Pretty Spring Day

Took a ride out to Old Settlers Park today to see if the wildflowers were blooming... there were some, but the full blanket isn't out yet. At least, I hope there is going to be more! Wildflowers in Texas are gorgeous! Sometimes they cover entire hillsides in color.

Here's one pic, I have more.... but I have to edit them so that they are smaller. Right now they are big enough for wallpaper, but too big to upload to my website!

I know these pictures are boring, but humor me! I don't have much to say it seems, so I might as well share some pics. It could be worse, I could be posting pictures of my dogs.... wait, that's a great idea!! LOL

hugggs all....

Texas Politics

Seems like Texas has more elections than a hive has bees (this analogy is highly relevant)...... at least two or three a year for various local positions, bond issues, blah blah blah. The road leading out of my neighborhood dead ends at a redlight onto a semi-major road. The pasture fence opposite the light is always decorated with colorful campaign signs.... Seems like every couple of weeks (disclaimer: this is likely an exaggeration, but it seems like only a couple of weeks) the current election signs are whisked away and replaced with the propaganda for the next election's hopefuls.

Well, it's boring. But I have to admit that this sign caught my eye. For one thing, it wasn't the usual red/white, blue/white, or red/whiteandblue. This one was bright yellow and black. Rufus Honeycutt????? Would you vote for someone named Rufus Honeycutt???? Particularly charming is the addition of the little honeybee in the upper right corner... Oh how clever!! I couldn't help thinking that I am glad this advertising genius wasn't responsible for the campaign signs of George Bush.... although that could have been pretty funny actually!! LOL

Oh hell, I think I'll vote for old Rufus just because he got a good laugh out of me!

Why?

Why can't spring last forever? This is a redbud tree - really pretty when it blooms in the spring, but after the blooms go away it is skimpy and entirely unremarkable. And they grow verrrrrrrrry slowly. I don't believe I've ever seen one that is taller than maybe 12 foot...

Tomorrow, something a bit different maybe? I will need to be a little more creative.

Time for a glass of wine... night all.

Daily Pic

Since I am really enjoying having a digital camera, and it's so much fun to take meaningless pictures, I'm going to bore you with a picture a day. Why? Just because I can, that's why.

I took the dogs for a walk this morning, and stowed the camera in my pocket (it's so amazingly small, why not?) So here is round one of my aimless and unnecessary and beyond trivial "Pic of the Day".

Hook 'em Horns

Just for the record, I am NOT a rah-rah Go Texas Bevo-loving burnt orange-wearing gung-ho fan. I am a transplant to Texas, so UT is just another school to me. It also happens to be the best public university in Texas, and it's also only 20 minutes away. So, yes, I do hope that my son goes there.

It's spring break, so we went on a campus visit today. While Greg went with all the other kids on a campus tour, I set off on my own. We've been here many times. This is the first time, though, that I am looking at it as a potential 'home' for my kid. Austin is a great city. I don't even think of it as a city. Seems like more of a big town to me.

Digital cameras are soooo much fun! Here are some pictures of my day at UT.

A brisket, a brasket..... gawd, how lame is that? My "titles" aren't exactly inspiring LOL

Well Linda, it's 10:00 and I just threw the brisket in the crock pot. When I get up in the morning, this house is gonna smell like Dickey's BBQ Pit!!! I can't wait. Thank you soooooooo much for saving my ass (again).

I was just thinking (uh oh, that could be trouble). It's amazing to me how much computers have changed the world. There was a time when we were a small percentage of the population with our secret little society. Now everyone is on-line and it really isn't the same anymore. What exactly do I use my pc for now? Well, I use it to pay my bills. Hell, I even get some of my bills emailed to me instead of snail mail. Save a tree, ya know? But even though my pc has become more useful, it's really not as much fun anymore. Oh well, that's progress.

Oh, and there's one thing that I've had for a couple years that I couldn't live without - Netflix! I used to get so frustrated at Blockbuster because it was so hard to find movies there. If it isn't a "new release", there is no way you are going to find it unless you are lucky! Organization isn't their strong point, that's for sure. Netflix has been great because of their search feature - even if you don't know the exact name of the movie, or if you only remember one of the stars, it's easy to find something. And I love their Recommendations. I have watched some great movies that I never even heard of, let alone thought about renting. "In America" was excellent. So was "Greenfingers".
And they have documentaries, television shows, if it's on DVD, they have it. Just love it.....Tonight we watched The Ultimate Carson Collection. Is there anyone who will ever come close to Johnny Carson? Highly unlikely. Greg was making fun of the clothes! They sure did love plaid in those days - plaid jackets, plaid pants and verrrrrry wide ties! Disclaimer: Netflix is NOT paying me to advertise their service..... LOL

And of course, my pc is great for finding lost recipes that good friends have sent me LOL....... tomorrow I am gonna make some potato salad to go with that brisket on Wednesday.

PS - if any other Netflix users out there that want to get a 'friends' list together to share movie recommendations and stuff, let me know. That's another cool feature.

hugggggs and good night!

Oh well........

It's been over a week and I didn't get a call back. I guess we'll never know then...... damn.

Funny thing is, I have gotten in touch with lots of old friends over the past couple of years. Good friends from high school. Friends that we partied with when we lived in New York. Old neighbors.... and it's really nice to hear what's up with them. But after a couple of emails, you kind of run out of stuff to say. And then you feel guilty because you're not staying in touch. Who wrote the last email? How often should you email?

I love hearing from old friends. People that really were a huge part of my life at one time. People that I still think about. But then, inevitably, you run out of stuff to say. What do you really have in common anymore? You used to be friends and neighbors, now you live thousands of miles away. I envy people who have those 'lifelong' friends. But those are the people that still live in the same town they grew up in. That's not me. And I don't regret a minute of my adult life. But those 'lifelong' pals.... yeah, that would be nice. The people who knew you back when you were goofy. The people that made the trip to Jersey with ya to go drinking when the drinking age in Jersey was 18. ...... the people that you drove around with - too many to a car, and who used seatbelts in those days? Hell, I had a good friend who had a Honda civic. Now THAT was a small car....... We were at the Jersey shore and nine of us piled into that car to go out to a bar..... damn that was fun. Damn I feel old!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, maybe Lisa will get my message someday. Wherever you are, girl, I hope that you are well and happy!!!!

Oh baby!

Am I the only one who thinks the Quizno's baby commercials are freaky? I mean, there is something scary about that baby. And the one where he is by the pool with the chick is just wrong on so many levels...... Of course, this is the company that brought us commercials with those deformed mice things or whatever they were..... I think they need to fire the exec in charge of advertising!

The one commercial I love these days is the beer commercial where the guy is teasing the monkey....... No, it's a real monkey, get yer minds outta the gutter. If I can find it somewhere on the net, I'll link it. But it makes me laugh every time.....

Can you tell I'm bored tonight?

Luc, and anyone else that's new.....

To leave a comment on any post, click on 'comments' and then 'post a comment'. Obviously the number of comments is already noted - you get a prize if you are the first one to comment on any post LOL... Obviously, if you don't want to leave a comment, you are still welcome to read the comments that have been left by others... It's a bit tedious, but so far it's okay. We are a small and elite group of superior people (cough, cough) so I don't expect it to get overwhelming in here. LOL

If you are a member (Deblin, Scotty, Cindy, me and now Luc), you can create a post of your very own simply by clicking on the "I Power Blogger" button on the right. That will take you to where you need to be to create a post of your very own.

Seriously, feel free to click on anything in here and explore all you want. There's not much to see and you can't break it, so what the hell, right?

If you are an old friend and you would like to be a member, please email me at virtuallydrifting@yahoo.com and I'll get you membersized (after you pay the $100 registration fee, of course) Just kidding!!

huggggers

I need your advice Lin!

I'm sure you've read my very boring post about cleaning out my desk (what can I say, it was a slow news day LOL). Well, in my little book there were two phone numbers for Lisa (LeeLeeNY). One was crossed out - that was her old number in NYC. The other, I was pretty sure, belonged to Bear. She had moved in with him the last I talked with her. That was a couple years ago. He had just gone through a divorce because his wife was cheating on him with guys she met online. He went online either to spite her or to find out what the attraction was or whatever, and he met Lee. They fell in love and she moved in with him. But he did not want her online anymore. Anyways..... we lost touch. I would love to find her and see how she's doing. I did a reverse phone number lookup and this IS Bear's phone number (I know his real name) and it's still in the directory so I assume it's still active...... haven't tried it though.

Here's my dilemma. I want to call. But what if things didn't work out and she's not there. What if things didn't work out and she's not there and there's a new girlfriend or wife who answers the phone. What if things didn't work out and he's really nasty and bitter about it. What if What if What if.....

Should I call? I really want to know how she's doing..... I do miss her. She was my first cserve friend. She was the first cserve friend I trusted with my phone number. She was the one who called me when she was in the hospital in labor with her baby. She's the one that I sent all my sons' baby clothes to when she was pregnant and on her own. I would love to know that she's doing okay. I'm just scared of all the 'what ifs'. Should I??????

For Linda.........

GET BETTER SOON!

Hey! Pictures work!!!

One Feisty Old Broad!

From CNN.com: A 79-year-old woman has been charged with using her wooden cane to strike police officers who arrived at her home to check on her welfare.

Okay, let me get this straight. The police came to HER house to check out whether or not she was the subject of abuse from her caretaker. As they try to handcuff her alleged abuser, she hits an officer over the head with her cane and gives him a concussion! Another officer suffers a separated shoulder and hand injury. They arrest both her AND her caretaker/alleged abuser and charge them with battery and resisting arrest.

Sounds to me like she's pretty damn good at taking care of herself...... I can just imagine the cops sitting at the bar. "So Harry, how'd you end up in the hospital yesterday? A deranged junkie? A foiled bank robbery? Wrestling a perp to the ground after a high speed chase?" "ummmmmm no, some old lady hit me over the head with her cane."

I wanna be that tough of a bitch when I'm 79!! You go, girl!

A Decade of Virtual Change

What has the internet become? It's scary and sad sometimes to see how the rules of netiquette have changed. I first powered up my modem in early 1995 and logged into Prodigy. At the time I was researching my family tree and they had these amazing forums where people could exchange information. I was amazed at the power of asking a question, and then receiving a dozen answers almost instantaneously. Wow - this is so cool! It was so much fun poking around the Prodigy site and finding so much information on anything and everything.

One day I wandered into a chatroom and I was mesmerized. This was a whole new world. Do you remember when you got your first "What are you wearing?" line. hehehe..... It didn't take me long to figure out that this wasn't going to be a conversation about fashion. I admit being shocked and it felt creepy. I quickly hit the exit key and vamoose..... ewwwwww. Are these guys sick or something? But I went back and learned that there was an 'ignore' key. That helped. I studied the conversations. Didn't take me long to learn the acronymese - LOL BRB LMAO OMG and all that stuff. It was a long time before I decided to dive in and try it. And I became addicted almost immediately. Why? What was it that drew us in? In my case, we had recently moved to Florida from the northeast and I admit that I was lonely for my old friends. I was stuck at home with two kids under the age of 7 and I didn't have a life of my own. Looking back on it now, it probably wasn't the most healthy choice because it allowed me to avoid real life in so many ways.

Things were so innocent in the early days though, weren't they? Sure, there were some real idiots out there, but overall the atmosphere was one of a party, day after day. When I went over to cserve it was even better because it became an 'international' party! That's what sold me on cserve over prodigy. Prodigy was just in the US, but cserve was all over the world. That was awesome.

I can honestly say that I did make some great friends - real friends. And it was so comforting to me that when we moved from Florida to Texas, my friends were still there. Geography had no bearing on the conversations or intrigues or any of it. Email was simple - spam didn't exist yet. I felt like I was part of a secret society because none of the people I knew in the 'real world' had email addresses nor did they understand why there would even be a need for one! When I left cserve because it was way too expensive (we paid by the hour then), there was a steep learning curve to navigatign the 'real' internet. We moved to the IRCs, which at first was very intimidating. That was when some of the 'badness' began to creep in. We tried to keep the group together, but by the late 90s it had already started to unravel. There were times that it got downright ugly. That was when I drifted away and so did most others.

Today, when I do venture into a dicussion group, forum, blog, message board or any of the hundreds of communication vistas on the net, it just seems that there is so much ugliness out there. I guess that I'm visiting the wrong places, but have only rarely found a place where I would even consider joining a discussion. Come to think of it, maybe twice in the last five years and it only lasted one or two posts. Maybe I'm just getting old. There is a serious lack of graciousness and civility on the net these days. I have much more to say, but I'll continue later....

Kind of Sad.......

Okay, I watched the Inauguration yesterday. It truly makes me sad and angry that all this security nonsense is so necessary. And yes, it IS necessary. Wouldn't matter if it was Kerry or Nader or Kermit the Frog's inauguration, it would have been the same. I HATE what the world has become. I wish that the world wasn't such a mess today...... What is the answer?

We're off to San Antonio this weekend for MORE hockey..... damn I can't wait till the season ends. Greg is in New Braufels at a tennis camp. So mom gets to have the house to herself. When do I get to have my house to myself??? I would LOVE that!!! Just for a day or two. A blessed, peaceful, wonderful, utopic day or two .

It's 78 outside right now at 5:00 PM!! It's so strange for January. Cold front moving in tonight though. It better NOT snow on the Eagles game Sunday!!! Of course, that could be a good thing since Atlanta doesn't handle the snow very well. Go Eagles! (People here in Texas HATE the Eagles - especially the die-hard Dallas fans). The Eagle's Tyrell Owens dissed the Cowboy's precious star on their field during a touchdown celebration. He is HATED in Dallas. So what does Chris do last Sunday when we were in Dallas? He wears his T.O. jersey to Applebee's for lunch and to watch the Eagles/Vikings game. That's my boy - gutsy (and not too bright LOL).
He was kind of disappointed that there weren't many people in the restaurant. Oh well, maybe next time.

Talk to ya later.......

Annual Purge!

My resolution for this year is to get rid of unnecessary junk that's taking up space and attracting dust.... I say this every year, but I'm serious this time. I tore my desk apart yesterday and it was amazing how much junk! One drawer was so stuffed that I couldn't even open it.... There were books in there that probably should be in a museum - Windows95 Users Guide, A Guide to the Internet (circa 1996 when Mosaic was the only browser around), etc etc. I found these two steno pads (remember steno pads?? Now that's a relic to begin with!). On these pads were all my notes from Cserve and the early IRC days. All the shortcuts and commands and tons of emails that looked like this: 73286.2@compuserve.com. Remember when we were numbers? And phone numbers...... for Christie and Lisa and Margie and Krislin and.... who were these people?? Okay, I remember Lisa well and I miss her so much. Obviously the number wasn't any good anymore dammit :(. I was so proud of myself though because I just THREW it all OUT!

I found extension cords and chargers and ac adapters and cables and plugs and I have no idea what any of them are for! Jim put them all in the garage because 'you just never know'. Yeah right - they'll fossilize in there, too, But at least they are out of my desk! Once the drawer was empty, I noticed it actually had a rack for hanging folders! I set up folders in there and it's all so organized and clean and the top of my desk is clear! Oh yeah, Jim bought me a flat screen monitor for Christmas. It's amazing how much space a regular monitor takes up on the desktop! It's so clean now - I am determined to keep it this way.

Okay, I give it a month..........

We're leaving in the morning for Dallas and won't be back until Monday. We'll be at hockey rinks all over the metro area and eating fast food and not sleeping very well.... When I think about how much money this hockey stuff costs - we could take a cruise every year instead! grrrrrrrrrrr.....

I'll be thinking of you. I hope Dick takes you out somewhere really special for dinner after you get back from taking David to school. Or maybe a bed and breakfast?

huggers and smoochies.....
me :)