19 August - I cannot believe that there are no new entries for over a month already! If it appears that nothing excitingly new is happening here with me -- you are correct! BUT........
Over the years, several people have commented that what I have on my site does NOT include any really personal, juicy intimate stuff. Although i do try to be as informative as possible, and totally open, I guess what they might be referring to is what gets their own hormones moaning for more??- the kind of exciting stuff that even those tabloids at every supermarket check-out counter would pay through the nose to get their greedy paws on!
I would seriously NOT suggest that everyone read this material, for obvious reasons! I am simply attempting to fulfill some of those obscure (and NOT so well-hidden) secret lusts and desires of my esteemed readership. So, in this hot summer weather, feel free to remove some of that sweaty clothing and get prepared for a lot of real honest-to-goodness one-on-one action in.........
28 August - OK, so I was one of the hosts to a travelling bear -- sort of like that world traveller Bonnie, the chick, of a couple years ago . You can see his story at
9 September - This is a view of my new computer setup. With the flat panel LCD screen, it takes up a LOT less table-top space = footprint! And it is VERY quiet, since the Cube has NO fan ventilation system -- it is a revolutionary simplistic concept simply using circulating air from the bottom of the Cube. I recently added more memory, so I am now working with 640MB, which is MUCH more than anyone usually can use up in a couple years unless they do loads of animation or other specialty stuff -- which I have yet to get into.
The screen is noticeably wider than my old iMac monitor, thus my actual on-screen work area allows for easier manipulation of several things at once -- for example, 2 related web pages or eBay item descriptions.
Since it has DVD capability, I went out and bought my first 2 movie DVDs -- Stargate SG-1, and Shadow of the Vampire. Really kewl wide-screen color and all.
I liked the original Stargate movie, and this DVD has 3 episodes, apparently from a TV series which I did NOT even know about before!
And the vampire one is about the making of the first-ever vampire movie, Nosferatu, by a German film maker in the early days of cine. QUITE IMAGINATIVE!
25 September - OK, so I broke down, finally, and signed-up for hosting another of my domains. This time with , which is what Bernar uses for his site -- with unlimited space (= band width) I should never have to worry about not being able to add more stuff (that is one of the reasons I have not been adding a LOT more to this site -- I simply ran out of space over a year ago!). I have been planning and working on this site since May 1999, and had a folder of stuff more or less prepared for it. Some things I will be moving from this site, simply to give me more room for new goodies here.
26 September - I uploaded about 300 files to the new domain -- which is NOT accessible yet, until the transfer is official from INTERNIC. Theoretically it may take another day or 2. I have really been working my fingers to the bone updating and reorganizing many scores of files, creating new stuff, and trying to coordinate it all so that it comes together is some logical way. I made loads of changes to a lot of files -- it is interesting how one's view of what is really kewl changes over time, and how one can change a few things to try to make them easier to understand and just a tad, hopefully, more enjoyable.
It is basically the same format as this site -- simple and straight forward. NO music, cutesy perl or Java play things, or any of the more exciting newer formats, some of which I really like but have no idea how to do them. I already have another section basically finished, but have yet to scan a shitload of autographed stuff to fill-in a lot of empty spaces on several pages.
What I really need to do is to take a break a little from all these INSIDE projects which I always seem to find, and try to do at least some of the outside work that needs to be done -- before the snows appear again! Between getting batches of treasures together for eBay, and playing with all these other Internet toys, I really do not find a whole lot of time to even rest or snooze, let alone sleep a normal night! Stay tuned.......
27 September - OK, so I was up all night getting a totally new site section together. It is sort of fun, but my eyes are closing already. The NEW site is NOT yet online, and I hope it does not take much longer. I have to check the entire thing for possible errors, make the corrections, and then I can finally announce it to my loyal readers. As of 07h, I have uploaded 358 files to the site directory, having a total of 27.4 MB -- I am sort of amazed! It is a LOT of typing with basically 2 fingers -- maybe that is the reason why my right wrist really hurts??
Once it is up and running, I have to take ALL the art files out of THIS site and change a few links. It may be complicated because of the many interconnecting pages -- I hope it can be done in a relatively short time. We shall see.
28 September - OK, at 17h, my new site is functioning! ONLY a single glitch that I can see at this time -- the COMMENTS page does NOT load using the aol browser BUT it works with NETSCAPE -- NOT BAD for a first try!! aol sometimes is a tad slow with these things.
4 October - The new section on autogrtaphed goodies is up and running but I still have piles of things to add whenever I can get around to scanning the stuff.
8 October - I just finished reformatting all my YES pages, increasing fonts on some pages where I found it a tad difficult to read, and some other changes (the actual text of my comments was NOT changed). My new eyeglasses should hopefully be ready this week, so maybe I will be able to see better when I am doing all this stuff.
There IS a slight problem with the fonts I might use. The general text above is in DEFAULT FONT (and I have no idea what this translates to on YOUR browser), and the red date notes are in SAND. Every once in a while I may use HELVETICA, COMIC SANS MS, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, and a couple others, but it seems that the person who views the pages has to have these fonts on their system to see things as I actually designed them. PLUS, PCs use different font suites than a MAC does, which further complicates things. So I actually have NO idea how all my pages show up on YOUR computer -- sorry about that! I just hope they do not show up as overly weird or something!
The pages do seem to show up somewhat differently when using the Netscape, AOL or the Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. From what I can see, the Explorer browser makes everything larger than I made them.
The top center desk drawer on the OLD oak desk that I have had since I was about 10 years old (my Father got them where he worked, the General Electric Switchgear Plant in Philadelphia, when they upgraded to newer metal desks in the late 1940s) was always coming apart and I just got around to fixing it! It is the MAIN drawer that I use -- it is full of little crap such as pens, rulers, keys and other neato stuff, some still sitiing there since the 1950s!
I had to take everything out, of course, and was it ever full of dust and other crap! So I used furniture polish to clean the bottom (and the rag was totally black!), and wood glue on the dovetailed and grooved sides to, hopefully, secure the joints. Then came the job of checking what was in the numerous trays of stuff I keep there -- SOME have NOT been touched in over 10 years!
So it is newly renovated and a LOT cleaner than it was. Now I have to find a home for a bunch of rubber bands, buttons, little slips of paper with notes on them and business cards that had piled up in the drawer over the years. A lot of these paper items simply got thrown away!
The TOP of that desk, which is right behind the chair I sit in at the computer (I only have to swivel the chair around to get there), now has to be organized one of these days. There are some things sitting there for about 2 years already -- from the last time I actually cleared it up!
17 October - DAMN! I could NOT pass this one up! Somebody sent me a pic of a video store called MegaFlicks in Port Ritchie, Florida that had a sale on Hell 2 for $5.99. Just in time for Halloween, I guess. The curious thing is that the shop used a font for their sign that sort of suggests something other than a video rental store -- and then the 2 for $5.99 takes on an entirely different meaning! Damn, it is even cheaper than around where I live -- and I bet the gals are even a lot cuter!! WHAT A DEAL!!
28 October - I have been working on another batch of eBay goodies and have been actually shivering! So I looked at the conveniently placed wall digital thermometer to the right of my computer table and discovered that the inside temperature was down to 59 degrees, which is about when the cold seems to keep the cats under the covers all day long. So I trudged down to the basement and lit the pilot on the heater and just activated the thermostat up in the apartment. I can hear the baseboard heating thingys clicking and pinging, so I imagine that within a few hours it may be just a tad more bearable up here -- and the cats will all be sitting as close to the heat sources as they can! HURRAY FOR WINTER! It has finally apparently arrived, at least temperature-wise.
Early this morning I had to run around the place changing all the clocks back an hour due to the end of daylight savings time -- which means that there will be another hour of daylight or something like that - for whatever it is really worth!
Oh, and while I am at it -- have a really kewl
11 November - OK, I moved all the stuff related with the World Trade Center and the anthrax scare my new second SPECIAL REPORT page.
And what else is new? NOTHING - except my countless hours piling goodies on eBay for the holiday gift-giving season! Right now there are 107 items in my sellers list! They will NOT all sell, but at least I tried!
17 December - Busy - Busy. The weather has been sort of unusually above average for the last couple weeks in terms of temperature - not that I would have noticed it that much because I have been cooped up inside the apartment except when I go out to get food or whatever. The last 3 days have be a little more winter-like, and we even got some much needed rain, although not enough because the river still looks sort of low. At this rate, when they do the reenactment of Washinton Crossing the Delaware they won't need boats, they can use hip boots!
I am feverishly stiill trying to get batches of goodies on eBay, and -- you may NOT believe it -- I even sent out Christmas cards this year, after a two-year lull! For some reason I seem to have gotten into the Holiday spirit in a big way this year. I hear on the radio that MANY people seem to be returning to an old fashioned Christmas due somehow to the 11 September thing -- could be true? It was a traumatic event and affected just about everybody in a major way, and I guess people want to sort of leave the tragedy behind them and try to recapture happier, more family and friends oriented times. So my Grinch List * * will at least have some numbers in it -- whenever I can actually get to that page for an update.
The Beanie online newsgroup I have been with for a couple years decided to do a Holiday Surprise Gift Exchange , as did another group of Apple computer aficionados that I joined some months ago. It is fun, and something I have never done before. I am also getting my Christmas page together, but it is a tad more complicated than the pages I have done in the past so it is taking me a lot longer to get together. I have to fish a lot of old stuff out of my files and try to connect it all somehow. So stay tuned for more stuff in the coming days -- I HOPE!
OK, so I just finally got my Holiday mood page up, in case you want to check it out. It may possibly serve as my usual cyber Christmas message, but I have not figured THAT far in advance yet.
24 December - I think the above link will contain all of my Holiday news until the end of the year -- unless something else come up.
The cards are coming in, and you can keep track of the cheapass Grinches on the link below.
Up until this moment I have 99% of my Christmas greetings sent out -- was waiting / searching for the addresses of the missing ones - now found. I have sent out over 200+FREE gift catalogues thus far (shall continue including probably through January) to my eBay winners along with their win -- and even bears when the win was not a book. Some family and pals also received a couple surprises with my card. DAMN! In my rushed organization to get all the stuff out on time, my brother's card was returned because I forgot to change his OLD town to the NEW one! Oh, well, one mistake is NOT all that bad!
The folks at the bank, post office and food market I go to also got their bears and for an old-young pal, something else.
I still have to get a new background, header and other stuff together for my 2002 news page together, update the box-below, change general links and other stuff before the New Year arrives - so I shall be extra busy until then.
The iPod that I received as a gift has been an almost constant companion these last few days -- you can read all about it on my above link.
25 December - When we were kids my Mom and her Mother would take us to visit Aunt Jean Sambor. Thinking back, I find it somewhat unusual that my Dad never took us there, and it was NOT a stop on our usual Holiday rounds, for some reason - it was almost like we were sneaking out (and my Mom sort of suggested this) to visit some family black sheep or something, although I always found her VERY pleasant and loving.
She had a bar in a suburb of Philadelphia. We would munch on snacks and drink soda for hours, while they talked among themselves in Ukranian -- for some reason they never wanted us kids to learn or understand the old language. I even asked Grandmom a couple times if she would teach me some -- and once she simply said she did not want me to learn it!
We would look through photo albums of people and places in the Ukraine -- houses with thatched roofs, farm settings, a shop or two, people dressed in the country style typical of the 30's - 40's. They would read letters from family in the old country, and talk about a sister who became a nun here in the States.
She was always on my Christmas card list, although I may have only seen her once or twice since I left for Europe in the early 1960's - and she always wrote a nice note back.
Yesterday I received a card from her sister, Olga, who wrote to tell me that Aunt Jean had died! No details, but I shall try to find some. I just checked my genealogy pages for the Sambor line, and my Grandfather's lineage seems sort of mysterious for some reason - I could never find data about that side of the family.
I was very sorry to hear of her death. It is somewhat curious that the last time I sent out Christmas cards, 3 years ago, I was shocked to find that about 5 replies were notes that the person I sent them to had died - and sort of wonder if that was the reason I did not send any greetings for the following 2 years.
It is now 7h and I have been up all night - which has not been unusual over the last couple months - wrapping some gifts for my brother and his kids and listening to the music on my iPod which has been my constant delight since I set it up. I was invited to his place for dinner today, but am not sure I will be awake enough to drive 2 hours one way! Plus, he has a way of saying things that sort of left me flattened - "hope you come down for a feast. That is the outstanding reward we offer for your coming here. I don't recall anyone I know inviting me somewhere and putting an unlimited supply of food in front of me and being able to take and eat as much as I want. -- Talk about being a bitch --- look in the mirror brother." With that attitude I really do not know who would want to invite him anywhere, much less feed him anything! I do NOT go there mainly for the food, which is always yummy and abundant -- I go to see THEM and interact, and it is frequently a one-way interaction, on a personal level, which really bugs me - and I told him so. Anyway, I rarely look in the mirror and just appear as natural as I always do - I do not worry about my hair, my old beat up loafers, etc.. Oh, yes, I did call him a bitch. He has not visited me over the Holidays in 2 years - I wonder if it is because I told him I did not have anything for the kids - although I DID give them a pile of stuff each of the several times I dragged myself to his place - after 2+ hours in the freekin car, stop-offs for coffee and to look in a couple small gift shops along the way, I can hardly move when I get there - then comes the 2+ hours drive back to Trenton, after which I have to sleep for 14 hours after taking one of my arthritis pills, CELEBREX! Oh, well, I guess there are different ways of seeing things, despite my attempts at understanding some of them, even among closely related kin.
26 December - OK, so after a shower and a 2 hour snooze yesterday morning I thought that I should go to my brother's place for Christmas, as I was feeling sort of depressed for some reason. I only stopped off for coffee and it took me almost exactly 2 hours to get there, arriving at about 14:15h. I found that listening to my iPod as I was driving, that I got a little distracted -- or maybe it was that I was still sort of half asleep and the music was the only thing keeping my brain sort of active during the trip? -- and I made a couple wrong turns along the way. Hey, I even passed his house and had to turn around -- and it was daylight!!
All of his 5 kids were there (2 still live there), 2 of his girls with their hubbies, plus Peter, their oldest boy, who has Holiday leave from the Coast Guard Academy until 6 January, which just happens to be the Feast of the Three Kings. For some reason I felt more at home there this time, and the interaction I noted above (as usually lacking) WAS abundant, which I really enjoyed. He did seem to have to mention that he read this web page a couple times, and quoted word-for-word a couple items - which I thought was kewl, and a good start! I never got the impression that he ever looked at my site.
When I arrived he had to tap me on the shoulder to say something because I inadvertently still had the iPod playing away! So I told them it was my hearing aid! At which, I transferred the headset to Peter to show him how well it amplified the sound, then took the iPod out of my shirt pocket to show him in a couple seconds how it worked and he caught on immediately. Of course, he liked it!
And the food was abundant, as usual - turkey and the trimmings, mince pie, apple pie with crumbs and raisons (MY FAVORITE!), pumpkin pie, and a kewl German apple Bunt cake. His wife cooks and bakes as well as my Mom did, and we always had a lot of different things to stuff our beaks with when we were kids.
His daughter who is expecting was still expected when I arrived. They told me that she was in Contractions -- I replied that I had never heard of that New Jersey town and how far away was it! I wonder if she and her hubby went to Intercourse, Pennsylvania nine months previously? It is one of the towns with interesting names near the caves I used to love to explore, as is Virginville! Well, they did arrive, and after we finished munching away, everyone opened their presents and enjoyed them. I even discovered that one of my nieces collects Boyd's Bears -- something I did not know until now!
Although I brought my camera, for some reason I was so wrapped up in things I did not even take a single pic, which is sort of unusual for me. Their two dogs barked a lot when I arrived, but soon remembered that I usually give them some goodies on the sneak, and settled down and let me pet and mangle them a little. Lady appears fully recovered from her attack by that other dog that I mentioned above a couple months ago, and is as active as ever.
They took a couple pics - for one, I wanted to hold their beagle-type woof woof, Dudley, to get him in the pic too (Lady is way to BIG to even think about picking up), and he even let me pick him off the floor, but then when I tried to get up, in my enthusiasm, I did not quite make it and fell over with pooch. Not a problem, but it sort of worried me a llittle. I usually move with a LOT of foresight and caution. When I am home and over his place I do not use my cane -- UNLESS my hip is killing me -- and, at least at home, move around very carefully because if I trip over something and can not get up, nobody would even know about it for probably weeks and I would have most likely croaked in the meantime -- which really is not all that much of a problem, as I would not have to worry about it any more! Hey, even frogs croak -- it is all part of the natural scheme of things!
I asked Peter to see what pics he had taken with his Kodak digital camera, but he said the batteries were low and the preview screen would not come up. I asked him where the battery recharger was that I gave him, BUT he apparently does not use rechargeable batteries, thus he never used the recharger! OK, not a real problem - I took the rechargable batteries out of my camera and gave them to him, because I have charged spares at home.
Anyway, I was the last one to leave, and after my usual effusive hugs and all -- we loaded the 2 post office bins that were originally full of gifts, with a pile of cookies, slices of pies, turkey PLUS other leftovers, including bones and scraps for my kittys -- they LOVE the stuff, and somehow always seem to know when I bring the tasty morsels into the kitchen! So tomorrow they will have a feast -- as shall I! After my usual sandwich for dinner the last week or so, I am really OVER STUFFED now.
OK, I got home, loaded the fridge with all the goodies, checked for emails, and my eyes were closing already, so I just leaned back in my computer chair and snoozed until past midnight! When I awoke, my feet were cold, as they usually get in such cases, and I raised the heat 2 degrees to 68 to thaw out a little. I refilled my coffee mug, ate an entire bag of cookies they gave me and another piece of that really delicious apple crumb pie, and thought I should update this while it was still fresh in my mind. Once updated I hope to crawl into bed and sleep without setting the alarm - which I usually hear go off from my study anyway!
I really had a thoroughly enjoyable visit -- and it fits in nicely with all the other kewl positives that have been accumulating this Holiday. My life in general, in terms of basic concepts / events, seems to run in approximately 10-year cycles -- I wonder if this is the start of the HIGH part of a new cycle for me? Hey, do some calculations for yourself and see if the same sort of thing seems to occur in YOUR life. Check things such as a death in the immediate family, important adquisitions / sale of property, money worries, really depressing / happy personal events, etc. I always found it sort of interestingly weird! If I remember correctly, according to oriental (Japanese ?) philosophical constructs, our life cycles RETURN to where they started when we were born, at about 58 years of age, or thereabout. The really curious thing about this detail is that our Biorhythms, those Physical (23 day), Emotional (28 day) and Intellectual (33 day) cycles ALSO return to those of the day we were hatched at about the same age! Now, THAT is really weird!
29 December - DAMN! I knew it was too good to last! At about 6h this morning I looked out the kitchen window, and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but my Festiva with a smashed window, rear!
Called the insurance, tried to get some place to fix it, but it is Saturday, AND the start of the New Year's stupor, so I guess it will just sit there until Monday. The survelance camera was functioning, but I have not yet had the time to languish through a couple hours of tape to see if I can find the asshole who threw a rock through the glass. I cut my hand opening the trunk, decided that I do not give a shit, and luckily MOST of the glass was on a blanket I keep in back, so I bunched it up and dumped the glass fragments in the street - hey, it is how they do things around here! I just hope I do not discover who the culprit is because I have not been even semi-nasty for more than 20 years -- BUT, I think I can still remember some of the how-to instructions! Curiously, I am NOT even upset -- maybe just a tad inconvenienced that nobody is available to replace the freekin' glass!
31 December - Here is wishing you and yours a VERY ...