A Live CD

I have had several people tell me that they keep looking at my blog sites and they do not find anything new. I have to apologize for being so casual in the upkeep of the blogs. My only excuse or reason is that I simply do not have the time available to do like I should. Part of that is due to the fact that my wife is spending a lot more time on the web. To combat that in part I have been trying to repair my old Kaypro laptop computer . The bottom line to that is that it would not be prudent to put much money into the repair. I would like to repair the computer so that I would have the experience and learning opportunity that doing it would give me. Alas I am afraid that any repairs would be pouring good money down a hole with an old computer at the bottom of it. A friend of mine whose knowledge is a lot greater than mine suspects that the motherboard may be starting to fail. Since the main hard drive seems to have failed the alternative is to run off a “Live CD” with Linux on it. Linux seems to be a good alternative to Windows. It is promoted as a better operating system by many people and I like it so far. The CD that I am using has Linux “Mint” on it.

Using Linux will help me have computer time while my wife is on the Internet so that I can get caught up on my writing. I have something that might help you, my reader/followers, to know when I add something to the blog. I want you know that I found this in the October 2009 issue of Smart Computing. I have not tried it myself, but I will, so I cannot tell you for sure how well it works. Sign up for a free account on Follow That Page. This will alert you to any changes that are done to a Web site by sending you an e-mail. Since the word blog is short for “Web Log” the blogs that I write are in actuality a “mini” web site. Follow that page will check up to 100 pages (blogs or whatever) per day. Personally I will never have more than a hundred things I follow, more likely less that a dozen actually. To sign up for this free service go to this website. www.followthatpage.com

I took a break just now and told a friend about this site, he went there and told me that there is a great tutorial with it that is very good. He put some of the pages he follows in it and will let me know how he likes it.

The park here is really getting to be devoid of people. Yesterday my wife said something to the effect of “There is a car!” Now it is rather bad when seeing a car is unusual. We see quite a few golf carts going by but not very many cars. In addition to that I know of several people that are still going to leave within the next two weeks. This is like two different places, one in winter and one in summer. I was invited to join the daily bored meeting by a fellow who will be here another month. He says it is spelled “bored” because if I get bored I should go.

I have done a little work with a program called “Crossloop”. It is a program that will couple two computers together across the Internet. If a person is having trouble with their computer and I can help but I am in Texas and they are in Illinois what do we do. I can talk on the phone, or send e-mails even with a short video and that might work. But as you know that is often difficult to do. With Crossloop loaded on each computer I can see their screen, control their cursor and its actions while the person elsewhere can see what I am doing on their screen. www.crossloop.com It may prove to be a very valuable tool. I have only used it once but already I like it.

I have been impressed with the beauty of Monarch Butterflies ever since the first time I remember seeing one. Last year I saw a picture of Monarch caterpillar and I was impressed by its colors. Now this month I have seen several of the chrysalis of the Monarch butterfly and was amazed at the gold colored spots on it. I have also seen the eggs and the tiny little caterpillars. When they are first hatched they are no more than a speck. I hope to get some more pictures of the Monarch yet this month.


CATERPILLAR STAGE OF A MONARCH BUTTERFLY

When I came down last fall a friend asked if he could use my computer to harvest his crops in “Farmville”. It was unfortunate that I watched him play the game which is found on Facebook. I kept thinking about it and finally a few weeks ago I looked at it. Now I can spend hours on the computer playing a game. The novelty will wear down some but right at the moment I spend a lot of computer time doing that. My wife also has a farm and a cafe and I think she also started another game that our daughter says is more fun than Farmville. It is amazing what can grab a persons attention. There is a lady here in the park that belongs to a group that says, “Friends don't let friends get addicted to Farmville.” Maybe I am not addicted yet. There was a time that I spent a lot of time with the game of Myst and also Age Of Empires. Both those were fun games, but at least they were on CDs.

I have something like sixty gigabytes of video that I have taken that is residing on the hard drive of my computer that I need to get edited and put on to DVDs. It is no wonder that my hard drive is getting full. I figure that just editing the videos will reduce it to 10 gigs. The videos are mostly of the line dance class and I am going to make a second instructional DVD.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Bawk, Bawk

There is a place in McAllen, Texas called Quinta Mazatlan. In Spanish it means "country estate". It is part of the World Birding Center. There are always a lot of birds there to see. Since it is spring there is more activity than a lot of the rest of the year. When spring is in the air even the birds start thinking about romance. The Plain Chachalacas were making so much noise that it almost hurt our ears. The Black Bellied Whistling ducks were checking out the nesting cavities and doing a bit of romancing. It was rather strange to see a duck climbing the side of a tree and poking their heads into cavities. In addition to those there were many other small birds around the center. This is the first time that I have seen the green parakeets doing any nest cavity searches.


BLACK BELLIED WHISTLING DUCKS LOOKING FOR A NEST


THIS ONE HAS GOOD POSSIBILITIES


GREEN PARAKEETS CHECKING OUT A NEST CAVITY

We joke here in Bentsen Grove RV Resort that all a person has to do is step outside and holler, "Anyone want to go eat?", and there will be six people that will call back, "Where you going and how soon. To me that is absolutely great. Carry that idea just a little bit farther and tell people that you have a desire to do something fun and a dozen people will volunteer to help you make it better and more fun. People will go out of their way to make it a success. I can only say that those same people make this a wonderful park and every one of them are valuable to me. The following video is one of those things that people are willing to do. As you can guess it took a lot longer to get together than it took to shoot the video.


BAWK, BAWK

Sometimes in life the very smallest thing becomes a very long lasting fun thing. The Cadbury Easter Egg was introduced in the United States in 1971. One early commercial featured a bunny that was interviewing to advertise the egg. Another commercial featured a little boy that was dressed in a chicken costume. At the end of the commercial he flapped his arms and went "BAWK, BAWK". For whatever reason we nearly fell off the chairs laughing at the boy. That commercial has stuck with us all year long and especially around Easter for nearly forty years. To the best of my recollection every Easter since that time we have celebrated Easter with a gift of some sort with a reference to "BAWK, BAWK" for our daughter. I think this is the same little boy in the video that starred in the original commercial. As you see when you view he has aged to perfection and has retained every bit of his talent.

Till later this is Uncle Duck