It has been different week with more things going on than a Chinese fire drill, there just doesn't seem to be a letup to it. A good portion of the time it has been working on other people computers however I did find time to work on the outside and planted more flowers in an attempt to create some color on the North slope of the house. If these flowers take well I will probably start a more formal garden in that area with more rows and a brick path to connect to the path existing behind the deck. I am keeping my fingers crossed as that soil back there is not the greatest.

I found out the hard way that using a post hole digger is not as easy as it is cracked up to be. I had to drill twelve holes, the first six were not in the correct location so had to be done again. Then I soaked the area and found out the water penetrated about eight inches making most of it mud and there was less impact required to make holes. I had to scrape the mud off the digger all the time however. I managed to get the holes made and the flowers planted. It still took a good part of the day however.

I am finding out that chrysanthemums are a fragile plant and if one waters them too much when they are in bloom that branches will collapse. It is safer to just flood the local area at the ground level. We still have not had freezing weather so I am hoping for the best.

I had to upgrade one of my PCs and replace the CD-ROM drive which had failed. It was only two years ago I replaced the motherboard and I was amazed just how much dust had collected internally. I opened the case and was immediately attacked by hundreds of dust balls. I had to vacuum the entire shelf and floor once I was finished replaced everything and making sure it worked correctly. I worked on another computer for a friend of mine and while the problem was not severe, there was the dust problem as I am sure that the computer had more than its share of Midwest soil in it. It was also a Compaq computer and these people go out of their way to making working on one of their computers nonuser friendly.

It requires non standard tools just to get in and that is only after one discovers the secret of what slides in what direction. I wanted to expand the memory but Compaq chips are proprietary and not easy to find. I still haven't found the correct chip yet. While I do not usually charge anything for my labor this time I suggested that a bottle of Kahlua would be greatly appreciated. This is for medicinal purposes only of course.

I did work at Prince William Forest National Park for two days of the week and while I am not doing what I really enjoy I do feel that I am contributing a little bit. I fear that just sitting at home all the time would really get to be a bore after a while - even if there was sufficient work to keep me busy. I guess that I just have to talk with people once in a while. I do my morning exercise by walking to a coffee shop a mile away and I sit and chat for the morning group before taking a more circuitous path on the way back.

Saturday was just a down day for both Mimi and I. We pretty much stayed home and caught up on our reading and some house cleaning. Mimi went to the health club early Saturday morning for a couple of hours while I just caught up on some sleep. Once she returned home I do not think she was able to get away from the telephone the remainder of the day. It was one Korean wife after another calling in most cases with earth shattering problems to be resolved.

I have been working on another grouping of slides. This time it is mostly Mediterranean countries including Morocco, Egypt and Turkey. I will probably add Malta to that collection as well. I have finished Morocco and Egypt, Malta is completed all ready so I will tackle Turkey after I return from the fishing trip.

We have been concerned about the weather messing things up with Hurricane Michele kicking up her heels in the Caribbean and now offshore but I think the weather will be fairly good this year. Last year we got canceled out due to high wind and seas, I hope this doesn't happen this year. I have been suggesting to the guys who also are going that they start doing rain dances and other shamanistic activities this year to assure good weather. It cannot hurt anyway and one gets warm fuzzy feelings if it seems to have worked. The weather has been beautiful this year, we haven't had any bad storms during the hurricane season so I am keeping my fingers crossed. The year before we didn't have bad sea but the wind blew so strong it would peal the skin off your face.

I will be leaving early Wednesday morning, stopping to see a friend near Richmond for breakfast and then on to Roseboro to see another long time friend, have dinner and repair her PC. She is the daughter of a girl that I used to pal around with way back in high school in Florida. As a school teacher she uses the darn thing continually and I doubt much basic maintenance gets accomplished. I guess I will run diagnostics just to see what is taking place. She states her mouse is running away which sounds like a driver interference situation.

From there it will be over to Jacksonville to visit friends and fix and upgrade another computer. This computer is sick, I cannot even run diagnostic software and it has a very small hard drive. I will replace the hard drive with a larger one and change the operating system to something more modern. This should cure the e-mail problem only periodically working. I hate intermittent problems, they drive you balmy as they attack the minute one walks out the door. One feels very foolish to have been outwitted by a simple machine.

I am getting ahead of myself, I will blame it on senility.

Sunday Mimi and I headed north to just south of Baltimore and Patapsco State Park The volksmarch there is always a delightful challenge as the fifteen kilometer trail is always a hill climb. I am not stating that it is steep but it usually takes a day or two after completing the hike to clean the dirt out from underneath my fingernails. All of the photos on this page with the exception of the first were taken at the park.

The only liability of the park is that one is in competition with all the off-road bikers which roar downhill out of control and one can get get hurt if one does not get out of the way. Twice on Sunday I had a bicyclist hit a rock and go head over heels all too close to me. While no one was hurt and just feelings and egos crushed I am surprised there are no serious accidents. I guess somebody upstairs takes cares of infants and fools. I am glad that dogs are not allowed in this park, as in all Maryland state parks, as if a bike hit a leash it could get nasty.

The colors are past prime but still attractive photography. Thai used to hate trails covered with leaves as they tickled his privates. He would slow down as much as he could get away with until we would pick him up and carry him. He had us trained.

The weather was perfect with temperatures in the sixties. There wasn't a cloud to be seen and only the lightest of breezes. One could not have asked for a more attractive day. There was a fairly good turn out by stateside standards, though not for the fifteen kilometer trail, and there were plenty on non volksmarchers to exchange insults with.

I stepped on a wet mossy spot crossing one of the little streams and while I didn't fall I pulled a muscle in my lower back. I have been hobbling tenderly most of the day and that is after taking a good hot soak externally and internally. That hot buttered rum was great even when taken for purely medicinal purposes. Mimi accuses me of getting old and of course I am. She has been very faithfully been going to the health club and it showed on the trail. She left me far behind despite the hills. She can be such a showoff at times. I haven't been going to the health club but I have been working out a little at the house. I walk the stairs fifty times in the morning before I go out for my walk. This helps my legs and my aerobics of course.

Patapsco River was once a major waterway and even now flows into Baltimore Harbor. During the colonial period and the Revolutionary War it was a major seaport that rivaled Annapolis for the tonnage of tobacco that was shipped to England. Until the soil was exhausted slaves and oxen used to push hogsheads of tobacco down "roller" roads with the use of oxen where the tobacco would be loaded on ships. The river is badly silted now and the industry that used to rely on the river to supply water power has largely been closed down. There are several small dams to be seen where water was diverted to be used by mills and the like. The stills closed down when the area became over populated and that industry moved further west into the mountains. Most of the valley has not been overcome by development and has been left as a state park that extends many miles to the west. I hope that Virginia's next gubernatorial winner attempts to make some effort toward curtailing the urban sprawl and the desecration of the still unpopulated land of Northern Virginia. The current administration has done nothing in any area of conservation and recreation. Virginia ranks last in per capita spending of the parks and recreation area, less than $2.00 a person, which is a shame considering that Virginia has a very high per capita income. I just wonder where that revenue is going. I am going to cross party lines for one of the very few times in my life.

Got to get going, time to start planning what I am going to take with me on this trip.