May 5, 2004

Oh what a time it has been since I last had the honor of writing in the Nonsoapy.  Friday, I was working on the computer, got up for a few minutes and while I was up, heard the computer spontaneously reboot.  WTF?  After that, nothing was ever the same in my life again.  Evidently, some worm, which one is still pretty much unsure, although I think I know, invaded my computer and started eating.  By Sunday, I was pretty well convinced it was the Sasser worm, which happened to hit hard on the net on Friday and had all of the symptoms of my computer's problems.  After a lot of researching, I found the tools to remove it, but couldn't stay online long enough until I went to a trendmicro.com page that showed how to stop the worm from shutting down windows 60 seconds or so after it opens.

[If you have this problem or know someone who does, go to start menu, run and type in

shutdown -A

and hit OK and your computer will not shut down.  After that, you can install the Microsoft patch and worm removal tool to get rid of it.]

Anyway, I had to do this research in increments of a minute or less before Windows would shut down.  Friday night, I didn't sleep at all, but stayed up and burned 25 CDs, backing up my photos, my soapy pictures, my music, etc.  It was really challenging and I was grateful I hadn't had much caffeine for the past several months.  Diet Dr Thunder kept me going. 

After I was able to get the removal tool going, it said that I didn't have the Sasser worm.  Three different removal tools couldn't find it.  Grrr.  I reinstalled Windows about 6-7 times, which was a pain.  Since I'm on dial up, downloading the programs I use takes forever.  I am so grateful that I had several on disk.  My system restore disks included a 90 day free trial of PC Cillin and I will forever praise its name.  Not only is it made by Trend Micro, which is the ONLY site I could find with the prompts (above) to stop the shutdown, but after a day of running and several scans, it finally found a blaster worm which has the same symptoms as the Sasser worm.  Since that was quarantined and deleted, I haven't had any shut down problems.  Slowly, my computer is starting to come back together again.  Needless to say, I have a lot of room on my C drive.

So enough about that.  Talk about blood, sweat and tears.

I made notes while I was not able to update the Nonsoapy, so I am all set with a huge column.  Get something to drink and kick back with me for a while.

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are only 17 and the male population needs to stop slobbering after this jailbait.  Next year, fuck'em blue, but this year, shut up.  They're still babies.

I watched the old movie "Mindwalk" while I was installing and reinstalling.  May I be excused?  My brain is full.  I'd seen it many times and always gone to sleep part way through, mostly because I was watching it at night and that always puts me right to sleep.  It's a very deep, very intellectually conceptualizing movie that opens all kinds of doors and activates a lot of thought processes.  A person might do well to watch it in bits and process it incrementally.

Styx and Peter Frampton are touring together.  I wonder if any of Sage's Ho's want to pile into the caddy and hit a concert.

"Glade Car Scented Oil" is freakin me out.  It sounds like it should be an oil that smells like cars. 

I watched the "E True Hollywood Story" on Lacy Peterson.  Can we say "White OJ?"

Anyone got kids with gold fillings?  They don't need teeth anyway!  Turn them into cold, hard cash:  www.goldkit.com

If you are pregnant, you can bank your baby's umbilical cord blood for future use for your family:  www.viacord.com  Amazing.

Boobies!  Where none were before!  www.naturalbra.com It comes with a "dust free" storage box...a bra holder, if you will.

Just as advertised, Earthlink Total Access has a pretty incredible spam blocker.  I've had 535 spam e-mails blocked from my inbox since last Monday (so that's what, 9 days or so?).  A few more have gotten in, but nothing like it used to be.  Speaking of e-mails, anything I had before yesterday is lost forever, including messages and addresses.  Also, all of my links to the different places where I found websets are lost.  I'll recreate them all and I'm sure I'll be able to reassemble my address book over time.  For all of the people who donated to EOS and did not receive a thank you, I apologize and want you to know that the staff and I are very grateful.

Last Friday morning (yes, THAT Friday, harrumph), I woke up to get kids out the door for school.  Josh, Leiloni (3) and Kaylee (4) (my son and granddaughters) spent the night Thursday night.  I sat on the couch after jostling kids awake and looked out into the dawn.  There, just a couple of feet from my front porch, was a circle of 5 teenage deer.  Delena was coming into the living room, so I called her over and then I heard Josh stirring in the family room, so I brought him in as well.  The window was open, but they didn't seem to mind that they could hear us.  They were quite bold and it reminded me that we were in their world as visitors, not the other way around.  After we ooohed and awwwwed for about  10 minutes, they moved on to where ever deer go when they are not in my yard.  Got the kids ready for school and when I walked out to watch them catch the bus, I saw that those fucking deer had eaten all of my plants!  All of the ones on my front porch (two steps up) were shaved bare.  They sampled the jade tree and didn't like it.  The honeysuckle and new rosebush are sticks.  Worried, I hurried to the back yard and while the calla lilies were not leveled, they were nibbled all to hell.  I have a little funnel of the bloom of the one miracle lily that bloomed.  I trust it's still doing its thing, even though it got a serious hair cut.  We've got to get a deer fence or a big pile of Irish Spring soap, which Karen says will keep them away from the plants.  >:<  I am the buffet, I guess. We've seen those five around a good bit and I strongly suspect they are the herd of "15-20" that Eric saw in the back yard right after we moved in.  Bless'im, it was dark.

Oh, you're going to love this.  I knew the school year was ending, so I had to get Nathan registered for kindergarten for next year. I knew there was a K-5 elementary school up here in Grizzly Flats (the only thing other than a forestry station and a post office), but when I called the school district, they told me it was full, which is how Dylan got into first grade in Pioneer Elementary (ironically, the same name as the school he left in Sacramento), which is right next door to Delena's middle school.  I didn't think too much about the Grizzly Pines (the name of the school) school being full, but remembered it when I called for Nathan.  Basically, I wanted to know in which school I should register Nathan and Dylan for next year.

OK, so now you know THAT.  I phone Grizzly Pines to ask and the woman who answered the phone said that we would need to go on the waiting list to see what changed over the summer.  OK, makes sense to me.  They're full now and already had kindergarten registration, so sure, they could be full for the coming year unless something changes.  A couple of days later, I drove up to the school, which is only just over a mile from my house.  First impression was that there was no place to park.  The school does not have a parking lot; it has a circle driveway.  I saw one building, fairly small and looked around for the school.  Upon closer examination, I saw a door in the one building that said "office."  Score!  Opened it and whoa!  I was in the classroom!  The teacher had the kids on the floor and they were singing.  I started to back out and recheck the sign when the teacher said, "Mrs Rasbold?"  As it turns out, this *is* the school.  The school has a total enrollment of 33 kids.   Well, 34 now that the teacher made a call and got special permission for Nathan to start kindergarten in the fall.  That's 34 students in the K-5 combined.  There are two teachers, one of whom is also the principal and they both do office work.  One teaches K-3 and the other teaches 4-6 and then the whole school combines for some things.   It's a two room schoolhouse.  I had no idea such a beast existed in the 2000's.  Dylan has one second grader on the list in front of him, but he will get priority at the open registration in February since he will have a sibling in the school.  It will depend on whether or not we want to have him switch schools in midyear. 

So yeah, this town just keeps getting more and more interesting.

Leptoprin is a diet aid that has hit the market. http://www.leptoprin.com/  It costs $153 a month.  All because a person doesn't want to get on an exercise bike.  I'm having real challenges with my quest for weight loss.  I can't really cut back on my calories any more and I've really been watching what I eat.  I'm still at the same point where I've been for a while and I know the key is more exercise.  I just have some walls to break through to just do it.  It's really frustrating wanting to and planning to and falling into bed at night realizing that (once again), I didn't.  I know I will and when I do, it will be great.  I also know that I'm not paying $153 a month to do it.

Speaking of paying >:<  I have been watching a show called "I Lost It" about inspirational weight loss stories.  It's on Discovery Health Channel.  It's very motivational to hear the stories there and on Dr Phil and such, but it's frustrating because nearly every story, once it gets into the "how they did it" part starts out with "I hired a personal trainer and..."  :(

I think they should have exercise bikes that have the internet on them (which already exist), but are rigged so that your internet connection gets faster and faster the more you pedal.

This weekend will be fun.  Joe and Sandra get in from Canada on Saturday afternoon and we'll have an early Mothers Day dinner together.  

I'm very grateful for being back online again.  I swear, I'll never mock dial up again.  All hail internet connection!

Have a wonderful day!
Katrina