take care you don't fall in. You might get water in your pint and if you read the disclaimer on the label, paint should be drunk straight up.

Thanks for the brilliant color photo of those Canadian trees. You have a knack for color and composition.

Did I miss something? Did Stickman post something? If so I can't find it. Perhaps he sent you an e-mail?

Speaking of new rigs. Our son just got a new 2.5 Gig Dell system. After the game today we stopped by their house so I could look it over and install some of my software for him. It is absolutely great. There is a DVD/CD burner, and the monitor is even HD capable.

We didn't stay long enough for me to get too envious, however, I do hope he was able to get all that sticky drool off the thing before it seeped in somewhere and caused a short circuit.....

JRT,
congrats on the latest T-ball results.
I know what you mean, I always had trouble getting to first base with the girls, let alone beyond.
Thanks for looking at my leaves, I suck as a photographer. More on the way.
There was a post from stickman...
really there was....
I haven't been into the paint fumes, really I haven't.

Folks,

C51:

I hate to brag but I never had much trouble getting to 'first base' with the ladies, 'second base' or even 'third' for that matter. The problem I always had was that when I actually got lucky and made it all the way to 'third' they always wanted to take me home.

I'm about to download those photos now and I do thank you. From what I've seen so far, it looks like there isn't as much ice and deep snow around southern Canada in the fall as I had first thought.... :rolleyes:

That being the case, I suppose that the story about the Canuck engineer who designed the amazingly simple Canadian "Passive Home Air Conditioning System" may be totally incorrect?

The way I heard it the system worked so well that on the hottest day of the year several people around Toronto nearly froze to death because they failed to follow the instructions. Namely the emphatic warning that you should never under any circumstances open all the windows in the home for more than one full hour every day.

Another Canadian scientist is said to have designed an electronic air conditioning device that uber-tinkerer Tim Allen would have been proud of. The thing was just an extra big electric fan that fit in a window and sucked the ambient outside atmosphere right into the home. It was simple yet so darned efficient when used in Canada that even though the home stayed pleasantly cool for seven full days and nights you only had to turn it on for one day every week. You see, you didn't need to run it for the next six days because it took that long for all the snow and ice to melt. :rolleyes:

OK let's pretend to be fair here. It gets so hot down here in the summer that tasty quail and dove fry to death right on the tree branches and when we go on picnics in the woods they just shed their feathers and fall right off the branch and land on your paper plate.

Hmmmmm. OOOPS. I forgot you are a true bird fancier and not in the culinary sense. Perhaps I should have left out that completely made-up bit about our having really hot weather?

JRT,
I know what you mean about taking you home. I've had a few throw a curve at me also.
Happy Thanksgiving. At least here in Canada. We like to have ours before we have to shovel snow. So don't worry about the avian references, because tomorrow we will be cooking up a Meleagris gallopavo. Not that I will be sampling it, but others around the table will.
I prefer the cranberries anyway.

Folks,

C51:

I like horses and you can call me squeamish if you wish but I have made it a point never to eat anything with the word 'gallop' in its name.

OK. You didn't mean horse meat. You will be serving a 'wild' turkey? Sounds like Lady "M" has been speeding down country roads again? Or perhaps you went turkey hunting? I've never even shot at a wild turkey myself however I have often had a shot 'of ' Wild Turkey, for that happens to be the name of my favorite brand of Bourbon.

So many around these parts are in fact avid turkey hunters and they swear it is the truest, fairest, most evenly matched example of game hunting there is. Hmmmmm. Would they mean one bird-brain with a shotgun pitted against another bird-brain with a feather duster on one end and a gobble on the other is equality? Is this evenly matched? Show me one ripped out newspaper article stating that any hunter anywhere was ever hospitalized due to wild turkey attack. In other words, looking at it from the bird's point of view, it doesn't sound like a particularly fair contest to me. Taking the other point of view one must admit that when a life or a very good meal is on the line who really wants to be fair anyway?

Hunting can be a dangerous sport. I've done a lot of hunting over the years and as a result I have dodged the odd bullet or shotgun pellet myself. At least I did that until I wised up and quit wearing that camouflage suit SWMNBN bought for me. The one with the antlers on the hat and the bullseye on the coat.

From what I've seen of the latest crop of hunters coming along around here the safest thing to be during deer season is probably a deer. Now then, with safety first in mind I have always done all my serious turkey hunting within the relative safety of the frozen foods section of the local market. There the hunt is anything but fair and in fact I have a distinct advantage over my flightless, rather stiff and mostly lethargic quarry.

Having called attention to my overwhelming advantages, I have to shamefully admit that even though the odds were clearly stacked in my favor, one Thanksgiving I sadly came home empty-handed. I was running late that Wednesday night and apparently other hunters had got there ahead of me and wiped out the entire flock. :rolleyes:

Naturally you grass eater folks have my highest respect for living a more healthy life than I can even imagine. Surely even avowed, card carrying vegetarians can eat a bit of fish or fowl on Thanksgiving Day?

If not, have a 'berry' happy THANKSGIVING Canucks!

Folks,

I suppose all over Canada folks are dropping like flies onto couches and comfortable chairs in front of their TVs. Many are generally just lying about groaning, burping and pretty much as stuffed as were their turkeys after most enjoyed yet another wonderful feasting day of thanksgiving.

If you can get close enough to our pal C51 tonight it isn't likely that you will smell the aroma of meat, fish or even fowl upon his heavy breath. You will notice that since there is no known prohibition against strong drink in the vegetarian religion I did not mention beer, wine or whiskey.

My son who is a card carrying member of the "it ain't airworthy without an after-burner" crowd when it comes to flight sims surprised me today. He actually asked me to help him install our BoB on his new computer. There may be hope for this misguided kid after all. :rolleyes:

We may have problems getting it to run with XP so stand by in case we need help guys.