Just found this in my drafts from 6/27/09 - I assume I saved it cuz I had more to say but the moment has passed. lol

Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon and let's not forget Kwai Chang Cain, David Carradine. These and many others are presences in my life, part of the world as I know it. So, whether I was a big fan or not, there's an emptiness when they pass. Some were constant presences, some were influential at one time or another.

Friendships

Some friendships may peter in while others peter out.
But I will always be your friend, peter in or peter out.

Project 365 and Stuff

So yeah, if I fall behind in here, as I so often do, remember my Project 365 blog is updated often ...not always every day as it's supposed to be, but usually every day and at least more often than this one.
It's more positive too. I usually seem to be more than a little negative in here. Maybe because I use it to vent. I'll try to be positive in here more often too. I wonder if that's why people stopped popping in as much...more likely it's because I went so long without updating one time that it fell out of their routines.
I'm really enjoying doing the P 365 blog. It's not as easy to keep up with as it would seem at first but I'm trying. It's a good exercise in a way.
I thought it would be a piece of cake...thought 'I always take at least one picture a day'. Turns out I don't, so I have to get in the habit of consciously planning a picture for the blog, even if the shutter finger doesn't itch.
There's another photo project I learned about recently too. I think it's called One Object 365 or something like that. The idea is to take a picture of your chosen object every day for a year. Sounds cool. Could it get boring? I guess not if you keep your wheels turning and have plenty of ideas for positions, locations, settings, etc. That's the challenge of it I guess. Anyway I won't do that now but I might in the future. Stay tuned.
Today is a holiday...Presidents Day I think...hmmm...all I know for sure is I have the day off. Tomorrow through Friday I am working the day shift because it's school vacation - clean-up week. I don't like the day shift.
Winter is winding down but hanging on for dear life. Let it go, winter...just let it go.
My friend Troy in Kentucky just got his power back on and moved back into his home a few days ago, after a January 27 ice storm that wiped out power to hundreds of thousands (might have gone into the millions, not sure) of residents. People died of hypothermia as well as storm-related accidents. Troy stayed in a hotel part of the time and in a shelter.
Well, I guess I should get going for now. I'll try to post in here more. I should, now that I'm often right next door at 365.darkskywv.com. Please leave comments here and over there so I know I've been visited. It's good for my self esteem. ;)
Happy Spring (coming very soon. lol)

123...

Testing. :-)

Credit Cards, Cell Phones, Trojans, and Parting Gifts from Cats

Hi! Sure has been awhile hasn't it?

Where to begin...well my previous entry was me bitching about money and credit cards and cell phone bills. I'll start there...

Well, long story short the cards are maxed out and the phones were shut off. One card will not be renewed when it expires(d) so I moved it way down in priority. Another one I've fallen way behind in and it seems hopeless but I haven't lost hope yet. The rest I think I can catch up with as soon as things settle down. The cell phones were shut off, so I got me a prepaid with another carrier. Then I sent them an offer of a payment plan. After doing that they contacted me and we worked out a plan to get me caught up with the bill. Part of the deal was to convert our phones to prepaids, so we could keep our numbers until we could get turned back on. Well, of the 4 on the family share plan, one had gotten a prepaid a while back, and one switched to another family member's account. So I had four prepaid cell phones, gave Eric his phone back (so now he has 2 prepaids cuz he did what I did when we were shut off). So how I have three but am letting the one I bought run out, so I'll just have the two for awhile. My car loan is now paid off so having that money available will help, once I get back on track.

OK...boooooring.

Between 8 - 10 years ago one of my cats, Sam, got very sick and to make a long, sad story short he died. I felt bad because I couldn't afford to bring him to the vet but I don't think they really could have helped him. The thing is, I was feeling very bad about it. The next day I was at work...it was a Saturday and I was covering a "bazaar" (like a flea market) at my building. Well, of course, with everything going on I snapped out of my sadness but off and on I would remember and be down again. After the event, everybody was gone and I was getting ready to clean up. I almost stepped on something gold colored mixed in the debris so I picked it up and it was a pin - you know the kind with the back, I can't remember what they're called - it was a pin shaped like a cat, with wings and a halo. An angel cat. I felt like that was a sign and so I felt much better. Someone I told about it suggested it was a sign from Sam, maybe saying goodbye and that everythings cool.

Fast forward to almost a month ago, September 12 actually. The last hold-out from the family pet days, Raffi, at approximately 20 years old, passed away. Well, he was really the coolest cat I've ever known and I think a lot of people felt the same way, and many people liked him regardless if they thought he was the coolest. He earned a lot of love and respect over so many years. So for that reason, I sent out an email, informing select people of his passing and I inserted a picture of him (from his healthier days) in the email. I was sad of course, but felt he had lived a long and happy life.

Well, a couple days later, my friend - who I've only been back in touch with for a couple, maybe 3 years after about 20 years of no contact - and I, were chatting online and she said something like I lost that picture of Raffi, can you send it again?. Well, I knew she was up to something, she's very crafty and actually makes a living with crafts. Besides, she may have liked Raffi, but not enough to fret over a picture of him. lol. Oh yeah, actually she then told me she was going to make a keychain with his picture on it for me. Aww, I thought that was nice. She dropped by a couple days or so later with two keychains and two pins. Wow, they look great! Thank you Darlene. A few days later though, I remembered about Sam's pin. She never knew the story about Sam. I love coincidences...it was a coincidence...right? Makes me wonder...

I spent most of this weekend researching and learning how to eliminate the trojans I was bombarded with. No...get your mind out of the gutter. The computer virus kinda trojans. That sucked. I kept getting false virus alerts, not just on the www but on my computer (offline). So even though they were fake virus alerts, they were telling me the truth. Kind of ironic. It got me to download (but was suspicious enough by then not to install) an antivirus presumably to solve the problem, when the antivirus actually WAS a virus (or more trojans - I'm genaralizing here). I finally found a write-up from someone at AVG's message boards that was very helpful. After running a bazillion scans from a bazillion scanners, it was more than one trojan...several I think. All seems to be well now though. Yaaay! I have to go back to that article and thank the author.

Well, I guess that's enough for now. Peace!