Granpaw's Journal

Well here it is again, that time of year when the nights, although they are getting shorter, seem to last forever.
I try to put down my feelings on here but I just can’t put my finger on them… I can’t express myself in words, I ramble on from one depressing thought to another, like a leaf in a river bumping first one obstacle then the other.

In my last post, I listed some of the more important things that have happened this year to influence my life, But I am caught up in the anticipation of things to come and surely they will.

As of this writing I have heard not a word from any so-called family member regarding what I am doing tonight for Christmas eve, nor have I received an invite. I will make a couple of calls tonight to my family who live out of state and them that live here but too far away to visit. The others that do not call or get in touch with me before morning will be removed from my list of people I care about.

Merry Christmas

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I really have some truly wonderful friends.
In order to save me the embarrassment of puking on the couch, or the living room carpet, or the cat, in that order, again, three of them carried, or lifted me, up stairs to my bed which was 100 feet further from the bathroom. Up stairs, yes, much safer up there. Up there I can think clearer, and commune with my inner self much more so than anywhere else.
For instance, last night, while laying there communing, I developed a charley horse in my big toe, my inner self said “just relax the muscle and it will go away“. By golly it worked.
But I also learned not to totally trust that little voice when I had to take a leak and decided it was too far to the bathroom, so I tried that muscle relaxing thing again.

After the latest episode I had with my truck being tied up for 5 days undergoing a clutch repair, it was a welcome relief to have it back in service and running better, so thinking all was well, I took a trip to town to do some shopping.
Upon my return home some 3 hours later I found the new water pump out of power and dry. DRAT!.
Now what?
Checked the breaker, not thrown.
Checked the wiring, had power.
Checked the water pressure, nada.
Checked the pump for overheating, cool to the touch.
Checked the pressure switch, no power.
How can this be I asked myself.
Then, while moving the contacts in the switch, I saw a tiny spark in one side when it made contact.
There was a small piece of plastic like material melted onto the face of the contact keeping it from making a good connection. Shazam!. Another minor problem solved, and another item to add to my long list of things that make me pull my hair out, if I had any hair to pull out.

Well as I type this, my main computer is happily downloading windoze updates once again trying for SP3. I didn’t realize I only had SP2 on there.
But the real reason for this post is to chronicle the last 6 months of this machine.
I got it from a friend who upgraded to a new machine, I wanted to use it mainly as a music studio for making my own CDs and Videos. So…
After wiping the old files left on here, I found that the …Oh crap!! I just noticed that my main machine is showing the downloading update icon but is still at 0%….I’ll be back.

OK…now SP3 has been downloaded and on my machine…updated as far as I can go with XP…notifications have been turned off so no more annoying shields popping up all the time.

Well this morning showed just how co-ordinated I can be at three in the morning after a whopping 4 hour sleep in which I had only been awakened twice…In case your wondering, that is a jar of maple syrup to sweeten my coffee…I opened it up and promptly dumped in a helping of non-dairy creamer.

…Oh Crap!

After many years of standing in the field across the road from me, this old Maple finally met the onward march of population expansion. When I first saw this tree it had an old crumbling deer stand in the fork where some hunter had sat for many years before it rotted apart. Although it is small and gnarled, the tree then withstood two tornadoes that I am aware of and still it lived. Then came the ultimate fate of us all…progress.

I call for a replacement medicare card….The computer, after gleaning that I don’t want to use spanish asks me for my card number followed by the pound sign… If you don’t have the number, you may wish to hang up and call back when you do have it…oh…and if I choose to wait to speak to a representative, (yes I do) the wait will be only ten minutes…

OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!

I’m writing this at 5 AM during a blizzard that has lasted all night here in Northern Wisconsin. Why so early you might ask, because a spoiled rotten 4 legged furry family member has made it his personal quest that I not sleep past 5 am no matter what.

This morning was no different than any other with one exception…
We have a walk in closet with a shelf 6 feet over the head of our bed. On a normal day, (before daybreak), that darn cat comes in the bedroom from somewhere in the house and starts in telling me it’s almost daylight. If I miss him with the first two or three throws of my slippers he then retires for about an hour like a snooze alarm. This morning, about 3 am, he somehow got his old furry self up onto the shelf in the closet, looked around, and decided it’s time, so he launched himself at the headboard of our bed…He missed…He landed on my head with all four feet neatly aligned with my left ear, his claws were tucked in thank God.

Needless to say he had my full and undivided attention at that point, so in his cat mind he must have figured it was time to go into snooze mode and disappeared before I could retaliate in kind….

Two hours later I sit here rambling on while the snow flies, the dog snores and the other cats and the wife sleep peacefully.
Cat, if you’re reading this, you’re on my list….

Well I stumbled across a “cigarbox” guitar place and was struck like a building fell on me…I like that!…I can make one of those…! So, I ordered a cigar box off of ebay and will see what happens when it arrives…Meanwhile, I’ve been surfing every place I can find in this wide world looking at how to build ‘em and how to play ‘em yada yada yada…
Here is a picture of one I almost bought on ebay before I decided to make one instead.

At last post the well had quit working due to high water. That changed as soon as I tried the faucets in the house…voila! there was water coming out, the pump was working too!…
Checked the level of the water in the well house and it was below the pump and the damned thing was pumping water…? wassup widdat???
Not going to count my blessings here folks it’s working now..that’s great.

Now…
On to the latest of my adventures that is ongoing at present.
Readers may leave now cause the rest of this story is pretty uninteresting, and I am just rambling on anyway…

After years and I do mean years of being forced to use a dialup account at Centurytel (now CenturyLink) due to the lack of High speed internet access in my area, it became available this last July. I signed up for it to save a bundle on my phone bill as I had to have two lines in order to use the phone while the computer was on-line. I also got a cell phone through Verizon last December.
Let me say I have the greatest respect for non-geeky people forced to use a dialup account who then make the switch to HSI or DSL or whatever it is without knowing what they are doing….like I did..
After a half hour on the cell phone with a nice young lady in texas who was tech support at CenturyLink, she finally found that the account had not been activated yet is why the thing wasn’t working…
Back to dialup…till this morning…Turn on the computer, hit the dialer…”no dialtone present”…Oh yeah…they disconnected it this morning…create a new dialer for the high speed.. Connected at 100 bps! wow!!
Load a page…fast load!! click a link…”server not found”…THUD!!! (sound of my head hitting the desk).
Go through the steps again and look for troubleshooting help…HAHAHAHA you thought you’d find help??? NOT!…then…freeze…everything freeze…pull the plug and restart..same crap…four times going through those steps and then…it works! the damn thing works!! I don’t have a clue why but again..I’ll not count my blessings, I’ll just take it as it comes…till the bill that is.

Well it’s back to dialup cause it’s not working again..now neither is the phone line working right and it’s time for the packer game…so continued tomorro!