Tom's Diary

10:10 AM: I’m up.  Sister JoJo, Mom, and I are headed out to Walmart and lunch (probably).  Originally, we weren’t going to go.  Sister JoJo found out this morning that she did not have to go for computer training in State College.  So, she’s here, helping Mom clean a little.  Then, we’ll be out the door.

03:20 PM: Worked the   wheelchair ramp project.

03:40 PM.  We’ve returned from   today’s shopping trip.  Mom’s busy putting away her new red-trimmed, white Corelle Ware dishes, and I’m figuring out who owes whom for what.   

05:30 PM: Worked the   ongoing power outages   effort to protect equipment here against any surges that may result from these electrical interruptions. 

06:15 PM: Just finished processing all pending grocery and other shopping receipts to date.  Now I once again know who owes what to whom. 

09:00 PM: Worked on   updating all computers   with the latest Windows, Java, and Winamp et al offerings.

11:20 PM: Talked with   [Emmy],   and responded to a letter from   [Memtat].  He’s thinking of making some extensive changes to his diet in the new year and wondered what I thought of this.

11:40 PM: Finished modifying all blogs so that   they now include Goodle ads.

01:15 AM: Watched the 2009-11-20 episode of   The Young and the Restless  on the DVR.

01:25 AM: Well, it’s been a very busy day and I’m feeling its manifestations now; I’m sooooooo sleepy!  So, I’m off to bed.  Take care and I’ll post more later. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Ads Now Appear on All My Blogs
• Computer Checks: 2009-11-20
• Diary Revisions: 2009-11-20
• DJ Gig: 2009-12-31
• Laptop Failure: 2009-11-20
• Mom’s Status: 2009-11-20
• Ongoing Power Outages
• Reducing Food Cravings
• Shopping Trip: 2009-11-20
• Wheelchair Ramp Project

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in this blog for improved clarity, appearance, indexing, and search-ability:

Tom Hesley

Dear [Mentat],

Yes, I heard about Meckler’passing (details   here), and yes, I knew him pretty well back in the 80s.  I used to visit him and Deb when they lived at Moorhead, and we’d watch Hawaii-Five-0 on Sunday nights. 

Yep, Deb was on the heavy, as well as the unhealthy side – she had many medical issues, even in her younger years.

So, you want to make significant changes to your diet in the new year?  Feeling a little heavy, ‘eh?  Well, Changing life patterns involving food is, yes, much harder than with things that you can completely abolish without negative nutritional consequence, such as snuff or alcohol.  While complete cessation works best with the pure vices, it’s only marginally effective with ubiquitous foods; particularly when custom and people too, constantly campaign to get you to eat what you’d rather not.  Also the challenge grows in light of the idea that sugary and fatty items were often given to us as very young and impressionable children, as reward for good behavior, not to mention the notion that we’re somewhat pre-programmed to desire sweet and salty foods.  Those lacking this longing often didn’t survive in the wild in past generations.  So, not only did evolution program us to desire these foods, but we were taught to want them as well.  Double whammy! 

Besides, your situation is further complicated by your girlfriend’s relationship with food; she may make it difficult for you to eat well when she offers you junk.  Being that someone with whom we are fond can have great influence over our desires, you’ll probably find it difficult to stay on the straight and narrow if she’s baking you cakes, buying you candy, and so on.  If you’re going to maintain your resolve to eat better in the new year, then she and you will probably have to extensively negotiate, so that she does not inadvertently (or intentionally) sabotage your efforts. 

Yes, I’ve begun several successful weight-loss efforts in January, in years past.

As I implied earlier, completely giving up “the bad foods” all at once is probably not a good goal.  In my experience, I had to work into it over years because, especially when it comes to rituals surrounding the consumption of food, humans are indeed, quite the creatures of habit.  We want what we want, and this cannot easily be changed.  But I don’t buy the idea that a little sugar is as addictive as a lot of it.   While it is the case that the more of it you eat, the more you want, the reverse is also true.  That is: The less you eat, the less you want.  Now in an ideal world, yes, the absolute best approach would be to ban refined carbs like added sugar from your lips altogether.  But you’ll be hard pressed to maintain this stand if you run in social circles where people consume it. In my humble opinion, sugar addiction cannot be beaten by going cold-turkey.  As an intermediate step to quitting it, try using less of it, for sure.  But also check out the unbleached, organic sugars.  These are as sweet as traditional sugar, but are not quite as addictive because they give you fewer empty calories.  Also, that sweetener, Splenda, tastes almost exactly like sugar.  But it has zero calories.  Try this, or stevia, in your tea and on your cereal. 

Good luck in your efforts.

Are you at home now?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Richard Meckler Passed Away
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20

This year, as I’ve done every year since 2002-12-31, I’m DJing a New Years celebration party at Richard and Christine’s garage, in Sinking Valley.  I do not charge them, because this is my way of paying them back some, for all they do for me during the rest of the year.  Besides, it’s my way of ringing in the New Year, Hesley-style, with lots and lots of great-sounding   Tommy’s Tunes. 

In this post and the attached comments, I’ll mention all that I do over the next several weeks to prepare for this gig; everything from getting the computers ready and testing the sound and lighting equipment, to assuring that my hard drive-based library contains all the latest hits I’ve purchased this year. 

This will show that there’s a lot more involved with DJing a party than just sitting down, turning on the lights, and playing music when the get-together begins.  It’s not as simple as it looks.

So, enjoy. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• DJ Gig Wrapup: 2009-12-31
• DJ Playlist: 2009-12-31
• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-31
• Today’s Business: 2010-01-01 
• TTNorm Early Abort Bug

I just completed finished adding Google advertisements to all my blogs (listed below):

• Tom’s Diary
• Tom’s Love Quest
• Tom’s Views

This is the first time I’ve ever advertised on these sites, and hopefully, I’ll begin receiving some revenue now.  

Tom Hesley

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• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20

Every month or two, I like to power up each of my laptop and desk top computers, just to make sure that no problems have crept into them.  While I’m at it, I apply any software updates as well (such as Windows, Winamp, Java, and such) to them, just to make sure they don’t get too far behind and require monumentally large gobs of time to update when I finally do dig them out.  So, today, I updated the following machines:

• My office computer
• All DJ business laptops

The Compaq Presario 3000, the first laptop I ever acquired back in 2003, gave me some problems due to a dead CMOS battery.  Click   here   to see m ore details on that.  But the rest of them worked fine.  They’ll all be ready for the  DJ News Years gig in just over a month.  Not that I’m eager to rush through the holidays.  But I really enjoy playing music at that yearly bash. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20

I pulled this 2003 vintage laptop out.  It’s a Compaq Presario 3000.  Haven’t used it in a couple years now.

Well, in that time, the CMOS battery has gone dead, so that anytime I turn this thing on, I must manually configure the BIOS, which is a great pain. 

But in order to apply to this machine the latest Windows XP updates, and since I have no replacement battery at this time, I configured the BIOS and set the date and time by hand on it.  Then, the computer booted into Windows XP without further incident.  I noticed before this that the hard drive size value displayed as 0 in the BIOS.  Unusual since this machine utilizes a 60 GB HDD.  This meant nothing at the time.

Anyway, once Windows came up, I attempted to run    Windows Update, and got a message stating that the files the update process requires are either no longer registered or no longer installed on this box.  So, thinking that this might be an Explorer problem, I successfully installed the latest Java updates.  But this message persisted, asking if I wished to register and obtain the needed files.  So I pressed   Yes.

Drawing of the next web page in Internet Explorer 7 (yes, this box is really behind in the updates), happened slowly and in many fits and starts.  But finally, after nearly a minute, I received the following error message:

Server Error

403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.

You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

I did the same thing a few more times and got the same results.

But then I rebooted, and looked at the CMOS settings again.  This time, the HDD showed up correctly as a 60 GB hard drive.  So I exited and booted the rest of the way into Windows, and tried Windows update again.  This time, it’s working. 

I’m glad because if I had replaced the dead CMOS battery and this problem persisted, I would have had to reinstall Windows as a next step.

I’d still like to replace the battery and plan to do so.  Thus, I’ll enumerate the steps taken below, in the comments, to do that.  So do stand by.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Projects Page
• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20

10:30 AM: Headed out the door with Mom and sister JoJo.  First stop: Applebee’s for lunch. 

• I enjoyed some steak fajitas,
• Mom had a plate of Buffalo chicken tenders, and
• JoJo had an oriental grilled chicken dish.

Total cost: $47.00

11:45 AM: Next stop: Walmart, where we purchased the following items:

• $25 gift cards (4)
• Crunch ‘n’ Munch (1 box)
• Altoona Mirror newspaper (1 copy of today’s issue)
• 16 piece Corelle Ware Dish set (4)
• Chicken broth (6 cans)
• Storage baskets (dishpans) (9) for the   household organization effort
• Jiggers (shot glasses) for Mom’s meds (4)

Total cost: $231.90

02:00 PM: Next stop: Target, where we purchased the following items:

• An un-named Christmas gift for an un-named person
• Another un-named Christmas gift for the same un-named person
• TI-30x scientific calculator (1)
• Bocelli CD (1)
• Pepperidge Farm dry filling (2 bags) for our  Thanksgiving dinner, 2009
• Scotch tape (1 pack) for Christmas gift wrapping
• 18 Gallon tote (1)
• 30 Gallon tote (4) for the   household organization effort

Total cost: 281.46

02:30 PM: Next stop: Staples, where I bought the following items:

• 12-outlet surge protecting power strip (3) to protect equipment here from surges that may result from the    ongoing power outages.

Total cost: $158.97

03:00 PM: Last stop: Surplus City, where I picked up the following hardware items for the   wheelchair ramp project:

• 3/8” X 5” lag bolts (12)
• washers (for the bolts) (12)

Total cost: $3.50

Grand total: $719.83

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20

Log

04:30 AM Blood sugar: 53.  I gave her too much log insulin last night.  Next time she has a reading of 253, we’ll try 16 units instead of 20.

08:30 AM: Blood sugar: 174.  Covered with 8 units of log insulin.

02:45 PM: Blood sugar: 179.  Covered with 10 units of log insulin.

08:00 PM: Blood sugar: 211.  Covered with 13 units of log insulin. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2009-11-20