Thursday, August 29, 2013

Thursday This, That and Amos





I went to Schweitzer yesterday for hiking and picture taking.  It was an overcast, relatively cool afternoon, which meant that scenic shots were not the best.  

The lower picture shows a little photo doctoring with polarization.  At least, the weeds looked good. 

Cute little kids playing in the sand while parents organized biking gear greeted me as I pulled into a parking space.  I loved these two youngsters cuz they were totally oblivious of the world even inches away from their spontaneous playground. 

It's nice to have moments like that, and I think kids have the edge on those.  The rest of us have too much on our minds to escape in the midst of chaos, it seems. 

Anyway, I enjoyed a short hike up the cat track, getting the distinct feeling as I pushed upward that this body has endured too little strenuous activity lately with all the hot weather.  

Maybe September will take care of that problem.

Still, the walk was exhilarating and just what I needed to clear my head---like those kids-- from a mindful of too many things to do, too little time.

That's always how it is when a deadline looms, and one is looming more by the minute as my North Dakota story is due Sept. 3.  With interviews yet to do and photos to arrange, I'm feeling a little under the gun. 

It will get done.  It always does, but the stress leading up to every deadline keeps my mind on overload.

In a few minutes Amos, our trusty carpenter, will arrive to assess what we're gonna do to put a roof over the deck.  It will be a costly project, but I'm looking forward to a winter when we can step outside the front door without tons of snow falling crushing us to death or without a five-foot frozen mass blocking any use of the deck for six months.

September is a good time for the project because the hustle and bustle of summer activities and barbecues has pretty much ceased.  Plus, the lawn gets dirty from all the dead leaves, and a little construction won't detract too much from the front-yard scene.

On another note, I want readers to know about my $162.50 check written yesterday to my computer guru.  Some may recall the problem over the weekend when my laptop suddenly had a gazillion bad things happening, causing me a serious blogging handicap.

Well, it turns out that after 2.5 hours of trying every cure possible, Joel finally found something to remove the 700-plus Spyware tentacles causing total and evil havoc with my computer.  

He also said that several computers have arrived at his door in the past few days with the same problem.  He cautioned:  be careful what you download.  

So, I'm just passing the word in hopes of others not suffering the same consequences I did last week.  I've never seen a computer act like that, and I can tell you it was not a good thing.  

Plus, $162.50 paid out for some jerk's fun and games makes me mad.   

Anyway, the computer works now, and I can go do an interview today without having to do it the old-fashioned way---pad and pen.  And that makes me happy.

Happy Thursday to all.  Be careful what you download. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Never been a virus or malware written that successfully attacked a Linux operating system....jes' sayin'.....

Happy Linux user of seven years :-)