And Katkam shows our weather deteriorating...

It's that time again, and they're back...

Every year about now, I have to coax two or three of these little guys onto the bristles of my kitchen broom, so that I can give them a ride back outside. I don't like the idea of them dying in the house, because they're so cute, and they do belong outdoors. And they can actually move around upside down on the ceiling quite quickly. They can also hop over a foot high off the floor, and of course fly. So they're quite mobile. Rounding one up and herding it outside isn't always easy. They're like my first wife: one word from me, and they do what they like!

I've reactivated my Air Force for the cooler months.

WHAZZAMATTAWIDYOO, MIGHTY MICROSOFT??????????

After forever bugging me to upgrade Windows 8 Pro to Windows 8.1, the whole thing starts up, ties up my computer for the better part of 45 minutes, and then says, "We couldn't complete the upgrade and are reverting your computer to its previous system."

If your Windows 8.1 upgrade turned into another Microsoft fuck-up, please click here.

On this above link, 2 weeks ago, someone wrote in the comments as follows:-
Thank you very much, that worked. If anybody is interested, I could not find how to start command prompt, so I used Control panels> Services instead. Does the same thing.


Here's how to find your Command Prompt in Windows 8:-

Move your Mouse into the upper right corner of your screen, until the icons appear, and then select the magnifying glass icon meaning Search, and in the
little white box for searching, type in Command Prompt, and click the little icon
in the little blue box at the end of that line. You will then see what's showing in
the upper left of the above screenshot.......Right-click inside that box.....

It turns light blue as shown, and the taskbar in light blue appears along the bottom of the screen. Click on Run As Administrator, and it will bring up your Administrator Command Prompt.

It's also a nice idea, before you leave that screen, to click the other icon in that bottom taskbar marked Pin To Taskbar. - You don't see that in mine above here, because I've already done that, so mine has changed now to the only other choice I have - Unpin it. Any Questions?

Update:  9Sept2014:

If you've just tuned in, may I offer a short scene-setting, please? I got Windows 8 on a special deal offered to us beta-testers, and I've had it ever since, and I have "tweaked it" with quite a few non-Microsoft third-party "freebies" which add into it a lot of nice touches that we're all familiar with from Windows 7, for example. "Like what?" you ask. Like those Gadgets on the Desktop that Mighty Microsoft in its haste to push multi-touch screens told us were a "security risk",
while they assumed we were too stupid to figure out that whatever anti-virus or anti-malware or anti-spyware (got 'em all!) we have is protecting our Gadgets at the same time as everything else on here. (Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck?) - and other things, like my own favorite media player (Winamp) and my own home-grown sets of Windows Themes, and a lot of programs off the web that would be and are lost when Microsoft does its "Upgrade".

Microsoft's upgrades only save your personal data, meaning Documents folder, Pictures folder, and like that, but it does not save any non-Microsoft programs or features which you have found elsewhere and added into the system yourself.
Like various third-party Apps, or Irfan Skiljan's wonderful 'freebie' image-editing program Irfanview, which you can find here, or Stellarium, the full-featured planetarium for your computer, with which, if you wish, you can change your home base for viewing the heavens from wherever you are located on Earth to any planet of your choice, like Mars, for example. (The sky from Mars looks similar to our own, except there's no Mars in it, because we're on it! And the Earth is a tiny little speck we can hardly see from there! Cool!) You should try this one - You'll probably love it! And yes, it's another famous "freebie".

I've already installed and removed Windows 8.1 on both my desktop PCs, not just once, but twice, and I'm tired of having to re-install all my own pet programs each time. Windows 8.1, as I've said before, can't do anything for me that I can't already do on my "tweaked" version of Windows 8. So, am I upset about Windows 8.1 free upgrade not completing as planned? Not at all - in fact,
I'm just delighted, because now I know that Microsoft's automatic updating will not likely be able to mess up what I have here, even if I'm not paying attention.
 

Today's blogging......

Will have to wait until Microsoft finishes its promised update from my much-loved and always-used Windows 8 to their most recent Service Pack, which they choose to call "Windows 8.1" - and if it messes up the customizations I've installed on here, I'll probably find ways to bad-mouth them until Windows 9 comes along to correct this whole fiasco.....

So Mighty Microsoft, you're been warned! Be nice, or be gone! Because I can still find my way to PC-BSD and it still works perfectly! You should use some of its ideas in Windows 9 - like its quarterly free upgrades of its whole operating system, for example. And that's just one of their neat features..... 

Update: 8:33 a.m. ---

Ha-Ha! - I Win !!!

That, as we see, was a total act of futility. Computer rebooted several times, announcements said it was configuring one thing and another and your computer would be ready shortly, and all that usual hogwash, and at the end,

as I am confidently anticipating verifying that Windows 8.1 is now activated and hasn't screwed anything up on here, up comes the above two screens. So I recorded them for Posterity. The score: Microsoft - 0, Old Ray - 1..... Ha-Ha !!! 

I fell asleep in the Big Chair again....

....and woke up with the TV yapping about the latest news overload of real or created crisis, with prognostications by a carefully-groomed talking head trying hard to convince us he knows the difference between an ass and an elbow....

"All the world's a stage, and we but actors in a play"..... And absolutely everybody wants into the act! The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. But would I buy a used car from any of those bastards? Not if they kissed my ass until I barked like a fox!

Have I ever heard a fox bark? Yes! And it didn't sound anything like a bark. More like the calling of some nice little bird, but low in the bushes beside the road, coming closer and closer.

But I'd better start at the beginning, shouldn't I? Once upon a time, in a place far away, about fifty-one years ago, my buddy Eddie and I were on our way from our area control station to another remotely-controlled plant downriver, along a narrow and bumpy gravel road beside a wood-pole transmission line carrying the power line from that and another station down the river. The sides
of the road next to the power line right-of-way were overgrown with berry bushes. Out of the brambles and berry bushes on that side of the road there suddenly appeared the cutest little red fox pup I ever saw.

The little fox was only a few inches long, with a bushy little tail about the same
length as its body. The kind of little creature you just want to pick up and cuddle. My buddy, driving the old Jeep pick-up truck, said, "There must be a den nearby." I replied, "And I'd just love to catch one of those cute little guys." Eddie said, "Hah! You can't run fast enough!" To which I replied, "I'll bet you a case of beer I can!" And Eddie said, "You're on! How do you plan on doing this?"

We agreed that after we'd been to the remote station, and finished our daily checks on it, that on the way back, when we got near that spot where the little foxes were, he would slow down the old Jeep, but not stop it, and I would jump out on the fly, with a running start, so to speak, and take off after the nearest little fox. We did all that, and as I hit the road running, the little fox took off into the bushes toward the more distant parts of the right-of-way under the power line. I was really surprised at how fast it could run. I thought this was going to be a 'piece of cake' and my case of beer was assured, but it was turning into a
real race, and the little fox had the advantage, because it was on familiar ground, while I wasn't.

We went in and out of patches of thorny bushes, and back and forth across that right-of-way about three times, until finally the little guy was getting short of breath (me too!) and it stumbled just a little while getting over a broken branch.
I figured it was now or never, so I made a flying dive to grab it, and as I landed next to it, I pinned it to the ground with my thumb and forefinger over the back of its little neck, because I didn't want to hurt it, but I didn't want to lose it either.

While I had it pinned down like that, it turned its head and its needle-sharp little teeth chomped repeatedly down along my finger. I lifted it up, and then got up myself, and carried it over to the old Jeep pick-up, which Eddy had stopped nearby, to watch the show. He said, "Damn! You really did it! Good on you!"
I sat the little guy down in the empty box of the old truck, and it was really winded. It just sat there breathing deeply for a couple of minutes, while I looked at my chomped-on finger, now bleeding. 

Eddie said, "Looks like you have a problem. You've heard of Rabies, haven't you?" I said, "Yes, I saw a dog with it when I was a kid, but you can't tell me that a little guy this small that can run that fast isn't in the very best of health."
But Eddie managed to convince me I should make sure I was OK. And that's how I heard a fox barking one time. I called the nearest Medical Officer of Health, told him what happened, and he said "You've got two choices: you can come into town which means a two-hour drive every day for a series of painful shots in your belly, or you can keep an eye on your foxes until you're satisfied that they are really quite healthy, in which case you don't have a problem."
I said, "I think they're OK, so I'm choosing your second option, and thank you."

I bought cases of canned fish-flavored catfood, and every day after work I'd drive down the road to the foxes location, and I'd open a can of that smelly catfood, hold it up in the breeze for a few minutes, until the little guys got a good whiff of it and came out of the bushes, and then I'd empty the can on a
nearby flat rock, back off a few feet, and watch them have supper. And one evening while I'm doing that, Mother Fox came looking for her kids, and she was making soft little chirping noises like a bird, as she came out of the bushes on the opposite side of the road, and spotted me. She disappeared again quickly, but the little guys kept right on enjoying supper. They never did get bold enough to eat from my hand, but they would let me within ten or fifteen feet, and those
little foxes and I had a really neat relationship that summer. 

Flying over Grouse Mtn

New house in West Vancouver: Using zoom

Ye Olde Family Tree: Yes, we have one!

Why am I posting this picture? Because all those recently-discovered Facebookers among our diverse and prolific clan may wish to have a copy, and
I'm not that good with Facebook yet, and may never be, so this is for all of you who may want to copy this picture of our family's roots.

As I look this, I can vividly remember Grandmother Ray visiting my parents during winters when I was a very small and unruly child who was reluctant to leave his nice warm bed in the mornings. Grandma, a rather stern, proper, and authoritarian type, accustomed to being obeyed, would come to the bottom of the stairs leading up to my little corner of the bedroom, and sternly announce
"If you're not down here in five minutes, I'm coming up there with a dipper full of cold water!" That worked every time, because I considered that prospect a fate worse than death! Grandma's favorite cure for whatever ailed me was a big tablespoonful of Castor Oil-flavored brown sugar, and for years afterward, every time I tasted brown sugar I imagined I could taste the Castor Oil in it. When I was three or four, I was more afraid of Grandma than I was of God Himself in clouds of thunder and lightning! To escape her and her spoonfuls of that 'tonic' of hers, I could have happily run six blocks in my bare feet through broken glass.

Grandma read the Bible whenever she wasn't helping Mom with the daily chores, and it was her constant guide and inspiration. If she thought I would understand, she would quote parts of it to me, to reinforce her own opinion of my behavior, which was never quite up to her standards, but always improvable enough to 'make do with for now'. I constantly aspired to attaining that approval which always seemed to be so tantalizingly near yet beyond my reach. But when Spring would come, and Grandma packed her Bible and other treasures into a bag, and departed for 'The Farm' once more, I heaved a big sigh of relief, because now, I was 'Free At Last!', summer was just around the corner, and life was good.

I never met Grandfather, because he died ten years before I was born, but having had more than a passing acquaintance with Grandmother, I think I could hazard a guess as to why he decided to run away from home to begin homesteading a property out in the wild west.  He probably didn't like that Castor Oil and Brown Sugar Tonic any more than I did!

Remember those old Viewmasters?

Meet its modern equivalent.

The Weather...

Outside, it's overcast and very autumny. On my 30-inch flat screen TV monitor,
it's a lovely day! Isn't technology wonderful?

I have been asked to translate this.....

Short P.S.
This came from Europe, and is therefore Parisian French as opposed to the more colloquial Canadian variety.

Coming Soon: A Faster Web (not a moment too soon!)

Question Everything:
If there's a conflict loading a page containing images and other elements, and the one is being loaded before the others, slowing the process, why couldn't we have the whole page, images and all, formatted ready for display not as separate elements requiring different treatments during loading, but as one thumbnail PNG which, once loaded, would be automatically resized to fit whichever size of available screen your device uses? Could we do that?

Those Autumn Leaves

Let's not forget upper Michigan around the great lakes, and across the border into the Ontario shores of Lake Superior. It's marvelous! And with today's digital cameras, you can capture its splendor easily, and get exactly the pictures you want. So what are you waiting for? Grab your 'superzoom' digital, a spare card and battery for it, and go get 'em!

"The Lights Are On, But Nobody's Home!"

If you're enjoying one of those delightful manic 'highs', or you're doing a little risqué 'trapping', Darling, please try to remember that 'All the world's a stage, and we but actors in a play'. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure, even in Hollywood, and even if you're 'twenty feet off the ground and rising' - would I lie to you?

A wee bit more about writing...

There's been many books written on how to improve yours, but a couple of the very best are:-

Patricia has been an editor at the New York Times Book Review, and she writes with wit, style, and brevity, and The New York Times said "Strunk & White combined with S. J. Perelman". This should be compulsory reading!

And speaking of Strunk and White, if you haven't, then get it now. 

This little gem I've doodled all over is so old I can't remember when or where it came from, but it is a pocket-sized 64-page cure-all, from long ago. For example, page 8:-

Ten Principles of Clear Writing

Keep Sentences Short

Prefer the Simple to the Complex

Develop Your Vocabulary

Avoid Unneeded Words

Put Action Into Your Verbs

Use Terms Your Reader Can Picture

Tie In With Your Reader's Experience

Write the Way You Talk (Careful There!)

Make Full Use of Variety

Write to Express, Not to Impress

("Big men use little words; little men use big words.")

I've had this one since 1993. Some day, I fully intend to read it! (Just kidding!)
 

How To Be A Great Writer, by Stephen King....

1.) Stop watching TV. Instead, read as much as possible.
2.) Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.
3.) Don't waste time trying to please people.
4.) Write primarily for yourself.
5.) Tackle things that are hardest to write.
6.) When writing, disconnect from the rest of the world.
7.) Don't be pretentious.
8.) Avoid adverbs and long paragraphs.
9.) Don't get overly caught up in grammar.
10.) Master the art of description.
11.) Don't give too much background information.
12.) Tell stories about what people actually do.
13.) Take risks - don't play it safe.
14.) Realize that you don't need drugs to be a good writer.
15.) Don't try to steal someone else's voice.
16.) Understand that writing is a form of telepathy.
17.) Take your writing seriously.
18.) Write every single day.
*Note: There are three more, but these pertain more to writing books, and have been left off this list, because not all of us want to write books. I have copied this list for all, but especially for my old friend Pete, who seems convinced I need help with the ways of the word. Let's consider this a short review.

Computers: Possibly useful hint...

If you get tired of sitting at your computer constantly to use the keyboard, I've just discovered that if you have a spare, you can plug in another keyboard into any handy USB port, park it on a tall stool (or two short ones, one atop the other) and then stand up to do your typing, like I'm doing at the moment. If he were still with us, Hemingway would love this idea, because he often stood while doing his writing on that clattery old typewriter of his.

Experts, defined as anyone more than ten miles from home, tell us we ought to change our position or stand up and stretch every few minutes to avoid fatigue or circulation problems from constantly slouching over the computer's desk, and this is a great alternative. If sitting tends to give you a numb bum,
this cures it. And you can do a few deep knee bends, while you're thinking up your next line.... 

This just in from Pascal's Facebook page....

You and Your Internet Connection: hints

Also:
Check for DNS hijacking. Ping yourself at 127.0.0.1 (Everybody's got it!)
Or: Ping to: thevpnguru-dns-exposed.tld and if you get the same results as those shown below, then you're OK, and you haven't been hijacked.