Sweet Memory

My desktop was damaged on the trip to Hawaii and while in the shop for repairs, the tech found a bad 1 gig memory module. I just replaced (all by myself) the memory and have 4 gigs going again.

Everything is faster now. The screens change faster. Downloads are faster. My brain is smarter and I can see a lot faster now. Oh well, two out of four are true.

This is the corner of my room where my computer work is done.

The tablet is resting on top of the printer. The tablet runs on Windows 7, and we are still at odds on whether I will get a desktop that runs Windows 7. I know if I upgrade, I can still run XP as a virtual machine on 7 and keep using several critical programs. XP and Windows 7 32 bit operate with 4 GB max memory but a 64 bit 7 machine is limited to 8, 16, and up to 192 GB. 

Perhaps Santa is reading my blog and understands how sweet a machine with 16 GB memory would be.

Day of Remembrance

Sat/Sun

You may be thinking that the title indicates this is a Saturday/Sunday posting. It is not! I sat in the sun for an hour again today.

Before I went down to the pool, I was happy to find UT football but sad to learn the score – UT 0 BYU 6. Hook Em Horns. When I came back, the score was UT 10 BYU 16. I kept hearing “McCoy at quarterback..”. I thought I had been out in the sun too long.

I took the tablet with me. I could only see the screen while indoors, so I started a video recording inside and and walked out to the pool deck area and continued recording. Since I could not see the screen, I just turned the power off to stop recording; I hope it worked.

The pool deck is huge. I estimate the length at  100 yards and the width about 40 yards. This is on the 6th floor above the parking garage. After my sun time was over, I roamed around (carefully) to see what else was nearby.

On the north side of the building is Ala Wai Blvd and then a  canal. The canal, as viewed from the 6th floor appears to be about 50 yards in width. A stream of kayaks came into sight and started turning around a buoy before a bridge over the canal which leads to Ala Wai Park on the other side.

It is fun to watch slow moving kayaks in a race. It is even funnier to see a kayak on the inside of a turn realize it cannot make the turn and t-bone the kayak on the outside.

This canal is like Buffalo Bayou in Houston: no swimming if you want to stay alive. Recently a man fell into the canal water and died later from a strange infection. I have walked along a short section of the canal on the way to WalMart about two weeks ago. I discovered that some sections have pedestrian guard rails but some do not. When I realized this, I quickly moved to the other side of the sidewalk. I  would much rather trip and fall under a bus on the street than to fall into that scum.

The view from the north side is also where the mountains can be seen in the distance. Diamond Head is close around the corner from here. The southern view is what you see in the webcam – Waikiki Beach (southwest) and Fort Derussy (due south). I made my way to Fort Derussy last Saturday, and then wandered for an hour through the hotel jungles and tropical landscape before I got back home.

I will evaluate the sore on my left leg this evening. After a close medical review, I will prescribe a long day on Sunday watching NFL football, snacking on Cheeto’s and Cheerios with a beer chaser.

Sparks in the Dark

Most people know them as fireworks. Each Friday about 7:30-7:45 pm (12:30 Texas), the Hilton at Waikiki has a fireworks display that lasts about 5 minutes.

 Tonight I am going to try to broadcast this from my new tablet PC from the 6th floor pool deck. I have to test my wireless connection to my condo (20+ floors above) and this seems like it may work. 

An hour of sun does a body and mind good. I took in the sun on the pool deck for the first time. It was just me and the maintenance man spraying water on the recently renovated deck. What a job, watering concrete in Hawaii.

The 20+ mph breezes were blowing out to the ocean and I thought my hat might take a swim. Yes Wendell, I would have run after it all the way to Waikiki if necessary. I enjoyed our phone conversation today. Thanks for calling Brother. You help make it easy for me to smile.

Rest in Paradise

Thursday was a slow day, but it was a day of seeing the the ocean and the beach from my window. Using my monocular, I could see the construction crane and workers more clearly.

The sore on the left leg remains and a number of hours were spent on the bed with the legs removed to promote healing with applications of vitamin E cream. I will stick to this regimen until the sore is completely healed. You should understand that I do know the importance of treating any sore seriously.

Telephone conversations with Iryna M and Judy G helped pass the time, and kept my spirits up.

A slow day here is still another day in paradise, and such little things keep me smiling.

Woe is Wednesday

A day spent mostly trying to heal a small sore on the back of the leg means a day with much physical activity. This usually means less mental activity as well.

I did walk across the street to get a Subway and some grocery items at the ABC Store. This caused pain on the sore spot.

Nephew Duane Thomas was downstairs at the pub shortly after 5 pm. I had just returned upstairs after picking up mail and boxes of food from Amazon. The lower level is where the mail boxes and package pick-up are located as well as the pub. I did spend time with Duane talking about his job predicament. He is well out of his comfort zone, and is not the senior person responsible for the electrical meter installation project at a local Army facility. Things are not going well, and he is starting to simmer, but not from the warm weather.

Actually, the September weather has been about 5 degrees cooler that August. It is very comfortable in the shade and just warm in the sunlight. The breezes have calmed a little.

The work on the tablet PC had some pleasant surprises on Wednesday. I got Adobe Flash to work after re-installing several times, and the webcam unexpectedly started broadcasting on txua.com.

I started seeing a strange image, and finally realized the camera on the back of the screen was laying on a piece of cardboard! Progress, nevertheless.

Tuesday Blues

Awoke at an earlier time. Too many things to do and not enough eye time to get it all done. The eye tires faster than the brain when doing computer work.

The birds arrived about 6:20 am and scattered the small bits of food they do not like. They will be back when they are hungry. A few peanuts were placed on the ledge later to tease them.

This was another tablet PC day. Great progress was made but was very time consuming. At the end of the day, I connected the new router which allows bot PCs to connect to each other and to the Internet. Tomorrow I will test the wireless functions of the router using the tablet unplugged. I still want to find other free wireless networks in this area. I am sure there are some out there.