Lets see...

I have had two somewhat busy days over the weekend. Not busy in a "There's much to be accomplished today" kind of way. A kind of "Went somewhere did something while not spending very much money and had the best cheeseburger I have had in a long time. I could never eat like this often, actually I could as long as I wouldn't mind gaining all that weight back and risking my health. But why dwell on gloomy, dull, day to day mundane tasks. It was two days of coming and going as I pleased. It's better than spending your day being pissed off. The reason I write pissed off instead of p*****d off is that you'd know I meant pissed off. One can only imagine where that phrase came from. I guess it's better than being p*****d on. Well haven't I taken a left into Gutterville.

But just to tell you burger fans this is not the way I usually eat a burger. I never put mayonnaise on my burger and have seldom put bacon, though I like them both. That combined with the meat that looked just like freshly ground high grade beef instead of a prefab burger patty meat product, plus some tangy cheddar cheese was quite delicious.

To show you how slowly I'm writing this. The paragraph above was written on Monday night. I'm writing this paragraph on Tuesday night. The weekend is fading in my memory. My weekend is Sunday and Monday. That's just fine with me. I am beginning to think about another trip to Martha's Vineyard. I have chosen the week of Memorial Day. That's a couple of That's still four months away, but it's a relatively inexpensive getaway. About a two hour drive and a 45 minute ferry ride and your on the island. There's still a few things I haven't seen or done yet. Nothing too dramatic. I want to take a whale watch. I took one out of Boston a few years ago and the only pictures I got of any whales, which were far in the distance, were lost when I was on the back of the boat and we were moving right along, and the section of my camera case that I kept my memory cards was unzipped and out it fell, away it went. I did get some shots that day but not any whales. That's the problem with being a guy. You got to keep track of all these zippers. So we'll do the whale watch and check out a few other attractions as well. There's the "Oldest continually running carousel in America". It was moved to Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard in about 1884 or so and has been in continuous operation since then. Except it's not in operation, when I go down. It's off season. I've seen  the enclosure where it is. I looked in the windows. One would think with the claim of "Oldest continually running carousel in America", that sucker should have been spinning since 1884. Now that would make it an exciting ride! You'd have to get on, risking serious injury, while it's spinning by. And when your turn is over, they throw you off. Now that would be an exciting ride! OK. so it's not the Sistine Chapel or the Pyramids but it's ours. Right here in the U.S.A.!
It's sure nicer being there while it's happening, but for now, here's a picture I took at sunrise on M.V.

So here I sit. 9 o'clock on Tuesday evening. Time to get ready for more challenges from my workday. Today it was, "Paul we have no deli bags."  They're zip lock bags for slice ham and the like. It was 7:01 a.m. You do get to people watch though. 
Today I saw a guy sporting the Elmer Fudd look. How "Quayzee" is that! Heheheheheh! Really? Does the Fudd look do anything for you ladies? Still he made me laugh. I was so glad he didn't remotely sound like him.

I think I'll finish this gas bag of a blog. It's getting near Tuesday and sleep is so close so...
I'm outta here.   
       

Well first I would like to publicly thank Beth for nominating me for a Blogger award. As I said in a comment on her page I don't have that many friends and no that statement is not a sympathy ploy. It's just a statement of fact. This has it's benefits. My blogging time has become limited and writing a blog takes me forever sometimes. Not having that many friends shortens the time I take to read all the updates. Back in the good old days of Spaces I had gathered 75 friends within a year. Now fortunately not everyone updated their blogs all the time, in fact there were only about 20 core friends that would update on a fairly regular basis and truthfully that was more than enough for me. After about a year I cut it back to 40 because some of these folks would update once in a while. I suppose I got caught up in the "try to gather as many friends as possible for bragging rights" when I first started. A sort of "mine is bigger than yours" situation, but that is actually pointless. I have to say I really liked the set up they had at first. It was well designed and very easy to use. You has your friends list and whenever anybody had written a blog a little star or asterisk would appear next to their picture. You'd click on it and it would take you to their Space. Simple and direct. Access to your photo albums could be placed right on your blog and with one click you could view all the pictures. It's like a well designed dashboard in a car. Features are placed intuitively so your don't have to take your eyes off the road to turn the heat, air conditioner or radio on. I recently purchased a car (last July) and though it is a very nice car, The dash is a nightmare of little buttons not to mention the straight line blocky design is just plain dull. The one plus is that I have an actual clock and not some digital readout that you can't see on a sunny day. I have to take my eyes off the road to turn on the radio, change the station, turn on the heat or air conditioner. Not to mention those outside temperature readouts are rarely accurate when you can read them. The same went for Spaces. They took a simple to use, well designed blog, tarted it up with complicated "improvements" when in reality they were planning to kill the blog and make it a Facebook wannabe. That's not a knock on Facebook, which I don't use, it was Windows being disingenuous to all the bloggers. All of this seemed to happen all of a sudden but it was planned from the get go. Too bad. It was a fun place. I got to meet and actually talk to on the phone people from all over the world. From Thailand to California. Some of those people, actually most of my core group came here to Blogger but three in particular haven't posted anything in two years. I miss them as I miss the ones who never made the switch. They were fun. On the other hand I am grateful for the folks who did make the switch and that I am am still in contact with them. You ladies know who you are. Still there are two who haven't posted in a while. Marge and Michiko. I hope they are OK though I'm sure they have their reasons for not updating, but it would be great to have them back. 

What does this long winded diatribe have to do with anything? It all comes back to Beth giving me a blogging award. Don't get me wrong I do appreciate it. It's just that since I have such a small group of followers who actually take the time to come here and comment, listing 5 of those people will leave a few out and I don't want to insult anybody. It's a bit of a dilemma. We all use our blogs to express different things. And choosing from a small group and leaving a couple out might make for hard feelings. This is something that I don't want. 

I have written this over the course of two days I started this blog late Friday evening and am finishing it on Saturday night near 10:00  and really have not had the chance to look at my followers list. I will do this in a day or two. I hope you understand Beth it's not that I don't want to accept this award but I have to look and decide what I'm going to do. And Beth I am flattered.

A couple of days ago I read on Nancy's blog about a challenge she found on another blog. There was a picture of an elephant and the point of it was to take that picture add or change the elephant. This is my entry. I call it Helephants Angels.

  OK it's time for me to wind this up. I am finally done. Soon it will be time for bed. It's been a long day and I am off tomorrow.

I"m outta here.

What a game!

I won't go on about the game but the New England Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl again! It was a nail biter right down to the last few seconds. We here in the New England region have been very fortunate sports wise over the last 10 years with 7 championships from the various sports teams and now the Patriots are headed back to the Super Bowl for the 5th time in 10 years going for their 4th championship. Just incredible! Boy are we lucky!

Here's a link to my auto show pictures.I have already posted them in a little as a slide show, I just want to know if the link works. It works for me but I may have to change the settings for everybody else. This will be the future home of any pictures of great quantity.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=657692b4e34b334b&resid=657692B4E34B334B!107&parid=657692B4E34B334B!106&authkey=!AFoRHrlBGamdttU

Another goofy Tom Doyle song here. The original song was "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover". Of course the subject matter is just a tad different. 

Not to talk about football again, but last week during the playoffs we at work got a memo at work asking us to make a few cheese platters with brie cheese for the playoffs. Nothing says football like brie. We only made 3 and they didn't sell and yet while I was watching the game what did I see? A commercial for the very same President's Brie that we sell. Maybe it's just a generational thing or just the neighborhood that I am presently working in. It might have worked in the store I was just transferred from, but that was Cambridge, this is not.

You know I had other stuff to write about but I've forgotten. I have to get ready to go out for a bite to eat. I have also been interrupted by the phone several times. There are times when I would shoot the phone if I had a gun. Of course I do have a hammer...
I'm outta here.

Yup I went to the auto show but I didn't make it to the museum but I still plan to. An exhibit featuring artifacts from Pompeii including the casts of people who died after being covered in volcanic ash and lava, though gruesome in some regards, is still an amazing sight. I want to apologise to a couple of my friends. I read your blogs but I couldn't leave a comment. Whether it was my computer or the Internet last night (Wed.) I couldn't say. For example I had no problem with Beth's or Carole's but I couldn't leave a comment on Nancy's or others.  Anyway the auto show was fun as it always is. I have loved cars since I was young. Every year my father would take me to all the dealerships in the fall when all the new models would be debuted and ever since then I have an emotional connection to cars and their styling and performance. I only owned one performace car (read fast) in my life. It was a blast to drive. When it worked. It was the biggest pain in the hind quarters, no what I mean to say it was a big pain in the ass! It drained my bank account at the time. It was all my fault because I did a lot of reading up on it and they pretty much said the same thing. When it worked it was great but it was prone to all kinds of problems. I bought it anyway. It gave me one good year of service out of the 5 total years that I owned it. It was a 1991 Ford Taurus SHO (Super High Output). I did buy another Taurus afterwards but it was more of the garden variety. I just got rid of it this passed August. I have nothing bad to say about it. It gave me 11 years of good dependable service and was still going strong when I traded it in. It was a comfortable, reliable car. In 11 years all I replaced were tires and a small bit in the rear suspension. That was it. No oil leaks. No oil burning. I only hope my present car car work as well.

I did make a movie of the auto show but I opted for a slideshow of the pictures I took. I tried to find car based music to play underneath it but only came up with one and it was too short so I ended up setting it to a bluesy tune that was almost the exact length of all the pictures. That is next.

   

I can't seem to stay awake much past 9:30 or 10:00 these days. I get quite a workout breaking down pallets and they should provide a bus line to get from one part of the store to another as it is needlessly huge for the business it does. It's a very nice store and it's only 6 or 7 years old but it didn't have to be this big. Oh and the parking lot is terrible. We are next to a McDonalds and this attracts large groups of birds. Particularly pigeons and sea gulls. They are constantly flying about leaving little gifts from their feathered colons. And what makes it worse are the people who come to feed them. Of course there's not much that can be done about it.

Well I actually had a lot more to write about but I can't remeber what it was. I have a couple of hours of consciousness left. I will attempt to visit around, do my dinner dishes and hit the sack. Boy am I tired these days.

Goodnight/good morning/ good afternoon my friends,

I'm outta here.

It's been a long week but I survived.

Perhaps grueling would be a better word. It's all connected with work. Without going into detail it was a combination of sick calls and late deliveries. I still have one day to go as I am working a late shift today. However I am looking passed the days work to get home and watch The New England Patriots play The Denver Bronco's here at home. As much success as all The Boston area/New England teams have had the last 11 years and as good as the Patriots have been they haven't won a playoff game since 2007. I know boohoo. Tonight's game features Tim Tebow who has been all over the TV the few weeks. I of course will be rooting for the Pats. I am amused at all the talk of Divine intervention because of Tebow's constant mentioning of "The Lord". Personally I find it a bit much. He's not the first player to do this and there's nothing wrong with it but all the people who think God will intervene in a football game are off the deep end as far as I am concerned. It's gonna be cold tonight. With the wind chill factor it could get close to 0. Tebow has been in the national spotlight. You can't watch a national news brodcast with seeing a story on him. I've got nothing against him. He's a very good player and I don't blame the people from Denver for going loopy over him. We would do the same here but this national ferver is over the top and we have a pretty good player on our team, Tom Brady. This day is going to be a blur to me as I can't wait for my work day to be over. I should be home in time to watch the bulk of the game. I can't wait! Go Pats!

I have been so beat down from work this week. I got home threw some food down my gullet, took care of some domestic issues (laundry and the like), and then I was asleep. It's not getting any easier and I can't wait to get out. I have a few years to go but I might be able to retire in a couple of years depending on how comfortable I feel with the money I have saved. I wouldn't be averse to working part time after I retire but I am approaching 41 years (April 1st. no joke.) and my company has been through many changes since 1999 with a series of owners and constant changes in policy and general confusion as to what the hell is going on. My original company started in 1915 and we were the benchmark in the supermarket business around here. Quite innovative. We used to have a bundle pick-up meaning you would pay for your groceries, they would be put in a numbered box on a conveyer belt which would disappear into the floor. You would drive around to the side of the store and your groceries would magically appear and put into your car. You know those plastic mesh bags oranges come in. My old company contacted Dow Chemical in the 50's and had this developed. If you were in the supermarket business around here years ago working for "Star" was a feather in your cap. But that's the past. I guess I am fortunate to still be working but it's getting near the end and I am getting tired.

Tomorrow I hope to go to the Museum of Science to view an exhibit on Pompei and Monday I will be heading to the auto show. I always enjoy seeing cars I will never be able to own. Can't wait!

Alrighty then I have been ramblin' on (The check's in the mail Carole.) for a while here and I must soon get myself ready for work.
GO PATS!

I'm outta here.

MSN Help. No help at all.-MSN cancelled.

You know I actually wrote a blog last night. I switched to the new Blogger design and didn't quite understand how it worked and instead of publishing I apparently deleted it. I'm back to the old familiar Blogger look. At least everything is labeled. I ended my quest on finding a way to change the MSN administrator so I could change my password. So I could save a couple of things and then shut the whole MSN connection. About a twelve year connection that led me to Windows Live Spaces. For me that was an enjoyable time. I met and spoke with people from all over the world. Singapore, California, Maryland, Australia, England. It was all a wonderful connection. Laughs, private laughs. A death. A fight verbal between 
a guy and myself concerning a problem with the late friend of ours Duckie. It started when Duckie was upset over something that was said to or about her by this person. I commented that this person could make fun of me if he wanted but leave Duckie alone. Duckie died sometime in 2009 I think. She happened to live very close to me, maybe 20 to 25 miles, though we never met. The whole thing was fun though. We all know what happened to Spaces. The whole Microsoft connection From Spaces to MSN. Always a landmine here and there though I don't blame them for my most recent woes.  

Since my email address was hijacked the password was changed. I had no control over what emails went out from that address. For me to change my password and gain control I would have to be the Administrator of the email address. The only way I was going to change that password is to identify and prove to MSN I was the actual administrator of the address. On a search for help on MSN I submitted my problem. They emailed back, fairly quickly saying I was who I said I was and that they would email back a solution in about 24 hours which they did. The email said, click on this link to change your password. I thought, "Cool!" What do I learn when I get there? The first instruction, Log into your MSN account. I CAAANN'T!!! THAT'S WHY I EMAILED MSN HELP IN THE FIRST PLACE! Ahem. Pardon me for shouting. Below that is written, "Only the email administrator can change the password." No Shit Sherlock! To sum up this blast of hot air from the east (If you live in the U.S. that is) I went back to MSN and began to look for how I can cancel my whole MSN subscription. I found it and I did it. MSN KAPUT! However if you look at the top of my blog you still see my old address. Why? I don't know. I can access this blog from several places. Changing this blogs administrator is as difficult as changing it at MSN.I may eventually settle down in Google. I have a Google address, a Verizon address and a hot mail address now.
I emailed Beth, Carole and Nancy. Carole's email came back to me because I entered all my address by hand and may have miss a dot or something. I think Nancy's email came back because it's just an old one. I will check into seeing what's wrong with Carole's address and Nancy you can get it from Beth if you need it unless there are other options.

As I mentioned before MSN will begin a monthly charge for it's email service on March 1st. If you don't sign up everything disappears. So it was gone one way or another. I ain't payin'!

I still have more to do computer-wise but I have begun shifting things around but I believe I'm in much better shape than I was a few days ago.

I've gone on long enough.
I'm outta here.


 

Update MSN dilemma.

I am in the process of waiting for a reply from MSN as to how to close down my account. Since my account was hijacked I can't close it yet until I can reset my password. There are a few things I would like to save from that account. The account will close automatically March 1st as they will now charge a fee for MSN Premium. It was nice while it lasted. I was with them for 12 years but it wasn't that much better than the free email accounts that are out there. I have another option which I will pursue if my email to MSN "help" doesn't pan out. I already have two new email accounts though I'm still not sure which one will become my main account. There is a way to transfer my address book over but I need to be able to get back into that account first. If that fails I will have to start entering them all by hand.

I'm writing this on my old desktop computer. It still works but is long in the tooth. What a pain it is to get rid of old computers. I've got an ancient fossilized computer in the closet and this very one I'm using, which is 7 years old and eventually I want to get rid of both of them properly.

It will probably be a day or two until I can get back to normal, such as it is, here on blogger. Over the last two days I have been computered out making sure my desktop, my laptop and my little mini travel computer are all on the same page. All with the same email accounts. I'm still fishing around looking for a way I can change my primary email account. It appears you need permission from the Pope, the President and Oprah. I love my computers (in a non romantic way) and I suppose all these hoops you are made to jump through are in the name of security but then again my security was compromised.

OK I'm about to go out for what has become a ritual on Sunday mornings, breakfast. It is another beautiful day like last Sunday though not as warm as yesterday when the temperature tickled 60. This time I'm bringing my camera with me. Maybe I stop by later after the football games. It depends on how I feel about hitting the computer again. It will be a slow process to put everything right. C'mon MSN answer my email?!

I'm outta here.

About my email address...

Apparently my email address has been hijacked. Please disregard an email you may have received from me. I do not have a sick cousin in Spain and I'm not looking for $12,000. I have a new email address that I will send out to the folks who I have corresponded with in the past. I'm not sure how this happened but in the long run it doesn't matter as MSN and Verizon will no longer be partners as of March 1. If I wanted to continue with MSN I would now have to pay a monthly service charge. As the little Geico gecko says, "Fagetabout it!" Fortunately I have all my emails addresses from my address book printed out. This will end my association with Windows Live. That doesn't matter either. I never go there.

So now I have to make several phone calls to people who left messages telling me about what they had received including one to California. What a big pain in the ass!

But for now I'm going to make some dinner and forget about the computer for a while.

I'm outta here.

Well I'm glad it's all over. Working in retail makes the holidays tough. I'm just glad I don't work in a department store. It's bad enough in the food business. I suppose for myself the most irritating thing was the Christmas music. It started shortly after Halloween and continued right up to New Years eve. How many times can you hear Jingle bells in an 8 hour day. How about six times all by different artists. I don't know why but the song that annoys me the most is Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano. I don't know why this one just grates on my nerves so much. Still I had a very nice Christmas eve and day. The New Years week was busy and that's good for business. I was moving continuously right up until I punched out at 4 o'clock on Dec 31. I didn't do anything on New Years eve. I got home and reveled in the silence. I didn't turn a radio or television on for a couple of hours. On Sunday morning I went out to breakfast with my lady friend. It was such a beautiful morning. Not a cloud in the sky and the temperature approaching 50 degrees at ten in the morning. After a filling and very satisfying stick to your ribs breakfast we decided to take a little walk through the center of town and behind it where there are beautiful homes as well as historic home built in the 1600's and 1700's. It was quiet and beautiful as I suspect most people were home sleeping one off. I wish I had brought my camera with me. We walked by my old high school, which is now condominiums and just off the center the city. As we circled behind the old school we saw all these wonderful old homes. I am going to do this again preferably on a Sunday morning, bring my camera, photograph some of the things that surround me that I take for granted including the house where Amelia Erhart lived for a few years with her sister until she moved to Boston to work as a social worker. Her sister died in 1998. She was an English teacher at my old high school. There's a rich history of shipbuilding here as well. Not only that, rum was distilled here as those same ships brought back sugar cane from the Caribbean on their way back from Africa. Why Africa? Because they were bringing back slaves. Not one of the prouder moments in American history and yet there's no denying it happened. There is still evidence of the slave trade with a wall built by slaves in the 1700's and a still standing slave quarters. I have shown pictures of this in the past. So one of these days I will drive around town documenting all these interesting places and put a little movie together.

DID YOU KNOW that beginning on January 1, 2012 incandescent light bulbs will begin to be phased out? I came across this fact on the radio a few days ago. The law was passed in 2007. I'm not sure where I stand on this not that it matters where I stand. I suppose it's all to do with energy efficiency but it does seem like our right to chose, letting the market dictate things has been taken away. Below is a chart from the U.S. Enviormental agency showing how things will go. The incandescent bulb will disappear completely in 2014.

       

Phasing out incandescent bulbs

A 2007 bill prohibits the manufacture and import of most low-efficiency light bulbs starting Sunday.

Incandescent bulb	Phase-out date
100 watt	Jan. 1, 2012
75 watt	Jan. 1, 2013
60 watt	Jan. 1, 2014
40 watt	Jan. 1, 2014

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

OK time to change directions with another song parody from Tom Doyle. In 1976 Canadian singer/songwriter had a hit record based on the tragic sinking of the Edmond Fitzgerald on Lake Superior called "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald". Well Tom changed the lyrics. It has nothing to do with the original song. Only the music remains the same. The subject matter is completely different.

 I have made one resolution this year. I'm not making any resolutions. I you all are well and the new year brings you good health, happiness and peace.

I'm outta here.