Baby Kitfox

New little guy.  Shy, nervous, alert the little kitfox paces and gets kitty's food.  Had to shoot through the screen of the security door. This little one is about one half the size of the mother. I've been hearing little yips in the evening so thinking there might be more then one.

They are a bit far north. They shouldn't be father then Fresno and living in the valley. Well it is getting hotter down there plus a lot of development. Migration has to happen so they are adapting to the new climate change.

Oh Poor Young Fellow

It looks like Jeffrey's younger brother is blind in one eye. Stumpy was going blind in one eye but his problem was due to old age. This your fellow looks like he might have been poked in the eye or was kicked. Some how they do adapt and can live a long life but I'm a bit worried for him. He won't have depth perception. He's a bit jumpy when others come up on the right side because they surprise him.  Stumpy had cataracts but this looks different. There's a scar above his eye which could be from a deer's foot kicking him. There's a few bigger guys that can be rather mean. Most of the deer that come here are very nice and peaceable. When I called one deer a mean deer it really effected them and they were sad. They hung there head down until I told them they were okay.

Sunny Boy

One of the twins, my Sunny Boys. Born last year around July 4th to Pretty Girl. They have been great to watch grow up over the last year. There's a baby girl that loves to run with the boys. One day she was so disappointed when she came here and the boys went here. She cried out for the boys over and over looking everywhere in the yard for them. The mothers are good at letting the kids play while they rest in the shade. One day there was seven babies running as hard as they can around the valley. Seeing the smiles on all the babies was a wonderful sight. Baby deer are so full of life. So happy at everything they see.  I'll find them looking up at the hummingbirds watching them fly to the feeder. Seeing the babies jump in the air and kick just to test their legs. The Sunny Boys always run ahead of mom getting here first every day. I don't know who is happier to see who when they get here.

Here's looking at you

Surprise! It's kittens, my little ones a little camera shy but just the cutest little ones. Working on trying to get all three kittens together playing. This is the first time I tried using GIMP for more then just viewing a picture and took a bit to find out where the tools were. GIMP is a free open source program that runs on many platforms. (Windows, Linux, Mac)

Mango brings back the wrong thoughts

Microsoft came out with the Mango but that makes me think if Chris Kattan and his character from a Saturday Night Live skit where he plays Mango. So when I saw the ad for Mango it brought back this character of what sex you never knew, it was Mango. Sure was funny so now hearing about a phone called Mango I take it as a phone that's going to be doing odd things to you and others. Think I'll pop in the Corky Romano DVD and do a bit of laughing.

Gangs all here

Been out with my deer friends. They have been lounging around since the bears left. The mother deers look a bit lighter and I believe they had their babies. There's one that still looks pregnant. Saw Momma Girl's ears perk up and she dashed across the creek to the other side where I think her babies are hiding. Pretty Girl did the same thing the other day. She went down to a spot on the creek and came back up to the house area. Most of the creek grass was cut down. They all have areas they like to lay down in the tall grass. Some like under a tree. They all like eating the low hanging branches of the apple trees. Can't wait to see the little babies. They are really fun to watch. See how happy they are always smiling. They like running around here and the mothers will lounge around watching them.

Saw a couple baby skunks following mom around. I could smell the babies after spaying it's a unique skunk smell like Vitamin B with a little over tone of skunk. Have to work with them so they won't be afraid of me.

The kittens are a lot of fun to watch playing with each other. Momma Kitty still hisses at me. I'm not sure if it's because she's wide or wants me to keep back from the babies.

I was cropping a photo of the kitties when my 13 month old HP computer melted down. What a scam HP has. You pay for a whole computer if you get the extended warranty. Cost $99 dollars for them to tell me it was broken. I knew that, that's why I called tech support. They could tell me anything except give us money and we will tell you that you have a broken computer and it's going to cost you $327 in advanced to fix it. So that's over $425 to get the computer repaired and only a 3 month warranty after that. A new mother board cost $120. If they replace my hard drive because the mother board to the drive to do strange things I'll loose my data. Even sending the computer in and not replacing the drive they can't say the data would be there because they just clone a drive. They only know one way of doing things and it's not customer friendly. Now I'm stuck with a 20 pound door stop. It's funny that HP would send me an update 30 days after my warranty ran out and my machine craps out. It said in the log it fixed my BIOS. It had a lot of other things it said it done too to the registry.

HP makes good science equipment but not computers. Everything is made by someone else. I'm sure HP doesn't even assemble the computers. I read several forums where people are looking for mother boards because there's burned up. It's real funny it's the same model of mother board that craps out too. I didn't see that it was different models just this one a PEGATRON M2N78-LA made by ASUS.

HP Computers, they never loose

After my long talk with HP service Techs, the guys in India with a flip book to try to figure out what's going on with the computer. I've come to the realization They only know what's on the cards they are reading and no more. They don't understand computers and it only cost me $99 dollars for the phone call to tell me I have defective parts at no fault of my own. For another $327 dollars they will fix the computer but no guarantee on saving anything on the hard drive, just that I will get a computer back in a somewhat new state like when I first opened it up. That means I'll have to reload all my software digging through hundreds of disks to do that. The software I bought online will be gone along with my music, lectures, All my data on earthquakes over the past year. All my photos all 15,000 pictures. My videos I transferred from tape to the hard drive. I'll have to be downloading software not to mention two days of Windows 7 updates. What gets me is the prices they are charging. I could get the same mother board from the manufactures for $100 dollars. I could get a 3TB drive for the price they want for a 1TB drive, same manufactures. What gets me if their warranty notice. They told me my warranty will be running out soon, since I was busy at the time I pressed remind me. The Tech said it ran out 40 days ago and just for phone support to find out that I'm going to have to send it in because they can't find a card to fix the problem because they aren't real computer tech but phone guys and it's going to cost me another $327 but he said you get the one year of phone service you just paid for. They don't pro rate that for the time they have the computer in the shop. They only give you a 3 month warranty on the new parts not like the 1 year when you bought the computer. I believe I got the late notice about extending my warranty because they would have to replace any parts and make a $99 dollar fee which most people never use unless you get a defective computer. I've never had a computer fail like this but then I bought good mother boards where the IWill Manufacture give you a life time warranty on it's products no questions asked.

So, HP makes disposable computers because it's cheaper to buy a new one then having it repaired. They say they have warranty but that's as good as the paper it's written on. Every with that you still have to pay. Everything they will do you have to pay.

I used to work on PH test equipment and that was built good but there computers are all parts from other people. I'm sure they don't even assemble them and they sub out the repairs too. I heard that some transport companies now have a corning in the warehouse where they fix computers. They don't really fix them because they don't have that bright of people there it's people that keep replacing parts until it works.

So you might loose all your data on the hard drive because they replaced the hard drive when the only thing that might be wrong is a bad cable and they might find that out last after replacing everything in the computer first.

I taped the phone call and plan to edit it down because it's 90 minutes before I ran out of tape. The phone call was over 2 1/2 hours. You will be surprised at what they say and how much they put you on hold. That a part that I found amazing being on hold they talk about all the things that went wrong with my computer after it did an HP update and there software did some fixes. And yes those service cost you more money but by the time you pay for your computer twice you will at least maybe get a computer that works.

Why it's Jeffrey

My shy friend Jeffrey. He always is smiling and happy but looks somewhat sad at times. He always cheers up after I talk with him. It's real nice interacting with the wildlife. They do respond to a smile and kindness. I'm so amazed that each deer has it's own personality. They are very smart too.

Deer Friend Buddy

My deer friend Buddy. He was kicked last winter by a larger deer and broke his jaw. Now his tongue hangs out but it hasn't got him down. I was worried he was going to have problems. He can't open the right side of his mouth properly. Since he was kicked he picked up that bad habit which I keep telling him it's not nice. He's getting that, just taking a bit. He was really friendly before he was kicked but that effected him. He's really a good deer just had some bad breaks. I think he might grow out of this habit. I'll keep working with him. He is a real friendly deer. He's real good with the girls.

Mom and baby

		Nature VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

From baby kitties to baby squirrels and soon baby deer. there’s some of my favorite one year old male deer here along with the girls. Momma squirrel and her baby too.

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Pretty Birds

		Black Headed Gross Beak VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I’m always amazed at the wildlife here. Every spring and summer birds come through like this Black Headed Gross Beak. I’m not sure but think it’s the bird with a great song. I’ll hear the songs but never see the bird directly singing. They don’t seem to like landing on the ground at least I haven’t seen them there. Seems the birds come by at different times of the day. Morning time is one time that all the birds want something to eat. Then there’s a pause in the day until late afternoon and evening.

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The Amazing Nose

		Much Bigger then Boo-Boo VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The porch light came on and this is what I got to see. A big nose wandering around sniffing things. I was at my desk on the computer and grabbed my camera when I saw the nose at the window looking in at me. I’m always amazed at the wildlife here. There’s always something new to see. Have to wonder what’s going on in that big head when it looked into my eyes as I was looking into it’s brown eyes.

This is the first time the bears have been around more then just a sighting. There’s a baby Boo-Boo bear which I thing is one of these guys baby. So there must be a den where they live. I don’t know if they are always on the move or not.

When the bears were here last night the owls were real vocal. when the bears came through in the day time the birds seem to go silent. The small bear, Boo-Boo looks cute sitting on the picnic table and looks real small but is rather large and will grow even large. I’ve noticed that long lived animals stay with mom for a while where they learn how to be themselves. They have to learn what to eat and where to look for it.  I feel sorry for them in that their lands are being taken over. I saw a story on the news where a woman couldn’t understand why a mother bear and it’s two babies walked through their back yard in the house they just built near Tahoe. She was so confused that a bear could even think about walking in her yard after moving from the city to the forest. She couldn’t figure out they built a house in the bears backyard. 

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Deer Friends

		Deer Friends VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I’m always amazed here seeing what the deer do and see their personalities and social behaviors. Seeing a deer smile is one thing. Seeing baby deer playing with their friends is a real joy. Seeing that deer have friends is amazing. They may call out to their friends if they don’t see them and be disappointed if they don’t show up. That they care about each other is a wonder that is so touching. How people can call shooting them a sport when they do have a developed brain. I’ve even had one deer that would get jealous if I paid attention to other deer. When I talk to them and they respond to what I’m saying shows me they have the ability to learn and are intelligent. Anyone that says they are stupid animals is an idiot and needs his head examined. Sure they live a different life then we do but they are built for that life style as we learned and evolved to stand up and get out of the trees. What made humans successful, our claim to fame is are ability to kill everything else. We are the only life form that kills for fun. Is that really make us better then them. They just love life as much as anyone except human who are depressed, war, kill themselves, kill others, have greed and put that above life itself and the planet they live on.

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Boo-Boo Bear

Boo-Boo Bear

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Windows Live Mail craps out again and again

What trying to insert a picture and it causes Windows programs to crash. So what's new.
Can't change directories because that causes programs to crash. Takes forever to do anything in Windows when programs keep crashing over and over.

FAA gives workers 9 hours of rest time

Talking real big FAA says that workers have been fired and rest time goes from 8 hours to 9 hours. So what does 9 hours of rest time mean when it doesn’t take travel time and food into the mix along with getting ready for work after all working in the tower is a high stress job. If you live in a large city then 2 hours of travel time each way to work isn’t uncommon. Lunch or dinner on the go because you don’t have time to sit down and rest. 9 hours of rest time but the rest of the day you could be at work, that’s a lot of hours to be awake. Seems if you want to be safe that you would only want a person working on a high stress job for a maximum of 8 hours and the rest of the day being off and not the other way around.

Then again the FAA seems to think sitting in a hot jet for 4 hours is no big deal before people need to be aired out and fresh air needs to be put in the airplane. Makes you wonder if the FAA works for the people or the airlines industry. Do they really have peoples interests ahead of the airlines interests.

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Shy Kit Fox

Real nice kit fox looking out at the skunk and big brown doggie with sun bleached hair.

Big Doggie

"Well this looks like a nice place to lay down. I'll sleep here for a while."

Crash again. Well it’s Windows 7

Crash, crash, crash, then the program closes. Start the program up again and it crashes again trying to change directories. Seems all the programs in the Windows Live series has that same problem. Internet Explorer also does that. Don’t have this problem with other browsers or programs just Microsoft programs. I just installed another 300 plus meg. update the other day. Maybe by the next version of Windows they will fix the problem. What I don’t understand is how Linux can get it right where you don’t get these crashes under your own programs. I can run Linux and several other operating system on Windows 7 and don’t have problems with those operating systems. Same thing with computers with Linux on it, never have any crashes.

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Mr. Tommy T. Big Bird

What a good looking bird looks like. Smart friendly big bird comes right up to me. You don’t see birds like this on your dinner table those birds are really messed up. Those farmed birds don’t have a normal set of feathers. They grow them so fast they never learn anything like wild birds. That’s a male three years of training to become a big bird. They are very long lived birds too. The males put on parades to impress the girls. It’s like the king and his court marching in front of the girls. I was amazed at seeing them form up like that. Unlike the farmed birds these birds do fly. One year there was six baby birds that mom raised up. The next year they were on their own and stuck together. When I saw them charge a bear to chase it off I was really amazed. All six flapping their wing running after the bear. The bear was going to climb a tree but didn’t have time and ran off. I’ve heard people say they are stupid birds and will drown if left in the rain but that’s not true. They know enough to get out of the rain and under the trees and bushes. They are a passive bird and I think people see that as a weakness. I was painting some board and kneeling down. The turkeys came up behind me and watched me painting until I stood up. I really find them an interesting bird.

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Got Spine… Bolts?

 

 

Front View                                                        Side View

A normal curve something I’ve been missing for over 20 years. Doctor said the spines bolted together and isn’t going no where. That’s good to know and makes it hard to get socks on. Some other things too but I’ve learned to get around the hang-ups so far. When the shell comes off I’m hoping that I’ll be able to extend better right now it’s getting in the way. Found out that everything’s made of titanium which is real good if I need to hop into a MRI machine again. At first I thought it was stainless steel which has iron in it with nickel. Good to know it’s titanium. Very interesting metal, ridged and strong, wears well.

Real amazed at the speed of my recovery. It’s not even painful to my back right now unlike my first two back surgeries 20 plus years ago. That recovery seemed like it went on forever.

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How’s IE working, crashed again and again and again…

Don’t you like Internet Explorer telling you it needs to recover the page, doesn’t load the page, can’t find the page, tells you to get help from a friend to solve the problem. What kind of crap is Microsoft selling? Another product sold before the bugs are out or even finished being developed. There was a feedback item under help before but that’s gone. Too many people being pissed off about software that doesn’t work. Has anything Microsoft sold ever worked right? Why is Linux taking over the market because it works.

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Burned out on Internet Explorer

I’m so tired of reloading and reloading the same page and hope that it loads in internet explorer. Used to never have that problem and work like everyone else’s browser. In fact other browser you might question but no more. What gets me is the broken page symbol in the address bar and when you hold the mouse over it it says that it’s an older web page and most likely not going to work right. Well isn’t that special that Internet Explorer isn’t backwards compatible. Why would anyone not make a program that wasn’t backwards compatible? It’s nice to have the new stuff from web 2.0 instruction set but why throw out what worked on a simple page that just might have a couple pictures and a little text.

Don’t have any problems with other browsers all of them I have installed that is so I can check web pages that I design and make sure they work in all browsers. Not sure what Microsoft is planning to do with there Internet Explorer program, are they only going to work with all the new Microsoft products and nothing else? Sure the new programming features are nice

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What’s wrong with Internet Explorer 9.0?

Am I the only one that has to press the reload button on Internet Explorer 9.0 several times before the page loads? Even Microsoft pages don’t load but give you the compatibility button. When you push the button it asks you if you want to get help from a friends or anyone but Microsoft. It’s like that with all Microsoft products ever since DOS 1.0 who wasn’t made by Microsoft but bought and the Microsoft name slapped on it and leased to IBM. Corrections? Well it was bought so like everything someone needed to be paid to figure out what’s going on and try to fix it. So far after installing the 64 bit version of Internet Explorer 9.0 I’ve had a bunch of updates and it still works the same like Windows 7. Try to save a picture and internet explore crashes. You finally go to another browser (Firefox) the dependable browser you have to save the picture. Feedback, don’t try it because it just causes the browser to crash. I think that’s a planned part of the program so you can’t give any feedback. I even signed up to send them info about crashes but haven’t seen that work since I’ve install version 9.0. Haven’t seen Windows 7 send any feedback when something crashes either. I’m sure there was so much feedback they made a patch to disable that part of the program.

Oh, the spell checker I’ve been using for years doesn’t work with Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9.0. It sticks in an extra word without taking the old word out plus adds a few more characters that don’t make any sense. That’s all run together and spell checker thinks it’s fine.

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Getting the short end of ATT’s stick

How can ATT say they have good quality when they keep charging more for less service. No one likes the cell service because of dropped calls and now internet service suffers because they are shifting service from the people that have DSL to cell phones because they can get more money charging by the byte.  Just amazes me that I can get a letter and find out my service has been cut in half. They didn’t tell me they were rising my rate it just happened. What gets me is the DSL internet cost them less then pennies to the customer yet they want to get more then there share. Since they are a monopoly and no one minding the store they will keep raising rates. If you notice they want to service the customer that spends a hundred dollars a month.  What gets me is if more people are on at slow speeds the people with high speeds will slow down. It bothers me that it cost them the same price for each tier. Whether your on the slowest or fastest it cost ATT the same price. I think it’s time the government breaks up ATT again into smaller companies like they did with Bell.  They are trying to take over T Mobile. Soon there’s only going to be one cell phone company like there is only one DSL service or one phone company where you don’t have a choice in who you can get service from. The P.U.C. is pro business and let them have anything they want. The P.U.C. is suppose to protect people not work to help out big business take every last cent from people. I’m sure the lobbyist are there every day hammering on the P.U.C. something the people don’t have. Maybe if we had lobbyist for the people hammering on the P.U.C. every day the people would be getting better prices.

What gets me is the U-verse service is just a way of sending compressed data. They are also charging for higher speed cell service when they just have enhanced version 3 not version 4. No matter who’s service you get there is no version 4 of the cell phone service. It’s just a sale pitch and advertising.

It was good that the PUC protected the people when PG&E asked to raise rates because people were saving so much energy that it was cutting in to their profits. We lost out during the last oil crunch when they said natural gas was costing more when oil was the only thing that was going up.

Speed Tiers

Consumer

Broadband Service Product Name*
Downstream Speed Range

AT&T High Speed Internet Basic
Fast Access DSL Lite
200 Kbps - 768 Kbps

AT&T High Speed Internet Express
Fast Access DSL Ultra
769 Kbps - 1.5 Mbps

AT&T High Speed Internet Pro
AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet Pro
Fast Access DSL Xtreme
1.56 Mbps - 3.0 Mbps

AT&T High Speed Internet Elite
AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet
Fast Access DSL Xtreme 6.0
3.1 Mbps - 6.0 Mbps

AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet Max
6.1 Mbps - 12.0 Mbps

AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet Max Plus
12.1 Mbps - 18.0 Mbps

AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet Max Turbo
18.1 Mbps - 24 Mbps

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Mentally ill pastor burns holy book in Florida

Full of hate, crazy man who is a antichrist church leader burns holy book to prove how evil he is. “Hate is my American right,” Terry Jones said. “I hate everyone,” he said. 30 of his malformed inbreed church followers stood behind.

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Cut it all, we want it for free

Republicans want to keep cutting the budget and don’t care if the state works because they get paid no matter what. Talk about a group that needs to be furloughed, it’s our state republicans since they aren’t doing anything but costing money and taking up space. Let them all go Jerry, they don’t matter. They are shells of humans that say no. Do you like this? No! What about this? No! Can you work with others? No! They are worthless. They are getting paid to solve problems but instead they cause more problems. Maybe the cuts should all go to the republicans districts. Let them figure out how to fund their school without state money. See what the people in the district say when they don’t bring home the bacon but get what they said, “no.”  “No funds for you, back of the line!” You don’t want to solve problems and want to cut everything hindering the state? Great, the cuts start in your back yard. No funds to fix your roads. No more funds for anything since you don’t want anything. Why should tax payers put money into a republicans district that isn’t going to help the state. You don’t want to pay for things then you get nothing. You get what you pay for, nothing. You want to sit in office getting paid for doing nothing that needs to change and start punching a clock like the majority of the state. You don’t want to work with others then you get a time out and have to stand in the corner. This none logical idealism has to stop. It’s too bad that the republican believe in myths and not facts. They don’t believe in science but will go to the hospital when they are ill. That’s not logical. No more getting others to pay your way if you don’t want to take part. No votes, no money.

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My Deer Friends

Started snowing around 3 PM today. After an hour I started to get worried because the ground was covered and it hadn’t let up. That’s when I saw a couple deer friends up the hill getting out of the snow and under the pine trees. I was taking pictures of the snow and two deer when I looked over and there was the rest of the herd. My oldest momma deer and her baby and all the rest of the herd along with Mister Stump my semi-blind deer that needs to travel with others to help him along. He’s one of my oldest male deer. He was full grown when I moved in ten years ago. The deer came over to eat on the bushes but were covered with snow. There were some grass patches that they found. I had put out a couple cups of rice for my friend Stumpy. He of course came over and ate it all up and with a big smile too.


It was nice seeing my deer friends today. Momma deer is still in charge of the herd. She’s been a good leader. Wish Buddy was around he would be proud of her. Deer need to grow up together and socialize to learn. They learn what to eat at different times a year. Where to get water. Where to get all their needs. They all live with in two miles of where they were born. I’m very happy being a part of their lives. I’ve learned a lot from my deer friends. Seeing them smile is the biggest treat. It doesn’t take much to make them smile because they are so full of life. Seeing babies playing and looking for their play friends and being unhappy when they don’t find their friends. They call out, “where are you play friend.” They will run and look for their friends crying out the whole way. Seeing the bond they develop is amazing. One mother was keeping her two boys up the hill with her when baby girl came up. Baby girl was jumping and bucking to get the boys to play chase with her. She would take off at a full run circle around and come back but mom didn’t want the kids playing that day. The baby girl was so disappointed you could see it in her face. Still she was happy seeing her playmates even if they couldn’t come out and play.
Snows dropping from the trees with a big thud. Stopped snowing a few hours ago. There was a large car pile up on Interstate 80 today in the snow. I think they said it was 40 cars.

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Really screwed together.

First x-ray after surgery. This doesn’t look normal by any means but then it isn’t. They lined up everything as best as possible. I’m hoping those pellets work like they are suppose to and things grow in the spaces.

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8.9 mag quake hits Japan

I’ve been watching the live video since the quake happened and watch the tsunami hit the land. It something I’ll never forget. Houses on fire being carried off by the water. Seeing an airport covered over by water. You couldn’t see any planes. There was train tracks going off from one part going into the water. Hearing the reports is so hard to hear because you know that a lot of people have died. I watch TV late into the night switching channels to see if there was more to see. Getting on the USGS site I could see that it was in the same area I have been looking at that had several quakes before this large event.

Here’s a list of all the quakes in that area.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/140_40_eqs.php

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What do you mean you didn’t invest the money?

I thought when companies and cities or states set up retirements they invested the money so they could get a return on the money. I didn’t think they would just pay for everything out of taxes and hope for the best. What were they thinking? Sure wasn’t sound advice. Not even a good scam either unless you were the mob steeling money from the unions like in some movie. So what were all these cities thinking of when they made all these promises, that growth would go on forever? Maybe back in the 50’s it looked that way but now we know uncontrolled growth isn’t good. What gets me is all these so called leader couldn’t figure this out years ago. Maybe it time to dig up some past names and splash mud on them.

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Snow and skunks

Put some cat food out a bit ago not thinking that I’d have any guests beside the little kitty. Looks like momma skunk and a baby since it’s so small. Usually the babies don’t come out until May. The weather in January and February has been real warm like summer and trees have blossoms on them for now until they freeze. It’s really snowing now and has been for about one hour. The high winds have stopped which is good.

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Another day

Well I’m up and sort of walking with my shell on. Have so many months to go yet. Still in a lot of pain. Seems the pain is every where on my body. This shell I’m wearing is painful. Just don’t know how I’m going to handle this for all these months.

Bug man was here giving me a quote and how to get rid of the ants. Have to get rid of the ants. I’ve lived with them too long.

Body really hurts and hope that pain slows down someday soon.

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What’s wrong with republicans? Is it brain damage?

Why do the republicans want to harm people? They want to cut social programs that work and pay for themselves like social security. Why not cut at the top where the money is? Cut republican governors pay? Cut state elected peoples pay? Why when it comes down to it they put that off but cut programs that help the poor which is less then what it would be when you cut the fat at the top.

There’s no “A” in Boehner

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What’s up with Winter?

As I just made coffee with my espresso machine and killing off the ants. For the last four years January and part of February has been summer weather. The bugs start coming out like flies and moths and ants. Then it snows. The trees start to bloom depending on where they are planted. Rich my neighbor up the hill has peach blossoms started and had to cover his tree. Lucky for him it's small.

The ranchers I've talked to said that apples have been down and real small apples. Blossoms fall off trees when it snows late in the year. Been having snow as late as end of May.

What is amazing when you heat the ocean it expands and takes up more space. Simple concept. When you heat water moisture comes off water too. That's easy to understand. Think of it as taking a shower and the rest of the house is cold. Steam condenses on the cold surfaces. That's like the big freeze on the east coast this winter. We are having snow where it never snows before because the moistures in the air from the warm expanding ocean.

Bark beetles are suppose to die in the winter when it gets cold. Since we have this warm winters the only way to kill off back beetles is when they run out of food. They eat pine and there are several types of them. They live at different heights of the tree. One night I was sitting here when it sounded like a bird hit the screen, it was in summer. I looked at the door and it was a bark beetle the size of a small bird. I've found that adding fertilizer to the base of a tree will keep the tree going but the bugs are still there. I used a weed and feed and think that killed the bark beetles because it brought up stuff in the sap they weren't ready for. I've checked many colleges about back beetle and there's nothing you can do about them. Until they run out of food they are going to be here.

Took pictures of it snowing but it's too hard to hold up the camera. I even put my smallest lens on and it's still to heavy.

If you can get KPFA streaming they are playing Grateful Dead a lot of never heard tracks before. Then they have been like that for years. Made money touring and not on records. They were also the only bands that would give out bootlegs of concerts.

One reason I'm bringing up this winters weather is because I've been active in phenology with many colleges. I've been sending them pictures of plants here that they never have seen before and when they have bloomed. Times are changing. If our food stocks start blooming and then goes into a freeze the blooms die. So does out food. So this is a real problem.

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Can you feel me now? 5.1 south of the border

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Out of ICU and Home

Oh the pain of it all. This is going to take so long even longer then waiting for surgery. The wait was hard but the recovery is going to be even harder. There’s a lot of mobility I’m never going to have again.

Happy Birthday to me. What a way to add another year. I’m hoping I’ll be able to put on boots one day. No slip on shoes for me.

Need more phones around the house.

Sitting it real hard and painful. Need a bath real bad. Hair is a mess. Hoping for the RN’s to get here soon.

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Standing Scan, looking bad

I thought I put up the scan of my spine with me standing but it was me laying down. I have all my discs for my record of my x-rays and MRI’s. Doesn’t take a specialist to see how messed up things are in my back. Why the standing x-ray isn’t as good looking as the laying down one, I don’t know. I should be getting the CT scan disc soon. The standing one really shows how my discs are pushing out to the point they almost look like the backs going to break. Sure is painful that’s for sure. It’s more painful when I’m walking doing anything. It stopped me doing much of anything this year. My lives been on hold and I’m going to be on hold again after surgery. On my right side the ribs are grinding against my hips and that’s really painful. It feels like there’s a big spike stuck in my back also, right where the bend is. That part is sticking out my back too.

 

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More Bad Spine

Had my pre-op yesterday. The doctor had a list of things that could go wrong and because this is a major surgery death could happen. I could wake up blind but that’s only a 2% chance of happening. I don’t know how I could live without color. You can’t used a camera when your blind. I’ll miss seeing my forest friends.

He plans to bolt me together from the inside and out or my back side anyways. They will make a 6 inch cut to the right of center. They will push my insides over and pull the discs out and put in holder with bone inside. I believe they will put some other type hardware also. Then I’ll wake up in the intensive care unit with a airway in to help me breath. Sounds like I’m going to be a mess. The next day they will make a foot long cut in my back and move the junk out of the way. That’s what it’s going to be after they put in the hardware and rods to keep me straight. I’ll never be able to bend after that.

I don’t remember which operation will take 8 to 10 hours but one will. The other will be around 5 hours. I don’t think it’s good to be out and under the control of chemicals to keep you out.

Two weeks before surgery and I can still smile and know what lies ahead.

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