740 GB Western Digital Hard Drive

My husband's Maximum PC came out yesterday. I got to look at it first and made him guess what the latest Western Digital Hard Drive was like. He never did guess that it was up to 740 GB! Whew! And they were super-fast, too.

I haven't bought a DVD writer for myself, yet, but I was looking at Sony's 8x speed DVD. Maximum PC did not like that one as well as the Plextor equivalent.

Looks like the easiest way to back up hard drive information is to keep a second hard drive around. On TechTV, the host said he had a program (Second Copy) that automatically backs up new documents made on one hard drive to the second hard drive. Then again, if the information is really important, store it somewhere out of the house, they say. Here's an article with all the advice and links.

Argh! Backing up is becoming harder to do with larger drives to deal with (although I am glad for having more memory ... especially as cameras produce larger megapixel images).

New Responsibility for Nurses

My daughter told me that nurses can now officially pronouce the death of a patient. She said that it was a heavy responsibility.

The workers on their floor got new labcoats. She likes the monogram.

The other morning -- very early before sunrise, I saw an ambulance going down the main street near here, lights flashing. There were almost no other cars on the road. They kept their siren silent -- I was impressed at how thoughtful that was.

Tomorrow morning it is supposed to be 13 degrees. My walking companions and I called it quits for tomorrow even though I have the correct clothing for being out in very cold weather. While we love to walk, we try to use some common sense -- not in the rain or below 20 degrees. You'd be surprised at the number of fanatics that go out in any kind of weather.

Imagine -- just two days ago, it was 75 degrees and now it is going to be 13. That's Alabama for you! Experience all 4 seasons in one week. It's never boring around here.

Empty Nest?

I talked with an acquaintance at church yesterday. Two of his children moved out of the house along with his granddaughter who had been living with them at the time. He said that it was taking some time to adjust to the changes.

I told him that he needed a pet. "That's not a problem," he said. "We have two cats, two dogs, birds and a goldfish. We had a lizard, too, but one of the children took that." I had to laugh.

With our daughter gone, having three housecats has kept us pretty busy -- in a good way.

The Drudge Report

A reporter from FOX News said that every reporter's "dirty little secret" is going to the Drudge Report to get a jump on the news. My husband has been visiting that site all along.

I like the Google News page. It states how long ago any story ran - a nice touch.

Children's Pajama Breakfast

Our church held its annual "First Saturday of the New Year" children's pajama breakfast. (Some adults dressed up, too. I love those big white fuzzy slippers that F.M. wore.) At the beginning of every year, they move up in Sunday School/Primary to new teachers and classes. This breakfast at the church gives them a chance to meet their new teachers and find their new classrooms.

I got to teach a segment introducing some of the lessons being taught. It was a very enjoyable activity. I love being with the small children. They are fun to teach and they don't seem upset at my off-key singing.

Ruby Tuesdays Disappointment

We ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday's yesterday. Their salad bar was wonderful, but their other food was a great disappointment. Years ago, they used to bring a delicious brown bread to the table automatically. Next, they did it only upon request and now they don't do it at all.

Their fajitas used to be the best in town -- served sizzling on a hot metal plate (this company was owned by the same person who owned Chilis and said to be the inventor of today's version of fajitas). Tomatoes, sour cream, lettuce, etc., were brought on a separate plate. The tortillas were placed in an insulated bowl to stay warm.

Yesterday, my fajitas came on a plain white plate where the lettuce and sour cream, etc., were also placed. I couldn't even find them under all the other stuff (see photo). This left little room for the fajitas and they got cold very quickly. The tortillas were wrapped in paper, but put on a plain white plate, too. The amounts were much less than years ago.

To add insult to injury, my menu said chicken fajitas were $8.99. The waitress came by with our drinks, took a glance at my menu and said I had the wrong one. They brought me a new one. The same fajitas on that one cost $10.99!

This place has definitely gone overboard. Higher prices and lower quality make it unappealing -- well, except for the salad bar. The ingredients were fresh and so good. I will go here only to eat salad from now on.

My husband ordered the ribeye steak and was disappointed, too. It was not cooked right, was too thin and just didn't taste that good. Was has happened to this place?!

Bacon and Eggs

My daughter came over and said that she was going to her boyfriend's wedding on Saturday. I had to stop and think about that one. Oh, he is peforming the wedding. Duh on me!

It was a wonderful and quiet day at home. I loved it. We had the same great breakfast as on Christmas morning -- homemade hash browns, home-cooked bacon and eggs. We got so full that we could not bring ourselves to eat another meal all day. I could almost feel my arteries hardening. We never did get that pizza we had planned for New Year's Day and my husband skipped breakfast this morning so we'd feel like going somewhere for lunch. We have no problem with gluttony here -- we embrace it daily. Monday, we plan to start diets.

Dieting is such a joke but we keep trying, at least. Statistics show that 95 out of 100 successful dieters gain it all back with a year. 99 out of a hundred gain it back within 5 years. Thus, the odds of keeping a significant weight loss off is 100 to 1. Discouraging, isn't it?

Losing pounds is hard enough, but apparently 99% of the successful losers find it harder to keep it off. I suppose people get tired of feeling deprived. Probably overeating just feels normal to many folks. Eating less feels like torture. Ha! At any rate, I am going to get the candy out of this house over the weekend and buy more high-fiber cereal.

Happy New Year!

May it be better year for you and everyone. It's going to be hard to remember to write 2004 on checks and stuff. Years pass by so quickly these days. The older I get, the faster time seems to go by. I am almost never bored if I am home or in a place where I can bring a book to read.

My daughter has a new boyfriend named Josh. His family lives out in the country here off beyond Jeff Road. He and his father are preachers. They sound like a nice family.

Sunrise this morning was spectacular. The sky was pink from north to south all along the eastern edge. As my friend Chuck said perhaps this means a better year ahead.

I did not stay up late light night. I had a nice chat with Mom. My husband played chess with two friends. He beat a chess master once, but had gotten rusty and has been trying to improve his game. He won all the games he played last night, but said it was not easy. We did not stay up too late so I took a walk to see the dawn. It was well worth seeing.

As my sister said in her blog, we are also going to order pizza and stay home today. It will be nice for a change, to stay home and relax.

Myth Busters Marathon

My husband is watching one of his favorite shows these days on the Discovery Channel, Myth Busters. They take urban legends and prove or disprove them. I wrote about this before, I think. Today they disproved that dropping a penny from the Empire State Building does any great harm. According to the myth, it was supposed to bury itself in the cement or someone's skull, but all it did was sting a little. They did tie up a bunch of helium balloons to chair. It was a very expensive thing to do, but it worked. They made an eelskin wallet. It did not harm a credit card or give off any charge that could erase the magnetic bar on cards. They proved that a 300-pound woman could not get stuck on a toilet in an airplane.

What I liked most about the show was hearing my husband's laughter.

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