Stock toilet paper to the ceiling in sharing 515

[The Purple Fuzzy]

Either things will change & you'll get it or you didn't need it.

[Lynx]

Bobby: A coincidence that incredible makes me look twice, and really hard, at whether or not I should have taken a deal.

[Roscoe]

Spent the day cleaning stuff up around the house, and working on Rusty. Dreading going back to work tomorrow. It's stormy here tonight, which means my internet is sporadic.

[Nelle]

@work. Four days off in a row were nice, but coming back to work after is for the birds! I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but I got some done and relaxed some.

Our girl cat (Tabby) was kinda limping/shuffling around on Saturday, slightly less Sunday, and I didn't really see any of that behavior on Monday. Hopefully she had just strained a muscle. I babied her and helped her down off of tall things, so I'm sure I've created a monster, LOL. Either way... glad she's ok. She's my cuddle bug.

Yesterday afternoon, I had laid down and wanted to take a nap. My mom called and I ended up not actually sleeping, but I was awake for the sirens then too. Blaring down my street and didn't fade into the distance like normal, so of course I shot out of the room to go on the porch. The house across the street from us was on fire. We sat and watched for a bit. Such a neat thing to watch how well the fire departments, EMS, and police all work together for that kind of situation. They were able to get the fire out pretty fast. I have no idea how badly damaged the interior is, but the family can't stay there now for sure. I felt so bad for them, and unable to really know what to do to help.. so I sat and prayed for them. I dunno.. It just such a reality jab to think of all the things I prepare for.. and I don't really have a plan for if something like that happens.  Thankfully the family and their pets seemed good. (This is the family that's constantly outside yelling for their cat. I don't know if I posted about them before or not.) It's a iconic house for our town because of the family who owned it when my husband was a child. Everyone LOVES the house, and it's a beautiful house, even with the damage it has now.

[Roscoe]

Yeah, the reality of what to do if your home was ripped away from you- pretty sobering.
I too am back at work, running 99 different directions.

 And I am apparently cursed when it comes to computers. I bought a new Lenvo S340 Laptop in January. Put a good antivirus program on it, baby it- last night I turned the music app on and in the middle of a good southern gospel song, sitting on my bedside table, it shut off. No warning no issues, fully charged. And now, it shows to be powered up but nothing on the screen, just a black screen. Google shows several people with similar issues and claim it could be a mother board. It should still be under warranty, but I don't want to lose everything I have on it! Ridiculous that it died that quickly. It wasn't a high end laptop, but at $400 bucks it wasn't the cheapest either.

[Lynx]

Sure sounds like a motherboard issue. Odd... Lenovo products are usually pretty rock-solid, but even they have had a few flubs.

Even if it won't boot, you can still salvage what's on the hard drive. Pop the hard drive out and connect it to another computer with a USB-SATA adapter. You can find them on amazon.

This is the one I got and it works pretty well.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MYU0EAU/

You plug one cord into the wall, one cable into your bad computer's hard drive and the USB cable into a good computer's USB port. The hard drive pops up on screen like any other flash drive or external hard drive and you can browse folders and copy needed files over.

If you don't want to wait for shipping, a computer store probably has something similar. Just ask them for a USB to SATA adapter. If that doesn't get it, ask for "an adapter to connect an internal hard drive to a computer's USB port."

If that still doesn't get it, give up and get out of there because they don't know what they are doing. :p

[Lynx]

[rant]
Apparently everybody needs somebody to look down on. I just can't figure out exactly why.

What brought this to my attention was the way a guy at work has been treated. He's a nice guy, conscientious worker, but he's... mentally disabled, or developmentally disadvantaged, or whatever the politically correct term is for "somebody not quite as bright as most people." He doesn't need assisted living, but he's not quite up to par with everybody else. But he's a great guy.

Some people at work have noticed his peculiarities, but instead of talking TO him, they have been talking ABOUT him and making up theories to explain the oddities. These theories really are quite negative, and the people making these theories state them as fact. I respect him a lot more than I respect the people inventing gossip about him, so every time I heard this gossip I have wedged myself into the conversation and mentioned his positive traits and explained the things they thought were so bad. But it still bugs me that I should even need to. Why don't they just ASK HIM WHY HE ACTS THAT WAY instead of making up bad things to believe about him?

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising though. Humans have done this as far back as our recorded history goes. But I wish I knew why.

Ever heard of the Sourdoughs? They were the earliest settlers in Alaska and northwest Canada. They planted themselves and started living there, made communities, and after they ran out of baking powder they made their bread with sourdough yeast because they had no stores from which to buy baking powder. When newer settlers came, with their baking powder, the old-timers used the distinction of their yeast bread as an excuse to look down on the newbies.

Yeah, that's right. They used something they couldn't get as a reason to look down on the new people who had it. Silly, huh?

Remember the golden age of internet, when only nerds were smart enough to use a modem and connect to other computers online? The elite computer users made up what they called "leet speech" except they spelled it "1337 5p34k." They used a lot of numbers and symbols instead of letters, partly because they thought it was cool and partly because it made what they were saying hard for the unwashed masses to read.

Then came AOL, and suddenly every kid could connect. The internet ballooned and "normal" people started noticing and adopting leet speak. Well! This just would not do for the true computer elite. They stopped using it, started calling it AOL speak and made fun of anybody who used it.

Yeah, that's right. They made fun of people for doing what they themselves started. Silly, huh?

But WHY?!

I have a couple of theories.

My first theory is if people can find somebody to look down on, they feel better about themselves. No matter how low I feel, no matter how much I hate myself, if I can find somebody who is lower than I and point to all his failures and faults, I can feel better about myself because at least I'm not as bad as he is. And if I can't find anybody who is obviously lower than I, I can pick somebody and find a trait about him that is different from me, and make that the reason to disparage him. Hey, it'll work to make me feel better about myself.

My second theory is if people can find a reason to look down on others it makes it easier for them to justify their opinions and actions. If a car is driving slowly in front of me I can spout something about elderly drivers, or women drivers, or whatever group I want to gripe about while I'm driving behind a slow person. It gives me a target to get angry at... right up until I have the opportunity to pass the slowpoke and find out it's a guy in his late 20's. It's not enough for me to like Ford - I have to also hate Chevy and find every excuse I can to put Chevy down, because that boosts my pride in my beloved Ford. I can't just like my high school's football team, I have to also say mean things about their rival team from another school... it makes it feel better to trample them when we win and it gives me a target to gripe about and insult if we lose.

These are just theories though. I don't really understand why we automatically find reasons to look down on people.

Somebody once said that if we woke up tomorrow morning and found that everybody in the whole world was the same color, belonged to the same kind of church, spoke the same language, and was in all other respects alike... different groups of us would find a new reason we are different from other groups, and claim that makes us better and them inferior, before lunch time. And I have to admit that observation is true. But I still can't really figure out why. It's not logical, it's counterproductive and it is actively harmful.

So why do we automatically do it? Anybody got any answers?
[/rant]

[Roscoe]

Human nature. I've come to the conclusion, much like a minister friend of mine with whom I was talking, that the problem with life is- people. He said it in jest, but it rang true. Of course I'm NOT an unbiased opinion on that.
And I saw that Fuzzy had a birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday late Fuzz.
 I am dragging today. Really need food and drink. Trying to cut back and not given in to my baser nature. If my Mcdonald's were not idiots who let the best breakfast item they have, the steak bagel run out, I would surrender and go buy one. But apparently they are out of the bagels. And the steak.

[Lynx]

Ah... yes, about that. We are temporarily not serving steak, bagels, grilled chicken, any breakfast after 10:30am or chicken tenders.

Normal variety will resume after this covid junk clears up.

[The Purple Fuzzy]

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Roscoe.

[Roscoe]

Y'all quiet again.
Spent the day at work, tired as usual. I haven't gotten to bed before midnight in forever it seems. Went to the firing range for a bit, then came home.
I got a response from Lenovo- after reviewing the symptoms of my laptop, they advised it was "a hardware issue"- DUH- and are sending me packaging to ship it to them. Puzzles me a bit though- they stress that I need to save pics, files, ect. How in the tarnation can I do that if I can't get the blasted beast to come on?
Fortunately, all that is on it is pictures, most of which I have saved, music, all of which I have saved, and a few sermons, ect that I have saved. What galls me is I just two weeks ago put my trust in it instead of my dinosaur desktop Windows XP machine in regards to my money management. I'd downloaded the best product of all time- Microsoft Money, Sunset edition,(I'm still ticked that Microsoft killed off possibly the best program they've ever written, but at least they were kind enough to make a free downloadable edition without all the bells and whistles available)- and began transitioning it all over from the much less likable Quicken software. Of course, like a total Nimrod, I didn't back it up externally yet, figuring I'd do it when I finished up moving everything over. All that work, gone. Complete with my beautiful pie charts.

[The Purple Fuzzy]

Dina & her 4 babies just got here for a visit.

[Lynx]

Bobby I'm telling you, you can just pop the hard drive out and connect it to another computer with a USB-SATA adapter...

[mini]

And I probably have all the USB-SATA adapters you need.

Perhaps you need to visit me quickly this weekend so I can save your information.

[Roscoe]

Problem- If I remove the back to get to the hard drive, I void the warranty? And Mini- that is totally doable- It's supposed to be beautiful and I think Cheyenne has some items to pay Bri for- at least I heard her and her mama talking about something like that......

[Nelle]

I was going to suggest the exact info that these other two did about popping it out. I should've done that with my old laptop before the computer guy completely wiped my hard drive on accident.


@Work. Had an eye appointment this morning, so I just got in about 15 minutes ago. Hopefully this day doesn't get too difficult.

We are going back to church Sunday.

[Lynx]

I don't know about the warranty... I've never seen a piece of seal tape (break it and it voids the warranty) over a hard drive hatch. And they didn't offer to back up the data before retrofitting the computer. And they SAID to back up the data yourself.

Check the warranty fine print first though. I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't void the warranty. But I don't think it will.

In other, totally unrelated news, I have found the perfect shirt for me.

https://www.cafepress.com/+,606040617/

[Roscoe]

 Chey and I enjoyed a dash over to Mini's today, where he retrieved my data for me and let me drive Hank the '50 Ford.
Chey was happy because she got to see Bri and Brennen, and managed to score some clothes off of Bri. She is becoming addicted to clothes. Bah.
I totally enjoyed the beautiful day. Rusty ran flawlessly too. Now for tomorrow..

[The Purple Fuzzy]

It was a beautiful day here enjoying grand babies.

[Roscoe]

Pretty day here again. Preached my guts out yesterday.  Went home, took Nyquil for the cold, and slept the sleep of the dead until 7 this morning.
 Glad to be off the street- protests have made it to the State Capitol, and moved to Conway last night, with protests claiming on social media to be organized for tonight in Morrilton.
Been busy doing paperwork so far. And due to the replacement of an electrical pole outside the office we were told they were going to shut down the office power for 3 to 4 hours, beginning any minute, so it looks like I get a bit of a break today. :-)

[Roscoe]

Urgh. Back at work. Good morning all.

[Nelle]

@work.

Dentist appointment last evening after work. Jaw is still a little... tender. Hopefully that'll go away. Ever since a friend of mine had dental work and developed trismus, I've been extremely nervous about dental work LOL.

So incredibly sleepy. Same as yesterday. I have a hard time getting up and around in the AM. I think it's time to adult my bedtime and morning routines by going to bed at an earlier time and getting up a little earlier. It appears that I am just surviving my days instead of making the most of them.

[The Purple Fuzzy]

Still have grand babies here. They keep you busy.

[Roscoe]

I've GOT to stop staying up until midnight. Mornings are killing me.
Here I sit, no coffee, praying for strength to get through the day, and knowing tonight is church night means another late night...sigh.

[Nelle]

@Work. Overslept and apparently ninja silenced my early alarms. I did manage to go to bed a little earlier, but not as early as I wanted.


Hungry already. I want to EAT a hamburger and french fries from the local store, but I guess I'll just eat my soup unless an opportunity happens.