All is Returning to "Normal"...

We are finally recovering from all that has been going on here lately...

Pam has been sick and is now getting much better. She is going to some new doctors and physical therapy and changing some of her meds and it is all working well.

I have done all of the 'projects' that have been looming and everything is in order, except the weather, for some serious fishing. It has been very wet and windy around here lately - as well as much warmer. This all translates into soft (read unfrozen) and wet/muddy ground which is between me and my fishing spots along the Snake River. I hear the fish are starting to bite again - finally - after the cold winter temps. I was reading some information about them and they pretty much go dormant during the winter - sorta like bears do. It understand it comes from them becoming much slower in the cold water, due to their size, and they cannot compete with the smaller, more agile, fish for food. They have been doing this for a few hundred years longer than anything else still around, so I guess they have it down - as it were...

I am going on a professionally guided fishing trip late next month, with Storm, Bryce (his upcoming father-in-law) and another local Sturgeon addict (with a Jet Boat :-) ), up to the Columbia River along the OR/WA border. This is one of the few places where the really giant fish live. This is also where you can keep the mid-sized fish, in the 4' to 6' range. I love to eat Sturgeon and would love to have a freezer full of it. It has overtaken Marlin for my 'best fish to eat - ever' award. We are going to be up there for 3 days and 2 nights, in a combination of exploring, bank fishing, the guided jet boat trip and general guy fishing stuff.

One of OLD my high school friends, Kenny Cothren, who now lives on the coast above Portland, and I haven't seen for many years, and I are also trying to get together sometime during this trip - which I hope will happen...

For all of you who avidly follow my pool leagues... ... ... I did very well this week again. Well, actually I did very poorly overall, but the good part was worth all of the bad parts. We played the best team in the league. All four of their players are great and are lead by my friend and the best player in the area, Steve. Steve and I have played on several teams together at this point, and he and I tied for the best top player in last year's 9-ball league. Anyway, I was the first to play, and played Steve. He got to break and didn't make any balls. I then proceeded to run the table, making a number of very difficult shots, which stunned him and his whole team. They were having this 'table run' promotion from a local bank that night and I got a free drink, entered into the contest for a nice cue, and the event was noted over the PA system - it was a very good moment... O, yeah, I spaced out for a minute there, it was great. Then, the other three games I played, with all his other team members went very badly for me. Actually, I should say, the other three shots I had during the other three games, went badly. I only had one shot each game and each time they ran the table from there. The payback hurt my standings, but the 'moment' was worth all the costs...

I am pretty much out of the top player standings anyway, since the fiasco with our original team captain who stole three weeks of money and the associated score sheets, which ended up really screwing up my stats. O, the other good news that night, was that I heard this thief had been caught for some other nasty deeds and is now in jail for Grand Larceny.

Well, that is about all that is going on these days here in DaHo...

Lary Cowboy Smoking Commercial on TV...

I don't know if you have seen this commercial on TV, but I thought I would pass it on...

http://www.singingcowpoke.com/

There is a lot of interesting info on this page if you are interested.

This Month's Article...

Well, here is my second 'published' article. Its was really the 'starting' one, but, well you will see...

The Human Computer…

Last month, my first article entitled “The Thought Police” actually started out as a response to some comments made in WebWhispers from people that were in the process of locking themselves in their own little prisons, by their fear and worry. Pat caught my response, and after some discussion, we ended up turning my little rant into a longer monthly series of observations and perspectives on dealing with life and all the little joys, problems and opportunities it offers…

But, the first part of this process is not really the ‘policing,’ or management, of your thoughts. You must first consider how the human mind works and how it controls all that you do - how those thoughts are created, what happens to them, and how they are used to manage every daily moment and event.

I am not a doctor, nor do I hold any advanced degrees, or credentials, that legally entitle me to teach any of these concepts – so as the disclaimer, er headline, reads “Worth Every Penny You Paid for It – And More”.

I am a student of me first, and then life, and how it all works. I have spent over 30 years in the computer industry, and about 45 of my 60 years working on trying to figure out how I work, and how to ‘understand’ and ‘manage’ me and all my challenges.

Back when I first started learning about computers, they didn’t make any sense to me. Then, at some point, like a light turning on, I understood them and it all became clear to me. At the same time in my life, I was going through all sorts of personal growth oriented and discovery exploration. As I started learning how to manage, or program, computers to do the things I wanted them to do, I started realizing how much the logic and basic concepts of how they worked, was also how I worked.

I ended up realizing that the designers and creators of the ‘modern’ computer were actually emulating themselves, how they thought, and their own logic processes in their designs and mechanical creations.

I can hear the “Skreech – this is way too much for me…” now, but you have already come this far, so read a little further first before you start tearing out this ‘page’ from your opportunities in life. You don’t have to be a computer expert to understand these concepts, or even know how they work. But, now that lots of folks have a basic understanding of computers, and how they work, it provides an opportunity to use that knowledge to understand ourselves, or them, better – sort of a full circle of understanding, if you will…

In the first article, ‘The Thought Police’, I went into one aspect of how to manage this wonderful tool, but didn’t really get into how it all works or provide enough information to fully understand it all. To get better use and control out of it, you really need to know more about it and how it functions. This article will attempt to provide that understanding, so we can learn more about how to use it to help us deal with the challenges of daily life.

The Human Computer you have between your ears, has more power and capability than the largest super computer that exists today, or will for many years or decades to come. I can hear the “There he goes again…” thoughts again - Well, hear me out…

If I say the word ‘Corvette’ (but any other term or concept will do), by the instant you have read that word, your ‘Human Computer’ has already scanned every moment in your life, for every reference to that word/concept, and all related associations of that word/concept to you, has loaded all the good stuff into the ‘Good’ bucket, and all the bad stuff into the ‘Bad’ bucket on that Human Computer balance scale we talked about in the first article, and has provided you with an answer of whether that is good or bad for you. And, being a balance scale, the answers are weighted from really bad to really good based on the volume of each bucket’s contents. I defy any computer that exist, or is even being contemplated today, to do that with that much data. So, now you ask, how much data are we talking about- right?

When I said ‘scanned every moment of your life’ I am referring to every aspect of every moment – every smell, sight, feeling, thought, touch, sound, etc., etc. I am not sure how much storage a smell or feeling or touch, or whatever take in terms of the amount of storage, but in today’s terms, a single moment could potentially fill up a very large hard disk – and think of how many ‘moment’s’ you have been through in your life. And, if you did have all that data, how would you ever process it?

Consider going into a library and doing that research work on that one word – through all the books in the library – and that is just the simple basic textual part of the task your mind goes through in a fraction of a second – thousands of times a day… How many times is the word just printed in all those books, how would you find them all, and what about all the events and concepts it was involved in to be considered as being good or bad for only you?

I am going through this just to give you a peek at the concept of how large and powerful YOUR Human Computer is, and what capabilities it can provide when used and understood correctly.

Well, now we can begin pondering what to do with this awesome beast of a ‘computer’ we have at our beckon call… It is already pre-loaded with every aspect of our unique life experience and a LOT more, and is ready to be used at any moment. And, it will provide the correct answer to you every time it is used. It will never lie to you. Based upon the information it has stored in its memory, it will answer every question or query you give it - accurately and correctly. The key is how to use it correctly to get accurate results.

So, if you have a brain between your ears – just a little humor there – you are probably thinking, ‘Wow, and so what now?’

Well, the usual ‘operator’ of your computer is what is called your consciousness, or what you consider to be YOU - your ‘me’ or ‘I’, if you will. It processes all the moments of your life as they occur. It deals in concepts and thoughts – “What should I do now?”, “How would I do this?”, “What color do I want?”, “How long will that take?”, “Do they have those shoes in my size?”, stuff like that… And, it is constantly using your computer, in the background, aka sub-consciousness, to provide all the answers, to all the questions, that come up with when dealing with every moment or event . Whether they are really happening ‘live’ events (like digging a hole), or imaginary thought created events (like thinking about digging a hole).

And, as I mentioned in “The Thought Police”, as all of these events, or moments, are processed, the results are stored for future reference in your computer memory. So, the next time you ponder ‘How long will it take to get to Joe’s house?’, all of the prior times you went to Joe’s house will be brought up and considered as part of making up the current answer to your question. This time may have a different starting point, or other considerations, but all such information is processed and stored for future references. This saves time and is part of the very efficient design of the human thought process.

This can be very good news or very bad news to you in daily life, depending upon what you focus on. And, here is where the ‘Power of Thinking’ comes into play – whether ‘Positive’ and good, or ‘Negative’ and bad, to your daily life. As you ponder an event over and over, more and more of these previously considered thought processes are developed and used in answering all future ones. The more robust the past number and focus of previous answers to any given question or issue are, the less your consciousness will try and consider the reality of the current situation for what it is, and rely on the old stored information as valid answers to the current situation. In physiological terms, these are called ‘Past Programs’ and can control your life - and they may not have ever even been real, or valid, in the first place…

Just last week, there was a child that was found that had been kidnapped some 10 years ago. The neighbors were stunned when finding out all this, as he had not been locked up and was ‘free’ to communicate and live in the neighborhood for years. When queried about why he had not called the police or ran away, he said that his abductor told him, over and over for years, that he would kill his family if he left or ever told anybody. This was not real, as the abductor would have been put away and his family out of harm’s way, but in this child’s mind, being told that over and over again had developed a large and focused enough ‘Past Program’ that when he allowed himself to think about the freedom that was just outside that door. His mind didn’t consider any of the real possibilities, or opportunities – it just reran the ‘Past Program’, as it was his reality and he created his own prison.

I will bet that there are many readers of this article, at this exact moment, that have created their own little ‘prisons’ they live in, locked in by themselves and they are ‘holding’ the key in their hand…

If most of your thoughts focus on positive things and achieving greatness, then all of your thoughts will have that base to work from. On the other hand, if most of your thoughts contain some type of worry and fear, then all of your thoughts will have to dig through all those issues first, and in my experience, usually get stuck in that morass, before seeing the true light of day for what they really are.

Now, hopefully, are you seeing how the concepts brought up in “The Thought Police” make more sense and you need to put more care into what you think and what does get stored in your computer memory? Have you ever heard the old computer term “Garbage in, Garbage out”? Does it make any more sense now?

In future episodes of this column, we will learn how we can actually directly query our computers to answer direct questions and get immediate and accurate answers to almost any question, how to use our computers to deal with almost situation and/or interaction, trust and respect ourselves, be roll models for ourselves and others, know when we are getting good deals and more importantly getting bad deals, among many other things.

Skilful use of these techniques will result in having a full-time honest view into yourself that will provide all the insight and answers you want to make your life better and more fulfilling.

Flora's House is Finally Done...

We, well mostly Pam and Roberta, have finally gotten Flora's house and stuff all gone through, cleaned, categorized, organized for auction, and prepped for sale. Pam has been staying over there most nights this month, as has Roberta, working on this daunting task all day and sometimes night also. They filled up the dumpster once and had it dumped and returned. The first load was TWO TONS of stuff...

Friday, Roberta was cleaning the stove/oven, which was awful, and ended up killing it, so the family had her get a used one installed. A shinny used white one to match the other appliances. It came with a new hood - since the old one had a built in microwave hood, and I had to wire it up an install it yesterday. I also brought over the power washer and since it's been warm, for here, we were able to power wash the back deck and clean out both of the garage fridge and freezers.

We are going to be bring the large stand up freezer home and give Roberta our small one that will work better for her. It will be great having a large extra freezer. It seems to be in pretty good shape though it is quite old. With my luck, it will last long enough for us to get use to it and fill it up before it dies and required us to buy a new one or loose all the contents on a moments notice.

In Pam's spare time, she has been setting up the newly acquired furniture here at DaHouse - a new display hutch in the dining room, aka The Cake Room, and a very old chest that is suppose to be a couple of hundred years old and first arrived here on the Mayflower, we are just not sure if it was the ship or the moving van... Its a large rectangular beast with lots of leather straps and metal protectors at all possible points of contact, that really looks good with all our other stuff, but needs special placement so it doesn't get destroyed by sunlight. I think we have it all resolved at this point by moving the couch forward and putting it in back of the couch. There, it's away from all direct sunlight and looks real purdy...

She is unpacking many boxes of crystal stuff, washing it all and loading it all into the new display hutch. I installed new lights and automated them so they automatically come on when you enter the Cake Room. It actually looks quite pretty, though is not my 'cup of tea' at all... There is still a lot more stuff to to an little place for it all, so we shall see how that all ends up.

In my 'spare' time, when I am not over there doing something or bringing something or whatever, I have been trying to get my life sorta back to normal. My pool playing has returned to being good again after a couple of weeks of disaster there. My Thursday night league is done, since we dropped out of the playoffs with our dismal performance, which included my dismal performance also, last week. There was a lot of flux in the team for some time - jobs, moves, relationship disasters, etc., that had caused it to be a hassle for the most part anyway. So, it was time to be over... But, the Wednesday night league is still going for another few weeks and it is going great. A couple of weeks ago, we added a new member who replaced the old team captain that stole all the team money an got ran out of town. He is a reasonable player, but besides that, a general nice guy with great family morals. He drives a semi-monster truck, is a hunter/contractor type, had two little boys and a nice wife that comes to the games now and then and shows up every week. Now, if we can get him to play better, he will be a great addition to the team. This last week, our other member, Tim, also a spec house builder/contractor and father of young kids, had to be at a kid thing, so Storm, who has assumed team leadership, brought his father-in-law, Bryce from Alaska, to sub.

I have known Bryce for some time and is a great guy. He grew up and use to live here until he moved to Alaska and started a chain of pizza restaurants and raised a family. Anyway, they are all back down here now and have a new pizza restaurant way out in this little town in the sticks. Jenny, his daughter and Storms fiancee, works for the restaurant and will ultimately take it over. Anyway, Bryce also is an avid fisherman and has lots of friends that are also crazy about Sturgeon fishing and all things outdoors that I plan on getting hooked up with over time. He also has time to fish and said that he would be ready to go almost any time - which is my type of schedule...

While I haven't been recovering from being basically gone from DaHouse for a couple of weeks there, I have been upgrading software and computers. Pam's daughter Jaz and her husband Brad, the ones that did the awesome multi-media tribute to Flora at the funeral, also gave us a brand new full copy of the new version of Windows, Vista. Its the Home Premium version that basically is the replacement for the old Windows XP Media Center Edition.

When I first started getting setup to do it, I didn't have enough disk space in the boot partition and had some software issues that had to be resolved. I happened to have a shinny new 500GB SATA drive sitting here from a really great sale and upgrade started at the Black Friday sale this year. The Black Friday sale is the one that starts at 5am on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I got this 250GB disk then for $49. I didn't need it so I just sit on it and then recently I saw the 250GB disk I had on sale for $159 and this new 500GB SATA one on sale for $179, so returned/purchased the disks ending up with the shinny new 500GB SATA one for a total of $69. Anyway, I regress, so, I installed the new 500GB and rearranged all the disk partitions so now I have plenty of room for the new Vista OS as well as room for 200 hrs of stored TV shows and about 100 hours of saved video space for really good keeper stuff. I also have all the photos/videos from the cameras and all the music database on there and an extra partition for backing up the OS and work space for new, yet to be determined stuff - lots of disk...

So, after downloading and installing all the utility program upgrades, I installed the new Vista and got it all set up. "Getting it all set up" is a term that usually includes all the time that happens from the time you first start the upgrade procedure, until it all finally works right. Which is this case was about 3 days of time... For the most part, it really worked well. I was surprised that it installed so simply. Then, when I started trying to do stuff, nothing much was working and it ended up being a multi-level pissing contest between Vista and Norton Internet Security as to which one was going to do what - with both of them wanting to do it all and not allow the other to do anything. Once I figured this out, I was able to resolve it pretty quickly, though I am sure there will be a lot more tweaking that will be needed before it is all done in that arena. I basically only use the machine for a data server and HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) anyway, so that are probably lots of 'issues' that haven't been discovered yet that need to be adjusted.

The largest 'problem' was installing the new version of Media Center with my two TV tuner cards and attached digital cable TV boxes. I must say that the new Vista version of the program is much nicer, and was the reason I did the upgrade in the first place, and is a lot easier to install/configure than the old one, but it just wouldn't switch the channels on one of the cable boxes. It has this little computer controlled remote control, if you will, called an IR (Infrared) emitter that has these wires you stick into the front of the cable TV boxes, where the remote control signals are received at, and the computer sends the correct signals to change the channels just like using a remote would do. And, I just couldn't get one of the two emitters to work at all. I messed with it for a couple of days, going through the whole installation/configuration process numbers of times without success. Then, I remembered the tried and true technique of deinstalling the poorly acting hardware from the computer, via the device manager, and rebooting. When you reboot, all of the 'stuff' attached to the computer is found, identified, and verified installed. If it is not 'installed' the OS will install it again, which it did to the IR Emitter control unit after I uninstalled it and Walla, all was fixed and all is working perfectly. Or at least I don't know of any problems and ignorance is bliss...

I have also gotten the new Office 2007 installed on both Dell machines and it also installed very easily and without issues. I have only used the mail program, Outlook, so far, but it is much nicer than the old version, so I am excited about checkout out all the other stuff in Office I use and see how it has all changed. In the old days, every new upgrade would always require you to convert all your data files and there was never any way to return back to the old version if the new one didn't work, but it seems that they have finally gotten to the point that the file structures are robust enough that they don't have to be enhanced, just the program functions that use them. This is a good milestone in computer development evolution.

Speaking of Bliss, I really must get down there to catch some of those big Sturgeon. So prepare your self for some large Sturgeon fish pictures... Its been raining and warmer, which means that the 'road' is going to be very soft and mushy. I think I will wait for a few days and let it dry out It is amazing how nasty this mud can be here in DaHo...

Death and Life go On...

First, sorry for not keeping you all up on the events since Flora's passing. It has been like some very strange 12 day Acid Trip... So, I will try to recap it all, as I remember it - I would get a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage, and some Kleenex, for this one...

Where to start...

Well, as I left off last time, we got to her house about 5 minutes after the Police and neighbors had broken in and found her in the bedroom on the floor. Her sister, Roberta, and her husband Vic arrived a few minutes later. Shortly after that, the folks from the funeral home showed up and were quite helpful in consoling the family and providing information about the upcoming events.

The closet doors were broken and she had a bruise on her cheek from hitting the dresser. They didn't do an autopsy, but the general conscience is that she had a blood clot or aneurysm and was dead before hitting the floor. If any of your watch any of the CSI shows, you know they can tell such things by how the the condition of the body and condition of injuries.

Anyway, she couldn't be moved until the corner got there and then they moved her to the bed and did whatever they do along with collecting all her ID and meds. They made a special deal out of taking her drivers license for some reason. Anyway, when all that was done, the corner left and the funeral home folks took her away on a cart, leaving us there in stunned shock.

The next few days were a continual blurr of grieving, phone calls, gathering required information and making arrangements of the moment, while trying to come to grips with what had happened and the daunting tasks that laid ahead... There were many visits from friends and neighbors, the usual 'funeral' food dishes brought and general controlled chaos and grieving.

The two older brothers, Mike and Gary, the oldest brother and the executor of the estate, finally showed up a few days later - I cannot remember the day at this point... But, prior to that, most stuff couldn't really be done, or even started as they wanted to be involved in it all. Gary and Mike really hadn't been there for some time - I think since the passing of their dad some 7 years ago, so they really had no idea what was going on or what to expect when they showed up.

Pam and Roberta, having been with or talked to their mother almost daily, knew a lot of stuff and desires that where not in the will and working out all the 'details' of how it was all to happen and what was suppose to happen ended up in a number of long heated discussions over the next week or so.

Gary, the executor, is the only Mormon of the group, as Flora was, and had quite different ideas about how it was all suppose to happen. In fact, he had 'different' ideas about most everything and is quite 'head strong', and the rest of the siblings had many concerns about him and his 'techniques' in dealing with all the arrangements and estate dealings. I am trying to be nice here. I am just glad there were no weapons available and none of us have to ever see any of the neighbors again after all this is over...

Anyway, the funeral went off wonderfully. The place will filled to capacity with all of her friends and family that wanted to celebrate her life and passing. There were flowers sent from everywhere and it was truly a wonderful event. Roberta's pastor did the ceremony, at Flora's wishes, as he was there and helped her husband be saved, during his last days. He did a great job - even though he wasn't Mormon... Each of the children got up and spoke and each a wonderful and 'unique' job of giving their last comments to their mother.

Pam's daughter, Jasmine, did a special multimedia presentation using a lot of family pictures and selected music and her great technical talents to produce a truly amazing tribute to her grandmother. The audience was stunned by it, as such a beautiful presentation has probably not been seen before here in DaHo... Jasmine and her husband Brad came for the funeral, after spending so much time on the presentation, but could only spend the day

Pam's son Bobbie, his fiancee Jackie, and their son Josh, Pam's only grandchild from her side of the family, to date, were able to be here for almost a week and stayed here with us. It was great to have them here and Pam was so happy to have her grandson here to enjoy and relieve some of the stress of everything else going on.

Pam's dad has a flat plate 'head stone' that Gary wanted to replicate for Flora, whose grave is next to her husband, Bob. That concept was totally unacceptable to all the other children, who wanted a large dual width combined headstone. This resulted in the final 'battle', er 'discussion', between the siblings and the creation of a special bank account for its creation and installation.

All of the family pictures, of which there were many stashed in every possible nook and cranny in every room and closet, were all gathered up and brought over to our house and filled up the dining room. At night, after each long day of distributing 'treasures' found in the most amazing places, some of the children would come over to the house and go through all the pictures, trying to figure out who/what they were and separating them as appropriate. Mike and his wife worked on this with Pam for many nights with Gary helping one night. Mike, wife and their Winnie dog, stayed with us for 3 nights, causing our cat Cali great concern and irritation.

During the funeral, Roberta mentioned that her mother had 10 of everything she needed and 100 of everything she didn't, which ended up being much truer than not. I cannot believe how much stuff there was in that little house. There was also a outside storage shed, greatly expanded under-house crawl space, garage and an attic over the garage, and a off site storage shed, all of which was filled to the brim with every sort of junk, er 'precious mementos', that exists or has ever existed - Many of which still had the faded garage sale price tags on them...

And then there is the motor home and vehicles... We got the motor home started finally. It has sit where it is at along side of the house for years. It is actually not in too bad of shape, considering its probably early 70'ies and has sit for years. Its also full of stuff to deal with...

We got a large dumpster - I think it is 20' long - and almost filled it up with all the total junk. Then everybody took anything they thought they would like or need and all the remainder of the stuff, of which there is plenty, along with the motor home and other items will be auctioned off on March 11th, I think. That should be quite an event. The lawyer mentioned that the auctioneer usually has seen the items he auctions many times before from other estates he has dealt with in the past...

After the 'Great Garage Flood of '06', and all the shelving I had installed and had reorganized the entire garage, finally having it all in place an organized - it is now so full of boxes of 'Precious Mementos' that you cannot even walk through it. We also now have a number of new furniture additions that need to be assimilated. And, we still have to bring over the large stand up freezer that will be a great addition to DaGarage, but will require additional rearranging of stuff.

So, now I am trying to 'catch' up on things that have been piling up over the past 12 days - Bills to be paid, appointments to reschedule, stuff to fix, people to talk to and fish to catch... This event will take weeks, months or even longer to recover from - not counting the emotional loss of such a great mother, person and part of our lives.

Pam will have a lot more to add to all this or write her own version in the next few days, so check back for all the latest news here from DaHo...

Flora Past Away Last Night - Revised...

Flora passed away last night. Her first chemotherapy session was suppose to be tomorrow. The actual cause of death has not been determined, but it seemed like there was not much suffering. The police checked in on her and found her about 8am this morning. Pam and I were in route and were there soon after. This was unexpected and shocking for all concerned...

The family is being contacted and are gathering at her house.

Her funeral is scheduled for 2pm next Tuesday, Feb. 6th, at Parke Funeral Home in Twin Falls. There will also be a service at her church, in Buel, on Wed, Feb. 7th I believe.

If you want to talk to her children or find out any other details, call her house phone 208-543-6554 or Pam's cell 208-320-0503.