It’s Saturday, so time for…
Rants! 😦
and
Wandering Views
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Wandering Views 
My favorite part of the week. When I was lurking I always made sure to check out the rants and raves.
🙂 just finished a newsletter and sent it out via email
🙂 I am on school break
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🙂 It’s nice to see Jo up so early. It always takes a moment to realize she’s getting ready for bed, even as she posts this.
🙂 My sister and her husband were down from Maryland for most of the week. We enjoyed taking them to Bridal Vail Falls, and to Spartanburg. Then, Thursday, we went to the Billy Graham Library, which I’ve discussed previously.
🙂 They’ve gone to SC. We enjoyed having them, but they had an entirely different lifestyle. We, Elvera and I, usually went to bed about 10 p.m. I don’t know when they went to bed but they usually slept until around nine. Then, Elvera fixed their breakfast (not brunch) and they usually finished around ten. It wasn’t that this is their schedule, it is that they didn’t have a schedule.
When they travel, they don’t know where they’re going. They put the address into GPS and go. I have been accused of being a type A, and maybe so, but I like to know where I am and where I’m going. I cannot be that relaxed. But it works for them.
🙂 I’m teaching for Dr Jones tomorrow.
😦 I’m teaching the 28th chapter of Job.
🙂 Mary, middle GD, and her husband are in Austria for a vacation this week.
Remember? Mary was always “the wild child”. The other two vacation in Florida, or some such.
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I’m sure gps is great, but I love maps. Planning the trips is half the fun. I had quite the map collection, but I think my daughter tossed it. Love the map app on my ipad and itouch.
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Me too, Jo. My job description was “Physical Scientist”. But what I really was, was a Cartographer. We made maps. What we made were military topographic maps.
From 1971-73, I was chief of the Extraterrestrial Branch. We made Lunar maps for the Apollo program.
My master’s at Purdue was in “Surveying and Mapping”. I never did any surveying work for a living. But I could have.
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😉 Jo and I have this private thing going. Elvera is in the other room reading the paper. She thinks I’m preparing a SS lesson.
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🙂 We leave for the Cayman Islands around noon today. It’s just our nuclear family that is going. I’m so excited about spending a week with my family in such a beautiful place. I absolutely love the Caribbean! Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!
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😦 My cat died.
🙂 Summer vacation with the kids. I’ve so enjoyed having them around for the last week.
🙂 My sister is coming home from Africa for a month beginning July 20. We’re going to sneak off to a hotel for a couple of nights for some sister bonding time. I can’t wait!
😦 My sister and her family have decided to return to Africa indefinitely as there is an extreme shortage of surgeons (and doctors in general) in Rwanda. While I am so proud of the work they are doing, I miss her a lot.
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Second son who just got married this spring is expecting already! Third grandchild on the way.
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Linda, how exciting!
🙂 George seems to be doing a good job with Baby Girl. She is a lot more pleasant to be around when she is home with me. She wants to be “home” when she is here and doesn’t ask to go spend the night with every other friend she has.
😦 There are still some issues that hurt me deeply that need to be worked out.
🙂 Work is going well. The money is good.
🙂 It is nice not to constantly worry about money.
😦 My work friend’s mother died this past Monday. W has been away from work since the precious Thursday and will not be back next week either. She has decided to work from home next week and come back to work the following Monday. We have discovered we are lost without her. Some of the things she handles have fallen to me to handle and while I am perfectly capable of doing them. I just don’t like to.
🙂 We have a trip planned to Maryland to see Sweet Baby Boy. This time Mr. P will be much more mobile and in less pain so I am hoping we can get out and do more. He is wanting to try to get to PA to see his sister. I am hoping to get to DC. I have yet to see the WWII Monument and I do have a bee in my bonnet to do that.
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🙂 Grandchildren
😦 I don’t have any yet
🙂 Sweet Baby Boy – love seeing his pictures on FB
🙂 Baby Girl’s new attitude
😦 Surreal first day of summer for my home town – still expecting more rain and the river hasn’t crested yet
🙂 Our rain has slowed down locally, but still cloudy and showers – hoping to get the very long grass mowed sometime today
🙂 Left work early yesterday – glad I did as the highway washed out mere minutes after I went through.
😦 Now I have to take the longer, rougher road in to the city
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😦 Summer arrived in full hot/humid force. Went to bed with a heat headache.
🙂 Air conditioning! How did the pioneers survive without it?
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🙂 My husband bought me a laptop for my birthday so I can write my book elsewhere!
🙂 He ordered it from Dell with Windows 7 so I don’t have to learn a new operating system while trying to write.
🙂 He also got me the Microsoft Office suite through work at a tremendous discount.
🙂 I downloaded it myself!
🙂 He was impressed.
😦 It was Word 13!
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(Which means I have to learn a new word processing system while writing about 1914 England . . . )
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Peter, you can manage if you have to. In the summer of 1941, we lived on the fifth floor of a four story apartment building.
That’s right. The attic. We went down narrow stairs to the community bathroom.
But, the thing about it, was, IT WAS HOT. This was in Charleston, SC.
I spent many nights sweltering because there was no insulation between us and the roof. It had two dormer windows and a big window on each end of the building.
Why did dad choose such a place for his family?
It was the only place he could find that permitted three children.
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oh, Chas, that is hot. Can’t even imagine. In California we don’t do humidity.
Michelle, no fun trying to learn a new word processing program. I had to get a new computer when mine was taken last fall. I got Office 2010. When I got back here where I had my original disks for Office 07 I sent them to my translator friend in Perth who is 72 and wanted to keep using the program that she knew worked for her. Good luck
and yes, Chas, it is the middle of the night, but I couldn’t sleep
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That makes me sweat just thinking about it, Chas. We don’t realize how blessed we are to have all the air conditioning and heating we have.
I am currently reading, “Terror by Night:…” by Terry Caffey. He was kept on the right path by the book of Job after he lost his wife and two sons, who were all murdered. His daughter participated in the murder. It is an interesting book.
🙂 So enjoyed last weekend with my daughter and her four children. Took in a parade and local craft fair, among other things.
😦 Was so exhausted by the time they left.
🙂 Seeing God work in my life. Though I fail, He is faithful. I am reminded how I could have gone more and more astray, instead of more and more in the right direction.
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🙂 Almost forgot one of my best raves! I got my camera back. It was lost the beginning of last March when I attended a family restaurant gathering. By the time I realized it was missing, the hotel where the restaurant was had been closed due to flooding from a water main break. We called and called and our persistence paid off when we finally called after hearing they were opening again. The camera was, indeed, there and is now safely home where it belongs. 🙂
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🙂 The invention of air-conditioning. I don’t have it at home, but I have it in the car and at work.
🙂 Grateful I don’t live in a place that gets truly hot and humid. Even in our heat waves, I can drive 5 minutes south of here to the ocean cliffs and see a 10-20 degree drop.
😦 Ongoing newspaper industry rockiness. We saw somewhere that our company may be offering profit-sharing to its employees (they took away the 401k match a decade ago; yet we see also where they’re among the companies considering buying Newsweek?).
One flaw in the profit sharing scheme: We seem to be making little if any profit. We’d all rather get our pay cuts & 401k matches restored with at least minor cost-of-living raises each year. And we’re already shuddering at the thought of what our medical benefits packages will hold in store for us for the coming year. The cost went up significantly this year.
😦 Sometimes I tend to complain way too much. 😦
🙂 And I am grateful to be employed and doing something that I still enjoy after all these years. I need to spiritually and mentally dwell more on that than I do. God truly has been so good to me.
😦 It’s off to the vet with Tess this morning (again) to have her re-checked for heartworm. I can’t see how in the world she’d have that — we live in a county where it’s still somewhat rare and I’ve had her on the prevention meds for years. I think the test must have been faulty the first time around. I hope so, anyway. 😦 😦
😦 I let the dogs out at around 5:30 this morning. At around 6:30 Tess was barking so I called them back in and locked up the doggie door, fearing that they’d really be a disruption to the neighbors who likely were trying to sleep in a little bit (like I was) on a Saturday. But right after that, the neighbors got their motorcycle roaring and left it roaring in the driveway for like 10 minutes. Non-stop. It was loud. Very loud. And here I was worried about my dog barking. Sheesh.
🙂 Summer. Not always my favorite season overall, but there is something about the first month or so that is very sweet and refreshing.
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Donna, we live in the country. But in the summer, sons of two different neighbors will sometimes come out here to go four-wheeling. Theoretically, they are grown sons. But for some reason they feel a need to go after it gets dark, say 11:00-ish. Nothing like lying down to sleep in the country and hearing vroom-vroom-VROOM for the next hour.
I understand that in Phoenix, before a.c. or even swamp cooling, people used to sleep in backyards under wet sheets.
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Elvera had an aunt who had a house with a screened porch that went 3/4 way around the house. She said that sometimes they would sleep out there.
Sounds like great fun, especially for kids.
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We could use a screened porch at our house – for the occasional hot night, but mostly for the flies and mosquitoes. We retreat inside once the shadows start growing.
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We often sleep out on the deck or off camping when it is hot out. We don’t have a screened deck but then, we don’t have that many bitey bugs.
I still have more weed eating to get done before starting again on Monday.
My brother is coming by and I may go with him and a few children to visit other brother and dad and step mom for a couple of days.
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My companions went walking again with me this morning. They have done so every morning for the past couple of months, regardless of the time I come out, they appear shortly after.
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Mumsee, what are your companions, in this context?
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Cheryl, they are two killdeer. The join me every morning, just before the end of the driveway and walk with the occasional jump flight for about half a mile, then they turn around when I do and walk back. That may tell you what a slow walker I am as their little legs are much shorter than mine. I used to think they were drawing me from the nest but now I just think they enjoy the walk. They chatter the whole trip. Sometimes bringing in others along the way, sometimes not.
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Awww. mumsee & friends. 🙂
🙂 Preliminary good news on Test’s re-checks. They wanted to run two tests, something called a Knott’s Test which is a confirmation test for heart worm — and the other is just a re-run of their in-house test which they’re not charging me for, it’s more for their own research purposes.
The Knott’s test came back negative (the other test results will be available Monday, but the vet said he expects those also will be negative). He agreed with me, it just made no logical sense that she would have contracted heart worm.
Whew. We think. …
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I used to have dogs on heartworm meds, about twenty years ago. When we lived in Okinawa. When we moved back to the States, the vets told us it was unnecessary. One never knows what to do so do the best one can.
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🙂 Our Bible School went well. Youth Camp is next week.
🙂 My wife and I are enjoying having our son with us this summer. He is home for the summer from law school and has a summer clerkship with a good firm.
🙂 My son and I played golf with my normal group this morning at dawn. We finished 18 holes by 9:30 and both shot 79. That is a good score for me.
🙂 We are going to see the movie, “Mud” tonight. Review to follow.
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mumsee, heart worm is less common in some areas — I think Cheryl told me the meds are a must for dogs in the south and the Midwest is another area where it’s much more common.
LA County in recent years has begun to record heart worm cases in dogs, but still far fewer than many other parts of the country. The county health department estimates 20% of LA coyote population is now infected, though, so it’s definitely something that is possible for dogs to catch out here. My vet recommends the meds just because it is such a nasty & serious/life-threatening condition and the treatments that they do have are pretty brutal.
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Ricky, that film has gotten really good reviews. Let us know how you like it.
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They told us it was pretty nasty in Okinawa and West Point and Georgia.
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Not the film, I know nothing of the film.
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😦 There is a reason I am not in direct real estate sales anymore. A lady called me this week, she had saved my number from when I had ex-husbands house listed for sale. She wanted to see at at 9:45 on SUNDAY because she gets our of mass at 9:30. I moved her to 12. She just called and has to push it back to 2. That will take the “middle” of my afternoon up!
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Kim, you may get enough comission to have dinner at one of those fancy Washington restaurants. I never ate at one while I was there. I ate at Fudrucker’s or the Longhorn.
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🙂 The “Summer Semester” Hope Team we’ve been hosting in our home on Tuesday nights comes to an end tomorrow with a cook-out in our backyard after church.
It has been enjoyable, but also (for various reasons) a challenge. So I’m kind of glad it’s the end. And I’m glad I didn’t back out of it, like I was so tempted to do before we started.
The leader has let it be pretty casual, not really delving too deeply into any one thing, but encouraging conversation on a bunch of different – but all biblical – topics. Interestingly, Emily & Chrissy have had a chance to overhear a lot. Often Forrest would want to be with us, to watch “the people” & to eat some goodies, of course. 🙂
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🙂 Spent the afternoon at a doggie get-together, sat with the horse moms so heard some fun horse stories. 🙂
🙂 After that, a nice walk with Tess and Cowboy in the park on the ocean cliffs where they were setting up for tonight’s Shakespeare by the Sea performance. It was rather hot where the doggie party was held — but 68 degrees at the park. Nice. Ran into a couple folks I know and came home with a few press releases stuffed in my jeans pockets.
🙂 Such a social whirlwind social life, eh? 😉
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Mumsee, I can confirm that the mud is bad in Georgia. The movie is very good. It has a little violence and some bad language, but the teenage boy hero is one of my favorite recent movie characters.
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😀 My parents have another grandchild, I have another nephew.
😦 Can’t see them. But that would have happened even if I was at home, as this is the family that Mumsee was so envious of when I went to help with the birth of an older brother. :-p
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We had a report on the Youth Camp and VBS this morning.
VBS had 440 students and there were 30 decisions for Christ. Including pastor’s son.
Youth Camp had 13 decisions, including a young guy I mentioned sometime ago. The one who was disciplined for throwing a basketball at a girl; said he hated his life.
Some of those will be emotional commitments initially, as mine was. But I pray that many will continue and grow in the Lord.
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I have AVG security for my computer. My computer has been running slowly for a while, so I bought AVG’s program for deleting some attachments that may be slowing my computer. Now, my computer acts up worse than before. I know part of it is Yahoo’s fault wrt e-mail, not theirs. But they are now trying to sell me a “tune up” program. I’m wondering if they installed a companion to their first program to make me need another.
I can’t prove that. But I’m suspicious.
Upon startup, I get this full screen purchase order for AVG tuneup. There is no way to delete it, so I have to minimize it to the bottom of the screen. I had been attempted to get PCMatic that is advertised on TV. But I heard that someone had problems with it. So I went with AVG. I don’t know that I did the smart thing. I have no quarrel with the security feature of AVG; the commercial version, not the free version that’s available to everyone.
I have lots of trouble getting on-line too. I suspect that’s my ATT DSL. I would change, but I don’t trust Mediacom, our TV provider, for fast access either.
Can anyone recommend a provider for e-mail besides Yahoo? Rush advertises Reagan.com. I don’t know how that would work. Yahoo makes me sign in every time I try to open e-mail. And, if I open a link in the e-mail, it doesn’t have a back arrow. So, I have to back out and start over to open e-mail, with sign-in again.
It gets frustrating.
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🙂 Becca has prayed the sinner’s prayer and plans to be baptized October 5, the next group baptism at our large church.
🙂 Having both my girls be believers is the greatest gift I’ve received, after my own salvation.
🙂 Having the opportunity to vacation with my family in such a beautiful place!
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gmail and aol both have free email service; there’s also hotmail and lots of others.
I think most email services are free now; I thought I’d lose my main email (which was tied to my cable company) when I cancelled the cable service, but so far the email is still up and running.
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I have gmail at work and love it.
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We use it at work, too, Kim.
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Day 1, 3 fish! 🙂
And congrats Linda! 🙂
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Chas – I haven’t been having any problems with my Yahoo email, though I do keep it in a tab that automatically comes up when I sign on to the computer, as do some other tabs. I also have an email account with Hotmail which works fine for me too.
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Chas- You can open links by right clicking and selecting “Open in new window” or “new tab”, depending on which internet browser you use. And for security reasons, all online email providers require log-in each time, don’t they?
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Ooh, AJ- Sounds like a Dr Suess knock off- “One day, three fish, Yankee fish Red Sox fish…”
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Yahoo just “improved” it’s e-mail. After that, sign in is required. I have never had to sign in each time when entering from my computer. I have “keep me signed in” for two weeks option. But it doesn’t work anymore.
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I was wrong, Chas, you can stay signed in to gmail. Try it. It’s free and has a lot of extras.
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Wow! I just got #50 on the open thread, and now #50 here a few minutes later. I’m on a roll! (Or actually, on a chair that rolls.)
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🙂 Dog park: Cosmo, Sarge and Cowboy enjoyed a good romp today while I made a new contact with a dog owner who’s also involved in the community; she gave me some updates on stories we’ve been following.
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