Peter and Paul

[In the days of Isaiah] the leaders in Israel were greedy for gain. They used unjust laws to support their selfish practices as they robbed the poor and needy.

[Mr. Dickie's comment: This goes on to this day.]

(Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 460)

30 Jun 2011

What Are You Waiting For?

(Photo: Mr. Dickie, columbine)

... I have a choice, I can sit and wait for others to communicate, or I can take the initiative... (Scott Walker, Daily Guideposts - 2009, 19 June)

Who's To Blame

(Photo: Mr. Dickie - Coneflower in our yard)

There are lots of ways we mess up our lives and we have no one to blame but ourselves. (Steve Case, Everything Counts, 23 June)

******

Yesterday I tried to learn more about using Sticky Notes with Windows 7. I have five books checked out of the library. Not one of them even mentions this application. Here's a link to some Microsoft online information about how it works. Sticky Notes.

I also tried out the Window 7 Snipping Tool. None of the books mention this application either. Maybe we aren't getting such a good buy when we purchase these books. Here's a link to some Microsoft online information about his this application works. Snipping Tool.

Mr. Dickie

27 Jun 2011

Misery Loves Company

(Photo: Mr. Dickie - Cape May, NJ Lighthouse)

Some people are so full of fear, resentment, and hurt, that their major effect on life is to make everyone as miserable as they are. (Larsen and Hegarty, Believing In Myself, 21 June)

Facts

(Photo: Mr. Dickie - Peony and Iris in our backyard)

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. (John Adams in Believing In Myself, by Larsen and Hegarty, 24 May)

26 Jun 2011

Defeat Of Error

The defeat of error depends, not on skill in controversy, but in the demonstration in life of the more excellent way. (William Barclay, The Letters To Timothy, p. 224)

Mail-Order Pharmacy

(Photo: Mr. Dickie - our crepe myrtle)

If we always wait until we can clearly see the path that lies ahead, many a life-enhancing journey would never start. (after Larsen and Hegarty in Believing In Myself, 15 May)

You may not enjoy it when somebody reproves you, but it will do you good. (Warren W. Wiersb, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 418)

The human race can be obnoxious. (Steve Case, Everything Counts, 8 April)

Today remember you cannot change reality but you can control the manner in which you look at things. Your attitude is under your control. (Helen Steiner Rice, From The Heart, 12 June)

*****

I'm experimenting with "tags" and Windows Photo Gallery Live. I tagged a bunch of "quilt" photos. I still didn't get "the hang of it."

My friend, Dennis, posted a nice photo of himself that he modified using Adobe Photoshop. I know very little about this application.

Yesterday I made post 1,900 to my Arrow Prayers blog.

My mail order pharmacy refused to refill a prescription which I thought still had one 90-day refill. They said I'd reached the year "cut-off" date. Then my doctor didn't respond to the pharmacy request for a refill prescription. Finally, I got involved. I called the pharmacy twice and the doctor's office once in an attempt to resolve the matter in my favor. I'm making a trip to the local pharmacy this morning to see if I can pick up a 14-day supply of the medication to carry me over. This incident brings back not so fond memories of a previous time when Melva ran out of a daily medication many years ago. Mail order is fine, when it works. When it breaks it's a pain in the neck.

Mr. Dickie

24 Jun 2011

A Word To The Wise

Do you consider yourself wise?  If you can't bear to hear a word to the wise, maybe you are not as smart as you think you are.  (Mr. Dickie after Believing In Myself by Larsen and Hegarty, 6 March)

******

Yesterday I spent some time getting the Windows Live Photo Gallery working on the new laptop.  I downloaded all of the photos on my camera to the Pictures library on the computer.  Now I need to compare how the Photo Gallery works to how Picasa 3.8 works.  At first glance the two applications seem to be quite similar.  With the Photo Gallery I was able to upload a couple of photos to my Facebook wall in a matter of seconds.  I hope I don't bore everyone by posting the same photos twice.  I can't rely on my memory to keep track.

I discovered a new version of the Google Blogger editor.  I installed it.  I wonder what new features will be available.  I see more editing tools on the tool bar.  The Preview option looks nice.  The photo uploads didn't work.  Bummer!

This morning I have Facebook displayed on the larger monitor and Google Blogger on the laptop monitor.

Tonight Panama and the U.S.A. will play a soccer match in the Gold Cup series.  I have a $10.00 bet with Melva.

This morning I'm listening to the Annie Lennox album - Bare.

Mr. Dickie

22 Jun 2011

Abraham Lincoln

I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference. (Abraham Lincoln comment to Frances B. Carpenter in Worthy Of Their Esteem by Iain C. Martin, p. 156)

Taking Time

If the wish is strong enough, the time [to do a thing] will appear. Time to take a daily walk, or to do daily reading, time to call a friend or write in a journal, time to attend a weekly meeting or do some important volunteer work. (Larsen and Hegarty, Believing In Myself, 3 June)

Father's Day

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.

(Pope John XXIII, Reader Digest, November 1960 - in The Harper Religious & Inspirational Quotation Companion, by Margaret Pepper, p. 183)

44th Wedding Anniversary

Forty-fourth Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 44th wedding anniversary. We were married in Newport News, VA. We have spent most of our married life in Maryland after arriving in the Washington, DC area about 1968.

Mr. Dickie

17 Jun 2011

Integrity

The person whose integrity is for sale is not fit to govern.

(Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 433)

[My comment: It appears that the shoe fits many people we have elected to govern us at the local, state and national levels. It's time to make clear that we will no longer tolerate this situation. Let everyone you can cast a vote to elect know that if they plan to "sell their soul to the devil" they ought to reconsider "throwing their hat in the ring."]

Enough Is Enough!

Mr. Dickie

16 Jun 2011

Winning

... winning doesn't mean a thing if you don't play by the rules. (Daniel Schantz, Daily Guideposts - 2009, 1 June)

Flag Day - 14 Jun 2011

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. (Thomas Carlyle in The Promise Of A New Day by Casey and Vanceburg, 2 June)

Molas

This is an album of photos I took of molas created by the San Blas Indians of Panama. They live on islands on the Atlantic coast of Panama.

The album is a Google Picasa web album. This blog entry was created with Blog This! using the Google Chrome browser and my new Toshiba laptop computer.

This is one of my projects to increase my knowledge of how I can share photos.

Mr. Dickie

13 June 2011

Pick Yourself Up

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again. (One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 26 May)

Whatever may happen today, I will think of it as a challenge which I am well able to meet. (One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 27 May)

Life is tough enough even when we have friends to encourage us. What would it be like if we had to do it alone? (Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 439)

******

This morning I'm listening to some Dave Brubeck music downloaded from the library today. I also listened to the Bluegrass CD I purchased yesterday, The Pathway Home an album by Keith Arneson and Wayne Taylor and friends.

There were four library books due this morning. How convenient it is to be able to use the Internet to renew materials when they are due.

Mr. Dickie

13 June 2011

Weekend Update

Yesterday I skipped posting to my two blogs. Today I'm posting directly. Usually I write the posts with a text editor and then upload the posts from the file folder of the editor.

I connected my camera to the laptop with a short cable this morning for the first time. That went well. Without copying the photos from the camera to the computer I was able to upload several photos to my Facebook wall. I hadn't tried this before. One of the photos was a kaleidoscope of an Iris in our backyard. The kaleidoscope was created using the photo editor installed on the camera. One of the photos was of a butterfly on a weed in our backyard. I took this photo for Melva yesterday. I used the camera editor to crop the photo before I uploaded to Facebook.

Long time genealogy friend, Darlene Bacon, is sharing some tombstone photos that she and her husband took several years ago at a cemetery in Monroe county, Ohio. The photos are available to collaborators in a Photos folder on my Box.net account. Darlene is the first person I granted Editor status to any of my Box.net folders. We are both learning as we go.

Mr. Dickie

12 Jun 2011

Breakthrough

Photo: Mr. Dickie - Lewes, DE to Cape May, NJ ferry

Before the breakthrough was made, we know there was a daring dream, mental dedication, and usually plenty of drudgery. (Larsen and Hegarty, Believing In Myself, 9 May)

Be willing to have it so; acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. (William James in The Book Of Choices by Mike Magee, M.D., p. 239)

Every step of ... life offers new opportunities. (Larsen and Hegarty, Believing In Myself, 26 May)

******

I installed Gmail as a application on the Google Chrome browser. I also created about a dozen bookmark tabs. This allowed me to read and write Email on the new computer for the first time. This is my first experience with the Chrome browser. I'm reading several chapters about it in a "For Dummies" book I checked out of the library.

This morning I typed this blog entry directly into Mr. Dickie's Blog while signed on to the new laptop. On the old computer I always typed the posting with EditPadLite and then uploaded it to Blogger. I haven't installed EditPadLite on the new computer.

Mr. Dickie

10 June 2011

Who Profits?

When laws and leaders are unjust, usually the poor suffer and the rich profit. (Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 432)

... pride does not easily give in to truth. (Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 276)

Today pay tribute to your mother. Her love touched your life and will continue to influence you forever. (Helen Steiner Rice, From The Heart, 3 May)

There's a difference between making a mistake and making a choice. (after Andy Andrews, The Noticer, p. 117)

[Don't get] ... caught up in mental movie-making. (after Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 141)

******

We are trying to deal with the extremely hot weather. The plants in the yard are taking a beating. Right not the hydrangeas are blooming. They should probably be watered twice a day. Sometimes I ask myself, "Why am I doing this?" The blooms are beautiful to look at, but it is a lot of work to pull it off.

Getting the new computer set up to work "for me" rather than "against me" is very challenging. Memory issues make it difficult to retain what I read or what I think I have learned. I have a Windows 7 DVD checked out from the library. I think I'll try watching that next.

I'm finding it difficult to stay current with my daily reading program, my journaling, social networking, blogging, Email, and volunteer webmaster duties. I skipped posting to my two Google blogs for three days. Yesterday and the day before I posted directly to the blogs. Usually I type the postings with EditPadLite in order to save them on my computer. Then I upload them to the blogs using the Firefox browser on the old desktop computer.

There was an eviction from a rental house near ours this week. I can't remember when this happened before in our neighborhood, if ever. We lost track of the number of rental properties in our development. Sometimes it's easy to spot them because it is rather evident that more than one family is living in a single family dwelling. Apparently the county authorities have no intention of trying to restrict the number of people living in any house. I try to remind myself that having a house occupied is better than having it vacant or boarded up.

Mr. Dickie
9/Jun/2011 7:50

Good Judgment

Photo: Dick and Melva in their backyard garden.

Good judgment is a result of calm deliberation, not frantic activity. (Larsen and Hegarty, Believing In Myself, 31 May)

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. (The Desiderata in Believing In Myself by Larsen and Hegarty, 27 May)

8 June 2011

Playing With Photos

Windows 7

Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand. (Native American Saying, The Book Of Choices by Mike Magee, M.D., p.193)

The threat of publicity ... [is not a] bad thing, if it keeps a man in the right way ... (William Barclay, The Letters To Timothy, p. 136)

******

Yesterday I attended the computer club meeting. There was no scheduled speaker. Dan Lee let us hook up his laptop which is using the Windows 7 operating system. Bob Blum answered some of our Windows 7 questions using Dan's computer. This is rather disconcerting for the computer owner because things get changed on the computer. Another member brought in two desktop computers. They hooked them together with a cable and a program called Easy Transfer in an attempt to move her data and photos from one machine to the other. This didn't go well. Some of us made other suggestions of ways to accomplish her goal if she didn't want to keep the programs. Several other little discussions broke out in the room. I wasn't feeling well and my hearing problems all of the noise made it difficult to follow what was going on at the front of the room. I decided to leave early. I left with more knowledge of how Windows 7 works, or doesn't. I think my notes will help me solve the problem I was having when I tried to find Windows Explorer.

I'm trying to do a little more each day with the new laptop computer. It isn't easy. The Windows 7 interface is markedly different than Windows Professional 2000. I was able to get the sound working again on the laptop. I have no idea why it broke. Apparently a driver was selected that turned off the speakers on the computer. The speakers on the big monitor are still not working.

I have two Internet browsers installed on the laptop: Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome. I intend to install Firefox too. That's the browser I have been using on my desktop computer. I was able to start the Chrome browser for the first time. Both browsers display the Toshiba homepage when they start. I may change that later.

I noticed that it's possible to create photo albums for Facebook Groups. I created one for our family group and uploaded a couple of photos to make sure it works.

I also used Facebook to take two photos with the webcam on the laptop and upload them to Facebook.

Mr. Dickie
3/Jun/2011 8:40

Passing Your Passwords

Watching television is the favorite leisure activity or rather inactivity for millions of people around the world. (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 230)

Lazy people can think up many excuses not to work and nothing anybody says will do them any good. (Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 425)

******

Riddle me this.

Why would a politician let his staff members have access to his social networking accounts?

Maybe he is just dumb or too lazy to actually post his own comments. Give someone else your passwords at your own risk.

Mr. Dickie
2/Jun/2011 8:39

Too Hot For Comfort

Do not wait until "all else fails" before you read the instructions. It may be too late! (Warren W. Wiersbe, Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary, p. 390)

******

The hydrangeas are trying to set blooms. Melva already applied the aluminum sulfate. We will need to be careful that we don't let the soil dry out too much in the next week or so. The hot weather of the last few days already did some damage. I went out early this morning to water all of the plants to get ready for another hot day.

It was so hot yesterday afternoon and evening the air conditioner couldn't cool the house. It was running constantly until I made an adjustment to allow it to shutdown once in a while.

I'm listening to the Herb Alpert album - My Abstract Heart this morning.

Mr. Dickie
1/Jun/2011 9:18