Saturday, January 30, 2010

Snow Saturday

Don't know why it is, but snow on a Saturday is just depressing. I need to be down in my shop today putting up insulation, but just can't get motivated...Debbie needs her computer back, so maybe I'll 'suit up' in my coveralls and go down there anyway...

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Random things...

Matt challenged me to do this several weeks ago--just now getting around to it.

50 of the most random things you probably never needed to know about someone. REPOST WITH YOUR ANSWERS

1. whats your name spelt backwards? notlE htieK senoJ

2. What did you do last night? Ate supper @ church, led prayer meeting, went to church council, did premarital counseling for a couple, answered Debbie's frantic call, "Where ARE you?", got home at 10:15, watched a little tv, fell asleep on the couch.

3. The last thing you downloaded onto your computer? Pictures.

4. Have you ever licked a 9 volt battery? No.

5. Last time you swam in a pool? + or - 4 years.

6. What are you wearing? underwear, flannel-lined jeans, chambray shirt, sox, sneakers, glasses, leather jacket

7. How many cars have you owned? Personally owned (as in my name's on the title, including light trucks), 16 or 17. Total driven that I could call 'mine', 19 or 20.

8. Type of music you dislike most? New country music, if it's too 'nasally.'

9. Are you registered to vote? Yes, since 1970. Voted in almost every election, large or small, since then.

10. Do you have cable? Yes

11. What kind of computer do you use? Custom-built PC

12. Ever made a prank phone call? Not in over 40 years.

13. You like anyone right now? I like my wife, & family, especially my sons, daughters-in-law, and granddaughter!

14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? No. Acrophobia.

15. Furthest place you ever traveled? East--London & Paris; West--Cotobato City, Mindinao Island, Philippines.

16.Do you have a garden? Yes, several flower gardens, vegetable & flower patches I built for Debbie's garden, and occasionally a large vegetable garden.

17. What's your favorite comic strip? Published, probably Dilbert or Pearls Before Swine.

18. Do you know all the words to the national anthem? Yes. Both 'typical' verses published in hymnals, but know that there's a very bloodthirsty verse about beating the Brits, too, which you'd know if you'd read the spy novels I have.

19. Shower, morning or night? Morning, 90% of the time.

20. Best movie you've seen in the past month? Haven't been out to a movie the past month.

21. Favorite pizza toppings? Pepperoni & mushrooms

22. Chips or popcorn? Popcorn, if cooked in my whirly-pop, not a microwave.

23. What cell phone provider do you have? ATT and its predecessors since 1996.

24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? No, nor chewed more than one mouthful of rabbit tobacco, either.

25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? No.

26. Orange Juice or apple? OJ.

27. Who were the last people you sat at lunch with? 2 guys from Alabama here on a 'scouting trip' about a mission trip here this summer.

28. favorite chocolate bar? Hershey's special dark or Hershey's Almond.

29. Who is your longest friend and how long? My Best Man, David Stuart, since fall of 1970, so almost 40 years now. I have several cousins who are also friends, that I've been friends with longer, but I guess family doesn't count.

30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? If you count canned, in the last week. Raw on a sandwich, middle of last fall.

31. Have you ever won a trophy? Last one I won was for 2nd place in a chili cookoff.

32.Favorite artist? This changes from time to time. Right now, painting, probably a tie between Norman Rockwell and Raphael. Music--don't make me choose.

33. Favorite computer game? Varies often. I guess right now, Bejewelled on FaceBook.

34. Ever ordered from an infomercial? No.

35. Sprite or 7-UP? Usually Sprite, but 7-up and Sierra Mist are OK. Usually drink water.

36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school/work? Yes. Not school, but work.

37. Last thing you bought at Walgreens? Rented a movie from the Red Box outside.

38. Ever thrown up in public? Yes, right on the pulpit at my first church. That'll teach me to try to preach with the flu. I've only missed 2 Sundays due to illness in my life--very blessed.

39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or finding true love? I found my true love. Definitely superior to being a millionaire, or even billionaire.

40. Do you believe in love at first sight? It happens to some people. I didn't experience love at first sight, but I did see my future wife in a snowball fight with my best friend and decide, "I'd really, really like to date THAT girl!"

41.Can exes just be friends? Theoretically. In actuality, not likely at all.

42. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? A member of the church where I'm pastor.

43. Did you have long hair as a young kid? Define "young" and "kid"--not as a boy, but as a teenager and in my early 20s it got down to the bottom of my collar. At the time, this was as conservative as a 2" long cut is today.

44. What message is on your voicemail machine? Haven't recorded one, so it's whatever the manufacturer put there.

45. Where would you like to go right now? Take Debbie to the beach somewhere WARM.

46. What was the name of your first pet? Don't remember. It was a nasty little fice dog that bit me repeatedly, and pulled down my Mom's laundry and trampled it in the mud. After Dad took that mutt and his .22 down into the woods, I got the first dog I really loved, "Lucy," a black cocker spaniel I had from age 4 or 5 until my early teens.

47. What kind of back pack do you have, and what's in it? A red one that matches our luggage, unless one of my boys borrowed it. And it's probably empty.

48. Last incoming/outgoing call on your phone? Matt called, which is ironic, since he is the one who challenged me to do this list.

49. What is one thing you are grateful for today? Grateful I have a job with meaningful work. The young man I counseled last night hired on to the night shift at the chicken 'disassembly' plant in Ellijay, and only managed to stand it one shift, so he's looking for work. Very skilled in all kinds of construction and heavy equipment, but the economy is dead here. He's hoping to get on with the TVA.

50. What do you think about most? Debbie, and what I have to do at work (church.)

BONUS Question added by EKJ: What's your favorite hobby or similar activity? Telling stories. Since I'm a pastor, I say, "I tell the truth for a living, and lie for fun." I guess someday if I retire from the ministry except for preaching occasionally, I'll have a career as a storyteller, and will say, "I lie for a living, and tell the truth for fun!"

And the verdict is...recycled

Well, the motherboard is toast, so in a few days I'll have my new computer, about the size of a shoebox for kids' sneakers. Hope everything will work OK on the new platform, which I understand will have Windows 7. How about that? Leaping right past Vista...
And I've been furiously working from time to time on getting shelving in my building so I can finally get all Debbie's twenty-'leven boxes of Christmas stuff put away out of the living room. Tomorrow is payday, so I will get insulation and put it up, and order the gas to hook up to the heater I bought earlier this month. I'll post some pictures of the new computer, and of the progress on the building, when I get the chance.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Will it be resurrected or recycled?

My home computer, that is! It's about 8 or 9 years old, but I've upgraded it a time or two. Yesterday morning, it wouldn't turn on at all. The hard drive has been bumping up on "full" warnings for quite some time...strange to think that a 40-gigabyte hard drive could fill up so easily. I know it's quite a small drive compared to what is routine now, with some drives measured in terabytes...but I still remember how excited I was in 1990 to get my first hard drive. A whole 40 megabytes! And at the time I thought, I'll never fill up a drive that large! Now I have a 500-gig external drive. And that's filling up!

The computer had a couple of other strange episodes recently, too. One day a couple of weeks ago, I plugged in the camera to download some pix, and suddenly got a message on my screen "the device has failed." Didn't say which device, but I had to restart. Then a couple of days ago, I plugged in an iPod to recharge it, and the same thing happened. Had to restart once again. Last Friday I turned the computer off (usually I just let it run) because I knew I'd be away from it a couple of days. Then yesterday morning, it was like there was no power to the computer at all. Checked all connections, switches, etc. but no good...so it's off to the repair shop.

My go-to tech guy has the thing at his place, analyzing. He'll let me know if a memory upgrade and a larger hard drive will keep me going awhile, or if it's best to just start from scratch. One of these days I'm going the Apple route. Used to have a Mac when I worked at NAMB, and liked the experience, but PCs are just so much cheaper.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Snow Day


This is the snow angel Debbie made on our driveway today. Looks pretty good, huh? Here's a video of her on her sled, too...

Monday, January 4, 2010

"It's freaking COLD, Mr. Bigglesworth!"

Wow! 9 or 10 degrees this morning, didn't go above freezing at all yesterday, and isn't predicted to go above freezing again around here until Wednesday, and then only by 4 degrees. Snow predicted for Thursday and Friday.

Must be all that global warming.