Monday, July 14, 2008

Monday finds me...

a bit sore from putting that new bench to work on Saturday evening for the first time. Since the box had several holes in it, and as it had moved around the basement while I made room for it pieces had actually come out of it, I had my doubts about all the pieces being in it but they were! When we finished it after a long day, I started playing a bit with some easy bench press sets while she went to the shower. Before I heard the water turn off I had done 6 sets of those and 4 of preacher curls; not much compared to what I used to, but enough to come upstairs grinning when I tried to get a drink and my arm didn't want to bend quite far enough, lol!

My laptop crashed on Saturday, deciding that I didn't have the authority to open programs or turn it off; John, my younger son, came to the rescue and we didn't end up having to start from scratch with it. He and the grandkids were here for a couple of hours while he saved it.

(Zonealarm had quit working with the latest XP updates; I went and got a new firewall called Comodo; somewhere along the way one of them apparently had issues, most likely a one time thing, though I haven't reinstalled the firewall yet. I had also installed a new version of Norton in the few hours before it decided to melt down on Friday night.)

We had planned on going to a movie Sunday morning, but Dottie wasn't feeling too chipper and we slept in instead. After some "us" time and a leisurely breakfast, she said she wanted another set of some roller rack shelves I had bought at Sam's; on the way we stopped by the nursing home to find my Mom at a crossword puzzle "get togther" with her head almost lying on the table while she held her glasses in one hand, backwards, trying to look through the right lens with her left eye. The other lens had dropped out two days earlier, but she didn't want to call and bother us...

So we went to her room and got the lens; left her the "reading glasses" I keep in the truck for when I forget my bifocals, then ran to Sears and got hers fixed and returned them. Then to Sam's and Petco since it's close by, and home again just in time for dinner.

Dottie rather felt like I had taken away her Saturday as I had vacuumed when we first got up on Saturday, then John and the kids came, etc.. Last night we settled down to eat with the first episode of the 2nd season of "Burn Notice" and then watched "Two for the Money".

When the "riverboat" casinos opened here I would occasionally hear people speak of how much they won or lost that weekend or the night before. To me, some of the amounts were staggering. At time time I had been driving a car I bought for $800 for several years and it was our prime transportation. They would speak of losing $8-900 like it was nothing. Later, these last few, I would hear of someone losing their entire paycheck, and be smiling as they said something about "next time".

I'd have had to jump off a bridge or something if I lost that much...I just couldn't!

Knowing that I have an "addictive personality", I've never gone to the horse track or the boats, even though I've been told how wonderful the restaurants are. Though I've squandered my fair share of money in my 52 years, I couldn't deal with losing it that way.

Mickey Rooney used to tell a story about taking Louis B. Mayer to the Del Mar horsetrack to bet on a sure thing. Mayer lost $50, and claimed he spent several million trying to get that $50 back.

"Two for the Money" illustrates all of this so wonderfully! The numbers are as staggering as they are real; quite a movie as well!

For those who visited Mr. Krupa in my weekend post, perhaps I should have identified him as I'm sure that's not an automatic thing for most of you like it is me; I'm sorry!

May the week be kind!

alan

Late update: The same XP updates finally got to my desktop this afternoon, along with an update from ZoneAlarm that fixed the incompatability issue I fought the other day. As it reopened, it showed they had blocked over 240,000 intrusion attempts to my desktop in the 5 years or so it's been on there...I really like having a good firewall in place! Now off to go reinstall ZoneAlarm on the laptop!

8 comments:

Shinigami Liz said...

Ohhhh, norton bad norton bad (fire bad fire bad,wait, what?) Avoid using norton at all costs. I recommend AVG, they have a free version that is just as good as the paid one that you can use forever (it is NOT a trial) that I used before I actually bought it (I wanted a couple of the additional features lol). My family uses it and a lot of my friends, I highly recommend it.

Glad to see that ya got going with the 'something something' weighty lifty stuff. :)

alan said...

I had to switch my old desktop to AVG a few months ago because Norton took up so much RAM it couldn't run it anymore.

alan

Jennifer said...

Zilla says, "Please, kind sir, excuse me while I shriek the eff-word at the top of my lungs for two minutes straight, without a breath.

I MISSED THE SEASON PREMIER OF "BURN NOTICE"??????

Please tell my you recorded it.

I've totally got to go bang my head against a wall for a while ....

Anonymous said...

I dont understand why the nursing home would not have called you guys! Geez!

Anonymous said...

I dont understand why the nursing home would not have called you guys! Geez!

Kranki said...

My bro's grandmother-in-law is a regular gambler at the local casino and she rarely loses. Apparently she has a 'system' with the slots. I've never gambled but I'm curious if I went with her and maybe rubbed her head I might come home with a little extra cash.

Ya never know.

fineartist said...

Well retirement hasn't slowed you down any, heh.

I'm glad you got mom's glasses fixed, and I agree with space girl, someone should have let you all know.

I've never been on a gambling boat, but I want to go someday, maybe spend twenty bucks, heh.

xxx

Angeline Rose Larimer said...

I agree with Fine Artists agreement.

What freaked me out was the 240,000 intrusion attempts!
I remember the days when nobody cared what I was up to on the internet. Or I felt like I knew how most of the computer worked. It has gotten beyond me. Maybe it's time both Tom and me get under the hood and learn how everything works again.