Gratitude Monday – Thank You, Internet

I’m grateful to live in an age where contact is so easy. We may grumble about computers, curse them out and threaten them with defenestration, but they are a powerful tool and they make life easier in so many ways.

I’ve started doing some freelance work, another thing for which I am deeply thankful, and using the Internet has made finding my interview subjects for two possible stories easier. Two have long moved away while a third never lived here. She made the news by being lost out in the bush 15 years ago.

Simple Google searches found them. It took mere seconds. The finding part took mere seconds. The forming- the- thought- to- do- it- that- way part took somewhat longer. I still got there, though, so I’m grateful for that, too.

April Abundance

We’re under the influence of the new moon now and you know what that means . . . it’s abundance cheque time.

The new moon struck April 5 at 9:55 p.m. here in Alberta. We’ve got a 24 window for the cheques. That means any locals who are planning to write abundance cheques have until 9:55 tonight to get it done.

Check for the new moon time in your area to see how much time you’ve got. If you forget, then write one as soon as you remember and then get back on track next month.

I Like It That These Go Together

I found the quiz over at Reb's excellent blog Sibu Pegasus Power .

It was so much fun I stole it. My results go together very well and are quite fitting.

Turns out I am this movie:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

And this leader:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

What movie/leader are you?

Friday's Child - Dishes vs. Insomnia

Originally Posted June 30, 2007, as "The Dishes."

I had insomnia for eight months in my teens. It started just about a month or so before Dawn and I stopped talking. I barely slept from late September to the end of May. That’s almost an entire school year fueled on four hours of sleep a night.

It all started when I took a nasty knock to the back of my head one day at school. A bunch of us were goofing around during noon hour and I wound up slamming my head into a propane tank.
To this day, 34 years later, I can still hear the ringing echoes vividly. The goose egg at the base of my skull and the headache kept me from sleeping for a few days. That was okay. I expected it to be over and didn’t give it much thought.

But it stuck around. The more time I spent awake the more I got to notice my sister and to tune into her growing mental illness.
A few weeks after the insomnia began we stopped speaking and my insomnia worsened. This gave me time to notice even more and it grated on me that much more.

Of all her odd behavior and hair-trigger temper what sticks with me the most is the dishes.
Mom would leave them for her to do. My sister, being nocturnal, wouldn’t get to them until the wee hours of the morning.I’d finally get to sleep around midnight, and then be awakened by the splashing and clanging at around 4 a.m. I didn’t just hear the noise; it penetrated the stillness enough that I swear I actually felt it.

It woke me up and that was it. No getting back to sleep for. I had to be up at 7 a.m. and I sure could have used the additional three hours.
This went on for months. Finally I said something to mom. Even if I had been speaking to Dawn bringing it up to her would have been pointless. She didn’t listen tome at the best of times.Mom did say something to her one day. I didn’t hear it, but I recall Dawn’s whining response, “But it’s my job.”

And that was it. Never mind about my sleep, Dawn had her job.

Oh, yeah I tried assorted medication for the insomnia. Phenobarbitol, Dalmane, Sinequan, Valium, even sleeping pills. I discovered that most sleep inducers worked only once on me. The exception was the sleeping pills which kept me groggy to the point I couldn’t take them.
So I was awakened every morning by crashing and clanging and I felt it scrape me raw.

When I told my parents I couldn’t sleep they told me to get some fresh air and exercise. Dawn’s madness ruled and I went with little sleep.
Eventually, around the end of May, she stopped doing the dishes and I started to sleep through the night.

Ice Wall

The light blue green in the centre of the photo is an ice wall out on the Kootenay Plains. It's a popular spot for ice climbing in the winter and spring. The area is a good hiking spot in summer.

The trail is beside the ice wall, but it's easy, if somewhat muddy, to climb the where the winter ice was.

I thought I'd post again today 'cuz I got high speed and I wanted to see just how quick it would go.

It was startlingly fast.

Sword Pen For Hire

I was recently to paid to write.

It felt good.

The editor of the local paper approached me a few months back with the idea of doing some freelance work. He didn’t really ask. I saw him in a parking lot and he invited me to drop by the paper for coffee that afternoon. I did. Once I got there he greeted me with, “There’s my new freelancer!”

It made me smile. We’d worked together years earlier there and are known commodities to one another. He took over the position last year when the editor and co-owner dropped dead.

This arrangement works for both of us. He gets copy from me and I get money, a reason to get out and about, and a whole new set of shiny fresh publication credits. They’ll be awfully handy when I start peddling my manuscript(s) to publishers again. My old reporting credits were getting a wee bit shopworn after lo these seven years.

I feel good doing it. Physically I feel more energy flowing through me and I think my mental process have kicked up a gear or so. I’ve got a few more ideas to play with and it’ll keep me occupied for a bit.
Best of all, beyond the money and the publication credits and the energy, is knowing that the more I write, the more I will write.

Don’t Let Your Computer Talk To Strangers

I did something stupid the other night. Fortunately, my computer has lived to tell the tale.

I clicked on a link in a comment. I know better. Never do this. But I did. I was tired and lacked any sort of judgment beyond the curiosity of an innocent.
All manner of excitement broke loose and a fake site claiming to represent an antivirus program from XP told me I had all manner of viruses, worms, etc.
I was to install something to rid myself of them. A real warning came up, and red circle with an X in it, but something got installed. I tried to stop it, but I am clueless in these matters. When it did get halted a very stern warning came up telling me if I wanted my computer to be clean I’d best keep going.

No.

I ran my assorted proper antivirus and antispyware programs and everything came up clean. When I shut down and restarted this other thing came up and told me all about the 95 viruses and worms and spyware thingies I now had. The new alleged antivirus program told me if I wanted rid of them I had to register and disable my firewall. Fortunately, I am not an idiot.
I uninstalled whatever had installed itself, but it left a foul icon in the tray that kept popping up and trying to scare me with the 95 problems my computer had.
I got it to the repair shop quickly and it was found to have some spyware. It was removed and my real antivirus program has been kicked up a few notches.

I’m happy this was taken care of quickly and efficiently and with limited, if any, damages. I lost some stuff in the recycle bin. Does that even count?
I did, however, experience blog withdrawal. I was cold all day, nervous, and a bit shaky. What to do?

Well, I did some cleaning and made a new hypnosis tape that I’d been meaning to get to for a few days. I napped a bit, too, but mostly I was lost. My connection to the outside world was severed. I’d written about the importance of my blog buddies and there I was, unable to check in with them. At least I had some irony to appreciate.

Everything is okay now and I’m back on track. I’ve learned a lesson I already knew: Don’t let your computer talk to strangers.