Rants

Zone Alarm

Though I was going to have to reformat the PC this evening. I rebooted and when it came back up everything was really slow and whenever I tried to open an explorer window or the control panel, nothing would happen, then it would lock up. Rebooted in safe mode and even that seemed to take forever. When it finally did come up I copied all my files to the 2nd hard drive incase something bad was happening. I exported the run tree of the registry and then deleted all the keys pertaining to programs. I cleaned out the start up folder and rebooted regular. Tried to open an explorer window and it was still crapola. I then realized that Zone Alarm was running. It must have been started somewhere that I missed. As soon as I shut it down the explorer window popped up. I got on the net unprotected and went to TrendMicro and ran their free online virus scan just to be sure it wasn’t something besides ZoneAlarm. They gave me a clean bill of health. Next I uninstalled ZA and then reinstalled it. Same thing. So I uninstalled it again and pruned the registry of anything with Zone Alarm or Zone Labs in it. Downloaded and installed Sygate Personal Firewall.

Damn This Is Daunting

I’ve been using AutoCAD in my work since 1987. I am comfortable doing stuff in it, matter of fact, before we got networked and Microsoft Office I used to do a lot of stuff in ACAD that it really wasn’t designed to do. I am by no means an all around expert, 3D is a foreign language to me, but when anyone at work has a question, I’m the go to guy. Well now I know how they feel when they face with the myriad commands of AutoCAD and overall complexity of the program, I just installed Adobe Illustrator. I need to redo the Barndoor Fan Club logo and design something new for some T-shirts and it helps the screen printer (and saves me money) if I can give him an Illustrator file.

I’ve bought a 3 inch thick book on using the program, but boy howdy, it’s got a lot of commands with strange names and nothing works like I think it should. I imported an AutoCAD drawing and the text stuff came through OK, but I need to fill something and it won’t cooperate. I have figured out the object is a compound path, but I need to turn it into a plain path to fill it. Back to the book.

Tickets To The Masters

Tickets to the 4 day Masters tournament are handed down from generation to generation. They have closed the waiting list to get on the waiting list. That is not say they are impossible to get. For a price nearly anything can be had.

My wife and I don’t golf and are not really into following it as fans. We used to go to one of the practice rounds each year in the early 90s, because it was like $5 to get in and you just walked up to the gates on the day and in you went. It would be like living in Indianapolis and never going to the 500, so we went. The course is better looking in person than it is on TV and during practice the golfers are loose and having fun, you could take pictures and get autographs. Always thinking how cool it would be to go to the actual tournament.

Somewhere around 1995 they made a decision to limit even the practice round tickets. Can’t blame them the place was getting too crowded and the crowd was getting boisterous and the traffic jams outside the gates were getting really troublesome. The first couple of years after they instituted the lottery we got tickets, but since then we have been shut out. It seems like the tickets are going to all out-of-towners that come to Augusta and spend big bucks on hotels and meals. Of course the officials claim that it is a fair lottery, but too many of the locals who used to go are getting shut out too. Urban legends have cropped up of getting distant relations to apply for the practice round tickets and then pass along to the locals so they can go.

Tonight my across the street neighbor called and asked if we wanted a couple of tickets to go see the Masters tomorrow. We turned him down. We have nearly all our vacation for the year either taken or scheduled. Plus it is going to be raining and low 50s. If the weather was going to be sunny and 75 we might have burned one of the last two free vacation days we have left free. I wonder if our neighbor will think of us next year or was this our one and only shot at this.

It’s Been Like 3 Years & I Still Miss It

Sunday night isn’t the same with out the X-files. The only thing that is remotely worth watching is “Inside The Actors Studio” with James Lipton. This week I skipped it because it was a rerun of Richard Gere, but next week is a must watch because John Travolta will be on. On a somewhat related note, I could have sworn I saw Mr. Lipton as a court sketch artist this morning in “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” on the Fox Movie Channel. He is not credited with that role on IMDB or on the Bravo site’s biography of him.

This Is Like, Ya Know, Work

We had the deck installed on the back of the house 2 years ago, a portion of it was built over the concrete pad that was outside our bedroom door. The only thing on the pad was the grill and the only time I used it was when grilling steaks once every month or so. The concrete was mostly covered in moss and every couple of years I go out with some bleach and a broom to try and eradicate the green stuff, never 100% successful. They were supposed to get rid of the concrete pad, but it was poured like 8″ thick so after wasting a day with a jack hammer and only nibbling around the edges I told them to go ahead and just build over it. Big mistake, the moss just jumped up the 6″ onto the wood of the deck. I spent a couple of hours this morning trying to get all the moss of the deck. Just like the concrete pad I was not 100% successful. I got a big portion of it off, it is no longer slick in spots and the green color is almost gone. I used some deck cleaner stuff in a bottle and scrubbed with a big stiff brush. I think to do a thorough job I am going to need a pressure washer. Must be some one at work with one I could borrow, instead of spending several hundred bucks on one.

Mint Oreo Blizzard

A little background – Donna’s favorite Girl Scout cookies are Thin Mints. Her favorite ice cream treat is a scoop of chocolate chip and a scoop of mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone. Every time we go out to eat Mexican food she always gets one of those peppermint patties for a dime at the cash register. She keeps a stash of mint lifesavers in the door pocket of the car, her purse and lunch pail. I on the other hand hate mints, I like the taste, but if I get one little bite of a York peppermint patty it keeps repeating on me all day.

After our lousy dinner, Donna and I stopped at the Dairy Queen just down the street to split a blizzard to cleanse our palettes. There was a sign for a Mint Oreo Blizzard that even looked good to me. I asked if she wanted one of those, and Donna said sure. After it was made and she took one spoonful, she turned up her nose and said, “I don’t want anymore.” Great, I was stuck eating it while she went back inside and got a vanilla cone. Fortunately we’ll be going to sleep soon and I won’t have to put up with the mint burps for much longer.

USPS

I’m trading a couple of CDs with a fellow blogger. Sinclair lives in the UK and he sent me 2 discs already, got them yesterday. The fine folks at the Royal Mail charged him 1.89 pounds for postage or the equivalent of 3 bucks and I got it in less than a week. For me to reciprocate I will have to pay the USPS $6.40. I can mail it cheaper, $3.80, but that has a delivery time of 4-6 WEEKS.