Of Mouses and Morons – New Lows in Tech Support from Hewlett Packard

After years of faithful service, the HP mouse to my HP computer went on the fritz. Like an old athlete with aging legs, it had difficulty moving to the right. I’ve compensated by jiggling it, lifting and tapping it, babying it along, but increasingly it would lock in place, and it had earned its rest,  much as I dread replacing gear. For I firmly believe that New! Improved! in any consumer lexicon are merely synonyms for shoddy with fewer useful features and prone to breaking down.

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Coopers Hawks

I’ve seen the hawks in our neighborhood more often lately. At first glance and moderate distance I always assume they are red-tailed hawks, just because red-tails are the most common. With the wide open areas of the former naval air station runways nearby, it’s good red-tail habitat.

And then I noticed the body shape, long and lanky, with short wings, and I realized it’s a sharpy or a Cooper’s.   

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How We Spent Our Summer

 It’s been quite a summer; I’ve meant to write about it since late June, and you can see all the good that intention has accomplished. In mid-June a good friend lost his job in rather spectacular fashion, a week later my mother-in-law suffered a stroke serious enough for the doctor to recommend she stay in a hospital, and then our Edie girl fractured a bone in her foot when she got hit by a truck.

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Pop goes the thought stream

Sure, we all complain about commercials. I channel surf away and still can’t escape them — this evening while I fiddled around online a rum commercial came on in the background that made me turn the TV off.

But not because I disliked it. Rather, I heard it through for the background music, Iggy Pop’s The Passenger, which made me want to hear that song again.

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