Thursday 09- did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 73 and 105 degrees, winds from the NW-SW at 6 to 13 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Partly sunny and hot, with a high near 100. Northwest wind at 10 mph becoming south southeast. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 75. West southwest wind between 7 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.”
I did more studying on networks and really messed things up, but fortunately got everything back in order, whew! This took a lot of time and before I knew it was time to go on over to Stoney’s for some homemade chili beans with rice. It was the best he ever made in my opinion! We channel surfed for something to watch but out of 1000 some channels he has on his satellite there wasn’t much. So we went into his kitchen where he keeps his desktop and I fixed a minor problem.
I went for my evening walk re-re-re-re-listening to Astronomy Cast - Ep. 140: Entanglement, trying to rap my brain around it. It looks like I’ll have to buy a book about it to read.
Back at home I went online to find some kind of documentation on network routers and the DD-WRT program that runs on them and other info. I think I’ve found one: “Linksys WRT54G Ultimate Hacking Book”.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 08- did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 74 and 101 degrees, winds from the NW-SW at 3 to 15 MPH, humidity around 24 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 99. West northwest wind 6 to 14 mph becoming southeast. Winds could gust as high as 18 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 73. Breezy, with a west southwest wind 19 to 22 mph decreasing to between 9 and 12 mph. Winds could gust as high as 31 mph.”
I spent most of the day fiddling around with computer networks. I signed up for an online class over at HP Learning Center on wireless networks and did three of the four lessons. Then I tried with some success to connect a couple of my computers but I had too many interruptions and would lose my train of thought and have to start over.
I went for my evening walk and then continued doing my network studies until “Time Team America” came on PBS about a team of archaeologist trying to locate the houses of the "Lost Colony" at Roanoke Island, N.C that was founded in 1586. They spent three days there and uncovered what they believed were the posts of a house from that era. Then “Ascent of Money: From Bullion to Bubbles” came on the same channel about the rise of the modern financial system. I thought it was very interesting. It’s a four part series.
I did my stretches and went for a night run. As I was running back down the hill I noticed that Mat was over at his old cabin and drove my Trusty Scooter over to chat with him for a spell.
I then connected two of my computers to a network I made, one having internet access and the other getting internet access from that one, but once it was all hooked up I couldn’t get internet access at all. I must be missing something important! I was able to get access again by shutting down the network. I’ll keep at it but not tonight.
I practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 07- did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 74 and 103 degrees, winds from the W-SW at 4 to 19 MPH, humidity around 22 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 100. Light wind becoming south between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph. Wednesday Night: Clear, with a low around 73. West southwest wind 17 to 20 mph decreasing to between 7 and 10 mph. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph.”
I talked to Ron Dehart last night and we decided to go to the Sizzler Steak House for breakfast/lunch. I was to be at his house at 11am so I went to bed a little early about 3am. I awoke around 8am and couldn’t get back to sleep so I did a rewrite of my column I sent into the newspaper last night to make it more readable. After I sent the column in, I still had time to rest a little and laid down for a sec. The next thing I knew the phone was ringing. It was Mac inviting me over for lunch with him and his wife. I told him I already had plans and then asked what time it was. It was 10:30! I had thirty minutes to do my stretches, get dressed, feed the cat, fill out a birthday card for my friend Mike, hunt for a pen to sign and address the card, throw everything in my backpack, and drive over to Ron’s. I was only five minutes late.
We got to the Sizzler around 11:30 and our Server was named Jackie. We ate like pigs, but Ron ate more than I. God that salad bar there is great! We left there to stop off at the post office so Ron could pick up his mail. We went to Ron’s so I could check out his guitar and amp hookup. I played a few of my songs while Ron tweaked with the controls. I think I played well, but that’s my own opinion.
When I got back home I decided to scrap the XP operating system on my Asus EEE 701 and restore it with the Linux it came with. Somehow it didn’t erase the XP partition like I thought it would so now I have to use Gparted to do this when I get the time.
I went for my evening walk re-re-re-listening to Astronomy Cast - Ep. 140: Entanglement. I think I mentioned this before: it’s about two coupled pairs of particles that can communicate over vast distances instantly and physicists don’t know the how or why. Oh there’s more to it but it’s getting late. But it is interesting!
I messed around with the Asus doing updates and configuring Kstars; an astronomy program I like that only runs on Linux- one reason I wanted to put Linux back on. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 06- did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 73 and 105 degrees, winds from the NW-SW at 6 to 18 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 101. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming south between 17 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 74. West southwest wind 18 to 21 mph decreasing to between 9 and 12 mph. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph.”
I went and did some chores around the house while my computer was downloading some updates to its operating system. I went for my evening walk with no lectures to listen to; I’ll need to download some more. I started two books but just couldn’t get into them. Some days there just ain’t a whole bunch to write about.
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote and sent my column to the newspaper, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 05- did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 75 and 104 degrees, winds from the NW-SW at 4 to 15 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 102. Light wind becoming southwest between 11 and 14 mph. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 73. West southwest wind 18 to 21 mph decreasing to between 10 and 13 mph. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph.”
I can’t say I did much of anything today, just messed around on the computer some. I read “The Chase” by Clive Cussler throughout the day and finished it late into the night; the reason I’m making this post short. Between all this I went for my evening walk and talked to a few friends. Mat dropped by in the early evening to say hi. And of course I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Independence Day- did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 78 and 106 degrees, calm winds, humidity around 26 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 102. Northwest wind at 9 mph becoming south southwest. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 75. West wind between 9 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.”
It’s Saturday and it is my day to call Family and Friends. I wanted to get it done early before they all went out to celebrate. With that out of the way I was free to work on my computers.
Stoney called saying he bought two burritos for him and I from Santana’s when he went to Joshua Tree to deliver a clock he repaired. Cool! I rode on over on my Trusty Scooter. We both could only eat half and I took my half back home to eat later. We made plans to go watch the fireworks display over at the Marine Base tonight.
I continued to work on my computers. I was trying to update my Nokia N800’s software. It’s a big online download with the N800 connected to my laptop via USB. After one hour it completed the download but failed to update. So that was one hour wasted of my time.
I just had time for my evening walk before Stoney picked me up. I called him when I got back to see if he still wanted to go; he did. I told him don’t forget his camera. We drove to the place where we watched it last year. It was down a dirt road that runs in front of the base. There were lots of other folks parked here and there on the streets around the base. I think it’s a lot better than going on the base and having to deal with the traffic. We got out our chairs and sat waiting for the show to begin. He remembered to bring his camera but I had forgotten mine, dang! Last year’s show lasted around fifteen minutes; this one lasted for almost half an hour! Lots of rockets bursting in air (like the song). Halfway through the show Ron Dehart called me on my cell phone while he and Linda watched the fireworks from their backyard. I kept saying to Ron “here is the finale” but every time it’d keep going on and on. It was a great show!
When I got back home I read a few chapters of “The Chase” till late into the night. Then I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 03- did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 78 and 105 degrees, winds W-SW at 4 to 15 MPH, humidity around 27 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Independence Day: Sunny and hot, with a high near 102. Northwest wind at 9 mph becoming southeast. Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 78. West southwest wind between 7 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.”
I stayed up really late last night. Before I went to sleep I posted an article I read: “Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light” on the Astronomy forum on Live Journal, and right away I was receiving comments and I stayed up to reply to them. Finally I noticed that the time was approaching 4:30am and I had to get my butt to bed! I awoke at 1pm or there abouts! I noticed that I didn’t have any messages on my cell phone that I had thought was receiving forwarded calls from my land line phone, only to discover a few hours later that I hadn’t forwarded the dang thing. I don’t get that many calls anyway so it probably was no big loss.
I went up on the roof with a bucket of water and cleaned all the dirt and dust off my solar panels. I noticed an increase in the amount of charge to the batteries right away.
I went for my evening walk re-listening to Astronomy Cast - Ep. 140: Entanglement and will probably have to listen to it again until I understand it a little. I brushed Fat Cat while we both watched the sunset.
I continued reading “The Chase” through the night only stopping to help Jimmy when he called needing my help on his Gateway desktop. I figured that the hard drive went bad and he went out to Best Buy and bought a new one. We loaded up XP on it from the restore disk that was supposed to install all the drivers for his system; it didn’t! There wasn’t a driver disk either. So now he has to go to download them from someone else’s computer that’s connected to the internet. I’d never buy a Gateway computer after the laptop I bought from them many years ago was nothing but a headache and their customer service sucks.
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, updated the Copper Mountain Mesa Website and sent out the newsletter, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 02- did my stretches and ran a mile.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 76 and 101 degrees, a nice breeze, humidity around 30 percent, cumulonimbus clouds on the horizons but none overhead.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 99. Calm wind becoming south southeast between 6 and 9 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 78. West southwest wind between 6 and 13 mph.”
I messed around with the new Dell system that I acquired yesterday. Did the usual updates of programs I like: Firefox, Avast Anti-virus, upgraded IE6 to IE8, and a few others. The system runs real slick!
I read this article late last night: Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light! If this is true it has great consequences in the world of science. My question is: if you sent a message faster than the speed of light would it get to its destination before your original message was sent? Interesting! I think I’ve been listening to too many Quantum Physics lectures!
I went for my evening walk listening to Astronomy Cast - Questions Show: Galileoscope, Black Hole Time, and What Exactly is Energy? The Galileoscope is a telescope that was constructed by professional astronomers to be like the one used by Galileo to view the heavens four hundred years ago. It was constructed to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009. You can purchase one for $15 plus shipping at: Galileoscope.org. I might pick one up for my niece and myself. A question of Black Hole Time was asked. My understanding that I read of it sometime ago is that space time is stripped away as the particles become more compressed as they near the singularity. The best answer to What Exactly is Energy was that everything is made up of energy levels, energy performs work, and that someday everything of matter will go back to pure energy. Kind of left me hanging on what it really is. Maybe string theory will someday answer this question.
I read a few chapters of “The Chase” until late into the evening. Then I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Welcome to the Month of July- did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 77 and 98 degrees, a nice breeze, humidity around 35 percent, cloudy all day.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 94. Calm wind becoming east between 6 and 9 mph. Thursday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 76. South wind at 7 mph becoming west.”
It smelled like it rained somewhere, you can smell the fragrance of the greasewood when the rain hits it, but not here. It looked like it wanted to.
The same big old cloud hung around all day long trying to squeeze out what water droplets it could muster but it all evaporated before hitting the ground.
The day at least was pleasant, not hot, and I did a lot of sitting outside on the bench in front of my home. There is a small pond just a few feet away and these small desert birds would cautiously approach to drink if Fat Cat and I were very still. There were about fifteen of them that drank at once! Cool! Good cat too!
I went into the house to clean it up some. FedEx is delivering a new computer for me today and I have to make room for it. I may fix it up to sell or just keep it. I don’t know yet. I bought it because it had Win XP Pro. I need XP Pro to do the rest of the A+ course study. I bought the refurbished desktop for the price of XP Pro. It’s kind of like purchasing the OS and getting a desktop thrown in for free.
FedEx delivered it later in the evening; I set it all up and was impressed right away. It’s a Dell Optiplex GX620/USFF 2.7GHz Celeron processor with 512MB RAM and 40GB hard drive. That dang thing is small and compact. The power supply sits outside the desktop like a laptop’s does. I fired it up for the first boot and a restore program like Norton Ghost loaded everything up. The whole process took about forty minutes and XP was up and running. It’s a fast little computer!
I went for my evening walk listening to Astronomy Cast - Ep. 140: Entanglement. I won’t pretend to understand what I heard but it goes something like this: If you split a Coupled Pair of particles and send them on their way, they can communicate over vast distances instantly. This will require more listening to the lecture and reading for me to understand!
I started a new book by Clive Cussler called “The Chase” (Fiction 2007) about a bank robber of 1906 who murders all witnesses and the detective who is out to apprehend him.
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 30- did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 78 and 108 degrees, slight breeze, humidity around 27 percent, a few clouds moved in later in the day and hung around all night.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11am. Partly sunny and hot, with a high near 99. Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming southeast."
Wednesday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 77. Southwest wind between 5 and 9 mph.”
It was another kick back day. Yesterday I ran two miles and thought I’d give my legs a rest. I read and finished “The Dork from Cork” by Chet Raymo. If you ever get a hold of this book it’s a good read! I really enjoyed it. The book is about a dwarf who writes about astronomy, love and the absence of it, beauty and ugliness, and the perception of life from a four foot tall man.
Delia called me about her broke computer. She is such a busy woman that she never got to the point of what she wanted me to do with it when she had to rush away again.
Kevin called and we yakked for a spell. We were talking about GUI (Graphic User Interface) that was developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre where the company sends very intelligent folks. They are set free without much supervision to be creative and invent new technologies. I kind of feel that way here in the desert. I’m free to follow whatever I want without much distraction. I write songs for my guitar. I write a column for a newspaper. I study astronomy and other sciences. I exercise. I play on and fix computers. I like my life here. It seems that all my life I’ve been on the outside looking in and at sometime decided to look the other way and go beyond the prejudices of the box and find my own path.
I went for my evening walk and took my camera. There wasn’t much in the area I haven’t already shot with my camera but I wish I had it when that sidewinder came across my trail a few days ago. I got back in time to watch the sunset with Fat Cat and give him a good brushing.
Looking for a movie to watch I came across “Contact” (1997). I haven’t watched it for a few years and stuck it in the MacBook, and hooked up the external speakers. That’s how I spent the next two hours of a cloudy night. Great film!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to June!