Acts of Kindness

Recently while visiting my parents for a few minutes, I heard my mother break out in laughter. It was like beautiful music - and I turned to her and saw her reading the newspaper. The newspaper? Oh! She was reading the comics - and Pickles is one of her favorites. Can anyone guess why? :)


Earl - Ha! I got all the way to the dog groomer and realized I forgot the dog! It seemed a shame to go all that way for nothing. So I had them give me a "Terrier Cut." And they threw in this cool bandana.

Opal - I hope they checked you for ticks too.

Earl and Opal could be my parents. :P


When I got home one day last week, after a grueling session with the "Bathroom Job" I found a brown envelope in my mailbox and a small box on my doorstep. I brushed aside the thoughts of needing a "career change" and opened both packages before I even got in the door.

The magazine on the left was amazing. It had three stories that captivated me - one about Hot Springs, North Carolina which I didn't know even existed, a truly impressive story about the Biltmore, "America's Largest Home", and another historical family's home called Reynolda. I stood there leaning on my front door as I turned the pages spell-bound. Thank you Lynn at Ramblin' Southern Woman!

Inside the small box was a coffee mug! But not just any old coffee mug. A coffee mug an orange traffic cone loving nutcase such as myself would love! A cone coffee mug! I am drinking this morning's coffee from that very mug while I type this - just seeing it on my desk makes me break out in a huge smile! Thank you Nikki at Furry Bottoms!

I am currently reading a cople of dog (yes DOG!) books from LadyStyx from 2 Cents from a Creative Mind. I don't know how anyone would know I am a dog nut. No-sir-ee! Thanks you Ladystyx!


I want to thank Jeannie of Jeannie's Happy World, Tori of Toriz World, Pamela of The Dust Will Wait, and Rita of SoulComfort's Corner.

Jeannie send me some of her wonderful handmade cards and an awesome collection of "things from Italy" over the past several months. Her cards are simply fabulous - and she uses these strange(ly named) colors too! Thanks Jeannie!

Tori sent me the glow-in-the-dark shipwreck model along with an impression of her dog Kero's foot in clay and a handmade, clay Spongebob! I must admit the clay spongebob really fits in with the shipwreck! Thanks Tori!

Pamela sent me a card made from a painting she produced from a photograph of her beautiful cat. Now as much as I like dogs - I also like pretty, spunky, or just plain odd cats! Pamela's cat is one of the very pretty ones! Thank you Pamela!

Rita sent me a couple cards - the Spongebob card made me smile. I just can't help myself when I see that little oddball's goofy face. She also sent a beautiful handmade card with a sunflower on it. Thank you Rita!


I took a close up of Clay Spongebob from Tori and the cards from Rita -

None of these pictures do them justice. Nor can my thank you, thank you, thank you's because many of you "send" me to a warm and happy place with your blog posts sharing with me a glimpse of your world and so many awesome pictures and stories. I'm thankful to know all of you and count you as my friend.

This morning's drive

While driving to work this morning - it occurred to me that I've been something of a hypocrite. Let me explain. It all started back in about 1979 when my grandfather started looking around for a new car. He had a nearly new (1975) satellite white Plymouth Custom Fury, the kind they destroyed by what seemed to be the millions in the movies of the day - the police cruisers.

My Grandfather had his eye on a grey Mercedes Benz and longed for one - but he kept saying, "I don't need such an expensive car! Heck, I won't even be alive long enough to wear it out!" He eventually went on to reluctantly buy a blue Oldsmobile sedan with a diesel engine in it and sold me the "sports car" (my first ever car). As the years went on, he managed to wear out six more cars before giving up his driver's licence after driving for nearly 85 years in 2005.

In all those intervening years, I've silently laughed at my Grandfather for saying what he did. In fact, there have been a number of times when this statement has been brought up by members of the family when we want to illustrate someone being shortsighted. Good old Granddad is still alive and we expect to celebrate his 102th birthday in a few months time.

About four years ago, my Dad asked me to get him a new laptop - he wanted to be able to work while away from his home office for extended amounts of time. I bought him the latest and greatest available at the time - and told him, "This will be the last laptop you will ever need for work!" Little did I know... About a month ago, he called me and asked if he ought to get a new one, one with that new "Windows 7 thing" on it.

Grimacing, I said, "Well, perhaps. Do you plan on ever retiring?" to which he replied that he didn't think so. We both laughed when I said, "It's not going to be like Granddad and say this is the last "car" you will ever own huh?"

My Dad's inquiry brought up a bit of a dilemma. Being in the computer business, I need to keep up with the latest and newest of all things computer for my customer's sake. As the years have passed - its become harder and harder to do so... but...

Back in the day - I owned one of the very first TRS-80 microcomputers - it had a whopping 5 megabyte hard drive! I wrote my first computer program for what was basically a programmable calculator. I admired the newest mainframes from IBM, Sperry, and Digital Equipment Company (DEC). I settled into a long career using DEC machines and when they introduced VAX/VMS to replace their PDP operating system I thought to myself - it can't get any better than this!

In the early 1990's a funny thing happened. Personal "desktop" computers exploded on the marketplace. Every technically savvy person spoke of dialing-in to Bulletin Board Systems (and later the Internet) and Apple and Microsoft brought out strange graphical interfaces that one needed a mouse to use. Windows 3.1 soon became popular but I resisted the change saying, "Why do I need graphics to do data entry?"

Eventually I had to cave in and accept Windows 3.11 was here to stay - right about the time Windows 95 came out. "Ugh," I thought, "'95' is worse than 3.11!" I slowly adapted to it and was only just getting comfortable with it - when Windows 98 arrived to much popular excitement. By the 2000, I had accepted Windows 98 as the "best" you could get.. when Millennium came out (and flopped). I felt vindicated in a way... but ... Microsoft never sleeps... Windows XP came out in 2002. I finally did away with my "98" computers in 2004.

And Vista came out - and thankfully (for me because I needed a breather!) it flopped.

Now, Windows 7 is here - and by all appearances, it seems to be a "winner." Which meant I had to get rid of some very reliable, dependable, much worn, Windows XP computers. Today, I am in the middle of an XP to 7 conversion. And even before I got that much underway, Microsoft throws me yet another learning curve, IE 9. So without hesitating, I installed IE 9 on all the Windows 7 computers and will be biting the bullet.


I am even in the middle of updating three of the companies servers in the office from Windows 2000 to Windows 2008. My days of admiring VAX/VMS mainframes are long gone - but being a techie - I know the underpinnings of "built on Windows NT" have their beginnings in VAX/VMS and were all written by Dave Cutler back in 1975 who is still writing software - and now he's writing Windows Azure, the Windows in the Cloud operating system.

But... But... this is the last Windows I'm ever going to learn...

...or is it?

:)

A Wrinkle In Time

I hate to post a entry when I am so far behind in reading yours. I've been very busy with trying to catch up at work now that my arm and shoulder are semi-functioning (I have about 30-40% range of motion back now and progress seems ever so slow - there is no pain so I'm not complaining and will keep plugging on it.) I promise I'll try to get to your blogs soon.


The other day my Mom found an old letter in her collection of things from her father's estate and called to see if there was anyway to make it readable - the handwritten letter was written on lined paper in faint pencil and postmarked Calera, Oklahoma, December 13th, 1943. My mother was only 9 years old when it was written.


I scanned it in and played all sorts of tricks with photoshop to see if I could enhance the printing.

It turns out to be a letter from my great-grandmother, Maggie Bush written to my grandfather, John Bush who was living in Boston, Massachusetts at the time.

My great-grandmother was born in northern Alabama on Oct. 11, 1869 and was twice married. She had a son from her previous marriage and widowed when she married my great-grandfather Joseph Black Bush. Joseph Bush was also widowed and had three daughters. Maggie and Joseph went on to have 6 children together. Maggie died on Jan. 31, 1958 having outlived two husbands and many of those children.


Dear John + family

will [Well?] will write you a fiew [few] lines after so long the riasion [reason] I dont write any oftener I am neavios [nervous, Parkinson's Disease]

althou [Although] I feel very well at my age. I recon I told you Bill moved my house over on [onto] his place. It is not near so lonesome. The back taxes is one [on] the place the block sold 2 years ago for 16$

I never want to move back over there. If Bill lived her [here] in his house I would like it even better. His house is rented.

Well it is nearl [nearly] xmas. I wont have anywhere to go nor anyone to come. no [not?] one to fly far. Got my hog killed. It sure is fine to have meet [meat] to go to when you want it. Bill is at Sharon Springs Kansas.


It has rained here all week we have had a pretty fall. I hasent but a fiew [few] trsmer [nervous tremors?]

Bubie youngest boy is in the army in georgia its sure going hard with them they took him out ove [of] calage [college].

I got John's package was so proud he dont forget me. They just fit. I am going to write him.

What about Bettie did she go back to that man ar [or] did she marry another?

Toots is in Californaia got a good job she is with his people they say they will take care ove [of] here [her].

Coop is in New Ginie [New Guinea, in the south Pacific] he is a first liew tenant [lieutenant].

Tell Alvis helow [hello] write to him before long with love awns [answer] soon mother
------
It took my Mother some heavy memory dredging, and I some research, to determine who some of the people mention in the letter were. My mother was born when my grandfather was nearly 46, twenty some years after her sister. We were further confused by the nicknames - but with luck we think we have it.

Bill was my grandfather's younger brother William. He died shortly after this letter was written from sarcoma (cancer in the lower abdomen).

Bubie was my grandfather's half brother George Deary. Bubie's son was a twin and was named Euell. The other twin was a girl named Jewel. George was a farmer that lived near the Oklahoma - Texas state line.

John was my grandfather - he left Oklahoma as a young boy to join the navy during WWI. His ship was in port in Boston when he met my grandmother. He never returned to Oklahoma except for a couple family reunions - once with my mother in the early 1950s. My mother remembers her grandmother Maggie (the letter-writer) as a very short (she was 4 foot 10), hardy fontier woman that made her own soap, axed off the heads of chickens and took no nonsense from any of her boys although each of them towered over her at 6 feet plus.

Bettie was my mother's (much) older sister. At the time of this letter, she had married a serviceman (WWII), had a baby boy, and separated. She later divorced, remarried and had 4 more children.

Toots was "Maggie III". Maggie (who's real name was Margaret Jeanne) Bush had a daughter Maggie (Margaret Jane), who had a daughter Maggie (Margaret Jo). She was married at the time of this letter and later lived in Dallas, Texas.

Coop was short for Cooper. He was Toots' husband. Neither my mother nor I know if this was his first or last name. When I get time - I will attempt to find out.

Alvis was another of my grandfather's brothers. Alvis had moved to Boston before 1910 and gotten married in Nashau, New Hampshire. He had 3-4 girls and died in Shelby, Tennessee after working on the railroad all his life.

My grandfather was the oldest of Maggie and Joseph Bush's children who were: John, Lowell, Maggie (II), Alvis, William, and Lonnie(?). The half siblings were Bubie (George Deary), Lizzie, Virgie, and Tommy (who was a girl despite the name and married a Mr. Arnold). Does this make my grandfather a "middle child?" :)

Other than my Grandfather and Aunt Betty ... and this letter - I've never met any of this part of my family.

Orange Cone Museum

I huddled the Orange Cones around me this weekend and told them about Orange Cone Museum idea and got a mixed reaction.


One of the cones was worried about me sending them to a cold, creepy museum to be locked up all alone, far away from home while hundreds of (well maybe a half dozen?) strangers ogled at him. I reassured him (or her), the museum would be in my own home and that they would never be locked up - even if they were placed in a display case. I would always let them out to roam, play, and even party after "working hours."

Gene "The Tonguey Cone" Simmons got all upset and started hollering, "Did he look like an old museum piece?!?? Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones yeah! but me?!?" Ace Frehley and Peter Criss just looked mildly bemused at Gene's antics.

The Conas Brothers just looked at each other and mouthed, "What is a museum? Are there cute chicks there?"

The Beauty Queens were all for the idea - they said, "We look so fabulous, people will want to come for miles to see us!"

Cappy Cone wouldn't come out of the bathroom long enough to talk to me. Ever since he's become a teenager, he spends an inordinate amount of time in there doing gosh knows what, and it's not singing in the shower...

Reuben Kincone just squealed like a little kid. I think he was all for the idea if he could make a buck off of it.

However, I got a big assist from Multo-Cone who looked up some things in his Multipedia and said, "Iggy, you know, one of the informational placards for the museum could explain why us orange cones are the color we are." I asked him what he meant, and he produced this -

Safety orange is a hue. Its deeper, more saturated shade is known as international orange. Safety orange is used to set objects apart from their surroundings, particularly in complementary contrast to the azure color of the sky (azure is the complementary color of orange, and therefore there is a very strong contrast between the two colors). The color is commonly used for traffic cones (and their ugly, contemptible cousins, barrels).

Now to see if I can get a grant for the museum - even if it discriminates against barrels.