YOU'RE IN IT FOR THE...

 The most unbelievable thing, when some towns lose their fireworks, they would lose a lot of people coming to their celebration.. Not Silverton Colorado.. You forget that the parade is quite the attraction as well.. Many towns have fourth of July parades but not many have a water fight that goes on the length of the parade route.. And then they set up shop by the city hall and blast each other with their hoses.. Some of the most fun you will ever see..

One of my favorite songs right now ... "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil..

Badge (pennies worth) Henry

HELLO RAIN

Somebody sent up a prayer for rain and it was answered, and while I don't believe in organized religion, to those who do I guess your prayers were answered..  For the lawn here Friday night saw a four tenths rain fall then Saturday (the radar was showing it might flood) we got a trace. Then Sunday afternoon we got another four tenths of an inch of moisture and that really helps.. Stopped watering everything for a day maybe even two.. Return to watering the lawn on Wednesday I think.. Might spot water where needed.. The "garden" looks really good today.. As much as the plants love the heat to grow, I think they need a break in the heat to fill in a bit.. Dare to dream that we might make it though this season without hail.. Don't worry, it will hail again.. I will hate to be right about that but it does hail at least once per growing season. Last year we got nailed three times by hail and when it didn't hail the wind blew..

So today was D day for some sort of computer schlop thing.. I hate the hackers who do this type of shit.. It was the one thing that I pointed to when everyone was saying "you should get a computer.."  way back in the day.. That and I figured I had no right to try to do computers.. Way back when they were introduced in school I saw them as being fun, but I tried my luck through the school one and then when dad got his I tried, then little brother's but couldn't see any reason to bother.. Too much agravation..   Then one day I sat down and he (lil bro) showed me some very basic things on the computer.. 1: turn it on.. 2 : getting on the internet.. From there it was pretty much learn on your own..



That brings us to the browser situation, and front page or homepage.. With i-Google being phased out at the end of next year it has made me start to phase it out now.. Disappointed in Google deciding to drop their homepage I was actually thinking about getting a different one anyway or possibly getting away from the homepage concept altogether.. I do like the way I designed the homepage, everything was set the way I wanted it after a month of trial and errors..  I designed it to be like the local news cast, news weather sports type of format from left to right.. The most viewed were the ones opened at the start. But it slowed the browsers down and even crashed the Firefox/Aurora browsers.. Opera opens some of the gadgets while Chrome I didn't bother with opening my homepage with it.. After this past Saturdays event with Chrome I was set to delete it from the computer forever but then thought I would give it just one last chance.. This will be it's very last chance and I will give it the full effort to make it work.. I'm not sure how "loaded" everyone else uses their chrome browser, but I try not to overdo it with apps and extensions or whatever.. Try to stay basic although I like the speed dial concept, there are many to chose from but I will try the one I thought was best for me.. If it crashes again I will not only get rid of that app, I will delete Chrome for good this time..

Badge Henry..

THEN JUST A LITTLE LEFT OF CENTER

Mowed the grass today and found that we are up to a rating of 6  to 6 and a half maybe.. There are areas that are still having troubles developing a good grass growth.. Truth is if June would have been more normal we would have had a full lawn by now.. We are without any doubt in a drought, possibly the worst we have ever had.. Because of the area it covers, and some people think it is an anomaly but others think this could be a sign of things to come.   Some of the grass is weed, really weedy and although I usually hate weeds at all, this year I am letting them grow, or did until today when I weedwacked a good lot of them..  which means there is a nasty spot by the whiskey barrel.. I'm ok with that, and I was also thinking that this year I will move the reseed date back a little.. Usually the last day for seeding new seed on the lawn was around the tenth of August, this year I will move that to the first week of September. I am thinking about reseeding a lot of the grass this summer but I won't do it now.. I'll wait until mid August and hope the hot dry days are starting to wain..


Here at casa 'pole we don't have central air nor an air conditioner.. The wiring won't support a single air conditioner in any room of the house.. I had an evaporative cooler at one point and it worked fine for a couple of years then it got so humid that it stopped being effective.. One year after I stopped using it we put it in the window in the dining room thinking it would cool the downstairs enough to help cool the whole house.. It didn't work as planned because it was a small space cooler.. My bedroom was as big as it could cool.. I felt like I was being selfish but since I bought it and anyone else could have gotten one as well..  This year a cooler like that one would have worked great up until right about now, the humidity is going way up with the monsoon flow.. Right now is when harvest usually kicks in and right now is when it usually rains.. I'm not complaining about not having central air or anything like that, it cools off fairly well at night, plus if you drink the right amount of water it shouldn't effect you that badly..

The browser issue or rather the homepage issue is starting to resolve itself..  I am messing a little with Chrome a little more.. They have "apps" that are really cool including a speed dial that might rival the best speed dial browser in Opera.. Chrome has a setting that will change the speed dial from twelve selections to as many as 88.. Which seems like overkill.. Right now I am starting to phase out the i-Google homepage.. Deleting at least one gadget a day right now since I have heard of Google getting rid of their homepage design.. I think I will still have Firefox (Aurora) browser be preset with  a homepage of some sort.. I will have Chrome and Opera have their speed dial setup.. I hate to rely on a browser like Chrome full time and so I won't. I really like what Chrome has now, it is potentially a really good bordering on great browser.. if it could handle the Weather Underground site I would switch and try to use Chrome exclusively.. But I have been burned twice in the same year, and this year have yet to use it like I was.. Setting up the browser with all the speed dial settings could be  a gigantic mistake if it decides to shit the bed again..

Badge Henry

TO STREAM OR NOT TO STREAM

About a little over a month ago I was looking for something at the local Walmart (I'm not sure what it was I was looking for) and I don't even know why I was in the section of the store I was in, but there I was in the electronics aisle and found myself looking at the streaming devices.. My little brother has the Roku and at one point even swore it was the best way for entertainment delivery to his tv set and severed his ties to satellite and swore by Roku.. Roku would have cable programming and more to the point, it would have network television channels before the end of that year or beginning of the next.. Was he trying to talk me into it, or himself??  Forward a couple of years and he reacquired his Directv system, kept his Roku and uses the two integrated together although the Roku is more of a babysitter than anything else.. So when I stopped and looked at the Roku setups they had I was just glancing.. Then I read the box and thought "you know we have digital cable and mostly we got it because we got rid of Dish network satellite tv.. My reason for not having dish is because of the amount of filler on the dial and the fact that there were so much crud at the lower end of the channel lineup.. It used to be that the channel lineup would be fairly sludge free until around the premium channels.  By sludge I mean the channels that sell stuff.. The information channels.. or whatever you want to call them..  A slim down would occur and while going down in number of channels we got a few not available on either satellite provider and they still aren't on there..

So I looked at the streaming devices and after a few days decided to shelve the idea for a bit.. Then today I was in there and went and checked them out again, this time I went in with an open mind and checked out not only Roku, but all of the different devices.. Streaming is available on most blue ray dvd players.. In fact most dvd players have streaming.. As I picked one of the dvd players up it said standard dvd player and that was all.. I thought of that like from A Charlie Brown Christmas where Linus and Charlie are looking at trees and they spot an old fashioned wood tree and Linus says "do they make real trees anymore?"  and I was thinking do they make dvd players that just play dvd's and not streaming or any other goodies??

So I look at a few of these streaming players and I look at the Roku, just figuring I will get one for Christmas maybe this year.. The only thing I wasn't sure of was last week I saw the cable tv company running cable from one part of town where they brought the new fiber optic line in and I was just sure they were going to add more cable tv channels or something like that and I would wait and see what might come of this.. Turns out I looked at where the cable ended up and it went to the school.. What that means for the school, I don't have a clue but..

So I check a few of these streaming players out and here is what I figured out and after looking at them in the store I decided to look on line and really check them out.. An in depth search and browse at the walmart on line site and there is where a good cross section of America shops and they are just really eager to voice their opinion on the reviews section of the different devices so here is where I will share their ideas.. Some of the devices are good and some are better and what I was looking for in a device was streaming AND the ability to watch via a usb device (flashdrive external memory storage) so while the cheaper Roku  http://www.walmart.com/ip/Roku-HD-Streaming-Video-Player/20630068  Sells for around fifty to sixty greenbacks, this only streams.. No usb support...

This one : http://i.walmart.com/i/rb/0079006937097.pdf  The D-link has the ability to stream and seems to have a small number of available services and while more isn't nesissarily better, in this case it is since Roku has so much to chose from and is the standard to measure anything with...

The Netgear one : http://www.walmart.com/ip/Netgear-NTV200S-NeoTV-Streaming-Player/21092586  has the ability to stream Youtube which currently Roku doesn't, and that isn't a deal breaker.. This system has  a thing called "Fling" which supposedly will let you watch what your watching on the computer on the Netgear streamer..  Not sure how that might work but there it is, another choice in the streaming video devices..

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-HD-Streaming-Video-Player-TB600MG2F/17350648 : this is a Magnavox streaming device (box) that pretty much equals Roku.


The Sony : http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sony-DC-SMPN200-Wi-Fi-Streaming-Player/17281822  Looks to be the leader at the present time.. It has so much more information on it, on the walmart site.. I was in the store and picked this thing up and read the box.. Saw the ability to play via the usb drive and when I looked for the price tag I figured seventy or more for this.. Turns out to be less than fifty dollars.. Blew me away and it has everything I want for streaming all the channels I want including Youtube.. This was to be the winner if I looked at it on line and it had good reviews which it does however they all have that one guy who sounds like he is a sales rep for the devices writing the review for the device so I checked the other reviews and there are many pro and a few con but the pros are more than negative so.. This could be the one..  Ditching the movie part of the digital cable would be cake since we have the Starz package.. Replacing some fifteen channels with several hundred would be easy to do..

Researching things like this is what I normally do.. I remember thinking about getting dish, or directv and it was easy to check dish because my little brother had it.. Then there was the Webtv thing.. I came really close to getting that.. I kept looking when we went into Walmart and I came really close to getting that.. I wonder whatever happened to Webtv??  I didn't get it, in other words.. The compact disc burner (stand alone type) that would allow me to burn records to disc, I watched the price on that drop like a stone over a three year period before getting one just before they were banned.. I didn't know they were about to do that either..Just lucky there..  And now the streaming video devices.. The Sony is the current leader (winner) and I guess we will see how things play out..

Badge Henry

THAT WAS THEN.. THIS IS...

GOIN' BACK  (the original version)

The video for the entry/project   project/entry   "Goin Back"  the original version.. I was happy with this version but it felt a little ..  umm  not what I was wanting in the final production.. So the next day I copied a few more pictures that I had just found, when mom was cleaning the closet  a couple years ago.. I looked through this folder and saw so many pictures of dad I had never seen before (that I know of).. But in this video, it includes pictures of him from the school days, our early days, the days when Tabitha was just a little baby girl.. And dad being ... Dad..



Badge Henry

THE TIME MACHINE

I probably should have called this entry something else since I have a story in the time machine vein but,   whacha gonna do bout it eh??   I started doing my own produced videos a couple weeks ago or so .. er something in that neighborhood.. Anyway the first few were simplistic, and I knew if given enough time and tinkering that I could produce better videos.. And subject matter as well.. I never intended to do this video but upon having one of my nieces ask about a picture on my Facebook I thought why not, so here it is,  by no request nor popular demand.. I bring you...    Breakdown by the Destiny boys...

                               (the youtube version..)


We were playing sort of regular and then the idea was to go into the studio to record  a couple of songs for release as a possible single idea.. Or something like that.. We went into the studio around Christmas time (if I can remember right)  on a Saturday I think and we got all set up.. I think the lead guitarist (seasoned pro that he thought he was) thought I would be overwhelmed by the studio, and truth is I was prepared to struggle but as it turned out this song and the second that we did that day were both first takes on the drums.. There were no second or third tries, I nailed the parts the first time both songs.. On this song, the ending sounds somewhat abrupt with the guitarist still playing and suddenly stopping.. We played the song as a band although my part and the guitarist part were the only part that were recorded at that time..  The keyboard would be added as an overdub as well as the bass guitar and vocals..

The pictures in this video; I had scanned all the pictures that I had and posters and cassette tape inner sleeves  and pretty much everything I had.. Some of the things I doctored using the old PdN program and others I left alone..  There is a picture of the band with the sister of the two Ward brothers that is in this video and for what reason she was in there??  I don't know, she was supposedly the manager but she was more a yes person of her brother, able to tell us the same thing he said such as were we ready to play again any time soon??  "NO..  You suck"....  Thanks DD...  There was a girl in the band (RIZZEN)  for a short time (one picture session).. She sang maybe five songs and pranced around on stage and gave us some amount of class at one point..  (Jolle Seaton, her parents owned a hard ware store across from Finneys)  and she was really quite nice but when they tossed her out I talked to her about it and yeah she was pissed but I think she knew it was coming..  Then there was a few male lead vocalists that would try their luck.. The lead guitarist/vocalist knew we needed a lead vocalist but just never wanted to surrender that duty to anyone..

We would go through several vocalists and three keyboard players, the third being the cousin of the Ward boys and he would only learn how to play what he was shown.. Sort of a parrot type of thing..  By the time I was ready to throw it in things were about to be at the end as far as the band was concerned..  Early October of '88 we played at a bar in Kimball and that just happened to be the same exact weekend as Oktoberfest and the guys were bummed out for that reason, I could have cared less because I thought we should be playing more anyway.  So after that gig there would be an extremely long layoff.. The holidays saw them wanting to practice not to get ready for a gig, but to video tape a practice.. Then it would be April before we would get together for a gig, our final gig with me as the drummer..  When I suggested a gig, to play a graduation party for my little brother... We got it together went and played and as we were between sets the guitarist came to me and told me the tempo was all over the place. I thought there's a reason for that, we hadn't played live together in eight months.. But he was pissy about it and I had had enough of their druggy ways that I was done.. I decided right there and then that I would leave the band.. Packed my drums the next day and my drum stage and took it home and when they got around to getting their equipment three days later I thought just another reason to throw in the towel.. They did ask me to return for a gig the next year but my feeling was that if there was an issue with the tempo before there would be more of an issue now a year plus later.. I have to admit that it could have been good playing that last gig, it was to open for another band at the fair.. But I decided not to go for it.. Haven't heard from them since, go figure..

Badge Henry

(P.S.  I redid the song, the video rather because the original that is represented by the youtube version clipped the last 4 seconds of the song.  That might sound obsessive except that part of the story talks about the ending of the song.. I watched on the youtube version as the song clipped short, I could have sworn it was full and complete and sure enough while doing the redo I did the same thing.. It wasn't that way, the video program took the last three pictures off and substituted  the final three black screens (the all important credits where credit is due shit).. I know it was right the first time but didn't produce as such.. This time it did, I watched it after I got it done then pushed save.. The pictures are slightly different and the opening sequence starts the way I originally intended.. So this is better??  You decide..)

4th OF JULY

 There are so many stories about the July 4th holiday.. this story does remind me of one time we had dumped all the dud fire crackers and fireworks in general into a jar to set it off and see what it would do and dumb assed me I didn't think I should get a wick, the safe thing to do (light fuse and run)  I took the punk and stuck it down the opening and watched as it lit and ... Well It didn't explode thankfully but it did light and flash.. Had it been packed even remotely it might have blown up in my face, making me uglier than I already am...


When we were younger we went on vacation and a friend took care of the pets and lawn while we were gone and as soon as we got back, not quite that night I don't think.. But the next day he was over to get paid and as it turns out it was fireworks gettin season and he was a fire cracker nut.. He bought enough to where his pockets on his coat were overflowing with packages of fire crackers..  So he was  at his grandmas house which is just at the corner.. His cousins were here and he was showing off lighting the fire cracker and tossing it.. Then he lit one and tossed it and without knowing he has a piece of lit fuse fall in the pocket of a package of fire crackers and he started to dance and try to evac his jacket and he gets it off as it continues to erupt..  At first it wasn't all that funny, more scary than anything.. Then after he was ok we laughed  our asses off.. Thing is he was strange in that he loved lighting them and tossing them one at a time until he grew bored with it and then he lit the whole remainder of the package and he would open another toss a few and then light the remainder.. It was like a big deal until he had the fun he would have and then light them as  a whole and get out from under them.. Such obsessive behavior seemed strange at the time but he would be that way with other things as he got older..

Then there was the firework in the post box outside the post office.. Nobody knows who did it and it might have been a team effort..

Me, I always looked forward to the 4th for the fireworks. Way back when dad would get the smallest box of fireworks until I was in junior high, then he got the next step up size.. There was what I called huge as the biggest but all together they were about the same.. The 4th was like Christmas, you just never felt like there was enough fireworks and when it was all over it seemed like a let down of sorts.. Dad would shoot off the fireworks when he got home from working harvest.. This years harvest is over but usually harvest is getting started around the 4th of July...  You grow up and still the 4th had that meaning to it.. It meant more to others as the guy I was talking about would get super charged every year at this time every year and as late as the last time I saw him.. He was forced to move away, troubles with is obsessive cumpulsive extreme..

Badge Henry