March 21, 2000

12:00a
     Wonder if we survived the catastorphies (all the bad stuff) that was suppose to happen?

Saturday, April 1, 2000

3:30p
     It was August 30th last year when I created this page, it was a look into, an expectation of the future. Well, it's here now, actually past due according to the above entry.
8:00a [Clothes washing by the creek.]
     They are people who live their lives full of activity, doing and planning to do, things every minute of the day and night. Then they are those who live their lives just the opposite, nothing to do and not planning to do things till something absolutely has to be done. Both become accustomed to their own lifestyle and it becomes the norm, the status quo. Then they're those whose lifestyle changes from one extreme to the other. That's what happened to me these past five weeks.
3:35p
     Ok, now back to the here and now again.
     There's only one more week of work at Ryobi now, that'll be next week. I've already left the pizza place job, that was last week. So now it's back to not having anything to do except see about Mom.
     Her appointment with the lung doctor got changed from April 18 to last Thursday. She called me at work and told me. I spent the rest of that day getting her over to Greenville, through the appointment and back again. She's got pulmonary fiberous, that's been her problem for all these weeks, instead of pneumonia. Least that's his opinion. Of course she's still got the congestive heart failure condition too. So it's been kind-of one thing after another for weeks now, actually months if you go back to when she really started to feel bad.
     Did you know a person can get accustom to having low oxygen levels? Enough so that low levels would make a normal person gasp for breathe. There's been times, with all the rushing around from one job to another, from one errand to another, that I've forgotten what I was suppose to be doing. I think a good toke on a oxygen tank would do me good then.
     I've been staying over at Mom's house for 3 weeks now, this might be the new norm and status quo for me now. I've known for years this time would come and now it has. It's basically been why I've stayed around Pickens all these years too.
     I'll need more activity after next week when the job at Ryobi plays out. It's been one of the things that keeps me for sitting around here at my house and dwelling on the new situation. I guess I'll finally get around to putting more ... real effort into finding another engineer-technical type job now. I can't tolerating doing the pizza job anymore, trying to feed hundreds of people in 3 hours is just too much for me now, I don't have the patience for trying to get everything done at once anymore.
     I did the regular clothes washing rititual down by the creek this morning. When I got back to my house and the clothes hung out on the back porch to finish drying, I started raking the leaves from around the back walkway and porch. Then I went back over to Mom's and cut her grass. Moved a pile of leaves I raked up last Fall and left under the pecan tree. There was a section out of one of the maple trees that I had cut down in Mom's yard in 1996, that was just after I got back from the hernia operation. I was going to cut slabs out of it and make table tops. That never happened and it just laid there between Dad's old green house and the metal building. The termites ate it away. I used a shovel to dig it apart and piled it on the dirt pile left over from the septic tank work a couple of years ago. I really never finish what I intend to do sometimes and just let those things rot away.
     Dad's greenhouse ... it's really a greenhouse now and has been for years, grown over with a vine. I think it may have also been during 1996, that Winter before I gave myself the hernia, I was staying over at Mom's during one of the snow/ice storms. It could have been a different Winter. I looked out the front bedroom window and saw an old possum walking up the front yard. It was moving kind-of slow. I watched it for a while, till it move on around the corner of the house. It was later that Spring I went out to the greenhouse to get something or other. There laid a dead possum just inside the door. If I was one to believe in re-incarnation I'd use that experience to believe it more.
     Well it's a few minutes after 4 now and I need to get back to doing something. If I ever find time again, I'll start writing more about the recent things that have happened. I guess that'll be after next week though.

Wednesday, April 5, 2000

6:05p
     I came over here to my house to bath and find something to do. But the water is off now. It's that Thought Negation Principle thing you know. Think of doing something and something else will come all to just negate it out of existence. Life is so predictable. Least my life.
     I did another sound mapping show and tell at work today. It was just a few minutes out of a longer meeting. I don't know what the others thought of it. There was nothing to really point to and say the noise is cause by such and such. But that's the way it goes sometimes.
     The rest of the day I just fretted around trying to find something to do. But there wasn't. I ended up reading some out of the equipment manuals and papers about sound measurement. There's this one program listing, it's from the 70's, I couldn't match up the numbers and equations he used to anything in the paper it was suppose to go with. Besides, I think it's really changed since then too. I brought the papers home with me and I'll have it to look over and piddle with after I get back to having nothing else to do.
     I really dread the coming weeks, it'll be too much like before except I'll let my mind dwell on the new situation. Sit around over here and wonder about what the future home life is going to be like now. Not that there's much I can do to change anything, just learn to tolerate it.
     The last three or four weeks I've been staying over at Mom's house, I'd get ready for bed and lay down. That's in the front bedroom. Then I'd read a little out of Sci-Am, like I do when I'm at my house. After that I'll just lay there on the bed ... and think. I'd think about whatever I could remember about what's happened in that house over the decades. Who's been to visit ... me sitting at my desk in that same room when I went to Clemson ... family history kind of stuff. Then I'd roll over, put my GRB around my head and eyes and wait for sleep. Sleep is really my only escape now. Has been for a long time.
     GRB ...that be Green Reality Blocker, it's a folded up green towel I use to cover my eyes when I go to sleep. I've been using it for years now. It just kind-of blocks out the rest of the world when I put it on.
     I walked down to the water meter by the road just a while ago. It looks like the value is still turned on, it's inline with the pipes anyway. I just had to go check for some reason. I don't think the meter's been read in a long time, I've always used less than the minimum and they probably just skip over reading mine.
     Oh yeah. Yesterday I was out back of the lab, in the space between it and the plant. I was sitting around smoking and talking with someone. I flipped the fire off the end of the cig, the wind caught and blew it back. I brushed off the ash and thought I got it all. About an hour or so later I was sitting in someone's office talking with him. Something caught my eye and I looked at the sleeve of my shirt. It had a big hole burned in it. Don't know how I didn't get get burnt or the shirt flame up. It was my light blue shirt too, one I've had for years. I was hoping to get lots more mileage out of that one and all my others I wear regularly. But like he said, it'll make a good short sleeve shirt now. Still it's the thought of not have that blue, long sleeve shirt for many more years that hurts.
     I guess since the water isn't coming back on I might as well go on back to Mom's house. Sit around over there for a hour then retreat behind the GRB.

Thursday April 6, 2000

7:15p
     This is being done on my portable computer, some CTX EzBook trade name. I'm at Mom's house, in the kitchen at the table. This is also a Journal file I did back in January during one of the ice storms. So this temporary file is accummulating rare entries. I guess it'll be my when at Mom's house Journal.
     I brought this over here a few days ago, just plugged it into the charger in the front bedroom and forgot about it. Well, I did think about it every time I was in that room. I just never did bother to do anything with it. Just now, when I turned it on, it came up with that time change notice. I thought it was for the Spring forward time change. But then I looked at the calendar when it came up and it was still back in November. I guess it forgot what year, month, day and time since it hadn't been used in so long. But that didn't explain the January entries. Maybe it's always been that for behind. I just never set the data/time since I got it. That's been 2+ years ago.
     I spent the day at Ryobi working on that Zwicker program, the one they wanted me to do but didn't have the Visual Basic applications to do it with. They still don't. I just wrote up notes and did a Notepad text version of the code. It still needs work and verfication. It's such an old program listing I doubt if it will do what it's suppose to do, even if I work on later. There's some values missing from the data tables.
     Tomorrow is the last day down there anyway. It'll be back to the do nothing routine this weekend and next week. I should just relax and enjoy doing nothing. It'll be different from the past weeks, or rather, back to the norm and status quo.
     Oh well. I'm going on to bed now. Wake up about 2:30 or 3:00, go to the bathroom, then lay back down and see if sleep comes again. Sometimes it does and the next time I wake up it's about 5:00 or 5:30. Then I'll get up and move around this kitchen quietly, making coffee and sitting out on the porch smoking cigs. Just doing the time till time to go somewhere else.

Friday, April 7, 2000

7:00p
     I sat around most of the day, talked with a few, but it was mostly just putting in the time till checking out. I did that about 2:30 or so. It was turn in the door card and id cards and leave. So that's that.
     After leaving I ran around town some, to the bank, to BREC, pizza place for my check there and then back to the bank to cash it, then drove home out Shady Grove road and Reeses' Mill road. Piddled around over there for about 30 minutes, drove down to the gas station and got gas, thought the air was low in the tires, but they didn't need it, I added some anyway, had to wait on some man to get out of the way of the air pump too. Then I came on to Mom's house.
     We ate supper, she sat up and watched some of the news then went to bed. I went out and pulled weeds from under the bushes in front. Then I cut three branches off the pink azeala in front and put them in an plastic coffee jar and wrapped it in a yellow foil and put it in Mom's room. She was already asleep.
     I got this computer out again and was going to write up an entry but there was that Pickens Business History icon on the screen so I clicked on it instead. Spent about 30 minutes looking at it and thinking about it being another unfinished project. I've read all the notes from the old Pickens Sentinel before anyway.
     Well, I've made an entry so now I'm going on to find something else to do, just to stay awake a little longer and then I'm going on to bed too.

Sunday, April 9, 2000

3:00p
     Yesterday morning I got back from the clothes washing expedition down by the creek, drove up the driveway and got turned around and parked. I looked out into the woods and thought about that trace mineral salt lick I put out there weeks ago, back in January I think. It had been a while since I went out there to check if any deer had been around, so I walked out there. I hadn't gone too far when movement on up in the woods attracted my eye. It was a couple of deer, the white tails sticking up is about all I saw. I guess they were headed toward the lick, or had already been there and got scared away when I drove up. I stood and watched them ease on into the pines. I really got to learn to look around first, even stop at the bottom of the drive and check things out before scaring them off.

Tuesday, April 11, 2000

2:20p
     This afternoon I cut the grass over at Mom's house. It's going to rain starting tomorrow and go on through Saturday. So I thought it best to go ahead and cut the grass there.
     There's a data file I was suppose to look at for Ryobi, before I left there, again. I have do that, looked at it. Can't do anymore with it though, it's not structured according to what their manual says. Don't know how to get real numbers out of binary fields either. So I gave up on it.
     There may be another way to do that Zwicker program, just have to use a different output file from the B & K analyzer. It's something to work on and keep busy.
     But it's not the right kind of busy. The only time I feel like I doing something worthwhile is doing something around Mom's house. I should be out scrounging up another job too. I'm already getting those tense feelings like I had all the time when I didn't do anything. It's my mind thinking myself into bad feelings. It's only when I'm get busy doing something that it goes away. Least for the time being. But it comes back. Usually the next time I start wondering how the coming months will progress.

Friday, April 14, 2000

4:50a Kitchen Table
     It's another wake up at 3:30 am morning, actually 2:30 am, I still go by standard time. Laid in the bed in the front bedreoom for an hour but I was too awake, so I got up and dressed and made the bed and got my stuff-bag and flashlight and moved quietly and easily from the bedroom through the living room to the kitchen. That's what I have been doing when I get up.
     Made coffee and sat out on the porch again, like I've been doing too. Sit, smoke, sip ... sit, smoke sip .... It's down in the 40s again this morning, it was in the 40s most of yesterday too.
     It's still an old home place kind of feeling when sitting on the back porch so early in the morning. But there was something extra about it this morning, left over from last night.
     I went out to smoke last evening, it was still twilight, stood at the edge of the carport and looked over to the Vickery's place. There were a couple of small animals ove in their yard up near the house. I though it was squirrels but they scurried around a lot. They scurried this way, darting out and back, this way and that way. It was a couple of rabbits, one got on the road and ran along it, it looked more like running than hopping. The other one cam up across Mom's yard and stopped next to the old birdbath and shrubs. The other one went out McCarter's driveway. That's when I left them to go back inside.
     Later, just before going to bed, I wnet back out and stood on the back stoop to smoke. They were in the backyard then, one came hopping into view, the porch light was on but it didn't bother it. They were three this time. I stood there and watched them move around Mom's yard and Mrs Hunt's backyard. On stopped about 15-20 feet away. I just stood there on the stoop, it hadn't sense me being there yet, but it did and darted off.
     I pondered about things like that. I guess because it's so rare to see wildlife that close for that long. They usually just see us humans and then run off. And I think it has something to do with that possum thing back a few years too. Or maybe, it's God's way of sharing a bit of His presence with me, a few minutes of peace of mind.
     So that's what I sat out on the porch and pondered this morning. Sit, smoke, sip ... sit, smoke, sip ... and sigh.
     It's what I sat here at the kitchen table in Mom's house and wrote on paper too. Haven't mad an old fashion, hardcopy, Journal entry in many, many moons.

Tuesday, April 25, 2000

8:30a
     I finished up that Zwicker program enough to let others use it. It still needs more work, but then there's always more work to do on programs. That's what I've been doing the past couple of weeks, writing computer code for a real application. But now it's over with, for now anyway. It's starting to feel like the days three months ago, what can I do today to keep the blues away?
     I don't know, well yes I do, it's that Elian kid thing the news media has hyped up over the past months. The government did its raid thing last Saturday morning. Really down right stupid the way they did it. But it's as much the news media's fault too, and those relatives down in Miami too.
     Anyway, it's caused me to really want to jump in the news media's you know what about the way they hype up some issue to the point where people really start getting hurt. It's all for the sake of selling papers and tv ads. They've done so much damage to society over the decades, making issues out of something that shouldn't be a issue; propagating ill conceived notions about most anything, history, science, society, ...; just bascially putting the fear of living into the lives of all of us.
     There's one local station who hype up their own ego as much as what they want to make the new; they air blurbs about the broadcasting awards they've won 4 and 5 times during 30 minutes. I'd like to ask if they've won one for the most egotistical, self-centered attitude; but I don't because I don't want to admit I really watch them.
     I've wanted to write their advertisers and let them know I'll never trade with them because they sponsor such hype. It makes them part of the problem as well. But I dont, I'm one of the poor and don't spend money unless I have to anyway. Besides, who'd pay attention to a one person boycott?
     Oh well, enough of this. I'm just avoiding starting a new project anyway. And I don't want to fall into the old habit of sitting around feeling sorry for myself either. I just want to go off somewhere for a few days and forget about the last 2 months.

Wednesday, April 26, 2000

8:05a
     It's what I do best now, sit and remember. I woke up and got up early again this morning, about 2:20. So I start coffee making and go sit on the porch to wait. In 1961 or 1962 Joe Ashworth, or was it Ashly, came up to see my brothers. They sit out on the porch too. In the laundry room is where brother Robert lived. He had Dad's old desk the one he used in his shop, painted camaflage colors. On the back stoop is where I sat and cried once. That was after Dad died and I was digging up the drain pipe to the septic tank, it would have been something he would have been doing. Here at the kitchen table, that first and only summer we were all here at the new house, we'd pull it out so one of use could sit with their back to the window and then move it back afterwards.
     I think it's not just the remembering that's ... I dont know the word ... significant, but it's the fact that I sit in the here and now at a place where almost 40 year ago I sat in the same here but then.

Friday, April 28, 2000

9:05a
     It started a week or so ago, me thinking about working on the computer and updating stuff. I got to thinking about updating Visual Basic mostly, getting one on the carry around computer too. And then there's that pesking soundcard problem, it not coming on everytime I turn the computer on. And I had gotten a program to put on the machine too. That was a mistake, me thinking that is.
     Well about Monday or Tuesday I decide to start. Or maybe it was Friday or Saturday, yeah I tried adding the new program then. It wouldn't setup right from the CD drive, something about not being able to find the setup program, ... even though the it showed up when doing a dos and win explorer directory listing.
     Well I go down the road to one of them big office supplies stores in Easley. They don't have the VB program, just updates, $250 for them anyway. That was actually a couple of weeks ago, the first trip down there. I end up getting one of Norton's packages. Learned last weekend it wouldn't up load either.
     I mess around trying a few things and nothing works. When I tried loading the win98 it spent a few minutes starting up and checking things and then told me I already had win95 and needed an upgrade version rather than the whole version. Yeah sure, I know what I got on my machine.
     So I go back down the road to the big store and get the upgrade version, and a new soundcard. Spent the usual loooooonnnnnngggg time fretting and worrying over what to get, if I should really get anything, will it work.
     Ok, so I got a new soundcard. I work on it first. Got the computer apart and started disconnecting the lead from the CD drive to the old card. One of the wires breaks. Found out it was from playing music CDs so it's no lost, I didn't play any music on the computer anyway, least not since the first couple of weeks of having this machine.
     I get the old card out and start putting the new one in. It wont go. Spent an hour or so trying to figure out why. It was a metal tab like thing that wouldn't go into a slot, the slot was too small. I get a screw driver and pry it open some. That worked. It was about then that I decided that was the problem along, the old soundcard just wasn't inserted right. Of course, when I was disconnected the cables and stuff off the back before taking the covers off, I found the last time I was trying to fix the sound problem I got the speaker connector in the auxilary line in hole. That's why I couldn't get anything out of it anymore.
     So anyway, I get the new card in, along with the old one, so now I got two soundcards. That was most of yesterday.
     This morning I load up the win98 update. That took about 45 minutes of just sitting here watching and wondering what Gates was doing to my machine. Wondering if it'll still work afterwards. But anyway, that's done. Now I probably got a whole lot more garbage on the machine now.
     Now it's back to the orginal problem, loading those new programs I got. Everything works with their setup installation. Guess they really didn't live up to working in win95 like they said. I added on the software that came with the new soundcard too. More stuff I'll seldom use.
     Of course I still don't have an updated version of Visual Basic, nor a copy for the carry around computer either. And that's what I really wanted to accomplish. Doubt if I'll spend $550 for a complete version and still have to spend another $250 for an update one too. I guess it's time to find another basic language development system. I thought Borland would have one but he just has C++ and Pascal, he wants a ton of money for them too.
     So ends another adventure in computer world. Geeesh, I really miss the old punchcard and timesharing terminal days.

Sunday, April 30, 2000

7:50a
     It's really annoying what win98 does sometimes, and the programmers at the Gates factory intended for it to be annoying without any remedy. I use WordPad to do most of the wordprocessing, like writting these Journal entries. First of all when I do a save it makes a pest of itself by letting me know I'm saving these files in text format and that I'll loose any embedded formatting if I do. Like duh? I know it's a text file, I use text files to avoid the embedded formatting so just go ahead and save it as text file, that's what I want to do. So now I have to push that yes button everytime I do an update save. The other thing is when I open a file it alwasy goes to the MyDocument folder. I don't keep files in that folder, I've got my files in other folders so just default to the root directory. But the Gates programmers got the option to change the default opening directory buried somewhere in win98, if it's really there anywhere. I've even tried deleteing the MyDocuments folder but those ... won't let me do that. They're basically telling everyone you ****WILL**** do things ****the Gates way****
     Like duh, yeah, just wait till I earn enough money and go by myself a Mac machine.
     In about 22 hours I'll be starting on my 52th year. Come 7:00 am May 1st I'll have finished my 51st year and be 51 years old. I know that looks a bit confusing but it's the way birthdays really are, it has something to do with being zero years old during that first year till your first birthday. Besides I went through all that when I was 49 and experiencing things for the 50th time before I got to be 50 years old.
     Maybe all that doesn't mean much anyway. Mom had me get a birthday card and cake for myself yesterday when I went to get groceries. I found them ok. But when I looked for a "1" candle to go with the "5" candle left over from the "50" candles last year, I couldn't find one. They had a "?" candle so I got that instead. It's just as well, we can use it for the next 8 years and I'll be 50-something.
     I just stepped outside for a moment to sort-of think of something else to write about. Up in the trees in the backyard I saw a Bluejay chasing a squirrel. I've never seen a bird chase a squirrel before.
     I've been having some bad mornings and/or days occassionally. This has been happening off and on for a couple of years I think, if not longer. It has something to do with not sleeping soundly for a few nights, this waking up at 3 and 4 o'clock and then I get caught back up with sleep again. I'll notice the pulse in my neck and it feels like my heart is out of rythem. It has something to do with how much stress and how tense I get sometimes too. Like I can think myself into a tense state when there's not a real reason to be tense. I just think of the bad things that can develope out of a situation and my mind focuses on that and dwells on it. After I get a bit more rest it goes away again.
     Well I'm going to find something else to write about or actually do around the house. Maybe it'll get cleaned up some today ... ha, NOT. I'll start that CCC paper about the bad old news media today.

Monday, May 1, 2000

7:45a
     Yesterday after lunch at Mom's house I went outside to walk around some. I started off down toward the Ridge road and just had got to the Circle road at the corner of her lot. There in the old Woods' front yard was a deer. It had wandered up from the their old pasture land across the Ridge road. It look like it was headed on across their yard but a car came along and it made its way back to the pasture land. It's odd, I've been trying to see the deer in my woods with the salt lick I put out there and here comes one wandering out of the sparce woods in a residential neighborhood.
     Late yesterday afternoon I cleaned up the porch over there too. It's one of those things I think of doing and eventually actually do it. I get something like that on my mind and it just won't go away till it's done. There was the usual hesitiation and procrastanation and wondering if Mom would really want it done. It's been "Just let it go" for so long I don't do nearly as much as I would like to do. But anyway, I wiped accummulated pollen and dust off the woodwork. Wet mopped, sort-of if a wet old tee shirt counts as a mop, the concrete floor. Wipped off the porch chairs and that shelf thing I made a couple of years ago. So now it at least feels clearner when I sit out there in the early morning hours waiting for the day to start.
     Well it's two hours into my 52nd year. I'm going outside and wander around for a while, maybe go sit by the campfire ring. Later.
     Post Scritum: Thanks Winnie!

Wednesday, May 3, 2000

1:20p
     I had been thinking about it for a few days and yesterday I did it. I moved my couple of boxes of stuff from Mom's house back over to my house. And I stayed here last night for the first time in 7 weeks or so. I'll just have to get use to leaving her at house alone again. She had told me a few times I could move back home when ever I wanted. But I always think that's just to ease her mind about not being a burden. So anyway that's done now. I'm back here for now.
     Yesterday afternoon I cut her grass. That was pretty much the event of the day. I had gotten some strawberries from one of the local farmers the day before. Mom spent the afternoon fixing them. Just as I finished cutting the grass the phone rang. It was Chris wanted Leander to call him and use a pager number. He said she was on the way up to see Mom. I wait around for a few minutes. Eat a piece of cake and strawberries. Then I decide I'd go on home and clean up and try to get back before Leander visited and left again. It got on to after supper time and she still hadn't got here. So I go into the front bedroom and call her house. She had started feeling dizzy and never left. So it was a couple or three hours of wonder if she was on her way and if she had gotten in a traffic accident or something.
     Well I leave Mom's about 8:45 and come on back here. Thought about not even turning the computer on but I did. I just checked email and got off. There's not much interest in the internet anymore, except making Journal entries. Brother Dan sent an email telling about his back problem. Robert's got back problems, Mom's got back problems, everyone's got something going wrong. Anyway I went on to bed and read, looked at, SciAm and then went to sleep. It didn't take as long as I thought it might.
     I woke up about 5:20, made coffee, first time I made coffe here in 7 weeks or so too. Spent an hour looking at the news websites. Then washed my hair and shaved and went on up to the cafe to eat the usual bacon and egg sandwich.
     Another thing I'd been thinking about is actually getting out in my yard and do some work. So that's what I did all morning. Pull up baby pine trees, a hundred or more. Did the weed trimmer thing. Talked with the neighbor for a few minutes, he had been out walking their dog. First time I've talked with him for any length of time in a long time.
     At first I was bending over and stooping to pull up the trees. I knew I'd get faint standing up. I'm so out of shape and weak. Blood pressure as always been below average and I guess all the sitting around and smoking for the past decade or two hasn't helped any too. But then it's the caffine having it's effect. I still drink half of a pot or more every morning.
     It was 11:30 when I came in to clean up and go over to Mom's for lunch. I was about half through bathing when the phone rang. I figured it was Mom needing something. But I just let it rang since I was on my way over there anyway. It just kept on ringing and ringing, I shout at it to stop, I'm trying to get on over there. I give up and go answer it, it's that disconnected tone you hear when you leave the phone off the hook a long time. Somehow when who ever was calling hung up their phone didn't and kept the ring connection going.
     I finish getting dressed and was on the way out the door. It rings again. It was the man in charge of the lab at Ryobi. He wanted to know if I could start work this afternoon. It's another six week job, in the lab testing part this time. We talk a few minutes and he said he'd call back this afternoon to let me know what to do next.
     I go over to Mom's to eat lunch and tell her about the morning's events. She seem to have done alright last night by herself. Before I leave she mentions about me getting some shirts, pants or something for my birthday I guess. She can't write good anymore, at least not to her satisfaction. Her hand shakes too much. It's all still readable and lots better than my handwriting, I can't read my own notes anymore. But anyway I write the check for her.
     I went uptown after that and cashed the check and paid a couple of my own bills, with my own money that is. Not too long after I get back home the phone rings again. It's Lawrence and says everything is set up and I should just come on in to work in the morning. So now I've got that job again.
     I was actually getting psychied up to do one or two of the things I've been putting off for a long time. Do some more work on that lateral wind and seismic program. Do more brush and bush cutting around the house. Maybe even build that outdoor doorway into my woods and an arbor up there too. Oh well, it looks like all that'll just get put off again. It'll be too hot in 6 weeks to get out and do much.
     I put up the heaters this afternoon and cleaned the air conditioner filter and now it's going. Cleaned the filter on Mom's oxygen concentrator too when I was over there. Guess I'll spend the rest of the day clean out my living space and then go buy some short sleeve shirts.

Thursday, May 4, 2000

4:10a
     Should have known it'd be a 3:30 wakeup this morning, since I'm suppose to start work today, and go all day with little sleep. I guess I could just lay back down, I've already did the morning groom things and eatten breakfast. Oh well.
     Sat out on the back porch for a short while already. It's still dark and it rained some earlier so the leaves are dripping. Read some of the postings at CNN's discussion forums, the news is just the same old news.
     The other day I ran Norton's software, he's the one with all the computer doctoring programs. I just ended up spending 2 or 3 hours staring at the screen wonder what all the files and things meant, really meant that is. It'd find programs and files that were supposedly orphaned or not used or something like that. But I never deleted them or anything because I wasn't sure if doing so wouldn't just mess something else up somewhere else. Besides his software considered the programs I wrote as orphaned and could be deleted. Besides again, he warned against doing some of the deleting anyway because such and such file or program might be important and to always back it up before getting rid of it.
     This win98 thing is still doing odd stuff, well just the same old odd stuff. Like the wordpad program, it'll post that warning about saving a file as a text file and loosing internet formatting, sometimes, and then the next time I start and use wordpad it'll just go ahead and save the file. Computers and programs are supposed to do exactly the same thing every time. It's too much like it's re-programming itself. So who knows what else it's doing on its own.
     Well, I'm going to post this and finish getting ready for work. Ha, ha, what a strange thing for me to write. Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to work I go.

Saturday, May 13, 2000

3:40a
     I don't remember when I started marking time with family crisises, probably about 1982 or so. Of course that was when I started a regression rememberance of previous crisises too. Still that's the way I've come to remember the years.
     This was to be the year of Mom's new health problems. I guess that wasn't going to be enough for this last year of the century and millenium.
     Out in Los Alamos there's that out of control fire which was suppose to be a controlled burn by the forest service people. Now it's displaced 15 to 20 thousand people. Not to mention the concern of families around the rest of the country too.
     Brother Daniel is out there. He called Mom Wednesday, if I remember the days right, and told about the fires and wondering what he should do. There were two or three other calls that afternoon and evening. He and two other men were going to stay in their neighborhood. Most of the rest of the town had been evacuated, one of those offical mass evacuation. We were to call him early the next morning to wake him up, about 6:00 our time and 4:00 his time. So that's the way we all went to bed that night.
     I woke up at my usual early times and basically did all the morning ritutals. Well, I did check the news websites and that's when I learned the fire had reached parts of Los Alamos. I knew Mom would be concerned and all if she couldn't get an answer when she called. So I stop by her house on the way to work.
     That was about 7:00. She had already been trying to call since 6:00 and still no answer. I asked if she had tried the cell phone number. She said she didn't know that number. But it was on a phone list on the counter in the kitchen, one I had made back in March when all the other stuff was going on. She's gotten to where she can't remember or think of looking for those kinds of things. But I didn't think of reminding her about his cell phone either.
     But anyway, about 7:30 or so I get an answer. He had made it through the night. The other two men had left though and he spend the night in the neighborhood alone. We talked a few minutes, he mentioned that after dark the evening before they could see the flames and better tell where the fire was. He hadn't slept much of course and said he'll rest more and call back latter that day.
     And that's pretty much how it's been since then. He's still at his house, and actually kind-of trapped there. That's because the town has offically been evacuated and they're not letting anyone back in. On the news last night they showed images of an elderly man being arrested for trying to get back to his house. He made a comment to the news people, "Someone ought to be arrested for this (the fire) and it might as well be me." I really don't understand why city and government officials don't use more commonsense.
     Daniel is like me when it comes to single lifestyle, doesn't keep much or any food in the house. He's always going out to eat. So now it's been 3 days and all he's got in the house is a can of green beans, and some dry cereal. He'll eventually have to leave I guess, starved out of the house. One of the reasons he stayed was to start back on his jobs when the electricity came back on. But that hasn't happened yet either. It's suppose to be a week before they start letting people back in. I think that would be a week from yesterday or the day before.
     Well the year is about 5/12th over and already it's a two, family crisis year. Maybe it's time to find a better way to mark time.

Monday, May 15, 2000

5:20a
     Daniel has left Los Alamos, he's one of the refugees now, sort-of, gone to one of the companies he does contract work for, for office space so he can get on with his work. He called yesterday afternoon a couple of times and said he was planning on doing that, getting packed up and leaving. He didn't have any problems getting out of town, he said the out-bound lanes were open and the in-bound lanes were the ones that were blocked. That was one of the things I was concerned about, him getting stopped while driving through town on his way out, him being there where I suppose no one was suppose to be. It kind-of like when they did the mass evacuation from the coast during one of the hurricanes last year, the evacuation caused lots more problems than letting people stay or leave, which ever they wanted to do.
     Well, anyway, at least this one's over and it's wait for the next one now.

Thursday, May 18, 2000

5:35a
     Yesterday afternoon when I was on my way down to the mailbox to get the mail one of the neighbors came out onto their porch and she said she needed to talk with me. Her husband came out too.
     She has had health problems and surgery in recent years. The medicine costs a lot, greedy pharmacutical companys. So they're going to have to sell the timber on their land. She was wanting to tell me the property line runs just a little north of the old road between our lots. And she was wanting to know if it's ok with me for those trees to be cut as well. It's really no problem with me.
     There's a couple of trees on my side of their driveway that I've been concerned about falling too. I probably should have them cut as well. I'll probably have more around the house cut too later. It'll depend on how the wind pattern changes when they have their trees cut. It'll be open on the north side of the ridge then and I guess it'll be more windy from that direction.
     It's all a sign of the times I suppose, people having to do things they really don't want to do in order to pay off medical bills. I mentioned to Mom about the talk with the neighbors and she said she saw in the Sentinel that they were to have a fund raising for them. This morning the thoughts about the money I gave Roger a few years ago came to mind. I guess it's time to give away a bit more now, maybe ask him if there's any of that other money still available and for him to give some it to them. It'll all have to be done anonymously though.
     Took Mom over to see the lung doctor again yesterday. They had the xrays done. There hasn't been any real improvement. Her blood pressure was low, she got up feeling weak that morning too, she's been acting tired and weak like it was back in February too. The doctor started reducing the dosage of that predminsone medicine and told her to stop taking one of the heart medicine since that might be causing the low blood pressure. She's still to use 5 liters per minute of oxygen and he had a different kind of breathing device for her to use too.
     I saw in the news Tuesday that Los Alamos was being opened back up for most of the residents. That was the day after Daniel left to go to California. I guess that's par for the Hughes luck. He could have stayed, but that would have only meant it would have been tomorrow before they let people back in.
     Well that's enough of this for now. Bye.

Friday, May 19, 2000

5:40a
     Watched the shuttle launch this morning on the internet, just happened upon it since I don't keep up with the schedule anymore, too many times in the past it would have been cancelled if I took an interest in it.
     There was another flash in the pan two days ago, but it doesn't seem to have taken hold, yet. It's like what happened last December with the proposed ad campaign. And there's a bit of disussion on one of the board websites that has hints of hopefull signs, we really are just getting along, if eveyone else would just leave us alone. I'll take the two incidents as indicators that someone up or down the line is showing some responsible restraint.
     There was a blurb on ABC news earlier this week about netradar. That's some new scheme by the intelligence community to eavesdrop on the chat, email, and other internet communication. It has to do with looking for specific words and phrases as they're passed around the net. It's really kind-of mindboggling to know they have the hardwire/software/speed to filter all them terrabytes involved. So, "You be careful out among those English."
     plan bomb terror attack hate america arms president bio-gas virus worm ....
     [Insert hysterical laughter here] Gotcha! ! ! ! !

Wednesday, May 24, 2000

4:45a
     It takes a weekend to get my sleep caught up so that by Sunday afternoon and Monday morning I feel half right. Then I start loosing it again, waking up at 3 and 3 thirty, going all day without one of those semi-conscious states for 60 minutes. I developed that habit sometime after I quit working in 1991, maybe about 1996-97.
     Got an email from an ole, religion chat friend yesterday morning. Hadn't heard from him since about this time last year. I got caught up in the Columbine event for that Summer and didn't do much of anything else. I had been thinking of emailing him in recent weeks too, another one of those T-H-C things.
     I'm doing programming on the job at Ryobi this week, trying to put together a user interface for controlling a motorized platform. It doesn't have to do much except move at a specified velocity. Figuring out which of those special language commands to use and when is the main problem, along with not knowing how it all is suppose to work together to start with.
     I came up with another analogy for how I end up on the odd-jobs I do. It's like being tossed over a cliff into an unknown abyss and expected to climb my way back out. That's the easy version. Sometimes I get blindfolded and the tossed over into the unknown. That's the medium version. Then there're those times when I get hog-tied, blindfolded and then tossed into the abyss. Yeah, that's it. Work on a job you know next to nothing about and the first thing you have to do is get yourself untied and unblindfolded. Well, the first thing you have to do is land in that deep, dark, dungeon of an abyss and not get hurt.
     I suppose I could get those bills out and write checks now. Nah, I don't want to do that, it's too constructive. I suppose I could just lay back down and rest some. Nah. I suppose I could write more email. Nah. I suppose I could download an updated virus list. Nah. I suppose I'll just sit here and suppose about all the things I need to be doing but nah them too.

Tuesday, May 30, 2000

5:25a
     Three days of time to catch up on some of those things I've let slide by and that's pretty much what always happens, they just slide on by. I did get the bills paid on Friday, did a bit of work on some code files for my brother, got that table for Mom too. But the program I worked on for Ryobi and brought home to add a few improvements to, it's still sitting there on my hard drive waiting for attention. I'm just one of those types who sees what's left on the "to do list" rather than what's been checked off.
     I went up to the top of Glassy Mountain for a short while one afternoon. That's about all to write about the visit there too. I was just there.
     Mom need a prescription re-filled yesterday. She mentioned it Sunday night just before I left her house to go back home. My first thought was that Monday was a holiday and the pharmacy wouldn't be open. Typical, always think of what can go wrong first. But anyway, they were open and I got the re-fill.
     I walked into the little building and saw a man standing next to the counter, he had just gotten his medicine and was talking with the clerks. I looked at him and knew I was suppose to know him. He saw I was staring at him too. I said, "I'm suppose to know you," and was thinking of Metz but I knew that wasn't right. His name just wouldn't come to mind. It was Dr Myers, the dentist who lived in the green house in Mom's neighborhood.
     We talked some, mostly the usual when people meet who haven't met in a couple or three decades. He asked if I was the Jerry Hughes who wrote the story in the Old Pendleton District Genealogical Society newsletter, the Amos Ladd and Lewis Redmond story. Yeah that's me. They've been printing 3 or 4 pages of that story every quarter for 4 or 5 years now. I still haven't seen one though, the library down in Easley just doesn't keep them out I guess.
     So anyway, other than that, it was the typical meeting of people who havent' seen other in a really long while. Mostly where the brothers are and what they're doing, how's Mom and the like.
     Seems like there was something else that happened earlier in the weekend. But I've forgotten it.

Thursday, June 8, 2000

4:25a
     Mostly just checking in, like there's not enough time to get all the things done that need doing. It's either that I'm too slow about getting my mood and thoughts together to write. Still working on brother's job, still doing the regular job, still doing the normal routine of going over to Mom's.
     Still waking up at 3 and 4 in the morning too. One would think that going from 3 in the morning to 9 in the evening I'd get everything done.
     On Tuesday June 6, 2000 they started cutting the neighbor's trees. It was also Memorial day too, I guess that's appropriate. It got me to wondering. Are the pharmacutical companies and their stockholders ultimately responsible for cutting down the trees? Maybe it's all the health-liability-tort system?
     Brother Robert is a grandpa again, that makes 4 great-grandchildren for Mom too. I guess that makes me a granduncle four times too.
     Oh yeah, Hi Winnie, thanks again for the email, you're really nice and thoughtful. I'll write one back this weekend. [Jerry grins, winks and snickers.]

Monday, June 12, 2000

6:10a
     I erased a bunch of files off the hard drives. Removed a couple of the auto-start applications too. Not that any of it makes much diff in performance. But at least the hard drive is less cluttered.
     Leander came up to vist with mom Saturday. They watched the Lawrence Welk show that night. Mom always watches that show. It's really kind-of weird to sit there in the den and watch that show. Some of them are vaguely familiar, ones I've seen when they were originally aired way back in the 60's and 70's. They showed a few clips from the 50's the other week. It all just brings back that getting old feeling.
     I've gotten to where I look at time spans and slide them out and back through history. Like I can remember things from 45 year ago and I'll slide that back to the 1900-1945 period. Think of all that history that seems so long ago, and me living through it.

Tuesday, June 13, 2000

5:35a
     I've got about 30 minutes before I leave here to go there. I suppose I could make those subtractions and additions to the checkbook. But I'll not. There's probably a few other things on that to do list I'll not either. I'll just sit here and write this entry and then leave here to go there.
     I did sit out on the back porch steps to eat breakfast, 3 pieces of toast and jam, coffee. Recently, it's been those few moments in the morning like that which keeps me going I guess. Then the rest of the day is wondering what will go wrong, along with the when and how. It must have something to do with the worst things get the more enjoyable we find the simple things.
     It's been on my mind since the end of the school year, the last of May and the first of this month. I've wondered how the kids did this year? Was it a relatively peacefull year? Did the news media just not report anything bad? It was too much like a shock-wave last year that passed through Youth World. Have they dealt with their own problem in their own ways?

Friday, June 16, 2000

5:00a
     I've done all the morning rituals. I've been awake for an hour and a half. So now I'll just go lay back down and rest. Put in the time till go to work time.

Tuesday, June 20, 2000

4:55a
     It's either today or tomorrow when the Summer Solistice happens, I'm too un-motivated to get up and look on a calendar or in the Almanac. Won't make much diff anyway, it'll just be another day for me.
     I've noticed the counter I use on the MainRoom page has quit counting for the last 3 or 4 days too. I think this is the longest it's gone without counting. Not that it makes much diff either when there's only 1 or 2 to visit my website anyway. And I know who both of them are. ;)
     The hot weather is going to be hard to endure this year. It already is. It's mostly because of Mom's condition now too. Failing health and hot weather just don't go together well.
     My mind dwells more and more on all the bad, unfortanate things in life now. Ha, I'm writing about the hot weather now and already I've thought about the coming ice storms next Winter and the falling trees and the power outages.
     Well, I'm going to do the morning grooming things and proably lay back down and rest some more. At least let my body rest, I doubt if I can get my mind to do the same.

Sunday, June 25, 2000

7:23p
     Show No Mercy. Happy Fourth of July! Out there among all them flags.

Tuesday, June 27, 2000

3:27a
     Okayyyyy. So geocities.yahoo doesn't like what I wrote, so I put it here instead. Show No Mercy.
     Today started about 1:00 this morning when I became aware I was waking up, the room was warm and I needed to go pee. I gave up and got up and did the last thing about 1:30. Ran the air cooler some while I laid back down and waited for the room to cool off. Then I turned it off and tried to wait for sleep to come back. It never did. So I got back up about 3:00. I've already done all my morning rituals, bathing, washing hair, shaving, eating waffles, drinking coffee, smoking cigs, doing the two or three things I do on the internet. Now it's time to just sit here and write.
     I did get an email from someone I hadn't heard from in three or more months. He use to work at the pizza place but is now managing a burger place over in Greenville. He's a young man and wrote about his latest love interest and romance. "Tis better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all." So my young friend, tell me again how many times you've lost and still come out ahead of the game? Romeos, Don Jauns, Casanovas, Rudolph Valentinos. Or is it now, DiCapios, Backstreet Boys, Munteos (sp?), or one of those hottest young lovers under 25 these days?
     The job at Ryobi is getting old already. It probably just has something to do with a slack time in the activity there. Sometimes I feel like it really hasn't changed. There's that doubt about getting stuck doing some things I just don't know much about.
     It's this hot weather too. Over the past few years I've stayed home and kept the room cool. Now I'm gone during the day and it just gets hot inside. The 30 or so minutes I'm here after work and the 40 or so minutes after getting back from Mom's just isn't enough time to cool it down. But that's like it use to be before I quit work in 1991.
     I suppose I should go lay back down and at least rest some more. Or I could put together some more webpages I've been thinking of doing. Ha, there was a news report about the teenagers who do webpages for about $1,000 a page. I've got 200 more or less pages on this website. If only I could have gotten that kind of money for my work.
     Geesh, been awake for 4 hours and it's only 5 in the morning. I think I'll cut work today after lunchtime. I'm not going to feel like doing anything by then anyway.
     Oh yeah, today's Dad's birthday, he would have been 85.

Wednesday, June 28, 2000

4:45a
     I learned at work yesterday morning that I'm to go down toward Atlanta with two others tommorrow morning. It's a sound measurement equipment demo. I really didn't expect to go anywhere like that until after I was officially hired by the new company. I really hadn't anticipated going anywhere ever again. I've spent the last few years within 50 miles or so of Pickens.
     I did cut work after lunch time yesterday. Came back home and laid down for about an hour and half. Never did sleep, just the "skimming of the surface" as uncle DM says. I went down there too and visited for about an hour. Their family got together at Linda and John's place out on the lake on Father's Day. One of Micky's brothers was down there when I drove up. Everything else is much the same with them.
     Mom got a card from Tanya and Chris announcing the birth of her great-granddaughter. It had a website address in it too, one that the hospital system in their area maintains. It had a section for new baby pictures so after I got back home last night I downloaded the picture and printed it. I'll stop by Mom's on the way to work and leave it there this morning.
     Something I've been meaning to write for a couple or three weeks now. I went down to the mailbox one afternoon and on the way back I noticed that the tv antenna I had strapped to the chimney had fallen over. Don't really know how long it had been down, it's one of those things that you become accustommed to not noticing and then all of a sudden there's something different. So anyway, I went up on the roof and finnished getting it down on to the ground. It's tossed over on the junk pile out back. Now I've got a tv in the room and there's no reason to turn it on anymore. Should have been like that 13 or 15 years ago, or 20 or 25 years ago. It's gotten to where I think of the accummulated time I've sat in front of a tv over the decades. What a waste it's all turned out to be. Should have spent that time like it would have been back in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Out doing things with relatives and friends. I even think the image of a family sitting around listening to a radio in the those decades was better than being absorbed into images on a tv.
     That's all for this morning. Later.

Saturday, July 1, 2000

7:25p
     I've wrote about Stanley once, I think, in one of the Random Ressurrected Rememberances sections of the Journal. He's a cousin of some description, half 1st cousin once removed, more commonly known as a 2nd cousin, his grandfather and my mother are half brother and sister. He's one of the cousins I played with when we were kids, went to elementary school in the same class along with Linda and the others. Their Town Creek school closed after the first grad and they moved to Pickens Mill where I had been. So that's how we all ended up in the same class. Graduated high school in the same class too. But in junior high and senior high we were in different classes.
     I think the thing I wrote about in RRR was about being in the woods down behind the Caters house and it started to snow, really big cluster flakes. There was another time I went over to his house, it was at the bottom of Trotter Hill where Linda lived. We must have played around the creek that time and got all dirty. He went to bath but I stood at the kitchen sink and washed up. I got the floor all messed up and when his dad got home he got blamed for it. I just stood around and let it happen.
     After a few years his family moved up to the other end of Trotter Hill road, onto Fox Squirrel Ridge Road. We had moved up there too but it was about a mile west closer to the highway. I use to walk through the woods over to his house. That would have been the early sixties I guess.
     One Christmas a bunch of us got together and we went carolling out the Ridge Road. They were Chilma, Linda, Clovie and others I don't rememeber now.
     Other that that we would just meet in the halls up at the high school. We may have had some classes together.
     After I got out of the navy and came back to Pickens we meet up a few times. He told some about traveling out west selling stuff, garage tools I think. That would have been while I was in the navy. He was working at the oil place where his dad had worked for a long time. Then he moved down to Edisto Beach and had been there since the early eighties.
     Last Thursday night, early Friday morning he died in a car accident, ran off the road into a tree. Linda had learned about it from Teddy and of course she called DM and he called mom. She told me at lunch time Friday. The funeral is tomorrow and I'll be going too. Leandar came up this afternoon and is staying at mom's house, she and Micky and I will go together.

Thursday, July 6, 2000

4:35a
     The water was off since 5 yesterday afternoon. It went off at Mom's house about 7. Woke up this morning and it was still off. It's back on now. I guess there was the usual amount of air in the pipes. I had thought there would be a lot this time. The other morning, a couple of mornings ago, I saw where the big tank on the ridge was overflowing and running off down Edens road. Then yesterday afternoon, on my way over to Mom's house I saw a hydrand open down next to the bridge. So I guess there's been something to fix in the water system somewhere.
     It hasn't been the usual morning. Mostly because I was wondering if I could get my coffee made and hair washed like I normally do. It's interesting how some simple thing can get one's day off to a bad start.