Arrghhh

     We all have had our computer glitches. My recent one was particularly painful. I leave my computer on all the time. One morning last week, moving the mouse did not wake it up, so I powered down and restarted. When I opened a file, I dicovered that there had been no changes made in the past three months! With great trepidation, I checked some other fi!es... same result. I said, "No sweat, I'll just go to the external hard drive and recover them from there." Guess what? There was nothing current on the external hard drive, either. Like everyone, I had a lot of files; some more important than others. What was most painful, personally, was "My Story". I started a year ago, on an rregular basis, to create an autobiographical synopsis of my life. My most recent addition brought the word count to 12,000. Now I find that the most recent 6,800 words cannot be found.
     I worked with my son, Mark, using"WebEx". He could remotely control my computer. We did some cleaning, but no recovery. It is now at the Geek Squad. There is a virus, but I won't know the details until Friday.
     Remember the days of keeping a spare copy of your dissertation in the trunk, just in case? I should have remembered and emailed copies to myself, for example. The blog was not affected as it is trundled off to a Google server somewhere.
     This, too, will pass. The next version of those 6,800 words will be better than the last. Right?

More Eagles

     This morning Durelle alerted me to a photo-op with the pair of eagles. I was frying bacon, so I asked her to take the pictures with my clumsy Leica. She was unable to go to the full telephoto, so she had a lot of pictures of trees. The birds were patient, so I got a chance. The neuropathy precludes the good steady stance and grip needed for long lens work, but the light was good so I tried it. I should really get a tripod. The five shots below are the result.

     We are so fortunate to be able to watch and listen to these birds on a daily basis.

Getting caught up

     Since the last post, there have been a few events...most notably a week long visit from grandson, David, his girlfriend, Jacqui, and our great granddaughter, Brielle. Brielle is newly a teenager but without the usual annoying habits that teenage girls seem to have. They arrived on Sunday afternoon after Cindy and I had left in the morning, so Durelle had to pick them up by herself and bring them to the house. By the time I got home they had moved into their Tuesday-Thursday rental of a beach condo on the Isle of Palms. Here's a couple of shots from their balcony.

     Not too shabby, Dave.

     Meanwhile, back at our house, Dave and his grandmother were convincing themselves that surely not all of those hundreds of brown pods on the magnolia tree could possibly be blossoms. Wrong!!!

     Only a few have opened so far. Here's one of them.

     Is that a perfect magnolia blossom?

     This one almost qualifies as a tradition. Every six months Durelle and I get our teeth cleaned. Since we are done around lunchtime, we are ready to exercise our newly sharpened teeth at a local lunch establishment. Cindy often joins us. Today the favored institution was the "Home Team BBQ" in West Ashley. I had a sliced brisket sandwich with a side of beans that was tasty.

     Durelle had a chopped brisket sandwich with a side of mac 'n cheese which she enjoyed.

     Cindy had some sort of a large burrito which will provide her with several meals.

     For those of you who are interested, the bus is for sale at Atlantic RV Solutions