August 2009 – Thought Patterns Archive

Intro: Annie Oakley

Posted on 08/29/2009 by PaulaO

She’s a wee thing still, just 2.5lbs and approximately 9 weeks old.

Looks little in Lorna’s hands!

Attack of the Killer Strawberry

A clerk at the post office where Lorna works told us that a kitten was at her husband’s body shop the other morning. She, the kitten, must have belonged to someone at some point because she is so tame. We took her to the vet Thursday and she checks out fine. Wormy but all kittens are.

So far her life is limited to Mike’s Big Boy Crate in the living room. We let her out today for a while (the dogs were outside) so she could explore and get into trouble. She did both just fine. She’s a quiet, calm kitten but I know that it will all come exploding out of her some day soon. She’s just not gotten to that chapter in the Manual yet.

We hadn’t come up with a name until Lorna said she caught herself thinking about “playing with Annie”. We already had a Calamity Jane so an Annie Oakley just seemed to fit.

Laundry Fun

Posted on 08/26/2009 by PaulaO

We went to the laundromat this afternoon. (yeah, that’s where I fell and I’m still not allowed to go there by myself).

We take our hang-up shirts and lay them out flat, hanging them when we get home. So while I’m sorting socks and undies, Lorna is doing the shirts.

“Interesting. Look.” She points to the two stacks of shirts – hers on the left and mine on the right. “Nice whales on one shirt and Goofy on the other.”

“Ha.”

“Oh, and look. Tapir one one shirt and, yes, another Goofy shirt.”

“Stop it.”

“Oh, wolves on one and, wow, Dori from Nemo.”

The conversation degraded from there because next up was her cheetah shirt and, well, another cartoon shirt.

The NFL Rant

Posted on 08/20/2009 by PaulaO

Okay, here I go.

First we have Michael Vick who was a quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons. As a side note, I’ve never liked Vick and have never ever liked the Falcons. No real reason why for the Falcons but I’ve not liked Vick’s showoffy style or the concept it was a good thing that quarterbacks have almost as many run yards per games as their best rusher. But back to the topic: Vick spent 18mos (1.5 yrs) in prison for animal cruelty (or whatever the final charge was). He spent SIX years funding dog fights as well as torturing and killing dogs that did not win. Did I mention he was in this business for SIX years? He did not admit guilt until every available finger had pointed to him. None of the statements I have read mention that he knows TORTURING and KILLING the dogs was a bad thing. I’ve gotten the impression he thinks funding the dog fights was wrong. From the Wikipedia article, he gave conflicting information to the feds as well as never admitted to torturing/killing dogs. Did I mention he was doing this for SIX years? Vick was suspended by the NFL while he was in prison but has been allowed back on an allegedly tentative basis. The Philadelphia Eagles has signed him to a one year contract. Vick based his initial bankruptcy plan on being picked up by a team. I was thrilled when the first judge said “Nope, come up with another one that includes, say, selling things that you have like cars and a house or two.” To Vick, it is all about money. Who cares about the dogs he tortured and killed for SIX years. It’s the money. Funding dog fights is a big business as is any gambling trade. He had to have made a lot of money during those SIX years. He says he made a mistake and I say that surely to shit in those SIX years you didn’t once sit back and say “Ya know, I make more money in the NFL and if they find out about this, I could lose that money….” But I’m thinking that if it did occur to him at any point, he continued the self-conversation with: “Nah, I’m Mike Vick! I’m the best quarterback ever! The great Tony Dungy will wipe my ass for me if I am caught so it’s all good. Hand me the cattle prod.”

Next up is Donte’ Stallworth who is (was?) a receiver for the Cleveland Browns. (I’ve never forgiven the Browns for refusing to build a new stadium, losing their team because of it, then building a new stadium in order to get another one. And I’ve never forgiven the NFL for letting them have another team) Stallworth has plead guilty to a manslaughter charge of hitting a pedestrian with his car. Stallworth never left the scene, never tried to get out of the charge, settled with the family out of court, admitted on the scene to have been drinking, and basically has done all he can to face his mistake. He is currently suspended by the NFL.

Next up is Plaxico Burress, formerly of the Giants. Burress is a mess and is now about to start 2 yrs in prison on a gun possession charge. His base idiocy is first revealed in that he goes to a nightclub with a Glock pistol tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants. Not in his pocket, but tucked into the waistband. Second, the gun starts to fall down (imagine that!) and the idiot grabs the gun, hits the trigger and shoots himself in the leg. So not only did he have a gun tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants (you know, those things held up with a string?), he didn’t have the fucking safety on! Burress was released by the Giants back in April.

So there’s 3 players. You can guess on my feelings of Vick’s reinstatement by the NFL. It’s all about money. And given the attitude he had when he got out of prison, I’d bet money he got a lot of special treatment while in prison. He had all that time with a captive fan base. I feel very sorry for Stallworth. One mistake has one guy dead and another guy that probably should be put on suicide watch. But that’s the thing with drinking and driving. It only takes that one time, that one second less of response time, and someone is dead. As for Burress, he’s an idiot. A big heavy pistol in your sweatpants? Maybe he thought since cops do it on TV all the time, then he could, too.

It all comes down to money and players in the NFL are being paid too much, especially rookie players. Unlike other jobs, it isn’t often that an NFL player has to work their way up to get the big bucks. A kid fresh out of college with their BA in accounting isn’t hired to run a Fortune 500 company. They’ve not learned true responsibility, learned how to live in the world (such as pay bills on time and be how to spend responsibly), or gotten experience. But the NFL allows teams to pay kids big bucks when they’ve not proven their worth to the team or to themselves.

In Newport News, mentors and others working with underprivileged youth sought to identify lessons to communicate to those who had seen him as a role model. “It’s difficult, because Mike (Vick) is someone who we held up as doing it right,” Bernard Johnson told the Newport News Daily Press. Johnson, who has coached kids, including Vick, in the Boys and Girls Club football program for 28 years, said the lesson to kids now is all about responsibility and accountability.[144]

After he apologized to the judge, his family and his children at his federal sentencing hearing on December 10, Judge Hudson stated:

“I think you should have apologized also to the millions of young people who look up to you.”[145]

(source)

Apps for Writers – Reviews

Posted on 08/15/2009 by PaulaO

Today I finally got a new router and finally got the laptop to working through it. I said some words, banged my head several times, plugged, unplugged, replugged, reset, called my brother twice, said some more words…you get the idea.

So now the laptop is attached to the net via wireless. Cool. Once I was certain I had that down and everything was working, I then went to work on getting the iPod Touch to also be on the wireless network. This wasn’t as painful but there’s a lot of info out there (better than I could find for the router) on how to do it. As soon as it was connected, I got to work on figuring out how Quickword and DocsToGo can be synced with the laptop.

Quickword was so easy. I opted to “mount as a drive”. At the bottom of the opening page is a URL (http://192.168.1.103:4242). You then go to the Network section of your computer and make the Touch a part of the network using that URL. It is easy and I did it the first time. Once that was set up, it is a simple matter of dragging and dropping documents in and out of its network folder. The other way, and is even more simple, is to enter in that URL into your web browser. Quickword can only read .doc (and I think .txt) so I had to open and save a document from .odt (openoffice format) to .doc. Then drag the folder into the other and boom, there it was on the Touch. However, and you knew there had to be, the Quickword app has to be open before it will transfer.

And I found out why. That URL? That’s for Quickword only. DocsToGo has a different port it uses so the URL ending is different. So unless Quickword is open, the network won’t see it, just like if a computer on the network was turned off.

DocsToGo wasn’t quite as easy. First, I had to download another software for the desktop. Then I had to add the device. Then I had to enter a code into the device. DocsToGo has a URL, too, although I’m not sure what it is for. The other software is simple enough, although I can’t seem to get the document on the Touch to transfer to the computer. I’m trying again right now and the transfer, if that is what’s happening, is taking a very long time.

The third app I tried, and may have actually liked, is called Notebooks. But it has a major flaw, in my opinion, and that is in editing. Here’s an example. I write this sentence: “Sitting in the waiting room, doing nothing but wait, is a pianful experience.” With DocsToGo and Quickword, I can put the cursor directly in the middle of the misspelled word and correct it. With Notebooks, just like the built in Notes, you can’t select the middle of a word. I can only select the end of the word and hit backspace. Rather annoying. I kind of liked its ability to stack a “book” within “books”. Meaning I could have a “book” named WorldBuild and inside it have books called characters, geography, archery, etc. But that annoying edit bit will drive me nuts far too soon. And I’ve tried software like that before and grew to dislike the dozens or more folders with bits of the novel scattered throughout.

As much as it pains me, I will (probably) be using Quickword. The syncing of documents is the easiest and requires no additional software. Now that I can sync, I will be using it to do actual editing in the form of writing bits as it comes to me then pasting it into a document either on the computer or on the device.

Podcasts

Posted on 08/10/2009 by PaulaO

Now for the podcast post. (gosh, that’s hard to say out loud!)

On my iPod Touch, I have started downloading podcasts. I subscribe to a bunch of them. Each time I sync the device with iTunes, it puts all the new ones on there. I had to mess with the settings for a while to figure out how to keep the ones I wanted on the device vs getting deleted because they were “old”. Basically, I keep the device setting (in iTunes) to manual.

National Public Radio (NPR) must haves: (and the average length)

Writing Related:

Misc:

the same place

You don’t need a player to get or listen to podcasts. I normally either listen to them directly from the website or I download them and listen later. That’s how I used to listen to ‘Wait, Wait…’. I sometimes listen to “Writing Excuses” and “Litopia” (they have a sidebar chock full o’ ways to subscribe/download to podcasts).

The problem with podcasts is that you are listening to someone’s voice. And the beauty of voices are in the ear of the beholder. There are some people I cannot stand. Carl Kasell, who does the “Wait, Wait…” shows – cannot stand his voice. The idea of winning his voice on my answering machine just is not appealing. I enjoy him, enjoy his sense of humor and style, but nope no way on the voice itself. Grammar Girl has a good voice and enunciates well (good?). I can listen to Garrison Keillor all day and enjoy every second of it. Except when he gets long-winded and I forget where he started. Some podcasters insist on putting loud music on before and after. “Writing Excuses” also tries to be funny. Which they usually aren’t. Which is why I don’t listen to them very often. Again, your mileage may vary and my opinion is just that: mine. Lorna has no trouble listening to Carl Kasell.

The good thing about podcasts is that you can listen to them at any time. On the way to work, while waiting at the drs office, etc. “Grammar Girl” is best listened to when you can take notes. “Wait Wait…” is best listened to when no one will look at you weird for falling down while laughing.

Just don’t let them pile up on your computer or device. I save “Writer’s Almanac” and listen to them all at once, usually a week’s worth. Same with “Grammar Girl”, although sometimes she fries my brain. And don’t get a ton of them. Get a ton at first then weed out the ones you know you won’t go back to often enough to make it worth the space on your drive. I’ve tried out a lot more podcasts than the ones I listed above. Some were just silly/stupid, some were loud and obnoxious, some were just not for me.

Again and as always, I would like to hear from others who do the podcast thing. And if you don’t, I’d like to know why. And no, I won’t ever do one. I have an awful voice and the accent would drive people nutso.

IPod Touch and Writing

Posted on 08/09/200908/09/2009 by PaulaO

(note: the subject line has changed since I first wrote this. I decided to not get into the podcasts just yet).

I’ve been having fun with my iPod Touch. For those of you who don’t know, the Touch is just like the iPhone with one major exception – it’s not a phone. It uses wi-fi for internet connectivity while the iPhone uses the cellular carrier (which is exclusively AT&T). So far, I’ve used the Touch more for music and games than I have for internet stuff like email and web surfing. When/if I get the wireless network working again here at the house, I may use it more.

Anyway, the Touch is not a PDA unless you use M$ software such as Outlook. Ironic that the Apple device uses predominantly M$ stuff, eh? I had to enter in all of my contacts (granted, there’s not that many). Any notes I make using the built in application (herein known as ‘app’ or ‘apps’) cannot be transferred to the desktop.

Before I talk about what apps I have found useful, I want to discuss iTunes. I. Hate. It. You cannot add any app, song, etc to the device without using this software. While there are some programs that allow you to use the device like a USB flash drive (DiskAid), it is limited. The iTunes program is lousy. For example, I wanted to see what dictionaries, thesauruses (thesaurusi?), etc were available. Open iTunes, click on App Store, click on Reference. And there it ends. 20 apps per page, 121 pages. No way to further divide them into sections. You can filter them into release date, name, and most popular. And you can’t go directly to page 120 of the 121 because you are looking for something that starts with the letter Y. There is a Power Search available. You can narrow it down to section (applications vs music), box to select searching only the free apps, enter in a keyword and/or developer name, category (reference), and device capability (touch vs iphone). You click search and you get the results. Here’s the next major error. It doesn’t say “page 1 of 12” for the results. You click “see all” and get a list of 30 apps. Then, in the corner of the screen, in tiny little letters, there’s this “more results”. It’s not in the scrollable part of the screen, but on the frame of the software itself. Still no “page x of y”. So I have no idea how many results there are nor can I then re-search the results to narrow it down further. On the first page there is a list of developers, a very short list. Dictionary.com is listed but it only has two apps in the search result. So finding what you want/need can be difficult unless you know the exact name or are lucky enough to hit the right keyword.

Okay, rant mostly off.

Here’s some applications I found that I have tried:

I was pleased to find the WordWeb I use so much on the computer to be available as an app. And it is free so that makes it even better! It works much the same way as the desktop version so adjusting to it was easy.

I am trying out QuickWord (by QuickOffice for $4.99), an app that reads and edits .doc format documents. I think it can view .pdf, too, but not edit them. Transferring the documents from the desktop to the device is only possible through wi-fi transfer using the IP address. It sounds unnecessarily complicated. Why not just sync, upload, or download the same as I can music and podcasts? Also, the help files are only accessible via internet connection. WTF?

Then there is DocsToGo (by DataViz for $4.99) is another .doc format app. Again, transfer is done via wi-fi or through Microsoft Exchange (a paid-for additional program). It’s got a “getting started” help guide but anything other than that is only available online. The plus for this app vs the other is that it’s available options are scrollable along the bottom so there’s more to use.

Next up is FileAid (by DigiDNA for free). While FileAid allows me to view even OpenOffice.org formats, I can’t edit anything. It is for viewing only.

I just downloaded another one called Notebooks (by Alfons Shmid for $5.99). I’ve not tried it yet, though. It is touted to be for thought processing and organizing.

The recent software upgrade allows for the iTouch to do cut/paste, something the users have been screaming for. Doing so is relatively easy as long as you don’t have big huge fingers.

Speaking of typing, the keyboard is not that bad. It is much much easier if you are a touch-typer vs hunt and peck. I type mostly with my thumbs. Letters are on the screen with numbers and most punctuation accessible via another key that changes the keyboard. Another key on that one takes you to another punctuation keyboard. Hitting the space bar automatically takes you back to the letter one. This would be a major PITA if you needed to enter a series of numbers. The comma is on that second screen and, again, hitting the spacebar automatically takes you back to the first one. QuickOffice has the spreadsheet capabilities and I wonder if it works the same way. You can turn the device sideways to make the keyboard wider and more accessible.

The word completion capabilities are a device thing, not an app thing. So far, I don’t like it. I’ve had several arguments with it on the spelling of a word I was trying to enter in a note. But I’ve never been a fan of word completion doohickeys anyway.

I was reading a review of an app and learned how to take screenshots within the device. Now if I can figure out how to transfer them to the desktop, I’ll have some images of my later reviews for these apps.

If anyone uses any of these or some other I haven’t found yet, please let me know! I’d love to hear from other writers about how or if they use the Touch or if they use a PDA instead. I opted for the Touch because the industry says PDAs are a dying breed and software is getting difficult to find and maintain.

In another post later, I’ll share all the apps I have installed so far. I love the Touch, I just wish it didn’t have that obnoxious “iPod” in front of it. Cannot tolerate the “iThis” and “iThat”. In yet another post, I’ll discuss the value (or lack thereof) of podcasts.

The Sad News

Posted on 08/01/200908/01/2009 by PaulaO

We let go of another of our Hungry Hairy Horde. Calamity Jane, aka Callie, died Wednesday afternoon after a long long illness at the ripe old age of 16. Callie (and her brother, Pav) came to us in 1993 when they were about 6wks old. They were little firecrackers! We went to a friend’s house and put them (the kittens, not the friend) in a crate and put it in the back seat where Zeus also was. They hissed at him and scared the beejeebers out of him! He jumped into the front seat where he refused to move. We finally had to pull over so Lorna could sit in the back without this huge dog on her lap. From then on, Zeus did not like kittens. He never ever tried to hurt them but he would run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. This the dog who killed huge groundhogs. When they grew up, both cats thought Zeus was the greatest thing since the can opener and pop-top canned cat food.

But I digress, as usual.

Those of you who are owned by cats know that while they profess to be graceful deities, cats can be rather klutzy. Like falling off the back of couches. 99.5% of cats will come out from behind the couch with this look of “I meant to do that.” Our Callie was one of those .5% of cats who came rushing out saying “Did you see what I just did?! Wasn’t that funny?!”

We live in a swamp of sorts and have lots of frogs in the stream behind the house. Other cats catch the frogs without getting more than a little damp on their paws. Not our Callie. She’d be wet and/or mud covered from the belly down and not see a thing wrong with it.

Other cats would come in from the rain with just a few drops of water on them, perhaps more on their feet. Not our Callie. We used to keep a towel at the back door to dry her off after a rain.

The first thing both of us will remember the most about Callie is her purr. Some cats will purr just a short while then stop. Not Callie. Our nighttime joke was “don’t touch her! she’ll start purring and we’ll never get to sleep!” followed by “too late”. She’d purr for a very very long time. Loudly. In Lorna’s ear.

Callie liked to keep the dogs in line. She had this look that stopped them in their tracks. She demanded respect or else. One of her favorite games with the dogs was to lay smack dab in the middle of a dog bed.

Callie grew into this meditative, contemplative, funny little cat. She calmed down over the years and became quite wise. She connected with Lorna the most (all of our cats did) and used to tell Lorna these short Zen lessons. “Yes, we are the same.” is the one Lorna will remember the most.

Callie had a chronic ear problem that a few years ago we found out was this huge mass in her ear. During the long process of getting it to shrink and get her ear healthy, we also found out she had hyperthyroid (same as her brother). By the time her ear mass had shrank, her thyroid levels made it unsafe to do surgery to remove it. The levels stayed somewhat close to norm until about a year ago when they started to climb. A test last month revealed it had jumped to 18. Normal is 1-4 and her highest up to that point had been 8-10. We switched medication and it dropped to 14. High levels such as this usually means cancer.

Meanwhile, we saw she was drooling an awful lot and the vet found a huge mass under her tongue. Again, probably cancer due to its location, shape, and size. This made it very painful for this starving cat to eat. Pain meds, anti-biotics, increased thyroid med, etc enabled her to eat soft food. And she ate a lot although she was barely 7lbs.

Then Monday Callie became unable to eat at all. She’d become more and more frantic about food. She was possessed by her hunger and now, once again, she couldn’t eat. No matter what we tried, she just couldn’t eat. Wednesday she was all over me, something she’d not done in a long time, demanding to be fed. I tried many times throughout the day to find something she would/could eat.

We’d been discussing if it were getting to be time to let her go. If it were just the thyroid or just the ear mass or just the mouth mass, we’d work with her and the vets to get it fixed. But the combination of that and her age (and she also had high blood pressure) made it such a risk. The last time we had taken her to the vet, we had discussed doing a biopsy of the mass in her mouth which would mean putting her under. Again, if it had just been that, it would have been worth the risk.

We sat with Callie in the exam room. We already knew what we should do. But we wanted her opinion. The thing was, there was still that bright light in her eyes. That energy that is our soul was so strong still! How could we snuff that out? Callie’s lesson of “Yes, we are the same.” came to Lorna then and reminded us that it wouldn’t be snuffed out, but rather released from the bonds of the physical cage that is her old body. So we sat there, asking Callie what she thought. She wandered out of the crate and looked around. Went onto the sink and sniffed the treat bottle. Then came back to the table and flopped down, classic Callie-style. And she was calm. I’d been with her all day and she’d been this frantic, driven, consumed, possessed monster. Now she was calmly laying there, purring softly. She’d given us her opinion.

Our usual vet wasn’t there but the vet that helped us was very kind, very considerate. We brought Callie home and put her next to her brother near Fort Rooster.

So, yes, they are the same. Their souls are no different from ours. Callie is free, chasing butterflies with Zeus, hissing at her brother, laying next to Skiz, and rubbing up against Sparky.

For those of you keeping count, that leaves us with one cat, Sassafras, and the 5 dogs (Casey, PopCorn, Joella, Sam, and Mike). When Mike is older, we will probably take in a mother cat as a foster and keep two of her kittens. I’m not much of a cat person but I do like having them around.