church computer

Here I sit at the church computer to get on-line; this happens way too often! The 2002 Dell win XP pro with a C drive that has 4 GB with XP pro using app. 3/4 of the drive with working memory of 147 MB 1 GB, it varies for some reason... hey I got 256 MB of RAM! just tooting my horn. For some reason I can not access the web even though I am on-line... Been asking around for a couple older towers that may still work... let me see... my last new computer was in 1985...

a 360 degree panorama

this is what one does when one does nothing... OH and drink 24/7

Five bits of information about me...

Five bits of information about me;

1. too fat to do technical rock climbing anymore.
2. woman only put up with me for 10 or so years... and then quit men forever.
3.  if it was not for booze... I would have to take real medications.
4. a friend to me is someone you can tell your darkest secret to and not worry about it... it is sad... he is dead     now.
5. I am a very good at lying because a lie lives within my reality.

Depression

Depression is to be avoided or is that voided.
     I will get back to this soon, I have lost interest for now.

The Monster

One spring evening I was walking a meandering path through a vast garden like field of deep green grass and bright yellow flowers when I decided to wander off the path in favor of the soft, gently blowing grass and a closer experience with the fragrant flowers. An orange sunset was at my back when I suddenly stumbled and fell over what I thought was a rock. As I fell the rock seemed to rise from the ground to tower over my prone figure. When the now towering rock stared at me through a large acid yellow eye I somehow knew I was looking at a monster. The quizzical cock of the head is the only thing that kept me from fleeing, that and the fact that the monster had pinned me to the ground with his massive walking stick. With some relief the monster smiled, if one can call thick gray lips suddenly expanding in an upward fashion exposing brightly polished yellow front teeth and if I may add, sharp teeth. My agitation increased again when the creature pulled a big sharp looking stick from a large breast pocket. I am now thinking that I will be permanently pinned to the ground like a beetle in a natural history museum. Then the smile became even broader and the monster began picking large chunks of meat from hidden teeth at the back of his mouth, a mouth, despite the polished look had a stench that wilted the lush flowers around my prone body. At about this time the light began to fade or was I passing out, this I figured might be a problem either way. I definitely did not want to deal with a monster after sunset. I then began to feel as if a spell, like I knew what a spell was, was being cast over me when the scene before and around me began to fade into swirling disconnected images of fields, flowers and lazy clouds. Finally after a troubled night of odd dreams of large creatures, dawn arrived with light streaming through a bedroom window. I stretched my muscles, threw off my yellow flowered green comforter and crawled out of bed to stretch again. To be continued.
4/19/08
   Dreams fade.
   The day was off to a great start with the smell of coffee mingling with the fragrance of spring flowers. I sat at a white enameled table with red trim and silver legs sipping at my hot coffee, warmth that was keeping the cool but pleasant morning breeze that filtered through fluttering drapes at the kitchen window at bay. A window that, between fluttering curtains, exposed a world that I knew well having grown up here. Being retired and in good health I pondered the days tasks, I spent a goodly time in this mental task, no point in rushing life. The thoughts flowed, the coffee good and the scene out window was somehow different from what I knew to be my world, a thought that faded as I decided to have a stroll in the gardens in order to check on what needs doing. My favorite spring jacket and hat were hanging by the back door where I hung them the day before. I put on the jacket and donned my hat and grabbed my staff as I opened the door to walk onto the creaky back porch I noticed there was a quality to the diamond willow walking staff that gave me added energy an energy that was not there before. As I step into an expanding view of nature the pleasantries of coffee are replaced by a wash of olfactory reminders of the power of spring.
   The natural sounds of the outdoors mingle with the creak of old wood porch planks as I head for the steps leading to the garden. Pausing at the steps I  take in the view of my world a world I am very fond of.
    April showers must have been good, the flower garden looks great even thought I do let it grow a little wild, must be part of my nature like the land around me.
   For reasons unknown to me I live a solitary life in the foot hills east of a mountain range with high jagged peaks. I have often dreamed and thought about what was on the far side of the mountains but alas I have not the mountaineering skills needed to explore such a region. My life is so solitary that I do not remember the last time I saw another being besides the beasts and flying creatures some of which I hunt and preserve for the harsh winters in these parts......

Photosynth a good view

Photosynth is a site where you can compile panorama images and view them. Look around photosynth to see some amazing panoramas that you can manipulate in various ways.
  Check it out at the following link;
my panorama, a different look
   You can pan and zoom in on the image.

following a brass rail

There are personalities on the loose pretending to be experts on what the American people think. These 'personalities' are like a shinny brass railing; they can lead you along using false premises they invent out of thin air, like that Beck dude. The people who believe Beck that his rally in Washington was a coincident that it was held on the anniversary of King's speech. The people who believe this are the one's with their hands firmly grasping the brass rail.

A butterfly

Walking around the other day and took a few shots of butterfly's doing their business. The problem with the shooting the butterfly was that I was too stupid the switch from the view finder to the screen thus I just guessed where the butterfly was in relationship with the lens/frame. OH well... here is the best butterfly image;

throw a rock through a Muslim family home, let them know how we feel!!

Before you throw a rock at window of a Muslim family home, throw one at a fundamentalists Christians window, remember Timothy James McVeigh?

Michelle and her cars

 Michelle, as I mentioned in a previous post ruined another car. Just to give you, my only reader, an idea how bad her driving is; Michelle's father well before he met me, I and Michelle had just gotten together, told her to bring me down to drive a car back for her to replace a previous car she ruined, this was 13 yrs ago. OK, back to the future. Michelle's last car was showing increasing problems that needed attention, no matter what I said she just kept driving until it was way to late to do much. Michelle, the poorest of the sisters and brother is also the one who looks after their mother up in the home... Michelle's sister lent her a spare car, well and good, maybe, the car was delivered to Bill's pizza and steak house where Michelle works, still good.
 After work Michelle drives the car home... I go out in the morning to take a look at the car... it is running right there in the drive with a locked door... I went into the apartment and informed Michelle; let us make this short... she had one of those really irritating black button things and I believe as she was getting to the apt she pressed the blue button and started the car. The good news, she got some fantastic MPG!

broke... down... not out yet

I am the proud owner of a 2002 Dell computer with the original 5 GB hard drive, 512 RAM (installed spare RAM from other junk towers). This Dell like all my computers since 1998 have been used units. The operating system is windows XP professional and that takes up app. 3/4 of the hard drives 5 GB of space, not good. So I installed a used 10 GB slave drive to run various programs. The tower did not have a slot for an extra drive so I had to cut some card stock to place around the HD to keep it from touching sensitive spots.
   So far so good; the bad bits. This Dell does not run videos, will not load win SP 2 or 3, will not run various programs due to the SP problem and there are a multitude of app's that I need to run other software that can not be installed. For instance I decided that using ICLOUD would be a good way to get around some of these problems, well, NOT, need an app for that too...
   I do have an old Dell laptop with win XP, SP 3 and most the win net stuff etc.. with a 20 GB HD. However a couple days ago, the day Michelle cooked her car, The Dell laptop had a meltdown to. So I was left with no way to view videos or manipulate images, Gimp needs SP 2. I did locate a freeware image processing program that does work and quite well too, (PhotoScape), solving one problem.
   Michelle uses her car like a large ashtray and treats the car like a gift from God and that God will take care of the car for her! There is, I believe, something about trying to help yourself first, isn't there? 
   Off to the net to look for more open source/freeware programs and applications to help me get up and running at a slow walk on this computer.
   The word is out for another used tower...

wetcanvas and achiving my goal

Off and on for several years I have tried to delete my account with no success until now. The trouble was figuring how to get the job done. Repeated polite requests did not work until I realized all I had to do is be annoying but all that did was get me banned for a month or so. Finally what it came to was really beating myself up and breaking some rules of being a member of WC.
   I can now delete WC from my bookmarks! The following message when I logged in came up "You have been banned. Date the ban will be lifted: Never." I believe this copy and past is another rule breaker.
   Why would a site not let you delete your account?
Mike, confused and soiled, E

wetcanvas

What was in my gmail inbox...

"Dear Mike E etc,

You have received a new private message at WetCanvas from })i({. Please click here to log in and read it:
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/private.php

All the best,
WetCanvas"

  SO I logged in and found the following; I find the message to be not satisfactory at all. The gits could not get there tiny minds around my request that I want a permanent  ban... the following message should have read, (if they had any ability with logic (how many hints do I have to give these dopes)), Date 'the ban will be lifted: not until your are dead, the sooner the better!' Maybe I should oblige them...

"You have been banned.

Date the ban will be lifted: 08-24-2010, 01:00 PM"
   This is nothing more than a (::[]::). I will be ready on 08-24-2010, 01:00 PM... JERKS

Off to sit my ass a little closer on the edge of the earth, I may even push him off just to see how it looks with hooves rotating over and over his head.

When all of my self is gone, the rest will follow.
   
     

lampwork divas forum, check them out

Lampwork Divas

I registered and received three e-mails;

1. LampworkDivas
 to me
  
show details 6:35 AM (22 minutes ago)
  
Welcome to LampworkDivas forums

Please keep this email for your savebox. Your account information is as follows:

----------------------------
Username: glassandfire
Password: stupid__cow
----------------------------

Your account is currently inactive, the administrator of the board will need to activate it before you can log in. You will receive another email when this has will be done.

Please do not forget your password as it has been encrypted in our database : we cannot retrieve it for you. However, if you forget your password you can request a new one which will be activated in the same way as this account.

Thank you for registering.

2. LampworkDivas
 to me
  
show details 6:43 AM (15 minutes ago)
  
Hello glassandfire,

Your account on "LampworkDivas" has now been activated, you may login using the username and password you have received in a previous email.

3. LampworkDivas

  
show details 6:47 AM (12 minutes ago)
  
Hi glassandfire,

You receive this automatic email because your account on "LampworkDivas" - http://lampworkdivas.aforumfree.com has been deleted.
You can contact the administrator to know why it has been deleted.

Now if I could get 'SHOUTING' wetcanvas the little wiezels to react as quickly I would not have to be here finishing the job of ruining what is left of... whatever I have left...

Check the lampwork DIVAS out, may be a hoot.

Started and stopped to take this...

A black and white panorama of the mill and dam, yes another dam/n image. I worked my self up to go to the STUDIO 
but I noticed that the west was cloudy and a bit dark while the mill was lit with light, so off I went and shot 14 or so images of the mill and dam, this is where my day went into the round file. I wandered around, took some shots here and there. Stopped into the food pantry to see how the new walk-in freezer was coming, ended up with some hog neck bones. I later boiled the neck bones until the meat came off and ended up with two meals.
   Around 2:00 pm I stopped into Plan B and traded four dollars worth of quarters into four 2$ Amber Bock  beer, a beer brewed in Amana Iowa. Amber Bock won the 2010 beer world cup, cool.
   Anyway here is the results from a wasted day/weeks of life;

Twitter, I get it, mostly.

    Twitter is great if you have a certain type of company, I can see a construction company needing to communicate information to its Foreman's about changes on the various jobs. Families who like to keep an information flow to interested family members. Celebrities who like to drag their fans along...
   I have been adding tweeters who seem to have potentially interesting information. There are problems; How many people can one follow, well, lots, are you reading and clicking on all 4,561 people you are following? Follow only the people who have serious content that you like and want to read and if you do not, the tweets you want will be way down the thread, page#= buried, interred. Don't follow those who like to tweet umpteen times a day!!
   I must say, having a huge number of followers is cool and maybe they even checkout you stuff.
   Twitter is not facebook where having a zittilion "friends" is part of the game. (I ditched my facebook account, you cannot delete your account on wetcanvas.com Sooo I will...)
   Use Twitter to gain usable content.

nascar

Women seem to like wishing ill on drivers they do not like as in wishing that they crash? I would like to think that  no one would wish a wreck on a driver. My wish is a close race and my the best driver win.

How to be a loner and still have a presents on the internet

  Do not ask me, I am a loner, thus I do not have the refined social skills to cope with the net. I did have or do have 2,800+ posts on wetcanvas although I have not participated much in the last few years. Taking all my posts from other sites and combining them into one total would not come close to 2,800+ posts... a spit in a spittoon.
   For myself I have come up with the following solution; when signing up for any site that has even a hint of social interaction one should block any chance of PMs or e-mails being sent to me. The one exception is right here on my own soap box, besides I have very little response to my whining here, heck I only have 5 or so followers.



now for a panorama image;
   late August flooding on the Wapsipinicon river in Independence, Iowa The face belongs to a friend who I ran into on the bridge that day.

Mike

Catholic Church panorama

Sunday I went for a stroll... actually the stroll was forced on me... Plan B was not open yet. I know... should have been in the shop creating great glass art. I walked over to the church and shot a bunch of images. When I got back to Michelle's I uploaded the images; opened Microsoft ice and started a new project and what you see is the final image of the church. I rather like it... you?

ditched facebook and letting myself go

I finally dun-did it, I pushed "my" facebook account off the edge of the earth. I imagine the account is now stuck in some ethereal corner of the web where apps are still trying to be
annoying, bothersome and just plain stupid.

Now for wetcanvas;
    ya, it's got to got too! Trouble is, is that you have to have permission to leave, HUH, what's  with that. OH well, I asked and someone is now looking for the kill switch, I wonder if the search is pre-donut or post donut? Yummy, no not the donuts, last nights warm |__|/ I am drinking.

Where will I be on the net; right here on my very own soapbox where I can say pretty much what I want without breaking any rules... Rules... maybe I will break some politically correct rules like redneck dopes who are raising there ugly heads because of a black president and are striking out at anybody that is potentially vulnerable by spreading falsehoods across the land, IDIOTS, the lot of them and that includes Michelle's son!

Back to the subject at hand. The places I will be are listed at the right of this writing. These sites are for the most part not responsive unlike facebook, sites where you do your thing and what interaction there is on the site is not too important to ones future. I never bother with PM's or e-mail from these sites and as an example I received an e-mail from my brother from a poetry site, an e-mail that I deleted without reading. I even quit writing my stuff because of the e-mail; I am not much good at it anyway, just wrote the crap to see if one can get lucky and come up with a bit of good drivel. What I need to do is go check my accounts on these sites and stop any possibility of future PM's or e-mails. What a good idea, I need another |__|/.

As to you, the dear reader, take it or leave it. I have been a loner all my life... nothing much else one can do when the family, one can blame my father I guess, moved every few weeks or months. I did not learn to be socially adept until high school and that was so I could be a more acceptable loner. There was only a couple years I was bothered by other kids and the was when I went to school in WINTHROP Iowa, 7th and 8th grade, and believe me, I understand school shootings. I can not believe that people like YOU do not get it... OH, now I get it, YOU were the bully who was kneeing me in the crotch, pushing me down the stairs or just walking up with your posse and punching me in the face! Stupidity is the common denominator of most of us.

A personally designed gun...
                         i
[      ]========
         c             Where is a bell tower when one needs one!

I am off to sit on the edge of the earth and have a few words with mother nature and to see if I can spot my facebook stuck in the web.

Bye,
   Mike