It is a bit strange. I saw them last year and spaced it until the foliage had grown back in the spring. This year I saw them off and on as they decorated the bare branches of the salt cedar in a random order towards the core of the tree (if a salt cedar has a core – it sends out new shooters and ends up resembling a main stem with a zillion offshoots).

The hangers are plastic, in different colors, and it appeared that someone just stood off a few feet and threw them up in the air into the tree. Who knows? Great drugs? They hated the hangers?

My generator is genning today, the air conditioner is on to give it something to work at, and it’s a PITA to do the ‘running maintenance’ on it. First the skirting has to be taken off in the area that the exhaust pipe is in, then turn off the main breakers of the coach, then turn off the 50 amp breaker on the electrical box, then fire up the generator, wait a few minutes and then turn on the main breakers to the coach…blah, blah, blah.

I’ve got my timer set to go move hoses on different parts of the property where I plan on slow watering 50 some bushes/vines/trees etc. today. Dragging those hoses around is a PITA too. My boy has been planning to come out and help me spray paint the trail of the drip water system that we will lay in – using a trencher – but the weather has not been on our side. I fear it’s going to do what I thought it would – rain, blowing wind, blowing wind, rain, blowing wind, snow, blowing wind – and then BOOM BABY!!! it’s hot outside. The last thing I want to do is crawl around on my hands and knees piecing pipe and joints together and then laying in the manifolds and micro tubing to each plant. Ah-h-h-h well, I am tough, but life gets hard on a single grannie at times.

I called for an estimate for a RV roof/cover for my coach – 20 feet wide (because I want it about 3 feet past the slides to keep the heat off of my windows and slides – and 48 feet long (I believe was the length we came up with). OK hold on to your shorts and panties. Almost $9k was the bid. Gee, Sir…I don’t think so but thank you for your time! I have other resources to check out and will see what happens with them, if it doesn’t happen this year, it doesn’t happen. But I did order a truck cover for the Silver Steed (Tenmile, even at the dealership they call it silver – not gray) because my baby sits out here in the sun for over 3 or 4 days at a time without taking a trip.

I must be doing a horrible allergy attack in defiance of something – possibly the desert as it’s in full bloom right now and it’s happened before – maybe life is finally getting to me and I’m allergic to it. I have my voice almost back to normal but the congestion and bronchial thing is unreal. I started wondering as I woke up about the 3rd time last night coughing and snuffling, if I would never eat anything again if I could see all the phlegm and mucous I was expelling in a glass jar. Yah, it’s a disgusting thought. But I can be pretty disgusting at times.

The rantables.

One is Microsoft. WTF is their issue with creating a software and then sending it down the toilet? When I first started PokerWorks, I used FrontPage to build it. Included in that expensive little package was a product called ‘Image Composer’ and when the upgrade came out for FrontPage, it had an upgrade for the Image Composer. I learned to use and love it. Microsoft phased it out trying some other piece of imaging slop that did the big dive. I still use the Image Compose for certain things but they should have just let it grow and kept building on it.

Another issue with Microsoft is Windows Live One Care. I love it. It networks up to three of your computers when you set one of them as the hub, does your backups, checks for viruses, and maintains your computers…you can use the same printer for your pcs without having to do jackdiddly. Not to worry, it is finished in May. And here’s the stupidest part of the whole thing, all of the backups that you did with windows live one care on vista, will not work with windows 7.  Ain’t that sweet? There’s some downloadable file out there that supposedly will allow you to access the windows live one care backup to reinstall it on your windows 7 – but shit!!!! Get real Microsoft.

Another one is the microsoft digital image editor suite. yup…it’s going in the toilet. I have used it since it came out…and I will continue using it until it dies somewhere in my next computer issues and cannot be resuscitated.

And one more rant for Microsoft, I ran the Windows 7 upgrade adviser. I was advised that I could upgrade. Yeah, right! It was not even an option. And after monkeying with the God of personal computing software – Microsoft and its latest windows version – doing a 2nd completely clean install to remove any dregs from windows 7 ghosts past, about the third day when I rebooted, I logged in with my password and it came up with a session of ‘loading your desktop’ before it opened. I don’t know whose desktop it was loading but it wasn’t mine. It had an error message near the task bar – something about the event log but I couldn’t click on it and find out what it was – and I did a near panic thing. I’d spent a week setting up and installing and thought I was finished. I rebooted and it came up with me – my desktop, not the fake.  And it’s happened a few times since then.

I went to search for this wonderful piece of shit issue and apparently it has happened in windows xp and in vista and now quite a bit in windows 7. SWEET!!! Fix it you saps at Microsoft!

The next rant is Western Union.

I’ve had online access to sending money wires for at least 10 years. Yeah, I have kids and grandkids, remember? My oldest boy is in a spot that I’d rather not discuss right now, in CA, and needed funds to return to Vegas. I went online, went through the process to send through my debit card. Got a ‘call this #’ message. I did, that was last week when I had absolutely no voice and the whole thing was miserable. After 10 minutes of bullshit, I was told she couldn’t verify my phone #. I told her to call me. They don’t do that. She wanted another number, I gave her a back up cell phone # I have. Nope, that’s not verifiable. It dawned on me, “Oh, you want a land line #?” yuppers. She couldn’t approve the transfer.

I started screaming, if you can call a hoarse screech a scream, that I wanted a supervisor. I got connected to one, he spent five minutes on the phone with me checking my information before he came back to tell me he couldn’t verify my #s. I told him that was the most idiotic bunch of bullshit I’d ever heard, since a lot of the world now has only cell phones, and that I lived out in the sticks and was sick and would have to drive to town to wire the money. He could’ve cared less. I also told him I would badmouth Western Union every chance I get till hell freezes over. So there you have it. If I ever have to wire $ again, I’ll check out Money Gram or something, screw Western Union. I look for them to go broke or be in financial trouble soon. I sure hope so anyway – fuckballs – do business with them for over 10 years where they rape you on every transaction and then you don’t fulfill one of their idiotic security issues and BOOM BABY! I hope BOOM BABY works ricochets and tangles them up.

Didn’t know I had malice in my heart did you? It’s rare, believe me. I never think bad thoughts about people because I believe it returns and wraps itself around your neck and chokes you until you release it. But some of these companies need their heads slapped a few times.

The last rant is also a joke. The government – that should say it all without adding anything to it – the way they spend tax dollars on the most ridiculous things. An example? A week ago the address I live at received two letters from the US Census – informing whomever lives here that they would be receiving a census form. Two – not one – but two letters, like is there a band of gypsies camped out somewhere in back that are claiming an ‘A’ address where I live? And then why do they have to send notice, since they are sending the census form anyway? Not to worry, they sent TWO of those…damn gypsies.  Of course the postal cost is minimal…puke!

On the poker front, I’ve barely played. I’ve not felt as good as I would like and it lends towards a gloom that tends to suck the imagination out of me…yeah…I need imagination to play poker. I did play the $50 or $60 (can’t event remember the actual cost now) miniFTOPS HORSE event. It was grueling. I made it to within around 20 players of the $. Typical no cards, dead ass in a chair, grannie style. But I’m not bitching about it, I enjoyed it. Placing in the dough would have been great fun.

And I have a request, Chau Giang has a special place in my heart and poker memories, you can vote for 20 players for the WSOP Tournament of Champions.  Please vote him in.

I’m outa here to see if I can get some phlegm loaded into that glass jar. Kee-rist! Have a great day kids. Back soon.