Author: madmuser

It’s 80 degrees today, wearing shorts, tank, and flip flops. It’s a conspiracy, I say to my daughter. You’re nuts, she says to me. It’s March 21 in Rochester, NY.

Outside it smells like perfume – many flowers are in full bloom, the forsythia has burst forth, ice cream stands are open two months early, and I’ve been riding my horse in the outdoor ring which is nice and groomed instead of boggy as it usually is in March.  It isn’t even Easter yet!

We are all dizzy with the sights, smells, and taunts of summer. I saw someone in the neighborhood opening their pool. I dragged my summer wardrobe from the cellar so now my closet is packed because I don’t yet dare put the winter stuff into the shadow zone.  I talked to my friend in California today where it’s cold. Then there was the snowstorm this week in Arizona.

Yep – I’m sure – it’s a conspiracy. And for once, we here in Rochester are on the stellar end of things, so pardon me while I eat my ice cream and dangle my toes in the kiddie pool!

I was watching the TV show Hoarders last night, and as usual, horrified by the deplorable conditions of the featured homes. And while I watched, I sat there with a self-serving sense of satisfaction that I was NOT a hoarder, that I did NOT live in deplorable conditions, and that minus a few knick-knacks here and there, we lived in a rather neat and organized little home, albeit a bit dusty. (What’s a little dust?). As I gloated, and made some comment accordingly, my daughter dearest looked at me with her curled-lip smile, which is never a good sign, and said, “Pens?”

Gulp. Oh boy. That’s a “got ‘cha.” I never thought about my predilection for pens as anything more than an “I love pens” thing. Other people love pens. I’ve heard them say it. In fact, I’ve had conversations with people where we compare makes, models, and ink colors. But even in these conversations, I know I am a breed apart because in addition to these basic things, I concern myself as well with ink flow, how far out the writing tip extends from the pen, and what its weight is (the heftier, the better). I do not dare bring these things into these conversations as I suspect it would be stepping over the edge.

Man oh man, I guess the jig is up. I’m a hoarder. A pen hoarder. I have boxes of pens stored throughout the house. I keep my current favorites in front of me at all times, and if someone disturbs them, I know in a second. No casual pen-borrowing from this hoarder. Those poor souls who’ve most innocently tried will never do so again.

Indeed, I have tried and probably have just about every brand, make, model, out there. I have driven in blizzards to get a pen. I order pens online. I give pens as gifts. I am in ecstasy when I get a pen for a gift.

I have spent much of my adult life in a quest for the perfect pen. A perfect pen is like the Holy Grail for a writer. However, there exist two issues with this: it’s expensive and just as with us mere mortals, there is no such thing. So, I have a choice – continue my quest, go broke, and run out of pen storage places, or accept the inevitable and succumb to the all-electronic brigade. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Well, see you later. I’m off to Staples!

We certainly continue to be perhaps the most influential generation of all time. I’d like to think the reason for this is more than just a sheer numbers. Indeed — think about this — we shall forever be the ONLY generation that bridge the era of black and white televisions and telephones without dials with today’s world of exploding technology in every sector of life. It’s mind boggling, and, I think, spiritually significant.

On a less esoteric note, I came across some information from Nielsen studies about our generation that you might find interesting. We:

• Dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories
• Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day
• Comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users
• Time shift TV more than 18-24s (2:32 vs. 1:32)
• Are significantly more likely to own a DVD player
• More likely to have broadband Internet access at home

Did you ever watch that TV show, Beauty and the Beast with Ron Pearlman and Linda Hamilton? Ahh, I am aging myself. It was one of my favorite shows back in the late 1980s, and I loved it for many reasons. I loved it for the purity of the romance between the two main characters. I loved it for the excitement of each weekly adventure. And I loved it, perhaps most of all, for the magical, under-world kingdom of the Beast in the bowels of the New York City subway system.

In some perverted way, I envied the Beast his cozy and seemingly safe home away from the fears and dangers of civilization. I often imagined how I might fashion my own underground refuge, how I would live and feel safe – something I rarely experienced in my above-ground life.
Today I can across this article about one of the last true tunnel dwellers, a man named Anthony Horton who died, consumed by flames, with his body found burned, deep, deep, deep in the tunnel, in an old crew room in the F-train tunnel at 63rd and Lexington.

He was a gentle man, so they said about him. He discussed art, and he drew, and he even collaborated on a book with a woman he met on the subway one day. He liked his underground life, even preferring it to the “normal” life above ground he tried once. He talked about his dog a lot, he loved his dog, and I can just imagine the two of them together down there, cozied up all warm together while storms – real and symbolic – raged above. But they took his dog away one day, and just thinking of it now makes me cry.

Said one who knew him: “He was kind. He was not bothering nobody.”

And yet, they took his dog away.

A great weekend and happy life to all!

What A Wonderful World – David Attenborough.

Article first published as Madonna Badger: A New Kind of Hero on Technorati.

At 5 a.m. on December 25th, a woman was chased from her bedroom by raging fire and oppressive smoke and clawed her way up a scaffold that braced the outside of her Victorian home. While that woman climbed, screaming hysterically, “My babies, my babies,” inside her parents and three young daughters – 9 year old Lily and 7-year-old twins, Sarah and Grace, fought a losing battle so horrible as to be unthinkable.

Over and over I imagined that last Christmas Eve, good food, laughter, presents under one of several trees throughout the house, squealing, excited little girls, grandparents that looked on with joy and pride, and the warmth of the fated fireplace embracing and extending a deceptive, rosy glow. Of course there was also the resident Santa Claus – Madonna’s father who had just finished his pre-Christmas stint as the Santa Claus for Saks in Manhattan – a job about which he had always dreamed.

When promises of real Santa’s visit were made as the lure to a final bedtime, Madonna’s girls worried whether he would be okay coming down their chimney. Not to worry, someone assured them, all remaining embers would be removed to ensure Santa’s safe journey into the Badger house. When all was finally quiet, just Michael and Madonna were left, wrapping presents into the wee-hours. It was then, when they were finished wrapping, that someone did something with those embers and put them someplace that proved catastrophic. Indeed, Santa never made it and instead, those embers traded their cozy, rosy warmth into a hellish inferno.

I have read everything I can get my hands on about the tragedy of Madonna Badger and her home on Shippan Avenue in Stamford, CT. I have read, I have cried, I have shuddered in fear and horror, and I have wondered, how does a mother go on after something like that? How does a mother deal with the guilt and helplessness? How does a mother function? How does a mother breathe?
Breathe she did. Breathe she does. When those of us with weaker character tried to imagine even attending the funeral of our children and parents killed in such a manner, Madonna was preparing the 20-minute eulogy she would deliver to a full church. When she started out, her opening words were: “This is going to be hard.” It was hard. Albeit with tears and a few stops along the way, she prevailed.

Madonna Badger is a woman of strength, class, and graceful power. She is a woman I would want standing behind me in times of crisis. She will keep breathing. She is my idol.

Read more: http://technorati.com/women/article/madonna-badger-a-new-kind-of/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trarticles+%28All+articles+at+Technorati%29#ixzz1juVG1roa

FINALLY!! It is here, it is white, and it is cold. But oh how beautiful. For me there is nothing like a winter landscape, or the feeling I get coming into a fireplace warmed room after being outside. Then there is the steaming cup of tea sweetened with honey harvested locally during the summer past. Its taste hints of summer clover and sunshine. But I am happy for now, looking out the window, my mug in hand, listening to our local owl hooting as the sun sets, sparkling on the snow-blanketed meadow out back.

ZZDYEEYAY6Z4

MAJOR computer malfunction yesterday! Not that I had anything to do with it!! No way.

Fact: I had an anti-virus software on my computer whose efficacy I doubted.

Fact: With this doubt in head, I proceeded to do what I know NEVER to do – download another anti-virus software program without first deleting the existing one. OUCH! I will proffer an (lame) excuse – I have been “under the weather” for the last two weeks with some sort of respiratory crud-ness. Still, I know better!!

Fact – thereafter NOTHING worked! Out of commission were email, Yahoo messenger, ease of Internet access, and overall speed (lack thereof) of computer. In other words – as stated, nothing worked.

Thus began an odyssey into digital hell. I spent HOURS on the phone with various vendors – several anti-virus, Microsoft, and my ISP. No one was able to fix what was a wildly complex issue, or set of issues. In one de-moralizing 2 hour conversation with a gent from India, my enthusiasm for the company’s ability to help me grew to a great crescendo, that instantly collapsed when he said, “And we can do all this, AND MORE, for just $139 for the year.”
So, there I was with a completely vulnerable and unprotected computer, not knowing which way to turn. The thing with these tech support operations is, it’s all in who you get. I got several very nice, but frankly ineffective folks who could tell me no more than I knew myself. (I know enough to be EXTREMELY dangerous). Finally, towards the end of this journey, I got a fellow who offered me priceless advice: download Microsoft Essentials anti-virus (free), after performing a system restore – setting the computer back to a previous state, which of course had to come before downloading anything and all previous removals would have to be removed again.

The saga was not over, though the pieces began then to fall into place. Here’s what had to happen next:

1. Find and download previous anti-virus software removal tool
2. Make sure previous anti-virus software was indeed removed
3. Download Microsoft Essentials
4. Fix, fix, and fix again the settings for my email (Outlook)
5. Do a disk cleanup
6. De-frag the hard drive
7. Perform a system restore – setting the computer to a previous, non-messed-up state
8. Test, test, and test again: email, Messenger, and all other programs
9. Restart, restart, and restart again
10. Bid adieu and glad tidings after spending 12 hours sorting through this mess

When I left my computer last night, it was still not 100%. Email was acting flakey and Messenger required a here-to-fore unnecessary massaging before going live. The question then became: what was I in store for in the morning (now)?

Voilà! Somehow, magically, miraculously and without the proverbial further ado, my computer is at 100%. In fact, it is at 150%, maybe even 200%! I am much happier and markedly de-stressed.

Okay, now for the moral of this long and sordid tale. Actually, there are several:

• Never, never, never put more than one anti-virus software on your computer at one time. The associated conflicts wreak havoc with its previous operational equilibrium
• If installing a new anti-virus program, find out whether you need a removal tool for the one you have currently. With some anti-virus programs, the uninstall program feature on the control panel is not enough to rid your hard drive of the subtly infiltrating fingers of some programs
• Do not take on digital projects of massive proportions when not feeling up-to-par
• Take advice from the computer: REST – things always look better in the morning!