| Sacre Bleu - Article by John Yewell of Salt Lake City Weekly (www.slweekly.com) |
[14 Mar 2003|06:27pm] |
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With the amount of anti-French sentiment going on lately I feel compelled to challenge it a little due to my great interest in the French through the last ten years. It's been a very upsetting thing for me to go through and have my greatest number one interest get stamped on by the American's in "our patriotic duty" to support this war. This is a great article I found and was looking for something like this to help defend the nation a little that I so interest.
Sacre Bleu - Feb. 27, City Weekly - By John Yewell
It is time for another spasm of anti-French propaganda in the American press, stemming from French opposition to war with Iraq. We act as if the French position is the mindless reaction of a wild-eyed, lefty anti-American government. But French President Jacques Chirac is as America-friendly a Frenchman as they come. He speaks respectable English and shares the same conservative political instincts on most matters as George W. Bush.
Nor is this a cultural matter. During the 1980s, when this country’s foreign policy sanctioned all kinds of questionable foreign adventures in Central America and elsewhere, the French public was positively enamored of Ronald Reagan, and being an American in France was never more popular.
The fact is, the French are long-time admirers of this country and Americans as a people. They have a deep, abiding gratitude for the American sacrifice of 1944. But we all know as well that were it not for the French at Yorktown in 1781, we might still be an English colony. This is not about repaying favors.
The French have a long sense of history, and one of the most frustrating things they, and the rest of the world, feel about Americans is that our sense of the past usually doesn’t extend beyond the last Super Bowl. And our ignorance of other cultures, French and otherwise, is equally appalling.
The French are an easy target. We make jokes about the French military. We called them ungrateful in 1966, when de Gaulle ordered NATO out of the country. We get our undies all in a bunch over the French every time they express a little independence. We huff: second rate power, political has-beens, cultural snobs, rude garlic-eaters who cheat on their spouses and consume fatty foods yet stay slim. This last thing we hate them for the most.
If we respected the French, we wouldn’t have sent them as our ambassador billionaire Howard Leach, who does not speak French and whose only qualifications for the office are the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has given to the Republican Party and to the campaigns of both Bush presidents.
The issue isn’t French policy. France is just a symbol for our frustration with the fact that so little of the world supports what we are about to do. This about us divorcing ourselves from the world, about American arrogance and America thumbing its nose at the rest of the world. And it is about an honest disagreement over the need for war.
America stands nearly alone against Iraq—except for countries we’ve bought off, like the Turks—because from the moment this administration took office, it has waved its middle finger at the world at every opportunity. Now, suddenly, we want friends?
So now we are boycotting French things. We’ll show those damn frogs. Out with the fois gras, Mabel! No more French fries (forget that they are Belgian in origin), we’ll call them Freedom fries. Gimme a break.
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| Total Recall |
[05 Sep 2002|10:26pm] |
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Journey - Faithfully |
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Just finished watching Total Recall on TBS just now. Wacked out movie but I like it. Heh.
I had a little nap this evening about an hour after coming home from work, I woke up about fifteen minutes before the movie just in time. I've been waiting to catch it tonight, the one and only other time I saw it was back in spring of 1993 the day before I got braces off. I can't remember the date, but if I look up when I got my braces off in Mom's journal I can find out. Another time, though. ;)
Hmmmmm. Now I have to figure out what I want to do for the rest of the night. Do I want to continue with my home videos copying or continue with my new website design? Choices, choices. I think I'm going to get to work on my website design because I really need to update everything to the new design before I can add new content. That's what I'll do.
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| I hate when cable modem goes down |
[01 Sep 2002|08:52pm] |
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Came home from church this evening, tried to get online, nothing worked. Checked modem and it was flashing meaning there's no signal. DOH!!! Our cable modem is down. So, here I am connecting to the internet the old fashioned way, dialing up through AOL. Then wouldn't you know it, I go through all that, download my email, and I have no new messages. Oh well.
Heh. I had to hook up my modem to our main phone line and everything, I haven't used it for a year and a half.
Hope the cable comes back soon, I hate when cable modem is down I always feel so lost.
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[31 Aug 2002|11:08am] |
Been back from vacation for almost a week now, can't believe it's that far over. I still wish I was there enjoying the river and the free time.
It was hard getting back to work on Monday, but it's been a steady slow week for me. I've been programming microchips all week without a deadline or anything else to rush me like two weeks ago, it's pretty much been a relaxing week anyway.
Dan should be on the road with his parents on the way up to Albany, they were set to leave their house at 7:00 this morning. Hope everything goes all right while he's up there and gets settled in quickly.
Woke up this morning at about 9:00 and didn't climb out of bed till after 10:00, lazy Saturday morning.
Here is the playlist of songs I had playing all night.
( See playlist here )
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| Dan's going away party |
[29 Aug 2002|11:55pm] |
Tonight was Dan's going away party at his house. He's going up to collage in Albany to major in teaching, he wants to become a high school English teacher. He's slated to leave 7:00 AM on Saturday to start heading up there and it's about a five hour drive from here. His parents are actually driving him up because freshmen aren't allowed to have cars on campus. Dan has to leave his car at home and use the busses to get all around Albany, but with his collage ID card he's able to use the busses up there for free, it's included with his tuition or something.
It was a nice little party at Dan's, all the other friends there. I picked up Kevin from his house on the way over. I was supposed to be there at 7:00 when everyone else was told to get there, but Kevin and I were an hour late because I was burning a CD for Dan with all of my digital camera images from our get togethers with friends and other similar events, I was also making another one for Laura. 7:00 got here too quickly while I was still in the middle of this little project, but I wasn't going to leave it unfinished, I wanted to get this done and give Dan and Laura the CDs.
Dan has this cool laptop by Compaq, it's brand new and his parents just got it for him to have while in collage. He'll be able to hook up to the high speed internet connection in his dorm room to keep in contact with all of us and download music and other good stuff. :)
After the party at Dan's I was the last one there after everyone else left, Mikey took Kevin home so I by myself after everyone else left. Dan and I just hung out for a little while talking, he was telling me all about his collage and what he'll be doing up there. He's not nervous at all. He's amazing, I would be nervous for sure. He hasn't even met his roommates yet, only talked to them online. Hope they get along.
I cut out of Dan's house at about 11:30 and came home. I'm going to miss him, but he'll be back for Thanksgiving the latest, he's hoping to come back for a weekend or few sometime before then.
It's bittersweet because we're all very happy for Dan, but we're very sad to see him leave.
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| The last day of the vacation |
[25 Aug 2002|11:59pm] |
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This is the last day it's actually over, the last day of a vacation is always depressing to me and this one was no different. I didn't want it to end for anything yet, I didn't feel ready to go back home back to my normal life. I was having too much fun there at the cabin doing nothing all day everyday.
Last night (early this morning I should say) I didn't get online till after midnight. I spent about an hour or more online. I didn't do too much online, only checked my email and a few message boards. I didn't even do everything I normally do online, it's just that I wait so long on this laptop for everything to load it takes forever to do even the simplest little things. After I got off I fooled around with some stuff on the laptop in my room while everyone was already in bed and I didn't get to bed till almost 3:00 AM, that's the latest I've stayed up this whole vacation. Usually I'm asleep so early because of the mountain air. I guess since yesterday was such a rainy day and none of us went outside at all I didn't get much of the fresh mountain air to knock me out.
This morning I woke up earlier than all the other mornings there without going back to sleep, 8:00. Because Sammy and Julia were wide awake playing in Sammy's room next to my room, and the way all the walls are so paper thin in this cabin all the sound travels through the walls almost as loudly as if there were no walls. The loud kids that Sammy and Julia are I heard them loudly constantly from the room next to me, I think that's what woke me up. I called out loudly, "SHHHHHHH!" and they shut up for about five minutes and then started getting loud again. I had to get up and go to the room they were in and tell them to shut up and get downstairs so that they can be away from me, I wanted to get a little bit more sleep. They always get up early, I don't know why. Everyone else was sleeping soundly. Needless to say I never went back to sleep at all and I blame the little ones fully.
This morning was very bright and sunny, the brightest morning I've ever seen since I've been here all week. Most of the other morning I woke up about the same time and went back to sleep, all the other mornings started out partly or mostly cloudy and overcast and then cleared up about an hour or two before noon. The low 8:00 AM sun was shining brightly into my room from the front of the cabin and I've never seen this since this time of day was always overcast. It was quite nice and a great way to spend the last morning here.
Once we were all awake we had a bible reading and prayer time for Sunday morning worship since we were there at the cabin and not in church this week. It only took about half an hour to forty five minutes. After that Dad, Brooke, Julia, Sammy, and I went down by the river. Mom was doing something in the cabin, can't remember what now. Dad and I went canoeing a little bit with Sammy in the canoe with us while Julia and Brooke went swimming.
Later on all of us went to this big rock in the middle of the river up the river a little bit. We hung out there for a little while until Sammy became too cranky and out of control, ruined the mood for the rest of us and we all had to leave and go back to the cabin. Sammy was annoying us all like crazy, she was just totally out of control and couldn't stop whining and crying about every little thing. It was 1:45 PM by that point and time for Sammy's nap. When we got back to the cabin we all had lunch and Sammy went in for a nap after we all ate.
I laid down for a little while in the afternoon while Sammy was napping, I dozed on and off for a good hour and was able to get some little good rest. Everyone else was just hanging around, Dad was reading a book, Mom was doing something I don't know what, and Brooke and Julia were out on the rock playing Chinese Checkers, they took the canoe out. I took the rowboat out to join them and just sat and enjoyed a little bit of time out in the middle of the river on the rock. Mom came out of the cabin and saw us on the rock and wanted to come out, too. I jumped into the canoe and paddled over to where Mom was to pick her up and brought her over to the rock. We were there for about fifteen minutes or so until we see little Sammy running down to the river from the cabin, obviously her nap was over.
Sam ran back to the cabin and a few minutes later Sam and Dad come down, so I had to again jump into the canoe to pick them both up to bring them to the rock. Then it was all of us hanging out on the rock again, we were all there for a good half hour to forty five minutes. For part of that time Dad, Mom, and Sammy went out down the river in the canoe while Brooke, Julia, and I stayed on the rock. Brooke and Julia were swimming around the rock now and then, but I wasn't doing any swimming because it wasn't hot enough for me to swim.
When they returned to the rock from canoeing we were all only there at the rock for a few more minutes before Dad decided it was time to get back to the cabin to get ready do pack up and head home. None of wanted to but knew we had to. After we all got back to the cabin Brooke and Julia were still swimming, I ran in to get into my swim shorts for one last dip since this will be my last chance before leaving. It was too cold for me, but I forced myself in just for a few minutes before getting out. After I got out and dried off Dad and I dragged the boats back up from the river side into the garage and put all the paddles and everything else away that was out and lying around.
We were all packed and left the cabin after 8:00 PM. The drive the whole way home was smooth, uneventful, without construction and heavy traffic. At about 9:45 PM we stopped at that same Arbys in Middletown that we stopped at on the way to the cabin on Monday. I got the same stuff I got on Monday and was very full.
Got home just before midnight. Really didn't feel like coming home yet, but the great week was over and it's now back to normal. The vacation seemed too short and none of us wanted it to be over yet. This vacation was something that my whole family needed. Wish I was still there at the cabin, but even though I'm now back home I feel totally refreshed after a vacation like this. Hope to have more coming my way soon, I still have some vacation time left.
Here's the playlist of songs I had playing during the night.
( See playlist here )
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[24 Aug 2002|11:58pm] |
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Today was an inside day, it rained all day long on and off. It stopped raining this afternoon but remained cloudy and overcast.
I spent most of the day writing. I wrote an essay about my friendship with Fred through the years for my friends section of my website. After I wrote Fred's I got a start on Mike Rubio's, Kevin's, and Dave's. I didn't write too much for the others other than just the starting paragraph. I spent the rest of my writing time writing down stories and memories for the future "Stories and Memories" section for Fred's future entry in my friends page. Fred and I have a lot of stories from our times we spent together through the years, I'm finally writing them down, as I've wanted to do this for the last three and a half years. Today was perfect for this since we all had to spend the whole day inside.
Around noon Dad fired up the wood stove in the living room because it was so chilly today, Brooke put on her sweater and asked me for one of my long sleeved shirts to put on over it. I don't know why she was so cold, I had both of my windows open and felt fine in my room. It was a little chillier today than other days, but it was nice cool crisp fresh air and it felt great. I wasn't chilly at all.
Mom and Dad left to go into town sometime after lunchtime to do some shopping while Sammy was in for her nap. Brooke and Julia played Chinese Checkers in the living room most of the time and kept annoying each other. Brooke and Julia wound up arguing resulting in Brooke locking herself in her room and Julia sitting in the living room sulking.
Later on in the evening Dad ordered Chinese food from the Chinese place in town and pizza from the pizza place for those of us who did not want Chinese food. I took a ride with Dad into town, this was my first time off the cabin property since I first got here on Monday the 19th. I wanted to see what it was like in town here in Hancock and got to see it. Everything is so small, the diners, food stores, and store fronts. Hancock is such a small town I'm not used to it, I'm very used to our very large and more industrial towns at home on Long Island. It was really cool going into town, and it felt kind of weird being in the car again since the last time I was in a car was Monday. I think this is the longest in my life that I've gone without being in a car, almost a week. I'm so used to not going anywhere everyday since Monday.
After we got back to the cabin I pigged out on pizza and garlic knots, I was very hungry. A little while later we toasted marshmallows outside on the grill again and made smores. I never actually made smores before, I've only eaten smores that were already made, the processed stuff you buy in the packages. I made two of them and they were good, I stopped at two otherwise they would have gotten sickening if I had more. Brooke got a little sick from them, she had two smores and also several toasted marshmallows besides. The two smores was all I had. I was still very full from dinner when I made the smores, but I wanted to try them out. It's now hours later and I'm still full from dinner, food always seems to stay with me for so long, that's why I only eat one or two meals a day at most. Three meals a day is just out of the question for me and I hardly snack on anything at all.
For the rest of the night I just continued with my writing on stories and memories with Fred for my friends page. I don't know when I'll ever get this stuff on the site, it will be quite a while because I have a lot more writing to do yet and it took me all day to just get through the half dozen I did today. I spend a lot of time thinking and daydreaming about what I'm planning to write for inspiration, I'm not used to doing much writing since I don't do it that often. Hopefully now that I got a good start I will be able to go faster as I move along and pick it up again when I'm back home now that I'm getting myself more established in my writing. I really want to get more into writing and build up my skills, I really need to improve my writing skills because I make a lot of errors since I'm not used to this. So, if you see any errors in my writing please bare with me and kindly let me know about the error(s).
Now I'm writing this second journal entry for today. Geez, here is a little example of how much I stop and daydream when I write. I started writing this second journal entry at 10:15 PM tonight, just a few minutes more than eleven hours from the first one this morning. Now I'm finishing this second one and it's almost midnight. I kept stopping and daydreaming so much while writing this one, and I'm really tired by this time at night and much slower with everything anyway. I wasn't this slow with all my other writing the rest of the day earlier.
Well, I must get online for the first time today and check my email and send these journal entries off. That is if I can connect to Live Journal's servers unlike last night. This may be the last time I go online while I'm here. We leave tomorrow late afternoon or early evening, I don't really see much of a point to going online here if I'm going to be home tomorrow night.
Here is the playlist of music listened to on and off throughout the day today.
( See playlist here )
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[24 Aug 2002|11:12am] |
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Last night when I went online I checked my email and everything else, uploading the journal entries was the last thing before signing off. When I tried to connect with the Live Journal software client I kept getting "Cannot connect to server" or something like that. Ticks me off. So, I won't be able to get these uploaded till much later.
Today is Saturday and the second to last day here at the cabin, I can't believe it's almost over already. The days just seemed to go by so fast. I didn't sleep with music on last night because I didn't feel like it. Today is cloudy, overcast, and rainy. It rained all night during the night and very hard at times, no thunder and lightning storms thank goodness, they would have kept me awake. It was very soothing to hear the rain all night to lie down to and sleep.
I woke up this morning around 7:00 for some reason and just tried to get back to sleep but couldn't. About a half hour later the flatbed tow truck came to pick up the car and towed it away to the repair shop. I fell back to sleep not too long after the truck left.
I woke up again around 9:30 AM when the phone rang downstairs. The car was ready and didn't need a new alternator after all, it was in fact the battery. The battery was shorting itself out somehow, so they replaced the battery with a new one. Dad took a taxi into town to pick the car up and bring it back, he picked up donuts while he was out to bring back to us. I ate those along with two fried eggs.
Everyone right now is just sitting around, the kids are playing games in the living room with Fievel Goes West playing on the little TV and Mom and Dad are just sitting and talking. Sammy is off the wall today she keeps being so wild and driving Mom crazy.
I'm just enjoying the vacation right now and doing some things on the laptop, I want to do some more writing today. It's the perfect day for this kind of stuff, a rainy day and too cold and wet to be outside. It's actually not raining much right now, just sprinkling a little bit, but it'll probably rain harder again I would think since it doesn't seem to be clearing up out there yet.
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[23 Aug 2002|11:04pm] |
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Now I'm finally getting online. I didn't get one before like I wanted to because I got sucked into some projects I'm working on my laptop. That's basically all I did tonight was work on my laptop. I did some writing for future entries for my friends' pages, I wrote for Alex's page, which took me a while, and I got a start on Mike Rubio's. I tweaked up Fred's a little bit that had already been written a few weeks ago. I'm kind of on a roll and I hope to be able to write about all of my friends so that I can finally create their entries for each friend in my friends' page. I'm hoping to do a few more tonight while I'm still in the mood, but I don't know how long I'll get to keep it up since I've been tired from all the mountain air.
I know that I'm on vacation and all that, but at home I'm too distracted with too many other things to sit down and just write. I have my cable modem internet connection at home, my big 31" screen TV and home videos I like to watch all the time, and all kinds of other projects on the computer at home and all of those things distract me from doing the writing I want to do. Here on vacation there isn't much else to do on the laptop and using the internet here isn't as convenient as at home since I have to cart the laptop downstairs and hook up and use the phone line, and the laptop being so much slower and all. Here on vacation I have not much else to do than to just write and write, and it's so much more peaceful here to do writing rather than at home with all the other distractions. So, I see this as my chance to finally do the writing I've been meaning to do for the last three years since I first decided to launch my friends pages.
After I get offline I'll probably do a little bit more writing on the laptop and then just go straight to bed when I get too tired. I better get online now.
I had my MP3 music on for a little bit this evening while on the laptop, but I didn't keep it on long. Here is the playlist of songs I listened to this evening.
( See playlist here )
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[23 Aug 2002|07:38pm] |
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Woke up this morning after 10:00, I guess I had to catch up on the sleep that I missed at 5:00 this morning. For some reason I woke up and could not go back to sleep for almost an hour, and not too long after I woke up I heard Mom and Julia downstairs awake. For some reason Brooke and Julia woke up and was wide awake and went downstairs. Julia had bug bites there were really irritating her legs. Mom woke up because Brooke and Julia were up. Mom is a light sleeper. Mom put cream on Julia's bug bites and went back to bed, Brooke and Julia had a snack or something and then went back to bed. With them awake I couldn't get back to sleep because the sound travels throughout this cabin, the walls are paper thin because they are only mainly partitions and nothing is insulated. With them awake downstairs talking I could hear everything and every noise. About twenty minutes to a half an hour after they went back to bed I finally fell back to sleep around 6:00, it was already getting light outside.
After getting out of bed I wrote yesterday's second journal entry, Dad and the kids went to the river to go fishing in the rowboat. I came out a few minutes later to take the canoe out and went canoeing down the river alone while they were fishing. I spent about twenty minutes out there and came back to the cabin. I just hung out for a little while, laid in the hammock for a few minutes and then talked to Mom in the cabin for a little while. When Dad and the kids came back in they said they didn't catch anything, the fish took their bait and swam off. The fish outsmarted them. Heh. They were only going to catch them and let them go again anyway, Mom wouldn't let Dad keep the fish and cook them up if they caught them.
For lunch we had Ramen Noodle soups again, chicken mushroom flavor.
In the afternoon Dad, Brooke, and Julia went out in the rowboat again to go fishing while Sammy was in for a nap. I did a little bit of drawing for a little while, actually fixing up a drawing of Andre (a cartoon character of mine) that I did the other night. After about fifteen minutes or so of fooling around with that I went back outside while they were fishing I went swimming for a little bit then took the canoe out again. I canoed up and down the river for quite a while, I must have been out there for two hours or so. One of the times I was passing them in the rowboat Brooke wanted to hop in the canoe with me, so I paddled right up to the rowboat and Brooke hopped in. I switched seats and had Brooke sit in the front while I sat in the back and paddled around the river a little bit. Brooke paddled at first and then stopped because she said she was feeling a little lazy, I didn't care I enjoyed paddling. After about ten minutes or so Brooke wanted to get out so I paddled back to the cabin's area and dropped Brooke off. Dad and Julia were just getting back with the rowboat, too. Mom took some pictures of us in the boats before we got out. After Brooke got out I went out for another twenty minutes or half hour. It was about 4:30 by the time I got out and back to the cabin. I was so tired.
In the evening Mom and Dad were going to go into town to get Chinese food and McDonalds, but the car wouldn't start. It was dead. Dad called up AAA and someone came with jumpers and started up the car, but as soon as he took the jumpers off the car died. They said the alternator is shot, so that means there is no going into town and that the car needs a new alternator. Tomorrow morning the car repair shop is going to come with a flatbed and pick up the car sometime between 6:00 and 8:00 in the morning. Tomorrow being Saturday doesn't help things, worst comes to worst we may be here an extra day meaning we won't get home till Monday instead of Sunday evening. We'll see how this plays out.
I helped Dad take the luggage rack off the top of the car and take out whatever was left inside the car so that there is nothing left in there when the repairmen pick it up. Dad fired up the grill to cook up burgers and hotdogs and I went back in the river canoeing for about half an hour and then came back. I almost got caught in a little bit of the rapids in the shallow water down stream. That was my workout of the day it was fun. Heh.
Right now (7:38 PM) I'm just hanging out in my room upstairs in the cabin with my fan blowing up me and writing this journal entry for today. The kids are watching Fievel Goes West on the TV/VCR combo and everyone else is just sitting around. I'm not too sure what I'm going to do next, it's getting dark out now and I'm really tired from being out in the fresh mountain air and sun all day. I'm probably going to go online in a little bit to upload these and check my email. In the mean time before I do that I think I'll just hang out and play around with some stuff on the laptop before I bring it downstairs to hook it up to the phone line to go online. I'm trying to do some writing for things for the website, but it's hard to get in that mood. It's easy to write for the journal because it's things that are fresh in my mind and easy to recall.
Here is the playlist of music I had playing throughout the night.
( See playlist here )
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[22 Aug 2002|11:45pm] |
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At 3:30 PM I brought my laptop downstairs and went online for a little bit, I had to send off the last few journal entries, check email, etc… Remember a few journal entries ago I was talking about how the Live Journal client software wouldn't load up after logging in? I redownloaded it, the lite version, and reinstalled it. That worked and I used that to upload the journal entries, much easier than the Live Journal web interface.
Brooke and Julia were watching Pete's Dragon in the living room and then rewound it and watched it again after it ended. They were watching it for the second time when I was downstairs online. Half way through the second viewing of the movie Brooke and Julia shut it off and went outside down by the river.
After I got offline I went down there to join them and went in. It was a little too chilly to really go swimming, so I just went in the rowboat and paddled around using the canoe's ores while Brooke, Julia, were swimming. Sammy had just woke up from a nap and was just coming down to the river already in her swimsuit while I was already out in the boat. I paddled back to the side to get Sammy in the boat with me and I paddled around the river with her in the boat with my while the others swam.
I got a tired of the rowboat and switched to the canoe, which was much easier than the rowboat. Sammy sat in the back of the canoe while I sat in the front paddling, Sammy of course didn't paddle since she's only three and doesn't know how yet. Brooke jumped into the canoe for a while with us and a few minutes later I jumped out and waded around waste deep for a while, I didn't want to go completely in because it wasn't hot enough for me, it was cloudy and overcast outside and cool.
While I was wadding around Mom and Dad came back from being out for an hour at this antique store called Memories, they didn't buy anything. Mom and Dad walked down by the river to tell us they were going back out to the store to buy food and stuff and they would bring back pizza. Not too long after they left we all got out of the river, I went completely in underwater before I got out because I wanted to kind of wash up a little bit since this was actually the first time I've been in all day.
When we got back to the cabin Brooke, Julia, and Sammy put on Pete's Dragon again which was already almost half over from before. Almost an hour later Mom and Dad returned with the pizza and it was good. Different from Long Island, but close, and it was very good. I had three slices of it and felt good after eating those.
After we ate it started raining out and rained on and off the rest of the day. It rained the hardest in the evening about a half hour after we ate, just before it started to get dark at about 7:30 to 8:00. I was upstairs in my room at the time on my laptop working on my website template again and finally got the corner edges in the navigation bar to work. For the rest of the night I pretty much just hung around, laid down, and doing nothing before going to bed at 11:30 or so. I was very tired, this mountain air really knocks me out.
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[22 Aug 2002|03:29pm] |
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This morning I woke up late, between 9:30 and 10:00 and I didn't even climb out of bed till after 10:30. Great night sleep, the best I've had since I've been here. It was really cold again during the night, probably the coldest. I shut the windows when I was first going to bed rather than waking up cold during the night and closing them like the night before. I used one of the blankets that were in the big package of blankets in my room. I had four layers of blankets and was still a little chilly at times, but not nearly as bad as yesterday morning.
Dad went to the bakery in town this morning and brought back 18 donuts. I had a Boston Cream donut, a cinnamon knot shaped donut, and a piece of a glazed knot shaped donut. I had orange juice to go with, it was all very good and I'm still a little full from it right now as I write this sentence (12:07 PM).
Dad and I had to fix the railing built out of straight branches by the steps behind the cabin leading down to the flat before the river. Two of the rails had broken from rotting. Dad and I took a little walk in front of the cabin looking for long straight branches. We found two of them, cut the little branches sticking out of them, cut them down to the right size, and then nailed them up to the railing up. We had to straighten out the nails there had been hold up the previous rails because there weren't any other nails for us to use. After about ten minutes that little project was finished.
I walked around the place and took some pictures of the cabin inside and outside. I also took a few pictures by the river. Today is not as sunny as yesterday was, there are a lot of clouds in the sky. But, every now and then the sun comes out brightly for a while.
I went in the hammock again for a little bit and then came back inside upstairs to write yesterdays journal entry and then today's so far. Currently Mom and Dad are out, they went to town to go to this antique shop and look around. Sammy is in for a nap right now and Brooke and Julia are watching Pete's Dragon downstairs on the little 13" TV/VCR combo.
Now I'm going bring my laptop downstairs and pop online to check my email and upload these latest journal entries.
Here is the playlist of songs I had playing throughout the night from last night when I went to bed till I climbed out of bed.
( See playlist here )
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| Wednesday |
[21 Aug 2002|11:26pm] |
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mood |
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relaxed |
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This morning I woke up freezing, I wasn't expecting it to be this cold. I woke up during the night almost frozen, had to stumble out of bed to close the windows and aim the fan away from me, don't know why I didn't just turn it off since I really didn't need it, I think I just liked the sound it made or something. Had my music playing from my laptop all through the night again, the playlist of music can be seen in the next entry.
Climbed out of bed around 10:00 or after. Not too long later I went down by the river to check it out, it was a beautiful sunny morning and I wanted to take a good look at the river. Not too long later Dad, Brooke, Julia, and Samantha came down. Dad decided he wanted to take the rowboat out down the river, so I ran back to the cabin to get my swim shorts on and water shoes. It was really nice and peaceful rowing down the river, Dad, Brooke, Julia, and I went. Sammy and Mom were in the cabin.
I jumped into the river as we were heading back to the cabin's shore, it took me a long time to get used to the water since it wasn't as hot as the days before, but it was warm enough to go in for a few minutes. Once I got used to it I swam for about half hour to 45 minutes and then had to get out because I was really getting cold.
After swimming I went upstairs to my room and grabbed my laptop and brought it downstairs to get online to check my email, comics, message board, etc…. Had to reply to a few emails and then got off.
For lunchtime Dad cooked up four packages of the Oriental flavor of the Raman Noodle soups. I ate that along with some potato chips, and the kids had the soup, too. It was good and kept me full for a while. The rest of the day I pretty much just ate chips and other snacks.
After lunch I laid in this awesome hammock they have here in between two trees. It's made of solid canvas and laying in it you're almost completely covered inside of it like a cocoon. I lay inside that for a while enjoying the beautiful sunny day and fresh air. It was very comfortable.
Today was mainly another lazy day, between periodically going into the river, laying in the hammock and so on.
For a while the afternoon during Sammy's nap, Mom and Dad went canoeing and Brooke and Julia were in the river. I was in my room drawing some pictures of my cartoon characters and relaxed a little bit with the fan going. Then went back in the river again, by this time it was early evening and the sun was low and almost disappearing behind the mountain on the other side of the river.
While I was in the river Dad, Brooke, Julia, and Sammy went canoeing down the river while I waded around for a bit. I went in completely after taking a long time to get used to the water, then swam around a bit up and down the river. I got too cold and tired from swimming and only spent not more than a half an hour in the water before coming out again. Dad and the kids were still down the river in the canoe when I was getting out. I went inside, dried off, and got back into my regular clothes again and went back into the hammock.
While I was still in the hammock Dad and the kids came back to the cabin and Dad started making dinner, hotdogs and hamburgers. I was asked what I wanted but said none since I don't like hotdogs and hamburgers. Odd, I know, but I like what I like and dislike what I dislike and that's the way it is. So, I just had chips and pizza flavored combos to snack on later.
Later on in the evening while it was still light I started trying out some new layout stuff with a new template design for my website on my laptop in my room in the cabin. While I was still working on that Dad lit the BBQ outside to toast marshmallows, I came out and toasted marshmallows with everyone else. It was fun and tasted really good, Mom took a few pictures of us toasting. None with my camera because I didn't feel like running inside to get it, so I'll have to wait till she gets her film developed till I can post that picture.
I only had about three or four marshmallows and then went inside, Dad did the same. I can only eat a few of those before they get sickening, so I made sure I stopped while they were still good. Dad didn't want to stay out there because Sammy didn't like the toasted marshmallows and only liked to toast them and kept giving them to Dad to eat. He didn't want to stay out there because she would have just kept giving them to him and there is only so much he can eat as well before getting sick of them. Heh.
After that I just came back inside and played around with my web page templates some more and then gave up because the stupid tables weren't displaying right on the side navigation bar on the left side of my webpage in the new template. I made rounded corner images for the title tables that display, "Main Areas", "Photos", etc… I'm tired of the sharp boxy corner look and want a more rounded smoother design. It's worked perfectly for the top header of the site where it displays the logo and the bottom footer, but not for these tiny tables in the navigation bar. After trying everything I gave up and just laid on the bed for a while then went back in the hammock again for a while. Heh, I love this hammock.
Later that night while it was dark I went out by the river to see what it was like there at night. It was beautiful, the moonlight was shining brightly and it was just very quiet and peaceful out there. I just sat on the flat out there by the river facing the mountain on the other side of the river that was lit up by the moonlight. After being out there for ten to fifteen minutes I went into the hammock again for a few minutes to see what it was like to lay in there at night. It was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. Came inside a few minutes later and went back to my room.
I put on my MP3 music in my laptop and spent the rest of the night drawing a few pictures of my cartoon characters before finally going to bed.
This was my music playlist in the evening till I went to bed.
( See playlist here )
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[20 Aug 2002|11:32pm] |
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mood |
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relaxed |
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While I was still online Mom, Dad, and Sammy came back. Mom's finger is in a splint and she says it hurts more with the splint on than before she had it put on. They can't tell if it's broken or not, but if it is, it's probably only a hair line fracture like I said before.
They brought back Arbys for me and it was good. I ate while I was still online, I had a heck of a time trying to get my journal entries uploaded, I had to use the web interface because the Live Journal software wouldn't load up after I logged in for some stupid reason. Also this laptop is so slow and each time I try to do something it just cranks and cranks, it take forever to load up a window or a program. I think I need more ram in it or something.
Anyway, the Arbys was awesome, it always tastes good even though I had to microwave it this time. I was finally able to finish up everything I needed to do and then got offline.
The rest of the day was just lazy and relaxing. I hung out by the river a little bit along with Mom, I waded in the ankle deep parts of the river for a few minutes and then went back to the cabin. Mom and Dad put on some of the old records in the record playing here and listened to some music for a while. I got some videos of the kids dancing. After the kids went to bed Mom and Dad listened to music the rest of the night and I spent the rest of the night in my room either doing things on the laptop or listening to my music.
Went to bed not too late.
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| Music playlist from this afternoon |
[20 Aug 2002|07:23pm] |
Later on in the afternoon when I was working on all of these latest journal entries are all the songs I was listening to.
( See playlist here )
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| Song playlist from during the night |
[20 Aug 2002|07:17pm] |
Here is the playlist of my music that I played from my laptop from last night all night till this morning when I came out of bed.
( See playlist here )
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| Co-worker in Korea |
[20 Aug 2002|07:06pm] |
One of my co-workers, Chris Griswold, was sent to Korea this week on business. He left over the weekend and I was wondering how he was doing. When I checked my email this morning I saw that he sent everyone two emails. This one below cracked me up, I love the part about the revolving doors. I shouldn’t laugh, but I’m sorry. Hehehe
From: Chris Griswold
Subject: Korean man
the funniest thing - the revolving doors in this hotel are huge and automatic - thats right automatic- this little korean dude just got naild by the thing and got sent sailing to the pavement- chuckle - he wasn't laughing
I made out like a champ - i exchanged $150 and got 167,976 won back the way I figure it I'm a korean millionaire
instead of mtv they have Vtv its a bunch of asian rappers - i havn't seen one black yet
it took me like a half hour to figure out how to turn on the lights
theres buttons insteat of switches but my hotel keycars has to be inserted in the wall for the lights to work - yes! i just found the light switch for the bathroom
the toilet paper is smaller here they dont have fat american asses i guess
well I'm out
chris
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| Lazy day here at the cabin |
[20 Aug 2002|07:05pm] |
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mood |
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calm |
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Slept on and off periodically through the night, guess I’m not used to the mattress in my room here at the cabin. There were some bumps there irritated me a little bit, so I turned the mattress around so that the lumpy part is where my feet are instead of my chest and shoulders. I laid on it for a little bit this afternoon and it feels fine, but the real test won’t be till tonight when I try to sleep on it again.
Last night was hot and I only went to bed with one blanket, kept both windows open, and my fan blowing on me. During the night it cooled down quite a bit and I put a sheet over my blanket, then by morning I was cold again and put another sheet over me. That was all I needed, I still kept the windows open and fan one because the fresh air felt so good.
This morning I woke up at about 9:00, couldn’t get any more sleep than that since I went to bed a little bit earlier. The sleep was good, though. I kept my laptop next to me softly playing my MP3 music all night, it was interesting waking up to hearing Cher singing “If I Could Turn Back Time”, heh.
The day started off overcast with lots of clouds in the sky. The sun came out now and then starting at 10:30 or so and it’s been doing this all day. Partly cloudy day and cooler, not as hot as yesterday was.
At about 11:00 I brought my laptop downstairs in the kitchen where the phone was so I can get online to download my email. I got online, downloaded my email, checked out the comics at www.ucomincs.com, checked out my message board, and a few other little things. I didn’t send any email, only downloaded it. I don’t want to go online too much or for any long periods of time while I’m here for two reasons, 1) I’m on vacation, & 2) I don’t want to run up the Heinze’s phone bill. It’s a good thing we still have our AOL account in addition to our Optimum Online cable modem account at home so that I can dial up with my laptop while I’m away.
Dad left this morning to go into town to get donuts from a bakery, I ate those for lunch and they were pretty good. I wanted a Boston Cream filled donut but they didn’t have any of those. I had part of a regular cream filled donut and didn’t really like it, the other donuts were awesome, though.
Today has mainly been a lazy day, not much have been done today. Brooke, Julia, and I went swimming for about an hour in the river around 12:00, but we didn’t stay in too long. It’s not as hot today as it was yesterday and we got too cold to stay in. Dad took the canoe out and he, Brooke, Julia, and Samantha went down the river a little bit. Then Dad, Julia, Samantha, and I went out for a little canoe ride. Dad paddled in the back and I paddled in the front, it was fun. I don’t think I ever actually went in a canoe.
In the afternoon Mom, Dad, and Samantha went out. Mom had to go to the hospital because she slipped on the little carpet outside her bedroom door in the middle of the night and broke her finger. Brooke, Julia, and I are here at the cabin. Julia and Brooke were having an argument before because Julia was in some kind of bad mood, when Brooke tried to confront her she got upset and has been spending the whole rest of the day so far sulking in another room. Brooke has been sleeping and I’ve been spending all this time on this quiet afternoon catching up on the last few days starting from Thursday for my journal while listening to my MP3 music on my laptop. Brooke and Julia have been lying around all afternoon.
Dad called just a few minutes ago to say they’re going to be returning to the cabin soon, they just ate at a Cracker Barrel (a country restaurant and store). Dad said there is an Arbys there and he’s going to bring the rest of us back some Arbys. As I write this journal entry now (8/20/2002 5:46 PM) they are still out.
Earlier before they ate at the Cracker Barrel Mom called to tell us about her finger. They can’t tell how bad it is in the x-ray, they need to have the x-ray checked out further. It’s probably only a hairline fracture. In the meantime Mom’s finger is in a splint. In the middle of the night Samantha was calling Mom and when she came out of her room to go into Sammy that’s when she slipped, so I keep jokingly saying it’s Sammy’s fault. Heh.
Great relaxing day, I’m really enjoying my time here. I think I’m going to write a few emails in reply to a few people then bring my laptop downstairs later so I can go online to send out the emails and upload these journal entries.
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| Trip to Hancock, New York |
[19 Aug 2002|07:04pm] |
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mood |
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 excited |
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Cabin
My family (and others) keeps referring to this place as "Upstate New York" when it’s not really up, it’s west from Long Island and New York City. It’s before Binghamton, which is on the Pennsylvania border.
The Heinze family from our church are loaning us their cabin this week, we all get to have a nice peaceful vacation and get away. Dad I think needs it most because of all the church business lately, he’s been going crazy. I have had a really busy week and wanted to get away and do something all summer. Finally getting that chance.
Woke up this morning at 7:50, I had already packed on last night. I spent most of Saturday getting my laptop ready and making sure everything in it worked, making sure AOL dialed up, and that I had everything in it that I wanted. I burned a lot of CDs on Saturday and Sunday of MP3s, my latest MP3s, and other stuff to take with me.
This morning we all left the house at almost 10:00, we wanted to get out at 9:00 but that didn’t happen. We hit a lot of traffic because of construction on the Southern State Parkway on Long Island and then a few other times after New York City. Who would have thought there would have been this much traffic on a Monday?
For lunch we stopped at an Arbys, my favorite fast food place. I haven’t had Arbys since May 13, 1998, four years ago. I remember the date because that’s when Dad and I traveled upstate to see Fred (my friend) and it was his birthday. Anyway, since there are no more Arbys on Long Island I have to get them when we travel, which isn’t too often. I looked up Arbys website at www.arbys.com to see if they had a store locater, I wanted to see if there were any on our way up and there was. There was one perfectly in Middletown where Dad was thinking of stopping for lunch anyway, so that’s what we did. It was good having Arbys again. I got their chicken fingers combo meal with curly fries, with cheese sauce, regular fries, and potato cakes. I was full.
It was a four or five hours of driving, Dad of course did all the driving like he usually does on road trips. I listened to music on my RioVolt MP3 CD player diskman it was nice. It was also a beautiful hot sunny day and not too humid.
We arrived at the cabin at about 2:30 or 3:00. It’s this little beautiful rustic place deep in the woods, the back of the place looks at the Delaware River there in the valley. It’s so beautiful. Pat and Cliff Heinze were there waiting for us to show us around and how to work some of the stuff. They have owned this place since 1983 since their kids were babies. Brooke and Julia went swimming in the river not too long after we’ve been there for a while. I went it a little bit later. The water is beautiful, it’s so warm and shallow. You can walk to the other side of the river, it gets deeper up to my neck 2/3 of the way across. I think the other side of the river is Pennsylvania, I think that’s cool that I’m swimming over to another state when I get to the other side.
Cliff and Pat left while Brooke, Julia, Samantha, and I were busy swimming for hours. After we got out hours later Mom, Dad, Brooke, and Samantha went to the store to get some stuff, food, snacks, soda, paper goods, etc…. Julia and I stayed here, I just laid down in my room because I was so tired.
Dad brought back McDonalds for everyone, I only got two large fries. Later that night I went to bed early, I was so tired.
I really like this place it’s so cozy. :)
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| Busier day – Whew! 13 hours of working in one day |
[16 Aug 2002|06:59pm] |
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mood |
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 busy |
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What a long day, man. I decided to get to work an hour early at 8:00 AM to get a big good early start on those microchips and did. By about 11:00 or so I had only 100 or more left to burn, not bad considering yesterday I had at the same time I had 600 to do. However, I was pulled off the chip burning job for a higher priority, I had to voice test six voice operated Accenda remotes in the conference room with the TV at different volumes, and I had to get them all done today because I’m not going to be in on Monday since I’ll be away on vacation.
I not only had to do six tests, but twelve because I had to use both the internal microphone in each remote control and again with the external. One voice test takes quite a while, I’ll have to explain it in more depth sometime what it is, but it’s a pain in the neck, it’s one of the things I hate. It’s okay, though, I get to see a little bit of TV, but that’s one of the things I hate about it sometimes because it’s distracting.
Len (president of the company) bought everyone pizza and we all ate at about 1:00 or 1:30, I had three remotes tested by that time. Since we all ate in the conference room I had to wait till everyone was done and the place cleaned up before I could return to testing, I couldn’t just eat and get right back to testing right away unfortunately.
The stupid cable kept going out now and then which means I couldn’t test, doing a voice test with static in the background isn’t an accurate test. The test is only accurate if there is real TV noise in the background to see how well the remote responds to me with the TV noise. Whenever the cable went out I went upstairs to my office, got a drink, and burned some more chips. I would go back to the remote testing downstairs when the cable came back. The cable went out four times today there at work.
I was there later than everyone else, I had to get these remotes finished since I won’t be here next week to finish them and I decided to stay late instead of coming in on Saturday, I’d rather stay at work later on Friday than come in on Saturdays, and that’s what I did.
They said I didn’t have to get the microchips done till I got back the following week, but I decided to stay and get those finished anyway since I only had less than 100. I did several tubes (nine chips in each tube) while the cable was out. When the cable went out for the fourth and last time at about 7:00 I went upstairs to my office and decided to just finish out all of the chips so that I could lock up the upstairs and not have to go back up there again after I finish the remotes downstairs. Finished up all of the chips about an hour and a half later, locked up the upstairs, and then finished up all of the testing of the remotes downstairs.
It felt like I was never going to leave, I was the only one there for the last few hours since everyone else went home. Finally left after 9:00 PM that means I worked thirteen hours today. That’s the longest I ever worked in one day there. Normally we’re not allowed to work overtime, but in special cases like this we have to in order to make sure a job gets out in time, and since I’m going on vacation that had something to do with it.
Came home and just relaxed, I was beat. What a busy week this has been, mainly Thursday and Friday. Let me tell you, after a week like this I’m really looking forward to my vacation, something I’ve been wanting for many months and now I’m getting it.
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