July newsletter:

Stupid is as Stupid does, so the saying goes........
Imagine yourself driving down a street, in your mind a square hamurger/cheeseburger appears, you look up and here is a Wendy's. Wendy's had a brilliant idea when they formed a hamburger in the shape of a square. Not only that, in recent month they have shown us commercials indicating signs for life. If I remember correctly the point they are trying to drive home is that "IF" there are signs to guide our life, everything will be much easier.

Mid-June California had a 7.2 earthquake. I was logged onto the US Earthquake site when a large red box appeared, I thought it was a popup, but soon realized it was an earthquake that had just been posted. Within a few minutes a tsunami warning was issued for the West Coast of the US. As instructed, I started to call key people about the possibility of a problem, including some people on the coast and up the river that I knew for sure did not watch the news or TV for that matter since they were fed up with the dilemma the world seemed to find itself in and they therefore consider everything "bad news" and according to them is disrupting their peace and quiet from within. I advised them of the approaching waves, they felt they were OK since the house was 16 feet off the ground. I mentioned that there might be a possibility the ocean waves might push the river in reverse, that might be a little close, since the river was within 75 feet of the dwelling and also that since they were at sea level, 87 feet was needed to rise above the safety zone to start with. They did not want to consider that and when I asked where the children were, I was told one was in Aberdeen, a town in direct path of the Tsunami. I suggested they call him, no, they was going to tell him when he got home!

One of the other calls I took was from a Lady who was warning me and in the same breath she proceeded to tell me about the wonderful lunch she had just enjoyed. I cut the call short since lunch was not a matter of national security at the moment. It occurred to me that sacrificing virgins to the Volcano and other culprits was not a bad Idea after all and right about then.

After things had settled down, the warnings were canceled and all was well in the neighborhood; a friend and I decided to revisit some web sites in order for us to double check that we had acted correctly in our actions in reference to the crisis. Within a few minutes we witnessed in AWE how data from the University of Washington just started to download onto my computer. We watched for some time since we were both pretty computer illiterate. Some time consisted of about 20 minutes, a red STOP appeared, before we were able to read the name of the file the episode was over. Of course we thought about everything we could have done, such as shut the computer off and things like that. Truth of the matter was we were fascinated with what ever phenomenon had occurred.

I did not want to pay $1.95 for an information call since I have to undertake a very underfunded trip in a couple of weeks. It took some doing, but I finally got a phone number for the UW. I told the story several times and eventually talked to someone in the seismology department. I explained that quite a bit of their data was now stuck in my personal PC. The Lady I talked to said I should just delete it. I responded that I was unable to locate the file, I was computer illiterate and could they send someone to retrieve it. "No," she said, "go tell your webmaster." I again attempted to explain to her that there must have been a security breach on her end in case the file contained sensitive information and notified her that I was to be sure to make her the star of my newsletter. To date no-one has contacted me in this regard, so here I am with heavens know what stuck in my PC and maybe a million other web surfers.

I needed to recharge my phone card which I use for overseas calls. There was a problem with the authorization code on my debit card. The nice gentleman on the other end asked if he may call my bank to verify my address, I agreed. When he called back he informed me they...the bank.... had never heard of me and recharge was denied.
I called the bank to ask them where I lived, they knew and wondered why the question. I explained and was told that the account, which had no address, had been billed by the phone company twice, not to worry it would "flip" back within four days.

A renewal from the homeowners insurance arrived. It stated I could make 1 payment of $385. Or, if I preferred, 10 payments of $66.18. Choices, choices, always choices. Wendy's had a good Idea to put signs up to guide our life.

I had to buy some faucets for a plumbing job. The local hardware store did not carry the kind I needed, so I went to Home Depot. It was an adventure to locate someone to help me. I explained that I was not able to walk very far...... I was recovering from the etheric slingshot injury to my buttocks, which I suffered prior to the arrival of the Tsunami warning...... Someone finally helped me and proceeded to send me to the cash registers, all located on the other end of the city-block-long building. I asked how come the disabled parking was on the opposite end of the store since most of us, who have a disability, are unable to walk the length of a city-block-long building, especially on a cement floor? They circled an address on my bill and suggested I should go to the website, there might be a possibility of an explanation on the homepage. When I returned to my van I saw where someone left a note on the windshield wiper. "Learn how to park IDIOT." When opening the bag with the faucets they, of course, were wrong and a second visit to the store was necessary. This time I put a note on the windshield. It said ... well, maybe I keep that part to myself.

On the way home I was in deep thought, not so deep that I missed the pickup that raced by everyone about 80 miles per hour, myself AND oncoming traffic pulled over, about 5 inches from a ditch, in order not to assist the driver to kill himself, and us of course, we watched him fly into the sunset and tried to compose ourselves, that was close!

Again I thought about the incredible affective commercials by Wendy's. I thought how incredible unique the square hamburgers really are! We appreciate signs to guide our lives and then ignore them......
Stupid is as Stupid does...... not me..... I am going to Wendy's and have a salad and an Ice-cream!

Love and Light
Lilian