We are driving to Wisconsin to visit our grand children (and their parents). It is not too far, about 900 miles or so up through Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois and then into Wisconsin. Madison, the destination, is not to far into Wisconsin, and a very pleasant place to visit. It is moderately cosmopolitan city being both a state capital and home of the University of Wisconsin. It has two grand lakes, one huge and one not so big. Quite a beautiful place.
On the way back we will detour and go into Iowa to visit our friends who moved there from Ruidoso, NM. What a change in climate and location for them, from the desert and mountains to the plains and corn fields. It will be good to see them, they have stopped by to see us many times, so it is our turn to visit.
Then we will dash down I-35 back to Weatherford and the heat. But the new route back will be a change and thus a bit more fun to see the country side from a different direction. We will be traveling literally down the middle of the great USA.
We will be driving in relative comfort in the "whale." The whale is a big silver Lincoln Navigator. It is big and floats down the road, hence its name - the whale. Nice and cool in side, plenty of room and even has air conditioned seats. With satellite radio we can listen to uninterrupted talk radio, or music of our choice. While the whale consumes more gasoline it has a bigger gas tank, so we will stop in our usual spots to lunch and refuel on the way up. The way down will be for the most part an all new route for us.
We are looking forward to a cool respite but not sure what we will get up there in the frozen Narth. It can get really warm at times but that big lake tends to keep Madison comfortable. Hard to believe that in winter both lakes freeze over. Sailing in the summer and ice fishing in the winter.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Windows 10
I signed up for Windows 10 and it is in their terms "reserved" and will down load in the background. That they have to know what kind of computer I have. I suppose that is test to see if my computer can handle it.
I am pretty sure it can as it is relatively fast. It has a Intel dual core processor and speed of 2.5 GHz. I have four Gigs of RAM and perhaps 250 megabytes of space on my hard drive. So there ought to be plenty of room for the new system. I liked Windows 95, I had a battle loading Windows 98 but finally overcame that hurtle. I have Windows Millennium on this machine and my lap top. I have since converted them to Windows 7 Ultimate. Windows 7 was and is a pretty good operating system but I am sure it will get dropped in the next six or nine months. And the new system is free, so , , ,
I cringe at having to learn yet another system. I liked each one in the past and I guess I will convert soon enough. I used be a Word Perfect person but got overrun by Microsoft Word. I have literally lost all memory of Word Perfect. And I do not know if old applications like Quicken 6 or Word for Windows XP (I have downloaded various patches to get that to work).
So we move on ahead - again.
I am pretty sure it can as it is relatively fast. It has a Intel dual core processor and speed of 2.5 GHz. I have four Gigs of RAM and perhaps 250 megabytes of space on my hard drive. So there ought to be plenty of room for the new system. I liked Windows 95, I had a battle loading Windows 98 but finally overcame that hurtle. I have Windows Millennium on this machine and my lap top. I have since converted them to Windows 7 Ultimate. Windows 7 was and is a pretty good operating system but I am sure it will get dropped in the next six or nine months. And the new system is free, so , , ,
I cringe at having to learn yet another system. I liked each one in the past and I guess I will convert soon enough. I used be a Word Perfect person but got overrun by Microsoft Word. I have literally lost all memory of Word Perfect. And I do not know if old applications like Quicken 6 or Word for Windows XP (I have downloaded various patches to get that to work).
So we move on ahead - again.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
I Have Learned . . .
I have learned that when I get some kind of crazy response on the computer to go to Bing or Google and ask a question. The answer is usually there somewhere.
Most recent is I kept getting a message that said the Internet Explorer was not working yet it was. And the message of course popped up in the middle of the window being very obnoxious and persistent. Again and again it was occurring.
So I Googled it and sure enough I found five or six others had similar experiences. That tells me it is not unusual and that there has to be a fix. Sure enough there was a fix. One had to "reset" Internet Explorer. And there was step by step instructions from a real person from Windows. The first procedure did not work but the second one given did indeed work and I got Internet Explorer 11 reset and the irritant disappeared.
I recently got a medical report from my Cardiologist. And I took it apart literally phrase by phrase. I found the most innocuous phrase was the key one and what I thought was the bad one was not bad at all. The amazing thing was all of those phrases popped up when they were typed into Google or Bing. There was even a phrase about the shape of the pulse shown on the EKG that indicated an issue, precursor of heart disease. The report was from a Nuclear Stress test.
Those two search engines worked like a charm. And yes, there was some cause for concern in the Cardiologist's report. I now understand why he sent me off to do Computed Tomography Angiogram or CTA. That is a non-invasive close examination of my heart and its arteries.
A CTA is a fancy name for a modern computer run X-ray machine that is coupled into a EKG. The EKG tells the X-ray machine when the heart is resting and the X-ray machine takes pictures of the heart and the surrounding arteries that feed the heart muscle. And the CTA takes very narrow pictures, like one 256th of an inch width. This is very precise and non-invasive look at your (and in my case my) heart arteries. It can detect both hard and soft plaque in your arteries. Neither one is good. In my case it turns out that I have Arteriosclerosis or Atherosclerosis - hardening of the arteries. There is some blockage that ranges from 30% to 50% blockage in several locations. At this point nothing is done except taking drugs such as Metoprolol (Beta Blocker), baby sized Aspirin (blood thinner and known preventer of heart attacks), Analapril (Ace Inhibitor for blood pressure reduction) and exercise. Nothing will remove the Calcium and in time I may end up with a Stent installed but not yet.
The material of great concern is Calcium build up that keeps the arteries from being flexible. I have so far good blood flow but definite hardening of arteries. Since our blood carries at all times 1% or more Calcium, it will continue be it ever so slow (I hope). There also seems to be an ever so slight build up of Calcium on the left ventricle heart valve (not unexpected with all the other Calcium build up). The blood flow numbers are in the satisfactory range but not that great.
So I read the reports in detail, and checked all the details. I would not have had such access without a computer and being linked to the Internet. And I have acquired more words for my vocabulary like "Stenosis" which means narrowing. So if one hears he or she has stenosis, then you know you are getting plaque build up around the heart (not good).
My risk for a heart attack increases. Of course something will eventually kill us all. Perhaps a fatal heart attack is better than a prolonged cancer event. No matter, we do not get out of this world alive, some ways of departing are better than others.
And perhaps my curiosity and the Internet are not such good things for me to explore. Hmmmm.
Most recent is I kept getting a message that said the Internet Explorer was not working yet it was. And the message of course popped up in the middle of the window being very obnoxious and persistent. Again and again it was occurring.
So I Googled it and sure enough I found five or six others had similar experiences. That tells me it is not unusual and that there has to be a fix. Sure enough there was a fix. One had to "reset" Internet Explorer. And there was step by step instructions from a real person from Windows. The first procedure did not work but the second one given did indeed work and I got Internet Explorer 11 reset and the irritant disappeared.
I recently got a medical report from my Cardiologist. And I took it apart literally phrase by phrase. I found the most innocuous phrase was the key one and what I thought was the bad one was not bad at all. The amazing thing was all of those phrases popped up when they were typed into Google or Bing. There was even a phrase about the shape of the pulse shown on the EKG that indicated an issue, precursor of heart disease. The report was from a Nuclear Stress test.
Those two search engines worked like a charm. And yes, there was some cause for concern in the Cardiologist's report. I now understand why he sent me off to do Computed Tomography Angiogram or CTA. That is a non-invasive close examination of my heart and its arteries.
A CTA is a fancy name for a modern computer run X-ray machine that is coupled into a EKG. The EKG tells the X-ray machine when the heart is resting and the X-ray machine takes pictures of the heart and the surrounding arteries that feed the heart muscle. And the CTA takes very narrow pictures, like one 256th of an inch width. This is very precise and non-invasive look at your (and in my case my) heart arteries. It can detect both hard and soft plaque in your arteries. Neither one is good. In my case it turns out that I have Arteriosclerosis or Atherosclerosis - hardening of the arteries. There is some blockage that ranges from 30% to 50% blockage in several locations. At this point nothing is done except taking drugs such as Metoprolol (Beta Blocker), baby sized Aspirin (blood thinner and known preventer of heart attacks), Analapril (Ace Inhibitor for blood pressure reduction) and exercise. Nothing will remove the Calcium and in time I may end up with a Stent installed but not yet.
The material of great concern is Calcium build up that keeps the arteries from being flexible. I have so far good blood flow but definite hardening of arteries. Since our blood carries at all times 1% or more Calcium, it will continue be it ever so slow (I hope). There also seems to be an ever so slight build up of Calcium on the left ventricle heart valve (not unexpected with all the other Calcium build up). The blood flow numbers are in the satisfactory range but not that great.
So I read the reports in detail, and checked all the details. I would not have had such access without a computer and being linked to the Internet. And I have acquired more words for my vocabulary like "Stenosis" which means narrowing. So if one hears he or she has stenosis, then you know you are getting plaque build up around the heart (not good).
My risk for a heart attack increases. Of course something will eventually kill us all. Perhaps a fatal heart attack is better than a prolonged cancer event. No matter, we do not get out of this world alive, some ways of departing are better than others.
And perhaps my curiosity and the Internet are not such good things for me to explore. Hmmmm.
Monday, August 3, 2015
August is Here . . .
Aside from the Texas unbearable heat, August is here. School kids gearing up for school start, tax sale coming up soon for them to reequip themselves.
Grass is growing at a respectable rate, and watering must be done or the grass will burn up. We are after all in a semi-desert climate here. We get spring rains (sometimes) but summer is dry and parched. The farmers made a huge hay crop this year with the early and frequent rains. Lakes are full but are starting down again. Part of that is evaporation and part is due to no rain to refill them and of course the people are using the water. That is what most of the lakes are for, giant water reservoirs for our ever growing population.
I notice a lot of house starts this year, so part of the economy is back, Texas has done well with gas wells attracting out of state-ers to do the work. That makes the population go up and keeps the economy going strong. The rest of the country is not doing as well as we are here. All of that drives up the price of houses and the local tax assessors delight in the increased value and up our property taxes. My taxes are frozen and yet they raised them. Not sure about all of that but you can not fight city hall.
And near the end of the month we make our annual trek to Madison, WI to see the grandkids and their parents. Short visit. Supposed to have a crawfish boil p there, their crawfish come in later than ours with their cooler climate. Until recently, they did not have clue as to what to do with crawfish but enough of them spent some time in Louisiana and learned to enjoy them. So they are gradually catching on to the freshwater delicacy.
I can see the at boil now, where a young couple from Wisconsin will take three or four of the crawfish and eat them. And they will declare them wonderful and be done with it. Too messy to fool with and really it is fish bait. While the true aficionados will gobble down four or five pounds of them. They will look on with awe and wonder.
Then September is upon us and football season fires up for real. It will still be hot but we will find a cool place to watch the games.
Geaux Tigers!
Grass is growing at a respectable rate, and watering must be done or the grass will burn up. We are after all in a semi-desert climate here. We get spring rains (sometimes) but summer is dry and parched. The farmers made a huge hay crop this year with the early and frequent rains. Lakes are full but are starting down again. Part of that is evaporation and part is due to no rain to refill them and of course the people are using the water. That is what most of the lakes are for, giant water reservoirs for our ever growing population.
I notice a lot of house starts this year, so part of the economy is back, Texas has done well with gas wells attracting out of state-ers to do the work. That makes the population go up and keeps the economy going strong. The rest of the country is not doing as well as we are here. All of that drives up the price of houses and the local tax assessors delight in the increased value and up our property taxes. My taxes are frozen and yet they raised them. Not sure about all of that but you can not fight city hall.
And near the end of the month we make our annual trek to Madison, WI to see the grandkids and their parents. Short visit. Supposed to have a crawfish boil p there, their crawfish come in later than ours with their cooler climate. Until recently, they did not have clue as to what to do with crawfish but enough of them spent some time in Louisiana and learned to enjoy them. So they are gradually catching on to the freshwater delicacy.
I can see the at boil now, where a young couple from Wisconsin will take three or four of the crawfish and eat them. And they will declare them wonderful and be done with it. Too messy to fool with and really it is fish bait. While the true aficionados will gobble down four or five pounds of them. They will look on with awe and wonder.
Then September is upon us and football season fires up for real. It will still be hot but we will find a cool place to watch the games.
Geaux Tigers!
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