Sandy saw an Orthopedic doctor today this afternoon. After some discussion about her symptoms and condition, he scheduled an MRI. He’s thinking it is possibly a pinched nerve. They couldn’t schedule it until Friday, Dec. 26th, due to the holiday, so she’s going to have to suffer through Christmas like this, at the very least. By Monday or Tuesday of next week hopefully they’ll know something and be able to treat her.
Category Archives: News
Sandy’s in the ER
Sandy’s in the ER this morning. Woke up and could hardly walk. Right leg problem. Getting ultrasound right now.
Update – Ultrasound found no blood clots. Going for x-rays now to check right hip.
Update 2 – X-rays showed no changes since last time. She’s being released and has to follow up with a Orthopedic doctor. Frustrating.
Kevin is employed!
Wow, Kevin just got a job! He’ll be working at the Great Lakes Naval Base 17 hours a week! Congratulations, Kevin!! Photos of Kevin
New Photos Dropdown Menu
The “Photos” option at the top menu of my website is now a dropdown menu. You can use it to go to my Flickr or G+ photostreams or albums. I seriously can’t make up my mind on which one to go with permanently. They both have their own individual advantages and strengths, and features that the other can’t do, so I really hate to give up either one. I’m backing up to both, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep them relatively organized. Things may be published on one and not the other at times, so that’s why I am adding options. Besides, you’re gonna need more to look at while you’re waiting between the long gaps between my posts! (Sorry, I’m working on that too!)
Software scams, Baitware, Phishing…
It seems like nearly EVERYTHING you install these days comes with a catch. You need to be careful not to do an “Automatic” or “Full” install of anything, because they means “go ahead, install everything”, or “go ahead and install whatever you want”, and that will almost always get you in trouble. Even totally legitimate applications and the big-name software makers will do this now, which makes it very annoying all the way around, and actually ends up getting me more side work….Cleaning up users’ PCs when they slow way down or start getting uncontrollable popups. This is not a good thing. Sure, I could always use the work, but I’d rather not have to clean up after these program vomit their garbage all over a customer’s hard drive. Users have enough problems without adding all this mess, and it only causes them more frustration, sometimes ending with them hating Windows or their computer manufacturer for giving them all of these headaches. Make sure to get a file recovery software to keep all your documents safe.
If you’re careful though, with each and every install and mouse click, you can minimize your chances of having these problems. It’s the same with the web and junk e-mail. Be careful what you click one and don’t believe everything you read. Scams are everywhere. Anything that ever makes someone a little profit is exploited as much as possible.
Make sure you have an antivirus installed. But even if you do, these days that’s not enough. Malware is not considered a virus, so clicking something bad on the web or simply visiting a bad website will often result in malware being installed on your PC. You need to either run a malware scanner regularly or install one that constantly monitors your PC and catches them immediately. The latter is usually only available as a paid service, however, usually as a “pro” or “advanced” version of a standard malware scanner. Keep in mind that all of these, as well, are also used to scam users. Some malware and viruses appear as popup notices explaining that you’re PC is infected with many bad malware programs or viruses and offer to fix it for you, sometimes for a fee. This usually results in an even worse infection on your PC, or nothing at all, as they are usually only there to inject themselves deeper into your system, or worse yet, to scam you out of your credit card information, giving you nothing in return as they sell your information to make their money.
Personally, I use Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Antimalware. As of Windows 8, Security Essentials is built in, which is a great step forward. Many will insist this is only “basic” protection and users need a much better application, or suite, to protect them…usually for a price, of course. This may very well be. Just be careful and make absolutely sure you’re choosing a legitimate solution and not just another elaborate scam. As I said, those are what I use, and I rarely have issues. They’re both free, though Malwarebytes does have a “pro” version that monitors your PC live just like an antivirus program, and supposedly catches malware before it infects your PC. I haven’t tried it though, so I can’t say how effective it is or isn’t.
Mayhem at it’s finiest…er funniest
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Jay sent me this image recently, and with Sons of Anarchy finally over now, I thought I’d post it here (click it-or here-for the full-sized image). This was one of my favorite TV shows of all time, no doubt. Right up there with the Sopranos. In case you never watched it, it has nothing to do with minions or Hostess Twinkies… It’s about a gang of outlaw bikers that run guns in California. It was created by Kurt Sutter, who is now married to Katie Sagal. There are 7 Seasons of the show, and it all wraps up with a very awesome final episode, which just aired this week.
The “All-in-one”
I like to write. Next to programming & gadgets, writing is one of the main things on my generic “to do” for life. Whether it’s step-by-step procedures at work or just writing in general. So, for the record, there is an ongoing journal I’ve been writing for many years, as it occurs to me. It’s a diary, I guess you’d call it. I prefer “Life Journal” myself. I’ve tried to include all of the old memories I could remember, which, in itself, has taken a long long time, as things have occurred to me, or as I’ve recalled them as a result of other things happening in my life. This document contains very personal feelings and details of mine, so it won’t be published any time soon, but I would really like it to be published “eventually”, if you know what I mean. I have included, at times, many of my blog entries and other things posted on the web, so it’s also sort of a “complete story”, of sorts.
My wife knows where this document is, what it contains, and how to access it, so maybe someone else technical enough can assist her with bringing it to the next level and getting it out there when the time comes. I don’t know if that’s just posting it on the web or actually “publishing” it somehow, I’d just like others to know everything I’ve learned and experienced so maybe, even after I’m gone, I can still help someone somehow. I’m not going anywhere, don’t take this post the wrong way. There’s much left for me to do here. I’m just sayin’, with this post, that it’s there, so someone can remind whomever is going to be responsible for “closing out the books” when that time comes. Now back to the show…
Connor’s First Birthday
Connor’s first birthday party was last Sunday! We took a lot of photos, and I’m still trying to sort them all out, but here’s the raw album. Enjoy! Connor’s 1st Birthday
Christmas Downtown
Kevin, Socks and I walked downtown one day last weekend on the day of the annual tree lighting and the storefront decorations contest. We went earlier than all the festivities though, just to get a good dog walk in while there weren’t crowds yet. It was fun, and we took a bunch of photos of all the storefronts.
During our winter walks, Socks can get a little cold, so he’ll sometimes walk on 3 legs, allowing one to rest a little or warm up a bit, before using it again (that’s my theory anyway). So he was doing this, and a car stops in the middle of the street after we crossed it, and a lady yells out that the salt is hurting my dog’s feet! She said “you need to clean off his feet!” When we ignored her and kept walking, she jumps out of the car and walks toward us, angry, and says the same thing again. When she finally got real close to us, she reaches for Socks and says “give him to me, I’ll do it!” I picked up Socks right away, and said “No, you’re not touching my dog!” She said “let me clean off his feet, or YOU clean them off!” I said “he’s fine, and you’re not touching him!” She said “If you don’t clean off his feet right now, I’m calling the police!” I said, “you go ahead and call the police, but you’re not touching my dog.” We continued walking and Socks was fine. I knew, if she had touched him, or even tried to, he would have certainly bit her (or me, on accident, in the commotion) so I wasn’t about to let that happen. She stormed back to her car and said “I’m calling them anyway!” I heard her say “Sheesh, stupid people!” as well, as she walked back to her car, which was stopped in the middle of the street.
Whether she called them or not, I don’t know. Sure, maybe she was just concerned about him, how he was walking on 3 feet and we seemed to be ignoring him, I get that. But to us it was just such a startling encounter, she came off as way to demanding and pretty irate. And she has no idea what our dog’s habits are, how he walks normally or anything, she just seemed to assume we were abusing him. We finished our walk and Socks warmed up just fine in the car ride home. Sandy picked up a neat Winter coat for him a few days later though. Won’t help his paws from freezing much, but it’s nice and snug like a thunder blanket, and he seems to like it. It should at least keep him a little warmer on our walks.
The Christmas season is upon us
Just want to wish everyone a great holiday season. Saw an awesomely decorated house last night, on Pershing Boulevard, that reminded me to start walking Christmas Lane again in the evenings…
Flickr or G+ Photos? The battle resumes
So not only does Hans use Flickr, but The White House also does… Then again, The White House seems to be on EVERY social media platform, so I’ll take that with a grain of salt. I left Flickr a while back when they were about to up their price for a paid subscription from $24.99 a year to $49.99 a year. So I left my photos there, assuming it would revert to a “free” account, which was, at that time, limited to viewing the last 200 photos you uploaded (even though all the others were still on the site).
Well, somewhere along the line, they changed it completely. The price is still the same, but it’s now simply “ad-free” for $49.99 a year, but no other limitations if you don’t pay anything! You still get access to ALL of your photos, with a huge 1-terabyte space limit–the same limit whether you pay for ad-free or not. So, with that in mind, and my photos still intact, I’m playing with Flickr again, seeing how much they’ve changed & improved, and comparing things with G+ photos, which I moved to almost exactly a year ago.
Since I’m also WAY behind on publishing most of my photos since that move as well, I’ve been updating my albums on Flickr with everything from the past year, and I’ll post those links here shortly. Looking at my 1-terabyte limit, I’m currently at 7%, just to give you an idea of Flickr’s capacity. On G+ I pay $9.99 a month for 1 Terabyte of storage (aka “Google Drive”), but this includes all of my photos as well as my documents and all of my backups. I am at about 30% capacity on Google Drive, just as a comparison.
We’ll see where things go from here. Stay tuned for some new albums shortly. Or go right to my Flickr Albums to see what’s there already.
My car is fixed!
2 Years of Ingress
This about sums up MY last two years…almost. I started playing in January, 2013. Click the image for full detail.
A week with a Nissan Versa Note
No, it’s not a new cell phone. It’s the rental car I got from enterprise last week. My car is in the shop recovering from the deer I hit last week, and the shop offers a 5-day free rental, so I ended up with this Nissan. I must say, it is definitely the oddest vehicle I have ever driven, hands-down. It’s a 2015 model, so it’s brand new, with only just over 3,000 miles on it, but everything about this car is just a little “off” from the norm, or from what I expect in a car. Let me make a list of my complaints to make it easy to follow:
1. First of all, you can’t put gas in it until you find the secret gas-door release lever. Took me a while, but I found it…Under the steering column!
2. On most full-corner turns, the radio station changes. Turns out my fingers tap the radio controls on the steering wheel “just right” when turning corners. Nice.
3. No matter what I did, I could not get my Android phone properly connected to bluetooth to play music through the stereo, and USB would never work for audio either. All I got every time I tried was a “Please check USB device” error on the screen. A friend of mine tried to use the USB jack to charge his iPhone and as soon as he plugged in the USB, HIS music began playing over the stereo just fine! So it works great on Apple devices, but doesn’t work on Android. Are you sure this car isn’t a year 2000 model?? Come on, it’s 2015!
4. The windows kept fogging up on me all week… I couldn’t figure this out until the last day I had the car. In frustration I pulled over on the side of the road, put it in park, and looked REALLY hard for something I knew had to be there: Something to switch between recirculating inside air–which it HAD to be in for it to always fog up like it was doing–and feeding in fresh air. The symbols for these options were dead center on the dash, near the bottom, inset into the surface. But they weren’t buttons, and there was no lever there. When I got desperate and finally crawled down and looked UP at the underside of the dash, there it was–a level that flipped left or right–one way was recirculate, the other was fresh air. I flipped that baby to fresh air, and viola! The windows began to clear up!
5. It takes FOREVER to warm up the cabin in this car, especially just sitting in the driveway in the morning. Driving it doesn’t make it warm up much faster either though. Must be a “green” thing.
6. Every single time you start the car, the AC comes on. Whether it was off when you stopped the car last or not, it ALWAYS comes on when you start the car. No idea why. I didn’t find a setting anywhere to keep this off. Every day was in the 20’s the week I had it, so I certainly never needed the AC at all.
7. The gas guage goes from 0 to 1 – 0 is empty, 1 is full. What happened to E to F?? Does EVERYTHING have to be digital these days?? It either HAS gas (1) or it doesn’t (0). At least there’s still a “1/2” in the middle… though I’m surprised this doesn’t say “0.5”!
Personally, I’m thinking the car turns the AC on just to burn more fuel. The MILEAGE it gets seems to be pretty awesome–which is the only GOOD thing I really have to say about it, so in sticking with the theme, there’d have to be SOMETHING wrong with it getting this kind of mileage…
Oh Deer!
On my way home from work tonight I hit a deer on Sheridan Road in Winthrop Harbor. Huge one ran out onto the highway right in front of me and I never saw him coming. Car might be totaled. After the traffic behind me came to a screeching halt, I tried to get out of my car in the middle of the street with the deer laid flat out on the highway, and suddenly he jumps up on hit feet again, shakes it off, and heads back into the woods! I guess I only stunned him! I’m fine, no injuries, just a really messed up car. It isn’t driveable, it lost a lot of fluids and the fender is pushed up to the tire on the passenger’s side. The passenger-side headlight area is totally destroyed and the electrical system is freaking out with everything flickering on and off.
Always Remember
Aunt Blanche
I found out at Beth & Tom’s annual Fish Fry this weekend that our Aunt Blanche passed away recently! We knew she wasn’t doing well the past few years, but it’s still very sad to find out she passed away. But we found out too late to even send our condolences. 😦
Blanche was my mom’s sister. When I grew up, she lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee. Her husband was Loren, and they had three children: Bruce, Larry and Brenda. Larry is about my age, Bruce is older. I remember our family taking frequent vacations and weekend trips to Waukesha and we’d stay at Blanche and Loren’s house. We’d also always attend the annual Smith Family Reunions with them as I grew up. It was always a great time, and I remember them fondly.
From what I can recall, Blanche was one of four sisters. Here’s a photo of Blanche taken at my sister Penny’s house just before Christmas of 2000. It was Betty, Charlene, Blanche and Donna (my mother). I believe they grew up in Modesto, California, daughters of Joe Smith, owner of the Little Buckaroo Ranch, which was located at 2419 Kansas Avenue, Modesto, California. Think I memorized that address? Yeah, right. Nah, I found this photo of my mom and dad.
Sandy was able to find her obituary on the web though, so here it is:
Blanche (Smith) Fifer was born March 12, 1936, in Mason City to Joseph Smith and Glennie Looker Smith. She attended school in Kenosha, Wis. as well as Newton and graduated from Modesto High School in Modesto, Calif. in 1954. Blanche married Loren D. Fifer on Feb. 26, 1954, in Modesto. She was a retired bookkeeper, having worked mostly in petroleum related businesses in Wisconsin. She and her husband made many job related moves to various states. However, Wisconsin was their home for 36 years, 31 of those spent in Waukesha. She died Aug. 17, 2014. Blanche maintained as normal of a life as possible for many years after being diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis and will be deeply missed.
Lastly, here’s an album of all of the photos I could find of, and related to, Blanche Fifer. May she rest in peace.
Tired. Literally.
Last week was very busy. Wednesday, on my way to work I had a blowout. My right front tire blew as I was driving to work. I was in Kenosha county, so at least the tow wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t get the trunk open to get to the spare and the jack (darn it, I was SO looking forward to changing a tire, too!) so I called my insurance company’s roadside assistance hotline. They give you the option to locate you via GPS, so I went that route. As it turned out, they pinpointed me on the wrong road, sending the tow truck somewhere else. But the towing service call me back and I provided them with a mailbox number nearby, then they were able to find me.
My car was fixed by late that evening, and only took that long because they found other issues that also needed tending to, so I opted to have those done as well, as long as it was already in the shop. I ended up with new 4 new tires, new brakes, and some other undercarriage equipment that’s apparently important, but I don’t even know the terms or what they do. All I know is that my car rides much smoother and I no longer have “slicks” that sqeal when I turn corners, even at slow speeds. Nice and quiet.
Then, late Saturday evening, as I was leaving the house, I notice I had a FLAT TIRE! A brand new tire, and it’s almost completely flat. It looked like it still had SOME air in it, so I drove to the gas station a few blocks away and filled it up, then ran my errands and came back home. Sunday morning I checked it again and it was flat, this time completely. Ah, good times. I found a small electric air compressor in the garage–I think it was from my dad’s estate–it worked nicely, plugged into the cigarette lighter in the car. Once I started the car, the pump came on, and the tire was filled in a few minutes. The garage opened in a couple hours, so I figured it would still have enough air in it to get me to the garage by the time they opened. The garage found a two-inch sheetmetal screw embedded in the tire and showed it to me. Man, was it sharp! That car went fine on it’s original tires for 7 years with no problems at all (they were pretty bald though), then when I get new ones, within 3 days I run over a screw and puncture one! That’s my luck I guess. The shop just said “Yeah, that’s about how it goes.” Arrgh. It was covered though, so no big deal. Maybe I should have asked if I could have the four quarters back that I used to fill the tire back up…
A portal a day keeps the doctor away
I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday–just a 30-day checkup because he recently changed one of my meds. He saw that my test results looked pretty good and my weight is decreasing, so he congratulated me and asked what I’m doing differently. I said “I guess you could say I’m on a new diet that’s low in calories and high in XM and AP.” After a moment, he said “Excuse me, what was that again?” I repeated it, and based on his expression and head-tilt I went on to explain what Ingress is and how it’s helping me lose weight along with some changes in my diet. After that he understood a little more, and encouraged me to do even more of it. Watch out, toads…Now I have a prescription to take out MORE green portals!
When asked, 4 out of 5 doctors preferred blue skies to green skies, for patients who play Ingress. It’s just healthier.
Monday Night Features
Watched two things last night:
The Wil Wheaton Project: A wacky little talk show hosted by Wil that I enjoyed. Probably not for everyone though. Of course, I’m a TMZ fan as well, so I like the off-the-wall wacky humor, making light of current events. Wil’s new show is kinda like “TMZ for geeks”, in which he highlights everything current in the geek world–mostly in TV and movies this week, but I’m sure he’ll be all-inclusive, geek-wise, throughout the season. Yesterday was his first episode. I hope it does well. I’ve followed him for years, since he was in Stephen King’s “Stand By Me” in 1986.
Non-Stop: Very exciting movie that takes place in-flight as an unidentified terrorist threatens to kill a passenger every 20 minutes until $150 million is transferred to his bank account by the Air Marshal on the flight. They communicate through the entire movie by text messaging, with the texts appearing in popup bubbles on-screen as they are received. Unique approach. Especially when the air marshal ends up viewing a phone with a cracked screen–the on-screen text message bubbles were shown with cracks, I guess to show how difficult it was to read the screen. Some parts were a bit over-the-top, but it was still a great Monday-night feature for us.
JimTrottier.com 