Curse you Microsoft

Last week C&C seemed to have a little black cloud following them around.  Theirs affected both their vehicles.  This weekend we got it.  We had 2 computers die at the same time – Penny’s laptop and our home computer, the desktop in the den.

Right now I’m recovering Penny’s computer to the factory default.  She will lose data and programs if she didn’t back them up but it looks like her computer will be usable again.

The desktop is a different story.  It died hard.  It won’t even try to boot.  I tried the simple fix – replacing the CMOS battery – but it didn’t change a thing.  The power supply appears to be working.  If it is not the culprit (I already replaced it a while back) the next logical place for the problem is in the motherboard.  Because of the lack of any activity on the computer there is nothing I can do to fix it.  I can test the power supply – that I will do after I see if Penny’s computer is restored . (so far it is going through the restoration process successfully and is now having Windows set up the computer)

Now to see what can be done with the desktop.

Trip Prep

When you are retired you can set aside a day or two or even a week if you want to prepare for and pack for a trip.  That’s what Penny and I did today.

It was a beautiful day weather wise so after spending the day indoors, and knowing tomorrow should be a rainy day, I took a break around 6PM and headed to the beach for sunset.  I didn’t expect a spectacular sunset and didn’t get one.  But any walk on the beach is nice and I haven’t done it in a while.

Tonight the clouds were interesting and there were a number of people fishing.

One guy caught a small shark

On my way back to the car I found a pair of nice sunglasses in the sand.  I asked those close to me on the beach and it wasn’t theirs.  There were 3 carloads of people leaving and I went from car to car and found the woman who dropped the in the 3rd car.

Tomorrow will likely be another indoor day if the weather report is accurate.

Farewell to Another Priest

We go through a lot of priest at our military community.  Our full-time priest is currently deployed.  When that happens we have a host of retired and temporary priests to fill in.

We’ve had a Polish priest for the last few weeks.  He had been stationed at Eglin AFB and served for us at the end of his stay in this area.

He always includes old jokes in his talks and tonight his joke included a comment about the length of a sermon.  There was a farewell dinner for him after mass and he went to the kitchen before mass and said it smelled good.  He hinted that he might make his sermon real short so he could eat sooner.  The funny thing was that he did make it short – 7 1/2 minutes – and when he finished he was laughing but genuinely embarrassed.  He commented that he might need to go to confession for the brief homily.

He finished his last mass with us by singing the last verse of the post communion song.  He really has a good voice too.

He leaves us today-goes to see his mother- then goes to Germany followed by a 6-month deployment.  They never tell us where the deployment is.

That’s just the way it is in a military diocese.

K & C in ‘82

Every so often I dig out my kids journal and read what Karen and Christy were doing when they were Sophie and Lucy’s ages.

In Sep 10 1982 Karen wrote her first computer program:

  10 PRINT “HI DADDY'”

We had just gone to see ET and Christy was now playing a game she made up that she called “ET phone home”.  She also had an imaginary friend, ET, who went everywhere with us.

Karen informed me that red seedless grapes tasted the same as green seedless grapes because they have green stuffing in them.

In mid-Oct Christy volunteered to get everything ready when it was time to brush teeth.  When we got to the bathroom the water was running, the toothbrushes were ready with toothpaste on them so she did a good job.  She said she spilled a little toothpaste on the counter but that it was Okay-she had licked it up!

About the same timeframe we were at the beach and Karen, seeing the Goodyear Blimp wanted to know why they flew it around upside down.

Christy quote “I’m not crying, my eyes are just watering.”

Pelican Day

Our first fall cold front passed through yesterday making today a beautiful relatively dry and cool day.  A good day to kayak.

We went to our usual spot to put the kayaks in, the little beach.  It was cool enough to consider a jacket – but we figured paddling would keep us warm.

Once we got out we noticed a new addition to the bayou.  A good sized boat was moored off in the distance in the middle of the bayou.

As we got closer I could see it was a rusty boarded up boat loaded with pelicans using it as their own private perching area.  The pelicans were using the bayou for their fishing grounds and Penny and I spent the morning side by side holding our kayaks together and watching the show put on by the feeding pelicans.

There were also osprey and dolphin in the area but the pelicans had really taken over the bayou today.

Post Isaac

After Isaac passed we headed over to Jacksonville on Friday to celebrate Lucy’s 3rd birthday. We took the trailer on this trip so we could bring Penny’s armoire back home.  It has been with C&C but now they don’t need it around to have to move.

Saturday began with breakfast made by Tim.  It included egg substitute and turkey bacon just for us.  K&T had haircut appointments so Penny and I watched Lucy and Sophie.  It was agony.  We had to endure a trip to the beach and then lunch at Chili’s.  Look at these pictures .  Does this look like something you would want to do?

 

                       Lucy writing her name in the sand.

On Sunday C&C came up for Lucy’s birthday-done to the theme of the hungry, hungry caterpillar.   Karen made a caterpillar from balloons and Penny added the butterfly balloon.

The party was just family and it was fun.  We got Lucy some Thomas trains and she and Sophie had a lot of fun with them. 

             (note the hungry caterpillar dress Penny made!)

She also got roller skates

and a trip to the Gainesville butterfly rainforest.

  We all visited the beach again – this time in our bathing suits – so we got a little wetter. 

Monday we headed home again after going out to breakfast.  We went through High Springs  to have lunch with C&C and to load the armoire onto the trailer and hook it up to the CRV again.

The drive home from High Springs wasn’t bad.  We hit a few patches of rain but nothing serious.  It did rain all day Tuesday and half of Wednesday but I finally got the lawn mowed in the evening.

A week ago (Thursday) we were watching Isaac rain on Mississippi and Louisiana.  Today his remnants pushed back through and out into the Gulf.  We may see more weather from that storm yet.