Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
What are U doing today?
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What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread)
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Joy H., Group Founder
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Sep 24, 2011 07:49PM
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That would be great in any generation.
Yes, it would, Nina. I have a whole collection of quotes about "attitude". That particular one of William James is my favorite. When I first saw it years ago, it was a revelation to me.Below are two other quotes by William James in the same vein, about attitude:
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“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” -William James
"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." -William James
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Of course, as I once read in an Ann Landers column: "I know that to be true but I forget it all the time."
Wasn't Ann Landers a kick? Perhaps she even helped lots of people. No one has mentioned the book, "Sarah's Key." I had had my name down for a couple of months at two different libraries; two different states. Now I am number five at one of them. My neighbor recommended it but she told me today she went to see the movie and could hardly bear it.
Nina, below is a link to all the posts about _Sarah's Key_ that have been made in this group:http://www.goodreads.com/group/commen...
Also, below is a link to my review of the book:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
It's a heartbreaking story, but a compelling read.
After reading your post, I'm wondering if I should see the movie or not because it is so sad.
My neighbor said she could hardly bear the scene of the soldiers yanking the babies from the mother's arms. I doubt I will see it. Too much sadness. She said she didn't know how the actors were even able to do it.
Good review. I will probably read the book as I have waited this long for it.
Nina, that's terrible about the babies in the story. I also feel sorry for the poor babies who had to "act" in the film. I wonder if they were frightened too.
Our Internet was spotty on Saturday morning & then went down pretty much by Saturday afternoon. Our local company, Shelby Wireless, didn't bother to call me back before they closed Saturday afternoon & I have a feeling our antenna went bad again, so I don't know when we'll get it back. Unfortunately, my high speed Internet options are limited to them, satellite or cellular, so I'm stuck. I seem to have run into a lot of crappy customer service lately. I dropped off my vacuum to get its yearly maintenance done & Sears lost the upholstery head. Neither the owner of the store nor his worthless assistant seemed overly concerned nor did either of them apologize.
Our library was forced to change to Recorded Books for their downloadable audiobooks & that's been a disaster. Their tech support never answers. I got 2.5 books of a trilogy & they don't care.
I guess customer service is pretty much dead. It's our fault, shopping for price rather than quality, although I've never been adverse to paying extra for good quality &/or service, within reason. I wish more people felt that way.
I got a fair amount accomplished over the weekend. One of the hangers for my lawn mower's deck up & disappeared, so I fixed it & finally got the lawn mowed. I love dealing with John Deere. Yes, I pay more, but they always have parts & their equipment doesn't need them often, sort of like Stihl. Good quality.I bought 3 gates Saturday morning. We're getting a shed for the pony paddock & expanding it since Topaz, Erin's TB, grass foundered. So Marg decided we needed to expand the paddock & we were planning on putting a permanent fence around it, but that was too expensive - another $1500 on top of the $2500 the shed is costing me - & she's not positive that the paddock size will be right, so I'm putting up a 10' gate on the west side into the field. I'm also putting in a 4' gate so we can go directly in from the north, the house side.
I did put in a wooden corner post for the electric fence, but it's easy enough to pull just that one if we want to change the size. I'll use temporary posts for the rest of it for now. Maybe next year or so we'll be able to afford to put in a permanent fence.
I got the 10' gate hung & the post in for the 4' gate. I also put in a post for another 4' gate on the north end of the back yard. We have gates on the other 3 sides, but they're more toward the south end by the house. We don't need a gate in the north end often, but not having one has been a pain more than once.
I was dodging rain all weekend. Saturday, it was too wet to do any decent grading for the 10' gate, but I did manage to get it done Sunday morning. I put in sediment cloth & laid 4" of gravel on top of it. That about used up my gravel pile, but with that done & the posts in, I can finish doing the braces & wire even if it is wet. The damp soil did make digging the post holes & electric wire easier, though. (The charger to the electric fence is on the opposite side of the 10' gate from the field electric fence, so I had to dig a trench & lay in some insulated wire underground.)
Anyway, it's a big project & looks like it is on track now. Speedy will be happy to have a shed & Marg won't have to bring him in to a stall in bad weather any more. That makes us both happy. He walks his stall something fierce, which makes cleaning it a real pain. (His manure gets churned & ground into the shavings.) I'm buying the shed because I can't build one much cheaper. I would save a few hundred, but considering the time, it's not worth it.
Jim, while you were busy working and getting poor customer service (, Ed and I took a ride in our boat to the Lake George camping islands. The weather was perfect! I took pics and will upload them to my Picasa website albums soon. When you're on the islands, you feel as if you're a million miles from no-where.Don't forget to post pics of the new shed when it's done. Hope Speedy will like it.
I'll post pictures if my stupid Internet connection is working. It started to again today for no known reason before I actually got through to tech support. I've written an email to the owner of the company letting him know of my displeasure for all the good it will do - likely none.
Jim, has your ISP explained their problem?
Yes, Joy. Apparently they updated the firmware on one of the access points Saturday morning. That caused clients to get knocked off more & more often. They didn't bother to check their work nor pay any attention to all the calls that came in until Monday morning. The owner was completely unsympathetic. He just said they had two other tower outages & calls were being answered in the order they were received. They just have too many calls right now. The head tech was nicer, he explained what had happened. I spoke to the owner of my ISP's ISP, about it. He's my son's boss & of the opinion that my ISP is on its last legs. Hopefully they'll get bought out & not just go completely under leaving us with nothing.
Jim, it's worrisome finding out what goes on behind the scenes with these ISPs. I picture people running around like chickens trying to put the fires out.
Here is a link to a decent Mah Jong game, if anyone is interested. It handles quite a few different rule sets for the 4 handed version.http://download.cnet.com/Four-Winds-M...
Thanks, Jim. I've saved the link and one of these days I might try the Mah Jong tutorial.Who said that retirement is boring? LOL
I've copied and pasted the following from your linked page:
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"Essentially, it's rather like a game of rummy, wherein three players get 13 tiles and the dealer gets 14, discarding one. You form a hand with one pair and four groups of three tiles, either matching or in sequence in suit."
FROM: http://download.cnet.com/Four-Winds-M...
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The big difference from Rummy is that straights aren't as good to get. They can only run 3 cards & you can't fill one on a discard except from the player just before you, unless you're going out. You can use discards from anyone for 3 or 4 of a kind, though. Also, the game goes clockwise, except if someone picks up a discard, it starts from the person after them, so you can lose turns that way. There are also some special hands you can fill that don't exist in Rummy. Some depend on the tiles you use, others are just odd like all 1's & 9's or Winds or something. There are extra tiles, too. They're kind of like extra suits or points, if you want to use them. The scoring is really confusing. I never did it, but you add & subtract points to all the players depending on who goes out & who has what or something odd.
Jim, it sounds complicated. I think I'll stick to rummy. Thanks, though, for explaining the differences.
I had said I would post pics of our day out on the lake last weekend. Below is a link to the pics:https://picasaweb.google.com/Sea1934/...#
I hope the captions are helpful.
Actually, there's not much out there but trees and rocks and water. Sometimes, as we sit gazing out from a campsite, we say to each other: "What is there to do here?" :)
Well... isn't that the point? There's nothing to do but relax and enjoy.
Not a good evening. I was planning on doing a lot of stuff, but an injured fawn got into the field & got torn up by the dogs. I guess a doe jumped in & it busted itself up following or trying to get out. I had to get it out, fix the fence & shoot the fawn. Besides putting some wire over the drain to the pond, I didn't get a thing done I'd been planning on. Well, I guess the fawn's day was a lot worse, so I shouldn't complain.:(
Sorry to hear about that poor fawn, Jim. It must have been hard on you to have to shoot it. I feel sorry for the doe too.Glad you enjoyed the pics. I enjoyed posting them. Sometimes I think I shouldn't make them public. We don't need anymore boaters on LG.
Campers have to reserve 9 months ahead of time to get a good block of time on the island campsites. The sites go fast. The reservations open up exactly 9 months before the date you want to reserve. It's like a rolling calendar. And the price isn't cheap. There are extra fees beyond the basic daily fees. For example there's a $3 per night extra fee for refuse management. I think the basic fee is around $17 per night.
Info at:
General info: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24474.html
Info re one of the groups of islands (Narrow Island Group):
http://newyorkstateparks.reserveameri...
Well, it wasn't pleasant, but better to find it now than 3 days dead. Had that happen a couple of years ago. Luckily, they normally stay out.
Thanks, good explanation. Did any of you ever play Sheepshead? It is very popular in Milwaukee.
Nina wrote: "... Did any of you ever play Sheepshead? It is very popular in Milwaukee."Nina, I've never heard of that card game, but here's the Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheepshead
I started to read about how to play, but it seems complicated. It would be best to be introduced to it in person, little by little.
I found the following explanation about the name of the game interesting:
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Although Schafkopf literally means "sheepshead", it has nothing to do with sheep. The term probably was derived and translated incorrectly from Middle High German and referred to playing cards on a barrel head (from kopf, meaning head, and Schaff, meaning a barrel).
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That does look confusing, because of the card scoring. It's not very intuitive. I think once past that, it wouldn't be terrible. I do like Hearts & Spades. I've never played Bridge, though.
Jim, Hearts and Spades are easy compared to Bridge. Bridge has various conventions which one must learn. There are all sorts of rules about bidding, about responding to your partner's bids, and then responding to the responder. To me it seemed as though the players talked in codes to one another.When I first started playing it all seemed fairly clear and I started to become familiar with various tactics. However, it was the "code-talk" which made me throw in the towel. For example, if you bid a certain way, it was a signal to your partner that you had certain cards which would help win. But you had to know how to bid. The more I learned about the game, the more confusing it became. It wasn't fun anymore.
The following pages will give you a taste of the complexity:
http://www.bridgeguys.com/conventions...
http://www.acbl.org/play/commonlyUsed...
Of course, in all card games it's necessary to remember which cards have already been played. I was never able to remember. Yet, the elderly ladies I played with (all over 80) remembered every card that was out. They had played bridge from the time they were kids. I also think that people are born with that card sense. I could never develop it.
Today, with my sister and nephew, I'm going to see a show at the Wood Theater in Glens Falls. The name of the show is "The Piano Men". It's a tribute to Elton John and Billy Joel.At the Wood Theater website, it says:
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"Starring from Toronto Canada: Les Smith as Captain Fantastic, Elton John and Leo Frantz as The Piano Man, Billy Joel. All Backed live by the Face To Face Band. These two artists have performed to sold out crowds throughout North America and Europe."
FROM: http://woodtheater.tix.com/Event.asp?...
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PS - The official title of the show at the website is:"A Tribute to the Piano Men" Elton John & Billy Joel
Today I'm going on an overnight with my sister. See you when I get back.
Have fun with your sister. Because I don't have a sister I treasure my overnights with my daughters; especially in Paris.
I started talking to my cousin Karen the other day. We don't talk often, but she brought back a lot of memories. I had forgotten freezing her babysitter's bra or the time I captured a seagull & it savaged her mother's (my aunt) ear. (Apparently Aunt Carol still remembers that & curses me. It did bleed pretty good. Yes, I was a fairly horrible child.) Anyway, she wanted some pictures so I went through some old ones. I posted half a dozen on FB, if you're interested.https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
Jim, you might have been a rascal but you look pretty darn cute in that picture.
Thanks, but all those pictures are of my kids, Nina. The James is Jr. They were all rascals, too. My mother & aunts said it was pay back.;-)
Jim wrote: "Have fun, Joy."Thank you, Jim and Nina.
I'm back from my trip with my sister. I'm exhausted but I had a great time. We went on the train ride from Saratoga to North Creek, NY and back again. It was a beautiful day, crisp and clear. We sat in the dome car and ate our meals at linen-covered tables. We shopped in the gift stores and had a lot of fun. Below is a link to the pics I took:
https://picasaweb.google.com/Sea1934/...#
The cost round trip in the dome car was $36.00.
(The cost round trip in a regular train car was $17.00, I think.)
The meals were very reasonably priced and the food was good.
Below are some related links:
https://www.sncrr.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoB1iu...
Jim wrote: "Thanks, but all those pictures are of my kids, Nina. The James is Jr. They were all rascals, too. My mother & aunts said it was pay back.;-)"
Jim, nice pics. Like, Nina, I was a bit confused as to who the "James" was. Cute kids.
My father-in-law was named Jim, too. It was really confusing then.;-)
I posted a few pictures of the new shed, my weekend project.https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...
That's a handsome looking shed, Jim. Is that all it takes to shelter Speedy?
My "horsey" daughter used to say her horses that were stabled elsewhere than her suburban yard,that theyes had a better neighborhood than her. Does this mean Speedy has better shelter than you and Marge?
Actually, we put off getting a shed just for Speedy. He's in his early 30's somewhere & has a really thick coat (he's a Welsh pony), so Marg just put him in a stall during really bad weather. Erin's horse, Topaz, grass foundered this summer, so he also needs to be in a fairly bare paddock. He needs more shelter & with two of them, we decided we needed to break down & put in a shed.Yes, that's all the shelter they really need. So long as they can stay dry & keep the worst of the wind or sun off, that's all it takes. The only thing that really gets them cold is rain. Snow or dry cold doesn't bother Speedy at all. Snow just piles up on his coat, barely gets it wet.
I think our house is a little better than the horses' accommodations. Not much, though. Marg has a heated tack room with hot & cold running water. That also goes outside for the horses' wash stall, so they don't have to suffer with a cold wash in the winter. Their stalls & the grooming area have 1/2" rubber mats with fans, so they don't get too hot. It's tough being one of our animals, as you could see by how uncomfortable Pixie & Lily are. Somehow they manage to survive, though.
;-)
Just as I finished going through GR last night, movement out the window caught my eye. Turned out to be a hawk landing on the bird bath. I got a few pictures that I posted.https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...
It might be the same hawk that I caught on the front porch a while back. He isn't exactly friendly, but certainly isn't nearly as wary of humans as most. Even when I snuck around & he saw me taking pictures, he just flew into the tree on the left. When I continued to stalk him with the camera, he flew across the road.
Jim wrote: "Actually, we put off getting a shed just for Speedy. He's in his early 30's somewhere & has a really thick coat (he's a Welsh pony), so Marg just put him in a stall during really bad weather. Eri..."Interesting about the shelters being enough. I guess animals don't feel the cold as much as humans do. As a matter of fact, it seems that some humans feel the cold more than others. I'm one of them.
I googled and found the following articles online which discuss why some people feel the cold more than others:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_some...
http://www.heraldscotland.com/wellbei...
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/relea...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/...
One of the factors mentioned is muscle mass.
At the Wiki.answers link above, it says:
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"Most but not all older people lose muscle mass - tone, ( muscles being great calories burners and heat producers ) and become sedentary and physically unfit. Intense activities are all but eliminated. They will not generate a lot of heat just sitting around on their butts, walking at 1.5 MPH or sleeping."
FROM: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_some...
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Harumph! I guess that's telling me! LOL
Horses & dogs will generally grow a coat that can deal with the cold. Of course, some are better than others at it. Thoroughbreds (TB) often don't have a very thick coat while Welsh ponies are almost as tough as Shetlands. TB's vary a lot depending on their breeding & what they were used to. Blue gets almost as shaggy as Speedy while Cutter never gets too thick of a coat. He was raised in Florida, too. I think he often curses us for bringing him to the wilds of Kentucky. Shooting, howling coyotes, a turn out shed, & woods in his field are all horrors as far as he is concerned. We call him our hot house flower. ;-)
Speedy & Blue aren't fond of the shooting or coyotes, but think the rest is just fine.
Poor Cutter! Hot house flower, indeed! Picture please... to refresh my memory. It's not easy keeping track of your menagerie, Jim!
Cutter is the dark bay with almost no star in the pictures here:https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...
He's the one standing alone holding the Jolly ball (big red ball) in his mouth.
He has some fantastic breeding & won several races, although no big ones. His hocks started to go & he wound up almost starving to death in an over grazed paddock. Marg bought/rescued him. He was studdish & quite mean when we got him. Now he's a lap dog & follows us around the fields.
He likes to lick trucks - yeah, weird. Nice enough, but fairly stupid. He's the one that got his legs tangled up in the wire fence the other day, just to give you one example. He helped me take down the burlap from the barn openings the other day. I'd put a piece in the truck, climb the ladder to cut off another while he'd take them out & play with them. He took great delight in shaking them at the goats & dogs to scare them.
Speedy wasn't any fun. He just turned his rump to Cutter & pinned his ears. In horse language, that means, "Get back or I will kick the stuffing out of you." Speedy has no sense of humor or play when it comes to the horses. They kick him out of the shed all the time. He has quite a sense of humor when it comes to people. He loves to plod along & then suddenly play racehorse or bucking bronco & dump them. He tries it with every new rider unless Marg gives him a good talking to ahead of time. He's pretty good with kids for that reason. He knows Marg will beat him up if he dumps a kid. Adults are on their own, though.
Horses have a low sense of humor.
;-)
Now I remember who Cutter is. He has a bit of tan color around his nose. Those pics are a good review of your pets. I love the way you love animals.
Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group
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