The Hermit

This is probably one of my more favorite times of the year in Oregon. The mornings are cooler and fresh smelling. The day may warm a little but it quickly cools off at night. We are going over to stay at a resort right on Gleneden Beach this next week. The weather is often beautiful this time of the year and there is a great beach to walk on just below the resort. We will be there for a week...

Just finished this medical mystery about an outbreak of several potential epidemics. A usual Robin Cook book that was hard to put down. But I had to put it down for a while. Had to send my laptop to the hospital (hard drive I think and that means many more hours restoring programs and data when I get it back). I have an extended warranty on it so it shouldn't cost me anything for the repair....

The night before last, my Toshiba laptop hard drive bit the dust. I do backups every month and now I know that's not often enuf because it went out on Aug. 31st and I do my backups on the 1st of each month. I will be backing up key data at least every week from now on and maybe a couple of them even daily. Well, at least Oregon is winning tonight as I continue to search for and load my backups...

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and Biloxi today with a rating of 4. The fourth most powerful hurricane in US history. Initial reports are very significant damage from wind and water. I wonder if Ron Harp will be called up by FEMA. It would be his first callup. They just moved to Phoenix two days ago and are living out of their motor home until they can find a mobile home to buy. Retta...

PREY – by Michael Crichton About the development of and accidental release of programmed nano-particles that operate under the concept of distributed processing. They are programmed to learn from their environment with no controls on the outcome. They are individually dumb but know how to meld in with large groups of particles. As a result, they give the appearance of being intelligent....

Today I was totally surprised as I was sitting in the swing reading. Into the yard rode Charlie and Vee on his 3 wheeler pulling a trailer. They had left Phoenix on July 9th and had been to a World 3-wheeler rally in Missouri, the annual bikers rallye in Black Hills of South Dakota, into Montana, Idaho and now here. They were still to visit their kids in California before returning to Phoenix....

The big event for the day is getting my Dodge truck serviced. In addition to the normal servicing, the transmission fluid, rear differential fluid and the fuel filter were also serviced at 31000 miles ($380). Since this is my first diesel, I am trying to be more on the preventative side on servicing hoping that I can avoid the bigger problems as I am keeping this rig much longer than I used to....