A Walk in the Park

Today, Jim and I took a walk and strolled through the Ridgetop Station Park.  On the way, we saw some interesting and funny things.  The park itself has a museum with some of the history of Ridgetop.  It's only open between April and October, so I have to wait to go back and tour it.  The park is really nice - it has a parking area, picnic area, lots of green space, and a nice walking trail.  The Ridgetop Garden Club has a small building there...also closed for the winter...and some nice landscaping nearby.  On our way home, we passed a home where a man had a sign out front that said, 'Handyman' and listed his phone number.  I thought it was kind of funny that his mailbox was lying broken near his driveway.  I don't think I'll be calling him to help out around my house.  (Plus, I have my own handyman here)  Then we read the sign outside the a church that said, "God is the answer.  The rest is just detalis".   I asked Jim if we should fix the sign for them, but we left it alone and laughed a little more.  We also stopped at the antique shop along the main road where "Socks are Back!"  I guess socks are a big thing for folk here.  :)  All in all, it was a nice walk on a gorgeous 65* day in our little town of Ridgetop.

Snow Fun

Awhile back, I promised some pictures from some snow and sledding fun we had. Here are a few pix for your enjoyment.

Jim and Connie enjoying the bonfire while sledding with the neighbors

Jim flying down the hill while Benjamin tried to keep up

Snow-covered oasis January 21, 2011

Our kitties like to sled

Welcome to the Family!

Some people in my family are known for misspeaking or saying one thing when they mean another.  This is cause for laughter most of the time.  Here are a few examples:
My mother was talking to Benjamin one afternoon about a movie and asked him, "Have you seen the movie 'High'?"  I guess Benjamin paused a moment, thinking about it, then said, "Grandma, do you mean 'Up!'?" and they both laughed.   Another time, Benjamin was asking me why there were 2 listings on the TV Guide for the Dish Network right after we had it installed.  Well, one of the channels is in High Definition, which is also known as "HD" and sometimes as "Hi Def".  I combined the two in my answer to him and said, "One of the channels is 'Hi D'". Of course, we both started laughing at that answer. 
Well, yesterday, when Benjamin was sledding, he ran into the guy-wire next to a pole in the neighborhood and really bruised his leg badly.  He is fine, but is going to have a purple leg for awhile.  As he was telling me about it last night, he said, "I was sledding down the hill and hit the 'man-wire' and bruised my leg."  Jim started laughing and said, "Benjamin, it's a 'guy-wire'" and we all laughed.  Benjamin then ran down the hall and back into the kitchen very quickly and said, "WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!" and we all laughed some more.

Wintertime Fun

Well, the Nashville area had some good snow this week.  Yesterday morning, it was right at 32* F, so the snow melted a little bit, but the temperature began dropping later in the day and the roads that had not been cleared began to freeze.  This meant that most subdivisions were icing over and going to be very treacherous...OR very FUN!  We opted for FUN! 

I got home early because I knew our little hill would be icy.  Jim had brought the little portable firepit out to the end of the driveway and had started a fire in it. Benjamin and another neighbor boy had been sledding a lot during the day, but were still going strong at 4:30.  I got out of my work clothes and into some playclothes and boots and went out to enjoy the cold weather and snow that had begun to fall again. 
The kids were having a ball, sledding down the hill and into the yards.  Then the adults got into the fun and began sledding as well.  Jim went the fastest and the furthest.  He actually made the turn at the bottom of the hill onto the side road and went pretty far.  We were going to have him pick up some milk from the corner store, but we didn't need any.  HA HA HA!  My first run down the hill ended in a wipeout...which made us ALL laugh.  After much prodding and begging, we talked Benjamin into riding on the sled on my back as I was on my stomach.  He was really scared, but after the first run with me, all he could say was, "THAT was FUN!  Let's go again, Mom!"  Of course, our second run ended in a wipeout, but neither of us was hurt.

We have a few pictures and if the weather cooperates, as I believe it will, I'll post those and more tomorrow.

Funerals are for the living

My mother has had 2 friends pass away since the beginning of 2011.  We all know it's part of life, but it's still sad when this happens.  Mom's blog today said she hoped we threw a party for her funeral, and I've always felt the same way about my own funeral.  I always said I would put some money and plans aside for food, drink, song, and fun for those who attend my funeral.  But wait, then *I* would miss out on the party.  Why don't we have funerals before we die?  Funerals ARE for the living.  The deceased may be there in spirit, but rarely will you be able to communicate with them.  (okay, I am not going to get into spirits and such in this blog...maybe later....because I do have some great "ghost stories")
When my mom's brother, (my uncle) Jim, died, we talked about funerals then as well and how we should have them while we're still alive.  So why not do it?  Well, because we don't know when we'll die...if we have our "living funeral" too soon in life, people we meet later in life would have missed the fun.  And if we wait too long, other's might die before we have a party...or we might die before we have a party.  Or maybe this is what birthday parties are for.
So I guess the lesson is that we should sieze each day as if it were our last.  Enjoy each moment of sun, rain, hail, or snow.  Embrace the sad times, because without them, we wouldn't realize how happy we can be.  Stop and listen to the sounds in your world, whether it's horns honking in a busy city, tree frogs croaking in your backyard, casino slot machines ringing in your ears, or just the quiet after a long day and the kids are in bed.  And leave the funerals for the living.

Laughing About Ourselves

In response to one of my ealier blogs, my sister Kim said she would never laugh at me, she would laugh about me.  So today, I had just set my things down at my desk at work.  My laptop was on my desk, my lunch cooler was on the floor, my coat was over my chair and I was going to get some coffee.  3 of my co-workers were sitting nearby chatting as I turned to walk to the kitchen.  My foot got caught in the strap of my lunch cooler and I did this lunge and large step, nearly falling over, but catching myself at the last minute.  On of the women BURST out laughing, just like I would have done, which made us all laugh really hard ABOUT what happened. 

At lunch, the girl in the cube next to me had heated up some vegetable soup and brought it back to her desk.  As she went to set it down, she tripped on the chair mat in her cube and spilled her soup all over the floor.  I actually waited 3 seconds before I burst out laughing as she was cussing and laughing about what she did. 

So today has been fun laughing about ourselves and others.  I hope you can laugh a little about our blunders or even your own that might be funny! 

Nothing to Post

I have not felt like I have anything to really say over the past days.  Nothing exciting has happened.  Nothing new is going on.  I'm just working...well, I DID solve a big issue after 2 days of researching error logs on one of our servers that is part of our phone system.  I guess I could share this excitement with you!  Don't fall asleep!  (You have been warned)

So once again, I was unable to manage an important part of the phone system.  I was stuck.  And the system is 6+ years old and totally out of support, so it's up to me to figure it out until we get a new one this year.  I was reviewing all the log files on the server (you know, the .log files) that were new in hopes that one of the entries noted as "MAJOR" would give me some information on what the real problem was.  I kept finding LDAP errors....so I searched on that information and read many articles on LDAP servers and communication between the two programs in the phone system that use LDAP (but don't ask me to explain it, please).  Finally, at about 2:30 on Thursday, I found a possible solution.  I knew that it would not interrupt any calls, but I waited until after 5pm to try what the page said.  I was to open a folder on the phone system server in question (we call it IPCC) and double click 4 different programs in this folder to re-register them with the software.  Well, lo and behold, when I double clicked on the "administrator.exe" program, I got a BIG error message.  It said that the "fchooker.dll" file was not found in the path.  Well, I kind of got a kick out of the file name...he he he..f-c-hooker....okay, sorry...back to being an adult trying to solve a problem.  
Not really believing the error message, I did a search on the hard drive of the server for "fchooker.dll" and it was not found anywhere.  Hmmm...the system wasn't lying.  So I went to my "backup" folder and found a copy of the  fchooker.dll file.  I thought about it for a few minutes...knowing that sometimes copying a file over to another folder can backfire...but I decided to take a chance.  After to copied the file to the proper folder, I tried double-clicking on each of the 4 files again as I had been instructed to do and did NOT receive an error message.  I then went to the actual program that had not been working and what do you know...IT WAS WORKING NOW!  I was thrilled!  I was able to manage my system again. 
Are you sleeping yet?  If not, I congratulate you on reading the text provided for your entertainment. 

Happy New Year!