Wednesday, April 11, 2012

THE FIGURE EIGHT RACE











Root*Center*Son won this race, with his Dad! I painted it for his birthday a few years back, during the same two weeks that I painted yesterday's! (Those two have birthdays two days apart (well and two years different! Ha!). Recently, I said to him, "It's really nice of you to loan your painting back to me a whole month for the Art Exhibit." And without missing a beat he said, "I KNOW!" LOL! One of the best compliments I've ever had.

44 comments:

  1. Howard's first!

    Even in the middle of the night.

    Up with leg cramps, so came down for some calcium/magnesium.

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  2. And, Bill Gates&Co updated my computer and shut it down/restarted. And I lost the whole day's worth of the food diary, which was in draft form. Ick.

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  3. Won't kill me, but I find it *really* intrusive to be deciding this chit for me.

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  4. Well, da boi got me up at 7:30 -- and since *he* went to bed early, too, I didn't/don't begrudge him, lol! But prolly means a nap sometime today.

    One of our members at the support group had her Heller around noon. And was online before nine (phone voice recognition, grin). Feeling joyous, glad, good and grateful! She's going to do fine, I think. Our Australian whiner has already posted a "Good. I'm *so* glad. . . . " note. Jeepers.

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  5. Yesterday, my friends who gave me The Goobey, had a baby hummingbird fly in the window. She thought it was a bumble bee, lol! Found some emergency hummer food (doesn't normally use the red stuff), fed him and he flew away.

    http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s720x720/549427_3350087825331_1062915274_32716712_1781852850_n.jpg

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  6. Sweet of them to act quickly! I don't think that fellow is a baby, though, as he already has all his colouring. He could be a first year juvenile, though, if they live south of you. Pretty wonderful to get such a photo!

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  7. Three cheers for her making it through the Valley!!

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  8. There has to be a way to get the automatic part of those upgrades changed to a notification of an upgrade that allows you to choose when to have the upgrade occur. (Or am I simply spoiled by having a Mac?) Does this happen to everyone who has a PC? I don't remember that happening when I had mine.

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  9. When you come down in the middle of the night, does Beau follow you down?

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  10. Alabama. I thought that, too. But he's SO tiny! Maybe he's a midget? If people have midgets (my grandmother's older brothers was), why not birds and other animals?

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  11. Indeed: she was working, just separated, and going to ER every few days for rehydration! She also had the dreaded spasms (which feel like a heart attack). Luckily for me, my spasms came on 30 years *before* the Achalasia manifested and were pretty much gone before it did. The docs are still undecided if Diffuse Esophageal Spasms are part of/lead to/not associated with the disease, but *spasms* certainly are for a lot of us.

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  12. Didn't use to. Used to *ask*! Really makes a mess on dial up: I keep so many tabs open, that it takes Firefox a LONG time to capture them all when I'm shutting down. Windows shutdowns just disregard that, so I have to *reload* every page. And yep, Apple spoils ya! When Edwin upgraded to Tiger, I was *astonished* at how EASY it was.

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  13. Nope. (He's tied, so unless I let him loose, he stays -- without much fussing.) It kind of makes my bedroom his kennel without *having* a kennel. His view of coming down, is OUT!! While my neighbors are far away, not wanting da boi to be barking at four ayEm, lol!

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  14. Just sent a Sock Monkey to Larry (from the hospital gift shop) with a note that reads:
    “Grab that monkey by the tail and know that we are along with you for the ride. Tons of Love”

    Since I sent a Teddy Bear last time, I needed something different. And Sock Monkeys are a thing in Larry's nuclear family.
    Last year one of his kids took one on vacation, Flat Stanley style, and sent home photos to the nieces and nephews.
    So I figured it might bring a smile.

    Got a nice note from my nephew (2nd of Larry's 5 kids) saying that his sibling (the one who lives furthest away) is flying in today.
    =Whoo=

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  15. Seems to me the docs should listen to you who have experienced it! Sure sounds related!

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  16. Have you considered braving a call to tech support to ask how to turn off the automatic updates?

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  17. Need a smile? This will do it. Shared via Maura!

    9 year old's cardboard arcade gets flashmobbed. :-)
    http://www.boingboing.net/2012/04/09/9-year-olds-diy-cardboard-ar.html

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  18. I can't imagine a greater gift than a hummingbird sitting on your finger.

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  19. I can turn them off. Then they bug you to death reminding you they're off. . . . which is why I turned them on in the first place, lol! But they didn't used to turn off your machine without your permission! And since it takes several days of downloading, on demand is a Pita anyways. I'll live. I just need to save all drafts before going to sleep. . . .

    And BTW, it costs about $60 an hour or part of to actually talk to them. Or did last time I checked.

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  20. Well, lots of peeps have DES -- I had that diagnosed a long time ago. Only a few of those have it ripen into Achalasia. And for some, it comes on at the same time. The one nice thing about this disease it that it doesn't kill ya (any more)(if you make it to the ER in time).

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  21. Indeed. And good. Damn.

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  22. I think you're right, listener, there is, or ought somewhere in the system to be, a way to make updates not be automatic. Even when they are automatic, they should still ask if you want to install now or later. But as per usual, I can't remember where to go to set all this up.

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  23. Life is funny. As I was typing the above response, a box came up telling me that my computer was being updated and would restart in X minutes. Did I want to restart now or later. I clicked later. But I think, since the update was not complete, clicking later made it stop and go away...for now. No doubt it will come back at a most inopportune time. *sigh*

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  24. And, yes, Puddle, save frequently. This is a lesson I learned a long time ago. Wen I don't, disaster inevitably ensues. It's a real pain at first, but it becomes second nature after a while.

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  25. Bill Thomasson4/11/2012 03:34:00 PM

    puddle ~~

    1. Doesn't your word processor do automatic saves every so often? My Word does.

    2. In Windows 7, the setting for how updates are handled are at Control Panel|System and Security|Windows Update|Turn automatic updates on and off (=change settings). The default is to automatically install updates, but you can also choose to have the updates automatically downloaded but installed only on your say-so or to check for updates only when you say so.

    The last thing I do before I go to bed is shut down everything, restart the computer, (I run a couple of virtual network programs that are chugging along as I am in bed), and sync every thing to my external hard drive. So when the computer checks for updates at 3:00 a.m. (time chosen by me), there is no particular problem if it then installs them and restarts the computer.

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  26. Bill Thomasson4/11/2012 03:36:00 PM

    On the question of relatedness: there's no reason the same person can't have two unrelated conditions. Has nothing to do with whether the spasms are real.

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  27. Indeed, Bill. The problem with the spasms is that they're virtually identical to testing (so far). The docs, and me, *want* to see the connection, but can't find one.

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  28. Oh, yes, Susan, I agree!

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  29. 40ยบ ~~ absolutely amazing how warm that feels in April, and how *cold* in October! Will be in the 80's by Monday.

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  30. Just loaded up the Blog photos clear to May 1st! :-)

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  31. Not 80's again already?! Argh!

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  32. That says it, puddle. ♥

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  33. The operative word being "if"!!

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  34. It still seems suspect that so many people have what may be "both" conditions.
    There has to be a key correlation.

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  35. I've never heard of it costing to talk to tech support!

    You might want to turn it off, then do the upgrades at the same time every week.

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  36. LOL! Your computer is on to you.

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  37. As far as I know, on XP you can only manually install/ask for downloads, OR automatically. Since I'm on dialup, it takes 12 or more hours for anything m$ has to download on me. I generally get ultra slow computing for three or four days a month. But I can see if one were in bed, and got Cat's box, and wasn't answered, that it would shut you down.

    I don't use any of the word processing programs: I use my email draft system. The old earthlink system used to automatically save on an unexpected shutdown, but since the reformatting, I lost that, and am forced to use Outlook Express, which doesn't.

    Part of the problem, I think is that this computer is on its very last legs. The reformatting two years ago, and complete (CD) update was on a ten year old computer. Pretty sure the hard drive is going. I can't blame Dell -- I'm a hard user, lol! I'm actively surfing about 12 - 14 hours a day, and leave it on at night so I don't deal with hours of email unloading first thing in the a.m. I shut it down/reboot two or three times a day as the surfing gets tooooooo slow to bear.

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  38. If, indeed, lol! But it's *we* who are so stubborn that we delay. . . . But another part of the problem is that malnourishment leads to foggy thinking. And it doesn't hurt that much, alas. There was NO great hurry/worry at ER *until* they did the bloods, and that absolutely freaqued them out. Turned the ON switch, it did. I had just spent ten hours sitting in ER wondering if I'd actually live long enough for a doctor to see me. . . . Imagining the local paper's headlines: Patient starves to death in ER waiting room. . . .

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  39. Puddle, on XP:

    Open Control Pannel
    Select "System"
    Look for the "Automatic Updates" tab

    There are radio buttons:

    Automatic (Recommended) must be the default, because it's checked on mine. Along with this radio button there are selection pull down boxes. The selections in the lefthand menu are:

    Every Day
    Every Sunday
    Every Monday
    Every Tuesday
    Every Wednesday
    Every Thursday
    Every Friday
    Every Saturday

    The choices in the righthand menu are 12:00 AM through 11:00PM

    The next radio button says, "Download updates for me, but let me decide when to install them."

    Then "Notify me, but don't audomatically download and install them."

    Then "Turn off automatic updates.":

    It looks llike you can have pretty much anything you want.

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  40. It was bright and sunny here today and pleasant but hardly warm. Sort of don't want to look at the forecast though. Please, no 30s yet!

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  41. The Japanese word for humming bird translates as "bee bird."

    Real rain here today, supposed to be more for the next couple of days. This is WAY late for here abouts; March is about the latest rains come, and that not always.

    Later, gaters.

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