Lake Arrowhead

September 24, 2009

We are back from California and trying to get caught up on work.

Our kids took us with them for a weekend at Lake Arrowhead. Friends allowed us to use their lovely cabin in the forest. I always pictured a cabin as something small and quaint with few amenities, but this cabin was different! The living room was two stories high with a large stone fireplace. Four bedrooms and two bathrooms are not much to brag about at Lake Arrowhead, but our humble home looks tiny in comparison. We cruised around the lake, listening to a tour guide's description of the multi-million Dollar homes and their owners. We went shopping, ate breakfast in a Belgian Waffle Shop and dinner at the Boat House Restaurant, where tables, wall decorations and even the salad bar are made from classic Chris Craft speedboats.

There is also plenty to do at the cabin. You can loaf on the deck where western blue jays almost sit on your head begging for food. Or you can relax in the game room playing pool or chess. The cabin walls are decorated with photos of the cabin owners posing with celebrities like Mickey Rooney and Jay Leno. The owner does stand-up comedy and also writes script for others. Some of the comedy found its way into framed pictures on the walls - autographed tire imprints of cars belonging to famous people, truly a unique art collection!

There was a guest book on the coffee table that we were supposed to sign. Yikes! What should I write? "Ralph V. Harvey slept here before he became famous."? My claim to fame may be autographing the first available square of toilet paper on the roll with environmentally friendly advice. "Help save the rain forests - use both sides!"

While browsing in a fascinating art shop, I struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman who had a bandaged ear. He grinned and warned me not to golf in the sun. I warned him not to spend a lot of time sailing and added that I had also had endured multiple procedures for skin cancer. He was a retired actor and gave me his name, but I should have written it down. He was quite knowledgeable about the artwork on display and mentioned that his son was an accomplished artist. He was doing a contract painting of someone named Patrick Swayze and his favorite horse. He said that Swayze passed away at exactly the moment his son was working on his face! I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of Patrick Swayze and probably didn't react appropriately. "Dirty Dancing" was not my kind of film. After leaving the art shop, we bought groceries in a supermarket. At the cash register, nearly every magazine on the rack had Swayze's photo on the cover!

Linksys Router Support

September 8, 2009

I only use my laptop for Power Point presentations and on occasional trips. That means every time I turn on the computer, it attempts to upload zillions of updates that slow it down to a painful crawl. If I am trying to run a presentation, this in itself becomes a virus. Someone told me what to do to keep this from happening and I followed his advice. That was a mistake!

I wanted to take the laptop on a trip but the wireless feature doesn't work. Whatever I did to keep the computer from trying to download updates in the middle of a presentation also prevents it from connecting to the Internet.

I did what most computer users do in such a situation. I tried to resolve the problem. My laptop told me what I already knew: "Wireless network not connected". Then it advised me, "Contact your network administrator." Since I AM the network administrator, I obeyed and contacted myself -- with a balled fist to my forehead.

I found the installation disc that came with my Linksys router and tried running the setup program. It didn't work and I was told to go to the Linksys website and check the FAQs - like everyone has two computers, one that doesn't connect and one that does! If neither connects, you are in big trouble but not much worse off than if only one connects. After four long and fruitless hours of searching, Googling and grumbling, I decided to leave the laptop at home.

I will be too busy with our grandchildren to write blogs anyway!

President's Controversial Speech to School Children

September 8, 2009

Millions of parents who normally care little about what the public school exposes their children to, tuned into C-Span to hear the President's speech today. There was nothing wrong with the speech of course. The fear mongers were all wrong or Obama changed portions that might have offended them. He even made a startling admission that I didn't expect of him. He told the kids, "The future of America depends on you!" We seniors certainly won't be paying those trillions of debts he and his colleagues have piled up.

The media has really picked up on the "silliness" of "far-right critics" who accused the President of "using taxpayer Dollars to promote his socialistic ideology" in schools.

What I don't hear anyone saying or writing, I will venture to mention here on my little-known blog. If you don't trust the person at the cash register -- for whatever reason --, you count your change carefully. Obama's fellow Democrats and enthusiastic fans don't bother to read what is in the bills he signs even though they will cost billions or trillions of dollars. That is complete trust. Then there are those who not only read, but study the fine print in Obama's proposals and carefully count the change he promised. It's all about trust and distrust.