TheSwirl.org

I have a bunch of computer activities on going tonight. I bought a new Western Digital USB drive as my Lacie Drive I use for an off-site backup went on the fritz. I got a 150gb that I am currently copying all my music, digital photos, maps, and personal files onto. I started with my 70gb of music that is not backed up elsewhere. It took 2+ hours to copy those file; I expect the rest to be copied overnight.
After years of using free firewalls (ZoneAlarm), free anti-virus (Grisoft AVG), free ad-aware and spybot software I bought Norton 360 internet security suite. It allows installation on 3 computers, which is perfect for me. The 1st installation was relatively painless as was the 2nd.  I haven’t found any nasty viruses or malware yet.  Maybe the old freeware was doing just fine.
Kathryn’s computer is being upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP so I can run Norton 360 on it.

I upgraded my version of Wordpress, which runs this blog, to version 2.1.2.  It was easy and painless.

I have used Eudora for email since 1995, starting out on Macintosh and then over on PCs.  After reading the news of Eudora mail to be merged with Mozilla Thunderbird I purchased the last commercial release of Eudora thinking it would tide me over until the merge was complete and we would transition to Thunderbird.  I was further motivated by Eudora’s statement that by the end of March existing licenses were going to be down graded to Eudora lite.   In the past purchasing one licensed copy of Eudora permitted me to perform multiple installations; 3 PCs and 1 Mac.  The latest licensing arrangement allows multiple installations, the additional ones just don’t work (or tell you why).  I could access email via web mail I thought my Norton 360 was causing problems, until I used Thunderbird on one of the computers.

The latest version of Thunderbird looks a lot like Eudora, imports all Eudora settings and works like a dream.

Last weekend we spent a day at Camp Boucheron; an annual event that began in Feb 2001. While others overnighted and enjoyed the brisk cabin conditions, K and I returned to home base to relieve the baby sitter and woke up where the water wasn’t frozen.

During the week Skip, Steve, Eric and I celebrated Bob’s 60th birthday at Okay Dokey’s . After our meal Craig brought out 5 pieces of pie: chocolate creme, coconut, lemon meringue adorned with candles. Eric provided the hats and noise makers.

Eric and I went swimming Thursday night to a empty pool, fortunately his buddies Trevor and ‘Big” Matt showed up after us so we could have a few games.

I have a pair of bent shaft wooden Gillispie paddles I purchased around 1984 or 1985. At the time they were $75-80 / paddle. My buddy Rich and I were competing in short canoe races (>14 miles) and those bent shaft paddles coupled with my Wenonah Jensen 18′ canoe gave us a competitive advantage. These paddles have been my “go to” paddles for recreational racing and canoe camping trips for many years. I have refinished the blade tips and shaft due to wear, but not done a great job. This past fall one of the paddles was loaned out and returned with a cracked blade. I exchanged emails with Brad Gillipsie about repairing and refinishing the paddles. Current replacements run about $125 / paddle and while they are a beautiful paddle I managed to get the refurbished paddles done for the same rate. My paddles returned this week looking almost like new. Now we just need spring.