Uncharacteristic

Today marks the first day of a nine-day vacation. My plans include lots of computer time, some TV, reorganizing my playpen, etc - the typical stuff I never have enough time to do when I'm working.

So what did I start off with? Well, instead of enjoying myself, I started worrying about finances and cancer rates being so high in these parts and the dental thing (actually, that's in with financial concerns) and the lizards being brown when they should be green and stuff like that. But then as I was about to check email I caught myself and thought, for God's sake, why are you worrying?! These things are things you don't have any control over other than refusing to worry about them and continuing to improve on yourself and how you look at things. You're healthy, pain-free, have a wonderful place to live in a town you love, awesome creatures all around you, computers up the ying yang, you're not starving, you've got friends who care about you, Mom's finally happy, your Christmas was the bestest ever, and to top it all off, you are with the most awesome dude in the whole wide world!! Those are the things you need to focus on. Enjoy the day, sillygeekperson! You have nine days off!! You can now do all the things you haven't had time to do lately!! Why are you wasting this precious gift of time??

So I started snapping out of it. Then I read an email from Aflac. At the end of it, he said, "Relax and enjoy!" (re: my vacation time; he's at work right now, poor guy, lol) The point was driven home. How easy it is to forget how fortunate we are. But with all the work I've been doing for myself, it's becoming easier and easier to look at what's right in front of me, right here, right now, and start focusing on looking through the rose-colored lenses instead of covering them up with my hands. Too many people are afraid to be happy. I don't want to be one of them. CARPE EL DIEM!!

With that, I'm going to go find my techno music software. As soon as I find food. Stomach has decided it's hungry now...

By the way, an awesome song I recently began enjoying is "Uncharacteristic (It Must Be You)" by John Hoskinson... in fact, it was just playing a short time ago. And now that "One" came on by Johnny Cash, it's reminded me of the movie about his life. "Walk The Line" is a must-see. Very enlightening.

~nv

Drainage is good

We've been having some intermittent and worsening problems with our bathroom shower/sink drains. Aflac (formerly Ducky) and I tried using Liquid Plumr and a couple weeks later, some biological stuff, but it just kept getting worse after it got better. Then he tried taking some things apart and managed to remove a small clump of hair, but things got majorly worse a couple days after that. Namely, yesterday and today. This morning after his shower, there were three inches of water left in the tub. A good three hours later it was still there. He left our peoples a note about it this morning as he left for work, and one of them called me back to say she'd called a plumber, etc.

Well, they came and went within an hour, and now we've got our drains back to proper working order!! YAY!! Da wadda go down da holllleeee...

Which then reminded me of a surgery I had several years ago. I went back for a checkup and told the surgeon that I had a lot of liquidy stuff falling out of the stitched-up incision. (Turned out I was slightly allergic to the stitches material, no big deal.) In our conversation he said that the wound might drain. Then he said, "And drainage is good. Drainage is good!"

My mom and I had a good laugh over that saying for years afterward. I think it was mainly his tone and how emphatic he was about it that was so funny. Even now I can hear him: "Drainage is good! Drainage is good!"

And you know what? I can now attest to it... after taking a five minute shower withOUT the water pooling around my knees, I thought to myself, "That surgeon was right! Drainage IS good!! Drainage IS good!!"

But I didn't tell anyone else that, because they don't know the joke...

DRAINAGE IS GOOD!!

Is Drainage good, Self? Why, yes, yes it is... and the landlady called to check and make sure they fscked it properly. I said excitedly, Yes!! YES!! It's fissed!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Remind me to get her something wonderful in the near future. What, I don't know, she seems womanlike so maybe a fruit basket or something would be nice to her. Heck, even /I/ like fruit baskets...

DRAINAGE IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!

~nv

Cleanup time

I can NOT believe how much CRAP can accumulate on a mere 440GB of drivespace! Cripes!!

On Raven SO far, I have:

1. Changed the timeout setting in Mepis so it defaults to Windows XP in 5 seconds instead of 18
2. Changed the timeout setting in Windows XP so it boots in 1 second instead of 30
3. Changed the users setting in XP to autoboot into my admin account (normally I hit enter to bypass the password screen)

All of the above is allowing bootup time in roughly 30 seconds instead of a minute. I know. 30 seconds is still too long even for XP. But it's very noticeably better to me. It would be to you too if you had previously turned on the computer and went off to brush your teeth, etc. Now I can check email on Selene instead.

4. Reconstructed the Start Menu and dumped all "unnecessary" shortcuts into a folder on the desktop while reorganizing the ones I actually wanted

Talk about neat... you should have seen it before...

5. Installed and ran EZ Cleaner and cleaned up well over 200 invalid registry entries, a few bad shortcuts, and a few thousand duplicate files (most of which were music files I had scattered all across the hard drive, you know, you grab some, make a CD for the ol' truck, and of course forget 'em...)
6. Dumped a gazillion duplicated program files on various drives that mirrored each other (these are called backups, I do them every time I move things around and forget to later delete them)

The above two cleared well over 10 GB of space...

7. Dumped unnecessary files and dumped the Recycle Bin (how things get in the latter I've NO clue...)

Anywho, Raven was definitely due for a cleaning!! :)

~nv

Happiness

I am sitting here at Ducky's mom's house, at a dial-up connection. Yes, a dial-up connection. Me in all my technocratically idealistic tendencies am actually utilizing a DIAL-UP!! But in my wisdom, I know this is the only connection there is, so... and yes, it's Almost Online...

Anywho, I am quite happy. It has not ceased to amaze me how happy I am these days. I've been this way for the most part since the beginning of this year, and with every passing day, it's even better.

That was a quick blog post, merely because I had a quick urge to write some thoughts. I would write more but there are two awesome people behind me and I don't wish to ignore them. It's probably close to bedtime anyway.

Ducky has indicated he does not like his nickname here. He doesn't know what to have me call him, however. So in the next post, there may or may not be a new handle for that guy. Don't be too surprised!! Oh, wait... he's come up with Aflac. Let's see if I can recall that next time around. :)

~nv

Clove Oil

Ever use clove oil? I got some from CVS for my own achy tooth problems. This is what it's like:

Go to Pharmacy and ask for Oil of Clove. (They hide it behind closed doors.)
Purchase teeny weeny little bottle for four bucks. (1/8 oz)
Bring home and set up your own dental area in bathroom.
Dip clean cotton swab in oil.
Let excess drip back into little teeny bottle.
Place swab on affected area and wait five to ten seconds.
Experience burning sensation on inside of cheek.
Experience burning sensation on side of tongue.
Figure out your shirt's getting wet.
Realize you've lost all sensation in chin and wet shirt is from drooling on yourself.
Hold swab a bit longer, until sink can't hold any more drool.
Remove swab and throw away.
Continue to hang over sink to catch remaining drool.
Feel face. Wonder where it went.
Realize the toothache is severely diminished.

Great stuff...

Unfortunately, it does wear off more quickly than ibuprofen, but it works a heck of a lot FASTER than ibuprofen. So it's great in between med doses.

What happens if you accidentally swallow too much of this stuff? Does your stomach go numb? Maybe they should consider this stuff for weight loss... then again, maybe it would make people GAIN weight because they wouldn't know when they were full?

Best leave this stuff for teeth!