Wow, 5 years since the last post. A friend died yesterday and this very friend has brought a bunch of us back together.  Miss you GMain.  Hope you had a safe trip upstairs!

Yahoo Messanger, is it Safe?

I just had a mini scare with Yahoo IM yesterday. It may all be in my head but I still panicked and made some hasty adjustments. I am wondering if I really needed to worry about it.

A person I really do not know asked for my screen name for Yahoo IM. We had briefly chatted on facebook so I thought it could not hurt. He jumped into Yahoo and away we went. After making a couple of statements I was a little concerned. Then he said in affect be right back and was gone for some time.

During that time I decided to look at Yahoo a little. I discovered I had two phone numbers, a work email and a old wireless carrier account number which has been deactivated since I switched to another carrier. It still unnerved me that I had all that information just sitting in my Contact Information area. I ended up blanking all that out but here is my concern...

What happens with that contact information. Does it EVER get sent out to anyone unless I specifically send it to them? If not than I am probably safe. If it does get sent out when someone is added to your list for Yahoo than there is the possibility that this person (or anyone that is added) could see that and I am not happy.

Anyway I hope this is all in my head but what can I say my mind was on overdrive. It does not help that the person was from Nigeria I suppose...

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. It sure was wet on Saturday in Ohio. Yikes.

Friends information

1. What time did you get up this morning?
Normally I get up at 6:00 am during the week but I was up half the night so ... 8:15 am. I was a bum.

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Transformers.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
All of my favorites are gone. I guess 24 would be my fave now.

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
Either some sort of egg sandwich or bagel. Trying to just eat an egg or two now.

6. What is your middle name?
Alger

7. What food do you dislike?
Liver & Knockwurst & canned spinach

8. What is your favorite CD at moment?
Chicago/Earth, Wind, and Fire - Live at the Greek Theater. I have loved Chicago since the 60s. Thanks to TopCat he introduced me to this CD and am I glad he did. I found out I really love Earth, Wind and Fire as well. Other than that it would be my latest music crush... Celtic folk.

9. What type of car do you drive?
Dodge Grand Caravan although I think I would I would like to be driving a Prius Hybrid

10. Favorite sandwich?
BLT, extra B & T (sounds good to me too...)

11. What characteristic do you despise?
I really do not like the way everyone seems to be so me, me, me oriented.

12. Favorite item of clothing?
A white pair of jeans. When I can fit into them I don't look to bad at all.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
That is a hard one. Alaska, The Rockies, Yellowstone, the east coast of the US, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand. I am sure there are a lot more places too.

14. Favorite brand of clothing?
I am not a slave to fashion so this just does not apply for me.

15. Where would you retire to?
I think Kentucky or Tennessee might be nice although I do love Michigan.

16. What was your most memorable birthday?
My 50th was a lot of fun.

17. Favorite sport to watch?
College Football or Hockey (NHL)

18. Furthest place you are sending this?
Back to where it came from and then on my blog so just about anywhere.

19. Person you expect to send it back first?
Not expecting to get it back.

20. When is your birthday?
July 1st aka Canada Day

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?
As long as I am at home I can stay up late but I am more of a morning person.

22. What is your shoe size?
11 wide

23. Pets?
Unless you count the ants that keep trying to sneak in or rabbits and squirrels... none.

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
I actually have plans for the next 3 weekends. That is amazing as I never do anything.

25. What did you want to be when you grow up?
Oh so many things but I think I will stick with a scientist. I love science and I am sure I could find something to do.

26. How are you today?
Pretty good but a little tired. Oh and sore. I managed to get a cramp in one of my calves and it will take a few days to work out.

27. What is your favorite candy?
I will narrow it to 3. Reese's Cups, thin mints, payday, three musketeers... OK, I can not count.

28. What is your favorite flower?
Tulips because they are one of the first flowers I see in spring but at the moment I am fascinated with Tiger Lillie's. I am especially fascinated with what on earth happened to the 15 or so bulbs I planted last fall. Now of them came up. I have a brown thumb but I am not that bad.

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Labor Day Weekend or the last week in April.

30. What is your real full name?
Bryan. You already know my middle name. My confirmed name is Peter. I go by Barman or just Bar.

31. What are you listening to right now?
A TV show I have never seen before, Warehouse 13. I do not always watch but use it as background noise.

32. What was the last thing you ate?
A cheap steak.

33. Do you wish on stars?
Sometimes but so far no luck.

34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Ultra-violet

35. How is the weather right now?
Cool mostly clear and going to be real cold with low humidity.

36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today
I do not believe I used the phone today.

37. Favorite soft drink?
I love Mountain Dew but I actually drink more water than anything.

38. Favorite restaurant?
Cheeseburger in Paradise but they all closed by me.

39. Real hair color
Brown

40. What was your favorite toy as a child?
A stuffed beagle dog.

41. Summer or winter
Sorry ... FALL. If I have to pick then summer.

42. Hugs or kisses
I could use practice kissing but ... I guess I would say hugs.

43. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Vanilla

44. Coffee or tea?
Coffee, black, no sugar. Green Tea or the tea they serve at Chinese Restaurants.

45. Do you want your friends to email you back
If they would like.

46. When was the last time you cried?
Probably a sniffle or two at the Transformers movie on Sunday. That or possibly at the grand finally of the Fireworks on the 4th of July.

47. What is under your bed?
Dust bunnies and possibly a stray item or two.

48. What did you do last night?
Play computer games while watching TV. Why couldn't you ask about what I did tonight?

49. What are you afraid of?
More than one thing but I never did well with mice and lately I do not like heights.

50. Salty or sweet?
Payday shows that you can do salty and sweet at the same time. Who am I to question that?

51. How many keys on your ring?
Which key ring? 2 on one, about 10 on the other.

52. How many years at your current job?
20 1/2 years.

53. Favorite day of the week?
Saturday's possibly.

54. How many towns have you lived in?
5

55. Do you make friends easily?
I can but generally no.

56. How many people will you send this to?
One for sure but possibly several.

57. How many will respond?
None expected.

Wow have I been missing forever

It started out as problems with my computer. It moved on to needing to do work outside to get everything as weed proof as I could. This I am most of the way done with. I just need to do a little clean up. Then there is the care for the lawn. It needs a lot of TLC let me tell you. Move one to posting a little more on my flickr account and then someone dragged me over to facebook and got me addicted on games.

I can not believe how fast time has flown. In the time I have been gone I think I only did a small handful of things worth blogging about. Of course if it would be of interest to anyone else I have not a clue.

I have my flower garden coming up and the nice red mulch is keeping most of the weeds away. I do have one puzzle here however. I planted a whole bunch of different colored tiger Lillie's and I do not think a single one came up. I was waiting to see if this one thing that came up was a tiger Lilly or a weed. I think it must be a weed. So what on earth did I do wrong with my tiger Lillie's? I suppose I could have planted them to deep but I thought I got it right. The way I planted them they were all planted at the same depth pretty much which could explain everything failing or making it. I have not watered tons but I have watered and put down some miracle grow fertilizer too. I did put a couple of inches of mulch over the top of the ground. I suppose that could have been a problem. I do have critters in the area but the Iris's all came up and the tulips did well. It just is a mystery to me but then I am not the gardener.

Anyway the tulips are long gone and the iris's are also bloomed out and now I have nothing to look at but green.

The shrubs I planted last fall seem to be doing OK but it will be forever before they look big enough to belong.

My managed to get my garden in order. I planted lots of different peppers and a tomato plant but once again a mystery. The tomato plant wants to lay down on the ground. I am not sure if something got to it or if I should have staked it up sooner. I am not be seeing tomatoes this year. Bummer I like tomatoes. Oh I did try a few things different with the garden. It LOVES to grow weeds, weeds, and MORE WEEDS. This year I put down a weed barrier and placed recycled rubber mulch on top of the barrier. It cost a small fortune but it is not supposed to float away, attract bugs, or fade for a long, long time. We will see how that works. Of course maybe that is what is bugging the tomato plants. I still need to get a small fence around the garden as I have a lot of rabbits in the area. Somehow I do not think I can guard against the few deer I have seen but I do not think they are bothering anything.

That brings me on to other fun projects. I have a window sill under a large picture window that is totally disintegrated. The squirrels did not help and now I have no sill. This mean the wall is exposed to the weather. I guess that will be my next project. I would also like to put in a nice little paver patio. My deck is to hot in the evening plus it is a tiny 10 x 12. I would like a nice area below I can place my grill on and come patio furniture and just relax enjoying the evening. Speaking of my deck, I need to tare about all but the infrastructure and replace it probably with planks that are part wood, part plastic that are suppose to wear for at least 10 years. That will be a bit of work and the bird living under the deck may still be using it for the baby bird and the nest. Oh well I have stuff to do. Speaking of which I also have two pieces of siding to replace. One is about 20 foot off the ground and I do not do well with height. That should be fun.

Since I have been gone I had a mini vacation to Kentucky to visit and do a little bit of Derby. I also have been spending a bit of time with the folks and family because face it, our folks... if they are alive, are not getting any younger. I will be celebrating the 4th with family and hope to take in a parade, a concert, and fireworks. We will see.

OK, about a concert. I had tickets to do the Chicago / Earth, Wind, and Fire concert that came to the Detroit area last month. I had to work and would have missed at least 2/3rds of the concert. I chose not to go. I am bummed. I love Chicago and what I heard of EWF I think I would love them too. The combined bands are simply incredible. I sure regret missing that.

Work has been threatening for possible cuts or furlow days. So far I have had to take 2. We will see what else is in store but I am certainly worried. I do not think I will lose my job but that is always a possibility. What can I say, the world economy is bad but in Michigan it down right stinks.

Well I should end this with two things. First, I will see if I can get some firework pictures and post them for the 4th or 5th. Second, today is not only Canada Day or otherwise known as Canada's birthday but I too share it's birthday. I have heard from several of you and I really want to say thank you. I especially want to say thank you to Mona who I suspect was the birdy letting people know it was my birthday. Mona you are the best. I would love to be half as considerate of other people as you are. Thank you and I love you for that and for being the super person that you are.

Well I will see if I can check in but I may not be near a computer for several days. Then again I have not posted for months so no one will ever read this anyway.

To those in the states have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend. Happy birthday to Canada and all her citizens especially all those we consider our friends here in blog land. And for everyone else... just have a wonderful weekend, OK?

Conficker

Looks like I got hit. ZoneAlarm is a piece of SHIT and their support is non existant. I have been waiting for going on two hours for a CHAT which is the way they support you. Here is what happened so you do not make the same mistake if you are using ZoneAlarm.

First, dump ZoneAlarm and get something else that REALY WORKS. Anyway here we go.

I have ZoneAlarm Security Suite 1 PC - 1 Year that I updated on March 31. I ran a scan and everything came back fine except it found about 8 malware items, nothing unusual.

Today I received a message box that said there is an update to ZoneAlarm that is important to apply. After I downloaded zaSuiteSetup_80_298_035_en.exe and ran it my machine no longer seems to work proper.

I can not seem to get to some places on the Internet. The ZoneAlarm product icon says protection is up but the UI is initializing and that was for a long time (at least 7 minutes) so I finally restarted. It did not seem better. Then I restarted in Safe Mode and things seem better more or less.

The file I downloaded is 61,024,648 bytes long and says that it is 8.0.298.035.
It says it was signed April 1st at 12:04:12 AM

It did not seem better. Then I restarted in Safe Mode and things seem better more or less but that means ZoneAlarm is not running. I still can not access Windows Update.
The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view. The options provided below might help you solve the problem.
I also can not get the google updater to get Norton Security Scan and had a problem downloading that.

So it looks like I am infected. It also looks like ZoneAlarm has horribly failed me and they do not even have a message on their front page saying what is going on. I wish I could get this out to the press so they could warn everyone about ZoneAlarm. I guess I will just have to try this instead.

They call me Farmer Barman

Yesterday I was out working my land
The vegetable garden with be big and strong
There were be a decent variety planted
when the time is appropriate

I can not wait for harvest time.

Of course in my mind my garden is huge
In reality it’s only 72 square feet.

I had to continue the green theme...

Since the weather has been mostly decent lately I have been trying to do what I can to get the flower and vegetable gardens ready for the year. The weather did not cooperate over the weekend and since it will be a good size job I decided to move on to the vegetable garden.

Over the last several years I have not done anything with the garden, not even pick the weeds. One year I had a weed that was 6 foot tall. I could not bear to cut it down, I wanted to see how big it could get to be. I did at one point toss a bunch of grass clippings on the garden to choke out the weeds.

Well yesterday was the day to clean that mess up. The chicken wire I use to try and keep the critters out came down and will be replaced with new chicken wire. Next clean all the mess up. I have almost 70 percent cleaned up. The rest I have to move some retainer wall bricks, a couple of tree rings, a couple of down spout splash thingies, and some sand. Then I get to use the tiller. I can not wait. This year I think I will add some onions and cut back on the tomatoes.

I have another small project I may try this year. I have a couple of small planting beds by my front door. The bed on one side has small single layer retaining wall as a border. The other side has a plastic border. I think it may be time to put down the retaining wall on the other side. I will lose a fair amount of space in the bed but it has Hosta plants and I do not need that room if I do not plant any annuals in there. It will not be a ton of work and it will look much nicer.

Yep you can tell spring is hear. My head is thinking outside, outside, outside.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

55Flash Fiction Friday

I peek
I poke
I find my way to the top

I yawn
I stretch
I reach for the sky

I have been asleep
for a very long time
but now I am awake
and raring to go

Soon I will be
strong and tall

Spring has sprung
and the flowers
are on their way


Today at 7:44 am EDT spring has arrived. Happy spring everyone. This particular 55 was inspired by my flower beds. I noticed last Friday I had several things poking out of the earth. By Sunday I actually had a few things sticking out almost a full inch. It would appear my tulips are raring to get out and say high. I can not wait. I just hope the weather does not get to them. I mean this morning it has been 17 F which is well below freezing. Poor flowers.

If you would like to participate in 55Flash Fiction Friday just put together a short story in 55 words. Then go over to G-Mans place and let him know you played so he can bring everyone over to come see. Then go visit some of your fellow 55 writers. It is all fun. Do give it a try.