The trusty machine is back home, plugged in, and chugging away. The local computer store did a repair, then a windows repair restore, and then fixed some things in the registry. That was enough to get things fixed!! We’re back in business with the Windows XP machine. However, I’ve found the iMac Mini to be a very capable machine. My next buy will be a Mac laptop when they’ve got one out on the Intel chipset. Meanwhile, it’s good to have all the files back.

My “trusty” Windows machine got sick yesterday morning. I had downloaded and installed the latest version if iTunes which may have had something to do with the problem. However, when I plugged my iPod in to synchronize, the system rebooted and networking stopped working. There was also a strange smell of bad electricity! So, today I bought a new motherboard and installed it in the machine. Now the machine starts to load the Windows OS and then reboots. I can’t get it to boot into safe mode or any other configuration. So, it’ll go into the shop Monday and hopefully they can resurrect the system. Dang!

So, last evening and today I’ve been using the iMac Mini as my main machine. I really like it, however there are a couple of fairly quirky things. For instance, the Safari web browser works pretty well but there are some interesting problems. The URL history, for instance, can only be accessed by going to the menu bar and clicking on the “history” item, unlike Firefox where a right click shows the last URL’s accessed. Control left arrow doesn’t move back one word, it moves to the beginning of the line — alt left arrow is the key combo on the iMac. Getting used to these strange things will take some time. I’ve just found that when I’m writing a blog entry, all of my “quicktags” don’t display. I’ve no idea why — perhaps the HTML or the javascript is wrong or something. I miss having the tags directly available. I think I’ll check to see if a version of Firefox is available for the Macintosh and load that so that I can have a more similar interface.

Today has been fairly busy with little things. There isn’t much time left before we go cruising! This morning about 9:30 a.m. I was deciding how many changes of underwear I should take with me. That lead to the question of what laundry facilities were available on the cruise ship. I went online and found that a self-service laundromat is located on the same deck as our cabin and not far away. That was good information. At the same time I noticed that there are a couple of webcams available from the Grand Princess. I checked the bridge cam and got a great picture of the dock area where the ship was docked. That would have been about 5:30 p.m. — and it was DARK! Way too early to be dark!! We’ll just be getting warmed up at 5:30 p.m.!! Anyhow, the ship is on it’s way back to Barcelona to get ready for us to board a week from Monday.

Today was wet and chilly. The forecast calls for snow in the mountains overnight tonight and Sunday night. Maybe we’re in for an early winter?? A good winter with lots of snow would be very welcome here after several years of below-average snowfall. Meanwhile, I’m just glad I’ve got a backup computer! This iMac is a nice machine whenever I get the quirks figured out….

I wasn’t able to take very many pictures during the trip to Seattle. Most of the time I just didn’t feel good! Nina, however, took a lot of pictures and hopefully she’ll be able to post a few of them. This picture was taken on Saturday afternoon. Kendra was also recovering from a bad cold, but had taken quite some time to clean up her bedroom so we could see it. She also had quite a few pictures she wanted to show Nina. Kendra’s room is lovely — vibrant, brilliant colors and a fairy princess kind of a bed. The canopy is visible in the background. She has really grown up and we really enjoyed visiting with her.

Wendy and Aaron are just such wonderful people. Aaron is a deputy sheriff in Kitsap County and is on K9 patrol. His dog is always by his side. Aaron works the night shift getting home around 4 a.m. or so in the morning. He sleeps until about one in the afternoon and then another day starts. Wendy is working at a local market (local is relative — it takes about 40 minutes to drive there and another 40 minutes back) and is a substitute teacher. They were wonderful hosts for our visit and made us feel very welcome. I’m looking forward to another visit!

Despite feeling lousy, the trip was pretty good. We toured Jared’s apartment and stopped by his work. He took us around a few places in Seattle, including by the Troll Under the Bridge. Stay tuned for some pictures. All in all the Seattle side of the trip was just OK. The Bremerton side, however, was very nice. We stayed in the Eagle Tree RV Park on the Suquamish Indian Reservation. The park was nice, well maintained, very quiet, and quite full! It rained the entire time we were there so we didn’t do very much outside. The RV however stayed dry and warm. The warm part was very important since the temperatures got very cold at night. Fall has definitely arrived. We took the ferry to Seattle and back from Bainbridge Island which was also a comfortable ride. The Bremerton side of the sound has a lot of things to do and see, has water everywhere, and just beautiful scenery. We definitely made the right decision to stay on that side of Puget Sound.

The sore throat is pretty much gone (I can still feel it, but it isn’t painful any more). I’m pretty much back to normal. It seemed to take a very long time, but I definitely should be good to go for our next adventure! A week from Saturday we’re off to Barcelona and a two-week cruise. I’m right ready to go. I’ve had enough of being sick and am looking forward to having some great fun.

Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat. Nothing else seemed to be the matter and it wasn’t really all that sore anyway. Tuesday morning I got up with a really sore throat. On a scale of 1-10, Monday was a 2 and Tuesday was a 9. I went into the office because I was expecting a contractor to arrive and begin working. He didn’t get there until the next day as it was. By mid morning, I headed out to see my doctor. Of course, he doesn’t work on Tuesdays. My option was to go through urgent care. They swabbed the throat and a physicians assistant told me I had strep. She prescribed a five-day course of medication and sent me home.

We have had a trip to Seattle planned for some time. We were going to leave on Thursday morning and then start the return trip on Sunday afternoon. We would have time to visit a little bit with Jared as well as seeing Kendra. I can be sick in Seattle just as easily as being sick in Pocatello. So, we loaded up the motor home and headed to the great northwest.

The problem with really sore throats is swallowing. That has become impossible. I’ve managed to choke down the daily pill, but that’s about it. Thursday morning I was feeling so crappy that we stopped in Baker City, Oregon at their emergency room to see if there was something they could do relieve the pain enough so I could drink some fluids. Their solution was a fairly strong narcotic in the butt. The headache subsided, but no hope for the sore throat. They prescribed some vicodin and dripped a liter of a saline solution into my body (two sticks to get the IV started. I almost didn’t care). The vicodin managed to make my mouth so dry that it puckered automatically (and that was the end of that medication. It’s a horse-sized pill, anyhow). There seems to be no change in the pain levels. On the same scale, I would say today on this quiet Saturday morning that my throat is an 8. Some improvement — but it almost put me on the floor trying to get the last of the Zithromax (azithromycin) tablets down. Thank heavens this was a once-a-day tablet. Now I don’t have to try and get anything else down until the throat eases up.

There is always an upside, I guess. I haven’t had anything to eat since Tuesday morning, either. Every once in a while my stomach cuts through the pain noise from my throat to remind me that I haven’t eaten in some time. It’s easy to ignore because the thought of trying to get something down is quite nauseating. But, I keep telling myself, it has to get better. I’m sure I still believe that….

Eventful weekends are always a lot of fun. This was one of the nice weekends! It had been quite some time since we’d visited Heather and her family in Orem. I wanted to go to Salt Lake City for the Church’s Sunday School Open House. Stephanie, our oldest granddaughter, had a date to Homecoming at Orem High School. Danielle had a soccer game. All of that meant it was time to go south! We left Pocatello about 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon in the motor home and headed for Salt Lake City. I’ve received a new Church Calling as the Stake Sunday School President. Since I’ve not much of an idea of what all that job entails, I decided to go to the Church’s Sunday School Open House being held on Friday evening from 6-8 p.m. in hopes of learning a bit more about the job. We took Bradica (the dog) with us since we would be in the motor home.

The Open House was interesting. While there wasn’t much information about the specific job of Stake Sunday School President, the material on teaching and gospel scholarship was very interesting. After the meeting was over, we continued on down to Orem. We parked the motor home in Heather’s driveway for the night. That meant we would have our own beds without causing Stephanie to sleep elsewhere. Both Stephanie (who had a date the the Big Dance on Saturday night) and Danielle (who had a big soccer game on Saturday morning) needed to get a good night’s sleep.

Danielle’s soccer game was a lot of fun. She barely missed scoring on this attempt with the ball hitting the post and going right instead of left. But that was OK — a few minutes later she made a great pass from which another teammate scored. Danielle’s Purple Cyclone team went on to win the game 3-1. It was a nice morning — not very hot and quite pleasant — and the girls had a great time playing.

Later that afternoon, Stephanie got ready for her first Big Dance. She looked radiant in her gown. Her date was a delightful young man and I’m sure they had a very good time at dinner and then at the dance. We really enjoyed being there for the day and seeing Stephanie looking so happy and beautiful. After Stephanie left, we had dinner and then we drove back to Pocatello. A very nice day and trip.

Today was as busy as every Sunday seems to be. I played the organ for Priesthood Meeting as well as Sacrament Meeting and taught the lesson in High Priest Group as my normal assignment. Nina was up at the prison for her standard quota of meetings. The weekend is now coming to a close. I did get some pictures which are accessible through the link or by visiting the “pictures!” link on the right side of the screen. I’ve been busy putting up some other pictures from my last Belgium trip, so there should be plenty of pictures to look at.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve decided to build a new picture capability somewhat similar to USA Today’s The Day in Pictures feature. While they use flash technology, the idea is still quite appealing. I take a lot of pictures that don’t get loaded to the “pictures!” pages because they don’t come together in a specific theme. This would allow me to take unrelated pictures and post them as a group. Besides, it’s a great way to learn more about this technology I’m using. In the process of doing this, I’ll upgrade my server to from PHP 4 to PHP 5, implement some Object Oriented capability, and for the first time, try to make use of some clever HTML 4 and Cascading Style Sheet capability. All that means is that it might be some time before I get this capability implemented. But, right now it sounds like fun. It’s been a nice weekend.

Commenting on how quickly time passes is trite enough without me belaboring the point. Nevertheless, Thursday came rather quickly this week. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had so many early morning meetings this week. I have done some work on the computers at home this week which has occupied a lot of my evenings. We also bought some additional foliage for the back yard and because of that I know how my Saturday morning will be spent. Meanwhile, the motorhome is back in it’s accustomed spot with a fixed and now fully functional fridge. We’re headed for Seattle at the end of the month for a couple of days and I’m looking forward to taking the motorhome. It might be the last time this fall before the snow flies and I have to winterize the machine.

All the mainstream news attention is on hurricane Katrina and the blame game. I’ve gotten rather tired of the poor coverage and the fault finding. The storm was bigger than New Orleans and in reality bigger than the surrounding area. The fact is, however, the local governments were singularly unprepared. However, if one listens to the mainstream media, the Federal Government is at fault and we’ve got a president accepting that blame. Very dumb, George W. Very dumb. The Federal Government should the the third or fourth level responder, not the first level responder. Government priorities are mixed up and the mainstream media “reporting” is messed up as well.

Most of those who didn’t evacute probably could not have evacuated on their own. They have no money or means to leave and no ability to sustain themselves should they leave. The reason? They live from the government welfare trough. The government takes care of them. The government feeds them. The government provides them housing, clothing, and health care. These folks were very well trained by the government! Then they were suddenly not taken care of by the goverment. No wonder they were angry and spiteful.

This sordid mess also points out the serious problems with our current governmental welfare system. It makes people dependent and takes away their ability to make their own decisions and to make their own way in life.

Some of these programs are Federal Government programs. Some are State Government programs. These agencies were woefully unprepared. They created a dependent constituency and then left them out in the cold and wet when disaster struck. Unfortunately, in whatever witch hunts that happen in the wake of hurricane Katrina, changing this problem will not be an outcome. These “investigations” will be primarily driven by the Democrats whose mission in life seems to be to make people dependent on the government and then portray them as victims.

One of the stories my dad likes to tell is about Ike and Mike’s mule. “When they finally taught it how to live without eating, well, it died.” When we teach people how to live without contributing back to society, we all die a little.

We spent much of the day outside planting bushes and shoveling dirt. The backyard now has six trees and two butterfly bushes. The north side of the house now has five bushes and two lilac bushes are now planted next to the fence. We had a load of dirt dumped in the hole on the north side of the house — which turned out not to be enough to fill the hole. It still had to be moved and now the hole is half filled. The yard is beginning to look like people who care live here.

Now the problem is that my body hurts! Some soaking time in the hot tub will feel very good tonight. In about an hour that’s where I’ll be found.

After we finished working in the yard, Nina and I went uptown to buy some book cases for downstairs. We don’t have enough places to put books! We first went to Fred Meyers and came away without buying any bookcases as there weren’t any there! We then drove over to Walmart. They had a reasonable selection and we bought three. These Sauder bookcases went together very easily and we’ve now got another twelve and a half feet of book shelves.

Now I’m watching the second half of the Ohio State vs Texas football game. Early in the third quarter Ohio State is leading 19 to 13, but Texas is knocking on the door. I’d like for Ohio State to win this game. Unfortunately Michigan didn’t fair so well against Notre Dame earlier today and Iowa lost to Iowa State as well. Not the best of days for the Big Ten, particularly considering that they went 10:0 last Saturday!

To their credit, I did get a response from USA Network about their dropping coverage in the middle of the last set of the Blake – Agassi match:

Thank you for expressing your concerns about our US Open coverage. Regarding
Wednesday night’s match between Andre Agassi and James Blake, our
commentators announced several times that viewers in the east would need to
switch over to CBS to continue viewing the match. Due to contractual
obligations we could not continue our coverage after CBS’s US Open
Highlights show began at 12:37AM (Eastern). Requests to allow us to continue
our coverage were denied.

While the eastern feed of USA network left the match, the western feed
continued to broadcast the match until its conclusion. If you live in the
western part of the country and had the match cut off, this means you were
viewing the eastern feed. Contact your cable or satellite provider for
information on why you are not receiving the western feed of USA.

USA Network

Only problem is, there is no eastern or western feed on Dish Network for USA Network. Here’s my response:

Something is very strange here.

I’ve spent the last hour on the phone with support people at Dish Network. They are adamant that there is one and only one feed on Dish Network for USA Network — channel 105 — for the entire country.

Why do you tell me that there is an eastern feed and a western feed???? Do you know something that the technical support people at Dish Network don’t know?

I’m still very unhappy with USA Network. If someone working for me (and I’ve a lot of people in my organization working for me) gave me your answer, they’d get booted out of the office and perhaps out of the company. The Blake-Aggasi match was not going overly long, however every men’s match has the opportunity to go to five sets and a tie break. You obviously have not planned your coverage correctly nor have you executed the appropriate contracts in advance of the coverage. There is no reason that your contract for coverage should not allow you to complete broadcast of a match in progress. Because it does not, you screwed up your contracting process in a very amateur manner.

Further, if it is true that Dish Network has only one feed — you should know that and that makes your condescending reply even more aggravating.

Roland Smith
Unhappy Customer