Thought Patterns

Started writing again today. Sort of.

I worked on a non-fiction article today (which reminds me of another one I need to do) and worked on the chapter divisions on The Graced. I also did a Table of Contents (TOC) for The Graced so I could flip through it better. I made the TOC in another document so it doesn't effect my word count and I can easily get back to it without having to scroll aaaaallll the way back up. OpenOffice.org uses links just like hyperlinks, going to either a website, a target in that document or a target in another document. I can even have a hyperlink in a text document that goes to a target in a spreadsheet. Cool, eh?

Found out today that my nephew Ryan will be testing for his first degree black belt April 2, '05. Lorna and I still need to find a sitter so we can both go. Even if we kick them outside with six bags of dog food, we are going. (okay, probably won't do that but it is a thought)

Everyone ready for the New Year??

I first got involved with computers while in college. I dated this guy (yes, a man) who was 'into' computers. I was doing work study as a tutor and he managed to get the workstudy moved to the computer lab. All the tutors did there was remind everyone where the on switch was (waaaay in the back of the CPU) and a few other things. I learned it all fairly quick and begun having fun. We had this mainframe that was HUGE, as in 5'X3'X7' sized. It produced a lot of heat. All the computers in the lab were just terminals actually, hooked to the mainframe. I remember when the 3 1/4 disks first came out. This would have been '85 or '86. BASIC was the language of choice while the geeks were into UNIX. I wasn't interested with writing programs, I was interested in manipulating the programs once they were written.

I continued my fascination with the machines after I finished school. At that point, the 'net was Prodigy and other text only email. Everything came in 'digest' format, very hard to read. Access to websites grew, their number increased, email improved immensely.

Upgrading and modifying the computers became my fun activity. Put in a new drive, upgrade the BIOS and CMOS. Win3.x was all the rage. Wow, what you could do with that. *snort* In my Real Job I was the one they called over to fix whatever it was they just did to the software.

My point to all this is that I have spent almost all day arguing with my laptop. Mozilla is an excellent program, the problem is not with Mozilla. It is XP and how it handles files. I have finally decided to just start brand new. I can kinda sorta access all my old email, but for the most part, it's a big pain to get to. But email became just one of the many problems with starting new. I had to load my bookmark file, find the password file and figure out how to transfer it, on and on. I had to do the password thing because while I usually write down the user/password things for all the sites I visit, I hadn't for this blog. And, as weird as it sounds, it's been fun! What an amazing thing the human brain is! And what a great thing it is to use!

Well, got more to do. Still doing the email thang. If I had your email address, you might want to send it to me again. paula ….. at….. holyroller.org

I did a chkdsk on the laptop today and it messed up Mozilla, dangit. That should teach me to try and keep my hard drive running!

I got the browser but the email is all wonky. Luckily DreamHost has webmail.

Haven't gotten any writing done the past few days. And I feel no guilt over it!

Yay! Lorna's Blazer if fixed-ish and I get My Truck back!

Spent the day figuring out the handheld radio and its manual, put together the vertical antenna (it is tall!!) and took it back apart (to await someone to climb up on the roof and mount it for me).

Insomnia is the pits. I force myself to get up early, today 9AM, no matter what time I went to bed (yesterday was 3AM) and yet here I am, approaching 3AM again and I am just now starting to feel as if I could sleep. So much fun! NOT

I go to bed and about an hour later, Lorna gets up. By the time she comes home I have hit my stride and she is exhausted.

Ms. Santa was nice to me this year. Don't know why. Maybe I was good after all. Nah, can't be that.

I was nice right back at Ms. Santa. I got her a bunch of DVDs: Shrek 2, Finding Nemo, If These Walls Could Talk 2 (it was very well done!), But I'm a Cheerleader, and Buffy Season 3. She also got a bag from LLBean, a bottle cap opener (the kind you nail to the wall), a new wallet, and some other toys.

I got Zoo Tycoon 2! For some reason it is slow on the laptop, which is fairly new. Gotta check out why. I also got a Kitaro CD! I haven't heard his stuff in a long time. It was good to hear his latest music. Still rather electronic but there seemed to be more traditional instruments this time.

But the best was I basically got a 2M hamshack. There is a person on her mail route that is a ham radio operator but is getting out of the 'hobby'. He sold the lot to her for an indecently low price.

MFJ-4035MV Power Supply
Tripp Lite PR-12 Power Supply
Icom IC 2100 2M mobile (w/ manual and mic)
Icom IC T2H 2M HT (w/ manual, tiny little mic, 2 BNC ducks)
Kenwood TH225A 2M HT (no manual, tiny little mic, 1 BNC duck and 3 different power options)
Hustler G3-144 2M roof mount antenna (never been opened)
MFJ-8100 Shortwave Radio w/ long wire antenna
Mag Mount 2M antenna w/ BNC connector
log book, Q signal card and RST reference card

I already have an Azden PCS4000 2M, a Radio Shack mag mount, an MFJ-815B and a Workman SX 144/430 SWR meters, and an MFJ-557 key and practice oscillator (Morse code that is). So I have a decent shack contents, just not a shack yet. Now that my 2M set up is 'enough' , I will be starting to gather the HF gear. I have a long wire dipole already, just no radio to hook it up to.

My dream place is a room with cable internet, all my ham gear on a huge desk like structure, a work bench were I do my home brew electronics, a humongous stereo system, another large desk to hold my laptop, extra keyboard and such, a side table for a kick-butt printer, and of course a very large bookcase full to its proverbial gills with books of all sorts. Sigh. Add in that each piece of furniture has to be either made from scratch or bought and adapted. See why we haven't done it yet?

I like the idea of an 'office' where I can go to do my work. Our minds and bodies recognize where we are and what we are supposed to be doing. So a place where I always go to sit and be creative or to get into a ragchew on some net, now that would be nice.

I've got some writing done today, surprise surprise. Worked some on Centric and on The Graced. Also worked more on mapping. I like getting lost in that.

I put up two parts of the map I was working on. The port of Doma Proper and the island of Gobali. These are just an itty-bitty part of the bigger map I am working on. It's only for reference but it's still fun.

Normally the postal workers don't get to take any vacation time, even their usual days off, from Thanksgiving to Christmas. They've changed that in recent years. You can take your usual days off but not any vacation. Lorna's day off is Saturday so… normally she would have Friday off instead but because it is Christmas Eve, they would have to pay her time and a half. To make a long story short, she's got the day off anyway but has to go in to see if they need help with package delivery. Every package in the joint is to be taken out. They'll get stuff that has been pushed out of every other post office.

So Lorna will actually be home at a decent hour tomorrow! That'll be the first!

I got her gifts together and put them all in one bag and put it in the livingroom. It's huge but she didn't see it!! Arrgh. I finally pointed it out and of course she wanted to open it. Heh. I like to keep her waiting.

But she keeps telling me to be good or she won't go get mine. Should I be worried?

Didn't get any writing done today. No, wait, I did some this morning. Not much but I did solve a problem I'd had earlier.

I just finished working on a worldbuild map for Centric. I like AutoRealm but it does make me wonder what the other map program is like.

Did laundry, ran the dishwasher, bathed myself (a difficult task) and played on the 'puter. Yawner of a day, eh?

I put up a very small snippet of The Graced. Don't know why, just felt like it I guess. Click here for the snippet.