Thursday 05

 Thursday 05- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 and 78 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 23 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 75. Northwest wind around 6 mph becoming calm. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 50. West northwest wind between 5 and 7 mph.” 
One of the first things I do after I exercise is eat my oatmeal while reading my email, but not today! My phone completely died. There was no dial tone, no nothing. I called up Verizon on my cell phone and they said they’d send someone out today, wow! I have been experiencing problems with the phone for a few days now like getting knocked offline and having to redial but nothing like this. Where I live in the desert the phone company doesn’t want to invest money in new equipment and has kind of written us off. This isn’t the first time that I had the same problem; it’s called a MOX switch. Usually the MOX goes out very slowly as time goes by. You can be talking to somebody and then “CLICK” you are not and it takes the MOX about a minute to reset. Martin from Verizon showed up a little after 1pm. I told him of previous times that the MOX had gone out and I believed that was the problem. He went to the main box that’s about a mile away and put me on a different MOX switch and returned at 2:45 to say my phone was working now. Because of the phone dropping the line I wasn’t able to get my Windows 7 updated and functioning on the HP Mini Note and have been using the Dell Mini 9 to post my journals. I started updating the Win 7after Martin left and got most of it completed, but I’m still using the Mini 9 to post my journal tonight. Tomorrow I hope to start using Win 7 on my posts.
Carolyn Rich called to ask if I could run by her cabin to see if the repair guy who is staying there working on it was around. She hasn’t been able to get in contact with him for a few days and wanted to know when he’d be finished. I drove the Gross Polluter over and sure enough he and his girlfriend were there; I think I interrupted them doing something. Their names were Jerry and Lana from Palm Desert, very nice folks. I let Jerry use my phone to talk to Carolyn since his phone didn’t work well up here.
I had to clear out everything in the computer room so I can start laying tiles down. That took the better part of the day to do because I had everything from other rooms I tiled stored in there; I’m running out of room! I think now is a good time to go through and pick out the stuff I need and get rid of the rest by putting some of it in storage or just throwing it away. I really need to keep the clutter down in the house and give me room to breathe.
I went for my evening walk and tonight I did watch the Nightly News to learn more about the killings at Fort Hood in Texas; such a sad tragedy! Then I watched “My Name is Earl” to take my mind off that. I watched “Fastforward” on ABC, then “Fringe” on Fox, and Jay Leno on NBC. I’ve been watching Way Too Much TV lately.
I did my stretches and lifted weights; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 06

 Friday 06- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 and 75 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 39 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 77. Light and variable wind. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 51. West wind between 3 and 6 mph.” 
I have been trying to call Stoney since last night but his line was always busy so I thought that he forgot to go offline on his computer again. I went over to tell him and found that his phone has the same problem that mine had. So I went back home and called Verizon to come on out to fix it. They said that someone would be out today.
Stoney picked me up at 1:30pm for a drive down to Yucca Valley to pay our last respects to Donna Myers who passed away last week. There were a number of folks who showed up from Montebello were her and Cal used to live before coming to retire here. There were two or three ex Fire Chiefs attending from the Montebello fire department where Donna and Cal used to work and lots of family and friends to say their goodbyes.
When I got back home I went for a long evening walk to reflect. As I was walking I came across a large tarantula. I remembered when I first moved here I found one by my house and coached him into a Styrofoam Cup and carried him away where I wouldn’t accidently step on him. This time I picked him up and let him walk on my hands; he’d go from one hand to the other as I move one in front of him. What a wonder! It made me think just how precious all life is and how much life is wasted; where some folks strive to be alive to see another sunset while others throw it away on the trivial; where one person can see the wonders in an ant hill while other’s walk past giving it no thought. I guess the passing of my friend and the recent shootings at Fort Hood were a maniac took the lives of twelve souls, has made me contemplate these opposites of reality. Maybe someday we will respect all life and become the caretakers of our little planet and all its creatures. And maybe we have to respect ourselves before we can.
I read some astronomy and did my stretches before “Numb3rs” came on CBS; about a hacker who hacked into illegal credit card websites. Then I practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.
Oh, and I finally got Win7 up and running on the HP Mini Note and used it to post this journal. It appears to me to be faster than Win XP and is really nice to work with!