Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to one and all. 

If you are reading this, you, like me, survived the “end of the world.” I sincerely hope you didn’t really believe that civilization was going to be wiped out.

Are we going to undergo changes? Of course. We have from the beginning of time. That’s progress. That’s evolution. I hope we never stagnate.

As a civilization goes, we have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. I do believe we can iron out our differences and become a Planet of Peace. It starts with each individual.

The Soul speaks to the Heart and together they speak to the Mind. Uh oh. There is the stumbling block…the wall, if you will. The Soul/Heart can’t always get through to the Mind. I don’t know how to change that. On an individual level, I try to listen to my Soul/Heart, but I’m not always successful. Or, at times I’m just plain willful. I hear the Soul/Heart but I refuse to listen. The results are never pretty. When will I ever learn?

Let’s try harder to be less willful and more Peaceful.

Wishing everyone a New Year filled with an abundance of all good things.

Unspeakable Tragedy Comes to Connecticut

I can't imagine there is anyone, at least in the United States, who hasn't heard about the shooting of 20 children and six adults at the Stony Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

I grieve for all of them, especially the little ones whose lives were snuffed out at such a young age. They were all six and seven years old. They had not had a chance to really live yet.

How did society fail them? Did we fail them by not having stronger gun control laws? Did we fail them by not having in place programs to identify and treat those who might act out and do the unthinkable?

I'm not sure either of these options, if implemented, would stop such mass shootings. I do have to ask myself if they would, in some measure, help.

The news accounts also talk about the six adults killed on that day at the school. No one wants to give voice to the shooter, Adam Lanza, or his mother, Nancy. No one wants to talk about what tortured souls they must have been. Adam's mother apparently knew her son was a threat. A man who came forward to speak about being Adam's babysitter10 years ago, told how the mother told him to never take his eyes off the child...not for one second, and to never turn his back on him.

Did the mother try to get her son help? Did she give up? Did she live in fear of her son? Had she ever tried to have him hospitalized? These are questions we may never get the answers to. We may never learn the "why" of what Adam did, in spite of our intense need to know.

Nancy and Adam Lanza deserve our prayers as much (if not more) than the 26 other souls who lost their lives that day. I ask you to find it in your heart to pray for ALL the victims of the Newtown shooting.

Computer Problem Fixed

A not so funny thing happened on the way to Cape Cod this past September! My computer went haywire. It was fine at home before I left for vacation, but by the time I arrived at the cottage something had gone wrong. The cursor was in “select” mode and selected everything in sight…whether I wanted it selected or not. I thought it was having iPad envy…since I had just bought my iPad.

Had I known how easy it would be to take notes and jot down thoughts on the iPad, I would not have disturbed MacScene.

When I returned home my first stop was my Apple certified computer guru, Mike. At the shop, my computer behaved perfectly. He spent a lot of time troubleshooting and found nothing. That wasn’t cheap.

A few days later I was back. Mike replaced the top…keys and touchpad. The keys and touchpad were pretty worn. Not cheap. The problem persisted. I took MacScene over to a friend’s house and she behaved beautifully! The computer, not my friend, although my friend behaved, also. But I digress. :)

I called Mike and he suggested I run a diagnostic and see if anything pops up. I did and as far as I knew, everything was OK. But then, when it comes to things like that I have no idea what I’m doing. Back to Mike. He ran a diagnostic and the battery came up as “failed.” Now I have a new battery. Not cheap! And the problem persists. I’m getting the feeling Mike is at the end of his expertise or patience.

I went to Best Buy…three times. Mike (a different Mike) is baffled. He suggested I try wireless mouse, which would disable the touchpad. I bought one. Not cheap! Brought it home in order to configure it to my computer and went back to Best Buy to have them do it.

I have to say here, the Boys of Best Buy not only spent a lot of time on my problem, they did not charge me!

So far I have to say this is the first solution that has actually worked! Everything else was most assuredly necessary, but all the replacing didn’t fix my problem. It still takes forever for my computer to connect to the internet, and I’ll have to wait to see if I will still lose the connection from time to time.

After spending in the neighborhood of $400, I have my fingers crossed that MacScene is back to mostly normal. I can live with a balky internet connection…I couldn’t live with my cursor sending my emails before I had time to thoroughly proof read them. Talk about living dangerously! :)