Tugger, the Cat

A friend asked about my pets. I already had a post of Max, the Dog. So Here are some shots of
Tugger, our British Shorthair.

He tends to usually look very serious. I guess it is because I have never caught him with his mouth open.

He is much more friendly and interactive with me since Max, the Dog moved in. Could he be protecting his territory? He usually comes running when I get home.


Here Tugger is looking a bit more regal... I like this one.

I tried to upload one of kitty shots. However, it was .tiff format. I am not sure where I filed the .jpg version. I really have to get to the To Do that will force me to organize all my photos.

Here is a shot of Tugger listening intently to my Grand-niece's instructions:

Flagging garbage

Hi......I'm back! Oh hi D. Hey where have you been lately? Oh, just trying to live fearlessly. But I came here to discuss what some of the other blogs are starting to do. I'm not shocked by it but I am disappointed to see pornography on blogger. I guess at some point it was bound to happen. There was one well done blog with pictures but done tactfully. So I'm bummed to see this happening, just thot I'd put my 2c worth here. There is the ability to flag the blog, and I'm hoping it went somewhere where somebody will do something about it. I've done my part. See ya!

Out of Control Book Library

About a month ago, I had decided to not buy anymore books until I made a significant headway in reading the books in my personal library.

I've listed the books that bought this month. They were lying around my office waiting for inputting into my book database. This is it! No more new books until I start reading and culling my library.

I agree to only buy a book if I give away a book.

Hmm, this seems a little harsh and probably not workable for me. There are a number of new topics that I still want to learn about. Since I am contemplating switching to a Mac, there is a lot of new stuff to read up on.

OK, here's the new agreement:

I agree to only buy a book if I have read or culled a book from my library. This way, I can build up credits for fast reading and/or culling...12/18/05

1. Writing to Learn: How To Write and Think Clearly About Any Subject At All
2. On Writing Well
3. Writing Articles From the Heart
4. Who Am I?
5. World of Film and Video Production: Aesthetics & Practice
6. Knoppix for Dummies
7. Knoppix Hacks
8. The Elements of Style
9. The Book of Answers: The New York Public Library Telephone Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions
10. Essential Oils Desk Reference
11. Telling the Story
12. The Book of Myself
13. The Chinese Brush Painting Studio
14. Letters To A Young Poet
15. Windows XP Hacks
16. Credit Scores and Credit Reports
17. Phishing
18. Test Drive Linux
19. iPod & iTunes
20. Indesign CS2 @ Work
21. 50 Fast Photo Techniques
22. 50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques
23. Windows XP Annoyances for Geeks
24. The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
25. Art School, A Complete Painter's Course

Stop Smoking - my history

I started to smoke in 1962. What an idiot! At that time, I was surrounded by smokers. People did not even consider any health implications of smoking. My mother's good friend felt secure because she smoked Kents and it had that supposedly safe micro{something-or-other} filter.

I was a natural smoker. Once, my mother caught me smoking. She thought an effective punishment was to have me sit at the kitchen table and smoke a pack of her unfiltered Pall Malls. After smoking two cigarettes, my mom snatched the pack away from me and called me a smart aleck. I don't remember what other punishments happened. I continued to smoke until my sophomore year in high school. I stopped briefly because of my swim team requirements. Once the year was over, I started right up again.

Finally, in 1973 I stopped smoking, on a lark. I wanted to see if I could do it. No sweat. I did not smoke again for over a year. Then, I was a junior auditor and went out for an inventory observation for a local supermarket chain. The inventory crew was late; it was 10 PM, and I had two hours to kill. So, I bought a pack of cigarettes. Dumb. Within a week I was back to a two-pack-a-day habit!

The habit got out of control. Although, I was smoking light brands, I was now up to four packs a day! I bought cigarettes by the carton (10 cartons at a time). However, based on my 1973 experience, I was not worried. I felt confident that I could quit anytime I wanted to.

Then in 1976, two co-workers challenged me on this belief. They did not believe I could quit smoking for six months. I was so confident that I agreed to a lop-sided bet. If I won, they would only have to take me to dinner. If I lost, I would have to take the two of them to dinner. I was that confident!

What a fool. I lost. Those two guys picked an expensive restaurant. They even ended the evening with brandy and cigars! Surprisingly, I am still on friendly terms with one of the men. The other? I married him eight years later.

Back to my smoking history. I was crushed. I had to accept the fact that I was addicted to cigarette smoking. Over the next 20 years, I continued to smoke. I tried to reduce my smoking by decreeing numerous rules ... no smoking in the car, no smoking in front of people, no smoking in restaurants, etc.

Numerous research studies began to demonstrate the dangers inherent in smoking. I was torn. I did not want to be a failure, again. But, I did want to stop. Information was released (leaked) which showed the tobacco companies began to put more nicotine in cigarettes beginning in the mid 70's. I now knew why it was so easy to quit in 1973. I was less addicted, then. I started to get mad.

I watched the tobacco company executives lie under oath before congress and the American people.

Unacceptable! I thought about all of my smoking money going to these tobacco companies. My money was paying their high salaries. I was paying them to ultimately kill me with their products! I was furious.

On February 1, 1996, I went to an acupuncturist and had some acupressure balls applied to my addiction points. It was difficult to quit. But, it would be more difficult to start smoking. I have not had a cigarette since.

I am confident that I shall not smoke again even though I will always be an addict. My secret? I cannot bear the idea that any of my money supports murderers.

Booklet Ideas

I started to list possible How To booklet ideas on my
On Writing 2 blog. So far, there are more than 100 ideas. I'll aim for 300 ideas. The sources of these ideas are my life experiences, what I already know, what I want to know or who I might know is already an expert on a topic.

This is a lot of work. When I have 300 topics, I'll sort according to my interests and start with the top 100. I'll write an outline:

• why someone would want to read my booklet (very detailed) and the booklet's implied promise to the reader
• what I want to cover (determine if one booklet or a series is more appropriate)
• how I envision the layout - rough outline
• where I plan to find the information (as complete as possible)
• when I can realistically start and finish
• who can help me or where to look for experts

An I missing something? Probably. However, I will continue to add to this outline as my thoughts get clearer.

If the booklets are 100 pages, is it safe to assume each page would be 250 words? So, is a booklet around 25,000 words? That does not seem like enough words to convey so much information. Actually, it would be less because I would hope to add drawings, pictures and other graphics. Let's say, in total, I would have 20 pages of non-words. So, that would leave my with 20,000 words.

Maybe this is where I need to further hone my writing skills. It should not take me more than 20,000 words to explain how to do something. If it did, perhaps I am trying to cover too much territory in a booklet. Maybe, there should be a series.

I wanted to produce clear, concise informative booklets on any number of topics. Oop's, I am jumping the gun here. Depending upon how I bind the booklet, I think there are specific number of pages that should be included. The numbers 128 and 144 jump into my mind.

My information is dated. I shall have to research this. In addition, I plan to Print-On-Demand (POD). I am not sure the POD's impact to a booklet's optimal number of pages.

I guess I should just start on the topics that I am most interested. I would research them anyway ... might as well have a focus and a plan to follow.

Karaoke 12/15/2005

D and I sang for about 4 hours today. I had trouble singing from the correct spot. I am not sure I like my voice. Perhaps I should record it more often. I could make a CD with 14 or 15 of my songs. If I listened to it often, I would get past my voice reactions and begin to really hear what I sound like.

In my lessons, it is difficult to hear when the sound is good. But the time my teacher points it out to me, the sound is only a dim memory. I am trying to stay focused when I sing. I guess there is singing for fun and then, there is serious singing. Serious singing is, well, serious. Can I have fun and still be serious?

I sang 3 or 4 songs from the Broadway show, Aida. This may be the first time I really listened to the lyrics. I had a difficult time staying outside of the story. It was just too sad to bear. I contemplated giving up singing those songs. However, it will be good practice to not get sucked into the emotionalism of a song.

My teacher believes that singers who can communicate with the listener have good acting skills. This may explain my inability to consistently convey a song's meaning. I suspect I do not have much talent for acting. I lack natural story telling skills. Acting is unappealing to me.

Anyway, there is something wrong with my singing. I guess the best thing is to make the CD. That will probably take me about 8 hours to practice and record 14 songs. I do not know where I will find the hours. Maybe, I'll cut out the practicing part. After all, I am simply trying to figure out how to make the sound that I want.

Reading/Idea Room is Done!

Finally! My Reading Room is done!

The shelves have been stripped, primed and painted white. The room has been painted a relaxing light green. The new shelving area (below) the original bookcase is also painted white. Vance, the painter is assembling my new desk. He finished the additional bookcase today. I plan to use this bookcase to control the different research projects as I create them.

I shall move my magazine and book reading into this room. I am also calling this room my Idea Room. I have noticed that I rarely get ideas in my computer room. I think there is just much disarray for me to think.

Here is a representative picture of what my work area tends to look like:

There is just too much distraction for me to stay focused on anything for very long. Actually, this photo is quite organized. I am surprised. There is usually quite a mess behind me. Of course, I have added another computer to my right.

I am looking forward to using my Reading and Idea Room. I am waiting for Cheryl to return from her vacation. I need the books reorganized in the library. I also want them inventoried. I think many books did not make it into my database. Plus, I did give away a couple hundred books during the last donation go around.

If a guest arrives, my room will switch back to a guest room. I'll just pull down the Murphy Bed, voila! A guest room!

Can't wait!

Kitchen Remodel Started

They started the remodel process this morning. I do not plan any changes to the interior of the kitchen. The sun porch will be made a "real" room and open up to the kitchen and the dining room.

They ripped up the astro turf (on the sun porch). I should have taken a shot of the before. I did take quite a few shots of the empty space. I also plan to have them put down a concrete floor outside by the wall. I want to put a disposable BBQ out there.

I plan to have a table high counter where the windows are. There will be room for 3 dining chairs. There will also be a walk in pantry (maybe a 5X5 space). On the other side, they will build a banquette which will seat 3 to 4 people. All the screens will be replaced by solid walls with windows.

I still have to decide on the type windows, flooring, lighting, etc. I feel comfortable with this crew. Eugene and his son, Vance, painted the outside of the house during August 2004. They did a great job and I am still happy with it. . They also finished my Reading/Idea Room. I shall post pictures when I get all the books moved back in the room.

I plan to post updates about the kitchen remodel process as time permits. After this job is done, this crew might also build me an exercise room. Time will tell...

3 Months to Live - What would I Do Differently?

During February 2003, I posted an answer to this question. I just reviewed my answer and was surprised at how differently I feel. Despite this change in feeling, there are still many things that remained the same. I am just going to list the things I would do if I knew my death would be in three months.

• Finalize my estate plan
• Make final care arrangements for my pets
• Give away as much personal property so that my Personal Representative not weighed down with "messy" details
• Shred all non-essential records
• Hire a professional Administrative Assistant (maybe will need two) to complete the books that I have in mind and help me with shutting down everything
• Visit with all my friends and family (have to decide whether to share my death knowledge)
• Prepare farewell letters and include my wishes and dreams for their futures

Why do I not feel a compelling need to complete more of my on-going projects? This time, my list feels more like "just cleaning house".

I went over my To Do list see why there was no need to complete them before my death. The To Do list presumes my life continues. It presumes I continue putting one foot in front of the other in the walk of life. With my death, the tasks become meaningless.

I want to have some vital projects (not many, though) that need to be finished before I die. Of course, I will always have a myriad of "busy work" (it is in my nature), but I need to focus on the goals that will really matter to me.

Perhaps I should revisit my Five Signature Strengths. I tried to link, but I guess the post is too old. I'll paste here and then edit out extraneous data:

Five Signature Strengths
These are my top 5 strengths according to the free online test maintained at the Dr. Martin E. Seligman site based on his book, Authentic Happiness. The descriptions are from the website.

The point is to try to use each strength on a daily basis in order to achieve true happiness. The challenge has been to incorporate these strengths into my daily life. I have not been doing a lot of thinking about these strengths. I am not sure where to go now.

This post has shown me that somewhere I have lost focus on what brings me true satisfaction and happiness.

1. Curiosity and Interest in the World

You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.

This is still true for me. But there's no real plan or purpose. My interests go all over the place and probably end up going nowhere. I tend to be interested in whatever I happen to be looking at at the moment. This lackadaisical attitude feels self-indulgent and purposeless.

2. Forgiveness & Mercy

You forgive those who have done you wrong. You always give people a second chance. Your guiding principle is mercy and not revenge.

Wow, this strength has definitely not been a part of my life since 911! Gosh, I am stunned by the waves of anger I still feel about what happened in America. I have definitely been sinking into an "us against them" mentality.

This is my second highest score. Unbelievable. I cannot deal with this right now. Will have to let this one percolate for a while. Daily basis. I can feel myself resisting where this is leading.

3. Love of Learning

You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums - anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.

True. I feel I am more structured here. I tend to read books on certain topics. It is hard for me to be "flighty" when I am reading a 300+ page book on a specific topic. Of course, I usually read 3 or 4 books concurrently.

4. Zest, enthusiasm and Energy

Regardless of what you do, you approach it with excitement and energy. You never do anything half-way or half-heartedly. For you, life is an adventure.

True. I get totally involved with everything that I do. There are exceptions: accounting for more than an hour, tax return preparation for more than an hour, clearing out clutter for more than 30 minutes, organizing my computer files, clearing duplicate items, ...

I start out with these activities with the best of intentions, but get distracted by the most ridiculous items. The problem is that they do not feel ridiculous at the moment.

Obviously, I need to look harder at my true intentions. I wish my brain functioned in the pre-accident manner. It used to be so reliable; now it acts like it has a mind of its own!

5. Bravery and Valor

You are a courageous person who does not shrink from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain. You speak up for what is right, even if there is opposition. You act on your convictions.

I do not feel I am satisfying this strength at all. Nothing I do on a daily basis requires this strength. Of course, I do try to live my life to the fullest even though my "hand" has changed drastically. Perhaps trying to find my way now takes a certain amount of courage.

I know I do not want to sit back and let life pass me by. I still believe I have a contribution to make. I am fearful of losing myself amidst my life's irrelevancies. One of the hardest areas of damage is my inability to prioritize my actions according to any long-term plan.

Well, after all of this, has my list of Things To Do before I die changed? Not really, However, I have a lot to think about. Maybe I should print the 5 Strengths on a card and carry it around with me...like a memory jogger. I would try to remember to view the card three times a day.

Just a thought.

I had another thought...Maybe I should go retake the test. Perhaps my scores will have changed. That should be interesting. I shall try to do that later today.

12/17/05

I just retook the test. I forgot how long the test was...more than 200 questions. My results surprised me. #1, #2 and #5 remained the same, but the scores were significantly stronger.

1. Curiosity and interest in the world

My scores for this strength were amazing. Apparently, my scores are as high or higher than 100 percent of the people taking the test. I guess this is definitely my number #1 signature strength.

2. Forgiveness and mercy

Surprisingly, these scores also got higher too. Ohhh, I get it now. I am not at all interested in getting revenge for 911. My feelings are associated with the need for a strong defense and the need to protect Americans. This is still a hard strength for me to understand. I shall re-read this section of the Authentic Strength book to see how to satisfy this strength on a daily basis..

3. Creativity, ingenuity and orginality

Thinking of news ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible.

I have never considered myself as particularly inventive. I should probably ask other people for their opinion on this one. However, most of my friends are pretty nice and diplomatic. I can't image them telling me that they considered me to be unimaginative, mundane, routine.

I do not look for solutions just to be different. If it works, great! I want to move on to the next step...not worry about building a better mouse trap.

4. Hope, optimism and future-mindedness

You expect the best in the future, and you work to achieve it. You believe that the future is something that you can control.

This is really odd. I have never thought that the future was controllable. Of course, the future is determined by the sum of what we have done-to-date. I guess in that sense, we do control our futures.

5. Zest, enthusiasm and energy

This is still the same for me. I was surprised last time that it was not higher on the list. Again, the scores are significantly higher than the last time. It still dropped on the list (used to be the #4 strength).

The two strengths that dropped from my top five list are Love of Learning and Bravery and Valor.

It makes sense that Love of Learning dropped from the top five. After all, I have been reading hundreds of books for the past three years, absorbing as much information as possible. I feel like a water logged sponge. I now need to do something with what I have learned.

Bravery & Valor? Have I become more fearfull or have other strengths pushed this one to sideline? Actually, I am happy that I no longer have to go charging at windmills (gg)!

Chinese Watercolor Painting

Next month I plan to start a night school course on Chinese Watercolors. I also just bought a book on Chinese Brush Painting techniques. Until tonight, the pictures appealed to me. Just a few strokes convey so much feeling and sense of place. I especially enjoy drawings of bamboo, leaves and flowers.

A Chinese restaurant that I visit at least once a week, has pictures of horses that are simply amazing. Minimal brush strokes, yet I can feel the horses' power and "see" the rippling muscles. I wanted to learn to paint like that.

Tonight, though, I visited an artist's gallery (Wilfred Hildonen, a Norwegian artist living in Viseu, Portugal) and was blown away with the raw energy in his paintings. Suddenly, the watercolors (except for the horses) began to pale in my mind. I think the artist uses oils and acrylic. I will go back later and link to his gallery. I am not completely sure how to do that. But, I'll give it a try.. I am now looking at watercolors as only a beginning, perhaps. I shall just have to see...

Sony Rootkit & MP3 Problems & Hidden Files

Updated 12/14/05 at the bottom:

HP Computer
I thought that I had fixed the problems. However, on Saturday, I started to have connection issues (internet and my network) on the HP computer. On Sunday, I attempted to play an MP3. I got the same error message as before - waveout file not supported! I put in a regular CD and the music played fine. Again, anything to do with MP3s (extracting or playing) has been disabled on that HP computer.

On the day that the problem started, I was working with 5 to 7 CDs. Two were Sonys (one brand new and one old). However, there were 4 other brand new CDs. Sony released a listing of which CDs had the rootkits. My CDs were not on the list. I am not sure Sony's list was complete. Plus, I think there are more software issues that Sony has not owned up to. They may not in the ear future because of the current litigation and the threat of future litigation.

I give up. I am going to reformat the HP hard disk and start all over with that computer. I am sick of trying to fix the computer. I have already wasted 15 to 20 hours trying to get the HP ship-shape. Plus, some of those hours were paid for.

Update 12/15/05: I have not reformatted this computer because the data files are not backed up yet. In addition, I wanted to try the Linux boot disk that I just bought. I have to finish all of this before tomorrow because Scott comes in around 1 pm to work on specific projects. I would hate to have to waste his time on routine matters.

Older Dell Computer
I used Rootkit Revealer on my older Dell. I think the software's name is very inaccurate. It found about 150,000 files! I was shocked. Then I started to examine all the files. Hmmm... How odd.

The software listed ALL my excel worksheets. Why would it do that? The diagnostic was that the file was hidden from API. I am not sure what are the consequences of that. Although, on the HP computer, none of my excel files were tagged. Guess I shall have to try to figure out why the excel files got tagged.

In addition, the Rootkit Revealer showed 1,000's of cookies. Huh? How was this possible? I routinely delete cookies from my computer. When I looked closely at the cookies, I saw they dated back to 2001 (when I got that computer). These cookies were not in the cookie folder, but were in a folder called Temp Internet Files.

I went through the step to delete all cookies and temp internet files. Nada. The files were still there. When I tried to manually delete the files, I started getting kicked out of File Manager and getting the error message to send Microsoft a diagnostic. Since I could d not scroll down the folder without a lockout, I tried Select All and then Delete. This visibly worked.

However, when I checked the properties for the Temp Internet Files folder, there was about 140 MB in 5,000 files and 28 folders. What was that? I checked another computer and saw a similar situation (75 MB in 2,500 files and fewer folders). I had already asked the system to not hide any files from me.

Update 12/15/05: Looks like this folder is the same folder which appears in all the various users (under Documents and Settings). When I went through each user (I have never used any of these accounts) and deleleted all the files in ... C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files the problem was resolved. That is good because I was starting to have visions of Microsoft planting hidden software on all system to ...

Newer Dell Computer
Since I am waiting for a call from a Microsoft techie, I shall try to see if he will answer this question too. I downloaded their beta spyware detection software on my newest Dell. I ran the software and it detected one spyware which it deleted. I used Spybot Search and Destroy and it found another.

After installing the Microsoft beta software, my desktop acts screwy. It keeps resetting the theme to XP (which I hate). I have to manually set it back to Windows Classic each time I cold boot the machine. What a drag. I left a message at Microsoft Support and a Live body (from India) called me. He had me uninstall the software, eliminate cookies, temp internet files and history. Great, this seemed to work.

Unfortunately, the fix did not last long. The next day, when I started up the computer, it was doing it again. In addition, I lost my Show Desktop icon. When I try to use it, I am told that it is a missing shortcut and Show Desktop.scf cannot be found. I don't use the icon very often, but I do like to figure out why things happen.

Anyway, I shall try to see if I can get the Microsoft techie to answer my questions:

1. Why does the theme reset itself each time I cold boot?
2. What happened to my Show Desktop file?
3. What files and folders are hidden in the Temp Internet File folder on all my machines?

Hopefully, the continuing saga of my Computer Woes will come to a successful conclusion! I do plan to reformat both the HP and the Older Dell. However, I am not ready because I still have to backup all my data files.

Update: Today is Tuesday 12/13/05 2:30 AM. The Microsoft techie did not call me on Sunday as promised. I wonder if I need to call them again...

Update: Today is Wednesday 12/14/05. The Microsoft Techie (Michelle) called me at around 9 am. We just finished around 10:30 am. She was not able to help. Her department is the Virus department.

I had already ascertained that I did not have any detectable virus, spyware or adware. So tomorrow, I have to call another number for help in replacing the missing system files which the Microsoft Spyware beta program may have deleted.

On the hidden files in my Temp Internet Folder (under my user account in Documents and Settings section), she suggested that I start to empty the same folder under the other user accounts (Administrator, default, etc). I did this and I now only have 13 MB in 1,400 files. This looks about right since I still have 2 IE5 folders in two other user accounts.

According to Michelle, Microsoft leaves the IE5 files there. I am not sure why...

GlitterGraphics

This was fun! I just went to their site, typed in the above, copied the code and pasted it here. Plus, it was free! I am going back to check out the site. There are a lot of other things available at the site. I got the link from the Presurfer Newsletter:

The Presurfer is a Presurfer Production.Other Presurfer Productions are: THE GENERATOR BLOG.The Generator Blog is not about those machines used to change mechanicalenergy into electrical energy. It's about software that creates software.Software to play around and have fun with.Currently there are 462 generators mentioned. http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/

The code for the dancing letters came from

http://www.wobshite.co.uk/b3ta/letters/

I am not sure why this link is not live. I copied it from the address bar. It was fun playing around with these letters. I spent some time checking out the generators mentioned by the Presurfer. Some were fun. I did not realize how much time I just wasted tonight. I had plans to finish a few things, but got sidetracked again.

Just added: My friend said that the bouncing letters made her tired. Hmmm.