25 Really Good Reasons To Sleep In A Tree

OK, it has come to my attention that some of you need some **help** making the distinction between followers, readers, commenters, and lurkers. Truthfully, though it appears that only two of you have the spinal column to do all of the above (I <3 you both. You are brave souls and/or very bored), I am glad for all of you and am going to start answering the many questions I have been receiving via email. So, here goes: followers are the most hallowed of beings. They have the brass ones to actually publicly follow my ridiculous attempt at writing. Those little square things at the left of the screen (both of them--ha!) are my "followers" They follow, read, and comment regularly and I return the favor--you should read them!!!

Many of you choose to remain anonymous to the world. I guess I understand why and I respect that, but I shall lovingly refer to you as the "lurkettes" regardless of gender. There. Now you have a group and can know that you exist together in my email. So...now to answer some of your questions.

First..."Do I have any favorite recipes from other blogs?"

I am answering this for one reason. I'm not a recipe kind of girl. I cook and I cook very well, but it's always my own recipe. This recipe is distinct for it's true awfulness and the fact that it's the only recipe I can remember from a blog in recent days. It's a cocktail recipe called Tojaadots, I believe: juice box (whatever's available), tonic water, and coconut rum. Mix and I suppose add to efficacy rather than taste because efficacy is the only reason you would drink such a thing. With that concoction you can write stimulating stuff like this. Merriwether may never follow this rag ever again.

CORRECTION: Actually, the Tojaadot is a mixture of tequila, orange juice, and a dash of Tabasco sauce. The drink box/coconut rum/soda water was an earlier attempt at intoxification...which ended poorly. Tojaadots are, therefore infinitely more desireable treat than death-by-juice-box (my name for it).

Second... "Have you really ever slept in a tree?"

Yes. And I mean IN the tree. Not a tree house or a swing or anything like that. This is going to stir up a lot more questions, so I'll start you off S-L-O-W-L-Y.

25 Really Good Reasons To Sleep In A Tree

1. 2000 sq.ft. house with 7 family members (two octogenarians--one deaf, two in their sixties--one deaf, me, one seven-yr-old--deaf, and one four-yr-old). The deaf thing makes you LOOOONG for piece and quiet and a place where you don't have to make yourself known vocally, facially, AND with the correct combination of hand signals. Contrary to popular opinion, deaf people are not that quiet.

2. Entropy.

3. Not enough ________. This is different for everyone and changes by the day for me.

4. The sound of "Momma, I need you!" "For what?" "For sumpin." "Tell me what!" "For SUM-PIN!!! (growling voice)"

5. The "What the bleep am I supposed to do with this??!!" face my mute seven-yr-old can make. He does NOT need to learn to speak, but I am cooperating with his teachers.

6. Computers that make phone calls.

7. Computers.

8. Microsoft. I digress, but you get the point.

9. The desire for silence like you only get during those blessed moments when the power goes out.

10. Because trees have no forwarding addresses.

11. Because no matter what, the twit from Medco (our prescription drug plan) can never find me in my tree because there is NO PHONE THERE. And, I never pick the same tree. Warning: if you pick the same tree, someone will find you and bring you the cursed cordless phone. This same warning applies to tents. Never pitch your tent in the same spot if you want to stay unavailable! He won't get out of the recliner to eat, but my 83-yr-old grandpa will hike out into the woods on chemo days to give you the dang phone! Ugh. Because phone calls are important. Especially if they come from Jack, the talking computer.

12. Because the tree is not really that much more uncomfortable than my grandma's 1960's-era stuffed, stuffed, and re-stuffed sofa.

13. Because my mother is going through menopause AND withdrawing from her psych meds and sleeping in a tree is infinitely more comfortable than sleeping in prison after committing homicide whether it's justifiable or not. Maybe.

14. Trees do not have diapers. They do not shout dinner orders from the living room like a short-order cafe or have the nerve to mouth off at you. They do not come home from school calling you "butthead."

15. They do not possess volume knobs, or depending on how you look at it, are always "OFF."

16. From a tree, you can see the mushroom cloud that was your house when the occupants realize their network connectivity is nil and the network sys-admin is sleeping in a tree.

17. From a tree, you can see just about anything. Sunrises, storms, sunsets, airplanes, birds, etc.

18. Trees smell good.

19. Very few people climb a tree together, look at one another, and one starts of with, "I was taking another look at zone one where we were comparing the Smackover porosity with known wells..." or "Have you taken a look at the latest confidentiality agreement for Walkup County?" Don't get me wrong. I LIVE TO WRITE LEGAL DOCUMENTS!!!!! I SHOULD BE A LAWYER!

I would sooner tattoo "SHARK" on my forehead.

20. Lawyers. :)

21. Doctors. The M.D. type. The type that write off your grandpa's cancer cause he's "just too old." Even though he's one of the world's leading geophysicists. Never mind him. He has nothing further to add.

22. Well, someday I'll really share this one with you...maybe.

23. Psych professors who tell their students, correction, student in public in a classroom that he needs to be on drugs. P-R-O-F-E-S-S-I-O-N-A-L. My fellow student (M.A. in Psychology and LPC about passed out). We are both qualified to teach this class, but are having to repeat it given the distance between our first degrees and our current schooling. Bugger.

24. Global warming--and other Democratic BS. Hahahahahaha. Sorry. That had to be done. Consider it a parting shot to my one politically-minded reader. But you HAVE to worry about quotes like "We won't know what this bill means until we pass it." That's Nancy Pelosi on health care people. If I were a Dem, I'd be afraid. As a republican I'm terrified. And amused. But, alas, still pursuing a career in health care...

25. Last, but not least, UPS. Not USPS, but UPS. I have undertaken the monumental task of clearly marking my home--even though it's the ONLY home on this street on the south side--so that they can unmistakeably see the numbers from the road and DARN if they can't find it with two hands and a flashlight.

Enough for one day, go have a Tojaadot...

Scat

No Fruit, No Nuts, Just Networks

I must say from the start that this entire weekend has been a total marvel in technological failure and planning run amok. "Amok, amok, amok!" (Does anyone remember Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler? OK, so it's just me...love that).

The office at Green Acres that supports our family's seismic oil and gas prospecting business was, well, having "technical difficulties" all week. No, I do not (TECHNICALLY!) work there anymore. However, no one left there can really do what I did, so the "deal" is that the phone is going to occasionally ring. It rang Wednesday while I was here at the Bunker (Attrition's house). That took about two hours and I thought it was a tough fix, but a solid one. Problem is, it wasn't really my fix to make and therein lies the REAL problem.

Green Acres is in the boonies. The thing with the boonies is that only just this month have we had more than one option for an Internet service provider. We've been a captive of the phone company (who I'd love to name, but won't) for years now and typically pay about $185/mo (or higher when we need other services) for a variable IP DSL service that's slow as Christmas. On top of that, no one at their Internet help desk really knows how to configure the service properly. In fact, they don't even attempt to keep access to their network configuration utilities secure...which is...well, stupid. I don't even think they know how to view your configuration w/o you knowing--they have you bring it up at home and read what's in the blanks to them. That's just bizarre!

So, the "fix" always starts with a phone call. During which I play very, very stupid. And I make sure their adminstrative login and password are the same and that the IP address is the same and I pay attention to anything else that they may have changed or seems to look different and try to ask well-directed, but stupid-sounding questions.

For some reason, no one at this particular telephone company ISP seems to understand that if my "Internet" is "down" but I can still navigate to THEIR server (which I am ONLY connected to via the Internet) to access the configuration applications using MY modem, then, in fact, it is a configuration problem and my modem is not broken. However, they conclude each five minute phone call with "Well, it sounds like your modem is broken. We'll send a new one out with a service person on Monday."

Cripes.

After the call, I'm on my own. More often than not, the problem is caused by an actual outage after which they bring service back online, but do so incorrectly, so the error could be anywhere and like any sort of scientifically methodical effort you can only alter one thing at a time if you are to solve the problem in any sort of sane manner.

So, in lieu of going to the plant sale on Saturday (Yes! I missed it!!!!), I dinked with someone else's network (just my little part in it). And eventually gave up. I have never given up before. Ever...

Attrition tried. He gave up. He never gives up. Ever...

We watched war movies, went to bed, couldn't fall asleep, both met on the porch, listened to weird noises and almost re-educated the idiot neighbor who decided to cross our land with a (very bouncy) flashlight at midnight (yes, he shined it in the living room), got up early, went to church, hauled tree parts to the fire, passed a very happy and ash-covered Squib to his grandparents for shuttling to his dad and finally dragged our aching bodies back into the office.

I said something colorful and plugged everything back in. We tried again. Someone at my favorite telephone company had reset SOMETHING again because one of the logical fixes that I tried yesterday actually worked today. Go figure. It's not my win, though, 'cause Attrition was actually the one at the keyboard. THAT is how it always works out...he is SO...something...

Wow, what a rant...

Finito.

Scat

Octogenarian v. OpenOffice 3.1

OK, so.....most of you know by now that I am a true computer geek. My Dad's a geek, my brother's a geek, and I'm a geek. With regard to the family corporations, Buddy (dad), Attrition (brother), and myself (Scat) are the ones that keep the technical wheels on the proverbial cart.

Enter the octogenarian genius geophysicist, Papa. I mean genius in every sense of the word. However, I am leaning more towards savant. Extremely gifted in a single area, but in all others, well, I can only scrunch my eyes shut and shake my head. I love him very much. He knows more about finding and drilling for oil than I know about everything else at all. Just DO NOT trust him with a spreadsheet. Well, any software come to think of it. Today it was a spreadsheet.

Not just any spreadsheet, either. One that has formulas and links to other pages of the spreadsheet already embedded in it so that the information that's calculated dovetails with our mapping and programming. Took Buddy God knows how long to get everything configured so that everything comes out right in the end. We're using it with one of our proprietary software programs. Which means....."cutting" is bad.

So...Buddy gives Papa the job of data entry. Without locking the editing of formulas. This is bad. Oh, and he does this right when I lay Squib down for a nap.

Squib DOES NOT nap with the door closed. He falls asleep and then I close the door. There's a procedure for EVERYTHING!!!!!!

Papa's office door is two feet from Squib's door.

Let the games begin.

Apparently, Papa begins entering data. Something becomes unclear to him and in order to preserve his data he cuts it out and pastes it elsewhere. Randomly. So, of course, all the formulas and other references get cut out and travel with the now very erroneous data which does paste just a split second before the hieroglyphics appear (if you've ever goofed up a spreadsheet you know the hiero's of which I speak--mostly ###REF and the like).

This is where a tad more explaining is due. Papa is on estrogen. It's part of his treatment for prostate cancer. I don't guess I need to explain what estrogen can do to a person. He gets hot flashes, you name it.

So, here comes an estrogen-powered octogenarian like a hot flash on wheels whose lost God knows how much data--the average survey can be upward of several hundreds of Gb--screeching forth from his office like a banshee...I don't even remember what he said. I saw the horror on Buddy's face and saw the absolute consternation on Papa's face and the yelling was loud enough to be heard clearly over my iPod which was blasting in my ears (I can better cope with the general mayhem that way).

Much discussion and explanation and demonstration was had over the "undo" feature and the "clear" v. "cut" features (It started with "they are NOT the same" and ended with a discussion of whether or not "oh that's just stupid" is a legitimate point or a pointless observation. Buddy got a new copy of the blank spreadsheet for Octo to start all over again, emphasized DATA ENTRY, and we settled down to our work. Again.

Then the screaming. Again. "Cut" v. "Clear" AGAIN. And again with the undo feature. Glad it wasn't me trying to explain it. I'd have duct-taped a certain person's screamer and made an "Undo and Clear ONLY" sign. Instead, with each error we waved him off and silenced him and Buddy carefully explained the problem.....again.

I can't believe it ever ended, but it did. After an hour, he gave up sort of. We were all exhausted. It probably sounded like a nut farm around here with all the shouts of "No cutting! No cutting!"

And...it was God's gift to me personally that Squib fell asleep and stayed that way. One basket case per day is enough.

I'm not even going to go into the missing lump of Play-doh,

Scat

ad nauseum...ad infinitum...add adventure

ad nauseum...

Kudos to the man or woman who coined that phrase.

This has been an "ad nauseum" sort of day. Just take the level of weirdness that I normally exist at, multiply it by ten, and then spread it evenly over what looks to be at least the next five to six months. Hence, the ad nauseum.

Here is an exact transcript of my conversation with three different persons this morning. This all took place between 10 am and 11 am and will seriously affect my life for AT LEAST the next six months and maybe more. OK, probably more. Uncannily, they all sounded relatively alike:

"Hey, Blah." (Them.)

"Hi! How ya doin?" (Me. I just love being called "Blah.")

"Great, great, you got a second?" (Them.)

"Sure." (One moment of scrambling to silence the phone of death. Another moment reminding myself that I don't really have a moment.)

"Listen, uh, we've been discussing some things and come to a decision regarding X."

(X can be anything your little blog-reading mind chooses to dream up, alligators, money, job future, money, clients, money, cat burglars, money, starvation in Africa, money, or the like, or money).

"Here's what we've decided:______________________." (The length of this blank in no way represents what was actually presented at this point. Be joyful.)

(Swallowing and sucking noises from my direction.)

"Now, nothing at all is going to change." (Them. OK...maybe part of the sucking noise is coming from them. Only a vacuum is responsible for that sort of mathematics.)

I am still listening at this point, but obviously trying to think of how nothing is going to change after that thing they put in the blank takes place. I'm wondering about this so hard that I miss part of the conversation, I'm sure. Not a very important part, though, 'cause at this point, they're sure nothing's changed and I heard the part in the blank so somebody's not done their math. Actually, I know the person who's done the math and that person elected this person to talk to me. Chicken. Go figure.

By the third time, I'm feeling like a star in a really sick episode of "this is your life" Only, the title has changed to "This Is Your Life and It Reeks."

ad infinitum...

As a direct result of one of the three aforementioned conversations, I was passed a white piece of paper by Papa. On the piece of paper was scrawled a monetary amount.

"Make our bank account match this." He thrust it at me and I took it with one eye lid scrunched low and the other raised in an incredulous manner as though he'd asked me to fart fairy dust. Turns out that's easier. I looked at our ledger and all the happy little rows of items that had cleared the bank and made sure that all the months' statements had been entered and that only what represented the time between last month's statement and the upcoming statement was outstanding. Hm. Balance did not match magic piece of paper. Nor could I contort the numbers to match magic piece of paper. Hmm.

First trip to talk to Papa. Have I mentioned just how very much Papa luuuuuuvs to mow? I mean luv here. So I find him out West of the house and stomp out to the tractor and holler at him at the top of my lungs that "THERE'S NO MATCHING BALANCE! COULD YOU GO TO THE BANK AND EITHER AUTHORIZE ONLINE BANKING OR GET A PRINT OUT OF CURRENT TRANSACTIONS?"

He looked at me quizzically and I could tell he made the decision to stay on the mower. "CALL BRANDY! TELL HER WHAT TO DO! SHE KNOWS US AND SHE'LL TAKE CARE OF IT" I assured him she would not and that he would have to be present, but that was promptly pshawed and he revved the engine and peeled out, well, like a lawn tractor peels out.

Immediately, I am cursing in my mind this whole process because I know banking laws! I know what's required! She's not going to do this for me! I still have to make the idiot phone call! In the process I'll probably get to talk to half the church (because half the church works at the bank) and who knows who else and basically say, "Hey! It's Scat! Yeah, we need online banking for the corporate account, and I know Papa has to come sign it, but I do the books so he had me call and try to see what I could do." They all snort and giggle which is what EVERYONE who knows my grandfather does. I get passed about from person to person (gotta have fun in a small town) and then to Brandy's voicemail where I left my now-practiced message and hung up!

Brandy, I am sure she laughed pretty hard first, called me back and told me exactly what I already knew. So. Here I go. Stomp stomp stomp. Papa takes it a little easier and decides he'll just stop by the bank on his way to the Post Office (a whole other story). Which he did.

Upon his return, he stomps up to me where I was innocently sitting at my computer and says "Now you know you can't just call Brandy and ask for online banking or a statement!!! I have to authorize it with my very own signature!" You don't say...

Adventure?

Well, at least around our house it was. Yes, tonight the bluetooth headphones made their debut. Everyone looks like they've stepped out of the Fifth Element or Star Trek and when they get calls, the seemingly randoms "Hello!s" are a little unnerving. But the rockin' bass and the handsfree options are awesome.

Buddy Scat has had the most trouble using his, so we had to have phone call practice. Probably looked like a hotel room at a trekkie convention with us sitting on the bed communicating by voice and by phone....oooooweeeeehhhaaaaaoooooooo.....

OK, so not the adventure I need or crave, but one baby-step closer for mankind :)

Next up on our adventure/agenda....voice calling. That's not MY agenda, but Buddy's.

My agenda is fixing to blow wide open all together. YAY! I am personally planning my exit to the out-of-doors for my own personal hiking season. May take me a while to put it together due to financial constraints and business crapola.

Next, Planning the Attack on Big Thicket!

Scat

Tuesday...and our anthropomorphic side

Yup, Tuesday...boy did it ever come earlier than my body could stand (4:30 a.m)! I was up until midnight or so babysitting Ren, our newest workstation and trying to get him up and running reliably enough for me to work on him remotely while I stayed in the main house to be with Squash Blossom (human child) today.

I was also up waiting to hear the blow-by-blow of my friend LKB who went to the hospital experiencing horrible chest pains and was experiencing life as the housed one and nervous out of her britches. She's in much better spirits today, though not feeling better and does have some water around her heart. Something to be prayerful about. And something to put you in a rather sobered funk.

Yes, I realize I'm anthropomorphizing my computers! Ren is a young male which we have assembled from parts but that's not unusual. All our little ones are assembled by either Attrition or myself or both. It's cheaper that way and then we have complete control over all the "pieces parts" as my ex calls them.

We have a couple non-gender machines: Raptor (a desktop on it's last leg) and Taplin (a lappie now run with a 22" monitor and remote kbrd/mouse). There are two males: Pokey and RocketDog who are both laptops. Our single female is our botttom-of-the-barrell laptop and she also happens to now be the lone female: Sarah. My first workstation is now a transexual: Stimpy (who was Monica). And YES, I do believe that Stimpy has some "tendencies" that keep us having to request permission for access to "his" printers, plotters and other resources. He likes having a certain amount of control and isn't hip on sharing. Ren (who was Thor) is our second workstation. He is currently being rebrained.

The new file server has yet to be christened and Attrition and I have been thinking long and hard about it's name and can only converge on Beavis. Mostly because we have a small network server who DEFINITELY deserves the name Butthead, but is only generically named at present. Umpteen other devices need names...printers, plotters, scanners, Gig sticks, iGo drives, and Terabyte drives.

It's a problem to refer to something that has no name. And, when you get as many computers as we have you can't call them so-and-so's computer, etc. or it all runs together (cause every so-and-so uses at least three computers) and soon you're fixing things that aren't broken or moving data you shouldn't or, well...much, much worse things. Plus, the computers out number the people--and that has obvious and menacing overtones.

What's really strange is how they seem to react and/or behave according to their name??! Go ahead and call me a strange on this count. When Monica became Stimpy, things got hinky. When they named the second workstation "Thor" it couldn't keep up. Not gonna make much more comment than that. Raptor just isn't one. RocketDog, however, has been a workhorse from day one and has never disappointed me in the least. There's a lot to the name.

And anthropomorphize I will if it helps me keep all the arrays, machines, printers, and storage devices organized in my mind. Otherwise there is no hope for me.

LKB is out of the hospital, SqB is asleep (after much drama all afternoon....MUCH drama...he's gonna get his own blog for that in the a.m).

Wanna make your comp love you for life?

Name him/her!

Scat

Yup, blogging from the iPhone store...

Monday is, as usual, followed by Tuesday. This Tuesday finds me parked in the Apple store. Yep, parked here long enough to read my fave blog intake and to start one of my own.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but, on-the-whole I'm feeling right now like everything including the toaster belongs in the deep end of the swimming pool. Computers to toasters....take it all. You can even have the pump that keeps our 85 gallon reservoir pumped full from the well we get our water from. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL!!! I'm ready for a mud hut, good company and the absence of that clickety-clack sound that seems to always be the background music for my life these days.

All I want is an iPhone, well, three to be exact... and I wish every one could be as accommodating as the iPhone man at the Apple store...AT&T is giving him the runaround and he's doing his darnedest to at least give me the one that we've owed Attrition for over a month now...YES, I have been trying to add at the bare minimum one line so that Attrition can do our diagnostics via iPhone. And living in Radiator Springs means you have to travel to Timbuktu if you actually want to go into a cell phone store. So, we order over the phone or Internet.

Only to find out after THREE WEEKS that the order had been cancelled.

So, as usual, Thor died his third or fourth death yesterday and I had to carry him part and parcel with myself to Attrition and Mystery's for a laying on of hands. Disgustingly enough, he booted right up. There were some problems but none reproducible. Crazy.

With the phone store right there and all, we decided to kill as many birds as possible with one stone (or maybe half a stone). Anyway, we hit the AT&T kiosk in the Mall....they directed us to the Apple store in the mall. The Apple store could help us with the addition of the extra phone, but they referred us to the AT&T store a little further south on the feeder (where Ninfa's used to be--I was hungry). After Chris (very nice and quick) salesperson got us set up a third of the way at the Apple store, we shuffled off to torture Rene at the Ninfa's location of AT&T.

Just so happened they were out of the iPhone we wanted....

I was ready to hurl.

I mean that.

And I don't hurl easily or often.

It takes us a minimum of an hour to get to an AT&T store and they're not gonna have what they advertise?! EEEK (again with the scrunchy stress face and unintelligible noises).

It's at times like these that I think, "Julia Roberts would not be having this problem."

Of course, she probably didn't go to buy her own phone..

Poor Rene got the brunt of Buddy's wrath over the cancellation of the order (that we had already corrected at the Apple store). We were there to upgrade our own phones...totally different story, so I sent him to the car to commune with his Kleenex box (bad sinus probs. = major grouch) while I spent at least an hour-and-a-half getting things square on our account.

And kudos to Rene at the 303 Sawdust, The Woodlands, TX 77380 store and his manager for accommodating us b/c you guys made my life SO much easier (Sort of. You also make it look like I have magical powers, so Buddy now makes me do all the dealing around here). Also to the FedEx man who, for whatever reason, came early! I walked out with EXACTLY what I needed and wanted!

Nevertheless, the grouch awaited.

Fortunately, we finally made it back to Radiation Springs by way of Squib's dad's house, Attrition and Mystery's (to drop off phone #1), a Citgo station (to peel the sheetrock off the underside of the car that we "had" to run over, the Jack-in-the-Box in Willis (cause I had consumed a Route 44 DP earlier), and the church for sheet music.

All-in-all.....seven hour round trip......geesh.
Scat

The Facebook Phenomenon (--or—My Own Personal History of Total Geekdom)

 

Let me tell you first just a little bit about our first PC (“our” refers to Attrition and myself). Now, I’m not talking about calculators or the Commodore 64’s and other things you could plug into your television and use commands written in Basic to make Mr. Bojangles dance. I’m talking about a real PC with a motherboard, a (then) true 5.25” floppy (very floppy) drive, a single monitor and no mouse. (Mice….who’d have thought)?

Of course, Dad had always been working on computers. His were, in general, the size of a refrigerator or larger and “programs” were written as key-punches into an individual card and stacks of cards represented a single program itself. Not the sort of thing you want to drop accidentally on your way to put it into the computer (which happened on occasion). At that time, all I knew was that it was fun to operate the keypunch machines and fun to color on the cards. He graduated to large, magnetic tape quickly, but I was still too young to care about anything more than whether or not he was going to bring home the plastic storage rings for Attrition and I to play with.

So at the ripe old age of 12 (me) and 9 (Attrition), Buddy Scat decided that if we were to get a computer of our own, we would first have to build one. This didn’t surprise us. Everything in our house worked that way pretty much.

So we did.

It was VERY slow.

And it did only one thing.

It generated prime numbers.

So, we attached a DOT-matrix printer (bzzzt bzzzt bzzz...oh you remember that noise!) to our little computer and it then began printing out each new prime number it calculated. Went lickety-split for the first few…then it had to think harder and harder. The harder it had to think, the more time it took. Soon, we were only getting one number per day…then a number every two days, then a week, then we almost forgot about it, but it was STILL WORKING! So, we found some closet space and moved the whole experiment in there. The sound of the printer zipping off a new number interrupted anything else going on in the house as we geeked out staring at the new number…whoa, dude! 13,111! We did our little prime number dance and then life went back to “normal” for a few weeks. Our own definition of normal, of course.

Needless to say, we got our computer. An 8086, I believe...**snicker**

I remember those were the days when Kilobytes were “big.”

Now, here I sit with a 320 Gig hard drive in my laptop, no less, with 2.5 G memory and an Intel Core processor. All this came to pass in my lifetime. Heck, digital watches, video games, and so much more just weren’t there until I was six or seven years old!

Jump from there to now and holy cow!!! What a change!

And the internet has now reopened my world with the invention of Facebook. I don’t know who started these types of online communities. Well, I know who was behind FB. At first, we had websites, IM and email….but this takes that up a level by far. Now, with Facebook, I have quite literally found every close friend I’ve ever had. I’ve become closer to acquaintances that are now friends, and am now meeting new folks that are exciting, different, and refreshing.

The tone is always one of love and care, advice and suggestions, laughter and joking, encouragement and cheer, and I have yet to see any flaming even amongst some friends I know to be diametrically opposed to each other’s political or religious views. I see that happening to people I know, but I could care less to drag my junk out of the trash (where it belongs) mush less throw it at someone I like. Or dislike.

I have friends in almost every state of the union and several in other countries (including CA—couldn’t resist, A). All are in various stages of life and you just get that melting pot feeling when you’re there!

So, if you’re like and really want to get to know me….following me around Facebook! If you can find me (Challaaaaaaange!) check me out! Or if you already know who I am, find me there. You might just learn some things you never knew.

Scat