You know who you are.  The people who pop in look and never say Hi.  In other words lurkers.  Hello and welcome.   Reason I mentioned this is I was looking at the new back end, and again hit the site statistics area.  I don’t go there much, because I thought I knew who was visiting.  I was wrong.

There are people from the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, and others   People using PC’s or Macs or other.  People using IE, Firefox, or other.  Seems like a lot of Others here, but they only make up a small percentage.

It is also interesting to see what other people find interesting here.  Not always what I consider the most interesting, but it was at one time, because I wrote it.

So if you like, leave a comment.  Unless you’re on the already approved list (made one comment), your post will be moderated.  If you don’t want anyone else to see your hello, let me know. It will be our little secret.

Just having fun with all of you.  For those who do post comments, thanks.  For those that don’t, I hope you found something interesting in my Random Thoughts.  This is probably as random as it gets.

Oh yes, the main page is the most popular by far, but the post visited the most right now list on the bottom right of the page.

Hello world….

One of my daughters lives in Florida with her husband and kids. This weekend, on Mother’s Day, some wildfires started in their part of the state. By Monday, their town was hit with fires. Sections of I-95 were closed due to heavy smoke. Monday night I was on-line looking for maps of the exact locations of said fires, and seeing if any area near them was being evacuated.

There are many things a parent worries about when it comes to his/her children. When they are younger it is how much they get to eat, how much they sleep, why they are crying, what hurts, why does it hurt, are they sick, ect. When they get older there are different things to worry about. School, sports, friends, drugs, ect. When they move out, most of the time you can put worry behind you. Until of course something big happens where they live.

Accidents in the area they live in, with cars that look similar to what they drive are seen on the news. Fires in their apartment complex. And then any other acts of nature, in this case droughts and wildfires.

For the better part of the day, I was more than a bit concerned about my ‘little girl’ and her family. I finally got another phone call saying that all the fires are contained. A relief was felt.

The other part of this, is that I am an ONLY parent. I emphasized the ‘only’ for a reason. On this earth, there is no other parent than me. This is a huge responsibility. I don’t have an Ex who can share some of the burden (I burden I gladly took by the way). No one to share ideas with. No one to complain about the kids too. I tend to internalize all of this, for better or worse. I know my girls can see it most of the time, but I’m not sure about the rest of the world. Even as the children grow older, and need a parent less and less, the worries still come. There are times when I wish I wasn’t on my own in this. Fires scant miles from where one of your children is, is exactly one of those times

I ran into a bit of news today that made me take a bit of notice. Microsoft has launched a new site Worldwide Telescope. I’m downloading the software as I write this, so I will give a more in depth look later. The software is supposed to be a virtual telescope with access to images from all over the world and from space. Terrabytes of data are supposed to be available.

For me, a one stop shop of various space images is just what I am looking for. If this even gives half of what the press release states, I will be interested.

I’ll keep you posted as I use the software.

I’m a glutton for punishment. I watched the second of the “Land of the Lost” shows, “Return to the Land of the Lost”. The same actors, with a different story. It was much better actually. I already knew that the story could not be anything like the book. After the first movie I wasn’t expecting much at all. The storyline was actually good. They writers did a much better job this time, since they didn’t have to throw anything away. It made my initial reaction to the actors in the first movie. They filled the roles well in both movies. The dinosaurs in this movie were actually worse than the first movie. There was one instant were someone hit a dinosaur and it looked like they were hitting foam rubber. Which of course they were, and they looked it. Oh well, I knew that going into.

I’ll have to get another “B” dinosaur movie, I actually enjoyed the last couple of evenings. Even if I complain a little about movie makers abandoning books. More on that in another blog, it just started getting to me again.

I have a 1992 version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World”. I tend to like movies about dinosaurs, especially campy ones. Rubber dinosaurs, stop action clay dinosaurs, lizards with frills attached are all good fun. Newer movies with good CGI effects are also fun for me. The movie I have is more of the rubber dinosaur type. If you now of the book, John Rhys Davies is Professor Challenger. I’ve like most of the movies with Mr Davies, and so far this is no exception. He is as bombastic and egotistical as the book. I don’t remember the story having a kid along, but he hasn’t got on my nerves too much yet. My biggest problem with the story so far is that they moved the location of lost world from the Amazon to the heart of Africa. I’m still curious as to why that was changed, but I guess it doesn’t make much difference. More on this after I finish watching.

I don’t know if anyone noticed the sunset I have on my blog page. This is a picture I took years ago on a late winter or early spring day (notice lack of leaves). This was taken on one of those old Sony cameras with the floppy disk to store the pictures, and also one of my early attempts at using the camera. I had 3 floppies of sunset pictures, this was one of the last and happened to be the best one. 1024×768 Jpeg file with a size of 110 Kb.

You may ask why I’m explaining all this today. I would ask that if I didn’t already know the answer. So I’ll tell you.

This picture was one of my wife’s favorites. She put it on our computer as the wallpaper (until she took many pictures of her chinchillas). I was happy that she liked my first attempt at digital photography. Anyway I now use this picture on almost everything that needs my personal stamp. I have it on my computer wallpaper, my cell phone wallpaper, I panel on the front of my laptop has this picture and so on. It is one little memory I have of the good times I had with my wife. And it is a picture in our woods that we purchased (a long way around) from my parents. It was my mother’s wish to live in the woods as long as I can remember. When I was in High School, she finally got her wish. So that picture also reminds me of my mother.

So for the two mothers in my life that I have lost, and for all other moms reading … Happy Mother’s Day.

Yes, this is my 42nd blog post.  And a great lead into another thing to write about.  Another of my favorite things to do is read.  I am a big time reader.  Most of the time I tend to read fiction.  Science fiction and Fantasy are my favorites, with mysteries coming in a close third.  Believe it or not, I’ve never read the “Hitchhikers Guide”  I did catch some of the BBC radio series, but never got through the whole story.  I can’t remember why it was taken off local radio, but I don’t think they ever finished it.   Someday, I’ll have to check and see if they have it on tape or DVD.   I may have to see the movie and read the books too, but I want to experience the radio show first.

I’ve been hitting the Superhero movies hard for the past few weeks, so I thought I would let some of my other side show. So I thought I would write about Mel Brooks Comedies.

My absolute favorite is Blazing Saddles. A wonderful spoof on almost every western made. I’ve been thinking that this movie could not be made and release today. There were way too many politically incorrect comedy bits in that show. The best part of the show in my opinion had to have been Alex Karras. The part of Mongo and his hitting the horse and of course the Candy Gram. These little things made the movie fun for me. Of course all the puns and movie bits that make most of the Brooks’ comedies fun to watch over and over again. There are seems to be movies I haven’t seen that have been used in satire in these movies.

On to a quick list of favorite in order

1) Blazing Saddles

2) Young Frankenstein

3) Space Balls

4) The 12 Chairs

5) High Anxiety

6) History of the World

7) Silent Movie

8) Robin Hood Men in Tights

9) Dracula Dead and Loving It.

10) To be or not to be

11) Life Stinks

12) The Producers

–Not a movie but it should be in here The 2000 Year Old Man.

— I’m fairly certain I will like Get Smart this summer too. He is a writer for that, and was a writer for the original series.

I was in my favorite computer store today and had a weird thing happen.  I’m a very good customer at this place, and I’ve been going to it since it opened.  I tend to buy most of my computer stuff from that store.  They treat me very well and have always given me a good deal.  I went in today to turn in a video card that I borrowed to check out a system problem I was having.  I walked in on a complaint session.  It seems that a person did not get their computer in time.  Now this is a small shop that does not keep a large inventory in stock.  They order all the parts and custom build each machine.  All this and a good price too.  A problem they do have is being help up by delivery back orders.  For a custom built machine, this could set the time you get the machine back a few days. Apparently that is exactly what happened.

I’ve had that happen once or twice myself. I never gave it another thought.  If I had needed the computer or part by a specific day, I would have been able have the shop overnight the parts.  I never thought it necessary.  I never complained about the time of delivery.  It is part of doing business in a small town locally owned shop.

Now back to our complainer. I needed to talk to the owner of the shop to check on an order I wanted to make.  I stopped in during the time my daughter had voice lessons.  Apparently the complaint session had been going on for a while.  After 20 minutes, I had to leave and pick up my daughter.  I planned on stopping back after that.  5 minutes later they were still there.  I did some other shopping, 30 minutes later they were still there.  I stopped for dinner.  45 minutes later, the shop was now empty of customers.  I went in and carried out my business.   The owner thanked me for being such a good customer.  Normally he charges 1/2 down on orders.  Today I didn’t have to put anything down.  It was his way of thanking me for being the person I normally am.   Strange that common courtesy is so uncommon these days.  We deal with people that have to have it their way, and no other way will do.  The “I want it now” mentality is everywhere.   Too bad.

I’m slowly going through a number of DVDs and CDs that I have recorded/created/burned  over the years.  There are stacks of them.  Most not marked.  I have been going through disk by disk trying to figure out what is on each.  Right now I’m playing a recording that didn’t turn out so well.  Seems like I had a lot of dropped frames in it.  One more for the junk heap.