Grumbleeze

What a glorious event! I'm so blessed to have such a big family!What a noisy boisterous bunch we are when we're all together! Could they hear us down at the corner? How about the next house over? It's a good reason for living "out in the country" even though that's beginning to close in on us. All were here except Janice and well, we just saw her Thanksgiving Day so that's good! We had a crowd! We had fun! We played and exchanged gifts and talked and bragged and drank gallons of punch and pop! We ate and then we ate some more! Took loads of photos and loaded all the digital ones onto our computers... made CD's for some... loaded onto laptops for others. All in all it was a satisfying, fulfilling day!

Our house is quiet again. AmyLou Mae came up from the "dungeon" and joined her fellow cats and favorite humans last night. We watched a movie on TV... The Others... i remember seeing all the advertisements for it a while ago. It was kinda dumb... then kinda exciting... and we went to bed at a relatively normal bedtime... and we slept in this morning. Life is good...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Last evening we went to the 5:30 pm service at Patti & Rich's church. David, of course sang with his school during the service. It was a lovely service with lots of singing! I enjoyed it. Today we woke up to sunshine AND snow!!! There was just enough to make the world look clean and new. It's still beautiful. Then I had a nice telephone visit with Natalie, who is enjoying the day snuggled in her nice little home. Just before lunch time I made a big pumpkin pie because David LOVES pumpkin pie and we are expecting him and his family for dinner this afternoon. Then I just went online and read Janice's blog. I love you Janice!. I'm glad to see you're having a nice cozy "at home" Christmas too! I know that you and Susan already celebrated Christmas a week ago and will be going to Hawaii soon... I for one am envious! Once again! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! HO! HO! HO!

Check it out! Alex's New Blog! It's awesome! Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas! Love, Peace, and all the rest of it too!

Click here to see how Miguel spent Thanksgiving! Hello! just wanted to show off Alex's brother, Miguel! Please pray for this young man so he will come home safely to his family. Miguel, remember when you were a little boy and saw the sailboat for the first time? You asked Frank if that thing in the front of the boat was for hooking it up to a trailer? (For you who don't know, we're talking a 36 foot ketch here!) I guess you've grown up quite a bit since then.

Sirs Lancelot and Galahad went off to defend a lady's honor this morning! What was her problem you ask? She was attacked by a big ol' virus, then quarantined by a big ol' company! The Klez virus: wasn't really aware of such a thing until last night's Internet SIG where Mary regaled us with her misfortune. Returning home from a wonderful vacation in Finland visiting a former exchange student who lived with her, she returned home to have scheduled knee surgery, and received word from her broadband ISP, Charter Communications, that her cable connection was terminated. What happened?

Seems Charter monitors email transmissions and denoted a BIG increase in activity emanating from her computer! It seems that Klez resides on one's hard drive and then sends off volumes of email with silly subjects and silly content to everybody on your mailing list. If you don't nip it in the bud, it quickly can get out of hand. We were glad to hear that the cable company is doing something to decrease effects of such a virus... but sorry for Mary. The company's letter to her related that she is "quarantined" until the virus is gone and a second offense would mean permanent disconnect from their services!

What to do? Frank and Larry (what a team)... were up and at 'em early this morning... off to save the damsel in distress! They tried but had to call in a higher authority... our trusted computer service shop. It's fixable but at quite a cost! It will require retrieval of documents on her hard drive and reformatting. She had Norton antivirus program on her machine, but it wasn't up-to-date, so she already has purchased the newest, latest and greatest of their programs besides the cost of cleaning up and reformatting her hard drive!

Don't have an antivirus program? Get one! Got one? Keep it updated! You can only get rid of those viruses easily if you are current. My suggestion, if you don't already have an antivirus program? Get AVG - a free antivirus program downloadable from AVG AntiVirus. It is highly recommended by many of our computer group's members!

TagBoard Message Board - Just found it! This was my reward for occasionally clicking on the blog of somebody i don't know!!! Been looking for something like this ever since running across "sticky notes" which i couldn't find all the script for. (View Source works usually, but you gotta know where to put the little "extras" sometimes - and they aren't always that obvious!) Anyway, now my only dilemma is - should i use it at SalasCove or just keep it here.

BTW - was gonna put Grumbleeze AND Later granni..... on SalasCove but the ftp blah blah doesn't entirely work - even though i do everything right. I know - it's just a little glitch somewhere... but no time to work it out now.

Hurray for James!!! Grandson number one just got a job he's been wanting ever since he started taking classes in toolmaking. He really has a talent for taking a piece of metal - big or small - and making it into something... and he really enjoys doing it. The latest creation he's working on is a model (like you might see in a museum) of a dinosaur. He drew up a detailed plan, cut the various bone parts out of heavy gauge aluminum and began assembling them. Another current project? Making a cable release bracket for grampa's camera. Talent? this young man's got it! Fringe benefit of getting this new job? He has the opportunity to serve apprenticeship at the company while they pay his way through college. Talk about a win-win situation. Congratulations James!

Turkey Day is gone and so is the turkey!!! ... what?

...no turkey? What a marvelous group my family is! What a compliment! They LOVE my cooking! Either that, or they were extremely hungry. It's all gone... the 21 pound gobbler, all the trimmings, the pies, yup, even the veggies!

There were eighteen of us... included this year was the Bug's wonderful new friend, Susan. Absent again... out searching for that big buck, was Windy's Dave. Hope you get one, Dave!

Such a noisy bunch we are... such a joy! Everybody catching up on what's going on with everybody else, breaking bread together, and more visiting! I love Thanksgiving. It's all the wonderful camaradery with no strings attached. The turkey was overdone... just the way we like it. The jalapeno corn bread - fresh from the machine - was funny to look at but delicious... a taste for everybody! Sweet potatoes, with and without marshmallows... wonderful string beans... lots of "smashed" potatoes... stuffing cooked the way everybody in our gang likes it - outside of the turkey - crispy and crunchy... mmmmm cranberries... the pickles and olives tray... the fresh veggy sticks... pies - pumpkin, cherry and apple... and the new family favorite dessert - a wonderful creamy lemon "pie" - a variation on weight-watcher's key lime pie recipe!

Thank you God, for my wonderful family! Keep them safe..... and please take good care of OttO's stepson Miguel. We don't know where he is right now, but bless him and bring him home safely to his family.