Rod's Lair Latest News

Farewell

2012-02-02T16:49:00.001-05:00

Today,at 12:25 PM, my Mother in Law, Marilyn Traskowsky passed peacefully into God's Realm to join her beloved husband Bob, who preceeded her in 2006.

After a long, brave battle with cancer, she is now at peace, and suffers no longer. We will miss her, but her memory lives in our hearts.

I want to thank the wonderful staff at Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care (www.kansascityhospice.org) for making her as comfortable as possible during her last days. They were truly a Godsend.

Update 01-31-12

2012-01-31T22:18:00.002-05:00

My mother-in-law has been in the Hospice House for a little over a week, now. She's still hanging in there, but I think it's not going to be much longer. She is sleeping most of the time, and there is no response to voices.

She is now in that nether world, somewhere between this life and whatever waits beyond. It is only a matter of time, now.

The doctor at Hospice says there are different stages they go through, and the number and length varies with each individual. She is in the second stage, now, I think. I hope she isn't in any pain, and I hope the Lord calls her home to be with her husband Bob, who we lost 6 years ago. She has suffered enough.

The Rocky Road Ahead...

2012-01-23T20:48:00.000-05:00

We stopped by Sonic on the way home from the hospice center to pick up dinner. We no sooner got home, and the phone went off. Jo's mom having problems, according to Pam (Jo's sister in law). I had just enough time to inhale a cheeseburger, and jump back in the van.

We're back at the hospice center now (about 7:45PM), and I have no idea how long we'll be here. It's going to be a rough road ahead......

Just spoke with one of the nurses here - she said it was a bit of nausea, but nothing like breathing or heart issues. She said it was part of the disease process, and they had a lot of things they can do to ease the nausea.

This is not going to be a good month for anyone involved.

A Sad Time

2012-01-23T18:31:00.001-05:00

I am typing this from the lobby at the Kansas City Hospice Home. Jo's mom has just been transferred her from St. Joseph's Medical Center. Sadly, this will be her last home. Our doctor says she has about a month left.

It's a hard thing to deal with, even when you know it's going to happen - and we have for the past 6 years or so.

I'm hoping once everything settles down to be able to do more with this blog, my website, and the other things I've tried to keep afloat throughout all this.

Until later...

December 2011 Update

2011-12-09T14:27:00.001-05:00

As usual, it's been a while since I updated my blog. Last time I tried, I had nothing but problems until I tried with Firefox. Google has since done some updating to the Blogger application, so we'll see if it now works with IE9.

In my humble opinion, Internet Explorer 9 is the biggest piece of crap Microsoft has come up with - even surpassing Windows 98SE and ME..

Things have been exceedingly busy and stressful with the combination of my job, and continuing issues with my dad and Jo's mom as they both approach the end of life.

I will keep this one short, as I am using this Friday day off to try and get caught up on things - a nearly impossible task, lately.

If I ever get the time, I have a lot of new things in the pipeline for my website, this blog, and my long-neglected CafePress Store.

By the way, the data recovery on the hard drive I mentioned in my last post was not successful. I lost a LOT of artwork on that drive. That will not happen again - CDRs and DVDRs are cheap insurance...

More later...... I hope.

Just a Test...

2011-08-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

This is just a test....

I have IE 9 (beta) on my newly-rebuilt Win7 system, and Blogger doesn't like IE9 - which makes it tough to post anything. So I'm trying Firefox tonight....

I am anxiously awaiting news on the recovery procedure on my dysfunctional hard drive.... Hoping for the best....

Catching Up....

2011-08-17T18:34:00.002-04:00

You know, every time I make a commitment to stay up-to-date on this blog, I end up getting buried when the poop hits the fan. One of these days, I'll learn to sit on the upwind side of the fan. It's a bit warmer, but it smells better...

To say the last couple of months have been stressful would be a little like saying water is wet. In addition to the situation with the very elderly and ill parents (her mom; my dad) steadily turning the last pages of their lives, there have been several things that have kept me occupied to say the least.

The first evening of July, we heard a loud crack – crack – THUD about midnight. When we checked out front, there were two giant branches that had fallen from our big old oak tree in the front yard, landing in the street. When I investigated, I found the whole inside of the tree was rotten. Though it broke my heart to have to lose the tree, I decided to have it removed, rather than risk falling on the house during the next storm.

Someone from a tree service had left a card on my mailbox a couple weeks before – after another branch had fallen from the tree – and I called him. He came out and looked at the tree, confirmed my fears about it being dangerous, and gave me a quote of $1300.00 to take down the tree and haul away all the wood. That was less than I expected so I said to go ahead with it. That was on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, he called back and told me that he and another guy from their company had looked at the tree again, and now the price was going to be $1600.00. He said was going to be a big job, and they would need to rent a Bobcat, which would coast $200.00. It was still less than I expected to pay originally, so I said OK.

The following Saturday a crew showed up and began the process. During the cutting, they managed to drop one of the branches on the fence on the east side of the driveway. “I'll make it right – I've got a really good fence guy,” I was assured. They cut down as much as they could, and took a couple days off for Independence Day. A few days later a different crew showed up to cut the rest of the tree, and clean up the yard. With about 30 feet of three trunk still standing, I was informed that they could go no further because the tree was rotted inside and full of “mud” which would damage their equipment.

I asked the fellow in charge what the next step would be. I reminded him that I was paying 1600 dollars to have the WHOLE tree removed and hauled away. He graciously knocked 100 dollars off the price, and told me he would call another man who had special equipment to take down the rest of the tree at an additional cost of $250.00. I wanted the damn thing gone, and to be done with it so I told him to go ahead.

A few days later the first guy I called showed up to collect the now 1500.00. I asked about getting the rest of the tree taken out, and he said he would call and find out what was going on. The next Sunday, he showed up with a couple other guys with a stump grinder to take out the rest of the tree. It should be noted here that the only “special” equipment aside form the stump grinder was a bigger chain saw. They cut out the tree, then halfway through the job, I was informed that “This is a 350-dollar stump, but I'll take it out for an additional $150.00 – the 250 dollars now became 400 dollars.

Well, they cut up what was left of the tree, piled the wood in the yard, and told me that someone was coming by to pick up as much wood as they could (in other words a couple people looking for free firewood). One of the guys in this last crew said he'd drop by on Tuesday, and if any of it was left, he'd take it away. As I write this, it is still there. And the fence is still damaged. My phone calls to this company calls are routinely ignored.

So, what highly professional and ethical company did I hire for the tree removal? Glad you asked. Mid-State Inc. Got that? Mid-State, Inc. If you need a tree taken out, here's my recommendation: Hire ANYBODY but these guys. Next time I need a tree taken down, I'll rent a chainsaw and do it myself before I hire these losers again.

BTW, the BBB and the state attorney general's office will be getting copies of this little story as well.

Then, shortly after all this, somehow or another a trojan managed to slip past my anti-virus and trashed my main computer. I was able to connect the C: drive to another computer with a USB adapter. I scanned the drive, and was able to recover everything of importance from it. My second hard drive – the one with about 5 years' worth of artwork and other files was a different story. I could get nothing from this drive. Yeah, I know – I should have backed everything up. I always recommend that to other, but didn't follow my own advice. It's far too easy to say “I don't have time, now, I'll get around to it later.”

I have sent that drive off to a data recovery service – which will cost me about 750.00. You can bet your bippy I'll be doing a lot of backups from here on. $750.00 will buy a bunch of USB external drives – or blank DVDs.

As far as my job goes – It's been a year since I got back from my training in Florida. I'm still in the same position as part of a crew maintaining 20 big Kodak digital high-volume printers at a site that services the financial industry. It's still a pain in the butt, I'm still on rotating shifts, but at least I have a job. And I did get a pretty decent raise. So pain or not, I'll probably be there for a while – they insist on contiuing to give my Powerball money to other people, so I guess it'll be a while until I can retire. Bummer.

I've just rebuilt my main computer (which I was planning on doing – just not right away). I put in a better video card – a Gforce 9800GT – and a new SATA 1TB hard drive. I have the old 320gig IDE drive set up as the secondary drive right now, but I'll probably replace it with another SATA 1TB drive soon. I also upgraded the machine to Windows 7 Professional. The motherboard is capable of addressing up ot 32G of RAM, and I’ll be upgrading that as well. With the graphics apps I'm working with – and plan on adding later – I'll need as much power as I can get.

I just downloaded Vue 9 Pioneer, which is a free, introductory version of Vue. Once I figure out how to use it, I'll probably start upgrading it as well. If you've seen movies like Avatar, Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 2012, or any of the recent blockbusters filled with amazing special effects, you've seen some of the things Vue is capable of. The jungle scenes in Indiana Jones, and Avatar were done with Vue.

I am also, slowly, as time, family, and my insane schedule allows, updating my website with new content, new art, and hopefully soon, an on-line store. More later...

For now, this has been a long-winded entry to try and get somewhat caught up. I will once again attempt to keep up with this blog (just in case anyone actually reads it), but there may be times when I'm absent for a while.

For now, Rod is signing out!

I'm (We're) Still Here.....

2011-05-21T19:07:00.003-04:00

As I type this, it is a little after six O' Clock on May 21st, 2011. I am most pleased to announce that, at least as far as I'm able to determine, the world did not end. I'm really happy about that. For one thing I would have missed having my blueberry crepes at Bob Evans tomorrow morning. That would have sucked.

It was supposed to start in New Zealand, approximately 17 hours ago. My friend Barry in NZ reports that NZ is still there, as well.

I'm sure all the folks betting money on 12-21-2012 are happy it didn't happen, too.

I have to ask........ WTF is with all the fascination with these doomsday predictions?? Am I the only one who wants to live for more than another year or so?

No one has ever accused me of being a "Bible Thumper," but I am a Christian, and pretty much go with what the Bible passes along. Christ himself said "Ye do not know the time or day..." You don't know it, I don't know it, Nostradamus didn't know it, the Mayans didn't know it, and Harold Camping obviously didn't know it.

Quite frankly, I plan on being around and enjoying LIFE for many years - and that includes celebrating the New Year on January 1, 2013. I suggest we all take a deep breath, and concentrate on making things better for the living, instead of wasting so much time and energy on scientifically and spiritually unfounded myths.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Wednesday 05-11-11

2011-05-11T23:51:00.000-04:00

Why does it seem like every time I get motivated to update this blog on a regular basis, "Real Life" comes along and kicks me right in the 'nads???

Between my job - which is both physically demanding and mentally challenging - and my family obligations - which seem to increase on a daily basis, I'm going in 5th gear and 17 different directions at once. All the time.

With the mother-in-law now living with my brother-in-law and his wife, the family focus is on getting her house cleaned out, and ready to be put on the market. And of course much of that work is now reserved for Saturdays - formerly my one day to attempt to relax and work on some of my projects. Last Saturday the comment was made that "It's going to take all summer" to accomplish this.... *sigh* just what I needed to hear.....

Don't get me wrong - I'm more than willing and happy to help. I've been doing so for relatives on both sides for the last 11 years or so, and mostly with little help. I certainly don't begrudge the help. But there comes a time when I need my own life back.....

I'm sitting in bed typing this on my laptop at a little after 11:00PM. I'll probably be up a little while, but I really need to get my fool butt to sleep since I have to get up at 05:00 for work. Then when I get home, I'll head over to my dad's apartment for a visit, and to provide some computer lessons. I'll probably have supper with him and some of his friends at the Fountains where he lives.

We took the Caravan back to Landmark Dodge so they could finish the work from last week. they had to order a new driver's side mirror, and get their computer fixed so they can program all the automatic locks that haven't been working. They are providing me a rental car since they couldn't finish the job last time. We got a nice Ford Escape this time. I'm not really a big fan of Fords (Mustangs excepted), but this is a cool little SUV.

Well, I've got a bunch more stuff to write about, but not tonight. I'm tired, and 05:00 comes waaaay too early!

Later!

Saturday, 04-30-11

2011-04-30T21:07:00.004-04:00

What a beautiful day today was!

I've had a few issues to deal with the last few days, so I waited until today to post again.

I took the minivan in to Landmark to see about getting a few things taken care of that it's needed for a while. The automatic door locks don't work, the rear wiper self-destructed, and the driver's side mirror got knocked off a couple months ago when I got a little too close to one of those ^%%%^&#$$%% construction cones - it was sitting a little farther into the road than its companions, and I clipped it with the mirror. I glued a small mirror into the old ones place, but it's just too small.

Anyway, I ended up having to take the van in to the shop on Thursday after work. They arranged for me to get a rental at the dealer's rate while they worked on mine Friday. We got a really cool Chrysler Town & Country minivan with the stow-away seats, fancy automatic side doors, and so on.

Today was a spectacular spring day, so we decided to go on a little photo safari. We went out to the White Alloe Creek Conservation Area in Parkville. What a beautiful area this is! I had no idea it even existed until I saw a photo in the Missouri Conservationist Magazine. We hiked one of the trails, and got some wonderful photos! I'll share a few below....

This is a really cool plant Jolene spotted - I love the way the sun shines through its leaves.

I used my little camera clamp on a park bench to get this shot. I wanted to close the f-stop down as much as possible, and use a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of the water.

Another angle of part of the falls.

Here's Jo with the upper portion of the falls.

And finally, a nice big flat rock in the upper falls. It looks great, but I think it needs a pretty girl sitting on it. I can fix that..... Poser to the rescue! Stay tuned...

On the way home, I stopped at Price Chopper, and picked up a pound of hamburger, and a package of hot dogs and Johnsonville brats. The charcoal grill got its first outing of the season as well. I'm still full!

Now, I'm going to work on some other projects I've got cooking in the render-oven (that's 3D art-geek talk for having a project in process).

Have an awesome weekend, and I'll C U later!

04-26-11

2011-04-26T23:56:00.003-04:00

Just a quick one tonight - it's late and I've got to get up at 0500AM for work.

Had another rough day at work today, but that's pretty much the rule rather than the exception. I guess that's why it called 'work.' LOL!

Had a nice dinner at Olive Garden tonight - I'm still full! Then home to relax and work on my TNA series.

C U later!

04-25-11

2011-04-25T20:46:00.003-04:00

Well, it's another Monday... Not too bad a day at work, although I spent most of the day on one machine. I think it's fixed, though...

After I got home, we went over to Sam's Club - haven't been there in a year! We've re-stocked on some goodies, and now, it's time to relax.

I have a series running on Renderosity called "The Girls From TNA" - kind of a spy-adventure-sci-fi strip about two hot ladies working for a top secret agency known only as TNA. Yes - TNA is a play on words.

I also have the series on my website for those that are not on Renderosity. I'll post a link soon. While I'm on the subject, if you enjoy art (traditional or digital) or photography (traditional or digital) you owe it to yourself to stop by http://www.renderosity.com/ and join. It's free, and you'll not find a finer community of creative folks anywhere on the net.

In addition to my TNA series, I'm collaborating with a couple other wild & crazy guys on a improptu mini-series called "Busted." I'll explain how it got started over the next few days. But for now, I'll post a "teaser" movie poster I uploaded a couple days ago.

Now, I'm going to work on my latest installment of the TNA series. Later!

I'm Back.....

2011-04-24T20:14:00.002-04:00

I'm back, hopefully to stay this time...

A very demanding new position at work, and incessant family issues have kept me pretty busy, as well as fairly stressed out the last several months.

Things have improved somewhat recently, and I hope to have a little more free time. For the past several years, attending to the needs of two elderly parents with health problems has taken a large chunk of my time and energy. But as I said above, things are improving somewhat.

I will try my best to keep this blog updated regularly, as a kind of running diary of the various goings-on in my life.

I am hoping to do a little more updating on my website as well.

In the little spare time I've had, I have been working with Poser 8, improving my skills, and creating art far beyond anything I've done before. I've joined an art community on Renderosity (www.renderosity.com) and have made friends with many other artists from all over the world.

If you enjoy art and/or photography, I would highly recommend joining Renderosity. It's free, and you won't find a more excellent community of artists anywhere - I guarantee it!

I have a continuing series running there called "The Girls From TNA" which is also on my website. It has become quite popular, and I'm building a good fan base.

My work with Konica-Minolta has changed quite a lot. I'm no longer in the field running calls on Segment 1-2-3-4 copiers. I am now in Production Print, as part of a crew of technicians maintaining 20 Kodak Digital High-Volume printers for a major printing client that services the financial industry. It's a very demanding position, but I'm beginning to adjust, and it seems I'm doing well at it. My annual performance review was last week, and i got an A+ review.

Well, that's all for now - I'll be back with more, and will be uploading some art and photos as well.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Quick Update

2010-11-22T10:52:00.002-05:00

Well, my last post was in September, and things remain pretty busy with my job. It's beginning to settle down a little bit, and I'm hoping to get a bit of breathing room.

I will be writing more soon.

I'm hoping to get started on some changes to my website over the Thanksgiving week. I probably will only get Thanksgiving day off, but we'll just have to see what happens.

More coming soon.

Long Overdue Update

2010-09-18T23:40:00.001-04:00

”Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.”……Bertolt Brecht

This was the ‘Quote of the Day’ on my homepage for 09/18/2010. It pretty much sums up my life since my last post in February. There have been a few changes, that’s for sure! Most of the major ones have occurred in the last few months. More on that in a minute.

Back in August of 2009, I purchased a 3-D computer art application called Poser 8, from Smith Micro. Although I’ve had a few stability problems, I have had more fun with this program, and found it to be a wonderful tool for creating realistic 3D figures. Combining Poser with Photoshop and other digital art tools, it has taken my art to a whole new level.

Shortly after I started working with Poser, I found and joined a fantastic art community called Renderosity. I now have a gallery there with over 130 images currently, and still growing. I have quite a wonderful group of fans, and have made many new friends all over the globe. I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting two of those friends in person. What a wonderful and uplifting experience this has been, and continues to be! If you are interested in art, be it computer art, traditional media, photography, or writing, I would highly recommend checking out http://www.renderosity.com/!

Other than that things have remained pretty much the same. Helping Jo’s mom and my dad, working, and just the usual domestic stuff. Until recently…

In June of 2010, I was approached by one of our managers, asking if I would be interested in joining our new production print group. This group is currently contracting with a major printing firm that serves the financial sector. We provide service on 20 high-speed digital presses they purchased from us, and use for a large part of their printing needs. There are certain non-disclosure requirements in place, so I cannot reveal the name of the company or details about the printing they do. I can say that you probably use their products frequently.

At any rate, after considering that the work I was previously doing for the company had slowed down significantly, I thought it would be in my best interests to go ahead with it, so I agreed. I was sent to Tampa, Florida in July – August for 5 weeks of training on the Kodak digital printers I’d be working on. The training went well, and in mid-August I returned home, and began my new position – in an advanced on-the-job-training position. I had some idea of what I was in for, but certainly not to the extent I’ve experienced for the last month.

This firm runs (normally) Monday – Friday, 24 hours in 3 shifts: 6:30AM – 2:30PM, 2:30PM – 10:30PM, and 10:30PM – 6:30AM. Lately, they have been backed up on printing orders, so they have added weekend shifts as well, but this is only temporary – or so I’m told.

In my training mode, I’ve been switching back and forth between the 2:30 – 10:30 shifts, and a new shift, 8:00AM – 5:00PM pretty much every week. Right now, I don’t know if I’m coming or going most of the time. The work is a lot more intense and demanding compared to what I was doing before, so I’m pretty much exhausted most of the time.

I was feeling pretty discouraged on Friday (I had to work the 2:30 – 10:30 shift Thursday night, then turn right around and come in 8:00AM – 5:00PM on Friday), but had a good long talk with the manager that recruited me for this position. I have been assured that things will be calming down in the next few weeks. Apparently, I’ve entered this new domain at the most chaotic time, filled with changes and issues with some of the paper stock they are using. I sure hope so, because I’ve been pretty worn out and discouraged lately.

In addition to this, I still have our elderly relatives to help out, and all the other domestic errands to look after. I’ve not had much time for my creative endeavors, lately. I hope that will be changing soon – I get a little grumpy sometimes when I don’t have my creative outlets to calm my inner beast.

At any rate, to bring this epistle to a close……

I am working hard to make the best use of the increasingly smaller snippets of time I do have for creative things. One of the top priorities is doing a complete overhaul of my website, Rod’s Lair. It will be updated to more accurately reflect my current art and photography. In addition, I’ll be adding to my gallery here, and I’ll be devoting a special section to a new series I’ve started, and is currently running in my gallery on Renderosity. It’s called “The Girls From T.N.A.” The series is a bit of a spoof loosely based on the old “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” TV show, but with two hot chicks in the title roles. I’m getting a lot of good feedback on this series on Renderosity, and I’ve got a lot of ideas for the series.

I’m also going to work on keeping this blog up to date. I see since last time I was here, they’ve added a lot of neat new features to it. I’ll probably be re-arranging my “Latest News” section, with different menu options, and a new layout to take advantage of full-page views instead of the frame-based layout I’m currently using.

Lastly, I had hoped to have an on-line store on my website for some of my lamps, windchimes, and other fun things. Unfortunately, I’ve had to put most of those projects on the back burner temporarily. I do intend to open up a section on my website with these items, but it might take a while.

For now, I wanted to get this update posted to let everyone out there know I’m still alive and kickin’! I’ve got a week of vacation coming up in October, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch my breath a little bit!

Mobile Device Test

2010-02-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sending this from my new fancy mobile thingy they passed out to us at work. I probably won't do a lot of updating with this since you need a magnifying glass for the keyboard, but it is pretty neat.

I'll be adding more updates soon.

Rod

sent from mobile device

Avatar......

2010-01-24T03:29:00.002-05:00

This will be short - it's 2:30 AM and we just got home from the late show.

We saw Avatar.

Three words:

OH MY GOD

That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!

A New Year

2010-01-10T17:54:00.003-05:00

Nothing like an obvious title, huh?

I'll keep this a short post, as I have about a million things to do today, but I did want to put up a quick update.

The website updates are, of course, running well behind when I had planned to have them all done. Truth is, things have been busy (as usual) and (as usual) I've not had the time to work on it that I'd like to have. Plus, I am still doing a lot of research, and a lot of learning. There is just so much information out there concerning all the things I want to do, and things I am very interested in, it's hard to take it all in - there just isn't enough time in the day. But, I'm making progress! I've learned so much about Poser in the last few weeks - it's truly mind-blowing. And I've barely scratched the surface of the things it's capable of doing.

I am considering constructing a new computer - a 64-bit machine with Windows 7 so I can get away from that stupid 4-gig limit, and just load the thing up with memory. It would be used solely for graphics, 3D rendering and so on.

I am - once again - going to try to do a better job keeping this blog updated. I've kind of let it slide over the past year. I've used my Facebook more than this blog, but I think I'll use this more, and just use Facebook for quick updates.

It's friggin' COLD here! There is more snow on the ground than I've seen in many years, certainly since we've moved to this house. So much for global warming!

Well, that's all for now. Hope everyone had a great holiday season, and I hope we all have a great, happy, healthy, prosperous 2010!

Later!

A Week Before Christmas

2009-12-19T00:21:00.002-05:00

..... And I've done NO shopping :-(

Partly because last week I had to blow about $860 on repairs on the minivan. The heater was beginning to fail (on the coldest days of the year so far), and then it overheated on the way to work last week. I took it to Gladstone Dodge, and they found a bad thermostat and a split in the radiator. Ouch!

While it was in the shop, I rode around with Nate O'Brien and helped him on a few calls. About lunchtime, the shop called to say my van was ready, but Nate and I were both hungry, so we stopped at a little barbeque joint near the airport. Those little hole-in-the wall places are often some of the best places to eat, and this one was no exception. The BBQ was really great. Of course, I can't remember the name - I think it was SmokeStack or something like that. It was in a little strip mall right off I-29 and Tiffany Springs Trafficway. Next time I get back in that area arounf lunchtime, I'll probably stop there, and I'll try to remember the name - and maybe even take a photo. Good stuff!

Due to the above mentioned repairs, we are - as usual - a little short for the holidays. Looks like it's Walmart gift cards for everyone again, this year. Bummer.

It's now Friday night, and as soon as I get through typing this short update, I'm going to bed. It's been kind of a crazy week. I'm slowly beginning to make some subtle changes in the website, and that will continue for a while. I'm planning on a complete rennovation, but it will take a little time with everything going on in this 3-ring circus I call my life! Stay tuned....

'Night, All!

Late Again!

2009-12-08T20:55:00.002-05:00

Well, here it is December already, and my last post was in October after arriving home from our rainy vacation!

I've been going 17 different directions since then, but I must chide myself - that's no excuse!

I bought Poser 8 back in September (I think it was...), and had a battle all through October trying to get it to work on my main computer - a quad-core machine running XP with 4 gigs of memory and a couple 320-gig drives. I never was able to get it to work on this machine. I would allow me to create and pose a figure, but when it came to time to render, it would lock up every time. Sometimes it would work, then it would start locking up again. I spent a month with Smith Micro's tech support trying this, trying that - nothing made any difference. I finally ended up installing it on my HP laptop where it works fine with only an occaisional crash. I know SM is still working on service releases, so hopefully they will get all the bugs out of it. I love what it does, I just wish it would work on my main computer.

I've opened a new gallery on Renderosity, and have made several new friends there. I have also just opened galleries at RedBubble.com, Imagekind.com, and DeviantArt.com. I'm hoping to sell some of my work soon. I'm still working on this project. I also signed up at Etsy.com some time ago, and hope to be able to get some items listed there.

As you can tell, I've been pretty busy with all this - as well as all the usual stuff; day job, family matters, and so on. Situation normal :-)

I'll sign off for now, but (once again) I'm going to make a concerted effort to update things here more often.

Thanks for dropping by!

Back Home....

2009-10-16T18:44:00.002-04:00

And why am I less than thrilled about that?

Maybe because I feel cheated because the damn weather was sooooooo crappy through the entire week?

Maybe because I got spoiled by a week of no obligations, no taxi driving, no computer troubleshooting, no dodging the road idiots in and around Kansas City, no people expecting me to poop miracles in order to fix their outdated and obsolete office equipment?

I love vacations. I just hate it when they end :-(

I've still got a week of vacation time for this year, but it will likely be an 'in town' vacation - probably shortly after the first of the year.

We had a nice time, anyway, despite the crappy weather. We got out and took a few decent photos; many of them will make nice backgrounds for my Poser renders. One advantage to flatly-lighted photos (which is all we were able to get...), is that it only takes a minimal amount of fiddling in Photoshop to make them look like night scenes. I also picked up a neat lamp at one of the antique shops, and resupplied my coffee habit with some wonderful smelling beans from my favorite coffee shop in Eureka Springs.

This fall and winter, I'm planning on doing a major redesign of my website. I hope to have the time to create some neat products to offer on my website, to include lamps, windchimes, and many other decorative items. I'm hoping to have everything complete by the first of 2010. I may have a few items ready for the 2009 Christmas Season, but with everything that's been going on, it's kind of up in the air for now.

I'm going to be using this blog a lot more for my latest news items. I've kind of let it slide for the last several months, but I'm going to be using it a lot more. I'll be using Facebook a lot less. I'm not interested in playing 'Mafia Wars' or any of the other thousands of time-wasters that seem to run rampant all over Facebook. I'll probably keep my Facebook Page, but it will just be for quick updates, with links to this blog or my website.

More to come later!

Vacation 2009: Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain.........

2009-10-15T11:42:00.003-04:00

We're currently in Eureka Springs, Arkansas watching it rain as it has pretty much steadily since my vacation began last Friday.

This week has set a new benchmark for the worst vacation weather we've ever encountered. The sun actually looked like it might come out for a brief moment yesterday, but that lasted only about 3 minutes.

It has not been particularly good for photography, but I did manage to get a few decent (although flatly lighted) shots of the castle ruins at Haha Tonka, and a few night photos in Eureka Springs last night. The 2009 Vacation Album will be rather sparse this year.

We'll be heading home tomorrow. I can see by my webcam that it's pretty much the same back home in Independence - gray and cloudy.

I think I'm going to start taking vacations in September......

:-(

Coming Soon.....

2009-09-21T13:35:00.002-04:00

A brand new Rod's Lair!

Rod's Lair will have a whole new look, with more features, and more fun stuff. I'm targeting mid-to-late December for the grand re-opening.

I'll have more news shortly, so watch this blog for updates!

Wednesday Update

2009-09-16T12:02:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note....

I've been pretty well snowed under with work and family the last couple of months, so the updates to this blog have been rather sparse. Summer is always extremely busy for us.

In addition, I have a backlog of on-line courses for my job that I'm trying to put a dent in, as well as trying to learn a bit about Poser 8. I am making some progress in between the constant interruptions for one thing and another.

Jo and I are looking forward to our yearly get-away in October. I'm not really sure where we'll go this year, but I'm working on it!

This fall and winter, I'm planning a complete redesign of my website. If I can do what I want to, it will have a completely different look and feel. right now, I'm just looking at some different ideas. I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to look, but I'm still working on a few details.

For now, I'm going to sign off, and have some lunch!

Rod

Been a Long Time....

2009-09-05T13:21:00.002-04:00

Holy Schmikes....

It's been a while - I've neglected this blog for far too long!

Things have been really busy, and I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to learn how to use Poser effectively. While it's relatively easy to learn the basics, there are so many aspects to Poser, it's going to take a long, long time to learn how to use a fraction of its features.

I've made a few renders, but they pale in comparison to some of the things I've seen on some of the 3D sites like Renderosity, DAZ3D, etc. I'll get there, eventually, I hope, but it's going to take some time. I have to work learning Poser into an already overcrowded, and over stressed schedule.

I have yet to do a synopsis for July and August, but I'll try to get that taken care of this weekend. There's not really much to report, other than being extremely busy.

We haven't seen any more UFOs, but we've been keeping our eyes on the skies a little more than we used to. That was definitely weird.

The weather has been rather cool for this time of the year. We've had a lot of rain this year, which - combined with being busy - has kept me from doing much work on the never-ending patio project out back. Today is a beautiful, cool day, so maybe I'll do some work out there after I finish this update.

Well, I'm going to try - again - to update this a little more frequently. I've joined a couple of the forums on the 3D art sites, and have made some new friends, and have more folks dropping by the Lair to see what's up. I need to keep it fresh!

Later!

Poser 8 and Other Stuff

2009-08-09T19:23:00.003-04:00

As if I didn't have enough going on to turn my brain into jelly, I spent all Friday night downloading Poser 8 from SmithMicro. I am now going through some of the Poser tutorials to try and learn how to use this beast. HOLY CRAPOLA!!!!! I now have a whole new respect for the artists that create those digital characters for movies. I can now better imagine just how much work went into creating characters like Gollum, Aslan, Yoda (Yoda was actually a Muppet in the fist three SW movies - which were the last three episodes of the saga - I know, it's confusing...), or the characters from the Ice Age and Madagascar movies.

I still have lots of catching up to do with the website. Obviously there will not be much of a Monthly Update for July, although I'll try to do a synopsis in the next few days.

The Great Tiger Episode has finally come to a conclusion; they finally sent me a refund for the piece of junk Cisco camera. I'll try to have that whole story posted soon.

For some reason, things have just been completely nuts the last couple of months. For one reason or another, I've been running multiple territories - at times 3 in addition to my own - at work. We've had people off for vacations, training, and so on. Then when I get home, I'm off and running at least 3 nights of each week for one thing or another. It always seems like the busy factor always goes up about 900% in the summer. I haven't spent much time on my never-ending patio project, due to all the other things that keep me running. I suppose I could be out there working on it now, except it's approaching 100 degrees outside. Wonderful midwest summers... Hopefully I'll have some time to work on it when the weather cools down in a couple months.

We're planning another get-away in October this year, although I'm not sure where we'll go just yet. We'll probably end up in Eureka Springs at some point, but we also like to check out places we haven't been to several times over the years. I really wish we had the time to head up to the north-east for the fall colors. I'd love to go hang out in Vermont or New Hampshire for a while in the fall. But a week just isn't quite enough time - we'd no sooner get there, than we'd have to turn around and come back. Maybe someday...

Well, for now, I'm going to sign off and doink around with Poser a little more. Then it's off to bed, and back to the grind tomorrow.

Later!

July Update in August..

2009-08-03T13:11:00.003-04:00

I can sum up July in one word: BUSY. Somehow, that description seems entirely inadequate as a descriotion. It's kind of like saying the north pole is cold.

The latter part of June and all of July have been some of the most busy and stressful weeks in recent history. The last several weeks have featured a knock-down drag-out tooth and nail battle with Tiger Direct over a refund for a defective product, and some of the worst customer 'service' I've ever experienced. A storm dropped a branch on my power line, causing a surge that played hell with my network, Jo has had some painful dental problems, and of course the extended family keeps me pretty well tied up on the weekends. I can't remember the last time I had a whole weekend to myself. My never-ending patio project remains unfinished after – what – three years, and of course, this blog and my website are far behind.

I hope to have a little time during the week to do a full write-up on the Tiger Direct episode, which has thankfully come to a resolution, finally. I can claim a small victory.

Work has been crazy, too. Right now, I am running four territories – three in addition to my own. Thankfully, I haven't had to make the Topeka run for a while, but the rest of the running I've been doing makes up for it. Of course, I'm still thankful to have a job – lots of folks aren't so lucky these days.

Right now, I'm going to sign off, and eat my lunch. I'll write more later.

One Heck of a Month!

2009-07-27T14:55:00.002-04:00

I'm sending this update via e-mail - we'll see if it works. I'll be writing a more in-depth update soon, assuming my insane schedule allows. Right now, I'm sitting in the lobby of the dentist's office while Jolene is having a root canal done. She's been in a lot of pain the last week.

Things have been absolutely nuts the last month, both at work and during what I laughingly refer to as my 'free time.' In truth, I really don't have much 'free' time anymore. I've had to put the 'Lamps 'N Things' website on indefinite hold because of it. I hope things calm down soon.

More later....

Get Out The Cameras....

2009-07-09T21:48:00.003-04:00

After the wierd thing we saw a couple weeks ago, this is most interesting:

Examiner.Com UFO Article

I'm going to start carrying my Digital Rebel with the 300mm lens. Maybe I can get a shot of whatever the heck these things are.....

Spooky!!!

It's Been a Heck of a Week.....

2009-06-28T19:46:00.002-04:00

What a week.

Storms, power outages, a power surge destroyed my backyard camera, and motion-detector light out front, my first ever UFO sighting (well, I don't know what the heck it was, but it was an object, and it was flying....), and four celebrities leaving us all in one week. Sheesh.

Good-bye, Ed,
Good-Bye, Farrah,
Good-Bye, Michael,
Good-Bye, Billy.

They were all icons of our culture, regardless of our own personal likes or dislikes.

Later!

What the Heck?????

2009-06-28T03:12:00.002-04:00

OK. I'm sure I'm setting myself up for a whole pile of BS, but here goes, anyway.

On the evening of Saturday, June 27th, 2009.....

Did anyone in or around the Kansas City Metro area see anything odd in the sky over Kansas City between 11:00PM - 12:00 AM? Please, no stupid comments (they will be deleted), just let me know.

Maybe I had too much chocolate in that milkshake earlier tonight. Or not enough Kahlua.

Another (Late) Update..

2009-06-11T12:12:00.002-04:00

Well, I didn't do very well at updating this thing Monday evening. Suffice it to say that for once, I was not selected for a jury, and was released from duty Monday afternoon. that was a relief!

Of course, I went back to work Tuesday, and have been in Topeka every day this week. They are going to be implementing a new tracking system for machines soon, and we are putting new barcode stickers on all the machines we service. I have a buttload of them in Topeka, mostly at the VA medical center, so that's what I've been doing most of the week. I'm eating lunch at Perkins in Topeka as I type this.

Beyond that, it's late spring, summer is rapidly approaching, so naturally my schedule is exploding once again. It's going to be another busy summer. I'm already having scheduling conflicts. I hate that, because - since I haven't figured out how to be in two places at the same time - I have to give preference to someone. Of course, that means another someone is disappointed.

Well, I'm going to sign off and eat my lunch for now.

Later!

Another Weekend, Another Week...

2009-06-07T22:06:00.002-04:00

The weekend is almost over - again. However, I won't be going to work Monday morning. I was lucky enough to receive a jury summons back in March, during the same week I was scheduled for surgery to remove the stent from my kidney stone adventure. They posponed my jury service until June 8th, which is tomorrow.

While I more or less welcome a chance to do my civic duty, I wish it could have been for the courthouse here in Independence rather than downtown Kansas City. Downtown is such a pain in the butt. They pay you the magnificent sum of $7.00 per day for jury duty, but it costs around $10.00 a day to park in downtown Kansas City, Missouri - if you can find a park within 10 blocks of where you need to be. And that's after navigating all the one-way streets and multiple never-ending construction sites.

Then, you just sit for hours until you are either picked for a jury, or released only to return the next day for more. I don't know if you can take a laptop into the courtroom, or jury room, so I'll just leave everything home Monday, until I see what happens. The last time I had jury duty, I didn't have all these high-tech toys. I hope I don't end up on a jury, because for some reason I always end up being selected as the jury foreman.

I'll write a little blurb when I get home Monday, unless I end up on a jury that prohibits me from discussing the trial.

Later!

Another Busy Weekend

2009-05-31T23:26:00.002-04:00

Well, it was not what you'd call a relaxing weekend, but it was a good one - only far too short.

Saturday, Jo spent the day with her mom, helping her clean out the garage. I spent the day with my dad, and we drove over to Microcenter so he could get a new computer. They had a good deal on a Dell Inspiron 530. It's a lot faster than his old machine, which was about 4 years past retirement. It came with Vista Business, but it also had downgrade rights to XP Pro. We chose the XP Pro option since that's what he's used to, and wouldn't have to deal with a new operating system. I think XP is better, anyway - just my opinion.

We spent most of today doing yard work. Both of my old mowers are pretty well shot, so we bit the bullet and bought a new one from Sears last week. It had its 'maiden voyage' in the backyard earlier today. We both ended up doing more work than we had intended, but the yard looks good.

I finally located the restore CDs for the old E-machines computer I was using as a camera server. I reinstalled XP, and the video capture drivers along with TinCam, so the webcam is back to the camera in front again. So far, it's working smoothly, but we'll see how it goes over the next few days.

I've updated the Store page, now called 'Lamps & Stuff'.' I'll be renaming it Lamps and Things when it goes live. I'm going to be uploading some items this week, if I have time, starting with some insulators. I really need to pare down my collection a bit, so if you need to add to your collection, or start a new one, check it out.

Looks like another trip to Topeka for Monday. They're starting more training at work, and I'll have an all-day class on Thursday - as opposed to the rest of the time when I have no class at all...

Friday is our 38th anniversary, so we'll have our traditional steak dinner Friday night.

I'm going to make this a short update tonight, so for now.....

Later!

More Fees?? I Think Not. Good Bye Auctiva

2009-05-29T00:04:00.002-04:00

I got this in my e-mail today:

"Dear Rod,

You are an important member of the Auctiva family. We are proud to have been able to provide you with our eBay listing and marketing tools for free. Because we value your business, we wanted you to be the first to know that, starting in July, our services will no longer be completely free.

We did not come to this decision lightly. This adjustment was difficult for us to imagine after four years of being a completely free service. We are dedicated to providing you with the best service for your hard-earned dollars. The e-Commerce landscape is constantly evolving, and it has always been our promise to you to provide a full e-Commerce solution that will meet your needs today, tomorrow and in the future. As a result, we will have to begin charging for some of our services.

Despite this adjustment, we remain committed to providing you with great tools at a great value and we've worked hard to develop pricing plans that will be affordable for all sellers.

We want to make this transition as easy as possible for you. We will begin implementing the necessary changes on our site to accommodate our new pricing structure during the first week of June. As a valued customer, you'll have 30 days to evaluate and select a pricing plan, and we'll even help identify your best plan choice. "

OK - let's see....

In addition to eBay's insertion fees and final value fee, plus PayPal's transaction fee, Auctiva is going to start charging a fee as well. So why should I even bother to put anything up for auction at all? Why don't I just post photos of merchandise on my website, and say 'If you want this stuff, just let me know and I'll GIVE it to you for free. Hell, I'll even ship it to you for free.' Jeeze.

Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Thanks, Auctiva, but NO thanks. I'll just go back to using TurboLister and hosting my photos on my own website. At least I don't have to pay yet ANOTHER fee for that.

I'll be closing my Auctiva account shortly.

I'm posting this on my Auctiva Blog, and on my Latest News blog as well.

Good Bye, Auctiva

The Long Weekend Was Too Short!

2009-05-25T23:07:00.005-04:00

It seems like only a few days ago that I was looking forward to a long weekend. Come to think of it, it WAS only a few days ago. Now, here it is Monday evening, and it's back to the grind tomorrow. On the bright side, it's only a four-day week - which will, of course, drag on seventeen times longer than the three and a half days that just went by. Such is life....

Since we both busted our behinds the last two weekends in a row, we took this Memorial Day weekend pretty easy. Aside from paying our respects to those that have gone, we didn't do much driving around. We did stop at a garage sale where I picked up a few lamps to refurbish, and I did manage to drag out the grill and put it to good use a couple evenings.

I've posted a few photos on my May Update. You know the drill; if you are reading this blog on its own, and not on my website, just click the "Rod's Lair Latest News" link to your right.

For now, I'll sign off and get to bed at a reasonable time. I've got another road trip tomorrow!

Later!

Looking Forward to a Long Weekend

2009-05-21T23:00:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is Friday. Friday is always good, but this Friday is extra good for three reasons:

1. It's payday.
2. It's the beginning of a 3-day weekend.
3. I'm taking the afternoon off.

Of course, it will go by in a flash, but what'cha gonna do? I'm gonna enjoy the weekend, that's what.

I had an appointment with my urologist Wednesday to go over the test results from my kidney stone adventure a couple months ago. He told me it was a calcium-oxalate stone, which is the most common type. He told me to try and stick to low-oxalate foods and beverages, and gave me a document that listed foods and drinks as a guideline. I was pleased as punch to find most of my favorite vices were listed as low-oxalate. I could have kissed him when I saw Coca-Cola on the OK list, but he probably wouldn't have appreciated it very much. I am, as you may have guessed, a confirmed Cokeaholic.

I've registered on Etsy.com, and hope to open up a store there very soon, as well as on my website. I hope to reopen my store on my website over this weekend. I'm wanting to trim some of my stock of ceramic insulators, so I'll have some of them listed and ready for new homes at great prices over the next few days.

I've added a few more photos in the May Update section. My baby robins have all fled the nest, and it's empty, now. Actually, it's gone, now - I took it down and chucked it into my little stove that I burn branches and scrap wood in. I really don't want them to build another nest there next year. It was entertaining to watch the baby robins, but I was getting tired of being dive-bombed by mom and dad robin every time I tried to work out back.

That's it for tonight! I'll write more over the weekend.

Later!

Road Trip Today

2009-05-14T23:33:00.004-04:00

I took a nice little road trip today, to Osage City, Kansas. Seems like they've got me going all over Kansas these days, but to be completely honest, I don't really mind all that much. Sure, it puts a lot of miles on the minivan, but it's doing fine, and gets pretty respectable mileage - it averages about 24 MPG most of the time. And, of course, it makes for some decent mileage checks. Besides, today was a really nice day for a drive in the country.

Main Street, Osage City, KS

I took a wrong turn at one point, and ended up in a little town called Scranton. I noticed a couple interesting looking antique shops there, so we may have to take a Saturday day trip in the near future.

I've posted a few more photos in the May Update section (if you are not reading this on my website, just click the 'Rod's Lair Latest News' link in the sidebar to your right).

Later!

Photos Added

2009-05-12T23:19:00.003-04:00

I just added a few photos to the May Update.

Things have started to get busy, again, but hopefully I'll still have time to get some things accomplished. I'm still hoping to get the patio out back finished this summer, and I've got a whole host of other projects lined up. It's going to be a busy summer.

If you are not on my website, just click the 'Rod's Lair Latest News Section' link in the sidebar on your right.

Later!

A Busy Weekend (Again)

2009-05-10T22:48:00.002-04:00

Well, it was a busy weekend, but we got a lot of things done that have needed done for quite a while. Saturday, Jo put a first coat of primer on part of the patio I've been trying to build for the past couple of years. I got all the weeds/tree seedlings/leaves cleaned out of the rock garden alongside the garage. Now, maybe I can find some nice, shade-tolerant plants to put in there so it will actually look like a garden. I also raked about 3 tons of leaves away from the fence on the east side of the yard. Afterwards, we were pretty beat, so we just took it easy and watched Casino Royale with Danial Craig.

Sunday, we spent a good part of the day with Jo's mom for Mother's Day. I cut a bunch of branches out of her two Ceder trees, and Jo helped trim the shrubs out front. After all the work was done, we picked up a couple pizzas from Little Ceaser's. They were OK, but I still prefer Pizza Hut.

We now have four wee little baby robins in the nest on my power meter out back. Momma Robin had quite a day Saturday, alternately feeding the little ones with bugs out of the leaves I raked up, and squawking at us as we worked.

I'll have some photos in the May Update in the next day or so. Right now, it's late, and time for a bath and bed.

It's rough when you have to go back to work to rest up from the weekend....

Later!

New Lamp

2009-05-02T18:20:00.004-04:00

Here's a new lamp I just finished last night.

Blue Bottle Lamp

It's made from a blue bottle I found at a recycling center (and it's certainly been recycled), and a blue glass shade I found on a 'bargain table' at Lowes. I made a base from a couple scraps of wood which were cut into circles using a router attachment for my Dremel. I stained them and applied several coats of polyurethane to protect the finish and give a nice glossy finish.

I used a diamond-coated glass drill with the Dremel to cut a 3/8" hole in the bottom of the bottle for the lamp pipe. I fabricated a support for a socket inside the bottle, and added a candelabra-based LED night light bulb for the light inside the bottle.

I used the bottle cap as a base for the glass shade. I buffed the paint off of the cap, and soldered brass wire for the shade support. The cap was painted a metallic blue to match the bottle.

I hope to be creating more lamps like this in the near future. I may have some of them for sale on my website - you'd have to fight my wife for this one!

Later!

Thanks, I'll Just Get a Powerball Ticket Now and Again...

2009-05-02T17:26:00.002-04:00

I got this in my e-mail the other day:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am MR. JOSE PEREZ OTERO, an Attorney to late MR.XHEVAIR LLAKAJ.
I am writing to notify you of the TESTAMENT of my late client, MR.XHEVAIR LLAKAJ a citizen of ALBANIA who unfortunately lost his life in the Madrid Bomb Blast of March 11,2004.

The deceased (MR.XHEVAIR LLAKAJ) (a contractor) came to Spain on business survey/holiday with his wife and their only daughter when they met their tragic death. My client before his death made a deposit of Twenty Eight Million, Seven Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (US$28,700,000.00) with a finance institution in Spain .

However, I am searching for a trust worthy person or the relatives of the deceased regarding his deposit, as the holding financial institution wants him/her to come forward for the endorsement of the re-investment documents, hence I am seeking your assistance to present you as the next of kin to my late client, since my client died with his wife and their only daughter.

This transaction is very confidential as I can re-draft his LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT to bear your name as the TRUSTEE & EXECUTOR (NEXT OF KIN). This transaction shall be executed under legitimate and legal procedures that will protect you from any breach of the Law as I shall provide every documents pertaining to the deposit to ensure successful transfer of the funds to your account.

It is in this regard that I decided to solicit your assistance, by presenting you as the Executor and Trustee (Next of Kin) to my late client. Although, I have agreed on the following sharing ratios: 35% for your assistance and 65% for me but this is still open for negotiation.

Kindly revert back to me urgently on your interest to lay claim of the deposit. You are to send me your complete Names, Telephone and Fax numbers, Present contact address, and Occupation for more information on how to release the inheritance sum via this email address:

joseperecbs@gmail.com

Regards,
Jose Perez Otero
(Barrister).

OK – let me get this straight.....

You are a lawyer representing some poor (rich, actually) Albanian citizen who was blown up in a terrorist attack. He deposited 28 million bucks in some bank in Spain. You are looking for someone to pose as next of kin, and you will give them 35% of this 28 million just for illegally posing as someone else. And – out of 45866 gazillion e-mail addresses - you just happened to pick mine. Right. If you are a ‘barrister’ (lawyer), then I am Harry Potter.

Please tell me people aren’t still falling for this scammer nonsense. This scam is old as the dinosaurs, but unfortunately, not as extinct.

Later!

End of April

2009-04-30T23:43:00.003-04:00

Well, April is now history, or will be in a few hours. It's on to May.

I just completed an on-line study course for my job; one that's been hanging fire for a long time, now. It was the second - and hardest - of two courses on FAX theory, and I'm just bloody well thrilled that I managed to get through it with some semblence of sanity still intact.

The entire study manual - all 137 pages of it - was one of those delightful tomes resulting from the translation from Japanese into English (sort of) by someone with a serious drug habit. The resulting mish-mash is sometimes referred to as 'Japlish' - not to offend our friends from Japan. It frequently makes for humorous reading, as long as you're not reading it to try and pass a test.

Peruse the following paragraphs lifted from the manual:

'3.1 Simple Bi-level Rendering and Pseudo-Halftone Rendering

The most part of facsimile communication original is text document. When it is looked as image, it can be expressed by two colors, black and white.

On the other hand image with gradation such as photo, since tone cannot be expressed by a pixel, it is expressed by mixing the black and white pixels at random. Such method is called pseudo-halftone rendering and ordered dither was used for the facsimile originally. However, as the memory cost had been decreased, error diffusion method replaced them.

This pseudo-half tone rendering technology is popular among digital half-tone output devices such as digital copier and printer as well as facsimile. Therefore, it is very meaningful to understand the outline of the principle. Comparing with the pseudo-halftone rendering, text data rendering is referred as simple bi-level rendering in this document temporary.

When summarize difference between simple bi-level and pseudo-halftone renderings in a few words, it is whether threshold value to judge black and white is fixed or variable. In simple bi-level rendering, the same threshold value is applied to each pixel and black and white is determined by whether the value is larger or smaller than the threshold value. As shown in Fig.3.1.1, when simple bi-level rendering is applied to the halftone image, tone is completely ignored.'

Say whaaaaaaaaat???

Imagine for a moment spending several hours on a rainy Thursday night with 137 pages of this, followed by a 40-question test subdivided into 3 sections of 16, 16, and 8 questions, respectively. And they wondered why my left retina detached a couple years ago.

At any rate, I passed the test, and now I'm going to bed. And now you know why I am the way I am.

Later!

April 26 2009 Update

2009-04-26T21:21:00.004-04:00

It seems like April just arrived, and already we’re into the last week of the month. I’ve heard it said that the older you get, the faster time flies. I’m beginning to realize the truth of that statement. It seems like fall and our vacation in Arkansas was just a few weeks ago. Now, spring is here, the trees are sprouting leaves, the lilac bush is blooming, my aliums are about to bloom, the grass is needing mowed, and a robin has built a nest on my electric meter.

Robin's Nest on My Electric Meter

I must confess, I’ve paid far more attention lately to my Facebook page than I have this blog. That will be changing. While Facebook is fun, only other Facebook users can see it. This blog has a much wider reach if not audience. I will be paying much more attention to the blog and the website.

The new HVAC system we had installed last month is doing fine, and we just made the first payment on it last week. Only 83 more to go.

I’ve just updated the Monthly Update links and added an update for April. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this blog is integrated into my website. Click the link to your right that says ‘Rod’s Lair Latest News Section’ and all will become clear.

I’ve got a couple (at least) new lamps in progress; one of them is nearly complete. Last weekend I spent most of Saturday up in the attic (before it gets too hot!) doing some re-wiring. Our dining room is all of 10 feet across, and the former owner had a light switch on both sides of the room. Why in blazes you need two light switches in a room 10 feet across is beyond me, but at any rate, I got the wiring all worked out. Jo’s folks had given us a really nice light fixture some time ago, and I got it installed once the wiring was taken care of. It looks great, and provides a lot of light!

New Light in Dining Room

I’ve been doing a good deal of on-line coursework for my job lately, and expect that to continue for some time. Things have been pretty slow at work lately, and with the shaky economy these days one needs to keep one’s skills updated on a continuing basis.

I’m also researching a number of ideas for the website to try and create an additional income stream or two. I’ll be offering some new services, and hopefully, I’ll be able to get my on-line ‘store’ open soon. Stay tuned.

I’ve also got a list of things I’d like to accomplish as far as home improvements. First and foremost is getting the patio out back completed. I’ve only been working on it (off and on) for the last three years. With all the extra family issues I’ve been helping with, not to mention a few of my own health problems, I’ve had little time to devote to the numerous home improvements I’d like to make. Things have pretty well stabilized in both regards (at least for now), so I’ll hopefully be able to get at least some of these projects completed.

For now, I’ll sign off and say….

Namárië

My 'Relaxing Vacation' Draws to a Close...

2009-03-29T21:31:00.003-04:00

Honestly, I can’t remember a vacation that has been as exhausting as this one. I’ll be glad to get back to work so I can rest up a bit.

After the chaos of the last few days with getting the new HVAC system installed, and getting asbestos removed before that, I was hoping I could take Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to catch my breath and take it easy before going back to work. No such luck.

I spent pretty much all weekend working on a couple plumbing problems that cropped up after the chaos of the last few days. I guess my good freind and lifelong companion Mr. Fate decided that relaxing the last two days of my vacation would make me too lazy to go back to work. One day, I'm going to slap him up the side of his head with a wet fish......

You can read the whole story (with pictures) here.

Namárië

Another Relaxing Vacation.....

2009-03-25T22:30:00.006-04:00

I decided to take this week off for a couple of reasons:

1. My surgery to remove the stent in my right kidney was scheduled for Monday, the 23rd. I would then have all week to recover - not that the procedure was all that bad - it wasn't.

2. If I did not use my remaining 5 days by the end of April, I'd just be out those days. I don't get any extra pay for not using them. And so, my 'vacation' begins....

Monday, March 23rd:

The procedure on Monday went well, no complications, and no pain. That was the best part of this week.

Tuesday, March 24th:

After the last furnace repair, I made an appointment with the Rep from A.B. May to look into a new furnace. I've sunk well over 1200 bucks into the old one, and it probably isn't going to get much better. As it turns out the best deal involves complete replacement of the entire HVAC system to the tune of around 5700 bucks.

During the inspection process, they discovered a fair amount of asbestos around the old ductwork. Well, !#&;^@#$"#!#$%^&* !!! I guess we need to get rid of that. There's enough cancer in this family, already.

Wednesday, March 25th:

Dining Room

Kitchen

Spare Bedroom

The environmental contractor came out to remove the asbestos. $485.00. It turned into more of a job than any of us anticipated. Whoever owned this house before we bought it apparently assumed no one would ever in a million years want to be parted from that asbestos, so they permanently attached the ductwork to the walls with generous layers of plaster. Now, I have 3 big holes in the wall (see above) to patch up after AB May installs the new HVAC system. Which happens...

Thursday, March 26th:

AB May is scheduled to arrive between 8:00 and 8:30 AM. This will likely be an all-day episode, and God knows what kind of complications will arise.

In addition to all this chaos, the check engine light in the minivan came on a few days ago, so......

Friday, March 27th:

I have a 10:00 AM appointment at Jack Miller Jeep-Chrysler to see how much more money I don't have I'll have to spend.

If any of you AIG guys want to give away some of that bonus money, you know where to find me...

Saturday and Sunday are still unspoken for, so maybe I'll have a day or two to catch my breath before going back to work.

Another peaceful, relaxing, renewing vacation.

It's Been a Fun Weekend

2009-03-15T22:32:00.002-04:00

Yeah, lots of fun.....

First, Jo's computer threw a hissy-fit Saturday. It's my fault, really, for being a cheapskate and using a used Maxtor hard drive when I built it. I should have known better, especially with a Maxtor. I'm not a big fan of Maxtor drives. During my tenure with Gateway, I saw more Maxtors fail then any other brand. Fortunately, I was able to recover all her data from the drive. I'll buy a new WD drive, and just reinstall XP and all her programs.

Then, Saturday night, the furnace - the same one I just spent $540.00 on last month - stopped working again. It was an ignitor this time. Say goodbye to another $272.00. Damn. Where's my 'bail-out' Mr O?

In other news, I'm working on an update to my website. I hope to have it updated soon. I'm taking a week of vacation the week of the 23rd, so I hope to have some time to work on it, and hopefully complete it.

I'll be having a surgical procedure on the 23rd to remove the stent they put in during my kidney stone adventure back in January. It's an outpatient procedure, so I'll go home afterwards. And I'll have all week to recuperate - not that I'll need it, but it will be nice to have a week off to - hopefully - relax.

I've started a couple new on-line pages, as if I needed more things to keep updated. I have a new page on Facebook, and also on the AARP Community site. I have links to both of them on my News Page on the website.

That's it for tonight. I'll be concentrating on keeping this blog updated - along with everything else.

Namárië

On The Mend and More....

2009-02-25T21:49:00.007-05:00

Well, it's been a little while since I've updated. Thankfully, it looks like the Great Kidney Stone Episode of 2009 is almost over!

On 02-10-09, I had a lithotripsy treatment at St. Joseph Hospital. Lithotripsy is an interesting procedure. They lay you on a table that has a cutout right where your hip / butt goes. The lithotripter has an arm that contacts your hip with a water filled plastic bag which helps to transfer the sound waves into your body. The machine has an x-ray device that allows the doctor to pretty much put a cross hair on the kidney stone. When they get everything lined up, they fire up the machine which bombards the stone with high intensity sound waves. They do sedate you during the procedure as you can definitely feel the sound waves. It feels like someone thwacking you with a rubber band about once a second - for about an hour. That translates to around 3600 or so 'thwacks,' plus they increase the power gradually. After the lithotripsy, I had a pretty good red mark on my upper hip. But it looks like it did the trick.

I had a couple x-rays taken on the 23rd to take to Dr. Bock at my appointment today. After I got home, I just HAD to put them on the scanner to see how well they would scan. The scanner did an excellent job!

Is that a great-looking pelvis, or what? The long wire-looking thing is the stent (plastic tube) they put in when I was in the hospital. It's a temporary measure to relieve the pressure on the kidney caused by the stone blocking the ureter from the kidney to the bladder. In the full-size x-ray it looks like the trans-Alaska pipeline. Thankfully, I was blissfully asleep when they put that hose in me. Without getting too gruesome, that stent goes in through - shall we say - an existing opening. And it comes out the same way - which makes my skin crawl.

Anyway, Dr. Bock looked the x-rays over today, and had some really good news. The stone has indeed been pretty well pulverized! And he had some even better news as well: when that stent comes out, they will - mercifully - send me off to Happy Land. I had heard that they don't knock you out for the removal procedure, and that had me a bit antsy, to say the least. I was having visions of laying on a table watching someone approaching a very sensitive part of my body with a speedometer cable out of a '57 Buick. Cringe, cringe, cringe.

In other news......

I just upgraded my website package to the Deluxe Hosting which gives me 150 gigs of space, 1500 gigs of bandwidth, and enables things like Java, CGI, and so on. Now that things seem to be stabilizing somewhat, I'm hoping to add some new features to the website very soon.

As if I needed another on-line presence to keep updated, I just opened a Facebook space, mainly because my dad just signed on with Facebook. You have to be a Facebook member to check it out, but there are a lot of folks on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, feel free to drop by. Just do a search in Facebook for Rod Shelley.

I splurged last week, and downloaded a new graphics application called ArtRage 2.5. It's pretty cool! It gives you a lot of neat tools that closely approximate actual painting tools like oils, markers, palette knives, and so on. It also lets you work on layers like in Photoshop, and it will open and save PSD files with layers intact. I think it will be a great addition to my present tools, Photoshop, Gimp, and PaintShop Pro.

Well, this has been a long post, and I'm getting sleepy - and I have to go in to work early tomorrow for a meeting. The good part is they are providing breakfast! You know I'll never pass up an opportunity involving free food!

Later!

Tired and Re-Tired

2009-02-01T18:31:00.001-05:00

It just goes on and on……

Yesterday (Saturday), we took the van over to Jack Miller for its appointment with the car doctor. I had several things I wanted them to look at. The brakes have been making a squealing noise for a couple weeks (before my kidney stone episode started), the turn signals don’t work at all anymore, and the power steering has been making a howling noise. And there’s also the flat tire. I made up a list of these things and gave it to the Service Advisor when we got to Jack Miller at 8:30 AM.

There are few things I hate more than taking a car in for service (I’ve recently added having a kidney stone to that short list…). It’s always a long, boring period of sitting in the waiting lounge for hours, thumbing through magazines that don’t interest me at all, or watching whatever drivel happens to be on the TV. This morning we were entertained by a childrens’ animal show, a 45-minute long infomercial for WordSmart, and most nauseating of all, a rehash of American Idol. We were subjected to this cruel and unusual punishment from 8:30 to about 12:45.

At any rate, they fixed the power steering problem, cleaned and adjusted the brakes, and fixed (or so I thought) the tire. They didn’t have the part for the turn signal, and couldn’t find one anywhere in town, so they had to order it. Naturally, it’s on backorder. This little episode ended up costing me $1008.00 in addition to the four hours of torture mentioned above. And it will cost an additional $160 or so whenever the turn signal part comes in. I’m starting to feel sick again….

Then this morning, I stepped into the garage to check the tires. That #$@$% tire was flat again! I decided I was tired of screwing around with it, and got on NTBs website to check prices. I called, and the guy at NTB said they had some Uniroyal Tiger Paws – a $90.00 tire – on sale for $60.00. He said he could get me in, so once again it was waiting lounge time. At least this time I didn’t have to suffer through anything on TV worse than the Super Bowl pre-pre-pre game stuff, and the wait wasn’t more than about an hour. By the time I paid for the tires, installation, and road hazard warranty, it came to about $392. This has been a painful and expensive week.

Now, I’m going to try and have a somewhat restful evening before heading back to work tomorrow. I don’t know how the day will go, all I can do is hope for the best, and take it a step at a time.

Later…

Kidney Stone Episode Update…

2009-01-30T22:51:00.003-05:00

This past week has been hell.

As noted in my last update, it was discovered that I had a kidney stone in my right kidney. After visiting the ER at Centerpoint, Thursday night, I called my doctor’s office the next day (I didn’t make it to work Friday, either), and set up an appointment with his nurse practitioner, Mary Ryan for Tuesday, the 27th. I called my boss and told him what was going on. He said he’d heard horror stories about having kidney stones, and to just keep him informed.

Through the weekend, and most of Monday, I pretty much lived on the pain pills that had been prescribed, taking two at a time. By Monday night, my last two pills were taken, and my appointment was for 1:30 Tuesday.

Jo and I spent part of Monday evening trying to air up the right front tire, which had developed a slow leak. We had to fight with my compressor, which naturally decided to pick now to start malfunctioning. We finally managed to get the tire inflated, hoping it would hold until we got to the hospital.

The tire held up, and we drove to St. Joseph Medical Center for my appointment with Mary. I was out of pain pills, and had made the drive to the hospital in a great deal of pain. We got to the doctor’s office a bit early, and I signed in. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait very long until they called me back.

The nurse that called me back asked if I was having kidney stone trouble; she could tell from the way I was walking and holding my back. She took me into a room, took the usual vitals, and went to get Mary Ryan. Soon, Mary came into the room, listened to my breathing, and I told her my sad, painful story. She said she was going to speak with my doctor, Dr. Boullier, and would be right back. She said I may have to be admitted to the hospital.

A couple minutes later, she came back in, and Dr. Boullier came in a few seconds later. He took one look at me, and said “We need to get him down to ER, and get him admitted.” He had the medical report from Centerpoint, and told me that after trying to pass a 5mm stone for 5 days without success, it wasn’t going to pass on its own. They brought up a wheelchair, and hurried me down to Emergency. While waiting, I called my boss, and told him what was going on, and that I was being put in the hospital, and would need to have a surgical procedure. He said to just take it easy, and not worry about anything. He would cancel my trip to Dallas for next week, and we’d just do it later.

Soon, I was taken back to a room in Emergency, and hooked up to all the IVs and other stuff. They ran me through another CAT scan, and still didn’t find any cats. What they did find, was that the stone was actually 6.5mm instead of 5mm. A silly 1.5mm isn’t much, but when the stone is trying to go through a tube with a 4mm hole, it’s not gonna work weather it’s 5mm or 6.5mm. They gave me some pain medicine, and took pretty good care of me, but we had to wait from about 1:50 in the afternoon to almost 9:00 in the evening until they had a room opening.
After getting more or less settled in my room (which was, of course, a two person room), Dr. Boullier came in to tell me the findings of the latest CAT scan. He said I’d have the surgical procedure the next day, and he had contacted the urologist, and he’d be talking to me in the morning. My first-ever night in a hospital was underway. They even let Jo spend the night with me, sleeping in a chair next to my bed.

The next morning (Wednesday), Dr. Boullier came in, and talked to me a bit more. He was going to find out how soon they could get me into surgery, and that the urologist, Dr. Bock, would be in to see me. Soon, he returned and said the surgery would be at noon. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Bock came in and introduced himself. He described the procedure that would be done: They would insert a stint, or length of tubing into the kidney then into the bladder bypassing the stone, and relieving the pressure on the kidney. This insertion would be through the penis, and there would be no incision made. This first step is intended to prevent damage to the kidney caused by pressure from the blockage caused by the stone. After a little time for the kidney to fully recover, they would do a procedure to break up the stone with sound waves. This could be done on an out-patient basis.

Waiting in Surgery Prep

Around 10:30, they came to take me down to surgery prep to get me ready for my procedure. Several folks came in to talk with me during the hour and a half, and just before surgery, Dr. Bock came in to talk with Jo and me. A nurse came in, and shot some medication into my IV line to get me relaxed. I was wheeled into the operating room, and I was able (with just a little help) to move myself onto the operating table bed. Someone put an oxygen mask on me, and said to take several slow, deep breaths. I remember taking about three.

The next thing I knew, I was groggily coming out of a fog, with bright square lights all arranged in a matrix above me. My first thought was “Great – I’ve been abducted by aliens…”, but I was just in the recovery room. A nurse leaned over and asked if I was feeling OK. I said I felt fine, and that I must have had a good time with them. She chuckled, and said, “I think Mr. Shelley is ready…” They wheeled me out, and soon I saw Jolene waiting on me.

Back in my room, I enjoyed a pretty decent supper of turkey and mashed potatoes, and a glass of grape juice. Spending a night in a hospital is definitely NOT a restful experience. This particular night between the constant din and clatter in the hallway, and my roommate puking all night, I think I managed to get maybe a good hours’ sleep. I had just fallen into a good sleep about 6:00 AM (Thursday), when Dr. Bock came in. He hated to wake me up, but he wanted to see how I was feeling, and give me some good news: I would be released from the hospital this morning. I ordered breakfast, and soon afterward, Dr. Boullier came in, and said he was signing my release papers, and they would be sending me home soon. He said I was OK to drive home, so Jo went out to check on the tire, which of course, was flat. She went down to Security to see if they could help, and they met her at the car to air up the tire. It wasn’t long before we were on the way home.

I’m taking it pretty easy at home now (Friday), and slowly getting back some of my energy. It’s been a long road, and I still have some way to go. I have more appointments and procedures ahead, but hopefully, I’ll be back to normal within a few months. It’s been pretty intense since Christmas with the food poisoning episode, and now this, but hopefully the medical issues are over – or at least stabilized – for now. I know I’m ready to get back to the good times again.

Obviously, I’ve not done a lot with the website, and updates are likely to be a bit slow for now.

I have tow insurance included with my car insurance, so I called them today to see if they would send someone out to change the flat tire, and put on the spare. I was amazed when it took about 5 minutes for someone to show up, and switch the tire! I have the van set up for 8:30 Saturday morning at Jack Miller to get a few other issues taken care of, and I’ll get the tire fixed then. Dr. Boulier has faxed a work release to my job, so I’m clear to go back on Monday. Maybe things are starting to fall into place for a change. That would be a most welcome change!

Later!

What A Pain.....

2009-01-23T20:39:00.001-05:00

It's time for another update! It's overdue for another update, actually.

We're now in a new year, and it's time for some new beginnings. We have a new Prez, there are some neat, new things at the Lair, and it's time for me to get busy with some of the things I've been putting off for months. Assuming, of course, I can stay healthy enough….

Things have been a tad insane since Christmas. Jo and I ended up with a nasty episode of food poisoning over the Christmas Holiday, so we didn't really enjoy most of it. We're pretty well over that, thankfully!

Then, last night about 11 o’clock, I started having a pain in my lower right flank, right about kidney level. I thought maybe I was having indigestion, or some remnant of the food poisoning episode. Antacid had no effect, and the pain just kept getting worse, and moving around to the front as well. I finally decided it was time to have it checked out, so we drove over to Centerpoint Hospital, and I checked into the emergency room. They checked me out pretty thoroughly, took a bunch of blood samples, a urine sample, and so on. I was still in a lot of pain, and was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to give me something to ease it. Presently, a young lady came in, and wheeled me off for a CATscan. Apparently they didn’t find any cats.

Shortly afterwards, the doctor came in and told me I had a kidney stone that was passing from the kidney. She said it was about 5mm, but from the pain it was causing, I’d have thought the damn thing was the size of a bowling ball, boulder, or small planetary body. OWWWW!

Once they knew what it was, the male nurse came in with a treasure trove of syringes filled with various flavors of happy juice. By the time he was done, I was feeling no pain. They wrote out a couple prescriptions – one for pain, thankfully – and sent me home. We finally got home about 4:00 AM. Obviously, I didn’t make it to work, today.

Now, I’ve got to go see a urologist, and they want me to try and capture the dang rock if/when it finally passes. So now, I have to pee in a bottle and run it through a strainer to capture the rock for analysis. Then they will probably tell me to change my diet by eliminating all the stuff I love.

Damn. I just turned 60, and my body is already falling apart….

Looks like I'll be taking a little trip to Dallas, Texas the first week of February. I'll be taking a week-long class on some new equipment. While I usually enjoy these trips, I'm not looking forward to this one as much as I have in the past.

I still enjoy the training, but the part I'm not going to like is that – unlike all my past training trips – I'll have to share a hotel room with a roommate for a week. To save a little money, my company requires you to share a room. My roommate will be someone else in the company, but I have no idea who. And that's something that resides near the top of my “I Hate This” list. I'm a very private person, and sharing a room for a week with a complete stranger rates right up there with running naked through a cactus patch, or rolling around in pig poo. I hated it when I was in the military, and I still hate it. I always end up getting stuck with some bunghole that likes to go out drinking until 3 AM, then comes back to the room and pees on the floor. And guess who has to end up cleaning up the mess.

Ah, well, enough ranting. Suffice it to say if my roomie ands up being the roomie from hell, I'll just pay for my own room out of my own pocket, then file a complaint with my manager. Hopefully, I'll end up rooming with someone somewhat compatible. I could just get a private room, and pay for half of it, but I'd rather save the money for a nice vacation in the fall. I'll just have to bite my lip, and see how it goes.

Well , for now, I’ll sign off, and hopefully, I’ll feel a little better by my next update.

Later!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T20:08:00.004-05:00

A brand new year is upon us! I've just updated the Monthly Updates with a new January 2009 link. I'll let this blog entry be rather short for now, but I hope to post a lot more frequently this year.

If you are not on my website, click the link to the right that says "This blog is integrated into my website..."

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and I wish you a happy New Year!

New Stuff....

2008-12-15T22:39:00.005-05:00

Well, another week has begun - and on a cold, cold note! It's been absolutely brutal out there today! I think today's high temperature was about 12 degrees F! Brrrrr!!

Did you guess what those wood things are in my last post? The second photo makes it pretty obvious. Yes, they will be blades for a small wind turbine I'll be experimenting with. I know there are commercial blades out there, and I know it's a bit of a job to make your own out of wood, but I want to try just to see if I can do it. Besides, I want to start out small, and I don't think anyone makes blades that small. I do have a lot of shaping/sanding to do, and a good deal of research to do, but I think it will be fun. I'll be posting updates as I progress (or not) with this project.

I also just signed up on Auctiva as I'm planning to open some Ebay auctions soon. I've changed the links for the "My Ebay Auctions" on my main pages. The link will take you to my Auctiva Store where you will see any auctions I have active as well as - just what I needed - another Blog!

I'll be bringing you more news soon!

Later!

Another Experimental Project

2008-12-09T23:27:00.004-05:00

I started a new experimental project tonight. In the photo below, you'll see four pieces of wood - all cut and shaped alike, all 2 feet long. Got any idea what they are going to be?

I'll give you a hint with the photo below:

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'll be talking (or typing) more about it later in the week. Why are there four in the previous photo? I only need three, but I cut 4 so I'll have a spare in case of breakage (or in the highly likely event that I bung one of them up...).

This will be something I'll be experimenting with over the next few winter months. I have quite a bit more research to do, and some other bits and pieces to scrounge up. I think it will be fun, and I might just learn something - amazing as that thought may be.

More coming soon...

Later!

Another Weekend Ends...

2008-12-07T23:34:00.002-05:00

This was one of those rare weekends where I was actually able to relax, and recharge my batteries a little bit. It was truly refreshing. I'll hit the sack shortly, and that will be followed all too soon by the alarm going off in the morning. That's OK, though. In the current chaotic economic environment, I'm among the lucky to actually have a good job. I hope it lasts. Hopefully Mr. Obama and his administration can find a way to turn things around. We shall see.

In the meantime, I think things at work will be fairly slow until after the holidays are over. Next Friday, my employer will be catering lunch for us at 1:30, and afterwards we'll all be free to go home. So I'll get a couple hours' head start on the weekend. Then the following Friday, I hope to take the afternoon off - I still have 4 hours of "floating" holiday time. I just faxed a request this evening, so hopefully I'll get to start that weekend early, too.

Well, I'm kind of excited this evening. I haven't had a good stereo receiver since my old one shot craps last year. The old component stereo receivers with inputs for phono, tape, and auxiliary seem to have gone the way of the dinosaurs. It's all "home theater" now. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you just want a good receiver/amplifier for your turntable and tape deck, you are pretty much limited to very pricey units in the $700 and up range. But I digress....

Earlier today I was checking Ebay for receivers, and found a really nice JVC R-S5. I bid, I won, and for well under 100 bucks, it will soon be taking its place in the bare spot on my stereo shelf. It will be good to have a stereo again!

Of course, I've certainly not been without music all this time. Several months ago I ordered a nice little preamp/mixer/fader from DAK, which has been wonderful for digitizing music from all kinds of sources. I have my Pioneer turntable connected to it so I can convert all my LPs to WAV and/or MP3 files. I can also connect my cassette deck to it, as well as the output from my other computer. This works great for digitizing music from Internet sources such as my Yahoo station.

I just downloaded a PDF book last night that will hopefully get me caught up with 'modern times' as far as my website is concerned. It's all about using CSS and some of the other updated features that I just haven't had the time to learn over the past few years. Hopefully I can set aside a little time to stuff some of that into my poor, tired brain - along with all the online courses I'm working on for my job. Busy, busy, busy.

Well, enough for tonight. It's past my bedtime (again).

Later!

It's December, and I'm Back....

2008-12-04T21:57:00.003-05:00

Well, folks, the prodigal poster is, after a lengthy absence, back!

November has come and gone, it's now December, and another year is on its way out. At last, I think things are calming down enough that I can get back into some creative projects. I'm planning on a number of updates to the website, and a new section to be added after the first of the year.

We picked up a couple of neat old lamps on our recent trip to Arkansas. One was a real bargain, since it needed some work. I've rebuilt and rewired it, and - aside from a pair of glass shades - it's good as new. I'll be seeking shades for it this winter, so you may well encounter me in any of the antique shops in the area. Don't be surprised!

I have (as usual) a number of projects I'll be working on this winter. I'm going to be doing some experimenting with a small wind turbine, with the intent of building a larger one next summer. I have several other interesting things I'll be playing with, but that's all I'm going to say for now.

I've recently set up a webcam as one of my experimental projects. I'm using my dad's old Emachine computer as the webcam server. He's moved into an apartment, and doesn't have a lot of room, so I've been keeping both of his computers until he's ready to get back into his genealogy research. He'll probably just use one of the computers, and he likes the one I built for him better than the Emachine, so it will probably continue to serve as my webcam/security machine for now. I'll have it set up as a "Shop Cam" on weekends soon, so you can watch me working on weird stuff or rebuilding lamps in my shop. I'm also planning to add video updates from time to time as well, so be sure to drop by often.

I'm hoping I'll be able to pay more attention to this blog and website now that things are calming down a little. It's been far too static for far too long!

Later!

Happy Halloween.....

2008-10-31T08:27:00.002-05:00

Well, it's the end of October already. Our vacation is over, and I'm another year older. Oh, well...

I only posted one update while on vacation, but I uploaded a video update each evening, and a bunch of photos, which are available in my Picasa album, 'Vacation 2008.' The link is on my website, and if you are not reading this on my website, you can click the link to your right that says 'this blog is integrated into my website...'

Today is All Hallows Eve, and I'll be using my webcam to keep an eye on all the little Halloweenies this evening. I normally have it set to update at 5 minute intervals, but I'll probably change that to 1 minute intervals for tonight. you can watch, too: Rod's Lair Webcam.

Hope you have a happy, haunted Halloween. Be careful with those tricks.....

Later!

New Photos in Vacation 2008 Album

2008-10-20T13:45:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update from Bull Shoals Dam. I just uploaded a few photos to the vacation 2008 album from a hot-spot here at the visitor's center. Amazing, this technology!

I'll add captions to them tonight. Now' it's onward to more adventures!

Later!

Getting Ready.....

2008-10-18T22:36:00.002-04:00

..For our journey tomorrow, that is. I think we've got everything packed that we need - we're just taking a few days' trip, so no need to overload. The less stuff we have to load and unload at each destination, the better!

I've added a new feature - video updates! Since this laptop has a built-in camera, I thought I'd try putting video updates on the website. I just uploaded the first one this evening. If you're on my website reading this, just click the Video Update link on the left. If you're not on my website, just click the link to the right - the one that says "This blog is integrated into my website..." All will become clear!

Now, I'm going to sign off, and get this laptop packed up and ready to go.

Later!

Mid-October Update

2008-10-15T23:31:00.002-04:00

Well, we're halfway through October, already - where does the time go? Tempus fugits, indeed.

We'll be heading out on our fall vacation this weekend, and I'll be posting photos and updates as often as possible. We're both looking forward to getting away from all the craziness for a few days.

My dad has moved out of his house, and into a 'retirement' apartment community here in Independence. It's nice, but not very roomy - two rooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. He probably won't use the kitchen much - he's not much into cooking, and they provide two meals a day as part of the rental fee. He's doing fine so far, but it's quite a change for him.

I've done a little more work in the shop this last couple weeks. I'm hoping to have a little more time to work on some ideas I've had for quite some time. We'll just have to see how it goes. I've moved the backyard security camera to the front of the house, and added a neat IP camera to the back. I can access both cameras from wherever I can connect to the internet so I can keep tabs on things. It's pretty neat!

I'm going to keep this short tonight - it's been a long week (and it's only Wednesday), and I am rather exhausted tonight. So for now, good night!
Later!

I Think I'll Cancel My Policy......

2008-10-07T23:46:00.003-04:00

OK.....

I don't usually put a lot of political / current event commentary on here. Partly, it's because most of it is a bunch of absolute stupidity, and I could rant endlessly about many aspects of the current state of moronic activities. But every now and then, such depths of excess are reached that I just can't help myself. This is one of those times.

At present, I have an auto insurance policy with AIG. That may change soon. Not because I've had any problem with AIG's service. It's more to do with a statement of protest at the slap in the face that AIG has inflicted on the American People. Click this link:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu5Il4dPnbfSer6RIAB7ZdLp5I6g

A few days after our so-called "leaders" have so generously provided an 85 BILLION dollar bailout (at the expense of the American Taxpayer) to the idiots who for some unknown reason control a major portion of our economy, these sleazebags thank us all by taking a 400,000 dollar week-long vacation. WTF??????

The rooms I've booked for our upcoming 5-day vacation will cost a little over 400 bucks. And they are not dumps, but I'm afraid they don't come with manicures, and steak & lobster, either. I wonder if Uncle Sam will bail me out if I spend way over my budget, defraud my employer, max out my credit cards, and steal from my customers. I think not. I think I'd end up with an all expense paid lodging in Leavenworth. That doesn't come with manicures, either.

These worthless pieces of crap need to be slowly boiled in hot oil. For about three weeks.

AIG executives, I hope you all enjoyed your manicures and 1200 dollar hotel rooms. I also hope you burn in hell. As soon as possible.

I think I may change my policy to Geico. At least they amuse me with thier lizard and cavemen ads. AIG makes me want to throw up. Then find an AIG executive, and provide a few lessons in economics. With a baseball bat.

Pathetic.

October Approaching…

2008-09-28T21:26:00.002-04:00

It’s been a while since I’ve updated anything here. I know the “experts” caution not to draw attention to lack of updates, but perhaps the “experts” have a more serene lifestyle than I seem to the last couple of years. I won’t bore you with the details, but just suffice it to say between my job and being run ragged attending to the needs of elderly relatives, I have little time or energy for much else. It has been that way for the last two and a half years, and I don’t see it getting much better anytime soon.

I did get some good news last month when I went to see my eye surgeon, Dr. Dyer. Last time I saw him, he was a little concerned about a ‘wrinkle’ that had formed on my retina, where it had been repaired last year after the complete separation. He used a gadget to measure the swelling, and said if it continued to swell, I might have to have another vitrectomy.

At the last appointment, another measurement was taken, and it seems to be gradually improving. Dr. Dyer said that for now, at least, another surgery was not needed. I have another appointment with him in January to see how it’s progressing.

I finally got my eyeglass prescriptions filled – the ones I’ve had since May! I opted to do away from the bifocals, and got two pair of glasses – one for normal use such as driving, and a pair for reading, working on the computer, drawing, and other close-up work. I have Eyemed, so I got a pretty decent deal on two pair! Sears has a special where you get the second pair for 30% off when you buy the first pair. Eyemed picks up 80% of the first pair, so like I said – a pretty good deal!

I August, I shot a small wedding for 400 bucks, which I added to what I’d been saving up for a new laptop. I finally picked one up at Sam’s Club a few weeks ago. It’s an HP Pavilion with a 17-inch display, WiFi, a DVD/CD Rom burner, 500 gigs of HD space, 4 gigs of memory, and Vista Home Premium. It even has a built-in camera so I can make nonsensical video entries. I’ll post one when I don’t look/feel like I’ve been run over by a train.

I do have a nice laptop from my job, but of course, it still belongs to them, and they don’t want me installing a lot of non-work-related software on it – like Photoshop. It has a Sprint PCS card, but not WiFi. With my new laptop, I can install what I want, and connect from any of a myriad of hotspots. When we go on vacation, it will be great as most well-known hotel/motel chains now offer WiFi as part of the room package.

I’ve also purchased a new Wacom Intuos3 table for the main computer, and have installed the old Intuos2 on the new laptop.

The weekends lately have been a bit chaotic – nothing new there. My dad is going to be moving to The Fountains, a retirement community here in Independence. He is auctioning off the house and most of the contents therein. He’s just not able to handle the house any longer. It’s kind of sad, but he’s just been lost since his wife Margaret passed away in March. He has several friends from church that live there, and I understand they also have a genealogy group there. I’m hoping he can get interested in his research again. They also provide two healthy, well-balanced meals a day, so hopefully he’ll start eating a little better. And he can come and go as he pleases. He can still drive, so he’s free to go about his business whenever he wants. They’ve just opened a fantastic new genealogy research library not far from the Fountains; and it’s not far from the Lair, either. I’m hoping this winter he and I can get together there and do a little research.

This weekend was pretty typical. Saturday we drove in to Jo’s mom’s place and spent most of the day helping her clean out her shed. We pulled out all the lawn equipment – a riding lawn mower, a walk-behind mower, gas cans, bags of lawn chemicals, hoses, garden tools, boxes of stuff, lawn waste receptacles, and so on. She swept out every nook and cranny of the shed, then I sprayed bug spray into every corner, which upset quite a few spiders and crickets. Then we started hauling all the previously mentioned items back in. Now, I love my mother-in-law; she’s a great lady, and an awesome cook. But she’s also one of the most fastidious people I’ve ever met. She had to sweep out the shed once more after every item was hauled back in. You could eat off the floor!

Then Sunday, I was supposed to go over to my dad’s place, and help get his computers ready for the move Wednesday. But we got another one of those medical crisis phone calls Saturday night. Jo’s brother Bill had been having some problems with numbness in his arm. Then when it started affecting his lips, he thought maybe a stroke was coming on, so they went to a clinic. The doctor there told him he had a tumor on his brain, and he needed to go to the hospital. Well, that would scare the crap out of anyone, so he and his wife headed to the Olathe hospital. And of course when we got that phone call Saturday night, it was rather upsetting.

I called my dad and told him what was happening. I figured on spending a great deal of Sunday stuck in a waiting room at the hospital. Of course, he understood completely.

Happily, by the time Sunday rolled around, there was better news. Bill’s doctor looked at all the MRIs, CAT scans, and other tests and said the ‘tumor’ did not look malignant, but he wanted the neurologist to look things over. The neurologist looked over the tests, and agreed. It appeared to be a calcification, and not a tumor. It had probably been there most of his life, and just now was having some effects. They will be doing more tests, just to make sure, but for now, he’s out of the hospital, and feeling just fine.

At any rate, this is pretty much what our life has been like lately. Hopefully this will provide somewhat of an explanation as to why my web presence has been a bit stagnant of late. I’m hoping things will calm down a bit soon. Of course, every time I say (type) that, all hell breaks loose.

We will be taking a bit of a break in October again this year. Hopefully it won’t end with a detached retina like last year! We’re planning a visit to Mountain Home, Arkansas, and our old favorite standby, Eureka Springs! I’ll be removing the ‘Vacation, 2007’ Album, and replacing it with ‘Vacation 2008’ soon. I’ll be posting photos of our adventures. With all the rain we’ve had this year, I’m hoping there will be some nice fall colors. The Arkansas websites are predicting the colors will peak right about October 20th this year. Perfect! I just hope the rain doesn’t follow us all week like last year!

For the near future, I’m looking at some rather drastic changes for Rod’s Lair this fall and winter. I’ve been using a little shareware application called WebEdit for all my HTML since the late 90s. It’s a nice little bit of software, and has a lot of neat features. When I tried to install it on the Vista laptop, it choked, and said it was incompatible with Vista – which didn’t surprise me much. I’ve found another HTML editor called HTML-Kit, and I’m quite impressed with it. It’s an ‘open source’ application, which means there are thousands of people all working on continuously improving it. It has lots of features, and plug-ins, and more are added on a continuing basis. I will probably be using it more and more as I update and upgrade Rod’s Lair. I’ve not used CSS, but I plan on using it quite a bit in the future.

There will be some other new features added to Rod’s Lair, but it’s too soon to go into much detail yet. I have a few things to learn about, and of course, it all depends on how much time I have to devote to it in between all the crises and upheavals. Hopefully there will be less of the latter, and more of the former!

Later!

Time For A Change

2008-09-06T15:29:00.003-04:00

It's September, already, and it's time for a change.

For the past several months; years, really, I have been pretty well kept busy and exhausted between work and attending to elderly parents that have lost thier mates within the last two years or so. It has been pretty much a full-time job, and I have had little time for things like updating my website or this blog.

It's time for a change.

The elderly relatives are settling down a bit. I know it's been sad and lonely for them both, but time seems to be healing a little bit, although I know the pain and feeling of loss will never fully heal. But I think in both cases, they are getting better, and I am beginning to have a little more time to myself. You can click the title above for the full article, or click "September 2008" on your left (if you are on my website).

This blog is integrated into my website. You can click on the "Rod's Lair Latest News Section" link on the right if you are not on my website, and view it in that context.

Jo and I are looking forward to our October vacation next month. Hopefully, it will be a little less rainy than last year, although with all the moisture we've had this year, it remains to be seen. With all the rain, maybe we'll have some nice fall color this year.

Look for new content on the website soon!

Later!

It Just Keeps Getting Better....

2008-08-22T00:03:00.001-04:00

The last couple of weeks have been….. interesting, for lack of a better word. Actually, I can think of lots of other words, but I'm trying to keep this site more or less 'PG' rated! (More..)

Click the "More" link for the whole story....

Later!

Quick Update

2008-08-13T23:36:00.002-04:00

This will be short tonight...

I have been extremely busy the last couple weeks. Between my job, and the changes there (more later), and tending to the needs of my ailing and lonely dad, I've had little time to mess with this blog or my website.

Things may be stabilizing a little bit, soon, but of course everytime I say that all h**l breaks loose.

I'll be typing up a more complete update in the next day or two with all the latest news, so check back soon.

Just wanted to type a quick update to let everyone know I'm still alive. More or less....

I'll be back soon.

It's August!

2008-08-03T22:02:00.004-04:00

And it's HOT! We spent most of the early afternoon in Olathe at our great-niece's birthday party. When we got home from that, I went over to visit my dad for a while. He's had some health problems, lately, and I wanted to make sure he was OK. We visited for a while, made a short foray to the grocery store, then I came back home.

I've just uploaded a new update on the Monthly Updates section, rather than type it all here. You can read it by clicking the August 2008 link to the left. If you are not on my website, click the 'Rod's Lair Latest News Section' link on the right.

Later!

Changes to the Changes....

2008-07-28T11:51:00.001-04:00

Here's what I've decided to do as far as this Blog is concerned. I will keep it as is, but my blog posts will be short, one-paragraph updates and perhaps a picture or two. For anything more detailed, it will be posted on my Monthly Updates to the left. This blog is integrated into my website, so if you are reading this blog on its own, you can click the “Rod's Lair Latest News Section” link on your right, and you'll be taken to the news section of my website, where you will see this blog in the main window. Maybe someday, the folks at Blogger will get all the bugs worked out – I know it takes time. But for now, this is the easiest way to manage it.

Changes in Latest News Blog

2008-07-27T20:31:00.003-04:00

As of the end of July, I will not be using this Blog as my main news site. I just spent the last 3 hours fighting with it to get today's post formatted correctly. For some reason, Blogger does not want to separate paragraphs in a post of more than a few sentences. I've encountered this problem on several occasions, and I'm tired of fighting with it. I have enough challenges to deal with in my life at the moment; I don't have the time or patience to fight with something that's supposed to be fun. I will continue to keep my Blogger account, and will occasionally post a quick, one paragraph update here. But for anything more than a paragraph, I'll be posting it on the appropriate monthly update section on my website. If you are not currently reading this on my website, just click the title above, and you'll be taken to my Latest News site. If they ever get this issue permanently resolved, I'll return to using Blogger as my primary news page. But for now, its use will be limited to a quick monthly update.

A Little Day Trippin'

2008-07-20T00:31:00.004-04:00

What a day!

We finally had a chance to take a break from all the chaos and turmoil that has been so much a part of our lives the last several months – years, really – and went on a little day trip. Or, I should say combination of day trip, insulator scouting mission, and photo safari. Even though we burned up 50 bucks’ worth of idiotically overpriced gas, it was worth it just to get away, see the countryside, smell the fresh air, and meet some friends for a little insulator hunting, antiquing, and photography. It was glorious!

We met our friends Pat Barkwell, and Bill Snow in Marceline, Mo, after some insulator-related exploring from Richmond and Henrietta north and eastward. I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful the countryside is, and how relaxing and refreshing it can be. There are still plenty of places one can drive and enjoy the sights without some brainless moron riding your back bumper, or flipping you off because he wants to do 90mph and you’re in his way poking along at 70mph.

We didn’t manage to grab any ‘wild’ glass on this trip, but we had a lot of fun, took a few photos, and didn’t come home empty-handed, either. Even if we did have to sell out and actually buy a couple insulators!

I’ve posted several photos in the July 2008 section (in the panel to your left) for you to check out, along with a few more paragraphs about our ‘adventure.’ If you are not reading this on my website, and consequently don’t have a clue what I’m babbling on about, just click on the title above, and all will become clear.

Namárië

We've Finally Hit The Bottom of The Barrel...

2008-06-25T18:57:00.003-04:00

OK - we all know I'm not a huge fan of the current collective displays of stupidity known as "reality" shows. You know the ones I mean. "Survivor" and "American Idol" are almost tolerable (at least to me), but now, we're truly scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The latest offering in highly intellectual viewing is called "Hurl!" And, no, it's not about building trebuchets. I'd actually watch that. But, no. It's about contestants gorging themselves with food, then being placed in nausea-inducing situations until they puke. Wow. Just what I want to watch while having dinner. Who dreams up this crap? Larry Flynt? And what's next? How about a show called "Crapper?" The contestant that leaves the biggest pile of poo gets 1000 bucks.

It truly warms the heart to see how far we've come since neanderthal times.

Later!

If This Guy Runs for President, He's Got My Vote....

2008-06-12T18:38:00.003-04:00

Now I feel bad about using those neat little curly lights.....

Later

Boy, Is It Monday!

2008-06-09T23:02:00.002-04:00

Well, today sucked. That's really the only way I can put it.

Outside of a couple installs I did this morning, I spent the entire day working on one machine in Edwardsville, Kansas. I even had one of our specialists assisting me today for about three hours. I still don't know what the heck is eating on this goofy copier. It's had a buttload of parts - including the main and control boards - changed, but it still kicks up error messages. I finally ended up escalating the issue to SSD, and opening a ticket on it. Hope the engineers can come up with something.

Then, when I got home, Jo showed me a bill from Comcast that arrived today. The low down, dirty bas###ds are charging me for replacing the outdoor cable - which didn't resolve the problems I've been having. I'll be taking that bill to the Comcast office tomorrow and telling them what they can do with it.

I got a call from a "supervisor" at Comcast today regarding my latest diatribe in the continuing saga. He sent another tech out today, and as usual, the tech had no information regarding this continuing story. They never do. Comcast's lack of communication seems to permeate all levels of their sorry organization - even down to their own employees. This tech repeated what an earlier tech had said: The main distribution line needs to be replaced. He also repeated another thing the previous tech had told me: They had to get "funding" to replace the main distribution line, as it was very expensive, and there has been a lot of damage from the recent storms. Of course, Comcast seems to have plenty of "funding" for the current intensive advertising campaign which blathers on endlessly about how great their service is. Right. Great service. And I'm Indiana Jones.

Well, I'm pretty well exhausted from today's Monday Adventures, so I think I'll head for bed early tonight. The saga will continue to ebb and flow tomorrow, I'm sure.

Later!

Update - 06-08-08

2008-06-08T21:51:00.002-04:00

Well, here it is June already. Jo and I just celebrated our 37th anniversary. Gas prices continue their upward spiral, and who knows where it will stop. We’re definitely feeling the pinch.

Around here things are just as busy as ever, with all the hats I’m currently wearing: Taxi Driver, Family I.T. Department, Lawn Care Specialist, Etc. And of course, things at work have been extremely busy of late with my new territory.

My old faithful lawn mower decided to give up the ghost last week. I tinkered with it a bit to try to bring it back to life, but I didn’t have much luck. It ran just long enough to get about half of the backyard mowed. Jo ended up finishing the rest with the little electric mower while I was at work. My dad says he has a couple mowers he’s not going to use since he has someone to do his lawn, so I guess I’ll pick one or both of them up this week. Maybe they’ll get me through the summer without having to buy a new one.

One thing I definitely need to get rolling this week is to get a new TV provider. I’m to the point where I’m utterly and completely fed up with Comcast. Comcast has got to be one of the sorriest excuses for a cable provider in the country. I have been having the same problems since December of 2007, and they have yet to get it resolved. Beyond giving me a couple months’ credit, they have done little other than a few half-assed attempts to get my cable working properly. Their so-called “customer service” is abysmally poor – rarely do I even get a response to phone calls, letters, or faxes. I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is FIRE COMCAST and get Direct TV. I can get everything I get with Crapcast (except the problems, hopefully) for a whole lot less. Comcast has pissed me off enough that I’m going to devote a section of my website to telling the entire story. Stay tuned…

I just got a letter from the IRS telling me I can expect my “Economic Stimulus” check soon. We’re hoping to save it for a vacation this fall – assuming, of course, that we can actually afford to put gas in the van by fall. I appreciate George W’s generosity in returning some of my hard-earned wages, but if he (or John or – God Forbid – Obama) really want to “stimulate” the economy, I think there’s a better, faster way: Run these $!%#$%*$^ Oil Bullies out of the country, and preferably off the planet. Let the Klingons deal with them! And let's use our technology to work on alternatives. There's a finite amount of fossil fuels, folks. We've just about sucked this planet dry, and we've not put back a whole lot. We've got to come up with something else. If some guys can run their diesels on used grease from TacoBell, we can certainly do better than depend on increasingly expensive petroleum from the OPEC pirates.

I am desperately trying to get back into doing some creative things in between all the family duties, medical crises, and fighting with idiots like Comcast. Hopefully, I can continue to make headway, and get some new content on this website, and some new stuff in my online store as well. Wish me luck!

Late May Update

2008-05-28T21:54:00.002-04:00

Well, I had my 1-month post-op checkup on my eye today. Wow! The day after surgery, I was seeing 20:50. A week after, I was seeing 20:30. Today, it was 20:25! Perfect vision is 20:20, and after a complete retinal detachment last fall, I’m seeing 20:25! I guess I must be in good standing with the Man upstairs – that and I found very good doctors! Very good indeed!

I told my doctor today that I was getting a little concerned about my eyes not seeing things quite right. I told him that every time I passed a gas station, it seemed like the numbers would get bigger. He said ‘nope, your eyes are just fine.’ I guess I got 'optic' confused with OPEC.

The doctor wrote out a prescription for new glasses. Or more accurately, he wrote two. I think this time, I want to have separate glasses for distance and reading. I know it’s twice as expensive, and I’ll have two glasses to keep track of, but I think I’ll like it a whole lot better than the bifocals I have now. I hate having to tilt my head back in order to read, or work on the computer. I don’t normally use my glasses when I’m doinking around on the computer, and that’s why. All I have to do now is shop around for the best deal on glasses – maybe find a “buy one pair, get the second free..” deal. I can always hope!

I’ve not been able to spend as much time as I’d like on the website lately. I’m hoping that will change in the near future. I was able to make a few small changes in the last couple of days. There’s a new background, and I changed the index page just a bit. It used to reference a monthly page – such as May.html, but I decided to just disable that feature for now. I just haven’t had the time to create a new monthly page for each new month – other than simply copying the previous month’s content. Once my train wreck of a schedule loosens up a bit (hopefully soon), I have about a million things I’d like to do with the site.

I’m saving my pennies as diligently as possible in order to do a couple things this fall. First, I’d like to get a nice laptop of my own sometime in September. My work laptop is great, and the PCS card makes it easy to stay in touch or get on the internet. But, my company owns it, and they don’t like a lot of non-job related software being loaded onto it. With my own laptop, I could put all the stuff on it I want to – like Photoshop – and use it when we go on our next vacation – which is the second thing I want to do this fall. All of this depends very much, of course, upon having any money left over after filling my gas tank three times a week as gas prices go from ridiculous to utterly ludicrous. Hopefully, we’ll be able to save most of our ‘economic stimulus’ check for vacation.

For now, I’ll say good-night!

Another Must See!

2008-05-18T00:26:00.001-04:00

Indy's Back!

2008-05-18T00:22:00.001-04:00

New Eyes

2008-05-09T21:12:00.002-04:00

Well, I stopped by Moyes Eye Center Thursday for my second post-op checkup. Dr. Verachtert looked me over and told me I get better each time I come in. At my last appointment on April 30th (the day after my cataract surgery) my vision was 20-50. This time, it was 20-40. He said that’s fantastic considering the completely detached retina I had last fall. So, things are progressing nicely. There’s still a tiny bit of distortion, but I’ve recovered at least 90% of my vision in that eye. It’s like I have a new eye!

I just acquired another new eye of sorts. Last week, Microcenter had a sale on refurbished Fuji digital cameras. I picked up a little FinePix A610 camera for 60 bucks. I think this will make an excellent companion to my Canon Digital Rebel. The Fuji is a 6.3 megapixel – same as the Canon – and it’s a tiny thing! I call it my “spy” camera. I can slip it into my pocket and take it pretty much anywhere – places I can’t take the Canon. I’ve posted a few photos in my May page. This camera also has a macro setting that allows me to get closer to objects than I can with the Canon. Of course, the Canon has a lot more control features available along with interchangeable lenses.

I’m hoping I can get to a point where I can do a lot more photography. My inspiration has kind of taken a nose dive over the last few years with all the family health issues. And the series of eye problems that developed last fall didn’t help either.

I’ve posted a few photos in my May section – just click the “May” link on your left. If you are not reading my blog on my website, just click http://www.rodslair.com/news and you’ll see the links as well as this blog.

Looks like another super-busy weekend coming up. Comcast is sending someone out again Saturday to try to fix the continuing issues with my cable. I think I’ll ask them if they can recommend a good dish provider. I’m just about done with Comcast – they’ve been jacking around with this problem since December of 2007, and haven’t managed to get it right yet. Last time I made a comment about Comcast in my blog, someone from Comcast read it and left a comment about “Please contact me; I want to get this taken care of for you…” Well, I did contact him, but never received any kind of response. SOP for Comcast. So if anyone from Comcast reads this, don’t bother leaving any comments unless you intend to follow through.

After Comcast gets through jacking around and offering lame excuses, Jo and I will probably go run some errands, then I’ll probably spend some time with my dad. Sunday is Mother’s Day, so we’ll go in to Jo’s mom’s place, run her to the grocery store and Sam’s Club, then mow the lawn. Like I said – a busy weekend.

Hopefully, I’ll get a little time for my own projects again. Sometime.

Later!

Why We're Paying $4.00 a Gallon For Gas

2008-05-04T21:36:00.003-04:00

Next time you're blowing a nice, cisp $50.00 bill filling your gas tank, think about this:

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/104984/Inside-the-World

Anybody have a spare cruise missile handy?

Later...

Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog……

2008-04-30T23:04:00.003-04:00

So what’s a TDN song got to do with cataract surgery? Well, let me tell ya……

First of all, my left eye is doing great – I can see better than I have in several months! Everything is sharp, with no more rainbow halos around light sources. But, let’s get back to the story.

We got to the hospital a little early Tuesday, and I checked in with admitting. After a short wait, the nurse came and led me to the prep room. The nurse put some drops in my eye to get it started dilating. Then she tried to get the IV started in my right hand.

Poke. Ow. Poke. Ow. Hmmm. Vein not cooperating. Instead of IV going in, blood is coming out. She then switched to the left hand. Poke. Ow. Got it! After the IV was installed, they stuck little monitor stickers all over my chest for the heart monitors and such. This is pretty much standard operating procedure for any kind of surgery; even minor.

After all the stickers were placed, and the blood pressure cuff was on, another nurse came in to start getting my eye even more dilated, and they wrote something on my head over my eye with a marker. She told me to close my eyes and just relax for a little while. They turned out the lights in my room, and let Jo and my dad join me.

After a while, the anesthesiologist came in, and told me they would be standing by, but unless it was too intense for me they wouldn’t give me any sedation other than the local anesthetic for my eye. This made me a little nervous, but I said I’d try to tough it out. He said they like to keep you as alert as possible so you can follow the doctor’s directions during the procedure, and so you don’t go to sleep and move your eye while he’s working. I can see where that might be a problem.

Presently they came in with a gurney, and after making myself (relatively) comfortable, they wheeled me into the operating room. The nurse put more drops in my eye to numb it a bit, then put a gel into my eye that was the main anesthetic. She swabbed it around my eye pretty thoroughly, and it worked quickly. Within moments, my eye was totally numb, and everything was just a blur. They put a kind of paper veil over my face with a small opening for my left eye, and taped my eyelid to keep it open. She told me Dr. Moyes would be in in a few minutes, and we’d get started.

The intercom system in the OR was on, and was playing some of the good ol’ stuff from the 60s and 70s. I remember when they were prepping me, I heard “My Eyes Adore You” playing, and I was kidding the nurses about the music being somewhat appropriate for the occasion. The next song got the party started, though. It was Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World,” also known as the “Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog” song. Suddenly, the volume went up a bit, and I heard Dr. Moyes come in, singing along: “Jeremiah was a bullfrog; he was a good friend of mine….” I had to laugh. I said “Looks like the party’s starting..” And so it was. After Dr. Moyes and I traded a few jokes about drinking Jeremiah’s wine, and not understanding a dang thing he said, we got down to business. Most of what I remember was after he swung the microscope into position over my eye was a really bright light, a 60s style psychadelic light show in my eye, a little bit of pressure, and it was done in just a few minutes.

I was wheeled into a recovery room for about 20 minutes just to make sure I was OK. Jo and my dad rejoined me, and shortly, the nurse came in to take all the stickers and stuff off me. Indeed, the most painful part of the entire ordeal was when she pulled off the tape they used to keep the IV in place.

I went back today to see another doctor at Moyes Eye Center for my post-op checkup. They checked my vision, and it proved to be much improved; 20:50 in the left eye. The doctor I saw today looked it over, and gave me the big thumbs up. He cleared me to drive, and I can go back to work tomorrow as long as I don’t do any heavy lifting.

After looking at my chart, he told me that normally after a complete retinal detachment like mine, the chances of having 20:50 vision in that eye were extremely thin. “You have Someone on your side,” he told me. Yep, that and some mighty good doctors. Dr. Moyes, and all the folks at Moyes Eye Center, and Dr. Dyer and the folks at Retina Associates are completely, absolutely, undeniably, and utterly AWESOME!

And now, I’m going to sign off, and go pay a visit to my old friend Jeremiah. I can’t understand a single thing he says, but I’ll help him drink his wine.

He always has some mighty fine wine.

Namárië

Stupid Computer Tricks - the Final Chapter

2008-04-26T00:38:00.003-04:00

Looks like the "Stupid Computer Tricks" photos will have a final shot at everlasting glory - or something like that.

A few days ago, I was contacted my Bill Detwiler from TechRepublic, a well-known web resource for IT professionals, and a division of the Ziff-Davis and CNET publishing network. He had stumbled across my SCT photos on one of the "pirated" sites, and was interested in posting them on TechRepublic. Since he was courteous enough to ask (unlike several other entities), and was part of CNET, I agreed to provide him with the photos - and the updated captions without the typos. He did a great job, and now the photos have a new lease on life. You can view them at:

SCT Photos at TechRepublic

When I zipped the site and sent it to him, he also enjoyed the infamous Exploding Roach photos, so they got their own gallery at:

The Infamous Exploding Roach Photos at TechRepublic

I hope you enjoy the "new" SCT experience. I would ask that if you want to refer your friends and associates to the SCT photos, you send them to the galleries on TechRepublic rather than the old version on the pirated sites.

I've placed a short history of the SCT website at A Little Stupid History.

Well, I'm counting down the days until my next adventure in the realm of eye surgery. I'll be out of commission Tuesday, and most of Wednesday as well. I don't know how long I'll be off work this time, but it shouldn't be as long as last November when I was out for 3 weeks. It will most likely be just a few days. They want to be extra careful since I had surgery on that eye relatively recently.

They tell me the procedure only takes about 10 minutes, but the prep takes about 45 minutes. They have to put a gel-patch on the eye, which numbs everything up, and they will connect me to IVs and all that other good stuff. The nurse told me they'll fill me up with "happy juice" pretty well, so I'll be chillin' out like back in the 60s by the time Dr. Moyes is ready to take out the cataract. I've got the best eye specialist in the region doing the procedure, but I'll still be glad when this is all over.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to some of my projects soon.

Later!

Under the Knife Again

2008-04-21T17:50:00.002-04:00

Well, it looks like surgery time again.

I saw Dr. Moyes, my eye doctor, again today. The cataract in my left eye has been steadily getting worse over the last couple of months. Of course, it hasn’t come as a big surprise – both Dr. Dyer and Dr, Moyes told me back in November that the vitrectomy surgery I had that month tends to accelerate any cataract that is already there. It also tends to initiate a cataract if there isn’t one already present.

Anyway, they checked my eyes out pretty thoroughly today, and took some ultrasound measurements in preparation for the surgery. I’ll be having the cataract surgery on Tuesday the 29th at St. Luke’s North. It’s done on an outpatient basis, and I’ll go home for the recovery. I don’t think I’ll be off work as long as I was in November, but I’ll probably be off the rest of the week.

Between all this drama with my eye, and all the family health crises, and work, I’m pretty well worn out most of the time anymore. The last few years haven’t been much fun.

In between all the chaos/crises, I’ve managed to get a few things done around the house. I put up a new motion-detector light over the garage last weekend, and I’m still working on several projects off and on. The weather is beginning to look more like Spring (in other words, rain..), so I’m looking forward to doing some grilling soon.

If all this crap ever settles down someday, maybe I’ll have more time for things like my website, my art, and a few vacation days that don’t involve doctors’ offices, hospitals, surgery, or funerals.

The “Stupid Computer Tricks” site may be coming back, but in a different format, and in a different place. And it will not be yet another “pirated” site, either. This one will have my full permission and cooperation.

I was contacted by email a few days ago by a writer from CNET, the major computer/technology website published by Ziff-Davis. He stumbled on my photos on one of the pirated sites, and would like to do an on-line article about my experiences along with the non-pirated photos. I’ll be typing up a little information that he requested, and looking up the photos to send him. I’ll place a link, of course, to the article once it is complete. Once again, it looks like Warhol was right about the 15 minutes of fame thing!

I’m going to sign off for now – my eyes are still somewhat dilated from earlier today, and this computer screen is becoming a big blur.

Later!

Update - April 2, 2008

2008-04-02T23:46:00.002-04:00

Just a quick entry tonight…

Things have been pretty stressful in March, with the recent loss in the family, and all the things that go along with these sad events. But things seem to be settling down a bit, I think.

The new computer is doing well, and the AMD machine has been behaving itself pretty well. It now has a new job – as a recording studio. I purchased a preamp-mixer from DAK a couple weeks ago, and it works beautifully! I am now starting to digitize some of my old vinyl LPs, and I’m burning them on CDs.

I have a ton of other projects in the works, it’s just a matter of getting the time to work on them. That’s been a problem for the last few years – and it doesn’t seem to improve a lot as time goes on.

I’ve been fighting with Comcast the last few months. Since last December, my digital cable has been intermittent at best, and completely useless at worst. I’ve had technicians out at least a half-dozen times since the first of the year, and still the issues continue. I finally got in contact with a customer service manager Monday night, and pretty much told him I wanted the issue fixed, or they can take their cable and shove it. They’ve been working on the distribution lines, and they are coming out Saturday again. We’ll see what happens.

I just picked up my yearly TurboTax this evening, and preliminary figures indicate a refund of a little over 300 bucks. Yea! I don’t know what the state figures are yet, but hopefully I’ll get a refund as well. Then we’ll see what we get with the “economic stimulus” rebate, if anything. Hopefully, we can “stimulate” enough for a nice vacation this fall. Without the rain this year, please and thank you.

I’ll be trying to update a little more frequently, and will be adding some new stuff to the website soon.

Later!

News Update - Monday

2008-03-24T11:57:00.001-04:00

Today, so far at least, is a welcome fresh breeze of calm and tranquility. Of course, now that I've said that, it's likely that all hell will break loose shortly. I hope not.

The weekend was - as usual anymore - busy, busy, busy. We had a rather hectic day Saturday with Comcast out for the nine millionth time to try to get our cable working right. I have to laugh every time I see one of their ads with that girl blathering on about how great it is to have Comcast's cable, phone, and broadband all in one package. Yeah, great. We couldn't watch TV, get on the Internet, or call anyone to come fix it. Just great, Comcast. Thanks, but I think I'll stick with AT&T and my DSL.

I finally got a little time to update the News section, and add the News Page for March. Click the link on the left to read the synopsis for March. If you are not on my website reading this, and consequently wondering what the heck I'm talking about, just click the title link above, and it will become clear.

The new computer is up and running nicely. I had a few problems during assembly, but that was due mostly to my frame of mind not being the best due to all the recent crises in the family. I probably should have picked a different time to try to assemble a computer, but no matter - it's done and working fine.

I'm hoping to eke enough time out of the chaos that I refer to as my life to get a lot of things done this spring and summer. I'm hoping to have a garage sale in the not-too-distant future - April or May. It will most likely be May, because I'll probably have to have cataract surgery on my left eye pretty soon.

Well, enough of my rambling for now. I'll have more soon - hopefully more fun and less chaos and tragedy.

Later!

March - In Like a Lion

2008-03-10T17:24:00.003-05:00

This has been the most chaotic, gut wrenching, stressful month. And it’s only 10 days old.

Saturday, we laid my step-mom to rest, and that’s always a heartbreaking thing to do. My dad is doing OK, although he’s finding the loneliness hard to deal with, just like Jo’s mom did, and still does. I’m hoping I can get him re-started with his genealogy research again. It will help keep his mind busy, and it’s something we can work on together if things ever calm down.

As time has allowed, I’ve been assembling the new computer, but it’s been more difficult than I had anticipated. I got everything assembled, then it dawned on me that this system needed a video card, since there was no integrated video on the motherboard. I picked up a decent NVIDIA card at Microcenter Sunday, and put it in the new computer. With everything ready, I powered it on. NOTHING!! The lights and fans came on, but there was no video, and no indication that anything was happening. No beeps, no disk activity, nothing. I was not pleased.

After calming down a bit, I took everything out of the case, and re-assembled it carefully. This time, it worked. I don’t know what the heck I did, but it worked. I must have not grounded something properly, or not tightened a certain set of screws tight enough; I don’t know. All I know is it’s working now.

Then I tried to set up the hard drives using Western Digital’s CD they include with the drives. It booted to the CD, tried to recognize the drives, then stopped, and did nothing further. Damn. Now what? After perusing WD’s website, I found some documentation that indicated WD doesn’t recommend using the CD to install the drives if you are going to use Windows XP. They say to just use Windows XP install to set up the boot drive. It took about 2 hours for Windows to format the drive, but it worked. I was able to install the second hard drive in Window’s disk management. Again, it took a couple hours, but these are 320-gig drives. Hopefully, throughout the week, I’ll be able to get everything else installed – drivers, updates and so on. Then on to the software. Sheesh.

Then today, I got an email from PayPal indicating a debit card purchase for $29.99 from some outfit called Digital River. I hadn’t purchased anything with my PayPal card recently, so naturally, I panicked. I thought some low-life, green-toothed hacker had somehow hacked into my PayPal and was fixing to furnish his yacht at my expense. I immediately deactivated my card, and transferred all remaining balance from my PayPal account to my bank account. I then shot a rather indignant email to Digital River. They responded and said they did not handle customer issues with Computer Associates. So THAT’S who it was! About that time, an email came in from CA informing me that they had automatically billed my card for renewal. I did buy CA’s Anti-Spam package last year, but I do not recall authorizing them to automatically renew.

I got on CA’s website, and found a toll-free number. After waiting about 15 minutes on hold, I ended up speaking to some hoser with a heavy middle-eastern accent. Why do all these companies outsource to the Middle East?? Why do we support those people? 99% of them would just as soon see us all dead. Anyway, I told him I had not authorized the automatic renewal, which he debated, of course. I then rather emphatically told him to cancel the order and refund the money, which he did. At least he says he did. It will take 7 to 10 days to “process” the refund, and have it show up in my account. If it doesn’t I guess I’ll just have to get the cruise missiles ready.

Now, I’ve got to apply for a new PayPal debit card, and transfer the money back. Sometimes I wonder if all this Internet / Computer “convenience” is worth it.

I’ll have some photos of the new system soon.

New Computer Coming Soon

2008-03-06T22:55:00.002-05:00

Well, the new barebone system arrived today. This thing is going to be an industrial strength smokin' beast! I've begun construction this evening, but I'm not going to rush this one. I'm checking everything twice (at least), and taking it slow and easy. I want everything to be perfect.

I have the motherboard and power supply mounted, and the DVD/RW drive is mounted in the case. I'm using an old floppy drive I pulled from another system; the only "off the shelf" bit of hardware in this machine. I've taken the bezel off the front of the drive, cleaned and lightly sanded it, and applied several coats of black paint to match the rest of the case. I'll put the drive back together tomorrow night. I don't have a lot of uses for a 3.5 inch floppy anymore, but I'm putting one in just in case. I still have a few floppy disks laying around.

This case has two places for 120mm fans, so I'll pick up a couple fans at Microcenter tomorrow, or over the weekend. The front fan will draw air directly over the hard drive cage which will be home for two 320-gig drives. This case has a clear side, so I think I'll put an illuminated fan in the rear fan mount. It's gotta look cool, ya know.

I'll be adding some photos to the March News (which I hope to create this weekend after the funeral), and a step-by-step description of the construction.

I got an email today from a lady that did some modeling for me about 12 years ago. She's getting married in August, and wants me to do the wedding photos. She's buying my Budget Package. I may post a link to my wedding prices shortly, in case anyone else would like to have me shoot their wedding. My prices are quite reasonable. Stay tuned.

Saturday is the funeral for my step-mom. I hope it's the last one for many, many, many years. I'm tired of funerals. I'm tired of saying good-bye to loved ones. But I guess it's part of life - albeit a painful part. But I'm ready to take a break from it for a while.

Namárië

Another Quick Late-Night Update

2008-03-05T23:38:00.003-05:00

Just a few quick notes tonight....

The funeral is set for Saturday. I'll be one of the pall-bearers, as I have for the last several funerals I've attended. Over the last few years, I've had to help carry far too many friends and family members on thier final journey. I hope I can take a break from it for a few years.

Things have been really stressful the last couple of weeks. In addition to the family crises, it's been nuts at work. The tech that works downtown is gone for a week of training, so I'm getting all his calls - downtown - as well as my own.

The new computer kit should be here Thursday. UPS tried to deliver it today, but with Jo in helping her mom, there was no one to sign for it. She's back home tonight, so they will deliver it tomorrow. I picked up a USB keyboard for 15 bucks yesterday to see if it would work on this goofy AMD machine. It works fine, but as always when I think of a way around a problem, fate has a way of defeating my work-arounds. Now, the wireless mouse doesn't work. The mouse that came with my Wacom tablet does work, but I don't like it as well. You have to keep it within the 4 X 5 inch tablet area. I'm used to using as much table top as I need. But it will suffice until I get the new machine up and running.

The new computer will run at 2.8 ghz, will have 2 gigs of RAM, two 320-gig drives, XP-Pro, and of course a double-layer CD/DVD burner. And that's just the start. I'll be adding more goodies as we go along. My overall goal is to have two good systems and get rid of all this halfway-working junk. I'll probably get a Powerspec system from Microcenter a little later on. It will run Vista and will have 2-gigs of RAM, and a 320-gig HD.

Now, it's time for me to get my fool butt to bed.

Later!

What am I Doing Wrong??

2008-03-02T23:33:00.003-05:00

Now, in addition to everything else going on in my life (or what’s left of it), my stereo that I bought less than a year ago just shot craps, and now this idiot computer is starting to act stupid again. It drops the keyboard after a while, and the only way to get it back is to shut down and reboot. What the hell am I doing wrong??

I have ordered my new computer (barebone kit) from Tiger, so hopefully I'll have a fully functional computer again soon.

Another Farewell...

2008-03-02T21:21:00.001-05:00

This will be a short, sad post.

This morning my step-mom Margaret passed away. She had stopped breathing, and the nursing home had called the paramedics. They were doing CPR as they left the nursing home, but to no avail. She passed away on the way to the hospital. My dad is doing ok for the moment, but it’s going to be a tough week. For all of us.

Jo’s mom is doing better. She was released from the hospital Friday, and was even able to go to a birthday party in Olathe for her and little Josh, her great-grandson.

Someday, maybe I can post something happy here. I’m sure getting tired of this never-ending tragedy in the family.

February Wrap-Up

2008-02-28T21:48:00.002-05:00

It’s been one hell of a month. I sure hope March is a little better. But I’m not going to hold my breath.

The situation with my step-mom is pretty much the same. She’s in a nursing home, now, and the chances of her getting any better are slim to none. My dad is coping as best he can, and is getting all the paperwork taken care of. It’s tough on everyone concerned, but especially on him.

Jo’s mom is doing much better, and will most likely be released from the hospital on Friday. Her cardiologist told her he doesn’t want her driving for a while, so she’ll need to be taken to the store, and wherever else she needs to go. Jo’s brother can’t drive, and he and his wife have their hands pretty full with his father-in-law who is staying with them until he can move into an assisted living apartment. So it’s pretty evident who will be doing most, if not all, of the driving.

Free time is going to be at more of a premium than ever before. What did I say about hoping things would calm down a bit in ’08? So much for that.

I still hope to get a few things accomplished this year, but I guess I’ll just have to take it day by day.

One day, I hope to post an entry that doesn’t include about 90% chaos.

Tomorrow is the last day for the Playboy Back Issues page. In a way, I'll be glad to not have to mess with it any more. A big part of the reason I say that is reflected in an e-mail I received today:

I'm interested in purchasing a copy of July 1997 Playboy. What would the price be?
Thanks,

Name Withheld

I don't mind answering questions from prospective customers, but is it really that difficult to actually look at the page with the magazines listed?? If N.W. would have given the page even a cursory glance, he'd have seen that the only issue in stock from 1997 is the May (05-97) issue. And the price is clearly stated below each thumbnail. I don't mean to sound grumpy or anything, but I do sometimes get tired of answering questions that are already answered on the site. Then half the time, when I do send a reply, they never respond, or send an order.

I'll also be closing the darkroom section at the end of March. With the advances in digital photography, it seems no one wants to spend time in a dark room with funny-smelling chemicals anymore. And that includes me. At any rate if anyone is interested in darkroom gear, take a look. And the prices are clearly marked - so don't send me an e-mail asking "what would the price be?" ;-)

I'll be uploading the rest of the website updates tomorrow night, but in the meantime, the latest news section has a "sneak peek" of the new look!

Later!

And The Beat Goes On.........

2008-02-27T11:01:00.001-05:00

Getting "beat" into the ground, that is.

it is Wednesday morning, and I have, shockingly, a bit of a break between service calls. The last few days, it has been extremely busy. I have been running about two days' backlog, on average. I've had a little relief this morning; Nate took two of my calls - thanks, Nate.

I am, at this particular moment wishing I could find somewhere to hide and sleep for about three days. I am beyond exhaustion. Last night, we had to rush in to Jo's mom's for another medical emergency. She had passed out the day before, and was still feeling poorly, nearly passing out twice the next day. We ended up calling an ambulance to take her to the hospital to be checked out. The folks at the hospital were great, but it took nearly three hours to get results from all the blood tests and x-rays. Everything looked all right, but they decided to keep her overnight for observation. We didn't get away from the hospital until after midnight. Most of this evening after work will, I'm sure, be devoted to this latest medical issue.

I have the latest updates to the website all done, and hopefully I'll have time to upload everything Friday night in time for the new look for March. I have a lot of other things I'd like to accomplish, but with all the neverending medical issues in the family, I don't know if I'll get any of them done - or even started.

I have one day of vacation time left, and about 12 hours of "floating" holiday time. The vacation recycles in May, I think, and unused time does not carry over. So I'm going to take a Monday and Tuesday off in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I can get through those four days without seeing the inside of a hospital. or doctor's office.

What a February...

2008-02-21T21:14:00.002-05:00

Well, here it is, over halfway through February already. It's been a heck of a month. Once again, the Medical Crisis Troll has dropped by, and left a wake of chaos and stress. My step-mom had a stroke, and has been incapacitated to the point that she has had to go into a nursing home. It's been hard on my dad, and on us. He's now alone in their house, and not knowing quite what to do with himself. We've been having him over for dinner every so often since he lives close. Of course it's complicated things for us even more than they already were. We now have two older parents to look after. It never ends.

It's also been a crappy moth where the weather is concerned. This whole winter has been rather severe - lots of bitter cold, snow and ice. So much for global warming. I'm so sick of this cold, gloomy, icy, snowy stuff I'm ready to scream - or move to Hawaii.

I've completed the updates to the website for March. There will be a new look, and a couple other small improvements. The Playboy Back Issues section will be removed, and I'll probably do away with the Darkroom Stuff section as well. With digital photography, there seems to be little interest in doing your own developing and printing, or other home darkroom processing. I'm hoping to get some other areas of the website going pretty soon. It's just working in the time to work on it in between all the other chaos that seems to pervade every aspect of my life anymore. Oh, well....

With any luck, spring will get here in a couple months. I can't wait to break out the grill!

Later!

Good News – for a Change

2008-02-07T19:23:00.000-05:00

Well, today, Jo, her Mom, and Yours Truly had our medical checkups that we didn’t get last month because our doctor was sick! At that time, we had blood drawn for all the lab tests. Today, we all got the results: A clean bill of health for all of us! Thank you, Jesus!

I was really sweating out the PSA because it’s been well over 10 years since I had that screening done. It was below 1 which is excellent. The doctor also did the other part of the prostrate screening, the DRE. Now, if you don’t know what “DRE” means, ask a doctor or Google it! Sorry, I’m not gonna ‘splain it here. Suffice it to say it’s a tad embarrassing. At any rate the doctor said everything was fine, and I’m in good shape. Well, my triglycerides are a little high, so it’s lay off the fatty stuff (i.e. the good stuff) for a while. Bummer.

Anyhow, I guess I’m just too damn ornery to have anything wrong with me. And I can live with that!

Now that THAT is out of the way, I’m going to be ordering my new barebone kit sometime very soon. I’ve got a lot of things I want to accomplish this spring and summer, with the computer center, the website, and the house. I’m looking forward to a busy and fun spring – if all this crappy cold weather and snow ever goes away!

Namárië

Same Old Same-O

2008-02-03T18:16:00.000-05:00

I had hoped that the new year would bring some peace and tranquility along with it, but things have been anything but peaceful and tranquil. It’s been absolute chaos at work. I’ve been getting slammed pretty much ever since coming back to work from my eye surgery last November. And it’s getting busier and busier instead of calming down. It seems like every time I close out a call, two more come in to replace it. I just can’t get caught up. Add to that the one or two customers that call in almost every day, and it becomes very frustrating, very fast.

And, of course there are the constant medical crises that just won’t ease up. My step-mom is now in the hospital with a stroke, and it doesn’t look very good for her recovery. It’s just one damn thing after another. Last week I had an appointment with our family doctor – along with Jolene and her mom – for a general check-up. We had to reschedule for this week because our doctor was sick. He had us go ahead and get blood tests done, and we’ll get the results Thursday. I had blood drawn for a number of checks, including PSA. Frankly, the way things have been going, I’m scared to death to find out the results Thursday. I can only hope for the best. I’d pray about it, but I’m not really sure anybody is listening.

Enough with the bad stuff.

I’m hoping to do a little re-design on the website, although I’m not sure when I’ll find the time. I’m trying to learn a little bit about CSS stylesheets as that would make things a lot easier to update. I’m still using pretty much basic old HTML. It’s been a challenge to try to learn anything new lately. Maybe someday.

I’m working on some new art for the site, and am hoping to add a section where I can (hopefully) start doing some portrait work, and bring in a little income with this website. I sold a few Playboy back issues a couple weeks ago to a gentleman in Australia, but that section is pretty inactive overall. I had intended to take it down at the end of January, but the sale I mentioned encouraged me to leave it up until the end of February. Last week, someone e-mailed me asking for the price on 4 issues (never mind the prices are clearly stated on the site). I replied with the information he wanted, but I guess he decided since I wasn’t going to just give them to him, then ship them for free, he really wasn’t interested. I never got a reply from him. That’s pretty much all the interest they get anymore, so I’m not going to waste my time or server space on them after this month. If you want any of them, get them now – but I’m not going to just give them away.

Hopefully, I can post a more positive entry sometime soon.

Another "Quickie" Update

2008-01-20T20:22:00.000-05:00

I just thought I’d stick a quick update here tonight.

It’s been too bloody cold here to do a whole lot, so I’ve been fiddling around with some ideas for the website for the coming months.

Inspired by the moronic topics of most news these days, I’ve added a “Random Headline Generator” in the menu to the left (if you’re on my website). If you’re reading this blog and wonder what the dickens I’m talking about just go to http://www.rodslair.com/news and it will all become clear. At any rate, you can waste some time generating your own headlines featuring some of the most popular personalities of our time.

I have decided to remove the wallpaper section permanently. I now have a section on Webshots which you can visit at: http://community.webshots.com/album/562200140zTqGlF?vhost=community. I have a few 1024 X 768 wallpapers posted there, and will add more as time goes on. If anyone is interested in larger sizes, they may be made available for a small charge.

I will soon be offering portraits drawn from your photos. These portraits will be available in pencil as well as a number of other mediums. I hope to have more information on the new feature soon.

Later!

Early Wake-Up

2008-01-13T18:51:00.000-05:00

Well this morning things were a little exciting in the neighborhhod. A little after 8:00, we were awakend by sirens getting uncomfortably close. The house three houses to the east of us had caught fire. Not a good way to start a Sunday. I did manage to get a few photos from the back yard; you can see them by clicking the title above, or the January link on the left (if you're on my site). I heard that they had to take a lady to the hospital - hope she's OK.

In other news....

I did finally get a useful response form someone at Canon regarding my transparent sheet issue. They gave me a phone number (non-toll-free of course) for the parts department, and said I could order the sheets. I might, but in the meantime, I've found a plastic sheet that works just as well. It's the plastic liners you use in 3-ring binders to put documents in. New ones (with no wear) can be easily cut to match the original sheet, and work just fine.

I had a couple appointments with my eye doctors last week, and everything is looking good. My eye surgeon, Dr. Dyer, took me off the eyedrops I've been using since November, and said the eye is doing very well. I have another appointment Monday with Dr. Moyes. And I have an overall checkup scheduled for the 25th with our family doctor. Jeeze - I'm about ready to take a break from all the medical stuff for a while. I'm not at all used to being the subject of all the medical attention. I'm usually the guy that taxis everyone else to doctors' appointments.

Later!

First Entry of 2008

2008-01-08T00:06:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was a pretty decent one. The cold temperatures moderated enough to melt most of the snow and ice from the last several storms. Saturday was relaxing, and Sunday was a great day as well. We enjoyed a BBQ lunch with a couple of our insulator collecting buddies, Pat Scott from St. Louis, and Pat Barkwell, who lives a bit closer – about 5 minutes, actually. We gotta get together more often! Pat & Pat are not only great guys, but they actually read my nonsensical missives!

I had another appointment with Dr. Dyer today, to check on how my eye is progressing. He was very pleased with how it’s healing. I don’t go back until April for my next checkup. I have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Moyes, and we’ll probably look into a prescription for new glasses. I know one thing – I’m going to get two pairs. One for distance (i.e. driving), and one for close-up stuff like reading, working with the computer, and other closeup work. I tried bifocals last time, and I don’t really like them all that much. They’re OK for things like driving, but for reading or computer work, I have to look through the bottom of the lenses. I don’t like having to tilt my head back to see my computer screen. I know it will be more expensive, but my neck will feel a lot better!

I’m going to be looking into building a new computer soon. I want to put together a system with a lot of power and storage for my graphics. The AMD machine is going on a couple years old, and is starting to be a little persnickety. I’m starting to get more and more indecipherable error flags, and it’s beginning to look like time for another format and reload – for about the 5th time. The old Gateway 700 W98 machine is pretty much useless for anything more than typing a Word document.

Anyway, it’s time for me to get my butt to bed and rest up for another fun day fixing copiers tomorrow.

Later!

2007 Wrap Up

2007-12-31T19:20:00.000-05:00

It’s now the last day of 2007. What a year it’s been! It’s been filled to overflowing with stress and constantly running myself ragged.

Jolene’s mom has had an inordinate number of “little emergencies” this year – everything from leaky faucets to mice - all of which have sent her into a panic. And all of which result in Rod's phone ringing. I cringe every time the bloody thing goes off. Although there are plenty of other family members, it’s generally us that end up dropping everything and running to south KC to take care of the problem(s). I suppose it’s because we’re closest. We’re about 14 miles away; everyone else is at least twice that distance. I wonder, sometimes, if that is by coincidence, or design.

My dad has had his share of computer issues this year as well. It seems like I’ve had to reformat both of his computers at least twice in the last year, if not more. I may be off on that, though – everything has pretty much merged into one continuous gray blur over the last few months.

Between all this going on, plus the occasional medical emergency, I’ve been kept hopping most of the year playing taxi driver, plumber, mouse hunter, computer technician, boy Friday, and etc. Then, of course, I had my own medical problems with my eye in November. Happily, the eye situation seems to be improving, albeit very slowly. I just hope things will calm down a little bit in 2008.

We did have a nice vacation in October, although it rained through about half of it, and we had to come home a little early when my eye started having problems.

For the New Year, I’ve got quite a few things planned - assuming I'm not running my butt off constantly. I’m looking at putting together another computer, which will be the most powerful one I’ve built yet. It will be used mainly for graphics, and things that need a lot of processing power. This AMD 3ghz machine will be used as a secondary graphics machine, and a recording studio. I’m looking into a preamp from DAK that will allow me to start digitizing my collection of 33-1/3 vinyl LPs (anyone else remember those?). I’ll also want to use it to digitize video, and convert some of my old camcorder stuff to DVD – and maybe even shoot some new stuff! Once the new machine comes on line, I may well retire the old Gateway 700 piece of crap. Or maybe I’ll find another use for it.

I’m also taking a good long look at my website. It’s all paid up for another two and a half years, so I’ll definitely keep updating it. But, I want it to be/do more than what it is now. My original concept was to have a site that would provide an additional income stream or two. I’m not planning to retire on it, but having another source of income is always a good thing. Thus far, it’s been mostly a hobby site with a few examples of my art and photography. Assuming I have a little time to work on it, I’ll be implementing a few new areas soon, changing a few others, and probably retiring a few other sections.

I will remove the Playboy Back Issues section soon. It’s been well over a year since anyone has ordered any of them, so I’ll be finding a better use for the server space. I’ll leave it up until the end of January, so if you want to order any back issues, do it soon. I’ll be removing the darkroom equipment section as well. It seems with the rapid progress of digital photography, no one is interested in traditional darkroom work anymore. I know I’m not. I’ll probably have a big garage sale in the spring; hopefully I can get rid of some of it then – with a small return on my investment. I paid $1000.00 for the big Beseler color enlarger back in 1990 or so. Now, I can’t give the damn thing away – not that I want to. But if I can’t sell it, I may see if a school or charitable organization may be interested in it.

For now, I’ll spend most of the last evening of 2007 archiving some stuff to CD/DVDs, doing a little artwork, listening to some music, and just relaxing. Boring, huh? I probably won’t even blow anything up at midnight. Probably. There’s always that tiny chance, though!

Here’s hoping you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!
….And me, too…..

Ice Storm 2007!

2007-12-11T22:15:00.000-05:00

We had quite an ice storm last night. Unfortunately, it wasn't severe enough to get a day off work, though! At least we haven't lost power yet. The roads today were mostly just wet, and not slick, so getting around wasn't a big problem.

I managed to get some photos, which I've posted in my monthly update at http://www.rodslair.com/news/12-07.html. We did have a small branch fall from the tree in the front yard last night. It hit the porch, but didn't do much damage other than taking out a small windchime - which I can fix! The rain has tapered off for now, but we'll see what the rest of the week brings.

Later!

It's Winter, All Right....

2007-12-10T21:27:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year - cold, snow/sleet ("sneet?"), freezing rain, and all that crap-uh, I mean stuff. It's starting to rain as I type this, and of course it will soon turn into freezing rain. I'm hoping it will be bad enough to call off work tomorrow - but not bad enough to break tree branches, and consequently, power lines.

I had another check-up with Dr. Dyer today, and everything looks good. My eye still has a way to go, though. Dr. Dyer said it could take a year to completely heal from a severe retinal detachment; and mine was about as severe as they come.

I've added the December 2007 link to my monthly update menu to the left. If you're not on my website, you can click http://www.rodslair.com/news to see my news page and this blog at the same time. You can also click the title above.

I've been playing with RSS a little over the past few days. I have a feed file on my server, now, so you can click on the little RSS icons, and see what's been updated. You can also subscribe with your RSS news aggregator, and get the updates when they happen - or at least shortly after they happen!

I'm finding I can draw with very little difficulty, and it gets easier all the time. So I'm hoping to get some new art up soon. I'm also starting to get back to work on some of the projects in my shop that have been sitting idle while recovering from this issue with my eye.

For now, I'm going to fire up a little hot chocolate, and watch it rain for a while!

Namárië

First Snow and Other Stuff

2007-12-06T19:58:00.000-05:00

We had our first real snowstorm of the winter today. Bleh! I shot this photo after parking in Perkin's lot at lunchtime. I was hoping to maybe get off a little early today if it continued to snow. And we did - a little early. They closed our branch office a whole half-hour early! Oh, well, a half-hour is a half-hour. At least the traffic wasn't too snarled on the way home.

I did manage to get an RSS feed set up on my website, so those of you with RSS readers or IE 7 will be able to see the updates more quickly. This blog is already set up with RSS, but now the rest of the site is as well.

My eye is continuing to improve (I think), but it's a very slow process. It will probably remain somewhat blurry and distorted for a few months, but it seems to be getting a little less so as time passes. I'm finding I can start doing some of the things I did before, such as drawing, and working with small parts. My depth perception is improving - it isn't nearly as difficult to work with small screws as it was a few weeks ago. I can actually get them into the holes on the first or second attempt instead of poking at them a half-dozen times!

We lost another family member this week. Mary Geiss was my brother-in-law's wife's mom. She was a sweet lady - may she be at peace. I hope it's a good long time before I have to write about another one.

I'll be doing a little work on my website in the next few days. I've added a couple new works to my Sexy Faeries Gallery, and hope to have more soon. I'm also going to get back into my shop. I have several unfinished projects waiting, and a number of new ideas I want to explore. But for now.....

Namárië