"Have You Forgotten?" I haven't forgotten, dammit!

life's too short

friday, may 29th, 2009

life doesn't work on a balance sheet. Nothing's fair; nothing's equal. God knows that. I truly believe that He's set-it-up, that way, on purpose, to test each and everyone of us. If you really want to make Him belly-laugh, tell Him of *your life plan* for the coming years.

At almost 60, I don't ride motorcycles anymore, nor do I own a Cessna 162 or fly ultra lights, anymore. I don't race sports cars anymore, either. There's a lot of high-physical-risk activities that I don't participate in, simply because my reflexes aren't what they used to be. And that can mean the quick difference between life an death.

Life's too short, anyway.

After "all that I've been through", in my life, I can well put-up with the increasing aches and pains of daily, aging life. I REFUSE to "grow old gracefully"; I'll fight it every inch of the way. Unlike some of my friends, I don't dye my hair, beard (don't have one) or moustache — I earned every one of those silver hairs — nor do I do Botox shots or any of that artificial, prolong-the-youth-look, crap.

I believe that God has put each of us here for "a specific reason", of which only He is privy to, and He has "rescued me from certain death" several score of times, saving me for "that specific Divine purpose". As I grow older, I try not to take any unnecessary risks, until I know the moment He has in store for me, personally. Rushing into a burning house and saving a helpless child and losing my own life. Snatching someone from in front of an onrushing vehicle, and getting myself killed. I could wax-on and on about the possibilities, but I won't. Only He knows what His plan for me is. And I am His willing servant, to that end. And I feel great serenity in that tiny role of mine.

Around The Garden Center™.

My FTP connection was down last Thursday night to my corp server, and I tried multiple times to FTP last Friday's "Journal" files up to the server, but failed. I head "thunder" outside, but nothing was showing-up on the area's weather maps. Zilch. "Heat thunder"? On Friday evening, I simply made a new connection, and the FTP was back up-and-running. Looks like Win7 O/S merely 'pissed on it'. LOL.

Damn, Season 7 of "24" is over, and I'm watching its re-runs and then more re-runs of "Jericho" TV Series.

Friday was 83°F and 85% humidify, but tolerable. A lot worse is ahead in July & August; everyone knows that.

Saturday was very busy with very good retail sales. It was 88°F and much more humid. I actually did a mulch delivery, with Tyler, and driving one of my own loaded, 7-ton dump trucks, after flying a desk for so many years, was fun.

I went in early on Sunday, to get the Complex opened-up, but re-chained the front gate so I wouldn't be flooded with customers too early. Dad's knee is very painful for him, and he's due for a dr's app't to have it looked-at. Jennifer and Tyler were in to help out for the short 4hrs we were open. We closed early, as retail traffic was very light.

My back has "miraculously recovered" after that bad fall changing a recessed ceiling light, a couple of weeks ago. The 1" deep scalp gash has healed-over nicely, too. It feels like it did 10 years ago. Zero pain, but I'm not pushing it too far, too fast. I've resumed wearing my trademark (Bass of England) "Dirty Bucks" and keep the German $162 Spira Walking Shoes in the Jeep, just in case. No limp, no pain no meds anymore. I feel great. I wonder how long it will last? Not long; I got a large water blister on my right heel, so I wound-up wearing the walking shoes again on Monday, until it heals.

A *Strong Thunderstorm Warning" was posted at 7:30pm, Saturday, and the rains finally arrived around 8;40pm. Thunder & lightening, torrential, horizontal rain, for about 20mind, flooded streets, 1-2" of moisture doing nothing for the trees/shrubs, as it was coming down so fast, it all ran-off. Not really what we needed, IMO.

Remember the classic movie, "Red Dawn: Wolverines!"? I watched it and it was even better than I remember from back in the 80s, in light of what's going on, today.

I slept-in until 10am on Monday, went down to the Complex to work on finding "the missing lscp file", recovered and restored it, went to Mom & Dad's for a short visit, and then finally got my myriad errands and food shopping finished-up. (((sigh))) Tomorrow's another day.

The IPA Company is back-in this week, and their "Pickle Project" Manager, Bob, is scheduled to work with me. Monday was a rain-out and the lscp crew left at 10am. Jeff stopped by to convert my 750Gb WDC external HD from FAT32 to NFTS, so I can save larger than 4Gb back-up files; my office back-up file alone, is 16Gb+. The next 1-2 days also look like rain-outs, and I'll have to adjust the Project Schedule, accordingly. Jennifer, Bob & I left around 4pm.

By Thursday, gas prices rose another 25¢ in just 3 days, with Unleaded Regular (87oct) now at $2.59, Unleaded Premium (89oct) now at $2.69/gal, and Unleaded Super Premium (92oct) at $2.89/gal, with Diesel also rising to $2.55/gal. Memorial Day signalled the start of "The Summer Driving Season" and the price-gouging has truly begun! SOBs.

Disaster Averted.

On Sunday, a critical lscp file went "missing" after I'd tried to save my work. After multiple HD searches, it was gone, except for a 572kb 'link' to it, in another folder. Luckily/ unluckily, I thought backed-up the computer on Thursday, and truly thought that I could recover the original file and recreate the lscp estimate, but the back-up DVD-RW was frigging empty! Win-XP's Back-Up Utility IS F•CKING DOGSHIT!! It didn't work, and like an idiot, I didn't check my work, as I was way too busy that day. I just took it for granted that it worked, and took it off-site, to my condo for safekeeping.

Needless to say, I got up early on Monday Memorial Day, and while everyone else was BBQing and partying, I went into work with the empty back-up DVD-RW, passing-up scheduled chores and a food shopping trip to get many needed items, to investigate the situation.

I found the MS-Back-Up file (*.bkf) on my Desktop, because it was 16 trillion bytes, and way too large for the DVD-RW I tried to put it on to, originally. Double-clicking it opened the restore utility and, after following instructions, I had the missing lscp file restored to my HD. I completed their estimate and mailed it on my way to Mom & Dad's, for a short visit, before going food shopping etc.

Something actually "worked as advertised", and I love it when that happens!

It looks as though I'm going to have to use the new WDC 640Gb external HD For my Office and for the 2 front counter machine back-ups, then unplug its USB, and carry it home for safe storage. Not the "best solution", but it works for me, right now.

Some People Just Need Killing™.

A local piece-of-shit, subhuman muslim sodomized and raped an 11 year old girl, just over in neighboring Shrewsbury (PA)? Nabil Al-Emad, 40, NEEDS KILLING! I didn't even know we had muzzie filth living in the area, dammit. If I ever "see" him, he's "roadkill" for maggots.

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager.

It's a little known fact that Darth Vader, the great Jedi warrior-gone-bad, has a younger brother named Chad. For this "less charismatic" family member, the Force doesn't always come through. Though Chad takes pride in his position as day shift manager at a Wisconsin grocery store, the floor staff doesn't respect him, the general manager resists being called Emperor, and the cute check-out clerk isn't interested, sorry. When a customer attempts to return a bag of stale potato chips, Chad hisses, "Yesssssssssss. I feeeeel your anger." When he is demoted to the night shift, he dutifully tackles the necessary chores — "now, the waxing of the floor is complete" —— but then gets his cape stuck in the cleaning machine. I won't give anything away, but later episodes show Chad drowning his sorrows in chocolatinis, being visited by an Obi Wan-esque ghost, and getting fired by the real-life mayor of Madison. It's all in a day's work for a sibling of the Sith Lord.

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