Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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“Xmas Month”

I’ve sort of set aside the traditional Advent calendar/observations for a more general “Xmas Month” wherein I ponder the miracle of the Incarnation, plan family events/gift exchanges and catch up on Fall/Winter household tasks, as time presents itself (a hugely increased amount of time, what with no distractions from couch potato entertainment, cos “Christmas” TV shows are almost universally crap).

OK, so Xmas shopping: finished. Xmas dinner: in the freezer and pantry, ready for assembly. Xmas decorations: not yet up, but easy-peasy. Xmas playlist(s): playlists from last several years ready to cue up and play on MCPC. I’d say that December ought to be a piece of cake, assuming I don’t have some weird techie problem handed to me, and even then all that’d be is fun.

Of course, the sky could fall (as it seemed to almost nine years ago with a huge freezing rain that brought power lines and trees down all over the county leaving most of the county w/o power for a month or so) or some other unforeseen event occur, but. . . pantry/freezers, camp stove, oil lamps, etc. Other things could happen to throw the month off kilter, but that’s just life.

Other life events, speed bumps will naturally occur (indeed, a minor car problem for my Wonder Woman as she headed out to one of her libraries this A.M.), but, again: just life.

Looking forward to the rest of December: Xmas Month.

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In All Innocence. . .

I would try looking at things through the eyes of a child, but society seems to prefer I leave kids’ eyes in their own heads, for some reason.

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Number Five?

“I’m number 5!” doesn’t sound as cool as “I’m number 1,” but I’ll take what I can get. (Bing search turned up ONE of my posts referring to “King Putz”.)

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Thanksgiving

I have, for about as long as I’ve been blogging and, even before in other contexts, written Thanksgiving posts/articles/letters about the many reasons most folks in our society have for being thankful and more than a few specific reasons I have for being thankful. . . and to Whom.

This year? Notsomuch. I’ll limit myself to two comments about gratitude/thankfulness: with very few exceptions, folks in our society who cannot find many reasons to be grateful [to others, to society in general, and, more importantly, to God] for their blessings are just itchin’ for a fight. Ingrates.

The next: anyone who wakes up in the morning and is NOT in Hell (the actual afterlife place of eternal torture) should be grateful for God’s grace, because, on our own merit, we all deserve that. Period. If one is not headed to Hell as one’s ultimate destination, it is only because one has elected to accept God’s gracious gift of salvation. If one has NOT elected to accept God’s grace and is not yet in Hell, again, it is by His grace they are not.

Be thankful for that.

Continue reading “Thanksgiving”

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Baling Wire and Chewing Gum Quality Service Work

Our local POTS company (VERY local: two exchanges which were charged “long distance” charges for calls between the two, up until the company figured it’d net more by charging everyone a monthly fee, a couple of years ago) has such excellent service. [sarc /off]

Ten months after the cabling was installed for a fiber connection, the company finally got around to installing the electronics enabling a fiber connection. A month and a half later a crew came by to remove the old copper. What did the crew do? It cut the copper at the pole and left. Period. That’s it. Telco copper cabling draped across our back yard. THAT was “removing surplused Telco equipment.”

Of course, the local Telco’s owners live sumptuously, have recently almost taken over “downtown” in the county seat with a huge, palatial new office building, etc., but improve service to match? Notsomuch. Sure, one can now obtain (very) low-speed DSL via fiber for substantially more $ than (a much hated) cable company’s Internet connection that is an order of magnitude faster.

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Even Though I Celebrate It Daily. . .

November 24 marks a special celebration of my marriage to my Wonder Woman, since it’s the anniversary of the day we formally wed. (I mark our marriage’s start with the day she called me to let me know her answer to my *cough* “suggestion” *cough* that we marry — yeh, lame, but we both saw the humor in it 😉 ).

Whether it mark’s thirty-seven years since we said our vows in front of witnesses or well into our thirty-eighth year since we first pledged ourselves to each other before God alone (a day also celebrated specially), this day is a reminder of how greatly I am blessed. . . and how loving, patient, kind and forbearing my Wonder Woman is. 🙂

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Sometimes, Reality Actually Helps *heh*

Periodically, I look back at my life accomplishments and failures and find balance wanting. Of course, during this time of year, when I am under strong influence to “ac-cent-uate the positive,” really black moods fall prey to a couple of realities. The first, a constant that has regularly batted the screwballs of depression out of the park for the past 37 years, is that when Tuesday rolls around, I’ll have opportunity to celebrate (again) what I celebrate anyway, any day during any year that I stop to think: My Wonder Woman loves me enough to stay my wife (it’s not my fault, really! *heh*)

The second booster is that I have–quite by fortuitous chance, I assure you–had opportunity to be instrumental in keeping a couple of the members of my family alive, once with CPR (my Wonder Woman) and once, with Son&Heir, by extracting a penny he was choking on. Crawling babies, shag carpet, loose change: not a good mix. *shrugs*

I find recalling those events and then looking at my Wonder Woman’s face does much to remind me that God has greatly blessed me, far beyond my due. (Then there’s the whole, “Well, I haven’t awakened in hell where I have, by all rights, earned a place,” thingy. Grace: what a strange and wonderful thing, eh?)

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Puppy Love

Lovely Daughter and Estimable Son-in-Law have us puppy and cat sitting this week. It’s in the low-mid 20s, so both their pup and Son&Heir’s pup are inside much of the time. Watching their ~5 month old Lab/Boxer mix playing with Son&Heir’s ~7 month old Lab/Border Collie mix just makes me tired. *heh* Finally. . . just too much. Sent them to their “rooms” to calm down. (With the olderpup outside, the lil girl calmed down quickly. He’s fine, with his much thicker black coat and the sunlight, for a while. At least he likes it. 😉

After two such separations, the puppies have finally gotten to the point where they can be calmer around each other. This after two whole days of romping. I had to “dog whisper” them a bit, even then, by sitting down with them and physically separating them, then performing “calming massage” (adapted from a equine massage technique–apparently such techniques can be universally adapted😉 ) with them both. Heck, now the cats (all three–our two and the visitor who HATES ALL DOGS. . . and most people) are calm and napping, our two behind me on the back of the loveseat I’m on now and the dog-hater on my Wonder Woman’s lap.

Peace in our time.

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When Simplified Techi-Toys. . . Ain’t, Really

Interfaces on computing devices have been simplified to the point that most folks expect things to just work–almost magically. But it ain’t necessarily so, of course. Case in point: my Kindles (both the original Fire and the Fire HD) seem, most of the time, to just work. But. Not always.

Case in point (of more than a few): today, my Fire HD was handiest when I needed to take a picture of a couple of mugs (ordered trough Amazon, of course) out of a dozen that came broken. Pics were fine–perfect for my need sending documentation to the seller. But the pics just would not upload to my cloud drive, no matter how many times the device said it was uploading them.

*gak*

So. . . connected the device to a laptop via USB. *sigh* Finally located the pics and offloaded copies to the lappy. THEN the device decided to actually upload ’em to my cloud drive.

OK, not pushbutton simple.

Book I bought listed by Amazon as delivered to the Fire HD. Yeh, could see it, but not open it. Rebooted the device. Nope. Back to Amazon to re-deliver it. Nope. Rebooted. Now it loads.

Simplified isn’t always simple.