I'm fat and stubborn!

I'm fat. I don't worry about it. Why should I? You can call me fat, I don't care.
Really I don't.
Charlie my neighbor and I feel fine with our respective guts.
Charlie says patting his robust stomach, "are we happy? so what difference does it make?"
True Charlie, true. Most older guys with big guts in this town dont try to hide it. I think they are happy.
This from Garrison Keillor's, "Lake Wobegon Days":

"Those [Wobegon] men don't suck them in or hide them in loose shirts; they let them hang free, they pat them, they stroke them as they stand around and talk. How could a man be so vain as to ignore this old friend who's been with him at the great moments of his life?"

I'm also stubborn. I'm not going to change to Windows 7. I'm still fine with my XP dinosaur.
Actually there are millions like me who haven't changed and IT gurus who wont change over until software is no longer written for it (that's after I'm dead pretty sure)

So there you have it. I am not sensitive about the words "fat" or "stubborn" used on me.. just dont be demeaning or accusatory and we are fine. But some of you are too too sensitive to my mind. If you are fat and don't like the word then work on word perception, self esteem, or lose weight! If you are stubborn and hate to admit it then... ummm take some hemlock... jeeez, just live happily why don'ya?

Actually, if you think about it, these two problems hold hands, don't they?

Keeping your computer clean

Things have changed over the years.
Today 98% of the malware that gets on your computer comes from running scripts on the Internet. Scripts are executable programs that are "run" in your microprocessor.
If you look at any page source you'll find something like

<script type="text/javascript">
  document.write yada yada yada
</script>

These are in web pages. Almost all web pages contain a script that runs on your  computer which has been enabled for javascript.
Hard to get away from it theses days. Running our browsers can execute malware on-page-enter... horrible.
Even a flash animation is running a script and it could contain adjunct script that will tear up your computer.

That is why I use the FireFox browser and an add-on called "no-script" that will not allow a script to run without your approval. You can ignore the script, allow it once, or put the whole page on a whitelist that will allow that URL to run any script it encounters. If you trust the page no problem. If you don't, just don't allow scripts to run. (Internet explorer may have something similar today... I don't know)

If I really want to see what's running in the script on that page I KVM to my Linux machine and take a peek. The Malware doesn't know what to do with that OS so nothing bad happens.

That still leaves the 2% of Malware that comes to your computer from disk software. This is an easy fix. Never buy and install software from a disk. All reputable software companies download and install from the net. Be particularly careful of the real cheap or give-away software. They are full of malware put there for a price. They make their money on the malware attached to their cheap programs.

So you run FireFox with no script, have an ancillary OS computer to test sites with, and  never (NEVER) load programs from a disk then you are home free and have virtually no need to run a performance robbing expensive Anti-Virus program that is probably doing nothing but milking you and adding malware to your computer that they can "fix" for you... insidious.

DO this: in Google type in "don't need anti virus" and read the responses.
Thousands of pros don't bother with them for reasons they will mention. The tens of thousands of semi-knowledgeable PC “experts” (certified academics) will keep on selling AVs to the millions of flat-earthers who are sure that it cant be as simple as has been described. Nothing you can do about those people... really, I know.

Now what happens if I do make a mistake. What happens if a virus gets in and starts blowing things up? or if I have a disk crash? For these problems most of us run Norton Ghost which keeps a "bit by bit" image of the C: drive on an external disk. If we want to go back to some previous date where things were perfect then we run Ghost from a boot disk and restore at that date. Simple and bullet proof. I usually back up all of my files that can't contain malware like jpg and txt, etc first so as not to lose changes to them by going backward in time.

Follow these rules and you will "never" crash your computer again.

But I bet you wont!

So you should run an antivirus :)

Changing seasons. Changing thoughts

Fall and my interests shift from gardening to cleaning up things in the garage, etc.
Still have water mellon, peppers, and squash being watered but I'm leaving all else to die... except the new broccli I put in. I may get some in november becasue it's inside the garden room.

I think I'll take the Casita out to the Grand Canyon for a few days in October. I've never gotten a good shot from their. Maybe lower light in October will yield something.

Wrong thinking

There are many who look at this every day.
There are a group... a large group of our politicans who under all cicumstance have to do what is ever ncessary to make sure Obama is a one term president regardless of what happens to the USA in the process.
I wont say why they feel that way though I am very sure that I know why. But moderates will prevail. In the meanwhile the crazies will have added four years more of damage to eight years of mistakes.

45 pound watermelon

The mellon was hard to get off the ground... its a monster

wonderful trip

Just got back from our trip to colorful Colorado; the leaves are just beginning to change color up in the high country. Will probably be another two weeeks before they peak so Ron didn't get to photo much. Drive was uneventful ... as usual the scenery is beautiful so it makes for a relaxing drive. Dudley was all excited going in but coming home, he just slept in the back seat; he's a good little traveler.

Got to see Bill, Steve and their families; the most exciting part of the visit was having breakfast and lunch at Steve's new restaurant the "Crystal River Cafe"; he serves breakfast and lunch only, no dinner; puts in long days as he's the owner and the cook and a very good one if I do say so myself. His lady, Debi is the hostess and part time server so they're both very involved in making this new business a success. Hope the winter isn't too hard on them as most of the tourist trade is gone except for the occasional skiers and they'll have to depend on the locals for customers.

Sure was nice to get home; there's no place like your own bed and kitchen. Ron did all the driving as we took the truck this time so Thursday night we both crashed. I spent Friday doing laundry and grocery shopping, the usual chores. The cats were fine except for little Chloe, she's a shy creature and having strangers in her house was a bit scary. It took her about three hours to get back to normal even after we came home. Now she's all over us; I think she's trying to tell us how much she missed us.

So all is well with us, the weather (finally) cooled down and we're enjoying the taste of fall.

Highway 89 thoughts

They are digging up and repaving a 17 mile stretch of hwy 89 east of Kanab and I have been having fun watching them do it... and do it fast. In the 60s they would tear it up with a bunch of guys on jack hammers. Then a skip loader would scoop under the broken pieces of pavement, lift it, and drop it in a dump truck which took it to a land fill somewhere. The trucks would bring in some road base gravel and hot asphalt. A gang would spread the dirt with rakes, then shovel hot asphalt and a roller would pack it down and smooth it out.

Today the process is pretty automated. There in a big asphalt grinder that chews up the old asphalt, spits it into a  conveyor that dumps it into a dump truck riding along side. The dump truck takes the ground up asphalt to a large lot and dumps it.  Here is a pavement grinder.

and here is the paving machine that recycles the old ground up road into new asphalt and lays it down.

All of this automation has made road building and maintenance very quick and with low man power.

So what's with all this talk about repairing infrastructure to create jobs? It takes very few men to build a road these days.

But

It takes many men to build bridges. Lots of men. Welders, operating engineers, rebar erectors, concrete pourers and finishers.

So make jobs by rebuilding bridges, not roads.

Just sayin

Labor Day Fly-in

The little tiny airplanes buzz our house every Labor Day Sunday.
It is called the Rutan fly-in because of the general name applied to Bert Rutan's kit plane of the 70s, the VariEze.

So on this day there are dozens of these canard wing home builts  that meet at the Kanab airport for a race to Page AZ and back. Thus the constant wizz-whine overhead.

Today I went down to take a look. All of them have evolved and not a single original VariEze there. They were all newer designs.

The Lions Club had a $5 eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes etc. SO I donated mine had a few scrambled eggs and a strip of bacon and orange juice. Then I went out like I always do.. look and talk.

Today.. I like this one

Getting Old (continued)

Last summer knee scope
Followed by a knee replacement in the fall
Followed by rotator cuff tear  this winter
Followed by a bad sinus infection

Not a hypochondriac or like that but this is the first year of my life (68th) that I have felt that I am aging. Read my health is not as good as it used to be. Which is to say by some views that I have been pretty healthy all my life... so not going to complain now... even though I just did LOL