Archives for 2010

Today I spent the day downloading specific files from Carbonite. Previously, when I was re-installing the original software last week, I had Carbonite try to do a full download, and I think that’s what really screwed it up, so this time I was much more selective, only downloading the files I thought I needed. Hopefully within a week or so I’ll know whether I have everything I need and can let Carbonite go back to work, backing up just what’s new. I was thrilled that I managed to save my Google Earth My Places, but only because I had put it in a place I knew would be saved, which it isn’t when it’s in the place where Google Earth automatically puts it. It looks like this might just work!

Having received my new hard drive yesterday (the FedEx driver left it for me), I spent the day installing it and downloading all the usual programs I like to use, which took most of the day. Everything seems to be working okay, except the cursor still keeps jumping around again, so I’m going to have to get back online and have them download the right driver again. I did take a little time to run the horses around the arena, then put them in a new, larger field so they had a bit more room. Our hostess arrived late in the evening, our dogs all got back together with her dog Nick, and we had a pleasant visit over a cocktail before settling down for the night.

Having been unable to contact a local hay provider, Hubby and I decided to take a ride up to Westcliffe, west of Pueblo, which is a center for hay growing in the area. It’s more than an hour away, but it was a pleasant day, though a bit chilly. We had had some rain on Monday which was snow on the mountain tops, and the closer we got to Westcliffe the higher the altitude and the more snow was on the ground. Apparently they had had 3 inches of snow. The hay was very nice, a nice green grass mix, bales were back to normal size (thank goodness), about 65 pounds at $5 a bale. Two guys had us loaded up in no time. We decided to drive into Pueblo and do our shopping and have a meal, so we wouldn’t have to worry about going into Walsenburg for groceries over the next few days. This was the first time Hubby has been a passenger in our new truck (he was in the back seat during the test drive, but that’s all), and he really enjoyed himself. He could certainly understand why I was in love with Einstein, even though he wasn’t towing anything so he couldn’t really show off much :-). We had a nice meal at a Chinese restaurant (with enough leftovers for another huge meal), shopped at Walmart, then headed home, getting back about 6:00.

After speaking with our hostess on the phone, she indicated there was a spare laptop in a cupboard, so after searching for the computer, and the more concealed electical plug, I managed to get back online, but only long enough to check my email and get the phone numbers I needed for making an appointment to pick up hay tomorrow.

Having spent the weekend resting and working on the computer, I continue to have problems trying to get this computer working properly. I had decided to get my 10-year old Toshiba back up and running, just for my bookkeeping program (at least until the end of the year, then I’ll have to upgrade to a newer program that’s compatible with W7), and for transferring pix from my cell phone to a zip drive so I can move them to the new computer. Then I started over again, wipe out the hard drive and re-install all the original software again. Unfortunately, that hasn’t seemed to help all that much, the installation disks don’t seem to have all of the software necessary to run the computer. Some of the top buttons, like the CD eject button, don’t work anymore. I spend most of the weekend trying to sort it out, but today I started getting warnings that my hard drive was getting ready to crash, so I chatted online with Dell and they agreed to send me a new hard drive with the drivers already installed. Hopefully that will solve the problems at last! Sure enough, by the end of the day, the computer died altogether. That leaves me a bit in the dark, but I guess I can force myself to NOT be tied to the computer for a day or two… Maybe.. 🙂

As always after an intense few days like we’ve had this week, we simply rested today, though I did spend some time looking for hay, as we’re going to need a new load soon, and a few other simple computer chores.

After three very production though exhausting days in Dallas, we slept pretty late, checking out a bit after noon, getting picked up again by the client’s town car and getting to the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight. It’s a pretty short hop from Dallas to Colorado Springs, so we were in by 3:45 pm. Picked up our delighted and delightfully happy dogs from the kennel, which had done such a nice job the dogs didn’t even have that telltale kennel smell they usually pick up, then took a quick side trip to pick up some food-grade hydrogen peroxide. Back in Arizona, we had met a man in the Prescott National Forest who had lent us a book about all of the health benefits of drinking a weak solution of food-grade hydrogen peroxide, and I had done some research afterward that seemed to indicate it could be very beneficial. The basic principle makes enough sense for us to at least try it. Hydrogen peroxide is the chemical compound H2O2, or water with an extra oxygen molecule. By adding it to distilled water in the proper mixture (which is VERY important, because it can be toxic and fatal otherwise), you can actually imbibe your system with extra oxygen. The theory being that most bacterias, viruses and diseases, including cancer, begin in an anaerobic environment. Think of a stagnant pond. It breeds all kinds of nasty stuff when there isn’t enough oxygen. As Hubby has a rather chronic mild breathing trouble occasionally, especially when we’re at high altitudes, we decided it was worth a try. The guy in Arizona swore by it. He said he’d been on it just three months, and his arthritis had improved markedly, his knee surgery had healed much faster than his doctor’s had predicted, and he had cut back his insulin use (he was a diabetic) in half. There were many other testimonials on line, and almost no disparaging remarks, or even heavy sales pitches. The consensus seems to be that it’s a miracle cure that the medical community doesn’t want anyone to know about because it would ruin the pharmaceutical and physician market. Anyway, I found a man in Colorado Springs who happened to sell it, and who was able to meet with us on short notice. He, too, praised all of the health benefits, and he certainly looked like a very fit 82 years old, after having spent his life working in a steel mill. He’s spent his retirement looking for health products that would purge his system of all the poisons he encountered during this working years, and admitted he’d tried a lot of misguided crap, but after thirty years, his regime included a large dose of H2O2 water. Anyway, we bought a gallon of 3% solution and moved on, stopping at Wal-mart, a gas station, and a Sonic (first and last time we’ll do that) before heading out. Got back to the ranch at almost 8:00, quickly crashing from all the energy we had expended, but not before we fed the horses, as they had just about (but not quite!) run out of hay.

As promised, I spent most of the day finishing off our agenda for our Wednesday program, though I couldn’t print it because the hotel’s wireless printer system was down. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in preparation for what will undoubtedly be three intense days of performance.

Though our client had originally thought she would be home to look after the animals, things came up at the last minute, so we spent Wednesday through Friday getting caught up on paperwork, getting enough hay out in the pasture for the horses to survive for the week, and finding a place to put the dogs up near the airport in Colorado Springs where we would be flying out to Dallas. We left the ranch early, stopped for breakfast at IHOP in Pueblo, dropped the dogs off at the kennel and had an uneventful flight to Dallas. Our Dallas client had arranged for a town car to pick us up at the airport, so we were whisked to the hotel with no worries. After we arrived, I had the hotel shuttle take me out to a grocery store and a liquor store so we were stocked up for the week. Since the room had a refrigerator and a microwave, (and since previous experiences with the restaurant at this hotel have been less than stellar) we decided to stock up on fresh meals and eat in our room, so the nearby Tom Thumb grocery (affiliated with Safeway) was just the ticket. I bought several fresh packaged dinners, bread and coldcuts for lunches, and bacon and grapefruit for breakfast. One of these days I’ll carry a microwave egg poacher with me, if I can find one! So now we’re set for the week food-wise. Settled down for the evening, looking forward to a day off tomorrow, though I thought I read they had a pool, only to discover they don’t, so sitting in the sun isn’t an option. Probably just as well, I need to get organized for our Wednesday seminar.

Today was the ultimate test for the new truck, the day we had to cross over the Rocky Mountains. Route 160 isn’t quite as steep as I-70 through Denver, but rather is a longer climb with more switchback-type roads. The new truck was fabulous! Never even cracked 200 degrees on either the engine or transmission temperature gauges, despite the long, long uphill grade. I even had to pass a couple of semis, just for fun. Downhill, which is often even more harrowing than going uphill (with the van I was always having to downshift the transmission and be very careful about managing the brakes on both the RV with the hand brake controller and the van, to make sure they didn’t overheat to the point of losing them or burning them out), the truck was a dream! The engine did it’s own down-shifting! All I had to do was touch the brakes, and it would figure out what speed I wanted to go and would shift down until we stayed at the speed, despite whatever the grade was like. I hardly ever had to even touch the brakes at all! Hubby thought there was something wrong with my brake lights, because he had never seen me go down a hill without them coming on every few seconds. No matter how steep it was, the truck just figured it out and did all the work for me. Genius! That was when I decided on the name of this new truck: Einstein. It was such fun! I hadn’t realized how much stress I had been under with the van, I had just done what needed doing, though there were times where it was a bit white-knuckle, but I just coped. Now, I’m suddenly spoiled, and it feels so wonderful! Obviously, buying this truck was one of the best decisions we’ve made in a long time, especially as we plan on horse camping across America for a long time to come! Hubby’s enjoying the van, and it pulls the horse trailer with no trouble at all, though he did think it got a little hot coming up the mountains, but he had had a mechanic tell him last year that the radiator fan was getting weak and was likely to cause problems later, so he’s going to check it out at the ranch and likely replace it, and that should solve the problem. Meanwhile, even though we had run into some rain coming through LaVeta pass, we arrived comfortably and relaxed at our client’s ranch just around 4:00, (we had breakfast at a Denny’s, so we didn’t need to stop for lunch) giving us plenty of time to get settled in before dark. The horses had to go into a different pasture than last time, as the neighbor’s who looked after the place had put theirs in the one we had used previously, so they had more exploring to do. The dogs ran all over, re-establishing their dominance and wondering where the dog who usually lives here was (at the kennel while the owner was on the campaign trail), and we got the RV and the satellite dish up and running in no time. To bed early after our two days of driving!