Finally, clear skies Tuesday evening, so I set off about 7:45. About a mile and half east on Bayfield River Road, I saw something odd on the road ahead. It was large and appeared to be black. As I drew closer, I saw it was a cow, and then I saw another couple of cows making their way down into the left side ditch. Slowing down I spotted half a dozen more cows at the end of a farm lane on the right-hand side. They too were making for the road. There was no oncoming traffic or anyone behind me, so I slowed right up and carefully turned into that farm lane, and headed for the house therein. A lady was already out, so I pulled up to tell her about the cows. She said she knew and had already called her son. I turned around and headed back down the farm lane, thinking I had better park the car and help the farm fella wrangle those cows off the road. I had no clue how to even begin to do something like that. Well, I needn't have worried because up the farm lane came the young farmer in a side-by-side ATV. He was dangling a white bucket out the side, and there right along behind him came all the cows following pretty much in single file. With him calling to the cows, 'Koe-boss' 'Koe-boss', I instinctively knew he must have had some cow food in that bucket. And not only that, but he obviously knew exactly what to do to get those cows quickly off the road. Needless to say, I didn't have to throw a saddle on anything, nor hunt me up a length of rope to make a lariat out of. Lassoing cattle isn't necessarily my strongest point anyway.
Our power went off in the night but came back on again. However, when I woke up this morning, both the TV and internet were offline, so you can already see where I'm headed with my schmozzle. Not knowing if it was a Tuckersmith Communications (my internet provider) problem or just my setup here at home, I decided to wait until the Tuckersmith office was open in Bayfield. Besides, I had a prescription to drop off at Michaels Pharmasave, and it was in the same location as Tuckersmith. The lady at Tuckersmith had me go home and unplug (reboot) the Eero modem Box thingy, then wait thirty seconds and plug it back into the power outlet on my surge protector bar. Did that, and the little Eero light did not come on, meaning I was still not connected to the internet. I absolutely hate having to get on the phone and call tech support, but I was dead in the water and had no choice. I've had so many negative experiences dealing with people online whom I couldn't understand most of the time, waiting in a long phone queue to be heard, and then having to enter passwords, PIN numbers, birth dates, the color of my favorite dog, and the license plate number of my very first car. These are the reasons I switched from my Eastlink Internet Provider based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Tuckersmith Communications, based in Seaforth, Ontario, only a twenty-minute drive from here. And that change of internet providers paid off this morning. Right away, I was in touch with a nice lady speaking plain English, asking only, 'how may I help you'. She was very patient with me in getting everything up and running again. In fact, she had more patience with me than I generally have with myself. But still, getting everything going again was no easy task for me. I won't go into all the things I had to do, re-do, and do all over again because of my mistakes, but it was a lengthy process. Well, at least it seemed that way to me. And why was that?? Because I was the one making the mistakes. But, despite all that, little did the lady or I, know that there was another contributing factor. Unbeknownst at the time, the surge protector that everything is plugged into had been compromised. Anyway, we did get everything up and running somehow and I was briefly a happy camper. Except it didn't last long. I noticed my Bose sound bar was not powering up. So, I guess in unplugging the power cord, I somehow knocked out the internet and TV again. It's a wonder I still have any hair left because I sure felt like ripping it out by the handful. So, somewhere in the agonizing process of trying to get things up and running again, I made a discovery. Some of the power outlets in the surge protector didn't seem to be working. Or, they would work okay and then they wouldn't, and that kind of made sense as to why we had trouble earlier getting things going. I didn't want to call tech support back and have that poor lady painstakingly guide me through everything again, so I took a chance and unplugged everything from the surge protector and replaced it with a simple power bar. Before I introduced the power bar into the system, I plugged it into a power outlet in the washroom and then plugged my electric shaver into the seven outlets to make sure they all worked. They did. Back behind the TV I went and rehooked up everything. With great apprehension, I waited for things to cycle up. Everything did, and I was lucky enough to remember the programming procedures for getting both the TV and Internet back up and online again. But oh my, what a schmozzle it had been!! At least I now have a better chance of figuring this all out if it happens again. Well, that is if it happens again within the next twenty minutes because after that, my memory will have cleared itself of al helpful instructions:((
It was just too hot and humid for me to even think about venturing outside this afternoon so it was more time spent on my exercise bike watching interesting things on YouTube.
A Blast From Our Past:: Bloggers.....We're Quite A Bunch In my third year of blogging, I wrote a few paragraphs about bloggin in this post back in September of 2009, and it had to do with my thoughts about blogging at that time. The paragraphs are near the end of that daily blog, and begin with the words, 'Had an interesting email from a fellow Blogger friend'. Also, Facebook threw my some photos from our first year RVing to the southwest. Due to a water pump leak in our fifthwheel while doing an overnighter at Eastern Arizona's Patagonia Lake State Park we had to head for a repair facility in Tucson, Arizona. I was called Beaudry RV Park. While there for a few days, we decided to take the pick up truck and head off and head off to have a look around the west side of Tucson. One of the places we stopped at was, ?? This is where many of the old Western movies were made many years ago. Most of the original set burned down, but part of it had been rebuilt. Kelly and I wandered around looking at things and then all of a sudden we ended up in a gunfight on the street. Below are the photos took of that gunfight.
Al's Music Box:(( Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens.
GROANER'S CORNER:(( While shopping in a food store, two nuns happened to pass by the beer, wine, and liquor section. One asked the other if she would like a beer. The second nun answered that, indeed, it would be very nice to have one, but that she would feel uncomfortable purchasing it. The first nun replied that she would handle it without a problem. She picked up a six-pack and took it to the cashier. The cashier was surprised, so the nun said, This is for washing our hair. Without blinking an eye, the cashier reached under the counter and put a package of pretzel sticks in the bag with the beer. The curlers are on me.
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Meanings::
Al's Art Gallery
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| A QUICK SHAKY SHOT OF THE LAST COW RUNNING BY ME |
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| AND ANOTHER QUICK SHOT IN MY SIDEVIEW MIRROR OF THE FARMER LEADING THE COWS BACK TO THEIR PASTURE |
Nice evening for a walk, a coffee to go in Clinton, and some quiet time at my stargazing spot on Tower Hill Line.
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| I JUST MADE IT TO MY WALKING ROAD IN TIME TO CATCH A QUICK GLIMPSE OF THE SETTING SUN PEEKING OUT FROM BEHIND A HEAVY CLOUD COVER ON THE HORIZON |
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| AND YES, THERE ARE STILL A FEW DANDELIONS GROWING ALONG THE ROADSIE |
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| ONE OF MY LITTLE PALS PEEKING IN THE PATIO DOOR AND WONDERING WHERE I AM AND WHY I HAVEN'T COME OUT TO PLAY TODAY |
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| YOU CAN SEE KELLY STANDING THERE DRESSED IN BLACK |
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| WE VENTURED INTO THE GRAND PALACE SALOON |
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| AND THEN A GUNFIGHT BROKE OUT IN THE STREET |
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| OF COURSE IT WAS ALL PLAY ACTING TO SHOW HOW AND WHERE THE OLD MOVIES WERE MADE |
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| OUR GMC TRUCK AND ROCKWOOD FIFTH WHEEL WEST OF TUCSON, ARIZONA |
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| IN A SMALL PARKING AREA AT THE FOOT OF THE QUINLAN MOUNTAINS....KELLY STAYED HERE WITH THE DOGGY GUYS WHILE I DROVE UP INTO THOSE MOUNTAINS TO THE KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY FOR A LOOK AROUND |
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| IN THE FIFTH WHEEL, THERE'S KELLY AT THE TABLE WITH OUR ONLY LAPTOP AT THE TIME, WHILE RELAXING ON THE COUCH ARE CORA (MOTORMOUSE) AND MAX, WHILE CHECKERS IS STRETCHED OUT ON THE FLOOR |
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"The Jewish people have observed their 5758th year as a people," the Hebrew teacher informed his class. "Consider that the Chinese have observed only their 4695th. What does this mean to you?" After a reflective pause, one student volunteered, "Well, for one thing, the Jewish people had to do without Chinese food for 1063 years."
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A plane hit a patch of severe turbulence and the passengers were holding on tight as it rocked and reeled through the night. A little old lady turned to a minister who was sitting behind her and said, "You're a man of God. Can't you do something about this?" He replied, "Sorry, I can't. I'm in sales, not management."
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A pious man who had reached the age of 105 suddenly stopped going to synagogue. Alarmed by the old fellow's absence after so many years of faithful attendance, the Rabbi went to see him. He found him in excellent health, so the Rabbi asked, "How come after all these years we don't see you at services anymore?" The old man caustiously looked around and lowered his voice. "I'll tell you, Rabbi," he whispered. "When I got to be 90, I expected God to take me any day. But then I got to be 95, then 100, then 105. So I figured that God is very busy and must've forgotten about me, and I don't want to remind Him!"
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Two little Morons were building a barn. While putting up the inside wall, one noticed that the other little Moron was tossing every other nail into the garbage can.He asked, "Why are you throwing those nails away?" The other little Moron answered, "The pointed end is on the wrong end of the nail." The other little Moron said, "Well, don't throw those away, we can use those on the outside wall!"
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Al's Doggy World
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| OUR VERY OWN CHECKERS TWENTY YEARS AGO |
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