Rush

Limbaugh hates President Obama so much that he's even against helping the people of Haiti in their hour of dire need.

Funny, but when Limbaugh had his own personal problems in Hawaii, he fully expected someone to help him.

The guy is screwy, a complete moron.

Fun In Acapulco

My current Elvis movie that I'm watching is "Fun In Acapulco."

I like the lightweight stuff that Elvis did. Not the dramas or anything where Elvis gets beat up. The other day it was "Clambake," now this one.

Of course "Acapulco" has a Mexican setting, and Elvis does several nice Mexican flavored songs. I love the theme song. I love most of the songs, I guess, including "There's No Room To Rhumba In A Sportscar," which I believe is thought to be one of the lowest of the low in Elvis' musical output. I still like it.

The one thing I don't like about the movie is the fact that Elvis wasn't ever actually in Acapulco. He shot all his parts in the United States. That doesn't seem right. So, the way I take that, any shot you see of "Elvis" in Acapulco, any medium or long shot, like with Elvis riding on the bike with the kid, that's not Elvis but some other guy.

Then we come in for a close-up of the actual Elvis, with a moving picture behind him, sitting on a stationery bike. I don't like that. It seems like a cheat. Like it's half Elvis, half some other guy. If you're going to do a movie about Acapulco, at least go there! Sheesh!

But, all that aside, it's a tuneful, pleasurable movie. We get to see plenty of Elvis -- and some other guy -- we get some cool songs, it's a lightweight, harmless time, and he comes out OK in the end. The one burr under the saddle in this movie is that Elvis is from a family of circus high fliers and they had a little problem with heights, someone got killed, so he's bad about jumping off mountains into the sea. But he works it all out and it has a happy ending.

Do Criminals Do Crime On Their Birthdays?

I don't like to besmirch my time, my life, I really don't.

I keep a clean nose at all time. If there's any crime going down, I'm not involved. I rise above all that and try my best to live a clean cut existence. I hate all evil and that spirit of taking advantage of people, stealing, etc.

And one thing I really don't like is the idea of associating particular dates with tragedy, like if someone dies at Christmas. I would try to separate it, the death, from the holiday. So there's no association with it.

So let's say I was a criminal, yet still had a more or less sensitive nature about these associations. In that event I wouldn't want to do any particular crime on my birthday. Because then my birthday would always be associated with having done crime, then worrying about being caught.

Later, then, I'd be in prison. And looking at the calendar. And the guy there would say it's your birthday. And my first thought would be of my downfall, what put me there, on my birthday, no less. What a terrible thought!

So, criminals. Don't do crime on your birthday. Or on the day before or the day after. Or anytime that might be associated with an important date in your life. My advice really would be, Quit doing crime period. Because you might be messing up someone else's life too.

The Choices We Make

The choices we make in life have consequences. It's too bad when folks are young that they don't realize that.

Why wait until you're old to look back and have regrets? Work hard now, maximize your opportunities now. Be diligent in your studies, strive to learn and get ahead. Be flexible, with wide perspectives, and you'll do better than if your focus is narrow.

There are plenty of cases where people say, "If only..."

Don't be one of them. Take advantage of life today. Then you'll look back and see you did the right thing.

Reading Some Old "Journals"

I took a class one time where we had to write a weekly "journal" of our experiences in the class, our thoughts, etc.

I remember it was something that needed to be accomplished, and that I did accomplish it right along with the need. I never once showed up with a blank sheet of paper. Yet it was still moderately difficult, mixed in with everything else I was doing in my day to day life. It was a chore.

Today I was going through some papers, trying to get myself down to a virtually paper-free life, and came across the whole stash of journals. I already had the original files on various discs and hard drives, since they were all written on the computer I had at the time. But the papers I got out today were the ones that had the instructors' comments written in the margins.

As I recall -- and this would be very typical of me -- I avoided reading their comments at the time. And really the only ones I read today were the ones that leaped out at me and couldn't be avoided. Generally I didn't want to read what they had to say at the time ... and I don't want to read what they had to say now. I got the gist. All I wanted was to get the task accomplished and move on. Plus, it's embarrassing to read comments like that.

But I must have glanced at them -- not very much though -- because you have to be at least vaguely familiar with what the teachers want when you're taking a class.

Just looking at the stack -- and especially the comments -- made me feel a little ill. I reacted against them, even though I'm trying to scan stuff into my computer so I can get rid of the originals. But these, I didn't really want to see them, but also I didn't want to throw them away without making a digital copy. So I made it through. Ordered them by date and scanned them. Now the originals can go!

In glancing through my stuff, I recalled what a chore it was to write the journals. But at this point I'm thinking it shouldn't have been such a chore. Just sit there and clack it out. Actually that's what I did!

I Did A Bunch Of Scanning Today

I got a new scanner a week ago.

I'm still using it quite a bit, with a lot of experimentation on settings and saving files to try and get exactly what I want, both to preserve documents, records, and to do it reasonably efficiently.

The interfaces for it are many, since each application has it's own little ability to get a scan.

The one I was using today, with pretty good success, was OmniPage Professional 16. Once I got the settings right. For a while I was scanning handwritten stuff and it kept flipping the documents, upside down, sideways, etc. So after doing a whole notebook, I checked the settings and there's a way of turning that off. But you want it on for lots of things, so it will just automatically right things. Which it does effectively when it comes to printed words.

Then I was experimenting with the PDF settings. I'd never made a PDF before where you could highlight the words and copy them if you wanted. (I guess I made one nearly a week ago, but a bad one with the crummy scanner interface that came with the scanner -- Lexmark.) You'd almost think that a scanner company would want the greatest software to go out with their equipment instead of some dimwitted crap like you get. But that's beside the point.

The OmniPage will probably be my scanner interface of choice. I got VueScan, which is great in many ways, but somehow it doesn't detect the Automatic Document Feeder reliably. The OmniPage never failed once.

Once things are scanned (and in some cases a PDF file is made of a collection) the originals I shred or throw away. Eventually I'll be down to two pieces of paper in the house: my birth certificate and of course toilet paper. You wouldn't want to wipe with a PDF!

Hallmark Cards

I went to the card store to get a birthday card for my mom today.

I couldn't believe it, but I picked out the greatest greeting card, birthday card, I've ever seen for her. It was so good I might just go back tomorrow and buy another just to put on my bulletin board.

I looked at one card and it was so-so. So I reached down for another one and when I read it, I couldn't believe it. I felt suddenly emotional and had a tear in my eye (this is true, no joke). It described my dear mother in just a few words ... to a T.

I can't describe it entirely, and I don't remember what it said. But it was about the size of a card that you put money in, narrow like that. It had dark glitter all over the front, a strip of white horizontally in the middle, and a tiny card, with slits through which the strip went through. It said something like "Grace..." and a couple other words, virtues. And on the inside it said something about how her boldness and personality ... were something that were amazing (I can't remember what it said).

Whatever it was, it was everything I wanted her to see. So I'm thankful today for Hallmark cards.

They did an excellent job on that one.

The Baby Jesus Under A Ton Of Snow

We've had so much snow lately that no one can get the Christmas stuff out of their yards. It's not like we're actually seeing it though, because it is literally buried.

You see the creches' roofs sticking out, piled high on top with a snow mound. And an occasional Wise Man's head pops out of the snow.

But somewhere down there, always at the lowest point, has to be the manger and the baby Jesus. Buried, completely under, freezing cold, with three or four feet of snow on top of him.

It doesn't make any difference, of course. But it's an unwelcome sight. We want to get this stuff put away, but there's no way we're going out to move a ton of snow to get it done.

Very Radicalized

I heard of a very sad story, one that no one hopes ever happens to them.

It concerned a father and his son, going down a bad path, making bad choices.

The father was so distraught that he actually went to the American embassy and reported his concerns, fearing what might happen, because his son has recently become very radicalized. There was no telling what he would do. But would anyone heed his father's warnings?

And indeed it was a serious matter, as it turned out. He was so radicalized he'd actually become a Republican. We can only hope and pray that someone steps in and make things right!

Computer Woes

Oh, I'm really playing hell with my computer.

I thought these things were supposed to be semi-coordinated and able to fend for themselves.

When you get program conflicts with Windows, and it says it's checking for a solution, then it never actually does, that's aggravating. Give me at least a clue!

I tried to "system restore" the thing twice. Neither time worked. The first time it came back and said to turn off your virus scanner, which I did, then tried it again and got the same result.

I think I finally figured it out, after uninstalling the program in question and reinstalling it, with an enormous database to restore. It seems to have had something to do with Microsoft NET framework 3.5 being turned off, which happened the other day (I guess) when there were other problems.

Anyway, at this moment most things seem to be working.

I got cheated today out of quiet time, trying to get this blasted computer to work. Ridiculous.