Sparks

Jul. 7th, 2015 10:13 pm
mondhasen: (Eisbär)
I love watching fireflies. I can remember doing this years ago, when I was about four or five, at a friend's family's summer cabin in New York State. I also remember raccoons in their trash that night, but that's another story.

Two of my favorite books from childhood have fireflies in them. Sam and the Firefly, by P.D. Eastman, 1958, was my first. I spent years, off and on, trying to come up with this title while remembering only bits of the book itself. I chanced upon it in 1997 by doing a subject search for fireflies in children's books.

The second book wove a story around fireflies' lights. A copy of Voices in the Meadow, by J. Allen Bosworth, 1964, was given to me by my grandmother the year it was published. I read this over and over, but my copy was lost in a move a couple of years later.

When my children were young I'd take them out into our woods and fields to see the blinking greenish lights among the trees and grasses. Some nights there would seem to be hundreds! They'd start appearing in June and peak in mid-July. I've seen one solitary little light as late as November.

Tonight the yard is alive with sparks! They move silently through the canopy and some settle in the tufts of grassy lawn. The shrill bats are out as well, chasing mosquitoes mostly.

*sigh* I miss watching this show with my kids. At least my youngest still enjoys seeing these, albeit alone or with friends, and tells me how he remembers those days gone by.
mondhasen: (ordnance)
One of the most common complaints by new users of the library computers is that their home pcs are 'broken.' This is more frequent than we more savvy users might be aware of.  I say savvy but I could also say 'fortunate' or 'lucky.' It astounds me how many people click bad links and fu@k up their home computers. It amazes me more that there are so f''ing many bad links out here. The malware people have gotten very sophisticated, and it's scary.

I've opened infected email, and luckily I had antivirus software that jumped all over it before anything seeped out. For the most part I can generally spot junk prior to clicking, but there are those mouse over nasties and redirects that sneak in regardless. And then there's that CryptoWare running around the net extorting users to retrieve pictures and files.

I've been backing up my system more frequently and keeping programs patched and updated, but I don't feel as secure as I could. I'm considering buying Faronics Deep Freeze for home (we use it at work, and it is one of the best tools in my kit. And it has that cute bear!).

I spent approximately five hours this week trying to clean up my sister's pc. Spybot, MSE, System Restore, and good old fashioned sleuthing still didn't pull everything out that I would have wanted to eliminate, but it runs faster and cleaner than before. After the first round of cleaning she made the error of clicking a damned java look-alike link and flooded the system with redirect programs and the like. I got to the point of googling every unknown file in the processes and tossing out what files would allow me to dump them. Nasty, invasive stuff.

But I got a nice gift out of it for my helping (aside from some gas money): a Wilton Cake Decorating kit! I also got a bunch of cookies and candies she didn't want as she is on a diet.

Hallowe'en

Oct. 31st, 2013 07:07 pm
mondhasen: (halloween)
It's a rainy, windy Halloween here in RI. This isn't as bad as the years I took the kids door-to-door with a beach umbrella over them, but it's discouraging nonetheless.

We haven't ever had trick-or-treaters come to the door in the twenty-seven years we've lived here, but we keep a bowl of candy at the ready, just in case. When the kids were young I'd drive them over to the plats where the homes were closer and the roads safer (slow and sparse traffic). Tonight I'm here with just my middle child (24) while the others are all out and about. My wolfling is down to URI at the Rocky Horror Picture Show presentation. Others are off to Roger Williams Park Zoo to see the pumpkin extravaganza or are out among friends in general.

It will be a tv night for me, perhaps with a little Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, or Vincent Price. On the darker side I'll also 'visit the folks' for a bit and walk among the graves while I reminisce over Halloweens gone by. They always had us over and gave the kids plenty of goodies every year. Ain't afraid of no ghosts! ;o)

Hope your night is safe and happy.

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