Happy New Year

Happy New Year
Happy New Year!

I guess that I may be a day late but not a dollar short since many of you will have observed New Year’s Eve already. In fact, you could be sleeping off the night’s excesses. I have slept off the excesses of the night before so I share your pain.

My big effort will be staying awake until midnight tonight. In the recent past, I have usually been in bed and sound asleep by 10:00 PM.

Doug called to check on me and see what I was doing for New Year’s Eve.

Nothing much.

I asked him what he had on the agenda for the night. He said he was going over to June Street. June Street is a code term for his friend Rob’s apartment in Hollywood. Apparently, the boys were gathering this afternoon. Doug ought to have fun tonight.

Odds and Ends
I picked up my Best Buy order. It went very well and I was pleased with the results. I had an email reminder from Best Buy waiting on the laptop when I came home.

Today was lazy day for me. I worked on the daily sudoku puzzle this morning. I felt pleased with myself in finishing in about fifteen minutes. Of course, the puzzle was rated as “gentle.” The Sunday puzzle is rated as “tough.” That one took me about forty minutes to complete.

I took my daily walk on the esplanade. This is a nice, level sidewalk on the cliffs above the beach. It was a perfect day to walk there. I could make the walk in shorts and a short sleeved shirt. I think the visibility was thirty miles or as far away as the horizon was from the cliff height. I walked for about a mile and a half – two and a half kilometers.

The esplanade is Doug’s favorite place to walk. I can understand why. We may take a walk down there next week when Doug is up at my house.

Hopefully, the weather will remain good. The forecast calls for rain from this Thursday through next Monday.

I have to complete a professional self development form for school. I forget to email myself the work papers so I will cruise out to school on Wednesday and email myself the work papers and complete them at home.


I would like to close my last blog for 2007 in the words of Bill S. Preston from BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE.

“Party on most excellent dudes and babes!”

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - December 30th

Weekend Update
This was a quiet weekend for me. I had no plans.

I was driving the Prelude this last week for a change. The car rolled over 348,000 miles – 540,000 kilometers on Friday afternoon for me. That is a lot of distance for one vehicle

My faithful Handspring Visor [early personal data assistant] failed on me this week. It is close to 15 or 16 years old. I knew that I had to replace it because the operating system provider, Palm, was not going to provide an upgrade so the machine would run on Windows Vista. I think the first Windows System that I used it on Windows 3.0, just before Windows 95 was launched.

That seems like an eternity.

I went to the local Best Buy store to see if they had anything that would work for me. Big mistake. All of the clerks were very familiar with MP3s and the combination PDA and cell phone. No one knew anything about a simple machine.

Disappointed, I came home and search the Palm.com website. I found that Palm only manufactured three PDAs; only one of which was simple device that kept the calendar and address book. I then checked the local stores to see if they had any of the simple PDAs in stock. The Palm website indicated that my local Office Depot not only sold the PDA but actually had some in stock.

I hopped in the Prelude and drove over. I found the aisle that was supposed to have PDAs for sale. The only devices I found for sale in the display cases were MP3 players. Obviously, not the result I was looking for. I spoke with one of the clerks and he said they didn’t have any PDAs. In thinking back, I doubt he understood what I was asking about.

On Saturday, Doug showed me how to order online from Best Buy for an in store pickup. It was simple and I saved USD$10 on the transaction. Now, all I have to do is visit Best Buy in the next seven days and pickup the order.

Then, I have to transfer all of the address and other information from my old Visor to the new Palm Z22 PDA. That is something that I can do next weekend.

I should be hearing from my friend Sharon about whether she can come to my Marketing Research class and make a presentation as a guest lecturer on focus groups and other forms of observational market research. Sharon is close to an expert on the subject and she should be able to give the students an alternative view on the subject.

On Thursday, I got an invitation from the Molly Moon Salon where Amber works to a grand reopening reception after the remodeling. Normally, I would be the first one in line at the door to see and chat with Amber and Natalie the Receptionist. I am going to pass because the party will be on the day after I have my first chemotherapy infusion or IV drip. It doesn’t seem like a very sound idea to plan for something when I am uncertain how I will feel. I will also have a class that Saturday and that is a wild card, if you will, also.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors. I know people aren’t coming for my witty writing. I know because I checked the exit pages and it seems that most of you are interested in the Woman of the Moment photo images.

We had a total of 231 visitors to the blog this week. I measure blog visitors from Sunday to Sunday, when I go online to post the Weekend Update. It is not the most precise measurement but, then, who cares if I miss one or two visitors?

I don’t care all that much.

We had visitors from Canada [16], Japan [12], Lithuania, Mexico, [3], Russia [2], Australia [5], Saudi Arabia [4], Germany, Aruba, Texas [5], Croatia, Indonesia [3], United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Philippines [2], Brazil, Netherlands, Malaysia [2], Singapore [2], Vietnam [2], India, United Kingdom [2], Poland, Finland [2], Sweden, Belgium, Hong Kong [2], Costa Rica, Spain [3], Korea, Italy, Kuwait, Chile, Taiwan, Iran [3], France, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Italy.

Last week was the first time for visits from Aruba and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We also had several visitors who stopped bye for an extended time. Actually, we had a lot of long time visitors; they stayed for 30 minutes, 27 minutes, 15 minutes, 14 minutes, 12 minutes, 11 minutes and two who stayed for 10 minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who took time to stop bye and visit the blog.

Doug
Doug stopped bye on Saturday morning. We had talked about him coming over to help take down my Christmas decorations. We had talked off and on about him stopping bye; in the end, he thought he might be over around 1:00 PMish. Doug was uncertain just when he would get up. Doug stays up much later than I do, you see.

I was surprised when he came through the front door around 11:00 AM. Doug said he had spent the night at his friend Rob’s apartment. Doug had gone over to Rob’s to watch a screener copy of the film JUNO. Doug highly recommends JUNO, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and THERE WILL BE BLOOD as some of the best films of the year. I may try to get out to see them this week.

Doug and I went to Giuliano’s for our lunch. I had a small roast beef sandwich and Doug had a large hot pastrami sandwich. They were both very good. I do wish I had picked up a bag of potato chips because they would have been excellent with the sandwiches.

The Princess’ Wedding Photos
I mailed the photos of the Princess’ Wedding to the family and close friends today. I will mail my brother’s copy next week when I send him a month’s worth of the Los Angeles Times Sports Section. No sense in paying extra for the photos when I can send them in a flat rat box with lots of newspaper insulation.

I hope everyone likes the work I did in editing Doug’s photos. He had over 900 photos from the wedding and related events. I cut the three CDs he gave me down to one CD with the essential 364 images and 688 MB of file space.


This was my weekend. I hope your post-Christmas weekend was good and enjoyable.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - December 30th

Weekend Update
This was a quiet weekend for me. I had no plans.

I was driving the Prelude this last week for a change. The car rolled over 348,000 miles – 540,000 kilometers on Friday afternoon for me. That is a lot of distance for one vehicle

My faithful Handspring Visor [early personal data assistant] failed on me this week. It is close to 15 or 16 years old. I knew that I had to replace it because the operating system provider, Palm, was not going to provide an upgrade so the machine would run on Windows Vista. I think the first Windows System that I used it on Windows 3.0, just before Windows 95 was launched.

That seems like an eternity.

I went to the local Best Buy store to see if they had anything that would work for me. Big mistake. All of the clerks were very familiar with MP3s and the combination PDA and cell phone. No one knew anything about a simple machine.

Disappointed, I came home and search the Palm.com website. I found that Palm only manufactured three PDAs; only one of which was simple device that kept the calendar and address book. I then checked the local stores to see if they had any of the simple PDAs in stock. The Palm website indicated that my local Office Depot not only sold the PDA but actually had some in stock.

I hopped in the Prelude and drove over. I found the aisle that was supposed to have PDAs for sale. The only devices I found for sale in the display cases were MP3 players. Obviously, not the result I was looking for. I spoke with one of the clerks and he said they didn’t have any PDAs. In thinking back, I doubt he understood what I was asking about.

On Saturday, Doug showed me how to order online from Best Buy for an in store pickup. It was simple and I saved USD$10 on the transaction. Now, all I have to do is visit Best Buy in the next seven days and pickup the order.

Then, I have to transfer all of the address and other information from my old Visor to the new Palm Z22 PDA. That is something that I can do next weekend.

I should be hearing from my friend Sharon about whether she can come to my Marketing Research class and make a presentation as a guest lecturer on focus groups and other forms of observational market research. Sharon is close to an expert on the subject and she should be able to give the students an alternative view on the subject.

On Thursday, I got an invitation from the Molly Moon Salon where Amber works to a grand reopening reception after the remodeling. Normally, I would be the first one in line at the door to see and chat with Amber and Natalie the Receptionist. I am going to pass because the party will be on the day after I have my first chemotherapy infusion or IV drip. It doesn’t seem like a very sound idea to plan for something when I am uncertain how I will feel. I will also have a class that Saturday and that is a wild card, if you will, also.

Visitors
We had another good week for visitors. I know people aren’t coming for my witty writing. I know because I checked the exit pages and it seems that most of you are interested in the Woman of the Moment photo images.

We had a total of xxx visitors to the blog this week. I measure blog visitors from Sunday to Sunday, when I go online to post the Weekend Update. It is not the most precise measurement but, then, who cares if I miss one or two visitors?

I don’t care all that much.

We had visitors from Canada [16], Japan [12], Lithuania, Mexico, [3], Russia [2], Australia [5], Saudi Arabia [4], Germany, Aruba, Texas [5], Croatia, Indonesia [3], United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Philippines [2], Brazil, Netherlands, Malaysia [2], Singapore [2], Vietnam [2], India, United Kingdom [2], Poland, Finland [2], Sweden, Belgium, Hong Kong [2], Costa Rica, Spain [3], Korea, Italy, Kuwait, Chile, Taiwan, Iran [3], France, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Italy.

Last week was the first time for visits from Aruba and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We also had several visitors who stopped bye for an extended time. Actually, we had a lot of long time visitors; they stayed for 30 minutes, 27 minutes, 15 minutes, 14 minutes, 12 minutes, 11 minutes and two who stayed for 10 minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who took time to stop bye and visit the blog.

Doug
Doug stopped bye on Saturday morning. We had talked about him coming over to help take down my Christmas decorations. We had talked off and on about him stopping bye; in the end, he thought he might be over around 1:00 PMish. Doug was uncertain just when he would get up. Doug stays up much later than I do, you see.

I was surprised when he came through the front door around 11:00 AM. Doug said he had spent the night at his friend Rob’s apartment. Doug had gone over to Rob’s to watch a screener copy of the film JUNO. Doug highly recommends JUNO, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and THERE WILL BE BLOOD as some of the best films of the year. I may try to get out to see them this week.

Doug and I went to Giuliano’s for our lunch. I had a small roast beef sandwich and Doug had a large hot pastrami sandwich. They were both very good. I do wish I had picked up a bag of potato chips because they would have been excellent with the sandwiches.

The Princess’ Wedding Photos
I mailed the photos of the Princess’ Wedding to the family and close friends today. I will mail my brother’s copy next week when I send him a month’s worth of the Los Angeles Times Sports Section. No sense in paying extra for the photos when I can send them in a flat rat box with lots of newspaper insulation.

I hope everyone likes the work I did in editing Doug’s photos. He had over 900 photos from the wedding and related events. I cut the three CDs he gave me down to one CD with the essential 364 images and 688 MB of file space.


This was my weekend. I hope your post-Christmas weekend was good and enjoyable.

Be well and stay happy.

Getting Ready for New Year's Eve

Getting Ready for New Year’s Eve
I started to get ready for New Year’s Eve today. To be frank, there is not a lot of activity involved with me getting ready for the traditional end of the year celebration.

I don’t think I will be going out this year; I am, as I like to say, between “friends who are women.” Right now, I am not all that comfortable with the term “girl friend.” Of course, having a girlfriend would tend to simplify my life substantially because I would know who I was spending the evening with.

Anyway.

My biggest challenge will be staying up until midnight. I live in a quiet building so it is easy to go to bed early and sleep soundly until morning. I do enjoy those warm, comfortable hours in my bed.

I do need to lay in some food supplies. I expect that I will finish off the leftover turkey by Saturday or maybe it will last until Sunday. I will be going to El Gringo for dinner tonight. Doug indicated that he would come over on the weekend to help me take my Christmas decorations down. We will end up at Giuliano’s for our lunch sandwiches and we may swing bye the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for ice blended drinks to wash the sandwiches down.

For someone who is trying to watch his weight, I am certainly spending a lot of time writing about food and eating.

Does writing about food cause weight gain?

El Gringo
Here I go again, writing about food.

My trip to El Gringo should be good tonight. The college football bowl game will be on television so I will be able to occupy myself while I wait for my meal to be prepared. Then, there is the possibility that Merit the Server will be slinking around the restaurant.

As things turned out, it was a nice meal at El Gringo but no Merit. Since it is the week between Christmas and New Year’s, it is possible that Merit is off on a trip with family or friends or both.

The new server was friendly but she was more interested in talking with her friend about who was doing what with whom right now.

It is times like this that I am sometimes very glad that I have a partial hearing loss in both of my ears.

The Princess’ Wedding Photos
I accomplished my goal of narrowing Doug’s over 900 images into a very modest 326 images of 688 MB. The file fits on one CD with a little room to spare so I can distribute them to the interested parties like the Princess and her mother.

It was easy to cut out some of the images. Doug shot some sequences like a video so there were multiple images where one would be perfect. That was what I did. Of course, there were a couple of images that were blurred and they were easy to drop from the final file version.

I will mail off the copies this weekend. I need to swing buy Office Depot and pick up some CD mailers. I don’t want to spend 25 minutes making each copy only to have it end up damaged from Postal Service mishandling of the mail.


Be well and stay happy.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day
Boxing Day for me was putting the place back together after Christmas.

I started in the kitchen. That was an obvious choice. It was also an easy task for me. I had to put the dishes and pans away. I spent more time than I wanted too cleaning off the aluminum pot marks on my porcelain sink. But, it had to be done sooner or later.

Yesterday, after we had finished on Christmas dinner, I invited Doug to stop bye and help me take the Christmas tree and the decorations. I tossed in a trip to Giuliano’s for lunch. I think that was what convinced him to come help me.

Doug was surprised when he received a baker’s dozen semi-sweet chocolate chips cookies from Giuliano’s and a large ice blended gingerbread drink from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. He had mentioned that they were all he wanted for Christmas in his blog. I also gave him a few more things to make the season merry and bright.

That just goes to show you that some people read the blogs.

My brother called me this morning to ask how my Christmas was and what I did. I said that I spent a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and that Doug and his mother came over for part of the day. He said he had a quiet Christmas in San Francisco.

Post Christmas Cleaning
Post Christmas cleaning sounds like a misstatement.

Not for me.

Every Boxing Day which is the day after Christmas, I make it a point to go through my desk and clean out all of the accumulate junk and debris that have found refuge there in the past year. It is a good way to start the new year.

This year’s haul included two old cell phones that will be recycled. I also found some unused checks from an account that I closed two years ago. No sense in keeping them around. I still have some more junk and odd bits of my life to toss out. I ought to finish this project today or tomorrow.

Recovery – Part 9B
I received an appointment notice from the clinic that I was scheduled for a CT scan on January 11th at 8:00 AM on Saturday. This is an important scan because it will show how I am reacting to the chemotherapy. Unfortunately for me, I was scheduled for my first infusion as they call the chemotherapy drug I will be taking.

I couldn’t call to reschedule my appointment on Saturday because I didn’t pick my mail up until Sunday morning. I had thought about calling on Monday but gave that idea quickly because of the holiday.

I called this morning. I was shocked when the phone was answered by a human on the first ring. I was expecting a long trip through an automated call directory followed by an interminable time listening to music while I was on hold.

My luck on was a giant roll today. I was able to reschedule the CT scan for only a week later. That will give Doug another opportunity to hang out with day and score a free lunch at Giuliano’s.

Perfectomundo.

Doug talked to me yesterday about the idea of starting a pool to see how long it takes the oncologist to ask to see my scar. Every doctor so far has asked to see the scar. I think this is just professional voyeurism on their part. The scar has been looked, checked, and examined by half a dozen doctors including the surgeon who pronounced it a very pretty scar that healed nicely. She is entitled to admire her cutting and staple gun [to close the incision] handiwork.

I am looking forward to the next oncologist visit and the “May I see the incision?” pool.

Who says going to see the doctor is no fun?

Cleaning Out the Mental Inbox
I am going to clean out my mental inbox of thoughts and comments before the year runs out on me.

My Bluetooth cell phone accessory seems to be working fine, once I figured out how to make it work. It is handy because I can keep both of my hands on the steering wheel of the vehicle instead of talking on a hand held cell phone while motoring down the freeway at 70 miles an hour / 112 kilometers an hour.

I like to avoid and minimize personal risk whenever I can. This is one way.

My e-wife gave me a ginormous University of Utah coffee cup – small soup bowl. I think it is twice the size of one of my normal coffee mugs. I tried it this morning and it worked perfectly. I did have to reheat the remaining coffee in the cup once. That was understandable.

The new iPod Nano is a rely joy to take along when I go for my walks. I enjoy the music and it helps the walk go bye faster. I think I could get better results if I had some John Philip Souza or Pipes and Drums of the 48th Highlanders on the iPod. March music is easier to walk with and it is probably at a faster pace then some of the songs I have loaded so far on the iPod.

My turkey turned out perfectly yesterday. Everyone who was here ate in silence; that was my signal that the meal was being enjoyed by all. I had a leftover turkey sandwich for lunch today.

I think that will clean out the mental inbox. But, I know better than that. I will think of something to say almost as soon as I post the blog entry.

I did. I should also point out that there was a qualified booth of replay officials at the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl when Utah defeated Navy. You have to read the Weekend Update for December 23rd and the comments to understand this thought.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - December 23rd - Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas
On the behalf of the Balancing Checkbooks Team, we want to wish you and your family and friends a very Merry Christmas.

For those of you who are wondering who are on the Balancing Checkbooks Team, I have the answer for that question. Obviously, I’m on the team and so is the Number 1 Reliever Doug. We can’t exclude Vivian because, as Doug says, “You can never have too many hot chicks around.” Doug does not like to have his photo displayed publicly.

Of course, we have to include The Princess who urged me to keep going with the blog after the operation. Good advice is often hard to find.

Programming Note
Since it is the holiday season, I am going to be taking a few days off between now and January 7th. If you come to the blog and there is nothing new, wait until the New Year. I am going to try to go back to posting four or five times a week.

Visitors
We had another big visitors’ week. We had a total of 222 visitors, domestic and international for the week. This month has a great chance at being the best month ever for visitor traffic.

Epic.

Our international visitor count for the week is off. I didn’t keep track of international visitors during the week. Today, I could only back as far as Friday. I wasn’t able to track 122 visitors, some of whom are likely to be international visitors.

We had visitors from Germany [2], Italy, India [2], Canada [16], Iran, Japan [4], Thailand, Ireland [2], Netherlands [2], Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam, Czech Republic, Poland, Texas [4], Finland, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Guatemala, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Russia, Malaysia, Hungary, and Hong Kong.

I must have picked up a following from Iran although I have no idea why.

We had one visitor who stayed around the blog for just over eleven minutes.

For those of you who are interested, the top three exit pages for the week featured Aiko Tanaka, Sunisa Kim, and Eiko Koike. This does not surprise me.

I do appreciate all of you who took time out of your busy days to visit the blog.

Lunch with Amy
Amy and I had planned to have lunch this week. But, it was not too happen. Between my schedule of teaching and exercising and Amy’s job of managing a boutique and working as a server at Fleming’s Newport Beach, we simply ran out of available time and days.

We did have two long phone conversations which is unusual for us. We usually exchange text messages. Amy is like most people who send text messages; she uses one letter words like “r” and avoids capitalization and punctuation and grammar. I don’t. This also explains why it takes me longer to send a text message than just about anyone else.

We tentatively have planned to get together for lunch in January after Amy returns from her Christmas vacation to Venezuela. That should be easier for us to schedule a slow lunch so we can catch up with each other.

Nina the Server
It looks like Nina is no longer working at El Gringo. I think she was over committed with things to do and multiple jobs. I will miss Nina and I would wish her well if I knew how to reach her.

But, I am over Nina now. My only regret was not taking a photo of Nina for the blog.

Nina has been replaced by Merit as in merit badges as the Thursday evening server. Merit is taller than Nina. She wears her hair shorter than Nina. Their personalities are close and I enjoy having Merit as a server.

We will have to see how long Merit lasts as a server at El Gringo.

Utah Football
I watched part of the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl when I was having my usual Thursday dinner at El Gringo. The United States Naval Academy played the University of Utah. It was a good game because our Utes won, 35-32.

It was almost a home game for the Naval Academy since San Diego is such a Navy town. It is the home of the largest Navy base on the West Coast. Then, when you add in the Marines from the Recruit Depot, there is a huge fan base.

The score does not reflect the game or maybe it reflects the stupidity of the Utah head coach. The head coach is so enamored with gadget and trick plays; he runs them all of the time, even when they are unnecessary. The Utah offensive line outweighed the Navy defensive line by sixty pounds – twenty seven kilogram and was three inches – eight centimeters.

With this physical advantage, the best strategy is to use the larger offensive line to grind out a rushing attack. A rushing attack will consume vast amounts of time and it will keep the other team off of the field; this would be important since Navy was a high scoring team. Running the ball is not very exciting or glamorous. It is an effective way to win the ball game which is the most important thing at the end of the game.

But, our less than brilliant and incredibly lucky head coach stuck to his trick plays. As usual, they failed to deliver any significant gains or advance the ball very far.

Oh well, there is always next year and maybe he will come to his senses about his play calling.

Finding Bright Spots
I try to go through life by finding all of the bright spots. It is not the easiest approach to life.

Tuesday was a rainy day in the morning when I drive to school for my class. Rain makes driving more a challenge because many drivers in Southern California have never learned how to drive in bad weather. Four Winters in Salt Lake City taught me how to drive in really bad weather.

Getting back to finding a bright spot in the rain on Tuesday.

The rain meant there were low clouds, blocking out the sun and making the drive easier for me. The sun was back on Thursday and Saturday so I drove to class with the bright sun in my eyes.

Life has a way of balancing things out in the end.

I took this photo this morning just as the sun was rising. You can see how cloudless the sky is. It was like that on Thursday and Saturday. I tried to take a photo when the sun just came up but it was just too bright.



Doug
Doug and I went to the last of his beef restaurants yesterday for lunch. As some of you may recall, Doug is cutting out his consumption of red meat. He wants to eat a healthier life style.

We went to Albertacos and ordered two Number 8 combinations and a medium drink [refillable]. A Number 8 is two soft carne asada tacos, rice, beans, and cheese. It was the usual epic meal for us; we both savored the food. Albertacos is great for food and not so much for atmosphere.



After lunch, we went back to his mother’s house. Doug shared with some of his Mexican Coca Cola or as he calls it, Mexicola. The Coca Coal from Mexico is different from what we can buy in the States because the Mexican cola is made with real sugar and tastes sweeter with a slightly bitter taste. I enjoyed the cola but I am not certain if I want to switch over to the imported brand.

Doug purchased a case of the Mexican cola. It comes in bottles so you can tell that it is not the usual Coke.

I should point out that there are exceptions to the “no beef rule” for Doug. Morton’s and, by way of extension, Fleming’s Newport Beach are exempt from the ban. This explains why we will go to a Morton’s for the traditional Douguary Dinner in February. Doug and I have not settled on a venue yet but he is in favor of a Los Angeles County venue. We can do that I think.

Sharon Tay
I caught Sharon Tay as the lead news reader on the local television new program on Saturday. I got an overdose of Sharon if that is possible. Her new program was on for a total of ninety minutes with a thirty minute break.

Sharon wore a black dress that looked very nice and semi-professional. I doubt that a news reader in Salt Lake City would dress with as much flair as she did last night.

Oh well, this is one of the benefits of living in Southern California.

I will have to check and see if she is the lead news reader tonight.


That was what happened to me in the last few days. I hope you had a great weekend and I want to wish you, again, a very Merry Christmas.

Be well and stay happy.

Electronic White-Out

Electronic White-Out
I figured out why I couldn’t upload my photos to the laptop all by myself. The laptop runs on Windows Vista Business and the software for the Sony digital camera was originally issued for Windows XP.

I had to upload the Windows Vista patch. That was 93 MB of new files. I was able to upload my photos, as you can see, from the camera on Sunday evening.

I was watching the local Sunday early evening television news in hopes of seeing Sharon Tay as the principle news reader. Unfortunately, she was not the news reader tonight. I did learn that the US Postal Service expects tomorrow to be its busiest day; I will avoid the post office for sure on Monday.

Somewhere, in the South Bay where I live, there was a fireworks display tonight. I didn’t know that there was going to be a display. I could hear the fireworks exploding but I could not see anything because of the trees.

I wonder what the event was.

I had one of my favorite lunches today. I had some sourdough bread with some brie cheese and a little Dijon mustard.

Yummy.

I watch the local television mid-day news report while I have my lunch. It gives me an opportunity to learn about the latest screw by our local politicians. They seem to be trying to out do each. The mayor of Los Angeles had an affair with a television report that was covering him. I wonder if she was doing a complete job of covering him.

Inquiring minds want to know.

The weather news reader said we may get a moderate, for Southern California, rain storm tomorrow. It may begin late tonight and continue on into tomorrow. That may make a mess of my drive to school. I suppose our light Winter will be broadcast to the Eastern part of the United States and everyone will want to move to sunny and warmer Southern California.

Great.

None of them will know how to drive properly. They will make freeway driving more of a challenge.

Not good, not good at all for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - Decembewr 16th

The Recovery – Part 9A
I call this Part 9A because it is between doctor appointments and rounds of tests. I am feeling great and continue to gain strength.

One of the consequences of being sick was a loss of weight. Losing the weight was probably good for me because I am not carrying around 45 pounds – 20 kilograms of dead weight and fat.

I did not expect the weight loss to result in me not being able to use my biometric security feature in the laptop. I set up the security feature to either accept a password or my fingerprints. I can’t use my left hand finger because of the weight loss; my fingerprint shape has changed because of the weight loss and is not readable.

Oh well, there is always the password to rely on.

I have not been able to wear a ring on my right hand because of the weight loss. It continually slips off of my finger. It has taken a while to get used to not having the ring since it have worn the ring now for over 40 years.

This week, I read an article about cholesterol levels in American adults. I have a high cholesterol level and have been taking medicine to control if for several years now. The article said an ideal combined cholesterol level would be a value of 199 for an adult. I checked my combined cholesterol level to see where I stand. My combined level, at my last physical, was 156.

I felt great.

Visitors
We had a strong week for international visitors this week. We had visitors from Texas [6], Finland [3], Lithuania, United Arab Emirates, Poland, France [6], Germany [3], Turkey, Mexico, Canada [5], Australia [6], Ireland, Indonesia [4], United Kingdom [5], Spain, Costa Rica, Honduras, Brazil, Korea, Azerbaijan, Singapore [3], Malaysia [4], Philippines [2], Switzerland [3], Italy, Taiwan, Japan [10], Belgium, Hong Kong, Thailand, Iran, Austria, India, Sweden, Romania [2], Netherlands, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Malta, Andorra, and South Africa.

We had three first visitors from Azerbaijan, Malta, and Andorra. Welcome to the Blog.

We also had one visitor who stopped by for 14 minutes. This visitor apparently liked the KT So images. We had another visitor who stopped and looked 29 pages; I think this visitor was interested in the Sunisa Kim images.

The top three exit pages this week featured Aiko Tanaka, Sunisa Kim, and Eiko Koike. This is not a surprise for me.

I do appreciate all of you who took time out of your day or night to stop by the blog. Visitors coming to the blog are one reason why I continue to write.

Haircut
I got my haircut on Friday.

I wanted to be certain that Amber would be up in time. I sent Amber two reminder emails. One email had Doug’s suggestion that I should have made my appointment for Noon instead of 11:00 AM.

Amber replied to the last email at 2:00 AM on Friday morning. She said she was up reading. When I read her reply after my breakfast, I wondered if she was reading about how to cut hair and whether she would be at the salon on time.

Amber arrived at the salon before me. She opened the door and gave me a big hug.

Perfectomundo.

Then, she nagged me about how bad my hair looked. I pointed out that I had been sick and the temporary place was not the nicest to go to plus you had to climb a set of stairs and I could not have done that very well after the operation. I also pointed out that someone had overslept when I had my last appointment.

Amber allowed that I just allowed that I might have some reasonable excuses for my appearance.

Amber also wanted to know about the operation and how I was doing on my recovery. I should have suggested that she could read the blog. I gave her the short version of my health while she washed my hair. Amber finished off the shampoo with a very nice and very well received neck massage.

On balance, I was very pleased with how I looked after the haircut.

The only down side of the haircut was that I didn’t get much a chance to talk to Natalie the Receptionist because she was working in the back of the salon. We did have a chance to say a brief hello as she came out into the salon and then returned just as quickly.

Speed Test
I somehow wandered onto a web site that offered a free test of my laptop’s download and upload speeds. My laptop tested out very well I think, download was just under 2.7 Mbps and the upload was 760Kbps. Nice speeds since my DSL connection is only rated at a download speed of 3.0 Mbps.

Other Thoughts
I got my Friday download notice from Microsoft. It featured the Office 2007 Service Pack 1. I clicked on the download because I have Office 2007 on the laptop and was shocked at the size of the file.

215 MB.

That is one incredible amount of bug fixes and patches.

I was glad that I had a high speed connection because a 56 Kbps dial-up connection listed the download time in hours. I think I downloaded the file in about fifteen minutes.

Sweet.

I ordered an Apple iPod Nano this week because I got an email from one of the credit card companies whose plastic I carry. The email said I could order a Nano because I had enough frequent buyer points.

Doug thought it would be a good idea to get one because I could listen to it while I took my walks. That made sense to me.

I was surprised that the Nano arrived three days after I ordered it. That is very good mail service for this time of the year. I couldn’t get over how small it was and that it still could hold 8 GB of music. I can remember when Doug got his first iPod and how large it was in comparison to the Nano.

Now, all I have to do is load my approximately 2,000 songs onto the Nano. Doug said I should download iTunes so it would be easier to transfer some of my CDs to the Nano.

For the record, I should point out that Doug offered to load the Nano for me. I graciously declined his kind offer; our tastes in music are so far apart that we don’t agree on very much.

Doug stopped by after his Saturday night birthday event. He helped me set my Nano up and we loaded some Rolling Stones songs. It took a while to accomplish everything. I think it will be really nice when I go out for my walks.

I asked Doug to take a new photo of me. I figured that now was a good time to update my photo in the blog profile. We took them in the building courtyard. I had troubling uploading the photos so it may be a while before I can add the new image of me.

Company Winter Break, Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanza, Boxing Day Party
My school had its Christmas Party on Saturday night at the Improv in Irvine.

It was not well organized. I was told to arrive around 7:00 PM for dinner and the show. The show was supposed to start at 7:00. This resulted in me eating my dinner much faster than I would have liked.

I was very disappointed with the entertainment. The featured comic seemed to have an extremely limited vocabulary. All of his attempts at humor were laced with gratuitous profanity, course, base, and vulgar language. Most of it was completely unnecessary. I know that some comedians will use an occasional bit of profanity in their routines and that is acceptable to me. I can understand that usage. But, this comedian went way beyond reasonable or necessary for humor.

It looked like close to a third or more of our group did not show, based on the empty seats. I ended up sitting at a small table with three women. This was a mistake on my part. I should have found a better location to watch the show.

Traffic driving out to the Improv was terrible. Normally, it should have taken me about 45 minutes to get there. I ended up needing 90 minutes to get there.

Lunch with Doug
Doug came over to my place on Friday. It was more convenient for him to link up with his friends to see I AM LEGEND on the IMAX screen at Universal City. He went his way to dinner on Friday and I did the same.

I got up early on Saturday to go to school. Doug was sleeping.

I phoned Doug to see if he wanted me to pick him up a sandwich at Giuliano’s on my way home. He said sure and asked me to get him a large meatball sandwich. I decided on a pastrami sandwich as I drove home.

Giuliano’s was crowded when I got there. That was to be expected. I ordered our sandwiches and then picked up some potato chips and semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies. Courtney the checker asked where my handsome son was when I paid for the sandwiches. I said he was at my place and would have said a very gracious “Hello Courtney,” if he had been with me.

We ate our sandwiches in silence when I got home.


That was my weekend. I hope you had a great weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

The Flip Side of Life

The Flip Side of Life
There is a flip side of life when it comes to living in Southern California. We are always making compromises.

We have great weather here but we live in a desert and have to import out water. I live at the beach and I almost live onto of an earthquake fault line. Everything here sort of balances out in the end.

Remember the other day when I was saying how great the views were after the rainstorm?
Well, there is a balancing out to clear skies. If you drive east in the morning as I do for when I go to class, I am driving into the rising sun. The other day, with no clouds in the sky, the rising sun was a fiery brilliant spotlight in my eyes.

Fortunately for me, I always have sunglasses in the car with me so I managed to deal with the sun unlike some other life forms that did not have the presence of mind to take some measures to avoid the harsh sunlight. These people deserve to be removed from the gene pool.

After all, the sun rising in the East is not a news flash item.

And Other Frustrations
I did some more shopping this morning as I ran some errands. I was in one department store trying to purchase a gift certificate because I know I could never guess the correct size or color in a thousand years.

I was behind a woman who arguing with the sales clerk about something. The woman kept claiming the store had sold the item in previous years and wanted to know where she could find it. The sales clerk said the store was no longer stocking the item which was why she could not find it.

After three minutes of wasted conversation, I walked out and went on with my errands. What is wrong with people? Why don’t they listen when others are talking? It would certainly solve a lot of problems.

Driving in the sun seems to make drivers go slower; that is neither here nor there. What grips me is they decide to slow down by changing lanes, usually ending up in front of your vehicle and putting on their brakes. This, obviously forces, me to brake suddenly and Bambi the Bimbo who is behind me and chatting on her cell phone almost crashes trying to avoid hitting me.

I do feel better driving the Pathfinder since it is larger and has more steel than the Prelude. It also has a better heater and that is nice on a cold morning.

Other Excitement in My Life Lately
I am going to get my hair cut on Friday. My hair is getting really shaggy now. It has been over two months since Amber cut it last; just before the Princess’ Wedding to be correct. I have resorted to taking some scissors and trimming the parts that look really bad, mostly around my ears and glasses. Amber will probably remark on how long my hair has gotten; I will only smile and nod knowingly.

Knowing Amber, maybe I should say that I am going to attempt to have Amber cut my hair on Friday. Instead of my usual early morning time, I opted for 11:00 AM so I should avoid any oversleeping by Amber.

Doug was over when I was thinking about the hair appointment. He said I should have made it for 11:30 AM at the earliest and probably I should have gone with an afternoon appointment. We will see who was correct.

I asked my friend Sharon to be a guest speaker in my Marketing Research course. I gave her the details for the course topic that day and how long I thought her presentation should be. Being the nice guy that I am, I even offered to buy her lunch after the class.

Sharon said she would have to ask her boss about getting away from the office to make the presentation. I will have to plan ahead now so that the class is ready for her presentation.

The Princess thinks Sharon may fade out on me and not do the presentation.

I mailed my Christmas package for the Princess and the Golfer yesterday. With luck, it will arrive in Atlanta by the weekend, in plenty of time for Christmas Day.


Be well and stay happy.

Living in Southern California

Living in Southern California
One of the great things about living in Southern California is how great the views are after a rainstorm. All of the gunk is washed out of the air and you can see for sixty miles or more, assuming you are high enough to see that far.

Yesterday was one of the after the rainstorm days here. I could clearly see Saddleback Mountain which must sixty miles or more away from my flat. I could also see our local mountains that had a nice blanket of snow. Most of the snow will be gone in a few days. In the meantime, it is very nice to look at.

Holiday Desserts
Doug and his mother love pumpkin pies with lots of whipped cream. I don’t. But, this is another of the great reasons to live in the United States of America. We have freedom of choice and that applies to Holiday Desserts.

Since the Princess and the Golfer won’t be visiting Southern California this Christmas, I will not have to make a trip to the Cheesecake Factory and pick up the Princess’ traditional holiday dessert. She loves the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake. I suppose it has a ginormous amount of calories.

I have a pumpkin pie for Doug and his mother. I am somewhat of a traditionalist and I love to have a mince pie. I am the only one in the family who likes a mince pie. This is nice in the days after Thanksgiving or Christmas for me.

I had gone to my local markets over the weekend to pick up a frozen mince pie for Christmas dinner; obviously, this was an important search for me. I went to three markets and I couldn’t find one mince pie. I made up my mind to go to a local restaurant that features pies and pick up a mince pie on my way home from class on the 22nd. True, I might, just might you understand, be tempted to sample the pie once or twice before Christmas dinner.

Doug called me this morning to see how things were with me. I was fine. We got to talking about Christmas dinner. Doug said his mother wanted to bring something. I suggested a mince pie since I had everything except the fresh vegetables and turkey. Doug thought would work out fine and said he would tell his mother.

Visitors
I took a look at the last 100 visitors exit pages through Sitemeter. I know what everyone was interested in last week. The most common exit pages were ones that featured images of Sunisa Kim, Aiko Tanaka, and Eiko Koike. Those are excellent exit pages.

Phone Calls
I had a phone call from the Princess yesterday. We had been playing telephone tag for a couple of days. It was good to talk with her. I wanted to bring her up to date on my recovery. She was happy the recovery is going well for me.

Amy the Server called me today. This was the first time that we had spoken in a couple of months, well before the Princess’ wedding and the operation. It was a hurried, let’s get caught up with each other type of phone call since she was calling from work; she manages a fashion boutique in Newport Beach, California. If our schedules mesh and I think they will, we may get together for lunch one day this week or next week. Those are the most likely days to see each other before she leaves for her Christmas vacation in South America.


Be well and stay happy.

Sharon Tay

Sharon Tay
I saw Sharon Tay anchor – lead news reader for the local early evening television news program tonight. She was alone for the first half hour and then Sharon was joined by another male reporter who was filling in for a missing person. This show is looking for a new weekend female anchor – news reader as the woman who had the position retired last weekend.

I hope Sharon gets the job. Then, I will know when to expect her on the television and I can plan accordingly. No more hit and miss viewing then.

Sharon’s web site is still carrying the under construction look with nothing more than a semi-blank home page. The web site has been in an under construction mode since I stumbled across it in May.

This image of Sharon came from the KCBS web site. KCBS is the Los Angeles station for the CBS television network. I figure that makes it good to use here; being an official photo as it were.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - December 9th

Weekend Update and Time Warner Cable
I got my Christmas card mailed on Thursday. I think this is the earliest that I have mailed them except for when I was in the Navy and my ship was overseas as it was 1967 and 1968.

My new Time Warner Cable decoder box failed on Friday.

Just like the one it replaced, I was visited by the ghost of Christmas past. I had electronic snow, black screens, garbled dialogue, and shaking images.

I tried calling TWC customer service but gave up after being on hold for twenty minutes on a Saturday night. I suppose some of you will say that I should have stayed on hold a little longer because my chances of reaching a live person would be much better after the long wait. Those who would suggest that did not have to listen to the crummy music and the really annoying message that my “call would be answered by the next available customer service person.”

This leads me to one of two semi-obvious conclusions. First, TWC does not have enough operators to handle all of the trouble calls. Second, TWC wants to save money and cut back on evening shift operators.

After hanging up on TWC, I went to check my email. I had a reminder from Amazon.com that an author I like is getting ready to release a book and I could pre-order it now.

Excellent.

I went to Barnes and Noble.com because they sent me an online coupon that was good for an extra 15% off any purchases I might make in the promotion period. My savings amounted to a total discount of 25%.

I ordered four books so I will be ready in a few days to hold out until TWC fixes the problem with my cable box.

The Recovery – Part 8
Doug and I went to see the oncologists on Friday. It was more of a marathon spent sitting on uncomfortable chairs and benches. The visit was a follow-up for my first round of chemotherapy with just one pill. I went in for tests on Wednesday.

On balance, the test results were encouraging for me. Doug gave them two thumbs up. The doctor said my results were normal which is good for me. One or two tests were slightly above normal but not by much and the increase could have come from eating before I took the test.

I rescheduled the start of the infusion part of the therapy from December 14th to January 11th. It is not a long delay and one that will work best for me. Doug plans to go with me when I get my PIC Line on January 10th. A PIC Line is a peripheral intravenous catheter. It is used to get the drug into the bloodstream quickly and therefore on to the affected areas. A PIC Line is a semi-permanent device in my arm.

The doctor was pleased that I had gained two pounds between visits. She said that was a good sign.

This doctor also wanted to take a look at my scar. She said she wanted to see if it was healing properly. I think she just wanted to look at the surgeon’s work. This must be a doctor’s thing. Several other doctors, including the surgeon, have previously said it had healed up very nicely.

Visitors
We had a wild week for visitors. I didn’t keep good track of who came to visit the blog so my count is off. I just don’t know by how much it is off. We had a total of 190 visitors to the blog this past week. I was only able to count the country of origin of about half of the visitors.

We had visitors from Macau, Germany [5], Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada [5], Netherlands [2], Pakistan, Japan [2], France [2], Malaysia, Texas, Thailand [3], Peru, Poland [2], Switzerland, United Kingdom [2], Spain, Indonesia [2], Finland, Australia, Philippines, Bulgaria, Columbia, Korea, Austria, Brazil [2], United Arab Emirates, and Lithuania.

We also had one visitor who stopped by for just over eleven minutes.

If I missed your country in the national acknowledgements, I regret the omission. I do appreciate all of you who took time from your busy day and visited the blog.

Now, if I could just figure out what was so interesting this past week, I would be very happy and I could probably write better.

Lunch at Morton’s
Doug and his friend Rob joined me at Morton’s Santa Ana for lunch on Thursday. The lunch menu is almost the same as the regular dinner.

I think I mentioned that Doug was cutting out red meat for 2008. He wants to eat healthier. Going to Morton’s is permissible at anytime and is not subject to the no red meat rule.

Good, we can have the traditional Douguary and Chuckay Dinner Celebrations.

I ate a light, for Morton’s, lunch. I had a Morton’s salad; romaine lettuce, chopped egg, anchovies and a green goddess dressing. I also ate too many sections of their hot bread. My main course was a smoked salmon club sandwich with salmon, sliced onions, sliced tomatos, capers, and lettuce on toasted bread. I ended up taking part of my sandwich home and it became my dinner. I had a small dessert; only three small scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Doug and Rob had sliced beefsteak tomato salads, small rib eye steaks, and Morton’s hot chocolate cake. I will probably treat myself to the Morton’s cake for Douguary and Chuckay.

Lily the Server is no longer working at Morton’s. Life happens and we were almost immediately over that trouble. We had a new server, Kelly, who only works lunches. We won’t be seeing Kelly anytime soon I guess.

Utah Football
Our University of Utah Utes are going to play in the Poinsettia Bowl on December 20th. They will play the Naval Academy in San Diego. This is good for the team to go to another bowl game. It will help with recruiting I think.

I am somewhat conflicted as to which team I should root for. I did graduate from the University but I also served as an officer in the Navy.

Decisions, decisions.

Weather
Our local television news readers were trying to out do each other this past week. You have to understand that even a small storm is big news here. All of the local television stations go into their “Storm Tracker” mode of operations.

Some unlucky reporters get to stand out in the rain and, yes, report that it is raining at their location.

Our big storm was supposed to arrive on Thursday night and stay with us until sometime on Saturday. We had some rain on Thursday night and a clear Friday. We only had scattered showers on Saturday.

The storm was a disappointment for me. I was expecting more out of it.


That was the rest of the week and my weekend. I hope you all had great weekends.

Be well and stay happy.

I Typed Too Soon

I Typed Too Soon
I typed too soon yesterday. Shortly after I posted the Weekend Update, my cable went to hell again. I was glad that I didn’t cancel the service call that was scheduled for today.

I had time to think what the problem with the cable service was. I concluded it was probably the cable box and not the cable itself. If the cable was bad, I wouldn’t have been able to have a good and normal image yesterday morning.

My cable appointment was set for between 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon. This meant that my trip to school to setup my new course grade books would be later. The cable service technician showed up just before 10:00 AM. That wasn’t bad at all. He tested the cable and said it was fine. Then, he checked the cable box. The box was bad. He planned ahead and brought a new box from the truck with him. The new box did not function at all; the second box worked just fine.

Initializing the new cable box took longer than the technician had planned. I think he was here for about forty five minutes or maybe a bit longer waiting for the initializing signal to come across the cable.

Now the technician tells me that he has to leave to finish his other jobs. That is understandable. He told me his supervisor is going to come out to my flat and work on the box but I have to leave for school.

The technician left and I took a bathroom break before I drove out to school. When I was finished in the bathroom, my television was working properly. I guess the initialization signal came through while I was reading in the bathroom

I think I am good for another five or six years before the new cable box goes out. Maybe I will have gone to satellite television by then or given up on the medium. In five years, I might be getting my television over the Internet aided by a Lenovo laptop.

Teaching
My first class is on Tuesday morning. The school has a new attendance and grade book program that went live today. I went in to set my classes up ahead of time. I wanted to save some time and trouble. I figured that taking my time would produce a better result and fewer trips to the Associate Dean for technical assistance to clear up any mistakes.

Logical.

I also wanted to see how many students I had in my classes.

Lastly, I needed to turn in a grade change on the one student who was unable to email me his assignments. I got them last week after the grades had been submitted. With the additional assignments, his grade went from an “F” to a “C”.

The new grade book system worked very well for me. I managed to set up all three of my classes in about an hour. My Saturday morning class looks like it is a real killer. I have 29 students in my Composition II class. This means I will be doing a lot of reading and paper grading this coming term.

Shopping
I did some more Christmas shopping on my way home from school. I am no where near finished yet. I am very far ahead of my usual shopping schedule and that is something to be proud of I guess.


Be well and stay happy.

I Typed Too Soon

I Typed Too Soon
I typed too soon yesterday. Shortly after I posted the Weekend Update, my cable went to hell again. I was glad that I didn’t cancel the service call that was scheduled for today.

I had time to think what the problem with the cable service was. I concluded it was probably the cable box and not the cable itself. If the cable was bad, I wouldn’t have been able to have a good and normal image yesterday morning.

My cable appointment was set for between 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon. This meant that my trip to school to setup my new course grade books would be later. The cable service technician showed up just before 10:00 AM. That wasn’t bad at all. He tested the cable and said it was fine. Then, he checked the cable box. The box was bad. He planned ahead and brought a new box from the truck with him. The new box did not function at all; the second box worked just fine.

Initializing the new cable box took longer than the technician had planned. I think he was here for about forty five minutes or maybe a bit longer waiting for the initializing signal to come across the cable.

Now the technician tells me that he has to leave to finish his other jobs. That is understandable. He told me his supervisor is going to come out to my flat and work on the box but I have to leave for school.

The technician left and I took a bathroom break before I drove out to school. When I was finished in the bathroom, my television was working properly. I guess the initialization signal came through while I was reading in the bathroom

I think I am good for another five or six years before the new cable box goes out. Maybe I will have gone to satellite television by then or given up on the medium. In five years, I might be getting my television over the Internet aided by a Lenovo laptop.

Teaching
My first class is on Tuesday morning. The school has a new attendance and grade book program that went live today. I went in to set my classes up ahead of time. I wanted to save some time and trouble. I figured that taking my time would produce a better result and fewer trips to the Associate Dean for technical assistance to clear up any mistakes.

Logical.

I also wanted to see how many students I had in my classes.

Lastly, I needed to turn in a grade change on the one student who was unable to email me his assignments. I got them last week after the grades had been submitted. With the additional assignments, his grade went from an “F” to a “C”.

The new grade book system worked very well for me. I managed to set up all three of my classes in about an hour. My Saturday morning class looks like it is a real killer. I have 29 students in my Composition II class. This means I will be doing a lot of reading and paper grading this coming term.

Shopping
I did some more Christmas shopping on my way home from school. I am no where near finished yet. I am very far ahead of my usual shopping schedule and that is something to be proud of I guess.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - December 2nd

Weekend Update
I got almost all of my Christmas cards addressed, stuffed, sealed, and stamps affixed. I think I am missing four or five addresses. I have mailed my foreign Christmas cards already since they take longer to get there. I ought to be able to mail them by the end of the week.

I also did some Christmas shopping on Saturday. I got most of the mall shopping out of the way. This is the earliest that I have done any Christmas shopping in a long time.

I watched the Army – Navy football game on Saturday. I did not attend either service academy but since I served in the Navy, they are my team. Navy won for the sixth consecutive time; a feat that has never been done before in 110 years of football competition.

One of the benefits of Friday’s rain was the Pathfinder was relatively clean and free of dust and dirt. It looked much better on Saturday when I went out.

Visitors
We had a drop off in total visitors for the month of November to 412 visitors. I think this is to be expected since I suspended or halted the Woman of the Moment and the Weekend Bonus Feature Woman just before the start of the month.

We had visitors from France [2], Singapore [3], Canada [4], Ireland, Japan [3], Korea [3], Portugal, United Kingdom [3], Spain [2], Turkey, Netherlands, Viet Nam, Hungary, Texas, and Libya.

This was the first visit from a reader from Libya.

There were two visitors had stayed at the blog for a while. One stayed for twelve minutes and the other stayed for fifteen minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who stopped by to view the blog.

Miss World
The Miss World contest was held this weekend on the island of Hainan which part of China. This is not very exciting in and of itself.

What is sort of exciting is that Miss China, Zhang Zilin, won the title of Miss World. This represents a remarkable turnabout for the Chinese government that had traditional held that contests, like Miss World, were decadent and too Western.

The other fascinating aspect of the contest was that Miss China was the tallest contestant. I don’t think of Chinese women as being all that tall. I guess I will have to change my thinking now.

Time Warner Cable
My Time Warner Cable service crapped out on Friday night.

I still have something of a cable television service and will until the cable service shows up at my flat on Monday morning. I have to suffer through broken images, distorted speech, neon green lines across my monitor, and irregularly timed image blackouts.

This certainly ruins my weekend sports viewing.

On the plus side, I will be in bed earlier on Saturday and Sunday. That is good for me.

As things turned out, the problem with my cable cleared up on Sunday morning after a very nice ten hour sleep. My first clue that the problem had cleared itself was when I saw Jillian Barberie on the Fox NFL Pregame Show in a leopard print dress that looked like it was spray painted on.

Wedding Photos
I am making good progress on creating a CD of wedding photos. I started out with 881 images. I have cut that amount down to a manageable 404 images. I still need to cut some more images so I can fit them all on one CD. I am now using 835 MB of file space and I need to cut that down to something around 765 MB. If most photos are around the 2 MB size, I figure that I need to cut around 35 to 40 images. I ought to be able to do that on Sunday since I won’t be watching too much television.

The cable was working so I spent most of my time not working on the photos.


That was my weekend. I hope you had a good weekend also.

Be well and stay happy.