This one time

at the video store I brought my daughter along. She was a toddler, just learning to walk. She got away from me and ran into this back room that had the swinging doors like a saloon. I reached down and grabbed her up in my arms while she giggled away.

I cast a sidelong glance around the small room. Porn, porn everywhere. Was my face red as I carried her out of the back room!

I got clouds

I have plenty of cloud pictures to post. I'll grow weary of it soon, so bear with me. I am taking my camera today. I have no idea what the weather is going to be like. We haven't turned our television on in days other than to watch the movie Spirit.

The wind was pretty chilly when I let the dog out this morning.

I think today is going to be an easy day. Yesterday was pretty rough. I think I have the problem solved. Time will tell. A local network was being attacked. Not like a terrorist attack but by a packet storm. It appears to me as if it were internal.

A packet storm is when a machine or a group of machines flood the network with packets of data that will eat up the bandwidth and render a network useless. End users could go nowhere and do nothing because there was no bandwidth left for them.

A couple of technicians along with myself attempted to determine that source of this culprit machine. Hah! Can you say spoofing? We were chasing phantoms.

Here is what I did that I believe will resolve the issue.

Reach for the sky

Another sky picture from my drive on Monday. I increased the hue and contrast to get that pretty blue sky.

I am headed off to another location tomorrow. My camera battery is charged! Woot!

Post, post, post, post, post.

I'm gonna post and post and post my pictures. The skies were awesome in Ohio yesterday. I almost did not take my camera on my travels. I am so glad I did. I am touching them up just a tiny amount with the hue and contrast features. I also added the lens flare to the cloud one the other day. It looks as if I were in an airplane taking that one.

Above is a back road somewhere in rural Coshocton county, I think. It was a delightful drive.

My picture posting problem happened sometime between 7:30 a.m. Friday morning and 7:30 Saturday morning. I am trying to narrow it down to see if I had changed anything in my Mozilla to do this. I can't recall anything.

I had one of the best times Saturday night I have had in a long time. Other than the cigarette smoke which makes me sick. I laughed so hard, too. Both created a splitting headache. I did have migraine medicine with me and within an hour the splitting ache was gone. We played Euchre, which I was a bit rusty at but held my own.

Somebody had brought watermelon pucker Schnapps and mixed it with vodka and 7-up Plus. I had two of them (long before I took my medication) and I ate afterwards. They were very good. I finished the evening up with Ginger ale. What else?

Can you believe this 7-up product? Fortified with calcium and vitamin C? The only thing is the Splenda which my have contributed to my headache. I never could use Nutra-Sweet, either. It was all the rage back in the 80's - to drink diet pop. I finally figured out where my headache a day was coming from and cut out the diet soda.

The Cloud Maker

Whew! Got it. Advanced Java Script Options. (Allow scripts to change images). Take that!

Whatever. The above is a smokestack from the city I visited today. We nicknamed it the Cloudmaker.

Deselect Blogger Image Gracefully

Wah! I thought for sure my problem would be fixed today. My page source reads the same as everybody else's, now. I didn't change anything in the header.

I guess I'll have to dig deeper. It does read in the photo html post:

"parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully" as if I am posting porn or something. Maybe I have hit my 300MB image posting limit.

Oh, the picture above (if I can sneak around and tweak this post so that it shows up) is from my drive today. I had a myriad of cloudy skies to see today.

My pics will post without incident in IE, just having problems in Mozilla. Sigh.

Edit: Advanced Java Script Options. (Allow scripts to change images).

Yuk, yuk, yuk

What is Atom API and why does every other blog source code refer to it but mine? Still working on my "posting images" problem and I began to view other bloggers source code. Everyone that I have viewed (from blogger.com) has this in their header:

link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title=

but mine. :(

I hope it isn't one of those alphabetical things. My blog page being in the W's. It's like school all over again. Go to the end of the line. You're last.

In Blogger Status Issues I was reading about the Atom API. It doesn't help when the "more information" page goes nowhere. Dead links. Ppphhhttt!

Alright! That's it! My cat just threw up for the second time this morning! Puking cats, broken links, Atom API (whatever the hell that is) - I'm losin' it!

Challenge

This is the back alley behind my house. I am about the only one who uses it. There is an elderly lady behind me, but I have only seen her drive twice in the four years I have been here. All the other houses around me have front exits to the street. My garage is in the back of my house, so I pretty much get this alley to myself. Unless somebody is lost or coming to visit me.

I have a little challenge. My pictures are not posting in Firefox (unless I remove the not-a-real-namespace that I mentioned a couple of posts ago). However, they will post normally with MS Internet Explorer. I normally use Firefox. My site meter rainbow cube isn't showing in either browser.

What little time I had to read up on this has mentioned Norton Anti-virus being a suspect. So, this post is a test of sorts.

Edit: 10:30 p.m

Well, I had a little bit of time tonight to look at things. I was able to get my rainbow cube to re-appear from sitemeter (I also lost it on my personal web page). It was showing up in IE. It has something to do with javascript and onblur. I recall trying some javascripting months ago on my blog site, but can't recall what I was trying to do. I must have left something in there and something somewhere got updated and it threw things out of whack on my pages. But, only in Mozilla Firefox. I'll continue to chip away at it. In the meantime, I have to be sneaky to get my photos to post. Sigh.

Edit Edit: Advanced Java Script Options. (Allow scripts to change images).

They should be sleeping

I came home to find my daughter home, but her friend was no where in sight. I took my dog out for a break thinking about what to do when the girl's mother drove up to my driveway. I finally got my daughter to give us a name of a boy (twenty year old) that was with her 15 year-old friend. After calling and waking four families with the same last name as the boy, the girl walked into my back door.

Her Mother took her home.

I told my daughter I didn't want to see that "friend" at our house again.

What? Not a real name!

My photo wouldn't post until I editited Html and removed the "not a real name" nonsense from the code. What's up with that?

If you are trying to post and this is happening, choose the Edit Html tab at the top of your post window.

Remove the following section from the code:

("src="http://not-a-real-namespace/")

Click Publish Post and you should be okay. Good luck!

Edit: Advanced Java Script Options. (Allow scripts to change images).

Under the lilacs

I can't wait for these babies to bloom! I love lilacs. For fragrance, I put them right up there with my moonflowers.

My world has been a little crazy the past few days. The teenager and the pets are all still here and all have their chaos going on around me. Tonight I am taking a break from all of them and getting out. Looking forward to that.

I have been up for two hours and do not have anything accomplished other than reading the newspaper. I got caught up in the releasing of the 911 recordings of the WTC tragedy. A very sad read. All my gifts are wrapped for tonight's party, so I am ahead of the game. I have to make the food fixings, but that should be easy enough. I don't have my taxes done. I supposed I can work on them. I did them myself last year, and I think I will do a repeat this year. Not a lot of complications going on in that area.

My daughter turns 15 on the 7th. I have been looking into the whale watching tours on the Northeast coast. I have looked at New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine and New Brunswick areas. I am a bit concerned about seasickness. I read where one tour hands out tootsie roll pops to ease the queasiness. I am also interested in the dolphins and other sea life. I don't want to drive, she doesn't want to fly and she also turned up her nose at a train ride. Maybe I should wait until she gets her drivers license. I love to drive, it's just that I normally do a lot of it on the job and a vacation is getting away from the job.

Life on the spin cycle

Ack! The drama of a fifteen year-old breaking up with her boyfriend. It reminds me of the spin cycle on the washing machine when the load is unbalanced. This break-up is taking daze, err...days.

Still Scruffy

I still think a better name for her is Scruffy. She likes to sleep in a cubby hole just off the basement steps. It is where I kept the two pet carriers. Minus one. Maybe she figures if she sleeps in the place that belonged to the other pet carrier, I couldn't put her back into it. I saw she was sleeping there on the hard wood, took pity on her and gave her an old throw blanket I had in the basement.

Her eyes are NOT two different colors. It is just the way the camera picked it up.

My daughter called me crying today. She was trying to break up with her boyfriend. I came home an hour later to find that they had made up. Great. I thought that maybe things were improving. I want her to move on. Not today.

I went to the grocery store. I stood in line at the deli wanting some turkey breast for sandwiches. It was my first purchase. One deli worker was at the other end of the deli serving hot food to a customer. It appeared to me as if the other deli worker was having problems with his girlfriend. I could see her standing in the doorway talking to somebody. Another employee of the grocery store came up and I heard him ask the one deli worker where her help was. She yanked her head towards the door where the one stood talking to his now very upset girlfriend.

Then the deli worker served the other employee. That was enough for me. I walked out of the store without purchasing a thing. I had waited about ten minutes. Not even an acknowledgement from anyone saying that they saw me and would be with me shortly. Nobody yelling to the errant deli worker to get his butt back to work. Hey, maybe it was a girl deli worker. I didn't actually see the person behind the door....

And since I was early getting back home, I caught my daughter's boyfriend in the house when I wasn't home. (I had chased him out of the house when I left). They were eating bagels. My daughter said "I was feeding him. He was hungry."

I went up to his face and I said "Maybe I am not getting through to my daughter, but I am going to tell you that you are NOT to be in my house when I am not home. If I catch you in my house again when I am not at home, you will never see her (and I pointed to my daughter) AGAIN! Got it?!"

He mumbled "Yeah" and hi-tailed it out the door. Hey - I didn't get my turkey breast. If I ain't happy - ain't nobody happy!

Driving off into the sunset

I gave my daughter her first driving practice last evening. I enjoyed the beautiful shots of a sunset where she practiced.

Unmade bed

Mmm-hmmm. Yep. This is what happens when Peruby gets too lazy and doesn't make up her bed on a Sunday morning. She gets a cup of coffee, reads the paper, turns around and there he is. Stretched out, comfortable as can be. No worries. While I try to work around him sorting all my bills and paperwork, he dreams of where his next meal is coming from.

After months of asking my daughter what interests she and I both share that we can merge into a vacation of sorts, I finally have one. She no longer likes the beach and ocean because of her mole removal episodes. She turns up her nose at the thought of museums and Disney World. She mentioned that her latest interest is whales. Okay. I like that. How about a whale watching tour?

The information research has begun.

Pinky

Some pink. Sounds like "some pig" as in Charlotte's Web. Hey, that reminds me. Aren't they making a movie of that show? Yep. I just checked imdb.com. Stellar cast there.

I really diffused the above photo. The original was blurry anyway. I used my daughter's camera on some of the first arrangements and my hand was very unsteady. They are all gone now, so all I have are their pictures. I still have plenty of stuff to make more. I am working on one for myself that has an off-white watering pail with light green grapes on it. I set it outside for two years to get a weathered look to it. A little rust and such. Now I will begin to make it to suit me.

My sister told me that I did one for her a couple of years ago. A watering pail with grapes. I have no recollection of that. I should have taken a picture.

I took my daughter to get her hair cut this morning. She was hesitant for two reasons. She is in competition with her previous best friend from first through fifth grade for the longest hair in the class and her dyed tips would go when they cut it. I explained to her how her hair just won't grow if she doesn't get a bit cut off. The ends would just keep splitting apart and the hair becomes frayed. We will re-dye the tips another time. Her hair gets darker every year. Usually it lightens up in the summer, but she is sour with sunshine these days. (Because of the scars from her mole removals). She said she hates the color yellow. Everything yellow is evil.

I have four birthdays in the next couple of weeks. I tried to find some things today for gifts, but all I could find was stuff for myself. Grin. I did get a little done for others, but basically bombed out. Another time perhaps. I can't wait too long. My daughter let me know some of the stuff she wants for her b'day. We goofed off today. I dug up the old mini tape recorder and she likes to record people and then replay the sound in fast motion. We sounded like the chipmunks.

Blue wine glass

You could figure that it wouldn't be long before I was back to posting blue photos. I am playing with the scanner images again. I grabbed one of my wine glasses. This one is from Hardee's Christmas collection. It kept trying to roll off of the glass on the scanner, so I held it with my daughter's black bean wrist support. Worked like a charm. And I used the blue omni lighting effect on it.

I tried to grab Jasper and scan him, but he was having nothing to do with that. I couldn't catch Moose so I could look at her stitches, either. She tried so hard to get away from me that I was afraid I was going to hurt her, so I let her go. She is really scared of me now. I can add Jasper to that list, too. Maybe the bird? No, better not.

I try not to blog about my co-workers very much, but fact is stranger than fiction. This is the fact, plain and simple. My co-worker blew her nose, and said "Peruby, snot came out of my nose." And she proceeded to call her boyfriend and tell him. For some background information, she has been sick with sinus problems for months. But why did she think in all that is Holy, anybody would want to know besides a doctor of medicine?

My big baby - Casper.

My daughter named him. He was our first pet after our bird. I am not entirely sure why she named him Casper. It wasn't close to Halloween, but it could be that he reminded her of the holiday. He is all black. He found us. We would put him back out at night and he always came back. After about a week, he brought the black and white cat, Jasper. I figured they were litter mates (brothers). After taking them to the vet's office we found out that Casper had already been neutered and Jasper had not. Maybe they weren't from the same litter. Either way, they are similar to the cats I grew up with. Black and white short hair.

I am hoping to get some serious R and R this week-end. My stress level has been off the charts for the past week. My plate has been very, very full. I mentioned the baby shower and training in Columbus, but there was more. I won't go into detail, but I am really looking forward to doing nothing this week-end.

I will plan my daughter's birthday that is coming up fast. She will be 15. She said she doesn't want a party. Last year we had Brad Pitt on her cake. Well, a picture of him. He won't be gracing any food this year. Not sure who she is smitten with these days. She and her beau have passed the 10 month marker. Not as much drama as we used to have. Thank goodness.

The newest feline addition (Moose) has been coming upstairs. She is still very nervous around me. I am the one who has to grab her and push her into the pet carrier. Just one more time, dear little Moose. Just to get your stitches out. Before the spaying she was getting very loving and close to us. I notice that she seems to be sore going up and down the steps. I will take a look at her stomach if I can catch her. Just to make sure. She is cleaning herself up very nicely. I guess I can't call her Scruffy any more. See, I told you I was used to short hair cats. Sleek and smooth.

I am backed up on movies. My nephew has brought me about fifteen to watch. I doubt that I will. Most are ones I never heard of (Silver Hawk, In Good Company, Kingdom of Heaven) or don't care to see. (Saw). Two I do want to see. Coach Carter and Wedding Crashers. And of course there are the ones at the video store waiting to be rented. I looked today. Nothing caught my eye. The way I feel right now, I probably won't make it through many of them without falling asleep.

Migraines ran rampant this past week, but the medicine kept them in check. If not, I probably would have spent hours in bed sick as a dog. Any little change in my schedule will flip me out. Especially when my sleep cycle is thrown out of whack. And, it was. I think I put in nine hours last night. That is extremely rare for me.It's off to another early night for me again. Z-Z-Z-Z.

A Diaper Cake

diaper cake

I can't begin to think of how long this would take to make. It is called a "diaper cake". I count at least twelve rolled baby diapers in the front. The bottom is all baby diapers. The second and third layers are receiving blankets or burping cloths. There were two of these at the baby shower. They were huge! Like a wedding cake huge. My sister and her daughter said they didn't take that long to make. Okay.

I just spent two days in Columbus at a training session. I left my house at 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning and returned home about an hour ago. I don't think I have slept more than four hours in the past two nights, so I am really brain dead.

After about two hours on the road I was trying to call my daughter to make sure she was ready for school. The home phone kept ringing busy and she didn't answer her cell phone. I kept trying. Finally I reached her on the cell phone. She said that the upstairs phone said one extension was in use. She had been alone since 5:00 a.m. and it was almost seven. It was the downstairs phone. That was strange. She hung the receiver up, I told her to have a nice day and we hung up.

At some point and time during the training I began thinking about the scary movie where the baby sitter is alone in the house and the phone calls were coming from inside the house. Okay, remember - not much sleep. My imagination began to run wild. What if there had been somebody in the basement downstairs? I didn't even think about my dog. There is no way a stranger (or somebody we knew) could be in the basement without our dog telling on them. I wasn't thinking straight. I was on pins and needles until I was able to escape from my training and call her cell phone at 4:45. She was fine. Big breath.

Anyway the training was about 40 people. There were three females in the bunch. It was a security seminar by Microsoft. The first day was long and a bunch of us were having trouble staying awake. After a night in the motel room and very little sleep, I was really tired the second day (today). The software kept failing on the poor guy. Isn't that ironic? Microsoft's own software to fail during a training session? Imagine that!