I will admit, prior to my diagnosis I ran from pillar to post staying busy. I would listen to my body only when I found myself in an acute situation. Prior to that there were pills (typically ibuprofen) that always quieted my pain. Now, I cannot and will not take pain meds unless it is absolutely necessary and even then I’ll question whether I should or should not. It is now imperative I listen to my body, watch what I eat, ensure I drink plenty of water and in this way I can pretty much maintain a drama free — or close to drama free — existence.

There is a little saying I live by and it is “what you don’t understand you fear and what you fear you attack.” With lupus, stress is the enemy. I now must do all I can to eliminate or manage the amount of stress in my life and to do that, practicing calm is important.

For instance, pre-lupus, if I felt put upon or was given a job I really did not want to do, I would immediately go into ruckem suckem, frickem frackem mode. Now, post-lupus, I have to watch that little destructive mode because invariably it will lead to a flare. Instead, I do what the kids call “flipping the script” and if I feel in any way that I am being put upon, I will just say NO. Yes, I have learned to say no and I love it.  The word is necessary for my survival. If I am assigned a task I really don’t want to do but need to do, I have learned to change my mind and become more proactive. Instead of ruckem suckem, frickem frackem, I now approach the job from a different perspective by looking for productive ways to accomplish the task. Not only has this thinking reduced my stress level, it has made me a better employee.

Now, how does this relate to earthquakes. Well, you see it’s like this, within a few months after arriving in Los Angeles I experienced my first earthquake. I believe it was the Sierra Madre quake I experienced while preparing for work one morning. I will tell you it was the most interesting experience of my life. At first, it was pretty funny. The Landers/Big Bear quake a few years later was less funny. The Northridge earthquake in 1994 was terrifying and since then every little shake has caused me to cling to the ceiling.

Strangely enough, in the past few weeks I have been feeling a little edgy and, long story short, I realize it may be due in part to the recent earthquakes around the world. Logically, I know if there is a big bang there and a big bang way over there, eventually there will be a big bang here. Being realistic, I do live in what is known as the Ring of Fire.

Instead of allowing myself to sink into a pit of stress because I feel something but I really don’t want to deal with it, I have decided to learn everything I can about earthquakes — keeping me out of the realm of fear — and go with my instincts in spite of the shock I may experience when I find myself doing something odd like checking for my keys every night.

Okay, let’s get to the nitty gritty of fear. Monday night/Tuesday morning I felt something was about to happen because — again going back to instinct — I checked for my keys, moved a coffee pot back from the edge of the counter and I was obsessed with the USGS earthquake map. Thankfully, when the 4.4 earthquake hit in Pico Rivera, I felt the shake and almost wanted to return to sleep. This was a good sign because in the past I would have been glued to the ceiling.

I got up and walked through the house and found my big ‘ol dogs were asleep in REM land. I was glad I moved the coffee pot because it had moved slightly on the counter. It would not have been cute if that thing had fallen on my deaf dog who was sleeping beneath it.

SoCal's Big Squeeze

I grabbed my laptop to check on the magnitude and location of the earthquake and found it was in Los Angeles, on the Whittier fault. That has since changed to what is known as the Puente Hills fault — the fault that was all the rage a few years ago as being potentially dangerous and damaging to downtown Los Angeles and surrounding areas should it erupt. I could feel the fear come over me when I read it was actually the Puente Hills fault and my fears increased more and more each day upon seeing no aftershocks. We still have not had an aftershock since the initial quake.

Noticing my stress and fear levels had elevated, I realized I had to research the thing, look at it and dispense with my fears. If the big one hits, there is nothing I can do about it. Too, instead of avoiding reality, I decided to follow my instincts in spite of the shock it caused me.

First, I felt a need to buy lots-o-batteries. Second, I felt the need to check my prescriptions. Shocking, I now have a month’s supply of oral Cytoxan, just in case. If the “big one” doesn’t happen anytime soon — and I hope it does not — I will have my kitchen cabinets fitted with earthquake locks this weekend. I now have lots-o-water and dog food too. Admittedly, some of this — particularly the Cytoxan — was acquired prior to Tuesday’s quake. Now I have everything I need to get me through one month.

Though it was a little shocking to find myself doing these things, I will admit I feel good knowing I was proactive. I might not want to deal with the aftermath of a devastating earthquake but it is better to be proactive than reactionary. The stress of reacting to an earthquake could thrust me — no pun — into a downhill spiral.

Facing my fears has become my new motto. Instead of running away, I am learning to face them head on. I don’t know if we will experience a major earthquake, I cannot predict them, but something within felt I should be prepared. Instead of ignoring these warnings, I chose to listen and heed spirit’s urgings. It made me feel uncomfortable and a bit nervous but it is better to keep my vision and not stick my head in the sand.

Personally, if an earthquake should happen, I would rather be in a position of saying “I’m glad I listened to my gut” instead of saying “something told me I should have done that.” Oh the many times I’ve found myself behind that 8-ball.

Now, will we have a major earthquake? Heck if I know. I do know I’m still a little uncomfortable with Tuesday’s event because we have not had an aftershock. Other quakes, shallower than that one, have had lots of aftershocks. This has done nothing since. Too, since it is now reported to have happened on the Puente Hills fault, it does concern me.

It is not comforting to know I live in the Ring of Fire but it is still better than shoveling a heap load of snow from your roof in the cold of winter, shoveling heaps of snow from your sidewalk, or trying to get to work in biting cold.  California is in the big squeeze which means eventually we will have a major earthquake.  Researching this has helped me deal with the inevitable.  Sticking my head in the sand would have been costly to my health.

To add insult to injury, I feel like I’m catching a cold which means even if I thought I could get away with a day trip to Vegas Saturday morning, I cannot because something is going on within that could land me in a hospital — worse case — or flat on my back for days. I want neither so I’m staying put, at home, just me and tha dawgs.

NexStar 4SE

I really wanted to go this year because I’m in the market for a new telescope, preferably a Celestron NexStar SE something or one from the Series GT group. My life has now gotten to a point where I really cannot do the hiking I was once able to do. Flares happen, I’ve gotten over it now, and I have to consider what I can photograph that is closer to home or can be done from my backyard.

I have two interests and this is why I really wanted to go to CES this year. One is astronomy, photographing the stars and I don’t mean the sort from Hollyweird. I would also like to capture the beautiful Hummingbirds in my back yard without getting so up close and personal with them they end up sitting and looking at me as if to ask “what the hell are you doing?”

I like the Celestron telescopes because they offer a lot of bells and whistles like a digital camera mount for afocal photography. I can see using this for a couple of video cameras I have and my Canon PowerShot. They also have T-Rings for 35mm cameras. Then there is the phenomenal CCD webcam hardware/software too. Granted, Nextimage is not as good as Orion’s imagers, particularly the StarShoot Deep Space Monochrome Imager III, but for the price it will do the trick. I like that, make it easy for me.

My second interest goes back to my days in high school biology. I will never forget an assignment given for us to go out and pick up samples in or around the school. We were first told to seek out paramecium and amoebas. Life changed for me when those guys popped up under the microscope. Unfortunately, I had no way to photograph them or their movements. Well, perhaps that’s what I’ll do now. Plus, I have always wanted to see a potato bug up close and personal.

LCD Deluxe Digital Microscope

I know, the potato bug probably threw some people off but I do like their big bald heads. Of course, Celestron has LCD Digital Microscopes that are small and can be easily taken anywhere. I could go for their LCD Microscope (and this one) or I can buy my own high-powered microscope and add their LCD display.

Oh well, no CES 2010 for me this weekend. I will bide my time tomorrow waiting impatiently for an IV to drop. There will be no jetting off to Las Vegas at all this weekend. (Drops head) But, I will closely watch CelestronDotCom’s YouTube Channel in hopes of finding some bits of information from their exhibit, I hope.

Oh well, if you are going to CES 2010, Celestron is in booth Central 7912.    For more on Celestron and their products, go to www.celestron.com.  Now, for some pretty nice software for astronomy that’s FREE, check out RegiStax at http://www.astronomie.be/registax/.

As for me, this weekend I’ll be sucking IVs, D3 and C.  Ugh!

Yesterday, RIM’s (Research In Motion) Blackberry went south to become Resource Isn’t Moving. For those who depend on their Crackberry, life fell silent as old fashioned ways to communicate rose to the surface. Yes, as in calling someone, actually hearing their voice, listening to them and responding appropriately. Sometimes the universe demands balance and there will be those days when you will have to stop passively texting folk and actually talk with someone. Hooray for downtime.

I noticed my Blackberry dragging at about 2:00 p.m. yesterday but, with laptop at the ready, it did not slow me down. I did notice intermittent data retrieval but it was too unreliable for my tastes. Later I learned RIM’s network was DOA and no wonder.

According to the Los Angeles Times, RIM apparently issued a statement saying “the problem may have stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of its BlackBerry Messenger application software.” Oh I hate updates. Actually, my last update took far longer than needed, so much so I could have cooked and ate breakfast before seeing my Blackberry again. Ugh!

Well, 12 hours later, while sitting at my desk at 2:00 a.m., what did I hear? Bahling, bahling, bahling, bahling. Oh yes, the sweet sound of email coming in for a landing.

I missed the first disruption in service last Thursday because, as mentioned above, I’ve learned to ignore the thing. If I need to search for a restaurant, look up an address, or Navigate myself near or far, I’ll use it if available. If not, there’s always the laptop, a desktop, my non-AT&T iPhone with WiFi, something. Backups are good.

I will say this about the Blackberry, it is more reliable than it is unreliable, unlike the iPhone. Drop calls? Not a problem with my Verizon Blackberry. Making a call in the middle of planet Zircon? Again, not a problem with my Verizon Blackberry.

Now, speaking of Verizon and the iPhone, apparently, rumors are swirling again regarding a potential marriage between the two. According to LimitedEditioniPhone.com, maybe, just maybe that little exclusivity contract with AT&T will NOT get an extension and maybe, just maybe, Verizon will get a crack at the iPhone, to have and to hold.

Okay, let’s recap shall we. I remember reading somewhere that the iPhone would deliver itself to Verizon’s doorstep in 2009. Well, watching the clock on the wall, my watch and the calendar, that ain’t happened. Another story said the iPhone would be in the Christmas stocking of Verizon for year-end 2009. Well, there’s just a couple of days left til Christmas and it must be waiting for the late shoppers. Now the belief is — and how folks hear this is news to me — the exclusive contract with AT&T expires in June 2010 thus leaving the door open for others, possibly Verizon. Yeah, right. Let’s just say Verizon, though it is updating its network, still does not have the “right stuff” to handle an iPhone. Perhaps Sprint but not Verizon. If it happens, I for one will be in shock. With that, if you see me in my front yard eating a bunch of crows next June, refer to this post.

Granted, Verizon has AT&T beat with the best reception in town but, the iPhone is GSM and Verizon insists on sticking with the old, crudgy CDMA. So no, I cannot see the iPhone on Verizon’s network.

In the meantime, while everyone sorts out this mess, I will continue on with my Blackberry Storm. I love it, it works for me, I can do all of the things I used to do with my Palm Treo, it is more reliable than that ruckem, suckem iPhone and if I never see another iPhone again it will be too soon. There, I said it. My Crackberry was down — data wise — for a few hours. That iPhone, it just could not send a memo to tell me about its unplanned and numerous breaks. It just did it.

Recently, realizing this thing has been with me for years and in spite of feeling it a bit far fetched, I have committed to documenting it and the more I do the more it transforms. I am no longer thinking it far fetched. Actually, I’m thinking this thing is doable. As a result, I’ve found myself doing a lot of outside-the-box thinking which, for a very conservative woman, has had my brain turning inside out, upside down.  I don’t have the right tools for this kind of thinking and the one I do have was put on restriction many years ago because it is so — shall we say — 1.0, if that.

It’s not like I haven’t had to do this before. When I was younger it was easier to follow non-traditional forms of researching, documenting and gathering information. Back in the rock & chisel days, I had notebooks and my favorite notebooks were 3-ring day planners with pockets. As I worked on an idea, I would clip pictures from magazines and place them on paper with a glue stick, three-hole punch the paper and place it in my notebook. Any articles or research papers I either discovered or wrote were also included in a special section of my notebook. I also kept a lot of ruled paper in that notebook for any fleeting or wild ideas that cropped up during the planning stages.  Carpe diem was my modus operandi and any ideas, fleeting as they were, caused me to stop, open my notebook, write a quick note and then move on.

Since my notebook also served as a true day planner, I kept pens and writing pads, clips, highlighting markers, and a small Dictaphone in plastic pockets of my notebook. I also kept business cards neatly placed in vinyl or plastic 3-hole drilled pockets along with sheets for addresses, my calendar, a to-do list, and whatever else I thought I needed for my travels. It was perfect because it allowed me a place and space where I could not only carry my day planner, I could also keep my ideas and/or plans neatly tucked away and with me just in case something came up — or to mind — that could be added to my idea or plan.

This large day planner was a leather zip-up with handles and of course, this was pre- PDAs and smartphones. When I decided to go the way of technology, I discarded my portable brain and purchased a Palm V. The selling point of the Palm V for me was the ability to hand write notes. It was hard but I purposely put my portable brain deep in a cave here in the house to insure I would never touch it because I wanted to ween myself from it and use the Palm. I literally forced myself to learn to do more with the PDA and what I couldn’t do with the PDA probably didn’t need to be done, at least that was my thinking at the time.

What was unfortunate about my determination was I forced myself to do more with less effectively losing that wonderful ability I had to do creative visualization. I could not store photos on the Palm that benefited me in using images to spark ideas. In a nutshell, what that means is I will use an image that sparks a feeling. The image could be of green grass in a park and have nothing to do with the idea or project I’m working with. What it does is spark a feeling and that feeling could come from something I experienced way back when. Using that feeling, I am typically connected to an idea I might have had way back then that is useful for what I’m working on today.

The image or images could also be used as an escape. If I’m thinking too hard on something I will use the image as a get-away. It could take me back to a pleasant thought or feeling and from there I’m able to continue on. Finally, the images could be used as part of the idea, a close but no cigar kind of thing.

PDAs and smartphones have done nothing more than restrict me. They are small, yes. They can easily fit in a pocket or bag, yes, but they do not allow me the ability to create like I was once able to do. I need something more.

Microsoft’s recently leaked and supposedly very secret prototype, the Courier, has sparked my creative juices. This little gadget created an aha! moment for me. As I watched the video of how it worked what stimulated me was not the gadget itself but the demonstration. Grabbing photos and adding them to a page was a goody. Searching the web and grabbing bits and pieces from a page was another goody. The ability to add people to a project and sliding their names onto a map for driving instructions was another goody.

When I saw the demonstration I was speechless. Literally, speechless. This is how I work. Now, will this work for others making it a product for the masses? Possibly. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks and works with images and handwritten scribble. If it imports MS Outlook, allows for data backup, can be easily repaired (the product has dual screens) and will allow for an external hard drive, I will be the first in line to purchase this little goody.

I would have absolutely loved the iPhone had it not been for AT&T’s network, dropped calls, dropped data, their excuses for why this was happening, and let’s not leave out Apple’s ability to mess up a wet dream by denying apps to use or perform background functions. Nice interface, nice OS, can’t view 3rd party videos in a butchered Safari, could not cut & paste for a while and you can’t tether it to a PC if you needed to connect in a pinch. Basically, it’s for kids who want to surf the web, play games, and watch videos on YouTube only. Unless you jailbreak the thing you basically have a nice but useless toy.

Because I am a cynic, jaded, and been in legal way too long, I’m not storing anything on the web to come back and haunt me years later. I also don’t want to be tied to something remote that could and does go down which, like Murphy’s law, happens when you most need it. Sorry Google and all of those Google enabled devices, not for me. Don’t let me get started with all of these folks putting their lives out there making it easy for criminals to do a drive-up on their life, their lives, their apartments, homes, cars, etc. No thank you.

Now, back to the Courier, I can keep my stuff to myself without broadcasting it to the world. I like that. It uses a stylus for writing, drawing, and whatever else I choose to do. It has several apps loaded and, according to some of the reviews I’ve read thus far, more apps can be loaded onto the dual-screen tablet. I might add, the smartphone apps market has reportedly swelled to $4.5 billion. Kaching!!

Gizmodo has a nice write up on Microsoft’s planned Courier and looking at some of the photos they have, it brought back memories of my old — and I still have it — day planner notebook. All I’ll need is for someone to design a snazzy case for it big enough to hold pens, clips and other necessities, I’ll be okay with that.

When will this product come to market? I don’t know. I’m certainly onboard for it and to prepare myself for the inevitable release, I’m pulling out that old notebook, dusting it off and I’m going to put it to use again in preparation for the release of the Courier. And Microsoft, puh-leeze don’t mess this up like Apple did the iPhone. Please!!

Video:  Microsoft’s Courier

In my geeking out I discovered I could buy an enclosure for my old PATA drives and connect them to the new system using a USB port. I chose a IDE/PATA/SATA enclosure that will work with my new system and any other computer I decide to attach it to. The beauty of enclosures is I can take any hard drive, load it into the enclosure, flip the switch to either SATA or USB and voila, I have a new portable hard drive. I like it and might I add it worked beautifully.

Unfortunately, what did not work well was my old cantankerous hard drive. It simply did not want to cooperate with me. Finally, after 20 friggin hours spent repairing bad sectors, I finally had the drive beaten to a place of submission where I could retrieve files.

I would not have cared about this drive had it not been for me doing something incredibly stupid. I saved all of my iTunes and other mp3 music files on a partition of what used to be the main or system disk on my old computer. Typically, I do not use the OS drive for storage because It’s too risky. These drives are usually the first to fail. How I managed to copy my music files to a partition on that drive escapes me. As it turns out — as in bought experience — I ended up spending another 16 hours zipping every directory until all of my music files were off that disk. I am still kicking myself for doing something that stupid but, be that as it may, it is done and I can finally have my disk burning party.

This was quite an ordeal as the old computer had been jury rigged to do all sorts of things. It was my main computer and I was quite fond of the thing. Now, I have to teach the new one some old tricks and that has been more than enough fun for one person to have. Fortunately, the more tedious and time consuming tasks are done and what remains is setting up RAID drives — my choice for redundancy — and I think I will utilize more HDD enclosures instead of installing drives inside the computer. No more fabrication and no more cooling fans to cool a crap load of drives. I just can’t see myself twisting screws and becoming a contortionist so that I can remove one or more drives from a drive bay. I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.

In summary, my Macs had a Mac Attack after the last system update and just prior to my installing Snow Leopard.  What little hair was left on my head was pulled out after this incredibly horrifying ordeal.  All I had was that miserable looking Apple and spinning gears.  The system would not boot.  Finally, after trying everything from fsck, -fy — and I had other options for the fsck part of that expression — I conceded defeat and rebooted the systems using the “C” command after startup and reinstalled Leopard.  I chose to save my settings thankfully and both systems were back in the saddle again, thank God.  I had no idea my main PC would follow suit by burning itself out and taking a drive with it.  Although, I have since learned Seagate has issued a warning that some of their drives may need a firmware update lest you find yourself screaming bloody murder.

Now, I’m back on the grid — for now. I will say Frys was a treat because it is now the only electronics store in the area where I can still buy bulk CAT 5 and Coax cable along with an assortment of other electronic goodies typically hard to find unless you order them online. As much as I love to hate that store, it’s still the best.

Now, on to Facebook Fail. I couldn’t take it any longer particularly when I received another email from my profile on Facebook inviting me to join me on Facebook. The invitation was sent to another email address of mine. I don’t know how this happened but I suspect it was the Facebook application for my Blackberry that had some pretty annoying default settings. For instance, after the app upgrade, my calendar was filled with friend events both near and far. Why would someone want an app to do that by default?

I finally looked over the settings and discovered the Facebook app, by default, was set to take over my calendar and there were other settings I did not want but were set by default. Fail, fail, fail. My calendar is too busy as it is to fill it up with more junk. So, of course, my suspicion is there was another default setting to send emails to friends and family to join me on Facebook. Again, fail, fail, fail.

Last week, I exited stage left from Facebook and could not believe the difficulty I had doing something so basic. First, all I could easily do was deactivate my account. Why would I want to deactivate something when I can easily stay away from it?  It’s not like a lost or stolen cell phone one needs to deactivate so as to avoid charges.   Makes no sense whatsoever.  It took some time but first I had to unsuccessfully dig through tons of gunk on Facebook before giving up and doing an internet search and eureka, I found it!!  Buried in some God forsaken place on Facebook are the instructions on how to  permanently DELETE your useless, ruckem, suckem account. MySpace was neither this difficult nor so oppressive — and for the record, nope, not on there either.

First you are deactivated — why? — and then, after a predetermined set of magical, mystical days, you are set free from the Facebook slavehood.  Give me a friggin break.   Social networking, no.  More like Social prison.

Next, there was this mistaken notion I had that the RSS feed for my site would be nothing more than the first 200 or so characters from my site, like many RSS feeds.  I had no idea it would grab every single article, word-for-word, to grab it and stick it on the Facebook site.  Not what I wanted.  To delete each and every article posted required deleting each post, one article at a time.  At one point I clocked 30 minutes deleting 10 articles because the site can sometimes run at a snail’s pace — talk about painstakingly tedious.

For me, Facebook felt nothing like what social networking should be, not at all.  The experience left me feeling as if I was involved with a social pyschic vampire.  Since I have felt incline to strike all things resembling psychic vampires from my life, Facebook had to go.  Don’t look for me there, don’t ask me to join you on Facebook, and don’t ask for my name on Facebook because I assure you, I ain’t there, I don’t want to be there and I ain’t going back.  No more, no mas, and good riddens.  I am now Facebook free along with a host of others, many of them friends of mine who joined and quickly left leaving nothing behind.  I understand why now.  Good grief.

Another nice app I found on the iPhone but is missing on the Blackberry is Pixelpipe.  Love this app on the iPhone but there’s nothing available for the Blackberry.  With Pixelpipe and the iPhone I can upload images and video from my phone onto any of my social networking sites including blogs.   Love it but my lowly Blackberry is not on their A-list.

I have found some very nice apps in Blackberry’s App World and thankfully so.  For instance, Twitterberry was getting on my last nerve because I could not send an image to Twitpic and I could not see entire tweets.  Thankfully, after playing around with a few very bad apps, I found one I like and it is ÜberTwitter.  I can now see entire tweets, images of the tweeters, send direct messages and retweet, and I can upload images from the phone, albeit not to TwitPic.  ÜberTwitter has another app — which escapes me — but it works just as well.

Other apps on my Blackberry are Documents-To-Go, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.  Let me tell you a little something about Facebook.  I almost deleted my profile on Facebook because my phone/calendar began picking up every event mentioned on Facebook — every event located any and everywhere in the world.  Thankfully I discovered an annoying option was set by default to include these events in my calendar.  FAIL!!  Do Not Want!!!

I’m going to keep an eye out and hope something comes up in the App World for Blackberry that is more along the lines of social media but, in the meantime, Blackberry, RIM, whomever, please come up with an app that will help that poor lowly camera so we can upload some decent images.  Thanks.  Bye.

Though the smartphone is smarter than its predecessors, there is one dumb problem and it’s AT&T.  Sorry, can’t deal with a phone on the AT&T network.  Like the many I know who have cursed the sky, clouds, sun and moon when they find themselves on EDGE, I personally have been there, done that and won’t do it again.  I will purchase a new iPhone when AT&T’s exclusive contract with Apple runs it course.

I still have two First Generation iPhones which are currently being used as Skype phones and I’m happy with what I can do with those.  The AT&T network with those iPhones was atrocious with dropped calls and data connection was spotty at best.  According to friends with 3G iPhones, dropped calls are common.   No thank you.

Another bone of contention I have with the new iPhone and AT&T is not being able to tether the phone to a laptop.  It can be done with other carriers outside of the U.S. but not with AT&T.  Not good.  I can tether my Verizon phones, not a problem.

That said, sorry Apple, I ain’t interested as long as AT&T is involved.  Open it to other carriers — Verizon, Sprint, etc. — and I’ll consider purchasing next year or the year after.  Until then, it’s cute but my Blackberry Storm is happening with tethering, a reliable network with minimum dropped calls and loss of data.  I can depend on my Storm and Verizon but the iPhone, forgeddaboutit.