Memories

Written by my Dad.

Morgan Leah Bailey Feb 20 1992 – Feb 28 1997

We see a cheerful bubbly teen
Full of life and joy and love
And wish that's how she could have been
But it's ourselves we're thinking of.
For though we feel tremendous sorrow
She's free from sadness and from pain
We'll see her on some glad tomorrow
And never say goodbye again

Sadly missed and lovingly remembered by Mom and Dad, Colin and Warren, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins

Coffee and Cousins

My dear cousin Joy tried unsuccessfully today to make her US resident cousin feel bad because he can't have Tim Horton's coffee. But she was wrong. He can. And he does. See??



Had an interesting multinational lunch today, with a guy from Hanover Germany, and another guy from Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Amazing how small the world is.

Might type more later but at the moment I must watch BBC America. Gotta watch the show 'Conviction' (wonder where NBC got the name for their new show, eh?) and the show 'The Night Detective'. I find british television series' much more interesting than most US television series'. The brit shows make you think to participate. I don't feel like I am being treated as a complete idiot when I watch brit tv series'.

Salsa!!!!

This is the best salsa in the world, in case you didn't know. And we haven't ever seen it in stores except in Michigan. Until TODAY!!! My wife and I were wandering the Hy-Vee grocery store in Fort Madison, IA and there it was!!!!! The day was not a total loss.

While we were out, I had to buy some new pants, because since I don't smoke much anymore, all my pants are shrinking. Not sure how they know I've stopped smoking, but they do.

And because I was feeling old, buying larger pants, I bought the cd called PCD, by the Pussycat Dolls. Some good exercising music for sure. I hope my wife enjoys it while she's working out.

And on the back of Cheezit crackers there was a free download from the Walmart music store, so I downloaded the tune 'Unwritten' by Natasha Bedingfield.

And I posted a bunch of pictures on Flickr today, so should you have trouble sleeping, you can always slide over to my Flickr page....

Exciting Evenings and Completely Unconnected Thoughts

A typical evening....if you glance over my computer screen, you'll see my wife in front of her computer screen, and way off in the distance, you'll see a television screen. No children evident, as they are in the basement enjoying the large screen TV.

Exciting, huh?

At least the 'Roller Derby on Ice' is on TV tonight, otherwise known as Olympic Short Track Speed Skating. What a riot. Push, shove, trip, do whatever it takes to win....

The dryer is fixed. Thrilling news.

I drink tons of coffee. Doesn't seem to make me any less slothful and lethargic. I think caffeine is over-rated.

I haven't added any music to iTunes in a week or so, I hope it doesn't go stale. Why does my one year old iRiver mp3 player look like brand new, and my 3 month old iPod Video look like its been in Iraq for a year?

Why does my dog (the younger, smart one) have to pee on everything within a 200 yard radius of our house, and the older, dumbasapost dog won't pee unless you scare it out of him?

My truck took over 24 gallons this morning when I filled it with petrol.

I think the pic below is my favorite picture of the kids ever. Taken years ago, on summer vacation, on the side of highway 401 in Ontario. Trailer had a flat tire.

Lessons

My sons and I took this pic to post on the Flickr Macintosh group. All the Windows laptops gathered around to learn from the Mac.



Small things amuse small minds.

And while typing this, this song started playing in my ears from my mp3 player. Sometimes random play catches me off guard. This song makes this grown man cry.

:-(

When He cometh, when He cometh
To make up His jewels,
All His jewels, precious jewels,
His loved and His own.

Refrain

Like the stars of the morning,
His brightness adorning,
They shall shine in their beauty,
Bright gems for His crown.

He will gather, He will gather
The gems for His kingdom;
All the pure ones, all the bright ones,
His loved and His own.

Refrain

Little children, little children,
Who love their Redeemer,
Are the jewels, precious jewels,
His loved and His own.

Refrain

Unimaginable

Its unimaginable. (is that a word?) I was reading CNN today, and there was an article about the White House Report on Hurricane Katrina. Here's one sentence....

"The White House study took a softer approach than a scathing House report issued last week, focusing on proposals to fix problems without singling out any individuals for blame."

AMAZING!! And very likely constructive. Maybe there is hope.

And here's something else unimaginable. It was 'drive your tractor to school day' at the Central Lee Schools. Since we live directly across the highway from the school, my wife was able to capture a couple of images for your viewing pleasure. You know you live in the boonies when you seen stuff like this.

Dryer's Broke

Got a call at work. My cellphone buzzed and it was my dear wife. She said "the dryer's broke". (well, she was more articulate than that, but I am allowed to paraphrase cuz this is MY blog)

This is the dryer that's broke. Note the note. There's a button you push and the dryer starts doing its dryerly thing, drying stuff.

Only in this case, when you push the dadgum button, the dryer starts, then immediately stops when you let go of the dadgum button. And furthermore, lest you are thinking 'well why not just tape over the button to dry the clothes?', the heating element doesn't fire up while you are holding the button.

So, I did the obvious checkup. Tested the power to the unit, and dug out the troubleshooting manual from the back of the unit.

I stared at the schematic for a while, and I do believe I know what's broke. The symptoms fit a busted motor relay. (or it could be the electronic control, although I don't think so). Nothin' I can fix without a lot of swearing and collateral damage.



The dryer is only 8 months old, so Sears is gonna fixit. Of course, they can't fixit until Friday. Good thing we have a clothesline.....

Not So Happy Birthday

Its Feb 20, the day our daughter Morgan was born. 14 years ago. Unfortunately, we'll never know what she'd be like at 14. She only made it to 5, before leukemia took her.

So I imagine what she'd be like. I believe she'd be sweet, like her mom, but stubborn, like her dad. I imagine she'd have her brothers toeing the line. I imagine by now she wouldn't have a whole lot of time for us parents. I imagine I'd be proud of her, no matter what she had become.

I imagine lots of things about her, but that's all it is. Just imaginings. Nobody knows what she'd be now.

But today, we know we'd celebrate her birthday.

Happy Birthday Morgan.

Mom and Daughter

Lousy scan, beautiful picture, happier times.

huh??

OK now I've seen everything....

the iBelieve for your iPod shuffle.

Good for a laugh, at any rate.

Can I help ya?

Today, we made the trek into Walmart, once again. Son #1 had saved up enough money to buy an iPod Nano - he didn't like the iRiver any more than I did, apparently. So anyway, that's incidental to the story here.

First of all, the dude at Walmart that has to get the iPod out of lock-up (funny that, iPods and guns are locked up at Walmart....hmmmm) got us the wrong one. He got out a black 1Gb unit, when what we wanted was a black 2Gb unit. Apple goofed on this one. They are packaged IDENTICALLY with only a wee little number on the top of the box differentiating them. Worse than that however, was the fact that Walmart had no labelling whatsoever indicating that they even carried the smaller 1Gb unit, which is brand new from Apple by the way. So I wonder how many people will buy what they think is a 2Gb unit, be pleasantly surprised at cash out how cheap they got it, then after they rip it open and start playing with it, find out its only 1Gb and not 2???

So the young guy at Walmart was pleased to learn that they carried the smaller unit. Glad we could be of help - I should send Walmart a bill for training their employees.

Then on the way home, we slide into Taco Bell, because I was supposed to try these CrunchWraps or something. Pull up to the order thingy, and a disembodied girl's voice says "Hi How are you?". So I said "Fine". And we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I guess we made enough noise that the voice said "You can order whenever you are ready".......surely she was kidding....we had enough time to order food for the entire town of Keokuk while we waited. I wished she'd asked me again how I was. My answer may have been different the second time...

My young son summed her up perfectly....he says "Dad, I don't think she's the brightest bulb in the box"......

Added to iTunes today...the album 'BarlowGirl' by BarlowGirl. Liked the other album I have so much, had to buy the other one!!! Good stuff.

Friday

Well. Remember exciting Friday nights? Always something going on on Friday night? End of the week party night? Stay up late cuz there's no work or school tomorrow night?

For my sons, Friday nights hold that same mystery, and excitement. They are off to a dance tonight, hanging out with their friends, listening to tunes, and watching all the hotties across the room.

Friday nights are different for us old folks. I am enjoying a quiet evening at home watching ice dancing on the television, in the company of my lovely wife. I have to work most Saturdays. I don't wish to leave the house. (although I shall have to get off my butt shortly and out into the -1F evening to pick up my aforementioned sons over at the VFW in Argyle)

Friday night is just another night. (sigh)

I did add a great tune to my iTunes library tonight, which was exciting.

Song is called 'All Will Be Well' by The Gabe Dixon Band. Well worth the $0.99

Oh...and I forgot I added the album 'The Very Best of Sheryl Crow' the other day.

Quarterbacking

So, how'd you like to be this guy??



This guy has to answer for the US Government's response to hurricane Katrina. All by himself. Scores of people have had months to analyze his decisions, and have decided that they could and would have made better decisions.

Right.

An amazing example of Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Brilliant. One guy in the face of a huge hurricane has very little time to make decisions, affecting megabucks and megapeople, and without knowing all the information. And so he makes decisions and/or choices.

MONTHS later, a bunch of overfed and overpaid (I just made that up - I don't really know that) committee members decide that he made the wrong decisions. And now we have to publicly humiliate him. Perhaps it would have been better if we'd have appointed God Himself as head of Homeland Security, although I suspect even His decisions would have been questioned in hindsight. (I'd put the committee in charge at this point, they seem to have all the answers)

Why can't we just get on with it? Change what needs to be changed and quit wasting shitloads of time and cash shearing the scapegoat.

Confused again

I've been doing some reading about high speed internet 'penetration' rates, among users of the internet.

In the short time I've done some googling, I've found many different references, with varying information.

One thing seems clear. It would appear that at least as of mid-year 2005, the 'penetration rate' or number of internet users connected with a highspeed connection was in the neighborhood of 50%. Another chart suggested that about 11.4 people per 100 had access to a high speed connection.

So, lets suppose there has been a boom in subscription in the last 6-8 months, and high speed penetration is at a whopping 65% of internet users. With about 60% of the US population using the internet, that leaves somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 million people accessing the internet via dialup.

So, now on to why I am confused. Almost every website to where one navigates is much more bandwidth intensive than is advisable when using dial up. Why, for the sake of the 80 MILLION people who don't have, or CAN'T GET highspeed internet, don't we have available an alternate page??? A 'slowpoke' site, as it were? But no, we are outcasts.

I just don't understand.

Saturday Morning

Here it is, Saturday morning. Checked my email. Now I am freaked out.

My wife and I had been looking at some older pictures yesterday, and saw pictures of friends we haven't seen for a long long time, one of whom was LaurieLane. My wife says 'I wonder how Laurie is?'... JUST LAST NIGHT.

And this morning, guess who's posted on my dadgum blog? Uh huh. LaurieLane. If that ain't freaky, I don't know what is. In fact, she probably posted right about the time we were talking about her.

Anyway, I haven't updated additions to iTunes lately. Since I went broke over Christmas, buying music, I haven't added much lately. Here's the wee list.

Album - Daniel Powter, by Daniel Powter. (we liked the song Bad Day so much we bought the whole album)

Song - You're Beautiful by James Blunt.

Video - Beep by the Pussycat Dolls ;-) ( I like this one....)

Song - Cash Machine by HardFi (it was a free download)

I don't get it

So, today was Superbowl Day. I figured that somewhere on the 300 satellite channels I pay a huge chunk of money for each month, there would be a broadcast of the Superbowl.

I was wrong.

Apparently, we are not permitted by the FCC to receive ABC network programming by satellite transmission. Curious, that is, considering the nearest local broadcaster is 47 miles away. KTVO out of Kirksville MO does not have the equipment to broadcast via satellite, and they won't give permission to allow other broadcasts of ABC in their 'market'. As I understand it, at any rate. I could ask Dish Network to submit waivers on my behalf, and should the TV gods smile upon me, I may (repeat MAY) be granted special dispensation to watch a large market (New York, Chicago, Atlanta, LA, etc) broadcast of an ABC network.

Long story short, NO superbowl on our TV.

Or so I thought.......

My son and I went on a trek to the local Lowe's (45 miles away) and there I found a nice television antenna, that gets mounted outside up high somewhere. (remember TV antennas?....they are soooo quaint). We had such a device here at the house when we moved in, but it blew over one day, and having never used it, we didn't replace it. (shows you how important ABC network is, eh?? We didn't miss it for 8 months)

I installed said quaint antenna as shown below.



And Voila!!!! We had ABC on the TV, looking not bad at all.



So, we got to see the Superbowl after all! Pittsburgh won, like I knew they would.

PIssed Off

Ok, so if anyone else can read this, great. I can't. I seem to be able to write a posting, login to the dashboard, etc, but cannot view my own blog.

I can view everyone else's. Just not mine. I tried all 6 computers in the house, all the same. Tells me I'm forbidden from accessing the server.

I'll try this... http://blog.360.yahoo.com/jamie3529gq

Later eh.