I LIKE TO HEAR THE PITTER PATTER OF LITTLE PAWS IN THE MORNING

MOODY MOUNTAINS OF BORREGO SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

I have heard it said that older folks require less sleep.  I wonder why that is & I certainly do not agree with that.  Seems like it should be the other way around.  Lack of sleep is directly related to crankiness & it's rare to hear of young people being cranky.  Definitely an older folks affliction.  It's been about 4 years now since I last had a full night's sleep so you can see it's been awhile that I have been 'cranked!!'  Sometimes I sleep in my bed & sometimes in my recliner but it's usually a combination of both.  Back & forth, back & forth!!  I usually go to bed somewhere around 11 & am generally back up around 4 with a couple of stops in between.  This makes for some very long tiresome days.  Low energy levels & lack of motivation are the nasty side affects but I would rather deal with these than the addictive side affects of sleeping pills.  Just the way it is I guess so I had just better get used it!!

Had a good day yesterday........only did 2 dumb things.  The key to the door of our carport storage area has always been missing so yesterday I decided to round up all our errant keys laying around & go try them all in the door.  Of course while doing this I accidentally locked the door & you know that none of the keys ever ended up working.  There were things inside that I needed so with no other choice I was forced to put a well aimed single kick to the side of the doorknob which of course popped the door right open.......with of course the normal amount of damage.  So, now that's gotta be fixed!!  Second Einstein thing I did was to fire up the rig's generator & then of course get busy with some other things, head off into the house & forget the generator running outside.  Don't even ask how long the generator ran!!!!  Alright, while I'm at it I might as well mention that I forgot my laundry in the dryer so it laid in there all night & now I have another week of walking around looking like a big wrinkled up mess.  There was something else too but fortunately I've already forgot what it was.  Geeeezzzz, hope I didn't leave something running somewhere again!!!!!

RELAXING IN THE DESERT

I have always been kind of a news hound.  Years ago I subscribed to the daily newspaper while living in Stratford, Ontario & liked to stay current with all the local happenings.  We don't have a daily paper in Bayfield so over the past 7 years I've gotten away from local news & more into the habit of worldly television news.  CNN has been my channel of choice & yes, I guess you could say I had become addicted to that as well.  It has always been a love/hate thing with CNN but I am now working on a parting of ways strategy with them.  In fact I am turning the volume down on all my news interests.  I have just simply become tired of all the negative reporting, the repetitive re-hashing, the schlocky announcers, the ever increasing loud & stupid commercials, & just news in general.  I'm beginning to believe in that old saying, 'no news is good news!!'  Instead of cracking on CNN now when I get up around 4 a.m.  I simply put on my favorite soothing ambient music channel, & either just relax in my recliner or pull out the laptop, click it on, & see what the rest of you fellow blogger schmoggers are up to:))   Just seems a nicer & more realistic way to start the day......10-4!!

I love hearing the pitter patter of little paws in the morning.  The rest of the Bayfield Bunch doesn't usually begin to stir until around 6 a.m. & little Cora (Motormouse) is generally the first one up.  She always sleeps on my bed so I can hear her jump down & listen for the patter of little paws coming down the hall as she heads out to where I am in the living room.   She jumps up on my lap & I have to move the laptop off to one side so she can get snuggled in to her little spot.  Next it is Checkers coming down the hall heading for her favorite spot right next to my chair where she knows I will give her a big snuggle a pet her with one hand while trying to type with the other.  Sometimes, like this morning, I pet her in between sentences as I am typing this.  Max stays on his couch across the room until he's ready to go out but stops by my chair first for his big first snuggle of the day too.  Somewhere amidst all this petting & snuggling stuff Kelly gets up, puts the coffee on, & heads for the computer in the sunroom.  It's usually around 7 when the Motormouse starts up with the first game of toys for the day & playtime with the gang just gets more crazy from there.  Barking dogs, flying rubber chickens, bouncing colored balls, & squeaking pink bananas fill the air as we're all racing around in the living room driving Mom bonkers.  And this is only the very first 'toys time' of the day.  It's the same scenario while we're traveling only we have a lot less space for our morning shenanigans & Mom gets a whole lot more madder at us guys.

D'YA NEED SOME HELP THERE DAD??

Just noticed we have some new blog followers so I'd like to welcome Jenni, Mary Ann, William & Karen.  And thanks to all you other followers for tagging along with us as well.  Much appreciated:))

STORMY SKYS WHILE BOONDOCKING NEAR BORREGO SPRINGS, CA.

Had an email from my long time best friend Jim in Stratford last week suggesting we meet for our semi-annual coffee blow-out of the year so we met at a Tim Hortons coffee shop in Mitchell Ontario at 10 this morning.  We left at 1:30 in the afternoon so that was an average blow-out for us.  I have blogged about Jim & our coffee routines years ago in a previous blog.  Jim actually gave up coffee quite a few years ago so I guess we could call it a coffee/orange juice blow out.  But more than one coffee or orange juice??  Nope, we both just have one & make it last for 3 or 4 hours.  That's OK for orange juice but cold coffee sure doesn't do a whole lot for me after a couple of hours!!  Our friendship goes back many years.  Another fellow dropped in but I will blog about the co-incidental significance the 3 of us had sitting there in a later October 19th blog.  Don't know if either one of them thought of it to-day but I sure did.  These two guys & a bunch of other good folks were instrumental in changing the course of my life 30 years ago this month..................!!

GROANER'S CORNER:((  Get a new car for your spouse. It'll be a great trade!!

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS  http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.

THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING RANT:))

"SMOKIN" THE KEYBOARD!!

Well, some of you may have noticed that last night's blog about CNN kind of disappeared to-day. Don from Manitoba sent an email wondering if someone had told me it was politically incorrect. Well, yes somebody did.........Me!! As sometimes happens after writing a blog, I have second thoughts about either the subject matter or the way I wrote it. Last night & this morning it was really bugging me about some of the words I had used & a couple of phrases were not sitting quite right either. But, I do stand behind the subject matter!! So, after reading some emails from a few more followers I have decided to re-post it. I did change a few words & took out a few phrases. Don't think it's right for me to refer to somebody else as stupid, even if.......well, you know.

And a big thanks to Rex from The Happy Campers http://www.rexandmary.blogspot.com/ for sending along a tip on how to re-size that top photo on our blog. I've got a little tweaking to do yet but basically his tip worked. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I passed it along here........

"I GO TO PICSA3 PICTURE EDITING, A FREE PROGRAM FROM GOOGLE, EDIT MY PICTURE AND THEN HIT "EXPORT" A LITTLE BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM. WHEN THE NEXT BOX COMES UP ABOUT HALF WAY DOWN CLICK RESIZE AND TYPE IN "945" PIXELS. CLICK "OK".
GO TO MY PICTURES, OPEN THE FOLDER PICASA EXPORTS AND THEN UPLOAD THAT PICTURE TO YOUR HEADER."

Ok, now for last night's re-appearing rant................

TICKED OFF AT CNN NEWS!!
Probably all the news channels use this "bait the viewer" ploy in their newscasts but since we mainly watch CNN News my complaint is with them. Like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey's nose to get him moving, newscasts regularly use the same bait ploy to drag viewers through a whole newscast. They will often say something like, "coming up after this" then cut to a million commercials. You end up sitting there waiting for the "coming up after this" story right to the end of the newscast. It's an accepted part of duping viewers on the news channels but to-day they really ticked me off!!

Wolf Blitzer started off the usual 5 o'clock top of the hour with news bites of what's coming up in the next hour. One of those stories was about the Conficker Virus now infecting millions of computers. He indicated that it was a scam & eluded to the fact computer users were being taken. The newscast then led off with all the days news & dozens of re-runs they have been playing all day. This went on for an hour & every once in awhile between endless commercials he would say something like, "and coming up, new details on the Conficker Virus." By this time I was soooooo livid because I knew they were dragging the viewers through the newscast with the donkey's carrot.

Normally, this is a harmless, if not questionably ethical way of doing things and it was 5:57 P.M. before they did the Conficker story. A full 56 minutes after they first mentioned it. Story went on to say that people were being scammed by a pop up on the screen saying they could rid their computer of the Conficker Virus for $49.95. (not sure if that was the exact amount) By clicking on that banner or site or whatever it was, it just spread the virus further. And that's what the scam was. People were unknowingly infecting their computers by clicking on that ad.

Now here's my rub!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why in the screaming hell didn't they lead off with that story in the first place if they had that information in their hands. How many people in that hour fell victim to that scam because they didn't know. How many more computers were infected that didn't have to be. There may have been people on their computers in that hour watching CNN as well. That scam might have popped up on their screen & they may have fallen for it simply because CNN in their "bait the viewer" way of doing business chose to air that story dead last in their newscast. CNN seems to be sooooooooo focused on how many commercials they can possible jam onto the air between their snippets of news coverage. And how many times do you have to re-run the same old clips over & over all day long before the word ridiculous comes into play. And who makes those decisions. And what top paid fancy ass executive at CNN made the decision to-day to put that Conficker warning on at the end of the newscast instead of the beginning. Computer virus's are deadly serious to absolutely everyone & for Wolf Blitzer to stand there for a whole hour with the information he had in his hand to help stop or slow the virus down, & withhold it through the whole newscast was just plain wrong. Either change your tactics CNN or just roll over into the infomercial world.

By the way, I just finished reading Walter Cronkite's book, A Reporter's Life, & I strongly suggest ALL of to-day's news agency's read that book & seriously take to heart & re-learn the ethics of Journalism.

No, I didn't fall for that Conficker scam. I or the public simply do not like being treated as Donkey's, so stick that carrot where the sun don't shine CNN & get on with the business of treating your viewers with the intelligence they deserve!!

Geeeezzzz, gotta go get a fire extinguisher cause my keyboards on fire again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!