Just finished cutting the grass. Partly sunny today and the humidity is low. Temps are in the upper 60s at present. Will need to get more gas prior to the next cutting however. We use about ten gallons of gasoline in the yard equipment per year.
Tom Hesley
Weekly backups of all my blog sites completed. Total disk space: 34.7 MB, which includes all databases, site code, and static pages. That’s an increase of 3.6 MB from 31.1 MB in early August. Much of this increase however, was due to database expansions that happened during the upgrade of all blogs to WordPress 2.8.4 from WordPress 2.7.1.
Note that no backups were taken the past couple weeks due to low blog activity.
Tom Hesley
I spent several hours on the telephone, social networking, where I argued why a disabled person might choose, legitimately, not to work.
Still nursing the cold I picked up at camp. The slight cough remains, though it is getting better; slowly.
Watched NBC Nightly News and several episodes of the Young and the Restless.
Talked with [Emmy]. We’re in the process of selecting a new anti-virus software package for her computer. So far, the top contenders are Avast, AVG, and Nod32.
Mom is still in the hospital from having a toe on her left foot amputated yesterday. Talked with her on the phone this afternoon. Her spirits seem good and she’s looking forward to coming home tomorrow.
Received a letter from [Vee], in which she apologizes for her transgressions when she and I were dating some eight years ago. She claims to have found God and that He has changed her life such that now, she feels that she would treat me much better. She’s asking for my forgiveness. But I’m not buying however. I started over with her a few times between 1997 and 2001, only to be disappointed each and every time I tried.
Upgraded all blogs to WordPress 2.8.4. No problems discovered so far, although the upgrades have overwritten my code modifications that display more posts in the Recent Posts section of each page. The code layout has changed sufficiently enough that I can’t just copy the files I modified back into the installation. I’ll have to figure out where to make these changes in this latest WordPress version, as the routines I modified before have been eliminated.
Weather today: Mostly cloudy, rainy, and humid. High temperatures were in the mid 80s here on the back porch.
Tom Hesley
Several hours on the telephone, social networking.
Still nursing the cold I picked up at camp. Only a slight cough remains. I feel great otherwise.
Watched all outstanding episodes of 60 Minutes and NBC Nightly News.
Talked with [Emmy] on the phone.
Mom had a toe on her left foot amputated today. She called to say that she got through the operation without problems and hopefully, she’ll be home from the hospital in a few days.
Weather today: Partly sunny and humid. High temperature was 90 degrees here on the back porch.
Tom Hesley
Visited [Emmy]. Went there via train on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 and returned home on Sunday, August 16th, 2009.
Upon my arrival, [Emmy] showed me a lump on her neck that was about the diameter of a quarter and protruded three quarters of an inch. It was located over top of her spine. So we went to the emergency room at ShadysideHospital. After an hour or so of filling out paperwork and waiting, they drained the lump, which turned out to be just a very large pimple with a cyst inside. The put her on an antibiotic and suggested that she see her dermatologist once the sore heals to get the cystremoved. The sore healed well during the week with no signs of infection apparent. She’s going to see a doctor next week about getting that cyst removed.
We watched The Young and the Restless, Dr. Phil, NBC Nightly News, and CNN’s AC 360 all week, and when she and I weren’t hanging out together, I spent time social networking on the phone. [Emmy] really likes “I Dream of Jeannie”. So we watched several episodes of that from season 4. We only have one disc left in season 4 to see, before moving on the fifth and final season.
We ate at our favorite Indian restaurant down the street on Tuesday, enjoyed hoagies from Little Nipper’s Pizza on Thursday, and had Chinese food on Saturday. I cooked two salmon fillets on her George Foreman grill one evening, along with some broccoli. We also had lots of raisin bran and Kashi cereal too for breakfast.
I reformatted [Emmy's] computer in order to completely rid it of the Norton Internet Security suite software as well as to clean out the registry and speed up the computer. Unfortunately, we lost some Winamp bookmarks in the process. But there were only a few and they were links that [Emmy] had written down elsewhere. So not a terribly big deal. We must decide which anti virus software to install now, and we’ve narrowed the selections down to Avast, AVG, and Nod32. Will investigate further next week to see which of these best suits [Emmy's] needs.
We listened to lots of music and spent some hours on my current favorite social networking site.
I meant to do some journaling this week but never got around to it. So this entry will have to suffice.
[Emmy] gave me some very long and pleasant massages. She’s a gem.
Nothing noteworthy happened on the tran trips to and from Pittsburgh. Just nice, gentle rides in well air-conditioned cars and garden burgers for lunch each way.
Cell phone service is more reliable these days along the root than it’s ever been before, although there are still plenty of dropouts when the train passes under tunnels or is too far away from either Altoona, Johnstown, Greensburg, or Pittsburgh. Service is still rather spotty. But I’m encouraged by how much better it is not than it was, even just six years ago.
Tom Hesley
03:00 PM: Bought two pork BBQ sandwiches at Sheetz, and ate them at the pavilion. Thsy contained the follwing items:
Total cost: $7.39.
Spent several hours social networking via the telephone.
Still nursing the cold I picked up at camp. No improvement since yesterday and there is evidence that a sinus infection is in progress.
Watched a couple hours of CBS’s 60 Minutes and NBC’s Nightly News.
Added a short post to the Tom’s Love Quest blog. Click here to read it.
Bought a Sheetz MTO steak sub for lunch.
Did a DJ gig a 50th class of ’59 reunion today, at the Blairmont Country Club in Hollidaysburg, PA. Click here to read more about it.
Talked with [Emmy] on the telephone.
Weather today: Mostly cloudy and humid. High temps in the low 80s.
Tom Hesley
Did a mobile DJ gig today for the Bellwood Antis High School class of 1959. Played all late 1950s and early 1960s music for them. They enjoyed it and I had fun playing it and reminiscing along with them. I knew this music well, as Mom often played it on the record player and on the kitchen radio when I was a child.
Nephew Garrett transported me and the equipment to the Blairmont Country Club in Hollidaysburg, PA, and helped me set up. We left here at 3:00 PM, and everything was hooked up and working by around 4:15 PM.
Garrett hung around, playing some of the modern rock music that he likes until around 5:30 PM, as people began arriving. I paid him $30 for his work.
The official gig began at 6:00 PM, as people socialized and ate Hors D’oeuvres, which consisted of Bruschetta and breaded chicken balls. This part went until 7:00 PM, when they all went into the next room for the main meal. I had a break then, until 8:30 PM, where I listen to my messages on my currently-favorite social networking site, and admired the view as seen through the windows in the dance hall. These overlooked a big swimming pool and lots of mountains and hills off in the distance.
At 8:30, we began the “formal” part of the gig, and played lots of fast and slow dance songs in groups of three or four fast songs to three slow ones. The gig ended at 10:00 PM.
Then, I loaded all equipment into Mom’s car and we drove it to the storage place and put it away. It’s there now, ready for the next gig, which probably won’t be until next summer. I like the exercise I get from heaving around those speakers and amplifiers. I suppose DJing is my workout routine though I don’t do it very often. I like that too. 
Take care.
Tom Hesley
For lunch today, I went to Sheetz convenience store and purchased a steak sub, with the following ingredients:
Total cost: $7.39
Tom Hesley