Travelled a bit, done a few things….pt 1.
Right, here we are again, after another long absence! Thank God I signed up with “Blogging Without Obligation” or I`d have been fired by now for sure!! Lol! Most of the time I believe quite strongly that I am a pretty stupid kind of geezer, I don`t seem to pick things up quickly or get the hang of things quite fast enough, especially digital stuff. I was trying the other day to get a blog post up and running with loads of little pics in and could`nt do it so as usual, gave up … simple. I`ve had quite a bit to write about but after the problem of getting the pics into the post where I wanted
them, lost the train of thought completely of what I wanted to say!! So I went off in search of answers and found them in the very helpful WordPress faqs/forums. So can anyone see what I did wrong in one of the above sentences? I was tryng to put the pics in the post without having written anything yet! Duh!! As I was trying to put the pics in with text wrapped around them it would be a little bit hard if the text was`nt there in the first place!! The thing is, I could`nt figure that out at the time so just walked away from it and I am puzzled as to where my little bit of “brain-power” is seemingly fast disappearing to!
So this is for my daughter, a brief introduction to more posting! She had been haranguing me to get some more writing done and as I`ve just found out, after about 18 months that is(!!) how to to wrap pics around text properly, will try to oblige! Duh!! Bless her! I will try to describe in the next post whereabouts I`ve been in this little country of ours and what else I`ve been up to … stay with it, next instalment coming soon!!
computer woes … again.
So it all started off very innocently, I got a new camera, one that I “aspired” to, a real world Dslr, something I could be proud of and a whole new learning experience to boot! So, we all know the idea by now with digital cameras, take yer piccies, load em into your computer and hey presto, images to hand? Not with this one, the computer simply would`nt recognise the camera as any form of device. Started looking for answers on the cameras website and then expanded it to usb problems, no real luck. Then as fate would have it I stumbled across an “MVP” (a very microsoftie term which stands for something like”most valued professional” or something like that..). So I very unfortunately took this persons advice on ensuring your usb ports work and sure enough, lost the lot of `em! Duh! Thinking this is an easy enough fix, went off in search of answers….it is`nt easy, not a bit of it, in fact this problem has brought my whole computer to a grinding halt with frankly, little hope of recovery in its present form.Microsoft advised a service pack install to rectify the usb problem, so I tried service pack 3 for xp,… big mistake. I have this theory that installing service pack 3 for xp will simply “timebomb” your operating system as Microsoft seem desperate to be rid of it anyway. Sure enough, it did`nt just “timebomb” it, it totally destroyed it!! Machine now will not boot as the ubiquitous “files missing” bsod starts even before windows starts to load, the Microsoft cure for this? Oh, simply get rid of service pack 2! This in an environment when you can`t boot up anyway does not bode well as my command line skills are not the best in the world!!
See! So there you go, from getting a new camera to not having a computer in one easy lesson!! Damn glad I`ve got a coupla standbys!! Lol!!! It is`nt over yet, I will save it somehow, am mad obsessed about not letting go of my machinery …. especially with all the stuff thats collected on it! Still, in the meantime, I can simply shove the hard drive in with another and have it as a slave in a different body!!
So there you have it, from the sublime to the ridiculous …. and how easily it happens!!
Hate these flippin` things … but only when they go wrong!
for Michael
Sorry have not been around too much over the last couple of months, a lot has happened though and some of it affecting me in a bad way. I gave a lot of thought about writing this little posting and thought, what the hell, its my blog, I`ll do it anyway….. I just did`nt want to hurt those people that I hold close so they`ll have to forgive me for writing this…..
A very very close friend passed away last month, someone that I held dearly close. I won`t talk of the why`s and wherefores and what happened but I will share one thing about this man, who I regarded as family. His name is Michael and he was Uncle to my daughter and my ex wife`s younger brother and he was a lovely man. He had become, by unfortunate chance I suppose, our family “mover”!! He always seemed to get lumbered with the job of moving people to and fro from property to property!! He had helped my daughter move about 3 times and we used to joke a lot that Michael could get more stuff into a car than we ever thought humanly possible!! A definete Guinness Book of Records contender! So about 2 or 3 months ago we were helping my daughter move to a new apartment and Michael and I were alone in his car, full of stuff of course, and he told me basically his philosophy on life and its troubles. Listening to him was an experience I won`t forget and don`t want to. His view was utterly simple, if you could do someone a favour you just did it, simple. It almost did`nt matter what the personal cost, if it was possible for you to do it, you did it, and thats it. Simple stuff? Sounds like it, sounds like something we should all be doing anyway does`nt it? Michael took this very simple belief and made it something special, he did extraordinary things for people for little or no reward or thanks and he did`nt mind one bit. I told him, in the car that day, that what he was doing was very Spiritual to which he basically replied,”….well I don`t know about that but it is`nt that *&^*ing hard is it! To which we both had a good laugh!
So God Bless you Mike and hold you close and God Bless his Mum and Dad and older sister, who is going thru` much of her own troubles still. God Bless his children too and give them all strength to carry on………….. Cya on the other side Mike, you and my son better be ready to throw a good party!!
My Thanks to Deb who left me a comment and reminded me of the pic I inserted above of the Candle for Michael. I should have credited the source of this pic and I do so gladly now! This has come from a lovely site which I will add to my “blogroll” for future reference…..
Light a Candle for someone special
Angel of the North
Angels Angels Angels … I love that word, it has such a soft and gentle feel about it does`nt it? Most folk I reckon like this word because of everything it evokes in us. Hope.Help.Happiness.Safety.Comfort. I sometimes get the feeling that if you asked 100 people whether they believed in God and whether they believed in Angels, I reckon Angels might just win out? I reckon even the movies like Angels a lot, try to think of all the films with Angels(of all sorts of course!!) in them, I bet you can come up with a few, eh? Angels are everywhere in our various cultures/religions and they appear to give those who believe in them strength … What is your view on Angels? How do they appear to you to do their job? (assuming they are gainfully employed that is!!)
This is a small pic I took early mon. morning this week of a statue overlooking a motorway in the north east of England, at Gateshead. It is called the “Angel of the North” and was designed by sculptor Antony Gormley. It is a massive feat of building and is the most viewed piece of art in the country considering the amount of traffic going by! Take a look at the link to it above to gain a true appreciation of its size, my poor shot does it no justice, I was just pleased to be able to “grab” it thru` a car windscreen in atrocious weather! Clicking on it may take you to the large version at Flickr … hopefully…
March marching on……
Just thought I`d get this off my chest cos its been on it all day long, just to remember my son, James, aka Dredwerk, who passed over 6 years ago today…. Still seems like yesterday to me even though more and more water keeps passing under that bridge, time seems to hold little meaning at these junctures of causality. Strange thing March, hard to think sometimes of the family that passed over this month in the past…. strange coincidences abound here.. My dad passed on the 11th March, my son passed on the 21st and my dads sister, the bestist Auntie in the whole world passed on the 31st. All in March..10 days..10 days..10 days.. Am I the only one to think this strange?
God Bless them all, I know they are there, I know they are ok and in a whole other place of consciousness … I will wait for my turn, “……. its just a little time”
What are YOU reading?
A good blogging buddy, Ruby, has “tagged” me to do a “meme” type thing … and its a good `un too. I say a good `un because the subject matter involves books and the reading thereof and I have to admit, I would much prefer to read someone else`s “meme” on books than mine cos my reading seems to have moved away from books and into/onto the web more and more these days…. Still, I will answer this lovely question because it involves a coincidence the like of which is, yet again, most unusual… Anyway, I`ll digress for a mo to set up the “meme”. So, we have to state the rules of the game …
“1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.”
The thing is, I`ve been looking thru` a couple of my old books lately and really wanted to write about the earliest of them, “The Hidden Springs” by Renee Haynes, first published in 1961, an enquiry into extra-sensory perception. After looking at page 123 however decided against it. The reason? Well there was only 5 sentences in total on the whole damn page and I`d fill the entire blog up typing `em all out here!!!! Lots of commas and semicolons, very few full stops! Lol!!! So I turned to my mate Bill, Bill Gates that is and his 1999 book, Business @ The Speed Of Thought. Heres where the coincidence arises because unbeknown to me, I was up to page 130 at the time and quite literally had gone back to page 123 to refresh myself and had actually re-read 123 the day I read Ruby`s blog and found out I had been selected! Thats the real truth, unbelievable as it sounds…. So anyway, heres some nice short sweet sentences from Bill as he puts the worlds digital infrastructure to rights and firmly in its place!!
1. New Technology will simplify the TV interface.
2. Trying to record one or more programs at certain times and days remains frustratingly complex with analog systems.
3. Recording a show on one channel while you watch a different show on another may require you to swap the cables among your TV, video and set top box!
Hehe, I think they`re really great lines, how much trouble does this stuff cause us all, eh!? So theres my little offering on what I`ve been reading recently, so now I get to “tag” people!!! Yay!!! Like this bit, its all good, so if any of my victims have done this already or don`t wanna do it feel perfectly free to throw something at me, I just bet you won`t reach!
1. Lorri ! Voracious readerholic …
2. Bill ! C`mon, you know you want to?
4. Deb Estep
5. Catherine
Thanks to Ruby once again for bringing this lovely idea to us!
The Scale of Things….
I was looking around our good `ol interweb most of the day, looking at my favourite places (and playing my favourite games…ssshhh!) and reading my favourite blogs, most of which are listed down there on the right. So I end up wondering about the nature of things, well, everything really, …as you do…. and thought maybe I should have a breather from the heaviness-of-the-cosmos-on-a-sunday and go surfing-in-the-sea-of-normality for a change. So I click on my one of my all time favourite web-buttons, “Stumbleupon” and get taken straight back to the heaviness-of-the-cosmos-on-a-sunday routine! But I was so glad about it because this really does put us, humanity, our world-as-we-know-it, into serious perspective and though I have seen this sort of idea a few times before, I have never seen it done quite so simply and effectively as this. Take a look at this, see what you think, Dick Hardt-Blame Canada Make sure you scroll down and maybe read the comments, it really kinda knocks you for six. Two of the comments stood out to me, one person saying that from the smallest of the known atoms(quark) to the largest of our known stars we figure to be around the middle and the other, more disturbing one, saying that they thought all stars were mostly the same size….. Serious food for thought here methinks….
