Doc’s Blog

Unless you want malware/trojans/viri installed on your computer! I downloaded and installed this POS Free Video Converter. During install it says "Some of the features will not work unless you install System Guard." System Guard? What the hell is System Guard and why wasn’t anything mentioned on the website I downloaded it from? Hell no I don’t want to install System Guard. Installed the free video converter without System Guard and dropped ONE file into the convert box, chose convert to wmv, clicked on the convert button and kept getting a box that said I had to install System Guard to convert more than 3 files. Every time I clicked on the convert button.

Assholes! I just hope I can get all this off my system. WHY didn’t I install it on my VMWare Windows Virtual Machine like I usually do? (Cause SWMBO needed a video converter to convert .avi files to .wmv so she can load up her Zune and I got in a hurry to get it done for her. That’s why!) I scanned with AVG and A-squared and found no problems. Scanning with Ad-Ware now… (Didn’t find anything…)

One of them came out from behind the clouds today. It was bright! If you stood out of the breeze it was warm! It moved across the sky slowly. I tried getting a closer look at it with my binoculars. The Green Spots took hours to clear from my eyes. Then tonight a paler version of the first one came out and moved slowly across the sky. I was afraid to try to get a closer look at it with my binoculars cause I didn’t want any more green spots. There were a bunch of ’twinkly’ things up there also. I did try to get a closer look at them. They looked like ’twinkly’ things. It’s amazing what you can see in the sky when all that watery stuff isn’t falling…

Today was our 21st wedding anniversary! Cool! It’s hard to believe (sometimes) that we’ve known each other 23-24 years and been married 21. SWMBO’s still the best!

Played around with Terragen some this evening waiting for Smallville to come on. Smallville was a repeat so I installed Mambo my site to play with. So far Xoops seems easier to use and I like the look better. Now, what the hell am I going to do with them? I’m really seriously thinking of putting together a Disaster Preparedness site for everyone to learn from; but I don’t know. I don’t think anyone’s interested.

Think I’ll go practice Carrier take-offs and landings.

Was tonight. We’ve been friends with Pat (across the street) for about 13 years now and get invited to their Christmas party every year. It’s nice. Lots of good food and company. I still have the present I got last year (a bead filled vibrating pillow). Was nice to go again this year.

Haven’t been doing much since last Saturday. Sunday was a pretty normal Sunday for me right up until 1650 or so. Got a piece of peppermint candy stuck in my throat and coughed so long and hard that I got a splitting headache. Had to lay down. Missed SWMBO’s Christmas Choir thingie. Damn! And cause I slept about 4 hours I stayed up that much later that night.

Monday? Hmm… Can’t remember. Seems to me all I did was clean up around the house.

Today SWMBO and I went to the Navy Exchange and bought a real electric blanket! Guess we’ll see how good it warms that bed up before we climb into it.

SWMBO also bought me the Accelerator Pac for FSX. Has 2 new planes, a new Helo and a butt-ton of new missions to play with. I took off and landed on a carrier with an F16! Cool! (And only crashed it once.) Been flying the P51 mustang all over the place. The Exchange also has 3 more expansion pacs that I want to get. $30 each! Phew!

Got a call late yesterday afternoon about some of the folks from church getting together Saturday morning (@ 0730) to go out to Belfair, WA and help out flood victims. So I got up early and was out of the house at 0700. Got to the Community Center in Belfair and our group was assigned to NE Tahuya River Drive. My Street! Well, where we’re going to build our dome. Cool! So about a hundred of us showed up in my future neighborhood and spent most of the day moving flood damaged things out of houses, clearing drainage, shoveling mud and tearing dry-wall out. Wish I could have taken my Digger out there; but there was some ’heavy’ equipment so things got done. Looking at some of those folks home with watermarks up to their windows makes me feel not so bad about having to repair a road. At least I’m not having to replace a house!

Got home and spent a half hour washing off and warming up in the shower. Now just farting around. Gotta build the fire up. We’re going to batch it tonight. Thank Goodness; I do not feel like cooking tonight.

Setting up and learning new programs. PHP scripts really. Set up a "Ad" site I’m hoping the folks at church will start using to let other folks know about any items they have laying around the house that they really don’t want and will give away free, or any Needs they might have (like older folks needing yard work done, etc). Then I set up a TikiWiki site to experiment with. Then a WikkaWiki site to experiment with. Hoping to make both (or the one I settle on) Disaster Preparedness sites. Then there’s all the stuff I’ve installed on my Localhost server to experiment with. I have so many sites that I’m working on or maintaining! I need to get a job!

Then there’s the regular stuff I do around the house. Then there’s the irregular stuff I have to do. One thing I’m noticing is that I really need to focus. Make plans for the day and stick to them. Aside from converting all my movies to .avi files to store on a server I have a butt-ton of pictures and ’papers’ I need to scan and store on a disc somewhere. Get rid of some of this clutter. Have a couple of old monitors and an old (shorted out) tv that I need to take to the dump too. Not to mention the big box of papers I already have that I need to get rid of. Maybe I ought to start one of those little green ’to do’ books like I used in the Navy?

Man! I just spent a totally wasted 45 minutes trying to deal with the Military’s MyPay site trying to print a copy of my 1099r. What a complete travesty of a site. I think I clicked on every link available and still never found anything actually pertaining to me or my retired pay. When I first logged in it showed my 1099r but the thing wouldn’t print anything but the lines of the form. No data. And of course the site doesn’t mention that it requires IE6+ until after nothing works. And why a site would require an unsafe insecure browser is beyond me anyway.

Took my lovely young bride out to dinner tonight cause I spent too damned much time online at the MyPay site trying to get back to my 1099r. Went to the Teriyaki place up by Albertson’s, then to Target for a ’ear warmer thingie’, then to Home Depot for light switch cover plates. It’s cold and damp out there!

Smallville was Killer tonight. Chloe telling Jimmy about her meteor infection (and showing him). Grant a clone (Season 1 (?) did establish that Julian died by suffocation). Clark flying to rescue Chloe & Jimmy but turning out to be the Bizarro Clark; the real Clark frozen in a crystal. Too cool! I still think that Clark & Chloe should get together. Lois and Grant should NOT break up. Jimmy should hang with Kara. Lana, well, I don’t know. Lex needs to team up with someone like ’Catwoman’. (I know I’m mixing my comics but she was also a part of the DC Comics world.)