Madison Run . . .

It is Halloween time and Judie is off to Madison.  She flies up there annually for Halloween.  She stays a four or five days and returns.  During that time she spells the parents and watches the grand kids, that is after all the prime objective.

Jane is yet to young to care.  Will at four years is full of enthusiasm.  He anticipates his grandmother arriving and the gifts she is bearing.  Plus there is always a shopping trip to Target or similar emporium of toys. 

Will is not starved for attention or toys, he just sees an opportunity to expand his horizon so to speak.  And his grandmother is pleased to do it for him.

His parents are as all young married couples with families, tied up with work and parenting and need as short respite - rest.  It sort of recharges them for the onslaught of the holiday season approaching.  The weather is nice, beginning to change from Autumn to Winter.  And Winter can be brutal in those northern climes.  The lakes freeze over, and the main lake is probably five or six times the size of False River, I mean it is huge.  No water shortage there.

I will retrieve Judie from DFW Sunday and on the way home we will stop at Pappadeaux's to eat.  I would say dine but not really sure of the time of day as we all know, airlines are imprecise on their timing.  By then I will tire of my home cooking.

It will be good to see her back.

HP Inkjet Refills . . .

Years ago I had an Epson printer, an ink jet printer.  I had terrible experience with that piece of crap.  So the next ink jet printer I got was an HP.  It was mostly plastic but worked fine.  The only thing was the ink refills were expensive.  And with time I found a secondary source of ink cartridges that saved me about 50% over HP prices.

The old HP finally wore out and I replaced with a new super duper HP.  It is connected to the computer via a 2.4 gigabyte electronic connection.  No more wires.  Well I had one wire at first, the same old printer cable from a USB port over to the printer.  Now that cable sits fallow in the back of everything sitting there just in case.

I had bought one set of secondary market replace cartridges, the infamous "564" cartridge.  A newer design but been around long enough for the secondary market to come up with refills and refill kits.

So I ordered up a refill kit.  Cost about $35 and came with four bottles of ink and two syringes with needles and set screw plugs.  The plugs are threaded and it also has a little Allen wrench to install the new threaded plugs.  Of course, it had the appropriate instructions which were dated and not quite the way to do the job.

I went on the Internet and there are several home brew videos on how to do it yourself.  There are some good tips like make sure the top of the reservoir is well sealed, not vent but the ink installation port needs to be air tight or the cartridge will seep ink.

I had one cartridge, cyan or blue, that was reporting empty.  The printer lets you know when you need to refill or reload an ink cartridge.  It will go so far as to even order one for you from HP (at an unbelievable price plus the ever present shipping cost).

I opened up the printer, removed the cartridge.  I carefully peeled back the plastic tape on top and it revealed a small hole in the top.  The syringe needle passed through the hole into the reservoir.  So I loaded up the syringe with 10 milliliters of blue ink and shove the needle and emptied the syringe.  No overflow or back flow, so I added 19 more milliliters.  Then I carefully wiped off the top and resealed the port of the cartridge.  I washed out the syringe with water, about three or four flushes with water cleared the needle and syringe for the next job.

I figure I have enough ink for the next two years.  In round numbers I ought to save about $100 or more over the refill cartridges at Staples or Walmart.

What gets me is that HP asks you to send the cartridges back as an environmental recycling thing.  All they are doing is reloading and resell the cartridges.  Staples takes the empty cartridges too.  I am sure they also recycle them with new ink.

No matter, I enjoy doing those kinds of things.  And if I can save a dollar or two at doing, well that's all the better for me.  I have time and inclination to do it.

One of the great benefits of retirement.

Clicks and Clacks . . .

I am getting used to the new hearing aids.  I hear the change in my pockets, the jangling of keys, rubbing of my hands across the steering wheel of the car and it goes on and on.  I was missing all that, well noise.  Not so sure it was a bad thing.  Running water is loud as is crushing a plastic water bottle.  Sometimes it can be very disconcerting.

These tiny devices are certainly more sensitive than can be imagined.  They are tuned so to speak.  For instance in a car, they will recognize more sound is coming from the interior rather than the exterior of the car, and emphasizes the interior sounds or conversely deemphasize the outside sounds.  Judie was tapping her fingers on the car door rest in the right seat and I could hear that very clearly while driving with the radio playing. 

These tiny devices have programs that do small things for you.  The concentrate the sound in front of you.  Each hearing aid has two microphones and can do a comparative analysis and the programs take over.  Thus if you point your head at the TV set is does a good job of collecting the sound.  Right now as I type, the den TV is on and it is located on my right side and it is emphasizing the right side.

The can also suppress wind sounds, a typical irritant to hearing aid users.  It also suppresses feed back signals so one does not get squeals in the ear as occurred in past hearing aids.

These  are so programmed for high pitched sound, the area that my hearing is deficient; it does not amplify low pitched sounds, sounds at or below 2,500 to 3,000 cycles.  Anything above that frequency starts falling off rapidly so that by the time 5,000 to 6,000 cycles are reached there is a serious loss of sensitivity.  Of course, beyond 6,000 or so cycles was missing all together.  These hearing aids fill in those areas while they do not change the sensitivity of sounds below those numbers.  So normal discussion in a fairly quite situation is about the same.

Right now they are not set up to depress the Tinnitus and I can hearing it ringing away.  It is only when I am in a very noisy situation that the Tinnitus disappears.  It is there, it is just overridden by the other income sounds.  I am told "white noise" can be programmed in and it overrides the Tinnitus.  In time your ear learns to ignore both the Tinnitus and the white noise.

My right ear is still more sensitive to the presence of the sound receiver in the ear.  So it is sometimes bothersome to me.  I push on it and it seems to change a bit and seems to go away for a while.  Sort of like pushing up your glasses every once in a while.  I am sure I will get used to it.

 Just another getting old thing.

Next Year . . .

Its next year for LSU.  I can not believe the offensive coordinator tried the same play four times and it was intercepted three times.  I would knock his vaunted salary down a few bucks.

That's the way it is.

LSU, Rain and Things . . .

Things first.  I have new hearing aids.  Nice.  Phonak Brand, is said to be top of the line.  Though I am sure all hearing aids have some draw backs.  These sound a little tinny to me but I am hearing sounds that I have not heard in years. 

Lots of new hearing aid terminology.  For instance, I have RIC hearing aids.  That means Receiver In Canal.  A receiver is hearing aid speak for speaker.  So I have the speakers in the ear.  The actual hearing amplifier, etal, is behind my ear.  A clear plastic tube runs to the receiver that is in the ear canal.  The receiver has a soft plastic cone or as I call it, basket on it.  The pointy end of the cone goes in the ear canal.  It has slits in basket so it is open to outside sounds.  In my case the hearing aids are programmed for high pitched sounds, not low pitched sounds.  So the low pitched sounds enter the ear canal by passing the cones.  The receiver transmits the high pitched sounds.  A hearing test confirmed nothing is wrong with my ear drum, it is all inner ear stuff.

Each hearing aid has to microphones in it and are separated by a switch.  The switch on the right ear turns the volume up and the switch in the left ear turns the volume down.  When you press one, you hear the aids respond with a tone.  Yes, they talk to each other.  There in lies a few new programs to help the hearing.  Wind noises are suppressed.  Feedback noise like I used hear my father-in-law experience are suppressed.  They are said to have five memories and four special programs.  Any way they work.

I also have Tinnitus.  Nothing can be done about it.  It appears to be cochlear nerve damage probably caused by Diabetes, the nerve killer.  The hearing aids can be programmed to introduce white noise to suppress the Tinnitus.  As yet I have not had that done as the while I am aware of Tinnitus all the time, it is not the dominant sounds I hear.

LSU.  LSU football team displayed a superior defense Saturday.  They shut down Florida.  I think Florida was surprised by the LSU performance.  The run game, always pretty good, became better.  The style that LSU showed was different and Florida's vaunted defense did not know what to do.  They kicked a couple of field goals, no touch downs.  While LSU hammered in two touch downs and a field goal to seal the victory.  Florida was done and done in.

Next up is Ole Miss.  Ole Miss is always dangerous to LSU.  But then it seems all SEC opponents are dangerous for LSU.  Everybody points up to be LSU.  We seem to be the standard to bring down.  Well if we survive Ole Miss, Bama and Texas A&M are next after that.  I do not think Arkansas will present much defense as they will have had the crap beat out of them by all the other teams.  Furman is a total unknow to us and should present a nice game.  Never can tell about out of conference teams and again, like the all rest of them, they seem to really get ready to play LSU.

We started to get rain in the night.  We got about an inch, maybe a little less.  Nice slow dribble like rain that soaked in.  We live on water from lakes so all rain is welcomed here in this semi-desert area.  People do not realize we are on the edge of desert here.  And all the lakes are man made here.  The little rivers flow into the lakes.  Some of the lakes are way down.  Lake Travis near Austin is down 40 some odd feet.  That is significant.  We have done a little better than Austin but not by much.

And the beat goes on.

The Shutdown . . .

I am reminded of the Democratic mantra, never waste a crisis.  The President is going after if with all he can muster.  Closing parking lots at Mt Vernon, George Washington's Plantation.  Mt Vernon does not belong to the US Government, only the access road and parking lot belong to the national park service.  So in typical Democratic mean action, they barricaded the parking lot at the end of the causeway.  A parking lot that cost nothing to maintain except an occasional street sweeper and maybe restriping of parking spaces every three or four years.  It is nothing but a blatant attempt to make use of a governmental crisis by the present administration.  They are liberally spread mud all over themselves in doing such actions.

And it among many others makes the government, yes that is a little g, and the administration look like mean old pikers.  They blame it on Republicans.  But Republicans did not shut down the government, the administration did.  The administration chose not to be realistic and mindful of the owner, the US citizens, they just ran rough shod over anything they could to irritate the public.

They closed the national cemeteries over seas.  These are stalwart reminders of the horrors of war and the need for peace.  I have been to many of them.  They are quite and peaceful locations.  In their own way are quite beautiful, some with battle dioramas.  They have clean rest rooms, plenty of parking, a welcome center and never have I seen a person doing anything for the visitor.  I am sure there is a staff to keep the place clean, mow the grass and keep up the crosses and  stars of David over each grave.  They even closed part of  Omaha Beach at Normandy.  What an insult to our French hosts, what an insult to all our European Allies.  Need I remind you there are thousands of available military personnel to keep these facilities open.

Clearly, the administration is making use of the financial crisis and exploiting all they can but they are being extremely short sighted.  The press is lapping it up.  Taking more guards to guard the barricades than when the park is open kind of thing.  It is self defeating.  It is spending what little cash the government has in the til just to be mean to its owners, the US Citizens!

I am told Lincoln Park in Washington D.C. is closed to the public but held open by Democratic and Republican Congressional persons who use it to walk in.  The Mall in front of the Capitol is a national park and they are trying to keep citizens from walking across it.   The have barricade the Lincoln Memorial and other sites only to be thwarted in some cases by citizens and Congress persons.

This is our President.  He is making a fool out of himself before the world.   He telephones Republicans but the first words out of his mouth are "I will not negotiated with you."  What kind of idiot is that that shoots himself in the foot before even talking to Congressional representatives.  He will never sell anything to them as long as he takes a hard stand.  He purposely chides the very people he needs to pass a Continuing Resolution.  President Clinton suffered through government shut downs and was able to negotiate with the Congress.  How is President Obama going to do that with his rhetoric and diatribes?  Good technique, right ~ first you piss them off, then call them names  I am sure that will do the job of convincing them to change.

An old saw comes to mind, "The lights are on but nobody is at home,"