Sunday

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There is more interest in colored pencicls in my painting group. Pam brought hers last week and did a little experimenting with them.

This is a colored pencil drawing I did on black paper some time back. I really like working with them on colored paper.

One of the artists on the drawing forum on Wet Canvas has a quote, logo, or whater you call it that appears at the end of all her posts.

"Use the pointy end."

Saturday

Rollie and Judi wondered about the location of Silver Bell. It was about 40 miles northwest of Tucson. From what I can find out, most everything was dozed off by ASARCO and there is a tall fence around the property. There were about 20 company houses there, and they were all moved.

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One day when I was at work, the mining engineer came in my office, and put a hard hat on my head and drove me out to El Tiro, the huge open pit mine. They were going to blast that day. At the far left in the top picture, there is a man in a red shirt, and there were a couple of pickups there too. Eveyone moved off, and we waited. I remeber the ground jumped under my feet before we heard the sound of the explosion. According to what I wrote on the back of the picture, there were over 300 drill holes and over 70 tons of blasting powder.

After the blast, we had to beat it back to the pickup and waited about 30 minutes for the dust to settle enough to see to drive back to the office. The whole top tier had been blown off.

Arizona

This morning I was straightening up some books on my bookshelves. Picked up a book on ghost towns of Arizona, and immediately got distracted. Tucked inside the book were several photos and some USGS topo maps of the area around Silver Bill, Arizona, where I once lived . I got out my oldest photo album, but am disappointed because there aren't very many pictures of Silver Bell. Maybe there are some more in a box I have in the closet.

The Silver Bell townsite was a company town, and I lived in a small trailer house there. A few miles to the west was the ghost town of Old Silver Bell. My friends and I used to go exploring there a lot. The picture is of the cemetary at Old Silver Bell.

I have a story on myself about the old cemetary. Probably shouldn't even tell it, but my two best friends and I decided we were going to dig up one of the graves. We took our shovels out there and started to dig. We didn't last long. We got scared and quit. We shoveled back the 3 or 4 inches of dirl we had managed to take off, and went home.

Oh come on! I was only 21 years old at the time and not finished growing up yet. Those were my rowdy years.

Wednesday

WWII Cartoons from New Guinea

Click on image to read.

Two different men, strangers to me, have sent me this reprint from a 1943 Life Magazine about the cartoons I have posted on my PBase page in the New Guinea album.

Some guy in Houston just e-mailed me today. He wants to clean up and restore some of the pictures and wanted to give me credit. They're not my pictures. As there were about 20 photographers in my uncles unit, there's no way to know who really took which ones. I suggested he give credit to the 43rd Bombardment Group Photographers.

There has sure been a lot of interest in these photos. I noticed today that they have been viewed over 18,000 times.

http://www.pbase.com/duener/new_guinea_wwii

If you're interested, here is the link.

Monday

Leslie R. posted this photo on Facebook showing their dog with the two cats. I hope she won't mind that I use it on my blog. These are the two white kittens who were born on the ditchbank behind my house. Their mother was wild. The first time we saw them, Barrie went up and managed to catch them both. They fought like wildcats, which they were.

Within three days, Barrie and Kasey had them tamed down, and Rod and Leslie gave them a home. That turned out well, didn't it?

The Bird that Keeps on Giving

Things are pretty bad around here when I start to take pictures of my cooking!

I baked a chicken earlier in the week, and yesterday I fixed a chicken pot pie sort of dish with biscuits on the top. Then I boiled the carcass and made a bunch of chicken broth. Then I got all the bones out of the scraps so the dogs could eat it.

I love rotisserie chicken, and buy one at the grocery store once in a while. I am always tempted by those machines they advertise on TV - you know, the one where the guy says over and over again - "Set it anf forget it."

Barrie and Kasey went to watch one day of sled dog racing at Ashton, Idaho yesterday. Last night Kasey informed me that Maddy was her dog. Barrie says she loves having a dog she can lead around on a leash and it doesn't bite people. Kasey still loves her Shorty dog, but he doesn't have such good manners.

Gina thought my cricket on the hearth looked more like a boot jack. Well, it does, but as it is only about 4 inches long, it's never been used for that.

cricket on the hearth

We find brass "crickets" constantly in stores that sell folksy things or things for the hearth and home. In old folklore, having a cricket in the house is supposed to be good luck. I wondered for years how this "folklore came about. I found that it came from a story by Charles Dickens. Hmmm. I even asked my cousin who is the University Librarian in Adelaide, South Australia, and the most well-read person I knew. He didn't have a clue!

I ordered the book from Amazon, which included both the stories "The Christmas Carol" and "Cricket on the Hearth." The story "The Cricket on the Hearth" is actually a love story, and I enjoyed reading it! My shot of culture for the year, maybe.


This is my "Cricket on the Hearth". He was given to my Mom from an aunt years ago. Don't ask me why he looks like an alligator.

And this is a picture of a brass cricket I found online. Looks much more like a cricket than mine.

Friday

Click on images for a larger view

This is Maddy with Kasey.

I painted a couple of very small "4" x 5" snow scenes. Would sure be nice if I could paint snow from real life instead of a photo. It's trying to snow right now, but I know it won't last.

The static electricity is driving me nuts, especially upstairs. I have two humidifiers running in the house, one upstairs and one downstairs. I have a metal lamp I touch before I touch my laptop computer, and it always snaps. But then it will often snap when I touch the computer. That's not good. I guess I will shop today for something - just don't know what. Tracy thinks they make a pad of some kind to set the computer on.

My garage and basement gave me a real start yesterday when I went down there. Someone had committed a major cleaning! The back of my pickup was filled with flattened cardboard boxes, Barrie got them ALL ready for the recycling center. And she cleaned and straightened out a lot more. I never heard her - can't hear what's going on in the basement from upstairs.

The Cat

I have tried to upload this video about 6 times now. I give it about 30 minutes, then give up. Today I forgot it was uploading, and went to do different things. And here it is!

I think I need an animal psychiatrist.

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I just noticed a Burmese Mountain Dog in the back yard. Barrie brought her home. I'm going to kill her - Barrie, not the dog.

Sunday

Future Musher

Kasey loves going out to the dog lot with her Mom to feed. The sled dogs would probably knock her down, but she feeds Jarvi and Shorty.

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I should be watching more of the winter games. I like the figure skating, but lose interest quickly an many of the events. Sounds like Van Couver has the same "lack of snow" woes as we do. And I don't understand the protesters. What the heck are they protesting, anyway? I read a couple of things, that groups don't like the amount of money being spent. And that the Indians want their land back. Ho Hum.

Friday

There were several comments about my laptop and Kat. Just for the record, Kat does NOT try to use the computer. That is about the only thing she doesn't bother. My roll of paper towels at the watercolor table is usually shredded. She takes my erasers unless I remember to put them in the plastic container with a tight lid. And my days of doing jigsaw puzzles are gone forever.

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I don't have any pictures to post today, so I snagged a few from the "funny photo of the day" page I get on Google.

Wonder if my cat would stretch out this far?

Do dogs look like their owners?

This cat is using the computer. Looks like he might be watching porn!

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I think this a watercolor kind of day.

Wednesday - It's Back!

Applause for Hewlet Packard. I sent my laptop computer in for repair last Friday, and it was returned today, all fixed. It's sure good to get it back, especially since I have "killed" the two older laptops I had.

I went to the recycling center after art group this morning with a few things. Then I decided I would go home and get a load of flattened cardboard boxes, because for once the transfer dumpster was not overflowing.

Just as I was leaving, I saw the FedEx truck parked on the street at the end of my driveway. I should have stopped right then, but I went on and unloaded the boxes. When I got back, I found the form that said the delivery needed a signature, and they would try again tomorrow.

So I got back in my truck and started driving around town. I found the truck parked in front of the Barn Door, but it wasn't the right guy. That truck had a green "Ex" on it, and I needed to find the one with the orange "Ex". You learn something new every day, right? Anyway, I found the right truck behind Nat and Ward's place and got my computer.

Monday

This is Barrie and Emily, in Bridger Valley, I believe. Emily is the fifteen year old girl from Big Piney who went with Barrie on the IPSSSDR as her handler. She is an amazing girl. She races sled dogs also.

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I am running out of computers quickly around here. I am using the HP laptop I gaveBarrie, and it has about had it. This morning, I could not get it on my wireles network. The only way I can do it is to use the CD that came with my router and reconfigure the network adapter every time.

I had a screen pop up every 5 minutes or so telling me my computer was infected, and more dire messages. This one was a program called "Your PC Protector." Another fake antivirus program. It was preventing my use of some things (like Restore System), telling me it was blocking the program because it was infected. Where does all this crap come from?

I couldn't go to the control panel to try to remove it - it just wouldn't run. I finally did a search and found some files, and deleted them. That has helped, but something is still wrong with this computer.

I think I will call this colored pencil drawing of the moose finished. She could use some more work on values and color.

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Barrie's vet called at 3:30 this morning. She was performing surgery on Gus, Barrie's dog who was sick all during the race. She called Barrie to tell her that Gus had a huge tumor in the stomach, and there was nothing she could do for him. So Barrie is feeling pretty low today.

Friday

Kasey chases the cat and won't leave it alone. But then Kat won't leave her alone, either. The cat can always go upstairs if she gets tired of it.

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The computer is working, well, almost working. It is fast, and the Internet is fast today. Gina told me she called Century Tel and they had told her they were having problems the other day. I sure hate it when their problems become my problems. Every time this happens, I find that my phones don't work, and I have to unplug the base for a couple of hours for it to reset.

I found the system disk for my computer and booted from the CD yesterday. I was able to get to Restore System from there, and changed the settings back to what they were a week or so ago. But now when I restart the computer, I find that I have to use F12 to get it to boot from the hard drive. It keeps wanting to boot from the CD. At least it's up and running, and I can work more on the boot problem later.

I had a hard drive crash several years ago, and got a Dell tech support guy in South America who was great. He walked me through everything to get me up and running. I lost files, but at least the computer worked. But the guy from Dell I had the other day was terrible!! Couldn't speak English very well, and didn't know what he was doing. He never even asked me if I had the system disk. Thank God I'm not sitting here with my computer in pieces and holding the hard drive in my hand!!

Got Kasey fed her breakfast, took her to daycare, took some things to the recycling center and to the Food Basket, have the dishes washed and caught up on paying bills.

I have Turbo Tax installed on the computer, and I think I have received everything I need to do my taxes - except the interest and ambition.

Stuff Happens

AAARRGGH! I'm not even going to attempt to upload any photos today. I'll feel lucky to be able to post anything.

I took Kasey to day care this morning and took my HP laptop to Wise's to be sent back for repair.

Then I came home and turned on my Dell desktop, just purchased last July. It was just dragging, and I couldn't load some internet pages, so I turned it off. I think sometimes Centurytel forgets to turn on all their switches, or something.

When I tured it on later, itwouldn't boot up. All I got was a diagnostic test screen. I let it do its tests, and it restarted itself and came up with the same screen. I tried several different things and finally called Dell. I know what Dell is pushing right now - they want all their employees to sell the extended warranty plan. I talked to three different people, all of whom went through the sales pitch. Then they got my service tag number, my name, computer model, phone number, then would connect me with another person, who went through the same routine.

And wouldn't you know it, the last person I talked to, the one who was really gong to give me technical advice, could barely speak English. I kept askig him to speak slowly. The things he had me do were things I had already done. Then he would say "I'll be back in 3 minutes." I think he was going to check with someone else to see what he should say next.

Then he told me to unplug all the cables, that "we" were going to take the case cover off so "we" could get to the hard drive. There's got to be dozens of cables plugged into the back of th CPU - two printers, a scanner, the speakers, the modem the monitor, etc. etc. There's no way I was unplugging all those. It took me all day to get them all plugged in when I set up the computer. Besides, the CPU is hard to get to. I have to pull it out from the wall, and it is big, bulky and too heavy for me.

I told him to forget it. When I came upstairs and turned on the old HP laptop (presently the only computer in the house that works), I couldn't get on the internet. I had to go through setting up a network connection again.

Do you think it's possible for your ISP to screw up your computers that badly? Or do you think someone is sneaking around my house in the middle of the night screwing up the computers?

The gas company filled my propane tank yesterday. That gas smelled so strong! Now can't keep my gas log stove going.

I'm going back to bed now.

Wednesday

This is the latest watercolor from Conley. His paintings of fish and birds are incredible.

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Fed Ex delivered an empty box to me today to return my laptop to HP and have the touchpad replaced.

I talked to a very nice technician (who also spoke English!!) who walked me through a few things to check before I return it. Nothing worked, so it is going back. And what is wonderful, it is still under warranty! Close, though. I bought it Feb 16 of 2009.

I never could find a number to call to return an item under warranty. So I finally called the first 800 number I found. When the pleasant robot automated voice came on and asked me questions, you know, the ones that recognize your answer - I just kept answering "I don't know" or "none of these", etc. Eventually you get a real person, and you tell them what you need, and they put you through to the correct department.

Monday

Last night at the banquet, the tables were decorated with bookmarks made by kids. They were so cute, and we brought several home. Kasey took three of them and was playing with them on the table, and she said "Look! I made a triangle!" Sure enough, she had.

So today I thought I would sit down with this brilliant child and make patterns with her. Not! She certainly couldn't see the point in that. Mine is the red and yellow one. She prefered to use all the colors at random.

Just got back from the grocery store. Kasey makes quite a shopping companion. She sang all through the store, mostly "Winter Wonderland". We saw Rollie in the store, and he and Kasey carried on quite a conversation.

I had thought we might go up the Green to at least watch the end of the race today, but we didn't. It looks like it is probably very windy up there. And besides that, I bet we would probably have to park back along the highway and walk up to the parking lot.

And besides that, two year olds are slow to get moving, and Grandmas are even slower.