stories

LAUGHLIN, NEVADA
Looked out the black out blinds at 9am
One eye was blind for 5 minutes! Our room faces the west, towards the Colorado River and the sun was definetely up!
Becky took a bath and I washed her cute little feet
Sat down at the laptop and keyed this in.
The Colorado River Cruise
This Hour and a half ride cost $20 for 2 and it was GREAT!
The following is what I learned:
The Anasazi Indians (The "Ancient Ones" that disappeared around 1,600AD)
Worshipped a black mountain in the Newberry Mountain Range. They called it Spirit Mountain, and beleived it was where your spirit came from before you born. I think that's very interesting, don't you?
Mrs Laverdy (related to Jan Laverdy Jones, Las Vegas's previous major)
She had a spot of land on what is now Casino Drive. The neighboring casinos wanted her small area of land. They offered $250,000, then $500,000 then $3,000,000 but she held out. She didn't want to move. In the end, the Edgewater offered her 10 rooms of their new hotel complete with a balcony, private fishing pier, hotel ammenities and a limo/chaffeur for life. She accepted. Unfortunetely, she was on her 2nd tour of the world when she had a stroke. She died, and Edgewater now uses the area for VIPs.
Don Laughlin
- When Don Laughlin was 17, he'd set up slot machines, vending machines and cigarette machines in his school. The principle of the school said he had to get rid of them. He made more than the principle earned and dropped out of school.
- Don ended up working as a bartender and dealer in Vegas, saved up and bought the 101 club.
- Sometime in the 80's he flew his private plane over Laughlin (then unnamed, population 50). He decided to do something with it. He founded a casino (The Riverside), and wanted to name this place Riverside, but the name was taken. Then he wanted the city to be called Casino, NV, but the post office refused. They suggested he name it Laughlin because it was a nice Irish name (the Head Postman was named McClellin). The town had a vote and now it's Laughlin, NV.
The Colorado Belle
This hotel is shaped like a bigased boat.
- The Captains Buffet. $4.99 per person. Great buffet, beautiful ship like decor, GREAT BREAD PUDDING.
- The club, gave us 2 (2 for 1 pays) on any table game. I played the max $20 and lost both hands. It was 8 deck blackjack, which I don't even know if there's a strategy for playing.
- Tried to make 200 pts in Video Poker Play (for a bonus $20). Becky and I lost miserably.
The Riverside Hobo Stew, Blues and Bikes Festival
There was a band, clowns, and costumed people all abound! Someone on a unicycle about ran us down!
GREAT DAY! GREAT WEATHER! GOOD PEOPLE! LOW BUDGET! My kind of day to smile.

However, we were just reading about Laughlin and they offer Hummer Tours. Now, I'm not sure what that means, but it does sounds exotic. It sounds like Laughlin has everything.

Hoover Dam Security
A grumpy little man was waving people through. He looked like he waved me on. So I took off and he yelled "STOP, I DIDN'T WAVE YOU ON!". I wanted to say "I couldn't tell with your littly arms flailing around like that". Then he said "WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN THE BOX" pointing his tiny finger at the bed of the truck. I said "TOOLS". That could have been the only word I knew in English lol. He said, ok, move on. hmmm.
Kingman at 3:30pm Arizona Time.
I don't know why this town exists. Noone does. It has a railroad and land sells for $1,600 an acre.
Laughlin at 3:00pm Nevada Time.
The town is cute! It has a plant puffing steam up everywhere and a line of high rise resorts along the Colorado River. I wouldn't mind living here.
The Colorado River
It's about 200 feet wide, with sparkling clear water. It would be a creek if it was in Kentucky though. It winds around the desert like I drive on the freeway. I've read it supplies 20 million people with water, and runs from Colorado to Mexico.
The cotton fields
I stopped to pick some. Cotton is a little plant with a ball of hair. I'd bet the Indians 1,000 years ago all dressed well.
Note - The plant doesn't respond to petting.
The AVI Hotel/Casino Resort 3:30pm (our hotel for 2 nights)
Unexpectedly nice with desert pastels, and a nice layout and even though its on an Indian Reservation, it has bars. The rooms come with a huge TV, and almost everything works! They even have a Conair hair dryer mounted on the wall (I want it real BAD!)
- We went to AVI's restaurant, practically crawling on all fours from starvation. We had there 99 cent hamsteak and eggs. They also offered all you can eat spaghetti for $3.99. ALL THE MEALS IS SAW SERVED LOOKED GOURMET! And there we are getting the 99 cent special. :)
Discover Channel at 9pm
We learned that archeogist had arrowheads chipped around the end of the ice age.
The arrowheads, found in the US, used a European technique (something like off-chipping). This suggested that sometime long ago, the Europeans were here in the US.
They also can tell from the part of the DNA that is passed almost entirely intact from the female the offspring, that Native Americans have both European and Asian ancestory dating back 60,000 years ago. Apparently, this segment of DNA breaks down at a predictable rate during mitosis, so a timeline could be extrapolated from 1,000's of DNA samples that links human ancestory in the Americas to all of the prehistoric continents.
I thought three things were interesting:
- That people sat around chipping rocks to kill things with some 60,000 years ago, when the earth was still being reborn
(I guess I'm grateful they didn't eat meat - we might have developed four stomachs or a gizzard),
- That Columbus didn't discover the American continenent 500 years ago, like we were taught in High School
(Unless he came over in a boat made out of seal skin, whale blubber and sticks).
- That people all over the world have probably had sex everything else on this planet
(Maslow's water, food and sexual instincts sound correct to me). LOL.
The Riverside Casino in Laughlin at 2:30am.
This place I liked a lot. There's something very homey about it's decor.
- We shopped at the WATCHMAN store which boasts itself as the largest watch store in the world with over 20,000 watches all under $20. I bought a voltage meter and a manicure set. As for the watches, all I can say is you can find the same quality watch in Tiajuanna for the same price. hmmm.
- We checked out the Skyroom. They were having some kind of Halloween Party and I just told them "I'm BELLYMAN" but the party was fading out anyway.
- At the Losers Lounge they had a band playing 80's songs, with disco lights and two levels for dancing. JIMMY LIKED IT, but I like anyplace that plays "Lady In Red"
The Harrah's at 2:30am.
Harrah's has a certain class and style to it, very nice.
- We past some tables on the outside. There was an pretty young girl sipping a coctail and dressed in an evening gown. She was by herself. When I look back, she was beaming at me with a very provacotive smile. hmmm.
- Inside there was at least 20 single, very well dressed women. I have to think this hotel has many forms of entertainment that's not listed on their brochures.
Bullhead City at 3am.
- According to Beckys sources, Bullhead City has 50,000 houses and it's growing by 200,000 a month. Now that's amazing! In my mind I imagined construction companies slapping houses like crazy with a huge demolition crew behind them smashing them up after they are built.
FOG from the Colorado River at 3:30am
The world disappeared in a white cloud. Before we could say "What thu", we were on our way to Needles.
Walmart at 4am
We were lost. The Bullhead City closed at midnight I guess. We stopped at a Walmart. I got several DVDs, a headlight for Sonny. Becky bought a $20 watch that was 100 times better than anything at the Watchman.
Back at the AVI hotel 4:30am
We ate at the buffet for $3.99 a person. It was excellent. We gambled. Becky threw away a Four of a Kind and I was trying to lose my $10. We were burnt out!

GREAT IDEA! This would take care of all of my current problems!
I'll build a block wall with thick windows in it IN MY BACK YARD.
I'll throw some moss in it, plop some endangered fish in there, and sell them on the underground market as a dellicacy, hehe.
No more dog problems, no more money problems. If the dogs break through the fence, I can flood the neighbors back yard with slimy moss!!!

It rained, flooded and hailed like hell for 20 minutes.
Then the sun came out. Nevada is most definetely a wild place to be.
Booked rooms for Laughlin and Primm for the next five days.
Its all free. Our comps in Primm include tickets to see Leonard Skynard and The Marshall Tucker band. Its just a bunch of stuff we got offers for in the mail.
Nevada is a great place to be (when you're unemployed)!

Mt Charleston was wet with lots of snow. It rained all the time we were there.
Corn Creek was simply odd.
There was an area that looked like a maze of small canyons. People were firing of small weapons and the grounds were covered with shell casings. Amazing, how much the different colored shells (green, red, blue, yellow, white, silver and copper) reminded me of Christmas.
The Wildlife Reservere was beautiful
It had some of the prettiest foilage I've seen in Nevada, with exception of Lake Tahoe. We hiked the trails past an old wood shack, several ponds lined with wheat grass, a stream and several small footbridges.
The most ironic thing we saw: a brick building with thick glass walls.
You could barely see inside. There was a plaque that said inside were some endangered fish. We looked through the glass of this building, saw water full of moss all the way up to the roof and if you looked really close there were these tiny 1 itty-bitty inch fish.
It was strange. Why would someone build an aquarium, 20 miles from any paved road, in the middle of a desert, for itty-bitty fish?

It's obvious to me that nature created clams and fish to live on this planet for as long this planet can stand them. It's also obvious to me that nature created us to spread life to the universe, and this is mankinds trial run. Thats obvious about life, to me anyway.
What is not so obvious
It's not obvious how we get through this life with all of it's little details to deal with.
Today the neighbor's dogs just broke the fence again, on both sides. They are pitbulls and rotweillers running around all over my backyard. So, should I shoot them, pepperspray them, water them or feed them. If I spend $10,000 for a block wall fence all the way around, the neighbors will get greyhounds, and they'll jump the wall. So I need something like a stadium's Dome over my backyard! Bet they'd get digger dogs! Hmmmm.

We just got back from the store. I'm so out of touch. A pinapple cost $7. The beef stew we're making costs $14 or $7 a quart. We must be shopping at the wrong places.

Ah, it's a cloudy day in Vegas, great day for Beef Stew.

I love when money comes in! I know renting rooms out doesn't exactly put me on the top of the food chain, but it is money.

I'm stupid most of the time anyway...haha. Seriously though, it is kind of a luxury to indulge every now and then. I just wish I didn't have to plan partying. In the old days it didn't matter.
Getting older is no fun. I realize most the people I've cared about have come and gone.

I was out of it with a hangover. I party for one day, and I pay for it for two. That seems to be the way my physiology has it all worked out. Blah!

There's so many different worlds, so many different suns,
but we live in just one world, but we live in different ones. "Brothers in Arms".
We are fools to make war on our brothers in arms!
Iraq was about oil.

Its a little bit funny, these feelings inside...these feelings I hide. Its some of those I can't easily hide. I sat on the roof, and kicked off the moss...well of the few of the verses, they've got me quite cross...but the thing is, what I really mean...you've got the cutest eyes I've ever seen...and that's what I really mean. "Excepts from Elton John song". I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind....that I put that down in words, how wonderful life is, while your in the world. Thank you Becky for sharing the most precious thing you have...your life!

Halloween-the holiday celibrated by the Pagans for so long
An interesting day...we played computer games online with Jennifer. Later we went out and collected candy. The most memorable part of the day was driving down the Las Vegas strip and seeing girls dressed up as hookers....hehe...I mean, how can you tell the Halloweeners from the real thing...:)

The neighbor's dogs broke through the fence again...they dug up Rusty (my dog that died in September)...and were eating him. This was probably the worst imaginable thing for me to see...I almost never gag. It was the epitame of digust.

Friday, October 29, 2004 at 17:25:39 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I've been trying to compile several programs that I wrote in VB6, with VB.Net
I've been trying for days to do this now. I create a solution. I add the vb program to it. I build it. Then I open a new project, select Setup and Deployment Project (it always puts its location in someplace that's ridiculous, so I have to browse around) select Setup Wizard, then I go through 5 screens, and select Finish, and it gives me an odd looking screen with 3 entries. You set it up by right clicking each entry and selecting properties. These property names are AlwaysCreate, Condition, DefaultLocation and Transitive...and I'm thinking "WHAT?". THEN, you click Build and select either Build Project, Rebuild Project, Build Solution, Rebuild Solution, Batch Build or Configuration Manager...I'm thinking "WHAT?".
hmmmm....now, computer programming is supposed to be about logic right. I see nothing logical about this, nothing at all.

As a computer user, I've put up with the wondering OPTIONs selection...the thing you click to get into the preferences of a program. OPTIONS setup seems to be located under File|Properties, Edit|Preferences, View|Options, Tools|Options, Window|Setup or even Help|Configuration, and it sucks.
But now, simply to compile a program, one has to jump through hoops. All I can say is, Microsoft, what have you done here? Is anyone paying attention to this mess.
I mean, the whole reason for entering a development environment is to produce running code. Why would it be a hidden technique? I don't understand why someone would pay $1,600 for Visual Studio, and then have to buy a book on how to use it.

Friday, October 29, 2004 at 17:00:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
FYI-Bush and Kerry are related...lol
Both Bush and Kerry are decendants of a 1700th Century, a New England colonial immigrant.
Then again, if you believe the story about Adam and Eve, we're all related. This question comes to mind however, if Cain was killed, who did any of them have to mate with. Maybe more women were made out of Adam's ribs. Nice trick!
I remember I once tried to make a woman out of some sand on a beach. She was full of grit! Just kidding. I need to bash the Democrats.

Friday, October 29, 2004 at 15:10:28 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
These election years, so many lies.
I guess the politicians think we are too stupid to notice what's going on.
I'll pick on the republicans first.
Remember The Clinton Impeachment hearings...can anyone tell me what that was all about anyway?
To me, that was the most disgusting period in US history.
Ken Starr investigates the Paula Jones thing at the request of the Supreme Court. The Paula Jones thing was dropped, but Starr continues to go in deeper and deeper. People went to jail, and Lewinsky produces a sperm stained dress. Republicans try unsuccessfully to impeach Clinton because he lied about having sex with an intern. The Paula Jones thing was almost forgotten.
Almost all of the Republicans voted to impeach, while all of the Democrats voted against it.
Give me a break! Ken Starr was as independant as much my ass smells like a rose garden. He worked very hard to smear the president, and crushed a lot of people along the way for not testifying (remember now?).
Our tax dollars were spent to the tune of over $50 million for his efforts. We got a cheesy x-rated soap opera out of it.
Who doesn't believe that the Republicans were behind that little smear?
In the end, Clinton should have been impeached for perjuring himself about having sex with Lewinsky, and abusing his power by helping her get a job. And if that is the case, all politicians should be prosecuted.

It seems to me the Bush administration is all about lies.
I read the news during The War in Iraq.
Bush was saying there were weapons of mass destruction stockpiled there.
The US and its allies were under pressure to present proof of the weapons. Bush cited some reports he got from the CIA.
I should type up a letter in Word with a CIA letter head, saying that Haiti has stockpiled weapons, send it to the president and see what happens...haha.
I read at one time they found a lot of mustard and chlorine that could have been used for weapons of mass destruction. At first I thought they raided a super-secret Sadaam delicatessen. I mean, I have that stuff in my laundry room. Bomb me too I guess.

Does anyone else out there think that the Iraq war was really about oil?
That seems obvious to me...Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. So, why not just tell us that the war was about us controlling their oil reserves.
Good ol Republicans. Bush and his people must have thought we were just too stupid to realize that we needed was oil, they had it, a madman controlled it, and we couldn't drive to the 7-11 without it.
Quote from Bloomsberg 5/1/2003 "Oil production in Iraq was halted before the U.S.-led attack that toppled President Saddam Hussein. Iraq is losing about $55 million a day in oil revenue.
$55 million a day! I think the conflict was aimed at securing Iraqi reserves to benefit Western economies and oil companies.
What do you think?

BTW-This week I read 250 tons of weapons are missing from a UN sealed facility in Iraq. The weapons were sealed in 1991 and could be used to detonate a nuclear weapon. Does the timing of this seem rather convenient? Bush is still defending our right to bomb Iraq.
I ask this question, why weren't the weapons destroyed? Why leave them in an Iraq facility for 13 years?
It sounded to me like they could have been destroyed with a can of gasolene and a match. I read that they were secured by a seal that was not broken, lol. Who's telling white lies now? Or are we that stupid?

And also, about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990...have you ever heard of 'Slant Drilling'?
It was the technique used in Kuwait, to suck oil from Iraq's gigantic Rumaila oil field.
What if
- You had land with a stream on it that you depended on.
- I had land upstream from yours.
- What if I built a dam and diverted the stream away from your land because you wouldn't trade your oranges for my apples?
What would you do? You might raid my land and wreck the dam. (sound like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990?)
It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, isn't it?

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 at 14:46:01 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
What do I think about the Electoral College vs Popular Vote?
Well, it seems, in the whole wide world, there are only three nations who use Popular Vote: France, Finland and Russia. The election counts could gone on forever, with recounts all over the country. Absentee ballots could become the issue too (and how the votes are collected as well). Having the college limits the area of focus when it comes to miscounting of the votes. I suppose I'm for it.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 at 14:30:19 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
So, to continue the topic of the Electoral College:
In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by 2% (Gore-50,999,897 vs Bush-50,456,002). Bush, however, won by the electoral College Vote by 1% (Bush-271, Gore-266). WHY? Because Bushes people are better at playing the game, his votes came from the right states. As a matter of fact, history would have to be rewritten if it weren't for the Electoral College. The popular vote has lost 3 times to the Electoral College.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 at 14:01:45 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I'm going to touch on this subject, the Electoral College.
270 votes are needed to win a presidential election. The Electoral College consists of 538 citizens, each with 1 vote. 538 = 1 x the Representatives in the House, plus 1/2 x the number of Senators. If no candidate recieves 270 votes or more, the House of Representatives votes for the president. This system was defined in the 12th amendment of the Constitution back in 1804. It was all about the means of counting votes back then. Today, if a candidate gets the popular vote in 11 of the following 12 states(CA,NY,TX,FL,PA,IL,OH,MI,NJ,NC,GA,VA), he has won the election. Its the game, to campaign in only 12 states.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 at 13:31:14 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I suppose I should mention politics being that November 4th is election day.
These election years seem to fill my mailbox and keep my phone ringing off the hook with news from people I would never associate with. For starters, most of the information is either total lies or twisted truth.
Consider this statement: I've grown 10,000 times my height during my life. While that statement is the truth, it is skewed, limited to only a short period in my existance.
Consider this statement: "I believe Sadaam is a great leader". That could be considered the truth, if I said "Sadaam is a great leader, if the moon is made of green cheese" Of course, you'd have to take what I said out of text and leave out "if the moon is made of green cheese". So there you go. Political smears suck.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 at 13:43:09 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Time is creeping by, this Sunday is Halloween again.
Me, I'm going to be a vampire, and my Becky will probably be a wench. Personally, I'd like to spike Becky's hair and call her the Statue of Puberty (lol). All-in-all, we'll be headed off to the wealthier neighborhoods for buckets of candy stash to be gobbled up in the years to come.

Friday, October 22, 2004 at 16:55:43 (PDT) <jim>
Yeppers...some hacker uploaded some more trojans to my website, ain't life grand!
Somebody out there has earned bragging rights for hacking my web passwords. I'm sure whoever did it used the brute force technique, since none of my passwords make any sense, even to even me! What a waste of time!

Friday, October 22, 2004 at 16:52:07 (PDT) <jim>
Sounds like you've been busy Mike. Reloading PC's is a boring business. Sometimes I make a few bucks doing it, sometimes I just get parts out of it. I don't think I could ever do it full time though.

Thursday, October 21, 2004 at 18:10:06 (PDT) <Mike Ginsburg>
Jimmy... If I knew you were in the LipTop (nee: Laptop) reloading business, I would have brought you mine. Bought a 80GB 5400rpm w/16 mb cache Toshiba HDD to replace the 40GB 4200rpm 2/2 mb cache that the mchine came with. Also wanted to load the Win XP Pro I purchased to replace the Win XP Home the machine came loaded with. Took me the entire weekend. Sonny owes you $3,500 for your professional services.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 at 13:04:36 (PDT) <Sonny>
Thanks for reloading my laptop Jim. This laptop works great now!

Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 18:09:19 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
First thing Saturday morning, those rotweillers behind my house broke through the fence.
Six of the beasts were trying to get in through the glass door. They dug up a dog I buried in September. NASTY! Went over to Jerry Newberry's house to fix his PC's CDRW. Jerry has the nicest, most logically laid house I've seen in Las Vegas. His 5th wheel is excellent too! I fixed his CDRW by just cracking the case open and changing around some cabling. hmmm. Jerry and Joan look great after all of these years. Anybody would be lucky to age as well as those two have.

Friday, October 15, 2004 at 01:13:17 (PDT) <jim>
Someone hacked into my website yesterday, but why, I don't know.
I basically have nothing there. They wiped out my index.html with their own blasphemous page. Some people really surprise me. I mean, with all the effort that it took, what was the point? I helped a neighbor move some furniture across town. We were heading into the infamous sphaghetti bowl, when his truck that I was following puffed out a black cloud of smoke and quit. So their we are, on what Vegas calls an emergency lane that's 4 foot wide, with cars whizzing by at 70 mph. But we didn't get smacked. Incredible! We ditched his truck, and everybody piled into my truck. All in all, it was an interesting day. Robert is coming by to borrow my air bed for the night...wow...and here it is 2:00am.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 at 13:47:56 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Quick Test for HTML code. HTML should be bold.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 at 13:41:00 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Well I'll be dammed. Squirt has already learned how to play fetch!
It seems like this puppy was born with training knowledge and is just rediscovering it.
Ain't Genetic Knowledge truly amazing!
- Spiders make webs, beavers make damns, birds build nests, bees make honeycombs.
- Female Praying Mantisses and Black Widows kill their mates after having sex. :(
How do they know they're supposed to do this?
Its truly incredible how little we know about anything in this life!
In college, we learned that earthworms can be taught certain behaviors which are then passed on to their offspring. The experiment proved that the knowledge gained for survival in a parent can be passed on to its offspring as instinctive behavior. Simular studies have been done to verify this inherited knowledge using other species (EG:baby chicks).
BTW - Reflex lives in our nervous systems, where as instinct lives in our brains.
I like this little snippet on our thought processes:
The measure of intelligence
Take a brain or any information processor, input information (knowledge), check the conclusions (output). The conclusions it reaches is a reflection of the quality of the processor. The information went in, was processed and conclusions were reached. These conclusions tell us about the quality of the processing. This is the essence of intelligence.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 at 12:41:27 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I'm still working on getting a job in California (just for kicks), but it may take a few weeks.
Our new Pomeranian puppy is a BLAST! We're still bouncing around on what to call him: Squirt, Mammal, Puff, Beeper, Balls...hmmmm. At one time I was even thinking about calling him Raspus, Bob, John, Elvis, or Chewy. Life is tough when they're are so many decisions to make. :)

Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 12:41:27 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
I spent the morning clearing and backing up my laptop.
Becky got a cell phone!
And later we got toys and snacks for our puppy.

Monday, October 11, 2004 at 12:41:27 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Those dreams of mine...I woke up, realizing where more of the drainage problems were occuring, and why the scale built up in the first place. The sewage was backed up at the street. It all makes so much sense now: Why the drains often burped when draining. I snaked the sewage at the front access. Worked like a charm!
The neighbors who gave us Rusty (who was run over in September) brought as sweet present, a 6 week old Pomeranian puppy!!! This little guy is smarter than any dog I've ever owned. He figured out the doggie door in the first two hours. He's got the idea of using the bathroom on some newspaper we spread out, and is close to being paper trained. AND, I gave him a nylon rope with a knot tied on both ends...he untied the ends and tied a knot in the middle!

Sunday, October 10, 2004 at 12:41:27 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
The plumbing was all backed up in the kitchen...hecko, its been painfully slow since I've lived here. So, I rented a professional snake from Home Depot ($40 for 24 hours), and did the work my self. It took HOURS to snake from the back all the way to the sewage access in the front (approximately 75'). And the drains still were slow. So, I dismantle the kitchen drains: Garbage Disposer and everything and snaked it from there. The scale was built up so far only my little finger could go through it. I eventually broke through the mess with a chisel and got the snake in, BUT, and this is a very big BUT, the pipes in the wall dissentigrated. So, all of the sudden, the minor problem became major. I had to cut through the wall to repair the pipe. By 11pm, I rebuilt all of the plumbing better than before, this time, everything surpassed code (5 degree slope on all of the drainage). Everything was cool.

Saturday, October 09, 2004 at 12:41:27 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Becky, her kids, and I went to the Rennaisance Fair at Sunset Park. The event was awsome, and well worth the $30 to get all of us in. These people dress up in Knight in Armor fare and play the part well. I take it most of the vendors (about 200) travel around the country living in their tents and playing the roles of Jester, Magician, King, Queen and Knight. It's a pretty cool site to see.

Saturday, October 09, 2004 at 12:41:27 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Spent the day applying for jobs via the internet. Right now, I'm up for grabs in Los Angeles, Kansas City and New York City. My fingers are crossed on that Los Angelos job. Wish me luck.

Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 17:11:09 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Testing my reply...I just replied to you Robert, and I wrote a book. I think Earthlink is going bonkers, or something else is out of wack. So, this is mainly a test to see if I CAN enter blogs ok.

Thursday, October 07, 2004 at 16:13:27 (PDT) <robert>
hey jim and mom well how are things at the house? My daughter Amy is doing great. Joy is moody as hell but i guess that is normal for females with P.M.S (PUTTING UP WITH MEN'S SHIT) LOL anyways today is my only day off and we plan on going to the lake tonight. its free at night to get in thats why we go hehehe. boy oh boy Amy has one hell of an appetite that girl is eating every half hour and if she is sleeping she is dreaming of eating she moves her mouth in that sense she is pretty strong for being 2 motnhs old she was supposed to be born yesterday but chose to come out the 15 of Aug. well any ways jsut droppin in to say hi. dustin is grounded for 2 weeks for his bad grades in school he has no tv or games so life to him is hell now lol. grandma is grumpy when she gets home. paul took us to arizona charlies yesterday for dinner it cost 47 bucks for six people. well just droppin a line sayin hi and love ya all byebye

Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 10:11:06 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Well, this blog seems to work kind of okay now. What a pain! I had to change the locations of my programs, change the programs themself and alter the security on my server hosted by Earthlink to conform with my (.HTACCESS) security file.
It was a real Cleopatra's Pain-In-The-ASP.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 10:11:06 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
testing my blog

Saturday, October 02, 2004 at 10:08:35 (PDT) <Jim Cutlar>
Becky, Dustin, Jennifer and I all wrote to Renee
It seemed like a sweet thing to inspire, huh *wink*

I've been trying to compile several programs that I wrote in VB6, with VB.Net
I've been trying for days to do this now. I create a solution. I add the vb program to it. I build it. Then I open a new project, select Setup and Deployment Project (it always puts its location in someplace that's ridiculous, so I have to browse around) select Setup Wizard, then I go through 5 screens, and select Finish, and it gives me an odd looking screen with 3 entries. You set it up by right clicking each entry and selecting properties. These property names are AlwaysCreate, Condition, DefaultLocation and Transitive...and I'm thinking "WHAT?". THEN, you click Build and select either Build Project, Rebuild Project, Build Solution, Rebuild Solution, Batch Build or Configuration Manager...I'm thinking "WHAT?".
hmmmm....now, computer programming is supposed to be about logic right. I see nothing logical about this, nothing at all.

As a computer user, I've put up with the wondering OPTIONs selection...the thing you click to get into the preferences of a program. OPTIONS setup seems to be located under File|Properties, Edit|Preferences, View|Options, Tools|Options, Window|Setup or even Help|Configuration, and it sucks.
But now, simply to compile a program, one has to jump through hoops. All I can say is, Microsoft, what have you done here? Is anyone paying attention to this mess.
I mean, the whole reason for entering a development environment is to produce running code. Why would it be a hidden technique? I don't understand why someone would pay $1,600 for Visual Studio, and then have to buy a book on how to use it.

Both Bush and Kerry are decendants of a 1700th Century, a New England colonial immigrant.
Then again, if you believe the story about Adam and Eve, we're all related. This question comes to mind however, if Cain was killed, who did any of them have to mate with. Maybe more women were made out of Adam's ribs. Nice trick!
I remember I once tried to make a woman out of some sand on a beach. She was full of grit! Just kidding. I need to bash the Democrats.

So, to continue the topic of the Electoral College:
In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by 2% (Gore-50,999,897 vs Bush-50,456,002). Bush, however, won by the electoral College Vote by 1% (Bush-271, Gore-266). WHY? Because Bushes people are better at playing the game, his votes came from the right states. As a matter of fact, history would have to be rewritten if it weren't for the Electoral College. The popular vote has lost 3 times to the Electoral College

Me, I'm going to be a vampire, and my Becky will probably be a wench. Personally, I'd like to spike Becky's hair and call her the Statue of Puberty (lol). All-in-all, we'll be headed off to the wealthier neighborhoods for buckets of candy stash to be gobbled up in the years to come.

Yeppers...some hacker uploaded some more trojans to my website, ain't life grand!
Somebody out there has earned bragging rights for hacking my web passwords. I'm sure whoever did it used the brute force technique, since none of my passwords make any sense, even to even me! What a waste of time!

Jimmy... If I knew you were in the LipTop (nee: Laptop) reloading business, I would have brought you mine. Bought a 80GB 5400rpm w/16 mb cache Toshiba HDD to replace the 40GB 4200rpm 2/2 mb cache that the mchine came with. Also wanted to load the Win XP Pro I purchased to replace the Win XP Home the machine came loaded with. Took me the entire weekend. Sonny owes you $3,500 for your professional services.

This laptop works great now!

First thing Saturday morning, those rotweillers behind my house broke through the fence.
Six of the beasts were trying to get in through the glass door. They dug up a dog I buried in September. NASTY!
Went over to Jerry Newberry's house to fix his PC's CDRW.
Jerry has the nicest, most logically laid house I've seen in Las Vegas. His 5th wheel is excellent too! I fixed his CDRW by just cracking the case open and changing around some cabling. hmmm. Jerry and Joan look great after all of these years. Anybody would be lucky to age as well as those two have.

But why, I don't know.
I basically have nothing there. They wiped out my index.html with their own blasphemous page. Some people really surprise me. I mean, with all the effort that it took, what was the point? I helped a neighbor move some furniture across town. We were heading into the infamous sphaghetti bowl, when his truck that I was following puffed out a black cloud of smoke and quit. So their we are, on what Vegas calls an emergency lane that's 4 foot wide, with cars whizzing by at 70 mph. But we didn't get smacked. Incredible! We ditched his truck, and everybody piled into my truck. All in all, it was an interesting day. Robert is coming by to borrow my air bed for the night...wow...and here it is 2:00am.

Quick Test for HTML code. HTML should be bold.

Well I'll be dammed. Squirt has already learned how to play fetch!
It seems like this puppy was born with training knowledge and is just rediscovering it.
Ain't Genetic Knowledge truly amazing!
- Spiders make webs, beavers make damns, birds build nests, bees make honeycombs.
- Female Praying Mantisses and Black Widows kill their mates after having sex. :(
How do they know they're supposed to do this?
Its truly incredible how little we know about anything in this life!
In college, we learned that earthworms can be taught certain behaviors which are then passed on to their offspring. The experiment proved that the knowledge gained for survival in a parent can be passed on to its offspring as instinctive behavior. Simular studies have been done to verify this inherited knowledge using other species (EG:baby chicks).
BTW - Reflex lives in our nervous systems, where as instinct lives in our brains.
I like this little snippet on our thought processes:
The measure of intelligence
Take a brain or any information processor, input information (knowledge), check the conclusions (output). The conclusions it reaches is a reflection of the quality of the processor. The information went in, was processed and conclusions were reached. These conclusions tell us about the quality of the processing. This is the essence of intelligence.

I'm still working on getting a job in California (just for kicks), but it may take a few weeks.
Our new Pomeranian puppy is a BLAST!
We're still bouncing around on what to call him: Squirt, Mammal, Puff, Beeper, Balls...hmmmm. At one time I was even thinking about calling him Raspus, Bob, John, Elvis, or Chewy. Life is tough when they're are so many decisions to make. :)