Posted by Raul on September 2, 2010
For the past month several things have been accumulating in the “To Do” list and the point of not being able to catch up has been reached.
-The need to reorganize this blog
-The implementation of some security measures for this blog
-The organization of the content in the hard drives
-The many posts written half way and not finished
-A couple of writing projects that are still waiting
-Studying English grammar and writing techniques
-Some physical projects to implement my physical vehicle
-A couple of books half way read
-An unfinished bottle of Brandy 
So, even though I enjoy very much reading the posts of my fellow bloggers and participating in the conversation, I just haven’t been able to “be there on time”, which is something I really hate (I might be annoying but I take pride on being annoyingly on time)
For those reasons I’ll be “out of town” for a while to take more time and catch up with pending stuff, so please don’t feel forgotten if I don’t show up in your blogs.
In the meantime I’ll keep posting from the writings waiting for publishing in my hard drive, although I can’t promise to answer the kind comments you make.
Thank you for your patience and understanding
Raul
Posted by Raul on August 25, 2010
People, this is a quick note to let you know about Eric’s latest post: “Exploring the Brain Twisting Worlds of Subjective Reality” at his blog “Eden Journal”
In this post Eric is analyzing different possibilities about reality and our perception about it. Let me suggest you grab some Aspirin and head for an awesome mind and brain exercise reading
Raul
Posted by Raul on August 23, 2010
OK people, I admit it, I am a maniac and a big fan of anticipation, not only the anticipation in Sci Fi books from authors like Asimov, but every day anticipation about little details that can make a day great or destroy it depending on what happens.
For that reason I tend to take maybe too many precautions in the eyes of others, but in mine it is just a logical thing to do, for example:
When driving or walking in a parking lot I always look at the white, reverse lights, of parked cars to anticipate if any of them will suddenly move so to avoid an unnecessary crash or accident.
When driving in a street, before changing lanes or braking, I look around and see what the other drivers are doing; are they paying attention to what’s happening around? If I change lanes, even if I signal my intentions way ahead of starting to move, will they see my vehicle moving and act accordingly?
Not just when going to change lanes or braking, but even when going in a straight line I’m always looking at the other drivers and trying to detect if they are paying attention or if they are distracted talking or texting, listening music or animated in conversation with the other occupants of the car.
When parking in public parking lot like in a grocery store, always park in reverse; when just arriving we have a better vision of what’s happening around so we can park safely, but when leaving we don’t know what its been happening around and we are distracted with the bags we are carrying, so it’ll be easier and safer to leave driving forward than backwards.
Always lightly touch the brake pedal way before having to brake, like ahead of a traffic light that will go to red, to make sure the brakes are working fine and not having to deal with a sudden, nasty surprise.
When my son was a one year old child and started to walk we always used only the rear burners in the stove when cooking, so if he happened to come by and try to see what was on top of the stove while hanging from it, he would not burn himself by accident with the hot plate, and also there’ll be nothing that could flip over and fall in his face.
Also, when he was a baby, we memorized the sequence of checking eyes, ears, nose, teeth, tongue and fingers for every time he fell and cried, so we would know in just 3 seconds if he was hurt and in need of medical attention or just scared and needing a hug.
Never leave a glass of juice too near of the edge on the table; we don’t want a broken glass, spilled juice and the extra task of cleaning up when it could be avoided.
Fill up the cup of coffee up to no less than one inch from the top to reduce the chances of spilling hot water and getting burned.
Keep the microwave at waist level in case we are heating up soup or any fluids that needs to be removed hot, so to reduce chances of getting burned compared to a high mounted microwave.
When washing dishes put knives pointing down in the strainer so when taking them back to move them to the right drawer we don’t grab them from the cutting edge
Wait until the garage door is completely closed before getting inside the house to make sure nothing is in its way that will stop it and force it to open again so we know the door is closed and don’t have to lament later the lost of personal stuff.
I keep the alarm clock 30 minutes ahead of the real time, so if I oversleep I jump out of bed worried and run, but I’m still on time
All our cars have a remote lock system I installed; for my vehicle I have the remote in a metal bracket that fit in my waist belt instead of the key ring (which is typical); also I have a single key with all the information about the vehicle in its tab and a set of keys with all the keys we have; single key in left pocket and set of keys in right pocket; when driving I use the single key so it doesn’t apply lots of weight to the ignition switch ensuring longer life of the switch, and this is the key I give to the technician when taking the car for service, so they have all the information of the car in the key itself (because of the tab); if accidentally I lock the car I have the complete set to open it, and if that fails, I have the remote in my belt, so it is two alternatives to unlock the vehicle before having to call for help.
I could go on and on but I know you have a lot of things to do and cannot spend the whole day reading this post; so I’ll keep it short and sweet to avoid boring to death those who read this blog.
Details, details…anticipation, anticipation!
Yes, I am a maniac of anticipation and details with the intention of avoiding crying later for things that happen that could be prevented. Not that I am 100% successful in those attempts, but fortunately haven’t had to lament situations other than small things
One more…always read and re-read a post before hitting “publish” to make sure fellow bloggers will only get mad at me but will not start a mob chase to kill me…and keep the back door unlock in case of needing an escape route…
Raul
Posted by Raul on July 30, 2010
After making a comment in Lori’s Blog post “front porch: Dreams, Laughter and Comic Inspiration” about Tony’s Blog “Trottersville” Lori asked why I sleep so little, so here is the answer:
Some time ago I posted a thought called “Don’t Sleep Before You Die!” where I was talking about saving time by sleeping 6 hours instead of 8 as recommended by the experts. That was my ideal!
Today, and for the past 8 years, I had been sleeping an average of 3 hours a day, 1 at night and 2 in the morning.
What happens is that I have a delivery job at night (I wrote a short fiction tale about that in “Reunion”) so sleep one hour before going to work and two after, so not to waste too much time in the morning just sleeping.
Then work by day either fixing cars, doing several things around the house, spending time writing, blogging, reading posts in other blogs, commenting, trying to learn this computer thing and the writing craft (I want to learn to write well so more people would be interested in reading this blog, not just “Mom and the Poker Club” ), spending time with my son and wife and so on, so not much time left really.
Sometimes I oversleep and have 2 hours instead of one before going to work and had to rush so not to be too late in order to “preserve the schedule” and not getting behind during the day.
It works fine except for a couple of things: Memory, Vision and Energy, that’s all!
Memory has become crappy, I still cannot find the control panel of my brain so to uncheck the box that say “Automatically delete thoughts when a new one appear”, although I do have problems with memory since I can remember (don’t laugh!) I believe I suffer from CRS (Can’t Remember Shit)
Vision, once very sharp, is also becoming crappy. I still can read a street sign from a block distance but now I need glasses for reading (sigh), otherwise cannot distinguish the words.
Energy is also down; it reminds me of my childhood when being “high” with medicine and no energy to move due to sickness (“Why Alien Ghost”, “Loving Life”) so it takes a while to get energized after waking up in the morning and I’ve notice that, in those rare occasions when I have the time to sleep as much as 4 hours in a row, my focus and memory get better.
Another thing with short sleeping is that I don’t dream (not enough time) It’s been many years without dreams, which is sad because several years ago I read somewhere that we can put our dreams to work.
If we concentrate very hard in a thought when going to sleep and remain in that thought until we fall asleep, with practice and time, we dream related to our thought; it works! I tried that many years ago and after several attempts I was able to “advance” thinking done over a problem; I even dreamt a short tale that as soon as woke up wrote in one stand without stopping and needing no corrections! That was so cool!
So short sleeping is nice to save time and do more things, but too short sleeping is not a good thing (duh). Now it’s about organizing things in order to get organized (see people how it can affect you?!)
But seriously, soon I should be able to get some more sleep and hope to recover some of the memory, maybe vision and definitely energy!
Life is good and the future can always be brighter!
Raul
NOTE: The picture is not me but that’s how I look like when just waking up
Posted by Raul on July 19, 2010
It is my belief my laptop probably was built before WWII and being in service for the past many, many years, at least I bought it used on eBay, I believe around 2005 and have repaired it at least twice since then, including a new, slightly bigger hard drive and a complete reprogramming in XP Pro.
At first it worked great but then, gradually, it started go slower and slower until coming to a virtual crawl. Now, even if I want to check somebody else’s blog, the ventilation fan goes crazy, heat starts coming out from the vents and it all seems to be part of either a computer menopause process or a virtual heart attack and it scares me for my beloved laptop.
It is a Dell Inspiron 5100 with Pentium 4; 2.4 GHz; 1 GB RAM; 80 GB HD and about 30 pounds net weight!
Not being sure if the problem is the laptop or my internet provider, who gives a limit in bandwidth usage, I wanted to know how much bandwidth I was using so, following my son’s finding I downloaded and installed a free bandwidth meter from the net called: ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter 1.3.1 (101 KB)
http://www.shaplus.com/bandwidth-meter/
As you can see in the picture, it takes a little space in the lower, right hand corner, out of the way and it has proven to be very useful to know the “weight” of every page or site I visit. So far I discovered my blog has an average of 0.6 MB to download when opened and most of the blogs I visit range between 0.4 to 2.5 MB, with one or two going up as much as 6.0-8.5 MB (it all depends on how many pictures and moving stuff the page has). Now I’m checking everything I open to know what’s the “weight” (I know, new toy
One of the recommendations given when creating a blog or website is that it has to be a fast downloader or people will get bored and move somewhere else; this bandwidth meter helps to see if we are going too far in implementing our cyber space or if we still can do some more without making it too “heavy”, specially for people using 56K connections.
Some may say “who would be using 56k these days?” but I know that’s the main available connection in my country (using a phone line) and for those wanting to reach beyond the bigger countries boundaries that should be a point to consider.
Do you know how “heavy” is your blog to download?
Do you keep in mind a limit in size when implementing your blog?
Is it important for you to be able to reach other countries?
Let me know
Raul
