No one as far as I know asked the question posed in the title, but today I certainly felt that way, as the nerd that is, not the one asking the question. I suspect my brother felt the same way. You see, we went to the funeral of someone we have never met. As such, we never met her family either so I am certain more than one person was wondering, “Who are they?”

Let me start at the beginning.  About twenty years ago my uncle met a woman and her family.  Eleven years ago they started seeing each other.  They never did get married, so I can’t call her my aunt, but they were close just the same.  In all that time none of us were ever introduced to his girlfriend; I’m not sure why.  A couple of months ago she was diagnosed with brain cancer, apparently inoperable, and was given a prognosis of just several months.  Then, the cancer showed itelf to be extremely aggressive and about about a week ago I learned her prognosis was downgraded to just a couple of weeks.  Less than a week later she was gone.

I suppose the wake yesterday would have been a more appropriate time for near strangers like us, but we didn’t make it so we went to the funeral today instead.  I pretty much went just to support my uncle and my mother as again I never met his girlfriend or her family.  She did leave behind several grievers though including children and grandchildren, so my uncle wouldn’t have been her first husband had they gotten married.  I must have looked like robotman at this funeral.  How can one be sad and grieved when he doesn’t even know the subject of the funeral?  Truthfully, as far as sadness goes I do tend to be kind of a robot at times.  Even at my father’s funeral I never broke down, and you can’t get much closer to someone to be grieved over than a parent (or child to put the bond in the other perspective), with the exception of a spouse. Needless to say my uncle was very grieved and like my mother with her spouse, JustJ with his, and countless others who have lost the one closest to them, he will not soon get over this (nor should he, if anyone thinks I am suggesting this).

The funeral was a three part affair.  We met at the funeral home and any who wished to were able to make last respects at this time.  Though I had never met her and thus didn’t need to see her body I nonetheless joined the line as we processed past her and out the door to the vehicular procession, the part that drivers everywhere are always thrilled about 😉 .  We headed to part two- the church where the funeral would be held.  It was a Catholic service, so I found much of the ritual unfamiliar and I found I could not join in many of the prayers.  Those prayers were either to Mary, to the Saints, or just prayers for the deceased.  As a Protestant I do not believe in any of those.  I pray to God the Father directly with Jesus as my only intercessor, and I believe once dead a person is judged immediately and then goes on to one of two places so therefore prayers for them are useless.  Prayers for the family and others still living on the other hand are more than welcome and I either joined in at these points or prayed in this fashion during the other prayers.

Part three of the service was the long procession to the cemetery.  It was at this point we made our departure and headed home.  My other uncle was also there and chose to stay so at least there was someone still there for my one uncle from his own family.  I do hope everything went well with it.  I expect we will be seeing my uncle and my grandmother soon.  My mother is very close to them both even if I don’t get close to my extended family.  She tells me there is a lunch planned for the near future.  Perhaps I’ll pay for it if my uncle will let me.  He always covers these things and it would only be right if he didn’t have to this time.

Considering the topic of this blog one could assume that I am about to write a post about a Bart Simpson-esque student deciding to pull the fire alarm or set a trash can on fire for a gag, then get caught by police and dragged before a judge to learn that the story dad or grandpa told him about the things he did in his school days are not just considered not funny these days but actually a crime worthy of a hefty fine and/or community service.

Well, I’m not going to tell that story.  Instead this is about the trick-or-treaters who missed out on our house for the hour we took out of this evening to check up on my grandmother.  Things started out normal enough.  She called and the one she wanted to talk to was in the bathroom, so she said to have her call her back.  No problem, and thank– {click}.  Sigh.  My grandmother always hangs up immediately following her last word.  When she’s done, she’s done.  So, when the call is attempted to be returned- no answer.  Okay, maybe she’s in the bathroom this time.  Try again- nope.  And again.  Nada.  Keeps trying, and panic arises.  You see, my grandmother is 86 and I’m told was having some chest pains earlier today.  Okay, time to go over to her apartment to see if she’s all right, still attempting to make contact on the way.  We get over there and she is happily in discussion with a pastor who also sells household goods, I guess for extra income.  She loves the products he sells, or rather sold, as apparently he is quitting that line of business.

So, long story short (everybody now: TOO LATE! 😛 ) what happened is she unplugged the phone she had in her living room because it had too many cords and one of the buttons sticks.  That left her with her bedroom phone, which wouldn’t be a problem since her apartment is pretty small except she had the ringer turned off so she wouldn’t be woken up when asleep.  Doh!  We hooked back up her phone, explaining to her that she could still take calls even if she couldn’t dial any number with a 3 in it, and that I would be happy to get her a new phone ASAP.  No more troubles with not being able to call her I hope.

Okay, we return and only get maybe two more trick-or-treating groups for the rest of the night.  Where have they all gone these last few years, seriously?  Maybe scares like the latest one of tainted chocolate candy from China [don’t worry unless you’re in Canada, says the company]?

If you really want to hear about my jobs these last couple of days, I think I’m going to have to make you wait until tomorrow.  It’s 11 now and I’m tired.  Good night.

Maybe tomorrow…

Last night I was a bit exhausted from work, short nights of sleep, choir on the weekend, small group… Well, you get the picture.  So it is understandable that when I read a news item about some new Vista Ultimate extras and I went to Windows update to get them and saw SP1 asking to be installed instead, I decided why not?

Well, as it turns out, the answer to that question is the reason it showed up for me so many months after its release.  I forgot that I rejected it a while back due to problems I read about.  What problems you ask?  Failed installations for starters.  No problem, right?  I can always restore if there’s a problem. Why not just forget for the moment this is the infamous Microsoft we’re discussing?  Yeah, sure, I did. 🙁

I didn’t remember I rejected it, and I didn’t remember the installation issues.  So as I said I started the installation, which by the way said could take over an hour and did even on this fast machine of mine.  I should say unsuccessful installation.  It seemed like it worked, but then it rebooted, disk activity for a while, then… blue screen of death.  Great…  Okay, rebooted to try again, same results.  Starting to feel the dread coming on I chose to repair next time and it asked me if I wanted to restore.  Sigh.  All that time wasted.  I clicked yes and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Eventually, I looked at the hard drive activity light and no activity.  What?  I unsuccessfully tried a few other things and eventually wound up at the restore application itself (the other was the repair app) and noticed all the points I could choose from.  All one of them that is.  The SP1 installation created a point and decided, hey why not delete the old restore points?  Gee, thanks Microsoft.  Well, I tried the one restore point and started the process.  Things were looking good until it got to the end where it was “finalizing the restore.” At this point (no pun intended) all hard drive activity stopped and the finalizing animation kept going, and going… Clearly, this was the point where the repair program failed.

I looked online on the other computer and found out that this was a common problem, and there were few solutions.  I wound up downloading a Vista recovery CD and a Ubuntu (Linux) CD in case I had to restore the entire system.  With that, I could hopefully move critical files to the D: drive before reformattiong.  You may have noticed in the headline I wrote near disaster.  As it turned out, I didn’t need the Linux CD because the Vista recovery CD worked.  Not that I expected it to after I saw it just had the same tools as on my HD that I already tried.  I tried the repair, and it actually found a problem.  Maybe.  It said the boot record was corrupt and repaired it.  Reboot.  Nope.  Now it seemed worse.  Wonderful.  I booted the CD again and tried the restore program just for kicks.  Well, surprise surprise- no, really- it actually finished the restore!  By now the computer had my full attention as I watched it reboot, start loading, get past the problem point, get to the GUI, and… LOGIN SCREEN!  YES!!

Lesson learned- no service packs on this computer, a big thanks but no thanks.  Security updates, but no big service packs.  And I think my next software purchase will be a good backup program that is hopefully mostly painless unlike the basic one included with the OS.  Ghost maybe?  During yesteryear it was supposed to be a good program.  Now…?

Well, back to the regular posts next time.

Well, the new pump is installed and cleanup continues.  We picked up some wet items from downstairs and put them outside to dry, afterwhich we’ll try washing them.  The second dehumidifier which I said doesn’t work actually seems to after all.  It just draws a lot of power.  I switched it to another outlet and it worked fine, didn’t trip the circuit breaker.  However, I used an extension cord with it, an office-style 3-prong job, and the connector area got pretty warm.  Now I know that the dehumidifier says not to use an extension cord, but the cord they provide is short, and with the basement outlets set high I have to have to have the dehumidifier practically against the wall in order to plug it in, but it seems that’s what I will have to do.

Anyway, on to the headline.  I was at a restaurant tonight and I overheard an encounter between two dads and their boys, both named Griffin.  I have encountered boys with this name, but not two at once.  It was a surprise to the dads too.  One is seven and the other nine, so they are still quite young which is my experience as I haven’t known any older boys or men with that name, though it’s possible some that I met are teens now.  According to Behind the Name, the name Griffin has ranked in the mid 200’s for the last decade, with its peak in 1998 at 215.  The year before, it was at 225 with the popularity going down drastically with the years going back.  Before the 80’s, it doesn’t rank at all.  I bring up 1997 specifically because a certain event happened that may have improved the popularity of the name somewhat.  That event being the release of the first book in a series of seven.  The book I speak of is of course Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone.  While not a main character’s name, or any character that I can recall for that matter, the name of his house was Griffyndor, and I believe they did encounter a griffin (the mythical beast, not someone with the name) in the first book, though it could have been one of the next few.  Is it a stretch to tie this book with the name?  Maybe.  I don’t know.  I think I’ve written enough on it though.

Today I had no job, but then one district had two days off due to flooding (the town is by a river) and another I am still waiting for my login info for, which the woman I talked to said would be a couple of weeks due to limited time processing new subs and taking it in order of hire.  I do have a full day tomorrow though so perhaps something to write about.  Until then.

As in up out of the sump pump pit when the sump pump fails…  You may have heard of, or even experienced the weather happening around here while Ike was pounding the Gulf coast.  Rain.  Lots of it.  It wasn’t as bad as the storm system that hovered over us for days last year [EDIT: According to this morning’s paper it actually was worse], but then last year we had a working sump pump.  Apparently our sump pump got its intake clogged causing it to run dry and burn out.  I learned this the other morning when I went downstairs to use the bathroom so as not to disturb the other occupant here.  I tend to not turn on the light at the bottom of the stairs because I know my way around.  Normally not a problem, but this day I put my foot down the final stair to a splash.  Yuck.  Four inches of water.  Not so bad, but then think about where the water came from and what goes through that pit…

Bottom line, we needed a new sump pump.  So did hundreds of others around here.  After learning that Lowes, Home Depot, Sears, etc. were out, I found that Menards apparently stocks hundreds of the things as when I got there they had dozens left on the shelf and the cashier told me they sold wel over a hundred that day.  In the meantime, we do have a backup pump and my brother and I set it up.  Unfortunately a hose was securely attached so its status as a backup remained firm.  We had to run the hose up the stairs, buying and attaching another length to make it possible to run it out the door.  Once set up, it took a few hours to drain the basement while the rain poured mercilessly down.  Later that night, after church, I was able to secure that new pump along with the attachments my brother said we needed.  We would have had it hooked up tonight, but the PVC cement takes several hours to cure so we will have to finish tomorrow.  Good thing the weather report shows that we are pretty much finished with the rain for now.  After that, let the cleanup and damage assessment begin.  Both of our dehumidifiers were caught in the indoor lake, but one of them still works.  Hopefully once the other dries out it can be put into active duty as well.

Other casualties from the rain included a hot water heater that I only was able to restart a few hours ago and a closed road today next to a retention pond- pretty full when we passed it yesterday, and that was before another nearly 30 hours of rain.  Another casualty was my lower back.  It started hurting pretty bad yesterday to the point where I could only stand for a limited period of time and when sitting I had to make sure my back was supported.  At one point I sat down and could not get back up it hurt so bad.  It is a little better today and I am using a heating pad on it as I type.  I did learn that Aleve does not ease back pain.

I am not looking forward to the rest of the week.  So far I have 2½ days assigned (my first elementary jobs of the year- up to now it has been middle school only) and a large cleanup job in the basement.  By the way, the ELL assignment went without hitches.  My boycott of ELL assignments in that school is over for now.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of posting some Archie youtube links with my posts below, but have a look at some of the music numbers.  There are more where these came from- just do a search at youtube for The Archies or The Archie Show, or click on one of these videos to go to the site and start digging through the related section:

Archie Show Intro

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Jingle Jangle

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Bang Shangalang

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Sugar, Sugar

Has there ever been a time in your life you have just had to wait on something?  The anxiety sets in while trying to be patient and it’s difficult to think of anything else.  When a child this anticipation is often felt in birthdays and Christmas when you just can’t wait for that toy you’ve kept bugging mom and dad about.  For parents this sort of anticipation runs in the birth of children when the due date approaches.  I am not married, but I imagine the mother-to-be is anticipating the day when that child is finally out because she’s worn from carrying the baby for the last several months.  For dad, I imagine the stress of waiting on his wife causes him to anticipate the birth.  For both mom and dad, they can’t wait for the baby to be born so the nightmarish hospital visit is over and they can see their baby finally.

Well, as we know my friends C and L are at this time once again in their lives with baby number four, and this blogger is having to just wait on news of what’s going on.  They were to go in Friday to have labor induced and their child born.  It is now two days later and in the absence of news all sorts of things have been going through my head, most of them not helpful in relieving the anxiety.  Is L okay?  Is the baby okay?  Is this just a very long labor or has something unexpected happened, and if so what?  As you can tell this line of thinking goes nowhere good fast.  I keep checking my email and my friends’ blogs- all of them since maybe my OH friends know something I don’t yet know, and I have prayed more than once, but still I am anxious for news.  I pray it’s good news.

Unfortunately I just have to keep waiting…

As I write this I am trying out three different weather gadgets on my desktop sidebar to see which one I will keep.  Right now Accuweather says 74° (okay, I just right-clicked and selected options to see which one it was and it updated itself), MSN says 76° (jumped to 79° after I checked its options!), and the Weather Channel was at 79° and just hopped up to 81°.  Well it seems that the Weather Channel one gets points for changing on its own, but which one is right? If I could just find the answer to that I would know which one to keep.  The Weather Channel one, by the way, also loses points for having its logo blatantly on the gadget while the other two conserve space a little better, but then again it has more options.  Sigh.  Until these three, I had used WeatherBug, which not only let me choose the location but also what thermometer I wanted to use in the area from a list of 8-10.  Unfortunately for some reason, after restarting the computer it would no longer connect to wherever it got its info from.  And reading the comments it would seem that I wasn’t the only one with this problem.  So here I am looking for a working gadget.  Well, if I don’t like these three there are always more on the gadget website- seems weather gadgets are a dime a dozen.

This Vista sidebar is pretty nice.  At first it had a little slideshow viewer, a clock, and an RSS headline reader (100 headlines, four at a time, and only the first few words of each one?  No thanks!) in addition to its own weather gadget (similar to the MSN one, but less frills).  I replaced the weather gadget, left the clock gadget- a pretty realistic looking analog clock by the way, and removed the other two.  I also downloaded a CPU/RAM meter and a wireless networking meter, the latter of which is waiting on the bench for me to get a wireless router.  There are also stock tools, search tools, and a lot more for the sidebar.  There are even some mini-games that can be installed.

Well, looking at the weather gadgets again, the accuweather was three degrees below the next higher one, but once again I had to manually update it so this one is probably gone.  However, the other two are at a three degree difference themselves- so which is right??  Sigh.

Well, if I happened to waste your time with this post I just have this to say- sorry, no refunds! 😛

Several years ago my church had the choir sing on 4th of July weekend, and this is one of the songs.  I pray that as you reflect on the freedom we have here in the US, you will reflect especially on the freedom we have in worshiping as we please.  There are many places now where there is no such freedom, and there will be a day that we will all have to go underground for a time before Jesus takes the world back from Satan once and for all, as God promises.

[Godtube]https://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=fd28e0f6fcdffbcdd760[/Godtube]