and I only had to hang up on tech support in India once (a record for me!).
turns out that all i needed was my IP address. i eventually figured out how to hit the modem to see it (gee - just like hitting the router, but you have to be plugged in to the modem).
for future reference, the key to everything is
192.168.1.1
of course, if I can't get into the internet, I'll never be able to find that. So I used my label maker to put all the vital info on the router itself.
I hope I have at least another 2 years before I go through this again.
A neighbor found a kitten in her woodpile, another neighbor thought it might be my cat and got me. Of course it was not mine, but I got to find out what one does here when one finds a cat. AND I got to meet a neighbor who is MY AGE! Nancy, who found the cat is awesome and 55. She and I hit it off. She like me finds animals and helps them to find new owners.
I took the cat to my sis's animal clinic and they checked it out, fed it, gave it shots and tests and have it under observation for the weekend. On monday I'll "drop in" and see if I want this new little girl cat or if I feel she should go to another family. (likely)
There, I snagged Beanie, Barb's dog for a playday with Nym. Beanie and Nym played ALL day and into the night.
My sis and Mark came to dinner and I finally got to cook for them. Mexican was the theme including intense margarita's. We all plan on going for a motorcycle ride tomorrow!
I found the "STATE" store and stocked up on liquor. :-)
It's all good. It really is.
My DSL is repaired but will only work if I'm hooked up to the modem via an ethernet cable.
I've tried, for an hour this morning and another hour tonight, to configure the Linksys wireless router (which I installed and have previously reconfigured a couple times). It comes up as configured and connected but won't let me go anywhere - everything times out.
I think the problem is internet security settings... that I have them configured, somewhere, for the wireless router too. I've checked, disabled, and/or reset everything I can think of but still can't get internet access via my wireless router.
Yes, it is making me insane.
I ordered new carpet today for all the bedrooms and Ben's office.
They will start on Tues. By then I should also have received the guest bedroom furniture and Ben's office furniture!
Once the carpet is in , and furniture put together and in place I'LL BE DONE!
Well, I'll still have things I'll want to add to the house, but we will be waiting till spring to do those since they are all outside!
Photos will follow carpet and furniture - I promise.
and he's earning his pay today. I'm getting a strong feeling that he can't find anything wrong.
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Was here at 820am. Had a device that sounded like spaceships. Made noises for about 15 min then left, saying he'd be right back. He left his parking cones so I guess I should be more hopeful.
I'm tired and have a wicked headache.
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Loathe
~ Lack of home internet
~ Doubting dsl repair will really happen tomorrow
~ Allergy symptoms returned when I returned to work
~ I have an extremely low tolerance for humans lately
~ The tamale fest I planned to attend this weekend has been moved to Dec
Love
~ Skritches just climbed into bed
~ Realizing wireless broadband is a service option
~ Coughing is greatly reduced
~ Physical therapist admitted that therapy might not help my knees or be worth the time/effort/money. Yay for honesty!
~ My knees have worked for 6 of the last 7 days
~ I did not 'prep' the house for the housekeepers
~ Having a web enabled phone
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Is destroying my will to live. Or maybe just my will to be alive without committing homicide.
Verizon service tech is supposed to show up tomorrow before noon.
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My humble and sincere thanks to all veterans who have served to keep my country and my liberties safe. My heart goes out to all of you, especially to those who have made serious sacrifices. While I go about my daily business and snuggle down safe and sound in my bed, many of you are guarding a wall, battling with the enemy, or rescuing people off rooftops during a natural disaster. Some of you are tipping your last-call glasses of beer down in the halls of the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Your time of service has passed, yet a part of you lives always in the men and women who now serve. Some of you are praying, alone or in groups, that all sons and daughters, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, and parents are home by the next Veterans Day. You know He can grant your prayers, but it's unlikely given the evil in the world.
Many of you will march in parades -- some of you will be escorted in your wheelchairs -- and be either encouraged by the numbers of people who gather and wave flags along the parade route or disappointed by the numbers, which seem to dwindle more each year. But you should know that the intensity of pride and sincerity of gratitude from just a few who gather are much richer, fuller, and sweeter than all the speeches, blog posts,and five-minute clips on the late news hours.
Some of you are homeless. We can argue about whether you are crazy or on drugs or a victim of the recession or whatever it is that makes you chronically without shelter, but I am at a loss as to how this could happen in my country. With the billions of dollars we borrowed from the Chinese to give to banks and companies who turned around and thumbed their noses at us while they got massages and played golf at an exotic resort, we couldn't spare a couple or three to shelter people who, conscientiously or not, went and stood in the way of bullets when others did not? I apologize to you, for both looking the other way and not being sincere enough to promise you I will not do it again. But I know that you sacrifice to this day for what you did for your country and I live in the grace of your sacrifice.
Some of you are recuperating in a hospital, trying to recover physically, mentally, or spiritually. Some of you are being taken care of by people who care about you, and some of you were forced to endure deplorable conditions at a military hospital, where people were supposed to care for you and try to make you whole as possible, in the name of the American people whom you served. I cannot understand this breach of faith and I'm angered by it, as I believe other Americans were, but like other government-run horror shows it appears to have been easy to sweep under the rug.
I am one of those people who get a lump in their throat when they see an American flag backlit by the sun's rays. A sucker for icons, I get it when anyone plays the national anthem, even though I love "America the Beautiful" a thousand times better, or a color guard comes out onto a baseball field, or some jets fly over a memorial. The arresting sight of a string of motorcycle guards heading to a funeral to protect a grieving family from a bunch of evil nutcase protesters from a Topeka church makes me want to pull in line and follow them to their destination.
But I get downright weepy when I walk through the tombstones of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, whether they mark the graves of Civil War soldiers, entire crews of planes shot down in World War II, or soldiers from other conflicts. And, even though some of the graves are for World War II and Vietnam vets from my own family, the the saddest to me are the newer graves of people who have died in recent wars.
I mourn those men and women who kept the wolf at bay.
And thank those who today still keep it from my door.
Not that my proclivity towards nigh-arrogant ranting and circuitous introspection demands any apologies*, but I realized this weekend there are some significant though well-concealed advantages to being a self-absorbed navel-gazer.
You’re going to need me to back that one up, aren’t you?
OK, let’s start with this brilliantly clever circle graph that received its fifteen minutes of fame when it landed on the front page of HuffPo last Friday.
To some, this may seem like an outright insult to Christians on a national level. To others, it comes off… well, it comes off exactly the same way; it’s just that this group of people delights in the insult instead of taking offense to it. It’s why we have wars, you know.
But what if the philosophical implications of this graphic are deeper than either of those cramped assumptions? Isn’t it possible the obvious joke is only there as an appetizer for your brain? Could there be something beyond the glib comparison of three movie monsters to the Messiah?
And if I can get you to see what I’m pointing at, can I then use the same similes and metaphors to confuse things and diminish the entire thing back down to a trite GraphJam entry?
Only one way to find out, I guess.
So anyway, being an artist by profession, I have an appreciation for color that perhaps my non-creative friends lack. Nevertheless, most people who see the above image would take note, albeit to varying degrees, of what could potentially be the most significant aspect of the illustration: that the hues change tint as they overlap. Oh sure, it’s done primarily to distinguish the individual circles while avoiding the clutter of each circle having a black stroke around it. But if we’re willing to assume a respectable level of intelligence for the graphic artist, we can very easily contrive some other, more important symbolism in this design.
For example, considering the person’s artistic nature, we can decide that the three circles are a subliminal color-mixing palette. Voila! Instant Philosophical Proposition! We are now conveniently positioned to make the symbol represent whatever we want simply by piously stating, “The final question is this: do you see God as additive or subtractive?”
The beautiful cleverness of this is that we’ve now opened up the argument for what defines something as additive and what makes something subtractive. Further applying these parameters to an omnipotent being keeps the idea immortal by giving rise to mutually exclusive factions, each with its own specialized and unequivocal interpretation of the image.
The Three-Circle Purists say the underlying message merely reinforces the graphic’s original idea that God is the culmination of all monstrosities to the point of becoming the blackest monster of them all. They refer to the very manner in which the tints darken as they progress towards Jesus Christ as their evidence. Declaring him to be a subtractive deity, they give God the name “Simmik” (spelled cmyk) and dub him the Bringer of Blackness.
The Paradoxicals, however, insist that the diagram represents Jesus’ tendency to spend the majority of his ministry in the presence of the most misguided, baleful sinners and that the choice of colors is intended as a subtle testament to that necessary irony. They claim repeatedly – almost to the point of recitation – that it is light from which God and all good things are born and thus, just like light, God must be additive. To them, the completeness of God results in a clean, perfect whiteness. He is given the title “Regrebloo the Pure”. Countless hymns are composed rejoicing in the promise of that glorious day when all colors will come together to form the most perfect White.
Of course, the cynical 3-CPs are all over that with shouts of racism and accusations of a religiously driven eugenic agenda. Science fiction novels begin to be regularly presented as oracular tomes. PK Dick and Isaac Asimov become revered as great prophets.
The Doxies then issue a collective sardonic snort by taking out full-page ads and erecting billboards likening fundamentalist 3-C doctrine to that of the Church of Scientology, citing as fact the very arguable notion that L. Ron Hubbard was also a science fiction author. This campaign fails miserably, however, as does their droll attempt to humiliate their adversaries by referring to them as “C-3POs”.
The battle rages for decades. Nonsensical self-help books emerge with titles like I, Robot. U Can’t Subtract! and Paradoxicals Do It With Guile. Passion becomes petulance and devotion turns into duress. A purist menacingly holds a 2x4 like a baseball bat and a doxie pulls his handgun…
Then, only after countless lives have been lost to the argument, does the illustration’s creator (by now aged 106) finally issue a public statement declaring that he is, in point of fact, completely colorblind.
And just like that, the sum of time and energy dedicated to either side of the debate is fully devalued. All the stock placed in both ideals is instantly obliterated. Every measure of strength and motivation imbued by the conflict is just as effectively depleted.
There was really never anything more to the illustration than an insensitive jape…
…right?
*In fact, some people actually like that sort of thing. I simply provide a service – an abrasive but oddly arousing service. So do hookers, but unlike a prostitute, I service you free of charge.
