Archive for May 7th, 2010

Today’s Business: 2010-05-07

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Today’s Activities

  • Shower.  DONE.
  • Cat duty.   DONE.

Log

07:00 AM: I’m up.

07:05 AM: Read some of the      book overnight.

09:35 AM: Upgraded to Avast antivirus software, version 5.0.545 and the DynDNS updater, version 4.1.6.

09:45 PM: Signed [Emmy] and myself up to be notified vie email when Verizon FiOS comes to our respective areas.

10:10 AM: Facebooked for a half-hour.  Up to 110 friends now.  Goal: 1000.

11:20 AM: My weight held steady again since yesterday.  It’s still 176.5 Lbs.  See   here   for a summary of the progress on this goal so far in 2010.

12:00 PM: Added the   Facebook Tid Bits: 2010-05-06  and    Facebook Tid Bits: 2010-05-07   pieces.
02:00 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.
02:35 PM: Received notice today from Mom’s bank, that her medical insurance company is attempting to make monthly drafts against the wrong account number (an extra zero is on the end).  So I logged onto the insurance company’s site and deleted the old (erroneous) account information, and added the correct info.
04:30 PM: Got in touch with [Brandon] again on Facebook after nine years, and he and I emailed back and fourth for the past couple hours.
05:00 PM: Added the   Facebook Tid Bits: 2010-02-05   piece.
07:30 PM: Tidied up the bedroom and set up my powered Altec stereo speakers on the chest again.  I had moved them to make space for [Emmy's] new stereo.  But now that all her Christmas gifts have been transported to Pittsburgh, I’ve got that space back again.  The iPods sound great on these speakers.
07:40 PM: Created audio journal episode:  AJE-2010-05-07-19-30.
08:30 PM: Watched today’s episode of   NBC’s Nightly News   on the DVR.
09:15 PM: Watched today’s episode of   Dr. Phil   on the DVR.
11:08 PM: Finished up on the phone with [Emmy].
11:10 PM: Facebooked throughout the day.  Friends count: 121.
11:15 PM: Getting ready to do a hard software upgrade to all my blogs.  I have the latest version of WordPress installed.  But certain security threats found in older versions are not completely eliminated when you perform an automatic WordPress upgrade.  So, for each of my blogs, I must delete all the old software files and replace them with the protected ones in the zipped WordPress package.  Configuration files and content that I’ve provided are exempt from this.  But still it will take a few hours to accomplish.  I plan on doing that tomorrow.
11:17 PM: For some reason today, I felt like I was walking in water; all tasks seemed a little harder to accomplish.  Some of this is that I’m attempting to write on a topic that I should learn more about first.  So I’m going to put the piece I’m currently writing aside for now, and come back to it in a few months.  Perhaps then, I’ll know enough to finish it without spinning my proverbial wheels.
12:00 AM: Listened to Internet radio via the iPod Touch and the Altec speakers in the bedroom.  Sweet sounds.
11:40 PM: Okay, I’m quickly moving toward the horizontal.  So good night and take care.  I’m off to read some of the      book.  So, see you again tomorrow.

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

  • Notice from Mom’s bank that her medical insurance company has the wrong account information for her checking account.
  • Life insurance offer from AARP.  No thanks.

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Posted in DVR, Emmy, Facebook, iPod, Journal, People, Pets, Platonic, Portable Players, Relationships, Social Networking, Telephone, Television, Today's Business, Work Experience, Writing Business | No Comments »

Diary Revisions: 2010-05-07

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Documents Revised Over The Past 24 Hours

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in  the   Tom’s Diary   blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, decreased spelling errors, appearance,  and search-ability:

Revised Post Count: 18

Tom Hesley

Posted in Facebook, Revisions, Social Networking | No Comments »

Updating Brandon: 2010-05-07

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Hey. I’m so glad to be back in touch with you.

Yes, one big reason I left [the company] was that they seemed to lose interest in pursuing employee home-basing a couple years after I started it. So getting the level of infrastructure support I needed became more difficult. Plus, being home-based effectively dead-ended my career; my last year with them, I got no raise, and my last boss suggested that if I wanted to get my advancement back on track, that I’d need to return to Ohio. Couldn’t do that, as I’d moved in with Mom by then, and really enjoyed living here in my home town again. Nope. There’s no place like home. Managers got frustrated with having to deal with me over the phone so much, and as you probably know, I was thought of none too highly by Release Coordinatation and Software Support (I didn’t think much of them either). So many hardships and tough choices all converged on me in March of 2003 that I had no idea how to deal with. Thus, I just had to get out.

I’ve been a writer for the past eight years, and began blogging my work fourteen months ago. The bandwidth on my blogs is inching upward (5.5 GB / month at present), and so far, I’ve earned $10 from them. J Hopefully though, that will pick up as I post more pieces, more people learn about me, and I better optimize the blogs for search engines.

I suspected you were gay but never felt comfortable asking you about it. However, now that you’ve come forward, for whatever it’s worth, I support you fully, and I’m truly glad that you’ve come out. I did peak at your pictures; you’re much more “smiley” these days. Not that you appeared sad when we ran around together. But you certainly look happier in your present life, and I’m so happy for you now that you’re no longer in the closet. Just be careful who you tell though; there are some real jerks still lurking around out there, and I would never want to see any harm come to you.

I want you to know that I’ve never forgotten how kind and supportive you were to me when we lived together, and throughout my entire sojourn in Ohio. You made the Dayton years possible for me. But eventually though, my vision got in the way too much at work, the higher up the ladder I went. This would not have occurred however, if all the employees there would have been as helpful and understanding as you. If they had, I’d have made president of the company by now. J But eventually, it became clear that due to my home based status and my low vision, I’d hit a sort of glass ceiling there, and found that I simply could not continue working like that. So, I resigned, without a new job to go to. Thank goodness I was eligible for Social Security Disability Income. I do DJ work several times a year, and I have around 68,000 music and radio show recordings on the computer these days, that I play at the gigs. I also perform PC upgrades for the locals (one or two computers a month I work on). But though my income is only a third of what it was as a full-time software engineer, I am much happier myself these days. Leaving was the best decision I ever made.

Sorry about your Mom. Though your work might have suffered, you did the right thing by caring for her as much as she needed. It’s unfortunate that your boss wasn’t more compassionate. But now, you have a clear conscience as well as all those great memories of her, which will enrich the rest of your life. She took care of you growing up, and you took care of her, growing down. That’s as it should be, though our duties in this capitalistic society often make living that way difficult, as you found out at work.

You seem healthy. That’s good. I’m still doing well; though I developed an enlarged thyroid gland in 2002 (probably from the stresses at work J), and I’ve battled high cholesterol too. Otherwise though, I feel great. No girlfriends, but I do hang out with a very special woman from Pittsburgh; we get together once every couple months for a week or two at a time. She’s a lot of fun.

Well, to avoid the risk of this turning into a novel, I’ll close for now. Take care and write more when you so desire. Take care.

Tom Hesley

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Posted in Dayton, Gripes, Illness, Journal, Letters, People, Platonic, Relationships, Software, Special Places, Work Experience | No Comments »

Site Stats: 2010-05-07

Friday, May 7th, 2010

—–

General Summary
1. Host name prosaic-expressions.com
2. Host URL http://www.prosaic-expressions.com
3. Program start time May 7, 2010 07:16
4. Time of first request Feb 1, 2010 00:01
5. Time of last request May 7, 2010 00:00
6. Time last 7 days lasts until May 7, 2010 07:16
7. Successful server requests 682,688 Requests
8. Successful requests in last 7 days 53,370 Requests
9. Successful requests for pages 435,134 Requests for pages
10. Successful requests for pages in last 7 days 36,158 Requests for pages
11. Failed requests 8,283 Requests
12. Failed requests in last 7 days 417 Requests
13. Distinct files requested 37,941 Files
14. Distinct files requested in last 7 days 12,583 Files
15. Distinct hosts served 4,402 Hosts
16. Distinct hosts served in last 7 days 549 Hosts
17. Unwanted lines in the logfile 7,575 Lines
18. Total data transferred 13.456 GB
19. Total data transferred in last 7 days 1.856 GB

 

Tom Hesley

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Posted in Statistics | 1 Comment »

Facebook Tid bits: 2010-05-07

Friday, May 7th, 2010
11:56 AM: Mike: I wonder then, if it’s true that the AZ immigration law has nothing different in it than what’s been in force for the past seven decades, why there was any need to incur the political and financial expense to pass a new law at all? My hunch is that these lawmakers didn’t spend so much time on it simply to reaffirm an already-existing public policy.
10:20 AM: Hi. [Meeting someone who is friends with and has the same last name as a [Ann], a long-time school friend.] Nice to meet you. So how are you related to Anna? I’ve known her for nearly forty years; we went to school together.
10:22 AM: Aaah. I keep forgetting; friends on Facebook often don’t know each other as well as in other venues. Well, nice to meet you anyway.
11:09 AM:  I still miss my grandmother, and she’s been dead for thirty years this year.
11:10 AM:  [Talking about grand parents]:  Yes, many great memories, although Gram never chased anyone around too much, though Pap did sometimes. She had a poodle though, that barked at even the softest noises. So at night, when all were asleep (except me), I’d gently knock on the bedroom wall, and that dog downstairs would go nuts. Gram spent many a minute wondering what that dog was barking at; never hearing my quiet thumps, and never suspecting for a minute that it was me who was behind those bumps in the night that the dog hated. :-)
11:13 AM: [Soliciting DJ work]: You guys need a DJ for this [your 1970 class reunion] event? I’ve got lots of music from 1970 in my cmputerized music library. [No, they're not contracting any entertainment.  They just want to spent the day in each other's company].
11:20 AM: You’re a gem. You must be, if you know someone like Judi [...]. She and I worked together in the local Lions Club for several years. Always enjoyed hanging out with her and that gang.
11:35 AM: Did your husband ever join the Lions club?
11:46 AM: Yes, he [Judi's husband] died not long ago; within the past few years I think.
12:57 PM: Tom Hesleywonders that with so many statuesque women here on Facebook, how rampant the picture fraud is.
02:51 PM: Still at the same place, [Brandon]?
03:15 PM: [Brandon wrote back, saying that he's moved].  Cool!  I presume however, that you’re still with the same company. Holly and Hodge still around? We’ll have to catch up. I’ve been in Altoona now for the past eight years, caring for Mom; severe diabetes. I’m her butler, medicine man, and handy man.
07:59 PM: Well, neither option (being hated for what we are, and loved for what we are not) is very good. Wouldn’t it be great if instead, people loved you for what you are, AND also, for what you are not? That’s Hesley’s Utopia. :-)
Tom Hesley

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Today’s Diet: 2010-05-07

Friday, May 7th, 2010

I keep this food diary to stay aware of just how many calories I’m eating daily, with the hope that it decreases the likelihood that I’ll overeat.    It seems to work, so here we go with another day…

Today, I consumed the following items:

  • Herbal tea and diet caffeine-free Pepsi  throughout the day. 0 calories.
  • 01:00 PM: 1 small bowl of pork roast and vegetables.  400 calories.
  • 01:10 PM: Candy.  300 calories.
  • 01:15 PM: 4 slices of muenster cheese.  320 calories.
  • 05:00 PM: Lots of Kashi Heart to Heart cereal.  2000 calories.
  • 07:00 PM: 1/2 cup raisins.  260 calories.

Total calories: 3280.

Tom Hesley

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Posted in Food, Food Diary, Journal, Today's Diet, Weight Control | No Comments »