My 'old' flatscreen computer monitor here at home finally gave up the ghost. (sigh)

Anyway, I was forced to hook up a new (used, but nice) one to replace it.

I've been leaving the other one on 24/7 because otherwise it would blink for about 20 minutes before warming up (???) so that it stayed on. So it's going to be nice not to have to do that anymore!

When these monitors go out, they are gone -- and I suspect they have a pretty limited lifespan. But they certainly are nicer than the old monitors! I'm glad we have them -- both at home and at work!

I took some photos in Marilyn's mistressmarilyn office tonight while we were there. I want to share pics of my cube and her office. (I wish I'd taken some recent photos of my cube before packing it all away!) Hard to believe we're almost moved out of there!

Marilyn mistressmarilyn and I went to the new MOR furniture store out on Stark Street to look for a new lamp. We found one we like, but they didn't have anything in stock -- they were making people go to the Tigard store to pick up items. (yikes) An amusing moment was when the sales associate referred to the Tear-guard store. Another associate looked at him blankly before correcting the pronunciation to 'Tie-gerd' (which is how Tigard is actually pronounced). The first guy was from California and had no clue how to direct people to the other location here in Oregon. (I should have asked him to say Oregon, because most non-Oregonians can't pronounce the name! Don't get me started...)

Anyway, they have wonderful furniture at great prices. We saw a sofa and love seat set we liked, floor lamps we liked and more than one lamp. And we may have found a new recliner for me for the family room that was $200 (cheaper than the chairs we'd looked at over at IKEA). We'll go back later when they aren't quite as new -- unless we can get ourselves to drive to the Tigard store (not as convenient and far from where we'd like to go).

After that we went to the office to work. I needed to move Rich's computer and phone to the part of the bull pen that is still ours. The auditors will be using Rich's office for the next week or so, and as he's only in a few days between now and the move on November 20, it should work fine for him.

I was worried about the phone switch, as things had been moved around in the IT Room and the monitor for the phone system was sitting on the floor -- not easy to use from there! But I moved a bunch of (heavy) stuff around and got it back the way I needed it. And I carried his tower, etc. over to the new spot -- and unplugged and moved his phone -- and got him all set up again. Moving phones requires Server access and settings, so it's more complicated than just unplugging it and moving the phone. But I also needed to change the settings for not being on Daylight Saving Time, which hadn't been done yet, so it was all good.

Boy, IT requires a person to be a pack horse (mule?), I have to say. And to crawl on the floor and under desks all the time. (yikes) You'd think I'd be used to that by now, wouldn't you? (grin)

Marilyn had tons of emails to wade through -- and was getting ready to work on her budgets. Being off work for a week puts her way behind, but she'll be okay. She's truly amazing when it comes to work, so nothing keeps her down for long.

Geoff was there when we got there and working almost the entire time (he left right before us). I like him so much -- he's a really nice guy. He had the week from hell last week (he told me it was the second worst week of his entire life). He still can only receive and not send email (!!!), for example. And he had an encounter with a group of skinheads outside his home -- and a week later they came back and slashed the tires on his car and on the car of his girlfriend! (To the tune of $1,700, no less.) Plus he had sick kids at home -- and Julie (who he said is 50% of his operation) had her baby the day they moved in and has been out, which was totally unexpected. Poor Geoff!

We got Taco Bell on the way home and then watched some TV and had a nap. I got an email about one of the festival website accounts (we have others besides the main one), offering me a 'free' service. You'd think that I'd be pleased by that, but I was worked into a frenzy! The hosting service did this last year with two of my personal domains/websites -- and if you fail to later renew the PAID services, you're forced to republish your entire website! I absolutely don't want to end up with this issue for the festival website a year from now. Just skip giving me your so-called free service -- and don't f-up the site, please. I've got enough IT and website work without you adding to it, thanks. (sigh) Yeah, it got me going...

Marilyn seems to be feeling better, but I'm hoping she won't overdo. I'm still fighting the tail end of my own flu, so I know what I'm talking about.

And, no, I haven't started writing my NaNo story yet. I'm sure I'll get to it soon. (I'm not worried, as I know what can be done in a short period of time if necessary...)

I need to do my health insurance papers and get those in! There's always something...

Wow, and I thought this would be a short entry! (heh)

It's been raining like MAD today, with a lot of wind and nastiness. I'm glad we have a lot of oil, so we don't have to worry about that, as it's been rather chilly!

Marilyn mistressmarilyn and I have been watching a ton of TV and movies, as I've mentioned. Today we saw a couple of horror films (I don't recall the names right now).

At one point while Marilyn and I were watching TV downstairs, there was a HUGE CRASH upstairs! We both went running upstairs, and found the table lamp crashed to the floor and broken beyond repair. (It's been broken before, years ago when I was cleaning house. But it wasn't all that bad, so we fixed it and have used it ever since.) This lamp was one of the things we got for our living room when we first moved into our house, so we've had it over 10 years. Here are a few photos where you can see the lamp, which has a green shade, sitting on our end table near the sofa.







We weren't mad at the cats. It was clear one of them was up on the sofa or loveseat and got frightened by a gust of wind and caused the accident. We were just thankful both boys were okay! The floor lamp was also knocked over and leaning against the wall, but unbroken. As far as I could tell, nothing else got broken.

My cat artwork that Marilyn gave me was there on the table, so I was glad it wasn't damaged. But regardless, the cats weren't hurt -- and that's important. The lamp is just a thing, after all...

We're looking for a new lamp, but these are expensive -- and it's hard to make a choice, too. We did love the simple white lamp with the green leaf pattern and dark green shade. I haven't seen anything even remotely like it in the places we searched online...

I cleaned up the mess and am saving the parts for June june_bug_w, in case she wants it to make a lamp with (she's the crafty sort and does make lamps sometimes). So it's possible the only part that needs to be thrown out is the broken enamel.

Remember the wind I mentioned yesterday? (Well, Thursday, to be exact.) It was pretty bad. And today when I looked outside I saw our large deck table (glass topped) thrown upside down on the deck -- and the umbrella lying way in the corner of the yard, off the deck and near the rock garden.

Here's what it looked like right after we got it last year (summer, 2008).











For whatever reason, I don't seem to have any umbrella photos from this summer (after the deck got painted). Anyway, the print matches our cushions, as you can see. We were really lucky to find it -- and it's probably IMPOSSIBLE to ever find this one again.

The umbrella frame was badly bent -- I couldn't even put the umbrella down it was so messed up. I bent it straight and one spine broke. The good news is that the cover (in the print that matches our cushions) did come off the frame, so hopefully we can put it on another frame (if we can find the exact one, of course). The other possibility is that we can somehow solder the metal. (It's only one spine, so it might not really matter -- I guess we'll know next spring!

Anyway, I put the cover away in the garage, and after I got the umbrella frame folded down, I put it in the garage, too.

Then I picked up some of the chairs out in the yard. I need to do a lot out there, but I need to feel better first -- and it's supposed to be lousy weather most of the coming week.

I also stuck the oil -- and this was good news! We've got 250 gallons! So there's no need to order again for ages. (woo hoo)

We had pizza again today (yummy). And we've watched a bunch of TV and movies. It's all good...

We'll be missing the special Woodburn Company Stores Shopping Extravaganza that both Marilyn mistressmarilyn and I have $25 tickets for, I'm afraid. Too bad -- we were both looking forward to it. Oh well. That's the way it goes. The flu sucks.

Do any of you use AVG Anti-Virus FREE?

If you do, you need to upgrade to version 9. You can find it here: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition v9

IMPORTANT NOTE: Just keep saying NO to anything but the free version, unless you want the paid one.

Marilyn mistressmarilyn and I actually have been using the PAID version for our desktops at home for several years now, and it's a good product. But I use the FREE version on my laptop and it works good, too. So it's up to you if you only want free (which is a great product). But they're out to sell software (of course), so not surprisingly they push trials of the paid version.

Happy Birthday, Erin kellygreen!!!

I hope you have a great day -- and you have a wonderful year, too!

It's time for ANOTHER update, friends, if you're a Firefox user. If you do, be sure to check out Firefox 3.5.1 (it came out yesterday). Mozilla has issued Firefox 3.5.5, so click this link and go download the latest version.

What's New in Firefox 3.5.5

Firefox 3.5.1 fixes the following issues:

• Several stability issues

Sister Sue suzy_qp hauled me to Freddies to get a few more groceries (including the all-essential toilet paper) after she got done with her Thursday grass roots cribbage at around 10:00 p.m. Before that, Marilyn and I were watching more TV, in this case the On Demand movie "88 Minutes," with Al Pacino.

The weather here today has been very nasty! It was raining while Sue and I were out, but what had us all going earlier were the high winds! There are trees and lines down all over Portland and the surrounding areas, and they say it's going to be worse tomorrow. (sigh)

Marilyn has a parade creative meeting first thing in the morning, but needless-to-say (in my opinion, anyway), she won't be attending. She's pretty miserable tonight and has been having that terrible headache that seems to be par for the course with this flu.

I wish I could say I was a ton better, but I'm not. As I sit typing this, I'm sneezing like bad, have a sore throat and and still coughing, but not horribly bad, thankfully. I'd love to be over this thing, but I'm trying not to dwell on it.

Madhu announced today that she's pregnant -- I'm very happy for her. (Marilyn and I already knew, but we've been keeping the secret until she was ready to announce it to everyone. We've been watching her like mad to make sure she didn't lift things or work too hard, considering her condition.)

Kent has blown off another appointment he was supposedly attending next Tuesday (installing Comcast at our temporary offices where we'll be moving on November 20). Hopefully he's not needed for this and others can pick up the slack...

We've been watching episodes of "The Good Wife" (on CBS), which seems like a good show. Well written and well acted and directed. Again, a show that they played out of order from the original shooting, for whatever reason (???). As Marilyn noted, On Demand is the only way to watch these, avoiding slews of commercials. Plus it's great to watch several episodes in a row and get really caught up.

We were talking about how much TV we see this way. She was remembering watching a bunch of movies the last time she was home sick, too. Much of the time normally we just don't have time to watch it -- and especially not series TV from week to week.

We used to be so tied to TV. We had a lot of shows we'd NEVER miss every single week. I remember quitting a church choir years ago when they start having practices on Thursday nights during the time our whole family would watch "The Waltons" together. It was a big deal when we all sat down to watch a given show, so I wasn't willing to give that up. (I remember it like it was yesterday...) We followed more TV than I could begin to list here -- but we didn't begin to have the work schedules then that we do now! So often we work until late at night. There's only so many hours in a day, after all.

It's interesting how we traded places with our sister Sue! It used to be that she just didn't watch much TV, period. But now that she's retired, she watches a ton and we watch less. She used to really not get the way we were 'hooked' on TV, but now she totally does! We talk about it and laugh about it, because who'd have ever guessed it would end up this way?

Well, I'm going to take a long soak in a hot tub. My right hip is giving me fits (which hasn't really been true in years), so I think it would feel great. I'm currently reading Tony Hillerman's "Dance Hall of the Dead" (from 1973), which won the MWA Edgar Allen Poe Award for the Best Mystery Novel of the West for that year. It's a terrific read! I love the descriptions, which are really poetic. So I'll take the book in the tub with me.

I do hope Marilyn feels better soon. I know she must be antsy to get back to work, and I suppose she'll insist on going Tuesday, come hell or high water -- whether she's really better by then, or not. I feel so bad for her. She's miserable, poor thing.

This damn flu seems to be getting everyone!

I can't wait to feel good again. I'd like to do some pre-winter yard work (that I never did get to last year), for one thing. And winterize the house a bit, too. And do some housecleaning, which I haven't felt up to facing lately. And some more writing (I've got two contests and NaNo, after all).

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