Tom's Diary

Today’s Activities

• Shower. DONE.
• Cat duty. DONE.

Log

11:00 AM: I’m up.  I lost an hour overnight due to the switch to EDT.  But I got it back by sleeping (at least) an hour later. 

01:50 PM: I took my first walk of 2011 yesterday.  I’m aiming at a hundred walks this year.  50 minutes yesterday, around Bellwood.  I’d love to take of 30 pounds myself, if I just didn’t feel so hungry so much. Such a plan is needed, as I noticed today that my legs (particularly my thighs, both front and back, are sore today).  When I’m in my best shape, I can walk for four hours without any thigh pain.  So obviously, I’m a bit removed from my best shape at the moment.  But I’ll correct that this year.  I hope.

04:15 PM: Watched the 2011-02-13, 2011-02-20, and 2011-02-27 episodes of CBS’s   60 Minutes   news show.

04:20 PM: Nap time.  Back later.

05:20 PM: I’m awake again. 

05:40 PM: Heading out with sisters Chirstine and Diane to visit Mom at the hospital.  Back later.

07:15 PM: I’m back home. 

08:30 PM: Put the curtains I washed last week back up in the front room, and moved a glider rocker out there.  That’s where I’ll listen to my iPod sometimes.  I used to play my old tube type radios in that same spot back in the 1970s.  Even today, some forty years later, listening to music there brings about feelings of warmth and fondness.  I miss the heat from the tubes, as iPods don’t give off nearly as much heat as those old radios.  But that’s okay, as long as they can play that old classic rock and pop music from the smiley era. 

08:35 PM: My glider rocking chair here in the office has developed a repeditive squeak.  So when it gets a little worse, I’ll take it apart and lube the bearings.  They are where the noise seems to be coming from while rocking.  Fortunately however, there are no scraping or grinding sounds.  So the bearings are probably not worn out; just dry. 

09:00 PM: Talked with   [Emmy].  I so enjoy her telephone company.  She told me about buying new pillows for herself today at Walmart and a few other items.  She spent several hours shopping; kinda reminds me of what sister Jojo and I do every Friday, though typically we don’t shop   that   long.  I mean we’re out that long, but do not spend that entire time shopping.  Typically, we shop, but then go and have a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, visit Mom, made deposits and withdrawals at the bank, and get oil changed in the car.  I don’t like actual shopping longer than an hour or so at a stretch, not only because I get bored, but the longer I spend in a store, the more likely it is that I’ll spend excessively.   As a software engineer, I could easily afford the levels of splurging I did back then.  But now that I’m a writer (a sort of starving artist), I must take every step to become as thrifty as I can, and one big way I’ve found to save money, is to avoid lingering in places that tempt me to spend (like stores). 

10:30 PM: Visited Mom today with sisters Christine and Diane. In short, she was sad, tired, and very scared that she’s not going to get better. They did the test for hemolysis over the weekend, which came back negative by the way. Good try anyhow. Yet, her platelets and white cell counts remain low, which could mean possible bone marrow implications that a biopsy could either rule in or out.  But Mom does not want that. As of this writing, Mom seems no better now than she was upon entry this time to the hospital, in spite of the doctor’s “she’s improving” report we got Friday. But who knows. Tomorrow, she might be very happy again. Her condition seems to change drastically every day.

12:00 PM: Watched the 2011-03-06 episode of CBS’s   60 Minutes   news show.

12:10 AM: Reviewed today’s blog traffic stats.  The thirty-day keyword hit count is now 605.  That’s up from 594 yesterday. 

12:15 AM: Bed now.  So good night, and take care.  Back later. 

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

None delivered on Sundays.

Related Posts

• Today’s Diet: 2011-03-13

Today’s Activities

• Shower. DONE.
• Cat duty. DONE.

Log

09:30 AM: I’m up.

12:00 PM: Made transportation arrangements with friend Mary Kay to take   [Emmy]   to the train back to her home this week.  We’re also going to dine out for lunch at a local Indian restaurant.  That will be the first time I’ve ever enjoyed that particular ethnic food here in Altoona.

02:00 PM: Heated up some ham and bean soup for lunch.

03:00 PM: We’re listening to this afternoon’s Penguins hockey game against the New York Rangers.

03:45 PM: I’m taking a nap.  Back later.

04:25 PM: I’m up again.

04:30 PM: I just heard from   [Mentat].  He’s looking for replacement bearings for his Best glider rocking chair.  Before he moved to Ohio last October, I rotated the bearings for him, to solve a squeaking, grinding noise his chair was making.  At that time, one of the eight bearings was binding, and applying oil to it did not help.  It seemed to be coming apart with the center shaft showing much side-to-side play.

04:30 PM: I recommended that he check out the    Glider Chairs   web site.  They have all sorts of parts for these chairs as well as what appear to be the correct-sized bearings for his  Best rocking chair.  I find gliding rocking chairs to be the best rockers that money can buy.  But they do have their problems, especially for people like   [Mentat]   and myself, who rock in them for hours a day.  That’s why I have several gliders here at my house; to spread the love (and wear) around.

I have not installed these, no.   But yes, one would have to remove the nuts on all eight bearing joints of [Mentat's] chair, and separate the top of the chair from the base, just like I did in October, in order to replace these.  I don’t think he’d be able to swap out the noisy bearing simply by removing its nut alone.  Why?  The wood in that chair is hard and will not bend much without cracking.  So, I’d advise against force-separating the two pieces between which the bearing is located; not without removing all the other ones as well to loosen up the whole assembly.

04:41 PM: The second period in the hockey game just ended.  However, the Pens are losing to the Rangers, 5 to 2.  They started out looking very good with a 2 to 0 lead in the first period.  But it’s been downhill for the Penguins ever since.

04:57 PM: It warmed considerably outside today.  Currently, the temperature is 48 degrees on our east parch.  It’s been windy and partly sunny all day.

07:00 PM: Our “pre Valentine’s Day” dinner here tonight consisted of two loin beef steaks, fried vegetables, and pomegranate blueberry juice. Simple, compared to sister Mary Ann’s, which consisted of steaks, real crab cakes from Maryland, and several other courses.  Still though, ours was plenty tasty just the same, and a whole lot cheaper to boot. 

09:40 PM: Watched the 2011-02-08 and 2011-02-09 (Bossy Husbands) episodes of   Dr. Phil   on the DVR.

11:25 PM: Surfed the Internet and Facebooked in little sessions throughout the evening.  Friend count: 426, Fan count: 102.

11:30 PM: Gave [Emmy] one of her Valentine’s Day gifts.  It’s a red and white bear with a puffy heart in its left hand that says “Kiss me” on it.

12:25 PM: We sat around and talked for an hour before growing too tired to think strait.

12:30 AM: Bed time at last.  More later.  Good night.

Tom Hesley

Received Mail and Shipments

No deliveries on Sunday.

Related Posts

• Today’s Diet: 2011-02-13

Today’s Activities

• Shower.  DONE.
• Schedule appointment for Mom with the retina specialists in Johnstown for sometime in April, 2010.
• Still fighting my   current cold, though it’s almost completely cleared up.

Log

07:00 AM: I’m up. My weight is unchanged from yesterday.  It’s still  177.0 Lbs.

07:20 AM: Cooked us both a scrambled-egg-and-pumpernickel-toast breakfast.

08:45 AM: Enabled automatic generation of meta description tags in all blogs.  This should eliminate numerous reported SEO errors and encourage search engines to index more of my posts.  We’ll have to wait and see if it actually accomplishes that.

10:00 AM: Watched KDKA TV’s   Pittsburgh Today Live   show.

11:00 AM: Determined the parts and tools required to fix   [Emmy]‘s   file cabinet drawer, to make it close properly.  Heading to Home Depot this afternoon to pick that stuff up.

11:30 AM: Moved   [Emmy]‘s   Pur water filter from her old faucet to a new one that maintenance installed in her kitchen earlier.

12:30 PM: Watched KDKA TV’s   Local News At Noon   show.

01:30 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless.

03:00 PM: The bank where the WPSBC Alumni Association’s checking account resides, failed to locate our account!  So for the second time, we were unable to add [Tad]  (our president) as a signatory.  On the first attempt, they determined that [Tad's] Id card had expired and this bank refused to consider it therefore, no matter that [Tad's] picture was prominently displayed on the front, and despite the fact that this picture looked just like [Tad]. While I admit that I could not supply the account number this time (as I did not expect to conduct this business during my current Pittsburgh visit so I left the check book at home),  neither could they locate the account by its name, by my name, nor by my social security number.  Very strange because I’ve been writing checks as the alumni association’s treasures for nearly six years now.  In fact, the business checking account representative that helped us, though her voice was pleasant, obviously was not going to go beyond what she had to, to save us yet another visit later.  She refused to search the records for key words like “alumni” or “WPSBC,” or my mailing address.  Anyway, by the time we finished, I had grown quite irritated.  Thus, I thanked her for nothing, and vowed silently, to move the account to the bank across the street at my earliest opportunity.  Now that I’ve cooled off, I still plan to move it. 

05:30 PM: Completed a   shopping trip   after the bank fiasco, to purchase some repair supplies for   [Emmy's]   dwelling.

06:15 PM: Our supper tonight consisted of trout, vegetable-noodle soup, and Dove peanut butter and milk chocolate morsels for dessert.

06:45 PM: Tightened all screws in   [Emmy's]   glider rocking chairs.  This silenced all squeaks, which had been accumulating over the nearly two years since we bought this furniture.

07:00 PM: Added one long, thick-threaded screw to   [Emmy's]   file cabinet, to sure up the top drawer.  Recently, she’s been unable to close this compartment due to its bottom panel sagging.  The piece that had provided the front-to-back strength in the draw had come unglued.  This new screw should restore that holding power, and then some. I brought some graphite lubricant home as well for the time when, eventually, the joints in these gliders start squeaking in ways that tightening screws does not quiet.

08:00 PM: Applied nylon sealing tape to   [Emmy's]  Pur water filter to stop the leaks resulting from moving the filter to the new faucet earlier today.

12:15 AM: Read the   Team of Rivals    book some.

12:30 AM: In tonight’s SEO report, there were 1569 errors and 7 warnungs; a vast improvement from yesterday.  I’ll keep revising the sites until both these numbers are 0.

12:25 AM: Bed time. Catch you later on.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Book: Team of Rivals
• Common Cold: 2010-02
• Shopping Trip: 2010-03-05
• Today’s Diet: 2010-03-05
• Tom’s Diary Revisions: 2010-03-05

Mailed to camp the final application forms. Should receive final confirmation in the next week or two.

Some screws broke in the office rocker. Replaced those and re glued the affected joints.

Obtained the funds for this weekend’s Philly trip and party.

Laundered all whites this afternoon.

Left [Jack] a voice mail, reminding him that I’ll be arriving at his place Friday afternoon.

Completed uploading December, 2005 through May, 2006 sent emails to the blogs.

Cut the grass today. The yard will need weed whacked sometime this week.

Listened to the Penguins game with [Emmy] on the phone. The Penns won this one over the Red Wings, four to two.

Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restlesss   on the DVR.

[Jack] returned my call tonight. Unfortunately, [The Queen] won’t be able to join us Saturday. But [Jack] and I already have a pretty full day planned. So while it would have been nice to see her, we’ll still be plenty busy and entertained.

Tom Hesley

Initial Remarks

April, 2009 was a good month over all. I got a lot more done on my blogs. Spam hasn’t been a problem since I enabled mandatory registration of new users. My mission for the next few months is to finish uploading my personal email to the blogs, and then to start 

Accomplishments This Month

• Solved several computer problems for   [Emmy].
• Enabled mandatory user registration in all my blogs to cut down on the amount of spam comments I was receiving.  This worked well because I’ve gotten no spam since doing that.
• Published several hundred posts on the   Tom’s Love Quest,  Tom’s Diary, and   Tom’s Views sites. 
• Completed uploading my personal email that I wrote for years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.
• Paid Mom’s bills.
• Posted several messages of aid to the blindipod and portable-player mail lists.
• Joined a mailing list called Everything Adult Talk.  Stayed there a week or so but found the list too restrictive.
• So I left that list and subscribed to another, called Blind Chit Chat.  About a hundred more people participate there and most of them seem quite intelligent. 
• Cut the grass for the first time and trimmed some low-hanging tree branches around the property here.
• Began recording detailed journal entries about all the places I’ve lived.  So far, I’ve done McKee Place and Mellon Street.  This activity I believe, will help me tap into memories of my distant past and retrieve some good stories about my own development for the blogs.
• Mom and I reached an agreement about that noisy chair she reclines in.  It thumps loudly when she lowers the foot rest and disturbs me at night since it is located right beneath my bedroom.  We’re going to move the chair into the room just off the back porch. 
• Performed weekly backups of the blog sites.
• Sent out checks to the first twenty   WPSBC Alumni Association   raffle winners.
• The sites achieved a new bandwith-per-day record this month of 68.23 MB.
• Added links to site maps to all blogs.
• Installed a WordPress plugin that automatically updates the site map each time a new post is added to any of the blogs.  This is good, because I no longer have to manually update my site maps for Google. 
• Added several new categories to the blogs to make it easier to find the posts that were either written about or pertain to some of the most important people in my life.
• Posted various pieces to a couple blogs that talk about relationships as a means of advertising my own blogs.
• Discovered that the Victor Reader Stream has no internal clock.  So it does not time stamp the note files you record with it.  Since I need to retain the date and time that a particular journal entry was recorded, I must remember to say it at the beginning of each new entry.
• Assisted   [Emmy]   with a few computer-related issues with the Victor Reader Stream, and her email.  
• Balanced four checking accounts; all are caught up now.
• Attended Lions Club general membership meeting as well as the board meeting.
• Registered my blogs with Zimbo and Google blog aggregators. 
• Entertained   [Emmy]   for a week early this month.
• Fixed my squeaky glider rocking chair; I sprayed all joints with WD40.  So far, it’s quiet.
• Wrote PHP code for new archive pages for all of my blogs.  On these, you can get a complete list of postings, sorted in ascending order (oldest first, then newer).  Links to these pages have been added to the front pages of all my blogs.
• Helped my brother-in-law solve an iPod syncing issue; his iPod would not sync when plugged into the computer.  We discovered that the cable he was using between the iPod and the computer was a charge-only data cable, and so did not support data transfers. Switching to an appropriate cable solved the problem
• [Mentat]   and I visited   [Emmy]   in Pittsburgh for a couple days. 
• My first new user registered to post in my blogs, although he didn’t post anything yet.
• Worked with   [Emmy]   and the Portable Player list participants to solve a problem where the letter x appears in the Winamp Media Library search box whenever you press the space bar and you are running JAWS 10.  One of the list people found a problem in the JAWS script for the Winamp Library and sent me a repaired copy.  That worked well.  So he’s forwarding it on to Freedom Scientific, so it can be incorporated into their next JAWS release.
• Registered my blogs with ask.com and several other search engines.

Planned Accomplishments Next Month

• Send remaining prize check to raffle winners for the WPSBC Alumni Association.
• Post all email from years 2005 and 2006.
• Make Philly trip in early May, 2009.
• Finish journaling about all the places I’ve lived.

Difficult Issues Still Ongoing

Tom Hesley

A glider rocking chair I purchased from my sister Mary Ann last year began squeaking too much the past few weeks while rocking on it. So, I tightened all screws underneath. But the squeaks persisted. Then I sprayed some WD-40 lubricant into all glued joints. I know, I know. The absolute best solution would have been to pry apart each joint and re glue it. But I didn’t want to risk breaking the chair because it’s a beauty and quite comfortable. So the WD-40 solution seemed a good compromise between risk to the chair, and likelihood that the squeaks will shortly return.

I’d appreciate any suggestions on how to make the chair squeak-free for the longest time possible.

Tom Hesley

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• Fixed Chairs
• Home Repair Bits: 2009-12-28
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• Ongoing Power Outages
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• Today’s Business: 2010-03-05
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Dear [Ann],

I wrote a while this morning, but glued a broken chest drawer together this afternoon. There’s a missing piece however, and I have to find a piece of wood to fashion into something similar to that missing piece.

Tom

Dear sister Christine,

[She wrote recently, asking what is going on with me.] Noting much. Work is busy, put my waterbed together and filled it on Tuesday. Had to order a new safety liner though, before filling could proceed. The one I had was in very bad shape and probably wouldn’t have stopped a flood should the mattress have sprung a leak. Also, I bought some very soft mattress pads. Now the bed is as comfortable as those on display in waterbed stores. I’m sure glad to have it back.

Sorry I missed you (again). I’ll have to remember to log out of IM when I step away from my PC, so people don’t IM me, and then wonder why I’m not responding.

Talk to you later.

Tom

Dear sister Jojo,

You’re welcome, on the birthday wishes that is. [She thanked me for wishing her a happy birthday.]

No further updates yet on the TV stand. Having trouble getting that store manager to return my calls. Will try again today.

Mom mentioned that you didn’t make it to Candi and Joe’s because the kids were so sick. Wow. Sounds like you’re running a sanitarium there, like they used to have at the beginning of the 20th century, for people with tuberculosis. Hopefully, no sickness is THAT serious there.

Yep, I’m ready for spring to arrive. The extreme cold this year sure made this winter inconvenient.  

I did go out with my friends, yes. A good time was had, as usual. I would like to expand my social circle though, a bit more, to include people who are in my field, and other scientific disciplines. Hope to resume work on that once I get this apartment in order. Glued the CD case together this weekend. So once it dries, and the CDs loaded onto it, that will be one less bit of clutter around here.  The older I get, the more like [sister] Diane I become. Can’t stand clutter, yet my place is quite cluttered at the moment.

Don’t forget to move my dental cleaning appointment. I’ll be in Altoona for sure the week of March 26th through March 30th. Schedule it for any time during this period and I’ll be able to come in.

Well, have to get to work. Have a good week, and will talk to you later.

Tom

Dear   [Lynn],

So sorry, Dear. Poor thing.

Jo Ann surprised me tonight with a trip to the store. We also dropped my DVD player off at Circuit City. We left around 5:15.

The office chair has been repaired. Had trouble getting the old parts to come off. But nothing a big hammer couldn’t fix. Don’t worry, I don’t work on computers with hammers.

Catch you after while. I’m off for my walk.

Tom

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