Internet Issues

If anyone had ever asked, I’d have denied it-and I’d have sincerely believed it as the words exited my mouth. But over the past eighty-five hours I know that to deny it now would be a lie.
I am addicted to the internet.

I am an internet addict. A junkie who hasn’t had a ‘fix’ since my combination modem/ router kicked the bucket Friday night at eleven.

It was clear when I glanced up and saw all three green lights gone that this was more than just one of those momentary lapses in service. The kind that lasts about two minutes, when the middle light starts flashing yellow for reasons known only to itself.

The tech support guy suggested I try plugging the router in some other outlets around the house to see if the outlet it had been plugged in to since we moved in January had suddenly gone bad.

Yeah, right.

It’s been plugged in to the same power strip the computer, monitor, speakers and both of my printers are plugged in to-and those things were still working. So what were the odds that just one little area in that whole long power strip just stopped working? Pretty slim odds, in my opinion.

But, having been in the middle of a ‘job,’ and it being late Friday night, I gave it a shot. Only to find, sadly, that I was right. The power strip was working just fine. Only the modem/router wasn’t. It had given up the ghost and there was no coaxing it back, beyond an extremely brief flash of lights when an electrician friend suggested I push the reset button with an ink pen (something the tech support guy failed to mention, hmm).

So...

I telephone my internet provider first thing Saturday morning to find they want eighty bucks for a new router that would take several days to get here.

Not good. I needed to finish the job by Sunday at midnight so thanks but no thanks. I need to find one today. And I’m hoping for far less money, too, since payday is more than a week away!
Another yeah, right. Try a hundred dollars at a well known computer store. Forget it. I’ll be kissing every cent (and then some!) from the thing I was working on goodbye. I’ll just wait for the second deadline-the middle of next month and turn in both months worth of work then.

Unfortunately I didn’t come to this conclusion until after the sales office closed for the day, not to reopen until Monday morning.

Over the course of the weekend I talked again with my electrician friend, as well as someone who builds and repairs computers. The router should have lasted about ten years, not four. So when I got through to the sales department yesterday morning, I mentioned that information and asked for a discount. The woman put me on hold for a minute and came back with a very surprising offer.

They would waive the $80.00 if I was willing to pay $13.00 shipping.

Hmm... Eighty dollars, thirteen dollars. Eighty dollars or thirteen dollars... Actually it would have been eighty dollars plus the shipping. So the choice boiled down to ninety-three dollars or thirteen.

Tough choice.

Not!

For that kind of deal-and I really was just hoping that they’d knock the price down by half!-I opted for the overnight delivery.

Except overnight delivery is kind of misleading. I ordered the router well before seven-thirty yesterday morning. It is now twelve-forty-nine in the afternoon on Tuesday and it still hasn’t arrived. But it’s coming via UPS and I know they have routes to follow.

Knowing that doesn’t help my impatience because, as I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, I’ve discovered that I am addicted to the internet. It’s kind of like the night before Christmas, waiting for dawn and the time to tear in to all the presents.

Only I just want to tear in to my email! I want to Google recipes for smoked sausage since I screwed up and thawed some out yesterday. I want to visit IMDB and find out when Minnie Pearl died (don’t ask...I don’t know why...).

And I want to finish September’s job so I can get started on October’s.

Mainly, though, I really want to check my email. I’m almost scared at the thought. It’s hard to believe but a good portion of the population doesn’t know what ‘inline text is.’ Nope. They send everything as an attachment.

And you know what that means?

That after three and a half days (is that all it’s been??!!), it could take two weeks for all my emails to download...

Sigh.

A Miracle Medicine

I'm baaaaacccckkkkkk...... From a short vacation. And now it's back to business!

For anyone who has read any of my posts, you might have figured out that I'm kind of in to alternatives to 'modern' medicines. And I really am. If I can find something that doesn't need a prescription or over the counter drugs, and it works, I'm all for it.

But sometimes that isn't the case.

Saturday I got my four month old grandson for a few days. He won't go back home until Thursday, as a matter of fact. I love the kid to pieces, but I'm not that all that thrilled with watching a baby. I loved everything about babies when my own kids were infants, but I don't love it all now. Well, I have to admit that anything to do with the nose and diaper end of them never thrilled me.

But they thrill me a lot less now. Because I've developed a weak stomach over the years.

Tonight I wound up at the emergency room with Alex, who apparently had a bad reaction to his rice cereal, added to his formul to help reduce a reflux issue. Anyway, he had a serious gas thing going on, screaming for a couple of hours. And I got to deal with the nose thing, as well as getting thrown up on.

Yay.

After the doctor made sure there was nothing serious wrong, a nurse came in with Tylenol and a little brown bottle of something for the gas.

She took a very tiny dropper out of the brown bottle and put four whole drops in his mouth. I'm thinking dang! Four drops? You've got to be kidding me! How about half the bottle! This kid is in pain and he needs something that's going to actually work!

But, lo and behold, it did. In less than five minutes, Alex was sound asleep. And an hour later, he's still sleeping very peacefully. From exhaustion, I'm sure. You can't cry like that for as long as he did and not be a tad on the tired side!

So I have to say that there are some times when medicine is very appropriate. In fact, enough so that I'm headed to the store first thing in the morning to get a bottle of the stuff. I'm not taking a chance on this happening again before he goes home Thursday and not be prepared.

I'm also rather partial to another over the counter thing...and that's Advil. I try not to take it very often but just popped four. After two hours of having a baby flopped over my forearm-which was the only position remotely close to comfortable to him (and even more so when I was standing up!), my back, shoulders and arms need some quick relief, too!

And now you know, if you have a baby with gas (and I think they said colic, but don't quote me on that), there is something out there that works fast and works well. I don't know the name of it-the nurse didn't either (it's a different brand than the one she used), but your pharmacist will be able to tell you.

And now, given that it's almost two in the morning, I'm off to bed. So Alex can wake us up bright and early for a bottle.

Yawn.

I'm learning to ChaCha!

But not the dance. Nope. I'm now, as of about 30 hours ago, an official ChaCha expediter. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? I don't know about that, but it's a fun way to kill a few hours-and earn a little extra spending money. "Little" being the important word here.

You'll never get rich doing this, that's for sure. But with gas at nearly $4.00 a gallon and the cost of heating your home expected to shoot up around 20% this winter (where I live anyway), every little bit helps! (and YAY! to winter being on its way-beats the snot right out of summer!)

Basically this is just kind of fun for me. All I do is re-word questions, categorize them and send them to 'guides,' who have to provide the answers for the people paying for answers.

I have to say, given the content of some of the questions, I'm really glad I'm an expediter!

Anyway, short post tonight because, having been learning the ropes all day, my fingers are tired, my body is tired and my mind needs some sleep!

I'll post more tomorrow...sweet dreams

Just a quick post tonight

Winter lover that I am, I don't feel my best in 90+ degree weather. Which is exactly what we had today. At eleven a.m. it was 86...and I refused to look again until just a minute ago. Eighty-eight degrees.

Yuck.

It could be worse, though. I heard on the radio that this is only the third time this summer we've seen temps over ninety. Thank God! The disk jockey failed to mention how many mid- to high eighties we've had. Or the miserable humidity that's been around most of the season.

But this is September. And tomorrow's forecast is a high of eighty and Thursday gets even better.

Seventy-two degrees for the high!!!

I'm thinking we could see some nights dipping in to the forties! Which is so much better than the sixties. Even the fifties. No, I don't want to actually see my breath when I'm breathing, but I want it to be almost visible.

Anyway, I've spent the day parked in front of a fan, 'You-tubing' it in an effort to not sweat. Listening to Andy Gibb, The Village People, Heart, and the like.

Andy Gibb was such a waste of a beautiful, talented man...

Okay.

So I read at www.earthclinic.com, my favorite website for natural alternatives to just about everything, about baking soda as a facial scrub/exfoliant and decided to give it a try.

Fortunately there were warnings that the first few times might result with a burning sensation on your skin. And they were right. I do feel a burning sensation, similar to a mild sunburn. Or at least what I remember a sunburn as feeling like. I've been a shade seeker for years and, that being the case I sure hope I don't look like I have one now.

I've been kind of afraid to look in the mirror.

But I'll give it a fair shot because the reports on the benefits are too good to pass up. Especially at my age. I've yet to see any wrinkles on my face and I want to avoid them for as many years as humanly possible!

Some of the things people are raving about is that it helps to firm and soften skin, combat wrinkles, make your pores smaller, makes your skin look younger (yay!), evens out skin tone, and eliminates the need for makeup for some women.

Well, I don't have large pores or wrinkles, I look about ten years younger than I am and I haven't worn makeup in years so...

So why am I doing it? Because I'd like to continue to look ten years younger than I am for many years to come! At least!

If anyone is interested in checking this out for themselves, go to the website listed above and type "Fountain of Youth" in the search area.

The website is mostly things people write to the moderators about what works and what doesn't. The reason I like Earth Clinic so much is because they don't sell anything. They just share what's shared with them so that people like you and I can reap the benefits.

As far as skin care goes, there are a number of things people are doing. Including using apple cider vinegar as toner two or three times a week. I'll have to think about that. I was especially unimpressed when one woman warned to avoid getting the vinegar too high on your forehead because when you sweat, you've got that salad dressing effect going on.

Eww.

Okay. I'm done for the night I think. I just want to kick back, drink some more ice water and wait for the temperatures to drop. Only sixty-two tonight but it beats the snot right out of ninety-two!

I'll keep you posted about how the baking soda is working out for me. If I get carded for buying matches to light candles with next month, I'll be sure to let you know!

MSN's Top 10 List

I just skimmed through an article as www.msn.com entitled, “10 things you should never by used.” And I have to say that I agree 100% with their suggestions that you stick to new when it comes to mattresses and shoes.

However, I was surprised to see that vacuums made it on that list, too.

Years ago I bought a used vacuum for around thirty bucks. And let me tell you, that sucker worked really good. I mean really good.

And I know this because one of those door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen came to our door one evening offering a free roll of paper towels if he could do a quick demonstration. Given that I was cooking supper and was, indeed, out of paper towels, I agreed. Had I not, I’d have had to drive about six miles to the closest store so a few minutes of my time seemed like a good trade.

This gentleman hauled in his extensive collection of vacuum paraphernalia and proceeded to set everything up, explaining how each attachment was used, and why we desperately needed it.
He then took out a box of salt and dumped a fair amount on to the carpet I had just cleaned hours before, instructing me to grab my vacuum while he inserted a black cloth somewhere inside the hose of his.

Basically he dared me to try and get the salt out of the carpet. It was his un-humble opinion that nothing could do as good a job as their name brand, couple thousand dollar piece of machinery.

And I figured he was probably right. After all, ours was old, well used and, well, used. Knowing I was going to get a world class sales pitch when all was said and done, I flipped the vacuum on and made a few passes over the salt.

When I was done, Mr. Salesman took his turn and made a couple passes over the same area. Then, with a smug smile, he took the hose apart to show me the black cloth with....

....about three grains of salt.

Gone was the smile and, in its place a look that clearly said, “How did this happen?”

It’s been long enough ago that I really couldn’t tell how he managed to change the direction of his spiel, but he was wasting his time. Why in the world would I want to make monthly payments for several years for a vacuum that didn’t work any better than the beat up looking one that was already paid for?

Oh well. I got the roll of paper towels, sent the disgusted salesman on his way and finished cooking our dinner.

Back to the MSN article though. It’s just my humble opinion but they should have made it a ‘top 11’ list. Because I’ve got to say that they were lacking one item that should be on every ‘don’t buy used’ list and that would be....

....underwear.

In Loving Memory of...

So that no one feels mislead, I guess I need to make it clear that this isn’t some great piece of literature. It's not an answer to any research question. It’s just something I wanted to write in remembrance of someone I love very much.

Today is the fifth anniversary of my father’s death and I’m feeling a little, oh, I don’t know. Weird, I guess. It’s been that way for most of August. Like I’m in a time warp or something. Memories I’ve tried to ignore just seem to be coming at me, feeling much as they did then five years ago.

That’s a long time. On one hand it feels like forever. Then again, it feels like it can’t possibly be that long since I’ve spoken with my dad.

I try not to dwell on it too much because, when I do, I find that I am on the verge of tears. And I have to say that whoever said crying makes you feel better was nuts! All crying has ever done for me is bring on exhaustion and a headache.

But on this anniversary I find my thoughts turning to those final thirteen months and thinking about things I try not to think about most of the time. Like how terrified he was. How angry he was. How much he didn’t want to die.

I also think about how brave he was, too.

Brave enough that he put his family ahead of himself on many, many occasions. With everything he was going through, his top priority was that those he loved not worry or be anymore afraid than necessary.

And so Dad became an expert liar.

The distance between the state he lived in, and Michigan, was too great to allow many visits during that time. And so we relied heavily on the telephone, which Dad never had a great love for. Still, it was the only real way we could stay in touch for the eighteen years he lived there and he eventually got used to it.

It became even more important after the cancer diagnosis.

Over the phone Dad was just dandy. He felt great, was eating good and feeling better. His voice was strong and cheerful, and anyone would think that he had nothing more than a common cold.
Those infrequent visits, however, told the truth.

How the chemotherapy treatments were causing him to waste away to a shadow of the man he’d always been, making him look so frail it broke my heart and made me feel more helpless than I’d ever felt in my life.

But Dad refused to let go of the charade, and so we would pretend right along with him. That everything would be fine when all of us knew that, without some kind of miracle, it wouldn’t be. And so we made the most of every opportunity. Talking about things that made him laugh, about things that might help him forget, for a few minutes, that our time was running out.

About a month before he died, my siblings and I headed south for a final visit with him. A visit spent frying fish he’d caught at his lake property up by Mount Pleasant earlier in the year. And grilling steaks. Basically it was one big food-fest. Because it was important to him to cook for his kids one last time.

It was also his first introduction to the benefits of ear candles. At some point during his treatments, he‘d lost the hearing in his right ear, and it really bugged him. I was scared when he convinced me to use a couple of them on him. Afraid that a spark might burn him, or that the candle itself might cause him more pain. But he thought it was pretty cool, even though it didn’t help the hearing problem a bit.

We tried to make that weekend the best we’d ever spent together. To make it as normal as we could, while trying to get our fill of being with him. Something that was utterly impossible.
When it came time to leave, we kept right on pretending that everything was okay, hugging him goodbye, like it wasn’t going to be for the last time. And then craning our necks and waving, as he stood in his driveway watching us drive away.

Wow.

Typing that last bit out was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But then it’s never been easy to remember that last picture I have of Dad while he was still alive. I’ve always wished that I’d jumped out of my brother’s car at the first stop sign and run back to stay with him until it was over. I think we all felt that way.

Leaving him that day was one of the most horrible experience of our lives. We all knew that the next time we’d all be together again would be at his funeral.

I hate these memories. And yet I wouldn’t want to lose them, even if I could. Because as much as it hurts to remember the heartbreaking moments, there are also the special moments. When you know there isn’t much time, you tend to appreciate every one of them.

Was my dad perfect? Not even close. Like every human being on the planet, he had faults and flaws. Some of them glaring, some of them that weren’t shortcomings at all. Except in his mind. He set a pretty high standard for himself. And he held himself to it, right up until the end.

I don’t think I’ll ever like Labor Day weekend again. I know what I was doing five years ago today. I know what I was doing five years ago tomorrow. I’ll remember vividly the phone call I got five years ago this coming Sunday morning, because he died so late on August 30th, that my step-mother waited to let us know. There really wasn’t anything we could do, I guess.

And I know what I did on Labor Day five years ago.

I pulled in to the driveway and ‘saw’ my dad standing there. Like he’d been standing there when my brothers and sister and I drove away just weeks before.

I guess I’ll always see him standing there.

10 Things Every New Blogger Should Know

I started blogging about a year ago and the following suggestions are things I’ve learned along the way. Of course I’ve only recently learned all of this, and am doing my best to put it in to practice. Unfortunately, the bulk of my blogging has been at www.myspace.com and I’ve only been doing it for fun. Regardless, it’s good advice, and what I’m trying myself to increase traffic to my site. If you have more suggestions, please feel free to share!

1. “Pinging your blog” is not something you will be sent to hell, grounded, or arrested for doing. In fact, you want to make very sure that you do ping your blog-by going to websites such as www.PingMyBlog.com. There you can enter two or three pieces of information about your blog and they will get it out to a large number of blog directories as soon as you agree to their terms of service (which I love!) and click the big red Ping My Blog button. Oh, you also have to click the directories you want to be notified. I just click, “Check All.”

What information do they want? Well, first they want the title of your blog. Second they want the URL for it. How do you find that? Well, I just right click the title of my blogs, scroll to ‘Copy Shortcut,’ and paste it into the appropriate space at PingMyBlog.

That’s all there is to it.

2. Be patient. Unless you have a huge and supportive family, you’re not going to get hundreds of hits-or comments-in your first week. Probably not even in your first month or four. You’re going to have to spend some time doing your ‘due diligence.”

In simple terms that just means learning all you can about writing and promoting your blog. Ideally you will have done this prior to creating your blog website, if you’re hoping to make money from your efforts. Not that it can’t be done afterwards, but it’s just good information to know ahead of time. And it might save you some grief if you decide it’s just not your thing after all.

3. Don’t try to save every bit of information you dig up to one folder on your desktop. Trust me, you’ll have such a mess it’ll take forever to find anything. Instead, create several folders, which you can then drag into one primary folder. You might label them: “Links and Back Links,” “Tags,” “Blog Promotion,” “Blogging Videos” (youtube.com has a lot of great blogging videos!), “RSS Feeds,” etc...

Whatever you discover you need to learn about. Just make sure that you don’t locate a treasure trove of wonderful information and not bother studying it.

4. Blogger help groups are a wonderful thing. Most are set up as message boards and, while there may be blogger chat rooms, I’ve yet to find one. Still, the message board format works. You can read questions that other newbies have asked, along with responses to that person. You can ask your own questions-just be sure to keep checking back for answers! It’s a great way to learn, often in easier, less technical ways than you might find elsewhere.

5. Blogger help groups are a wonderful thing II. These groups give you an opportunity to visit blogs by other people, where you are encouraged to leave comments. Well, I only comment on blogs if I can honestly say something nice. I’m sorry, but if it’s about sports I can’t, in good conscience, post a message. Because all I would be doing it for is a return post and not as part of a networking campaign. If all you want to do is get one post from one blogger, so be it. But by continuing to visit other blogs that interest you, you build relationships with people who can be a big help in your quest for successful blogging.

6. Blog consistently. If not every day, then every other day. And it’s not as easy to do as it sounds. Especially if you chose to write about one subject. Regardless, you need to have a folder of ideas so when writer’s block strikes, you’ve got a place to run for help. Producing a blog every day is hard work-if quality is important to you. And it should be. If you just want to write a bunch of garbage, buy a little diary from the dollar store and jot it down in there. Of course you could be the William Hung of blogging, I suppose.

7. Write when the ideas strike. Don’t try to limit yourself to one blog a day. Because some days you might have three great blogs just begging to be written! If you hold off on the other two, they may never be written. Plus it’s also a great way to build up a surplus for those days when you’re stuck in bed with the flu, have out of town company drop in. Or just feel like playing hooky for a day. Just open your rainy day blog folder, see what’s there that suits your mood and post it. Five minutes and you’re done. Including pinging it.

8. Carry a notebook with you wherever you go! You never know what you might see or hear that could inspire award winning blogs. A pet contest that included a snake was the catalyst behind (what I feel) was a cute blog I did about the fear of snakes my father passed down to me. A conversation about an infomercial brought about another one. And someday I’m sure I’ll blog about the guy whose pants hit the floor in the middle of a crowded restaurant. If you don’t take note of such things, you run the risk of forgetting about them.

9. Make ‘em laugh. Unless you’re blogging about something like 9/11, it’s always a good idea to add as much humor to a blog as possible. I’m not saying you should insert a joke at the end of every second paragraph. In fact, unless your blog is about jokes, don’t tell one at all. Just try to see the comical side of everything you write about. It’s all in the way you phrase it. “Johnny tripped on the step and was embarrassed,” can tell you exactly how Johnny felt about the situation. Instead, what if you tried something like:

“When Johnny tripped on the step, the expression on his face was nothing compared to the spectacle he made of himself . Arms waving all over the place in an effort to stay on his feet, made him look like psycho version of a ballerina. In the end, his efforts were futile as he spun in two amazingly graceful circles, on his toes, before landing on his fanny with a flourish.“

Granted that’s not the funniest example I’ve ever come up with but hey, it’s one-thirty in the morning, I’ve already written three blogs today and I’m tired (at least it was the night I wrote this!). One other point before I move on to the last tip. Expanding on a thought also increases your word count. Don’t just add extra words to make it longer, explain it in more detail!

10. Proof read!!! Before you post your blog, read it through two or three times. Look for typos, poorly constructed sentences and punctuation that should, or shouldn’t, be there. This is also a fantastic opportunity to expand on your theme, if needed. Could you be a little more descriptive here? A bit more humorous there? Is this sentence really necessary? Does the story flow well? Does it make sense (as in, did I jump from point A to point C and skip B altogether?)? Did I remember to spell check it? You want your blog to make an impression. The amount of effort you put in to it will determine whether that impression is good or bad.

I hope these suggestions have been of some help to you. Happy blogging!