NIS2009, iTunes cleanup, library date

(posted from home)
(This post covers 30-31 January, 2009)

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Saturday, 31 January –

Today was library-date day. Labashi and I drove into the library in York to exchange some magazines and read the city newspapers. We then went looking for lunch. We were surprised to find so many restaurants closed today in downtown York. We drove south out of York to Jacobus, where I remembered passing a coffee shop near a furniture store—someplace to browse after lunch. But the coffee shop didn’t look special so we ended up heading back to York and stopping at a Five Guys for lunch. The Five Guys wasn’t especially nice for our date but by that time we were hungry enough not to care. Lesson learned—figure out where we’re having lunch before leaving home. (You’d think that I would have learned this lesson somewhere along the way from having dated this woman since 1967!)
The afternoon was a lazy one but I did manage to install Norton Internet Security 2009 on Labashi’s PC and get it thoroughly checked out.
That evening we watched a few episodes of ‘Flight of The Conchords’. Wow.

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Friday, 30 January –

Last evening I installed Norton Internet Security 2009 but didn’t have time to check it out. I spent a few hours this morning getting updates, running scans, checking out the options and double-checking that everything seemed to be working with my applications. So far so good. Once I’m confident of it, I’ll also install it on Labashi’s machine. I do see something I’m not fond of buried in the license agreement. If you don’t renew your subscription, the product quits working. That’s a good way for Symantec to lose my business forever. The old version (2008) continues to run and protect your PC; it just doesn’t get the latest anti-virus updates. But now if I happen to miss a subscription deadline (like when I’m on a trip and don’t have a mailing address or reliable Internet connection) or I have some problem getting it installed, their approach is to expose my PC to the Internet. So I’ll be looking for another security product next year.
Today was also my day to get my iPod ready for my trip. The iPod itself is fine but I needed to get podcasts under control in iTunes. I had over two thousand podcasts taking up so much space on my laptop that I had to do something. There were a few I’d have liked to keep—like the CBC’s business editor’s podcast in December 2007 in which he confidently predicted the end of recessions. He said the world’s financial systems, particularly that of the US, were so stable that we’d never again have a recession. (And since November 2007, the S&P 500 has lost 40 per cent)
I had listened to all the ‘This American Life’, ‘Bill Moyers Journal’, ‘This Week in Saskatchewan’, ‘This Week in Manitoba’, ‘This Week in British Columbia’, and ‘This Week in the North’ podcasts and many of the ‘CBC Editor’s Choice’ podcasts. I had many more—over a year’s worth of ‘This Week’ broadcasts for Ontario, Alberta, and The Maritimes plus ‘The Wildebeat’ (a backpacking and outdoors podcast) which I rarely listened to. So I’ve deleted the episodes I’ve heard and unsubscribed the podcasts I rarely listened to, then bought a few more songs and I’m ready to go.
I didn’t walk today and we didn’t have a movie.

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‘Appaloosa’, ‘Corner Gas’, MedLog

(posted from home)
(This post covers 26-29 January, 2009)
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Thursday, 29 January –

I worked in the office this morning, mostly on estate stuff. In the afternoon I began my prep for a CT scan of my abdomen late in the day. I had to drink a quart of ‘Omnipaque’ mix for the test. The Omnipaque wasn’t bad. I expected a chalky taste for some reason but it was truly tasteless, even when mixed in plain water.
The CT scan went fine at the Imaging Center. They gave me more Omnipaque to drink and fed something into me intravenously that gave me a sudden warming flush. But it wasn’t painful. The nurse had informed me well for everything that was going to happen and I was in and out of the Imaging Center in a half-hour.
Back home I installed Norton Internet Security 2009 on my laptop. That went fine though I thought I might have a problem when my internet connection died in the middle of the installation/activation process.
No walk today. I have no toe pain but I’m going to let them rest up for a few days more.
That evening we finished ‘Corner Gas- Season One’ and the DVD extras. We love it after having been in Saskatchewan three times in the last three summers. Corner Gas is set in the mythical small town of Dog River, Saskatchewan. We love the references to Canadian stuff (“Hand me a roll of Loonies, eh?”) and quirky Canadian characters (my favorite is Oscar, the older gent in this clip)…



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Wednesday, 28 January –

I blogged and update the MedLog a bit this morning, then worked on estate tasks the rest of the day. No walk today.
That evening we watched ‘Appaloosa’, a Western with a ridiculous plot. This was an odd one. We enjoyed the actors (Ed Harris, Renee Zellweger, and Viggo Mortenson) and we enjoyed the extra efforts taken to make the sets, costumes, and guns as true to the time (1882) as possible. But the writing—holy frijoles. RT gives it a 75 but I don’t think I could go that high. Maybe I could go for a 60. Not a great movie, not even a good movie. I see in Renee’s interview in the extras she calls it a genre movie and I suppose that’s code for ‘we know it’s not great—it’s not supposed to be—it’s a genre movie’.

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Tuesday, 27 January-

My hematologist’s office called this morning. My platelets are normal. I just happen to be one of the individuals for which the alternate blood testing procedure must be done. OK, so far, so good.
I also had an appointment today with a urology specialist because a routine urinalysis had found excessive red blood cells. I’ll have to have a CT scan and a cystoscopy (Oh, boy!). The former is scheduled for later this week but the latter can’t be done until next week, which means I’ll have to delay my trip at least a few days. Rats.
My urology appointment today was a new experience... a young woman giving me a physical—including the old turn-your-head-and-cough test and a ‘digital prostate exam’--- and, no, that exam wasn’t done using an Intel processor!
On the way home I stopped in at the new Sportsman’s Liquidators store north of York. I had seen it’s having the grand opening so thought I’d stop in today to look around. I started chatting with the counter-guy and we talked quite a while. I was interested in his stories about North Carolina backcountry and he wanted to know about my Alaska trip. Oh, yeah. Excellent Browning-logo wool-blend socks are 3 for $10. Good deal.
Back home I made blog and MedLog entries rather than walking today. I skipped my walk because I have some tenderness which may be my old nemesis, inflammation of my toe joints. That’s not good.
I used the term ‘MedLog’ above. That refers to my medical log on my laptop. In filling out two more medical background questionnaires in the last week, I had to do some research about my medical history (what were my surgeries and when were they done?, for example). Also, I find I need more detail as I go in to explain to a new doctor why I’m there. And, frankly, my memory isn’t getting any better. Thus the MedLog.
That evening we watched four episodes of ‘Corner Gas- Season 1’. I love it!

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Monday, 26 January-

I have several doctor appointments this week. Routine tests during my annual physical raised some questions. This same thing happened last year. I get a physical and my family doctor sends me off for more testing. Last year I was sent for a stress test ‘just to be sure’ and it indicated I had a heart problem. The heart specialist recommended a catheterization but when I balked he said we could do another stress test. If I failed the second test or if it was anything but completely clear, I’d have to go in for the catheterization. Fortunately, the second test was clear; the first one had been wrong.
This year my blood test shows an odd clumping of white platelets which prevent the technician from getting a white-platelet count. So today I went to see a hematologist. He believes it could simply be a problem with the testing procedure and sent me for another blood test, this time with an alternate procedure.
I walked-four in the afternoon. We don’t have any movies but we found an interesting PBS documentary about Robert Oppenheimer being railroaded by his political enemies. Good one.

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‘Arctic Son’, ‘SlamNation’, ‘The Lives of Others’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 20-25 January, 2009)

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Sunday, 25 January –

This morning I found myself getting overwhelmed with the remnants of the paperwork from the estate. Just like the old days at work—I had a stack of filing that was getting WAY out of control. I spent the morning filing.
I also had a long conversation with Orat via Skype today. He didn’t turn on his video camera at first and I soon realized how much I really like having the video. Even though the video is just a talking head, it still makes for a more immersive conversation. We did learn, however, that the video has a heavy impact on file transfer throughput. I sent Orat a 8 Meg video clip and the transmission settled in at a very slow 8-9 kbps. On a whim we turned off our Skype video and the transfer rate started climbing. It was still climbing at 110 kbps when it finished. Lesson learned. If the link is slow or you need to send a file, turn off the video.
I walked the four-mile course today and was comfortable enough on this 30-degree day. I’d overheat going downwind and freeze my face and ears as I turned back into the wind coming back but I had a balaclava along and didn’t use it.
That evening I caught up the blog.

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Saturday, 24 January –

We went to the library in downtown York this morning. I had planned to simply renew my books but one of them is now on hold for another patron so I thought I’d better just go ahead and return them all now and avoid a repeat trip later.
Labashi went along today so we read in the library and then went on a lunch-date at the nearby Off Center Grill in the Yorktowne Hotel. I like this new ‘tradition’— a lunch-date.
On the way home we stopped at Home Depot and then picked up some grocery must-haves before returning home.
Late in the day I decided I’d better take a break from walking today to recover. I had a glass of wine and took it easy, then we watched ‘The Lives of Others’, an excellent movie about life in East Germany before the Wall came down in 1989. Very well done!

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Friday, 23 January-

Today was nice one—a rare 50-degree, balmy day. We’ve had some other 50-degree days but those were so windy or rainy they didn’t ‘count’ as nice days. We moved our old futon frame and mattress out of the guest room to make way for a pair of single beds. The beds will be more comfortable (and more conventional) for our guests.
This move also solves another problem. Our futon mattress in Mocha Joe needed replacement so this move allowed us to trade out its over-worn mattress for a near-new one.
We put the futon frame out on the driveway with a FREE sign and within a few hours a neighbor claimed it. Her son’s futon frame had recently broken so this will work out well for them.
I also spent an hour doing paperwork for medical appointments coming up next week.
I spent the afternoon installing the roof racks and Thule box on Mocha Joe in preparation for my Florida trip. I also checked out the kayak and guess what I found? The cell phone I lost last March. I had put it in a dry bag for a paddle at Marco Island. And it’s only now I remember how busy things were at the launch ramp when I returned. I had loaded quickly and had forgotten to check the bag. So when I was attempting to find my cell by calling it from a pay phone I had parked beside, the phone was actually only a few feet away—in the kayak on top of the van. And now I know why I didn’t a taker when I had Labashi text a reward offer to it. (Hmmm-- Maybe I can charge it up and claim the reward!)
Late in the day I walked my six mile loop.
That evening we watched ‘SlamNation’, a documentary about the national poetry slam contest. It was okay. Maybe we weren’t in the mood.

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Thursday, 22 January-

I worked in the office today, mostly on the web looking for some last-minute items for my upcoming trip (and not very successfully). I also have to get our security software updated, particularly mine since I’ll be using my laptop on public networks.
In the afternoon I walked the six-mile loop and then we watched a movie I took a chance on. The movie is called ‘Arctic Son’ and it’s about a First Nations father and son who live in Old Crow, Yukon Territory. The chance I took was on the fact that the movie was rated very low—only two stars--- on Netflix. But we had been in the Yukon this summer and not very far from Old Crow. Actually we weren’t close at all by road miles since there’s no road to Old Crow. We had been east of it as we traveled the Dempster Highway and downriver of it when we were at Eagle, Alaska.
In any case, we loved the movie. We loved seeing the terrain, now in winter, but very familiar. We loved seeing the shots of the Yukon, both frozen over and also during breakup. We also loved the intimate look at the lives of these Gwich’in men—everything from the clothes they wore to their homes, their cabin, their tool kits for the skidoos. Great movie for us, though perhaps not for everyone.

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Wednesday, 21 January-

Today I again spent some time on the estate but then Labashi roped me into ‘just a half-hour’ of clearing stuff out of the downstairs room (not exactly one of my favorite things to do). That turned into a couple of hours and it really wasn’t that bad. And the good news is we’re slowly ridding ourselves of lots of clutter we’ve accumulated over our 25 years in this house.
In the afternoon I walked-four.

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Tuesday, 20 January-

I spent the morning catching up the blog and working on estate tasks. That afternoon I walked my six-mile loop.
No movie today.


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‘Stray Dog’, ‘The Real Dirt on Farmer John’, ‘The Battle of Algiers’, grey fox sighting

(posted from home)
(This post covers 14 – 19 January, 2009)


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Monday, 19 January-

I spent the day researching the estate and responding to questions from the lawyer in preparation for an upcoming tax deadline.
We had a light snow overnight and that made my four-miler a pretty one. On the way back I heard an odd sound coming from the woods on the other side of the creek. It was an odd, strangled barking sound—not really a bark but bark-like. And just one at a time. The sound drew my attention to a movement and it was a grey fox! The sound was a lot like the sound in this Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk6acsIyyU
(the barking you first hear on this video is a neighbor’s Chihuahua but if you wait, you’ll see and hear the fox barking. This is very close to the sound I heard. Apparently it’s a territorial bark.)
The fox had only barked once in drawing my attention but after it walked out of sight it barked again. As I continued my walk, I heard it three or four more times. I love it!
The barking reminded me of something which happened earlier this Fall, also involving a fox, I believe. In the wee hours of a very rainy night we heard what I can only describe as a dog-crying sound. It was just at the edge of our yard. I turned on the floodlights and very briefly saw the side and a bit of the tail of the animal. The color was the same as this grey fox—and then it was gone and we heard it no more.
That evening we watched the extras on the ‘Farmer John’ DVD and then watched ‘The Battle of Algiers’, a 1966 film about the struggle for Algerian independence from France. I see RT rates it a 98 and that’s fully deserved. Viewers today will recognize parallels with recent political news of the Iraq war. Amazingly, the film does not use archival footage—the scenes are all created for the film. Incredible!

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Sunday, 18 January-

In late morning I drove to Chambersburg to pick up some info from Maypo. Labashi was busy installing cornice boxes above the windows in our offices so didn’t want to go. She built the boxes over the last few days using her new sliding miter saw. Compared to the cost of buying commercial cornice boxes, she paid for the saw with this project alone. The boxes enclose the very nice cellular blinds she put up last week. Very cool!
I had a late-morning start so didn’t make it to the ‘Burg until 1300. Maypo and I sat around chatting for a few very enjoyable hours before I headed home late in the day. I had come via I-81 but decided I’d go home via US30. I was driving beat-up old Cherry Larry and didn’t want to travel interstate speeds. And I also wanted some new scenery.
That evening we watched an excellent documentary, ‘The Real Dirt on Farmer John’. RottenTomatoes summarizes it like this: “Ostensibly a bio about an eccentric farmer, The Real Dirt on Farmer John also doubles as a stirring exploration of man’s common struggle with loss and prejudice.” Highly recommended.
No walk today.

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Saturday, 17 January-

I spent the morning going through old books and magazines and deciding what to throw out. I’ve accumulated two book-cases-worth of books and newletters on sailing, private flying, and scuba diving which I’m now ready to toss. I thought I’d someday start selling them off on Ebay but book prices are so low it’s hardly worth the effort to list and the trouble to pack and ship them, much less the hassles of dealing with questions and the occasional deadbeat buyer.
While working today I’ve had President-elect Obama’s pre-inauguration train trip on the tube. I’m amazed how much effort CNN is putting into this—what will they have left to say on Tuesday?
Late in the day I walked-four. Weather is again very cold today. It was 18 degrees as I left for the walk. But I see it’s 63 in Tampa!
That evening we watched ‘Stray Dog’, a 1949 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. The plotline is about a young police officer who frantically searches for a pistol stolen from him and used by a criminal. But we loved seeing the background—the intimate view of a small part of Japan just a few years after the War.

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Friday, 16 January –

I spent the working part of the day responding to a letter from my lawyer for the estate. By 1400 I was ready to get outside and bundled up for the sub-20 temperature and then walked two hours on my six-mile loop.
That evening I decided to check out the instant-viewing function on Netflix. Last week I had ordered a cut-back on the speed of my internet connection to save a few bucks. Fortunately, we can’t really tell a difference.
I watched a promotional pilot for ‘The United States of Tara’ coming up for its premiere this weekend on Showtime. We don’t get Showtime but hopefully this series makes it to DVD sometime next year and I’ll then be able to get it.
I also watched two episodes of ’30 Rock’, Season 1 to see if I want to get the Season One disk set for us to watch. I liked it and think Labashi will too.
I’m reading William Least Heat Moon’s ‘Roads to Quoz’. I’m not sure yet. The author likes to use uncommon words and sometimes they seem to get in the way. Maybe I just need to go with the flow and enjoy the exercising of the linguistic muscles.

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Thursday, 15 January –

Labashi and I went into town for a lunch date today. She’s a fan of Chili’s fajitas and today’s were extra-good. Afterwards we hit the nearby Lowe’s to try to find a replacement screen for our storm windows. They had nothing available but on the way home Labashi remembered we had replaced a kitchen window years ago and she had put the old storm window in the barn. Excellent—that saves $40 for a new storm window assembly and a lot of messing around on a ladder to install and paint it.
Late in the day I walked-four. We spent the evening on the web.

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Wednesday, 14 January-

I’d better get busy. My winter trip is coming up quickly. This morning I ordered a replacement ball for the trailer hitch. With the van loaded last year the fishing boat trailer leaned down a bit. That’s not a big deal for trailering but when it rains the boat collects water and it won’t drain out without my intervention. I either have to unhitch the trailer and crank up the front or find a fairly steep hill I can drive up. So I bought a ‘tall-ball’ or ‘hi-ball’ with a 2-inch rise so the trailer will naturally sit slightly up in the front. I saw several other solutions but they’re all more expensive than just replacing the ball.
I also bought minutes for my Tracfone. I’ve not bought minutes for nearly a year so had to re-learn the process. I found a promotional code via Google which added 60 free minutes to a 60-minute purchase so that helped out.
That afternoon I walked the six-mile loop and we spent the evening on the web.


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Cantenna search, ‘Corner Gas’, soot-duty, ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 7 – 13 January, 2009)


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Tuesday, 13 January-

I spent the morning looking for some items for my upcoming winter trip, wasting prodigious amounts of time and not solving my problems. But I did learn today that Orat is going to join me for part of the trip. Very cool!
Late in the day I walked-four, then spent the evening on the web, doing some family history stuff and updating the blog.

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Monday, 12 January-

I worked hard this morning paying taxes and other bills so I could get to the library and back in time for a walk. I then took good ol’ Cherry Larry into town and the library. My local branch is closed for renovations so I go into the main one in York now. I turned in the David Baldacci book ‘Simple Truth’ and an anthology of mystery stories which turned out to be boring. And it looks like I’m not a fan of the Baldacci mysteries. They’re just too unbelievable. Consider this scene, for example. Two guys are in a car, racing from killers chasing them. One of the guys in front has a gun. He looks ahead and sees a large branch hanging down. As the two vehicles approach the branch, this guy starts shooting at it and breaks off the branch with perfect timing. The branch falls, missing their car but so close to the car behind that the car can’t stop and crashes into it, bringing the chase to an end. Yeah, right. Why didn’t he just use the laser sight/light saber on his gun to cut through the branch?
Anyway, I made a quick stop at Starbucks and then hit the library. I’ve decided to forget crime novels. I picked up a new William Least Heat Moon travel book (I loved ‘Blue Highways’ years ago), a biography of Benjamin Franklin (we saw the author on PCN), and a history of the Seven Years (Indian) War in backcountry Pennsylvania and Virginia.
That afternoon I walked-four, then we watched the extras on ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ before going to bed to read.

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Sunday, 11 January-

Today was a decent day—about 40 degrees and not quite so windy. We spent the morning on the web and I had a long Skype video chat with Orat. He’s coming down to Florida this year! We made some preliminary plans and that got me thinking about all the things we’ll want to do for the ten days he’ll be down.
That afternoon I walked the six-mile loop and then we watched ‘The Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ that evening. ‘Parrots’ is a very pleasant little documentary about red-headed parrots which have taken up residency on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill neighborhood. Recommended.

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Saturday, 10 January-

We spent the day in Chambersburg again, this time helping clean up a bit of a mess. My nephew found his house becoming sooty inside and it turned out to be a furnace problem. The furnace has been replaced and arrangements made for someone to come in to clean the duct work and walls but we had to get all his personal stuff out of the house. We cleaned and moved all the hard furniture, cleaned up all the non-cloth personal possessions, packed them and moved the boxes to the garage, and took all the clothing to Maypo’s for washing. Professionals will do the soft furniture and rugs, then we’ll put it all back! Actually, it wasn’t too bad. We didn’t start until mid-morning and had the house cleared by 1700.
Labashi and I then headed for home in an icy rain. As we approached Newville exit on I-81 we started seeing a few cars and trucks off the road, some of them spun out, some of them just so freaked by the ice that they had pulled off. Once past the rest areas, though, the road was apparently better; we were no longer seeing vehicles off the road.
I was a little concerned about icing on the secondary road (PA 74) we took to cross toward home. Everything was fine until Dillsburg. And there it wasn’t fine. An oncoming vehicle had flashed its lights so we slowed way down as we came upon two vehicles off the road. One was a large Sprinter van. It had slid across the oncoming lane, down an embankment, and onto its side. And halfway into our lane was a Jeep spun into the bank and its door was off. At that point we were starting up a small hill and our tires started spinning. Fortunately, I had the new, aggressive-tread tires I had bought for the Alaska trip on Mocha Joe and we made it up the hill fine. At the top we passed two cars which had either slid or pulled off the road and it was clear this was no place to be. There were cars coming fast from the other direction and some behind us. I flashed the lights and waved at the oncoming drivers and they slowed a bit but it may have gotten interesting after they crested the hill; we couldn’t see them and continued on.
In Dillsburg we got lucky. As we headed out of town, a salt truck pulled out in front of us and led us for a few miles. And then, magically, we were out of the icy area and the rest of our drive home was uneventful.
That evening we watched the extras on the ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ disk.
I didn’t walk my course today but put in a few miles clearing out my nephew’s house.

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Friday, 9 January –

I spent the morning and early afternoon catching up on mail, paying bills, and logging the estate tasks from yesterday.
In the afternoon I walked the six-mile loop from home.
That evening we watched ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, a documentary about photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work. Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer who does large-format photos of landscapes. These are not the beautiful landscapes of nature but rather landscapes left over from Man’s mining and extraction activities and massive construction projects. He’s a master at finding unique and stunning angles and overviews which amaze us with their scale and detail. Photography doesn’t translate all that well to movie film and video tape but this documentary offers a grand introduction to Burtynsky’s work. I see he has a show coming up next Fall at the Corcoran.

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Thursday, 8 January –

Labashi and I spent the day in Chambersburg. We went to the courthouse to find and copy some estate and tax-related documents and had some other estate-related tasks to finish up. We visited with Maypo and family before heading home.
No walk today.

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Wednesday, 7 January –

I spent the morning on the web looking for a wi-fi ‘signal getter’. Last year in Florida I talked with a guy who uses a ‘cantenna’--- a home-made antenna based on a Pirouettes cookie can – and it enables him to pick up a wi-fi signal from much longer distances. The normal internal antenna on a laptop is supposed to pick up wi-fi signals from up to 300 feet away under optimum conditions but it’s often much less. But with a cantenna, the distances are much greater- generally three times as much or nearly 1000 feet. I could really use this, particularly for Skype calls (and now video calls) while sitting in the van outside a library. It’s tough to find a place in the library where you can make calls and speak aloud without bothering someone.
The problem with a home-built cantenna is you have to have a place to plug it in. Some wireless cards have an antenna port but most don’t (and mine doesn’t). The guy I spoke with had pulled his wireless card and soldered a pigtail connection onto it for the cantenna connection. But I’m not interested in doing that—too much can go wrong.
But there are now interesting devices which essentially connect a new wireless card and directional antenna to your laptop via a USB connection. I spent the morning looking at hField’s “Wi-Fire”, Hawking’s USB Wireless Dish Adapter, and C. Crane’s Super USB Wi-Fi Antenna. But it’s tough to find decent info on these on the web. The reviews are mixed and testing is sparse. Most of the tests are between the device and the tester’s internal card, not USB-device-against-USB-device. One test did compare the Wi-Fire to the Hawking and found the Hawking better for some distances but the Wi-Fire better for another distance.
There are also some form-factor considerations. The Hawking antenna looks like a kid’s toy but is the only one to do wireless-N networking. Wireless-N isn’t that critical at this point but as it’s more widely adopted I’d like to use it. So maybe it’s the Hawking. Then again, maybe it’s the Wi-Fire. I couldn’t find any reviews of the third one so it’s still a little early to buy.
That afternoon I walked-four and that evening we watched the entire first disk of ‘Corner Gas’, the Canadian sit-com shot near Regina, Saskatchewan. You can’t get this one in your local video store but it is available after a long wait (I had it on my list since last April) on Netflix. We saw the first few episodes of the season when we rented it while in Canada this past summer so we only had a few to go to see the rest of the first disk. Now we have a long wait for the second disk.

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New Year’s Day, Nero 9, ‘Wall-E’, 300 miles of walking, Almodovar’s ‘Live Flesh’

(posted from home)
(This post covers 1 – 6 January, 2009)

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Tuesday, 6 January –

I spent the morning working at my desk but then decided to walk early to beat the weather. Rain and sleet were due to start around 1300 so I left shortly after noon and enjoyed seeing a kingfisher catch and eat a minnow, an owl chased among the trees by two small birds, the two great blue herons flying in formation low over the creek and two of the bluebirds chasing each other. The birds apparently know the bad weather is coming for there are dozens of them flitting about at the lower end of our property. I saw cardinals, woodpeckers, jays, chickadees, flickers, and others, all seeming to be in a feeding frenzy before the ice comes.
I spent the afternoon watching the early part of ‘Citizen Kane’ on tv (for some reason I always seemed to see it from the middle) and then went back on the web to look for a good deal.
That evening we watched ‘Live Flesh’ (what a title!), a 1997 Pedro Almodovar movie about a young man whose life becomes intertwined by Fate with the lives of three others in very unexpected ways. The movie progresses quickly and it’s not easy to keep up with the visuals while reading the subtitles, but we took advantage of the pause and rewind buttons to discuss the movie as it progressed. If you like Almodovar, this one is highly recommended. Good movie. And it stars Javier Bardem—the very interesting and scary psycho-guy in ‘No Country for Old Men’.

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Monday, 5 January-

I spent the morning on the computer, reading up on estates and writing an email to our lawyer and handling email and snail-mail.
The weather is supposed to deteriorate as the week progresses. Today’s the only day the temperature is to be above 40 (c’mon Florida!). I left early for my walk and did the six – mile loop at a brisk pace. Afterwards I added up my miles of walking from my log entries. From October through the end of the year I walked 306.5 miles or about 100 miles a month and a 3.3 mpd (miles per day) average.
We spent the evening on the web.

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Sunday, 4 January-

I spent the morning uploading family video clips. We were supposed to have a light rain today but by mid-afternoon the Wunderground radar animated trace looked like it was passing west of us. I hopped on the motorcycle and rode down to Rocky Ridge for a walk. I started out on my perimeter route but ran into trail closures so just worked my way back to the bike for a six-mile total.
That evening Labashi was engrossed in a special about gorillas so I caught up the blog with the tv running in the background in my office.

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Saturday, 3 January –

Uh-oh. I’m getting hooked on this video thing. I found a great picture of one-year old grand-niece on her mom’s web page and thought I’d make a copy on my PC. But when I saw I could make it the wallpaper on my laptop, I tried that—and loved it. I loved it so much I got out my video camera and made a video of it and sent it off to family. And once that was done, I wanted to get on with installing Nero 9 on my laptop.
I spent a frustrating hour trying to figure out how to temporarily turn off my security software but the instructions on the vendor’s site don’t match what I see on my system. I went to the vendor’s web site and entered into a chat with the support technician. He took care of it and then offered to extend my subscription to the security software for two weeks because I had had to wait in line for a technician. He gave me a code for the extension but that didn’t extend it two weeks, it extended 48 days. Cool!
The sun was out and the temperature above 40 so I decided I needed to give the motorcycle some exercise. I rode into Starbucks for a mocha fix.
That evening I turned the security functions back on, fired up Nero and played with the video editor a bit. I’m a bit underwhelmed with the functionality of the video editor but I’m just getting started.
That evening we watched ‘Wall-E’, the Disney Pixar animation movie. Kinda fun! No walk today.

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Friday, 2 January –

This morning I uploaded several video clips of Mom’s 90th birthday to a private web site for family members to see. That led me to want to edit some of my other clips so I tried loading the Nero 9 package I bought a few weeks ago. What a mistake. The loader conflicted with my security software and drove the CPU to a solid 99 per cent. I had a heck of a time intervening just to shut things down in an orderly fashion. I finally got it down by 1400 so went for my four-miler while I let the over-driven CPU cool off.
We didn’t have any movies for the evening so watched ‘Bill Moyer’s Journal’ and ‘Now’.

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Thursday, 1 January (2009!) -

We took it slow—even slower than normal!—this morning. I spent a few hours on the laptop on various cleanup tasks. I’ve been using the Glary Utilities to repair registry errors and keep old files and cookies cleaned off. I also finally felt comfortable with deleting my hundreds of video clips after validating that the copies I put on my portable drive and Labashi’s PC work fine. I then remembered I still have some clips on the SD card in the camera so went through the upload process and wrote up short descriptions of them for later use.
In late afternoon I took my walk on the six-mile loop on this 30-degree-but-sunny-and-calm day. What a beauty of a day.
That evening we watched the last few episodes of the ‘Ice Road Truckers’ marathon on TV. We loved seeing footage of Inuvik (though we’d have liked to see more town footage). Last July we had driven to the beginning of the (closed) ice road so we recognized the sign and the access road.

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