Weblog 173
May 31, 2009~ 12:00am
I received some photos this week that I want to share with you. They were taken by my friend Netto, who lives in Los Angeles, but it so often feels like we are sisters, separated at birth. She soldiered 12 years of parochial school with me... then suddenly we were all grown up, and life tossed us to different ends of this continent, into very different lives... but close we remain.
What I've always enjoyed is Annette's aesthetic sense. You can feel that in the picture below of her back garden, with cats Madison and Puz- (for 'Puzzles') -posed as perfectly as Andrew Wyeth might have-- tails curving into a serpentine against the flagstone-- blue chair positioned 'just so', and everywhere, the pink, bursting blooms of spring.
I think any watercolorist would love that composition. Besides simple aesthetic beauty, she also sent me this picture of hand-feeding a nut to a neighborhood squirrel.
(I believe that's a cashew...lol. Makes my mouth water. ) So I understand why a shy little guy usually so skittish, is tempted to make friends; not only make friends with the kindly human, but not afraid to venture closer even while 19lb. Puz is taking his ease on his cushioned backyard throne.
The 'visitor' is peering in, but Puz is less than interested. (Annette's hand is probably off-camera, holding out a fishhead. LOL!!!) Closer now......even closer.....
(You can see how Puz came by his name...he's a veritable jigsaw puzzled fur ball.) While my yard is full of weeds and a few straggling wildflowers that managed to have seed pods land in my lot, my yard is anything but picturesque; that is why these lovely pictures calm and cheer me. I feed the birds.... but I pour the sunflower seeds into a plastic picnic party tray and stick in on the stump of my recently felled pine, so that after 10 minutes of grackles, bluejays and chickadees, wrens, mourning doves and a chipmunk have their way with it, it's a mess. And remains a mess. I'm a messy person. LOL!!! But Netto's serenity of lifestyle, her feel for natural beauty and her artist's eye is able to frame a simple backyard snapshot into a work of art. (Note the blue bowl in the first shot. Is it not the crowning touch to this composition?)
I'm glad she loves my messy self--- the same girl who tripped and went down so often just walking along a simple pavement I should have worn knee pads to be safe-- this klutz was best friends with the captain of the cheerleading squad who took the top position in the human pyramid for crump's sakes! (Had I tried it, I'd be paralyzed today.)
Opposites attract. We lend something to the other that is missing, and gain some of what they have in return. In so many ways we're different, but still share our love of films, our love of social justice-- and an appreciation of the human comedy most of all.
God, it's great to have friends-- especially ones that last a lifetime. When that happens there really is no distance. No distance at all. We live in eachother's hearts and thoughts. (And there is that special express train into the past- the one that whistles softly in the night and carries its passengers on what is usually a red-eye run, back to other times and other lives. Ah.......the best movie of all.) Thank you, Annette.
I also want to give public thanks to Kenneth Gurney, who keeps up my spirits by his weekly sending of his poetry postcards.
I have a collection of these now, that I cherish. Each one is unique, each containing one brief original poem and a small graphic. They bolster me. They are a shot in the arm when I check the mailbox after work, weary from a day of rote duties and traffic. He truly should market little boxes of what he calls, real poetry post cards - and have them stocked in stationery and card stores. It's a charming way to say "thinking of you - the world is much more poetic and mystical than you might imagine."
These are honest-to-goodness pick-me-ups --- and my thanks goes out to Kenneth. Life abounds in small joys, and for me - these cards are one of them.
June 3, 2009~ 6:45pm
Are there any computer amateurs out there who are sorely tempted to really, REALLY mess with your settings -- to the point where you can't even get back INTO Windows?
Shake hands with your sister. LOL!!!
Lord, over the past 3 days in trying to make my CD-Rom drive usable, I have evoked all manner of horrors on my poor old PC system...I use the keyboard like some folks point a revolver in a game of Russian Roulette, daring the data gods to strike me dead. It's a weird sort of risk-taking I've noticed in myself. (So you can picture just what sort of an exciting existence I have if that's the 'thrill-high'. LOL!!)
The point of this post is: in 10 years operating this system, through all the hell I've put myself through, I've never used the simplest solution in the world (which I will now share with you)-- so the next time you really REALLY make a mess of things, and are tempted to press
-- and you do, and your machine IS....f*cked!...THE EASIEST, QUICKEST WAY to get things back to where you began BEFORE you were tempted to play God, is to hit your 'Start' button, choose 'SHUT DOWN'-- and then choose 'Restart in DOS Mode'. (Don't be scared. This really is simple.) When your system comes back up in the black DOS screen, and you're at the blinking C:\
type out, right after that C prompt, scanreg/restore
That's it. Your screen will go to blue (don't be scared) and you will be given a list of DATES to choose from. Choose one BEFORE the big mess started, and click it. Windows will restore your registry and your whole system configuration to a time previous to the frickin' f*ck-up. It will tell you it's done, then press CTL-ALT-DELETE -- which will take you out of DOS and back into Windows normal mode -- and will boot up good as new, with all the bad gunk gone.
WHY I NEVER DID THIS- OR EVEN KNEW ABOUT IT, I have no idea. LOL!!! It takes a couple of moments, not hours, not days tweaking this and that, restarting, restarting, fingers crossed. If fixes things IMMEDIATELY, no fuss. Amazing. The only time in life you can actually get a clean 'do-over'...you can turn back the clock! All is forgiven. Back to Eden again....before the apple. Write those simple instructions down, and keep them handy. (If you're like me.....you're gonna need 'em. :)
June 4, 2009~ 7:30am
I just realized something. Here at work, we have XP Professional, and guess what? The solution above will not work as prescribed (unless you are one of the 2%...
who still have the dinosaur Windows 98SE system... like me)so you need to do this:
I just realized this doesn't work for XP. There IS no 'Restart in DOS Mode' option in XP. So do this: hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE, which brings up the Task Manager. Go up to 'File', and click. Choose 'New Task (Run..) and then in the box, paste the command
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Restore\rstrui.exe
and that will restore your system to before the problem. OR..... Start your computer in Safe Mode with Command Prompt. (Go to the 'Start' button, click on 'Run' and in the box, type 'command' which brings up a Windows DOS box At the command prompt, type:
%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
and then press ENTER. Follow the instructions on the screen to begin restoring your computer to a previous, functional state.
(I sometimes forget that not all internet users are still living in the last century. LOL!!)
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
I received some photos this week that I want to share with you. They were taken by my friend Netto, who lives in Los Angeles, but it so often feels like we are sisters, separated at birth. She soldiered 12 years of parochial school with me... then suddenly we were all grown up, and life tossed us to different ends of this continent, into very different lives... but close we remain.
What I've always enjoyed is Annette's aesthetic sense. You can feel that in the picture below of her back garden, with cats Madison and Puz- (for 'Puzzles') -posed as perfectly as Andrew Wyeth might have-- tails curving into a serpentine against the flagstone-- blue chair positioned 'just so', and everywhere, the pink, bursting blooms of spring.
I think any watercolorist would love that composition. Besides simple aesthetic beauty, she also sent me this picture of hand-feeding a nut to a neighborhood squirrel.
(I believe that's a cashew...lol. Makes my mouth water. ) So I understand why a shy little guy usually so skittish, is tempted to make friends; not only make friends with the kindly human, but not afraid to venture closer even while 19lb. Puz is taking his ease on his cushioned backyard throne.
The 'visitor' is peering in, but Puz is less than interested. (Annette's hand is probably off-camera, holding out a fishhead. LOL!!!) Closer now......even closer.....
(You can see how Puz came by his name...he's a veritable jigsaw puzzled fur ball.) While my yard is full of weeds and a few straggling wildflowers that managed to have seed pods land in my lot, my yard is anything but picturesque; that is why these lovely pictures calm and cheer me. I feed the birds.... but I pour the sunflower seeds into a plastic picnic party tray and stick in on the stump of my recently felled pine, so that after 10 minutes of grackles, bluejays and chickadees, wrens, mourning doves and a chipmunk have their way with it, it's a mess. And remains a mess. I'm a messy person. LOL!!! But Netto's serenity of lifestyle, her feel for natural beauty and her artist's eye is able to frame a simple backyard snapshot into a work of art. (Note the blue bowl in the first shot. Is it not the crowning touch to this composition?)
I'm glad she loves my messy self--- the same girl who tripped and went down so often just walking along a simple pavement I should have worn knee pads to be safe-- this klutz was best friends with the captain of the cheerleading squad who took the top position in the human pyramid for crump's sakes! (Had I tried it, I'd be paralyzed today.)
Opposites attract. We lend something to the other that is missing, and gain some of what they have in return. In so many ways we're different, but still share our love of films, our love of social justice-- and an appreciation of the human comedy most of all.
God, it's great to have friends-- especially ones that last a lifetime. When that happens there really is no distance. No distance at all. We live in eachother's hearts and thoughts. (And there is that special express train into the past- the one that whistles softly in the night and carries its passengers on what is usually a red-eye run, back to other times and other lives. Ah.......the best movie of all.) Thank you, Annette.
I also want to give public thanks to Kenneth Gurney, who keeps up my spirits by his weekly sending of his poetry postcards.
I have a collection of these now, that I cherish. Each one is unique, each containing one brief original poem and a small graphic. They bolster me. They are a shot in the arm when I check the mailbox after work, weary from a day of rote duties and traffic. He truly should market little boxes of what he calls, real poetry post cards - and have them stocked in stationery and card stores. It's a charming way to say "thinking of you - the world is much more poetic and mystical than you might imagine."
These are honest-to-goodness pick-me-ups --- and my thanks goes out to Kenneth. Life abounds in small joys, and for me - these cards are one of them.
June 3, 2009~ 6:45pm
Are there any computer amateurs out there who are sorely tempted to really, REALLY mess with your settings -- to the point where you can't even get back INTO Windows?
Shake hands with your sister. LOL!!!
Lord, over the past 3 days in trying to make my CD-Rom drive usable, I have evoked all manner of horrors on my poor old PC system...I use the keyboard like some folks point a revolver in a game of Russian Roulette, daring the data gods to strike me dead. It's a weird sort of risk-taking I've noticed in myself. (So you can picture just what sort of an exciting existence I have if that's the 'thrill-high'. LOL!!)
The point of this post is: in 10 years operating this system, through all the hell I've put myself through, I've never used the simplest solution in the world (which I will now share with you)-- so the next time you really REALLY make a mess of things, and are tempted to press
-- and you do, and your machine IS....f*cked!...THE EASIEST, QUICKEST WAY to get things back to where you began BEFORE you were tempted to play God, is to hit your 'Start' button, choose 'SHUT DOWN'-- and then choose 'Restart in DOS Mode'. (Don't be scared. This really is simple.) When your system comes back up in the black DOS screen, and you're at the blinking C:\
type out, right after that C prompt, scanreg/restore
That's it. Your screen will go to blue (don't be scared) and you will be given a list of DATES to choose from. Choose one BEFORE the big mess started, and click it. Windows will restore your registry and your whole system configuration to a time previous to the frickin' f*ck-up. It will tell you it's done, then press CTL-ALT-DELETE -- which will take you out of DOS and back into Windows normal mode -- and will boot up good as new, with all the bad gunk gone.
WHY I NEVER DID THIS- OR EVEN KNEW ABOUT IT, I have no idea. LOL!!! It takes a couple of moments, not hours, not days tweaking this and that, restarting, restarting, fingers crossed. If fixes things IMMEDIATELY, no fuss. Amazing. The only time in life you can actually get a clean 'do-over'...you can turn back the clock! All is forgiven. Back to Eden again....before the apple. Write those simple instructions down, and keep them handy. (If you're like me.....you're gonna need 'em. :)
June 4, 2009~ 7:30am
I just realized something. Here at work, we have XP Professional, and guess what? The solution above will not work as prescribed (unless you are one of the 2%...
who still have the dinosaur Windows 98SE system... like me)so you need to do this:
I just realized this doesn't work for XP. There IS no 'Restart in DOS Mode' option in XP. So do this: hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE, which brings up the Task Manager. Go up to 'File', and click. Choose 'New Task (Run..) and then in the box, paste the command
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Restore\rstrui.exe
and that will restore your system to before the problem. OR..... Start your computer in Safe Mode with Command Prompt. (Go to the 'Start' button, click on 'Run' and in the box, type 'command' which brings up a Windows DOS box At the command prompt, type:
%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
and then press ENTER. Follow the instructions on the screen to begin restoring your computer to a previous, functional state.
(I sometimes forget that not all internet users are still living in the last century. LOL!!)
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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