When Cassie and I adopted Sox and Cubby Cubby used to chase Kozmo all around the house. I don't think Cubby had any bad intentions towards Kozmo, I believe he just wanted to play with him. What was so funny was that Kozmo is twice the size of Cubby. Cubby is fearless and Kozmo (who used to be king in the house) seemed like such a cowardly lion. Just recently they started to get along. I took these pics of the two of them sharing my desk and getting along nicely. See for yourself!

Cassie is such a wonderful woman! She was going to give me her computer until I fixed mine! Cassie is the greatest wife in the whole world, planetary system, galaxy, in fact, the entire universe!! (I think it was because of the moping around and the sad face I wore! she must have thought I might do my self an injury!) But I couldn't take her PC, she is as much an addict for the computer as I am. Besides as I told her, "Using someone else's computer is like wearing someone else's (dirty) underwear! It's a very personal thing. Like a tool. A favorite wrench or screwdriver." You all know what I mean, I know you do!

In the meantime, I have been trying to get Cassie's old computer working again! I am almost done getting it all straightened out. There were many bugs in the system causing disk write errors slow performance, crashes etc, etc. There were 2 big problems I had to fix right away, the video card was one and the lan card was the other. Fortunately from all the upgrades and other computer junk around the house and shed I had replacements for these.

I had a heck of a time identifying the faults though, once I did, The rest was even more of a pain in the buttski. I had to replace the parts then with all the errors on the hard drive I had to delete the partition and reinstall a new one and then format and reload the operating system. I have the machine working well now and I am installing some of my needful programs to it.

Because our finances are so bad I can't buy a replacement motherboard at this time. Actually getting an Intel D865 PERL like the one I have is impossible. They fazed them out 3 years ago, so when I do get a motherboard I'll have to get new memory and a new processor and video card as well. When I break stuff I don't do it half way, I do it the best!

Thankfully mine isn't as bas as this!

I entered the store and stated my business to the salesperson at the counter. She immediately said she had to get the store manager to help me and left. Oh oh! I thought. I'm going to get hassled. But the manager was very nice and sorry that we had to cancel and got the paper work to start the process. She asked me why I was canceling and I told her that the ads were very misleading. Based on the ads we thought we could get 2 pairs of glasses for $99.00. One for Heidi and one for me. Then when they explained that it was 2 pair per person we were going to get on pair of glasses and one pair of sunglasses for each of us. After picking out the frames we liked and getting measured the optician started to come up with price. "Yeow!" I said. "What happened to the 2 pair for $99.00 you have advertised?" The Optician said " Your glasses are progressive bifocals that costs more!" "Heidi's are high index and that costs more!" "The advertisements are for regular glasses only." To the manager I said. "Well we thought we could afford them, but when we got home and checked our finances we found that we couldn't." I told her that Cassie and I are both disabled and have no insurance. Neither does our daughter. We were hoping to use our Caremark discount card here to save some money, and get the glasses at the advertised prices. We were told you didn't accept discount cards.

The manager asked how much the discount was for and I told her 20%. The manager said she didn't want to lose a customer and would we take the glasses if she gave us the discount? I said the price was still too high but if we dropped the 2 sunglasses and she gave us the discount we could afford that. "Done!" She said. The price worked out to about a third of what it would have cost us and Cassie and I were very happy. The ads are still very misleading and we're still not happy with that but at least we will be getting the glasses at an affordable price.

There's a lesson here. Don't take prices at face value. Try to negotiate for a lower price or a bigger discount. The markup on glasses, furniture, clothes and many other items can allow some store managers leeway to lower their price and still make money. I am going to try this more often.

I found a place in Trenton about 45 minutes away and I was able to make an appointment online for this morning. We hopped in the Batmobile and away we went. The establishment is clean and well lighted the people there were friendly and very helpful as we signed in and filled out the necessary forms. We didn't have long to wait for Heidi's and my eye exams. I was first and while Heidi was getting her exam I went hunting for the perfect pair of glasses.

Now you have to understand. everywhere around the store were signs stating you could buy 2 pairs of glasses, single vision, for $69.99. Bifocals were a bit more at $99.99 that's with a free eye exam for both. Wow! I thought we can get a great bargain here. Boy was I wrong! Here's the ads:


These ads are very misleading. The bottom line is we left the damn place less almost $900.00 in our pockets.
I feel as if I was bamboozleded!

Check it out:

So after dinner without thinking I set the oven to self clean and went back to my office. About 15 minutes later my cat Cubby comes into the office meowing real loud (well, as loud as he can, his meow is a squeak). "What's wrong Cubby? I asked the little guy. I reached down to pet him but he moved out of the way squeaking even louder! Then from the kitchen I hear "OH NO THE OVEN"S ON FIRE!" So I ran out to see what was burning.

Apparently we let the oven get too dirty between cleanings and the grease on the bottom was bursting into spurts of flame as the oven cleaned itself. But that wasn't what the problem was. Cubby was getting excited about all the smoke pouring out of the oven. As if it was on fire. The smoke filled the kitchen and started spreading to the other parts of the house. We opened all the windows and set the big room air circulator fan near the kitchen to blow away the smoke. It wasn't until all the smoke cleared out that Cubby finally calmed down. He was alert to the smoke even before the smoke alarm went off. and was warning us that there was a fire.

That little cat is my hero! Now as soon as he comes out from under our bed I'll give him a nice treat. Heh heh!

We are talking about the blade from a pencil sharpener like this:

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From Boing Boing

20080911175701039.source.prod_affiliate.9.pdf Original in PDF Format

9/12/08 will be remembered as the day we finally caught one of the bad guys -- a 4th grader with a broken pencil sharpener.

A 10-year-old Hilton Head Island boy has been suspended from school for having something most students carry in their supply boxes: a pencil sharpener.

The problem was his sharpener had broken, but he decided to use it anyway....

The boy -- a fourth-grader described as a well-behaved and good student -- cried during the meeting with his mom, the deputy and the school's assistant principal.

He had no criminal intent in having the blade at school, the sheriff's report stated, but was suspended for at least two days and could face further disciplinary action.

It is the 7th Anniversary of the Terrorist attack on our sovereign soil. My family and I pray for the victims families and those still affected by the horrific massacre of innocent civilians. When the planes crashed into the World Trade Towers I was in the Presbyterian Medical Center in Pennsylvania with my first wife. She was having a procedure done.  I sat in the waiting room watching the news as the horrific event unfolded. I wept with all the others in the room that day as the towers came down and we realized that there were so many people killed as the towers came down. I prayed as did everyone in that room for the victims and their families as we watched in horror. When we discovered that it was no accident we prayed for God's justice on those responsible. There are still people suffering from the lasting effects of that tragedy. Please pray for them.