BikerBabe

As most of you know, I quit smoking for a few months to try to please an ex boyfriend back in around 1994. After a couple of weeks I started getting bad gut pain and it got worse and worse each year, until I would pass out from the pain, then fall off the toilet and lay on the floor till I came around a half hour to an hour later, or until someone would find me there. I went thru many doctors over the years, they are were the same, no insurance, no help. Most would accuse me of being a liar, a drug seeker, or ask me if I'd like the name of a good shrink. Not one of them ever ran any tests on me. They patted me on my head and sent me on my way with nothing. I finally found a resident doctor willing to listen to me and who believed me when I said I hurt. He put me on pain killers and ordered a barium gulp, Iodine push CT scan. That found the Crohn's Disease and vindicated me. I really wasn't a drug seeker, a crazy lady who needed a shrink, a liar and all the many other of things the 'nice' doctors called me for so many years. The test was done in at the end of 1998 and I had the surgery to remove a little over a foot of my small bowel a short time later after the 1st of the new year. Going back to smoking not long after the pain started in '94 is probably the one thing that kept me alive they tell me. Some people who quit smoking, find out at that point in time they have either Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn's Disease. Their first flare is after they try to quit. The longer they stay off the smokes, the worse they get. *sigh* I stayed off for many months, then couldn't handle it and got rid of the guy and bought a carton of cigs. Hah! Today I'm a pain patient with many other auto immune related diseases or symptoms .. again most starting in or after '94. The difference now is once I was vindicated by that wonderful doctor, I'm now treated with respect by my doctors and I never get the lecture about smoking. When I mentioned to my family doc I had cut down on the smoking recently, purely without trying to, all he said was 'if you start hurting more than normal, light up'. I just laughed and said I'd be careful. I had my adoption records opened back in 1991 and found my birth mom, dad, and 11 brothers and sisters. 5 siblings from my bdad and 6 from my bmom. I've met most, but I'm closest to my older sister on Mom's side. Like me she had smoked since she was young. She decided this past year she wanted to quit. In a day her pain level went from having to take a Tylenol to having to get Vicodin or Percocet from her doctor. She knew my history of course, so she quickly made the connection. She went out and bought a pack of cigarettes. The pain went back to only needing Tylenol to stop it. She has Ulcerative Colitis. The difference is she knew she had the Disease, but didn't know it could get much worse for smokers if they quit until I told her what happened to me. I am so happy for her. It was only a week before she realized she needed to start smoking again, so she didn't end up like me. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. As far as buying cigarettes .. buy online Raf. I'm paying 11.50 a carton and they are shipped COD or they can do a withdrawal from your checking account and save you the COD charge. The website is www.allnativesmokeship.com and their 800 number is on the site. I prefer calling over using their site. We order a month's worth at a time and since we smoke different kinds, I prefer dealing with a live person so I'm sure they get it right. We've been buying from them for 5 or 6 years now and only one time had a problem. The post office lost the box. LOL. I called All Native and talked to someone in the office after being transferred there from the sales person. The lady I spoke with set up the same order again and made sure it went out the same day. It was at our door 3 days later. Crisis solved. Over a week later the original order finally showed up and we just had it returned to sender as they asked me to do. We are low income. There is no way we could afford to pay all the taxes Arizona has added on to local cigarattes. The kind I'm buying from All Native are just as good as any name brand I've smoked in the past. Check them out if you want to save some money. They are owned and operated by Indians on a reservation up north, so they are tax exempt. When buying online you MUST buy from the Indians. If you buy from one of the 'cheap smokes' websites that aren't run by Indians, then your state can and will find you responsible for taxes owed and send you a very large bill in the thousands of dollars you must pay. I've read of many people who made that expensive mistake. I hope all I've written will help those who smoke still and want to save some money and those that hate smokers realize that for some of us, it's saving our lives, not killing us. The media is anti smoking, so you don't hear our side of things. There are quite a few Diseases smoking has been proven to help. I long for the day I'm not considered a horrible person who should be sent to an island somewhere away from society because I smoke. The nannies have now completed their goal of making sure smokers can't go anywhere in public and in some states even smoking in your car while out driving is illegal. One town in California is non smoking ..everywhere. The smokers that lived there had to either quit or sell their home and move away. The fines are very high if they get caught. The nannies are now looking at alcohol drinkers and people who are overweight. If not stopped, they will have those groups standing outside in all kinds of nasty weather with us smokers. Sad state of affairs anymore when you can't indulge in a legal product.

We met a man who was late 20's to early 30's I'd guesstimate at ROA '93. He seemed very nice and knew many people that were there. He flirted with any female he came across and spent late nights RV hopping. Being married I didn't really ask many personal questions, but he was pretty open about what they were doing in the RV's and a few tents. I remember he said he was from South Florida and worked as a waiter in a Denny's. I never saw him again, but his name did come up a few years later in a conversation. I inquired as to how he was and found out he had died. No one seemed sad though, which made me wonder why. That was when I was told he was a bi sexual, but preferred men over women, unless he was around TWI events and he chased only women so as not to be outted as a gay man. He died of AIDS. At times I think back to that ROA and all the women he was with. (Possibly men too if they could keep it hidden.) That was pretty easy at the ROA with all the people always walking here and there. I never heard if anyone caught AIDS from him, but I didn't run in his circles, so it's not something that would have been talked about openly I wouldn't think. All I can do is pray that every person that had sexual contact with him didn't get the HIV virus from him.

Fry's Electronics is named after the owner, last name of Fry. :) The chain is in the western states only as far as I know. For those that haven't heard of it, Fry's is the WalMart for computer geeks. You can find just about anything you want there at their b and m stores as well as their online stores at www.outpost.com and www.frys.com which both have some great deals. I bought my RAM from outpost.com when I built my computer this past month, but the rest of the components I bought from other online companies to get more savings. You said you built a fast computer, but gave no stats. For the geeks of the cafe, can you give us an idea what sort of system you are running? Thanks. I've been building my own and maintaining a home network for 10 years now and would never consider a store bought box. I'm running this: Asus M2A-VM motherboard AMD 3 gHz dual core CPU 2 gig DDR2 800 mHz RAM 500 gig SATA hard drive Radeon 3870 512 mb PCI express x16 video card Logitech G51 Surround Sound 5.1 Sound System Encore TV Tuner and FM radio PCI Adapter card with Remote Area 51 Wide (Alien) case with many added blue LCD lights USB toys from 2 USB hubs: A red and white refrigerator which has room for one can of soda so it never gets warm as I drink it AAA and AA battery charger USB or Battery operated Thermometer (point, click, get temp of what you aim it at) Cyber Snipa game pad Wolf King laser gaming mouse (yes WordWolf, I think of you when I see the name on the back of my mouse LOL) Glass monitor stand that has 4 more USB ports, switches for printer, monitor, computer, aux and master switch with a drawer that can be removed and replaced with anything that would fit in a 5.25" drive bay, but I chose to keep the drawer in use A finger mouse so I can sit back and cruise web sites without having my arm stuck out for hours to my regular mouse (Not USB but ...) A drink holder/cigarette lighter (same as in a car) combo that is in the bay directly under my DVD player, so it looks like I just put my Pepsi can in there instead of a disk. Guaranteed laughs to any geek visiting you who hasn't seen one of them yet. I jumped on coolerguys.com to check the spelling as I write this and see they have a few things on sale right now that I want, so I must go deplete my bank account at this time. Hehe. I LOVE their pctoys and coolerguys sites and have gotten so many cool computer parts and toys from them. (When a company starts tossing in free gifts to your orders, you know you buy too much from them! Bwhahaha.) There you have my geek welcome to the cafe. After 15 years online, it's the only way I know anymore. Heh, TWI said the internet or them .. it's obvious which I picked. :) Hope to read what you have in your box soon!

Grasshopper!!! I remember that nick well. Wow, you've been thru quite a lot and I do hope you share some of your stories with us. I notice it's been a couple months since the first posts were done on this thread. I hope you are still peeking in here every so often and read the newest ones and then reply. :)

Off topic in a way. The line Don't Worry posted about the pain meds VP was taking at the end got me thinking .. as most of you know, I'm a pain patient and have tried almost every painkiller on the market. Here I can speak from experience/knowledge. Tylenol 3 is the one of the lowest forms of pain killer and are only about 40 bucks a bottle with no insurnace. They also don't do a thing for chronic pain. Vicodin/Lortab 7.5 to 10 mg help a bit more and are still a schedule 3 drug, so they cost about 100 per month without insurance. Does anyone know if any of the people discussed here had insurance? If VP didn't, our ABS was going quickly with every script he filled for painkillers once he was classified a chronic pain patient with intolerable pain. Once the pain gets bad, you move up to the schedule 2 drugs, Ms Contin (morphine), Oxycontin, and the patch (Fentanyl) which all start at 400 to 500 a month, sometimes more, depending on the mgs you need to take as you build tolerance. The only schedule 2 drug that isn't expensive is Methadone. A month's worth runs 30 to 60 bucks depending on the mgs you take. It's also the best painkiller on the market for those who won't ever have to stop taking it. (The detox is something you never want to go thru if possible, it's very very bad.) Of course, given the stigma that drug has, since it's known mostly for helping heroin and other opitate addicts detox off them, I can't see any of the high ranking TWI people 'lowering' themself or their familes to such a drug, even though it would help the best. What they did to anyone sick to avoid having to help goes way beyond what words can say. I trust that God *will* have the correct words at their judgement. I can't wait to hear Him say it all to them. What a happy day that will be for me, another who ignored my pain for years due to their teachings, until I was about 2 weeks shy of dying from an incurable, but not deadly disease (unless it's ignored). Thanks go to God for making pain , as that is when I finally got scared enough when I was passing out from the pain it was so bad that I went and pressured doctors until I found one willing to help me find out what was wrong and he saved my life. I was out of TWI by then though, I'm fully aware that if I had still be in, I wouldn't be alive today to type this to y'all. I hope you find your friend Liz and have a wonderful reunion. I would love to hear all about it and all she's doing in her life today. She sounds like such a strongwilled, wonderful woman. I will keep a reunion in my prayers. Having had one with my birth family after adoption records were opened, I know well how wonderful they are.

I'm not sure if I still have the hippy pic or if my mom has it. I think I had it last and it should be in my big bag of pics I need to scan one day. If I do have it, I'll post it. We just got a new printer/scanner, so that will get the job done. :) I also have a pic I took around ROA '92 or '93 of the honey wagon that I *must* scan and post one day. The hard part is figuring out which of the many boxes tightly shoved into my closet the pics are in. :( One day I will find them and start scanning. My youngest was 2 or 3 that year and we rented an RV for the week. He refused to leave the RV each day until after the honey wagon went by and did it's thing. He LOVED it and would want me to hold his hand and walk him down the row with them so he could watch them do the other RV's. LOL. The pics from then did go thru the house fire, but some survived with minimal smoke damage and that was one of them, so I should get a pretty good scan of it. Hahaha, maybe we can start a thread dedicated just to all the guys and gals that got stuck on honey patrol duty at the ROAs thru the years. :) I went to John and Meg's twig when I would be in their town and had perfect timing a couple of those trips when it was communion night. I've been to many different ones at twigs in many states over my 20 years in, but none of them matched the peacefulness and feeling of love that I felt at John and Meg's. I do miss them so and wish they would leave and join all of us in here. I keep that thought always in my prayers. I was so happy that John was the Rev. that dedicated my youngest at a Limb meeting. It was beautiful and brought tears to my eyes. So many good memories from those two, which I can't say about most of the other twigs I went to or got kicked out of for refusing to do something that was against my personal and/or moral beliefs, no matter who the 'leader' was trying to order me around. Hey, when I managed to get kicked out of twigs in an entire state way back in '77, I looked upon that as a badge of honor, then and now. I was not about to do what a branch leader was ordering me to do, when VP personally had talked to me days earlier at length and told me to do something and go somewhere completely opposite. I figured if VP agreed with me on where I should be I will go there, this guy who had never met me before in his life (but was obviously told very bad things from the twig leader who did not like me), was not coming into my home and ordering me around. I told him I was staying, he started calling me nasty names in front of my husband and accusing me of things I would NEVER do (to try to get hubby against me, which didn't work). So then I asked him why he was saying such things about me, when the asst twig leader they had with them was the girl he needed to talk to, SHE was the one who slept with a married man and was carrying his child. (She and they had NO idea I had heard that news already, the look on their faces was one to be treasured forever.) He started in on me again and I gave him a choice. He either left the house right then and there, taking the 2 ladies with him, or I was going to toss him thru the picture window to get him out of my living room. He decided he'd use the door and on his way out informed me I was kicked out of all twigs in the state. As if I cared, he didn't realize we weren't staying there, we were moving a state away in a week's time. Bwhahaha. I do regret never finding out his reaction when he realized the power he thought he'd gotten over me, didn't work after all. I also regret forgetting his name!!! *sigh* Guess you can see why John and Meg were/are so special to me in my memories. They knew of that incident, I told them. They weren't phased by it, loved me for who I was and I loved going to their twig when I was in their area visiting friends and got the chance. ...and thus ends this trip down memory lane for tonight. Hope you enjoyed it.

Here's a pic of my slightly used Beta machine. Anyone interested in buying it? Honest, before the fire it worked great, I haven't tried it after, but you can see how pretty it still is. The Beta is the machine on top, the VCR is the one underneath it. LOL. Personally I thought the TV looked real nice after it imploded too. *sigh* 4/16/93 is when it happened. We had replacement cost insurance thank God. We did get a new VCR, but didn't bother to replace the Beta. All the tapes we had melted for both machines. so it just wasn't worth getting another one of each. The pic was taken with a polaroid, so that's why it's not the best quality. Sorry it's so big, didn't want to risk making it worse by taking it off the web, resizing it and putting it back up. I did my best to try to make it look better in Paint Shop Pro and put it up there at the size it was, but given the age and film type added to that ... it would take a miracle to make it perfect. LOL. It looks pretty good on my monitor, but since they all vary, I have no idea what it will look like on any of yours. I hope it turns out ok. I do still have the original picture and now that we have a new printer/scanner, I will probably dig out my pics one day and rescan them to try to get a better take of it and the other 3 I took of various areas of the house. The equipment of today is so much better than when I originally scanned this in 1995 or 6. I'm also a lot more talented in a graphics proggie too these days. :)

I will openly say what I live on. 623 bucks a month from SSI and with that I get 99 bucks of food stamps (do the math, that's a buck a meal gang) and all my medical via medicare which uses the state's welfare insurance companies. The first year was real hard, I wasn't put on the best company, but now I had the chance to change a month ago and now finally all my meds are covered and they give me cab rides to all doc visits, tests, etc, that I have to go to. My GP doc is only 4.12 miles round trip though, so I can ride my mountain bike to his office when the weather allows. They insist on sending the cabs an hour before your appt time and living so close, I hate hanging out and wasting an hour before I get seen, then waiting up to another half hour after I call to get my ride back home when I'm done. To get all of this wonderful money and medical so I could stay alive, all I had to do was separate and start the divorce from my husband. SSI accepted me fine, but couldn't help me since he was considered responsible for me while living with me and he made 9.50 an hour, which is too much income according to them. Of course that job of his offered no insurance and we could barely make bills much less pay for doctor visits and expensive meds, tests, etc. I needed. I held out for awhile, but I was down to 76 pounds and fading fast. I then did what I had to do and found a small studio apt near him. We can still hang out together, we just can't live together and will have to get the divorce. At that point we could then live together again if we would chose to, as he would no longer be responsible for me. Real nice system our Government has huh? Today I'm at 104 pounds and no longer need the wheelchair or cane except for the times when my left hip joint, which needs to be replaced (has a flat spot on it) in time, flares up. I can't walk very far, 3 blocks is pressing my limit, but I can ride my mountain bike 5 miles or so without a problem since riding puts no weight on the hip or gut where the pain is the worst. Now that our weather has finally broken and we are down to the 90's and a couple of days in the 80's, it's beautiful riding weather and we will be able to start riding on his days off on weeks I'm up for it and I can start to ride a little further each time until I hopefully can get back somewhere near the 20 miles a day I used to be able to ride. When you don't have a car, it can make many things more difficult to get done that most take for granted daily. Each month or every other month we are now adding on a new specialist I need to be seen by and getting all the pre auths done with my insurance company. I have the pain doc already, the OB-GYN and GP of course. Next will be either the G.I. for the Crohn's Disease or the skin doc for the Crohn's related skin disease I need a biospy of so we can get it entered into my medical records, since only 4 out of every one million people with Crohn's get the skin disease probs or the doc who will start to decide what to do about my hip joint that will need to be replaced. Being on 120 mg of methadone a day for my Crohn's, IBS, the skin blisters that turn into painful raw skin on hands, head, and recently face flare ups, Fibro and migraines, I don't normally feel the pain from the hip ... unless I do something stupid like stay under the table too long in a bad position while working on my computer. (Quit laughing Garth! Hahaha.) Then I will be in extreme pain for about 2 weeks and unable to put any weight on that hip and have to keep a special cream the pain doc has the pharmacist compound up special for his patients that numbs an inch deep into the skin and really helps when mixed with a heating pad and have to use the **** wheelchair if I go out of the house and be pushed around in it. *sigh* So fun .. NOT. Well, unless I'm on a nice smooth surface, like the grocery store floor where I can do donuts in the chair till I'm so dizzy I almost fall out of it. That's fun at times to do, but tends to embarass whomever is pushing me. LOL. Hitting the sloaping driveway as fast as I can and freewheeling it while saying 'Yee Haw!' kinda gets them going too. One step at a time and we will get it all taken care of at the pace I can handle. Going out for a day will take me down for the next 3 or 4 days and I am good for nothing really other than sitting and talking and sleeping. Then I get the energy back that's needed to do it again. LOL. My GP doc's nurse practitioner is really good about making sure I get the time I need to rest up before we do the next round of medical stuff. She knows I lose weight so easily, we can't risk having that happen and then have me in a condition that would make me unable to have needed surgery until I could gain it back. It's taken me a year to go from 76 to 104. This is the first time in my life I've been over 100 lbs, unless I was pregnant. After so many years of bad docs who ignored me, called me a liar, asked me if I wanted the name of a good shrink, accusing me of being a drug seeker, it feels really good to finally have a full team of doctors working together to help me. After about 10 years of being an almost total shut in, I have so much I want to get out into the world to see and do, once they get me to the point I can without fearing it will set me back. I kinda went off track there, but for a reason. The SSI/income issue with me doesn't really sink in, unless you hear the full story behind it and all we've had to go thru to get it and keep me alive. It really would have sucked to have died at 49 years old last year from a non fatal disease, just because of a 9.50 an hour job. All I can do is pray my rent doesn't go up, since I live in the cheapest building in this neighborhood where all stores I need for food, meds, bank, etc are all in a 3 block radius and I can ride there on my bike in a few minutes. It's not easy to find all that plus affordable rent so close together. I'm also on one of the major bus routes when I need to go further and carry things home (I have one of those big carts that holds 4 paper sized grocery bags and a couple plastic ones) to get to Target and WalMart on rare occasions. A cab is out of the question, they want 10 bucks each way and I just can't afford that. The years I would have been able to work when I was younger, I was in TWI and following the husbands I had while in wanting me at home caring for the kids. I had no jobs other than a few that only lasted a month before I'd end up flaring and getting so sick I'd have to quit. Back then I couldn't get the docs to listen to me though, so I stayed home, tried to not whine about the pain and make it thru each day the best I could. Then I got really sick 13 years ago when I quit smoking to please a boyfriend .. stupid decision. I didn't know that I had Crohn's and those with Crohn's and Colitis tend to go from minor gut pain to major (I pass out from it) once they quit smoking. Tylenol no longer made the gut pain go away, I needed the script pain meds 24/7. By the time I made the connection it had something to do with quitting and started smoking again, it helped me stay where I was, but I never did and never will get back to being as healthy as I was before I quit. So not working, not paying into the system, left me open only for SSI help, not the other type of Social Security Disability that you get a portion of your prior income, which is normally much more than I get. I'll shut up now ... and this was the short version of it all. LOL. I have a blog online where I vent, err .. post at times when I feel the need where I point people who want to know more of all I've been thru in my life. There's so much more than just the medical, it's just easier to keep it all in one place, so I'm starting to write it all out there when I feel up to it and have the time. While money has never mattered to me so long as the bills were paid and food was on the table, I have to really stretch it to get that done these days depending on the SSI and it's benefits (as they call them). But I'm alive, I'm riding my bike again and feeling the wind in my face. That was my dream, my goal, and it feels REAL good when I'm out there flying on my bike on a nice straight side road with no traffic around to hit me. I feel alive again for the first time in many years. Some of you here helped me reach this point, you know who you are. I can never thank you enough for the things each of you did for me. Every time I ride that bike or walk into my front door I think of y'all and thank God for you and your kindness to me. I owe many of you some emails, but when I had my puter crash some months back, I lost everything. If you haven't heard from me in email, that's why, I've lost your address. Send me one and I will get you back in my addy book.

That's John in the front row? Hahaha, I didn't recognize him! Let's put it this way, I have one of the original proofs of the children's songbook cover Meg did long ago for VP to give his OK to. (The other was lost in a house fire.) Obviously I'm not in touch since I think they are still in, but if I was, I'd be giving him a good teasing. I met them a good 15 yrs after this pic was taken and he looked totally different by then. Ted looks great as always. Where are he and his new bride anyway, haven't seen much of them in here lately .... hmm, must still be doing the honeymoon thing. Woo hoo!!! Now that I know which pic is you, I do remember your face, but I wasn't anything but intermed. grad, so was never allowed to even think about trying to sing with any of the groups, even having a good voice. Heh, such was TWI politics. You wouldn't know me, but possibly a family member who was/is still Corps and still in. I can reveal that in PM if you are curious. I don't say openly for obvious reasons. I can't say enough about those matching suits you guys were wearing. How come Ted and John didn't have to wear them and got to look normal? Did they bribe someone? LOL. I do hope your wife has long ago burned that outfit for you and put a list of the new dress code up on the fridge for you to see. :P Haha. (I also won't ever post the pic taken of me at ROA '74 in my hippy garb or you could tease me back. Hah!) Thanks for letting me know who you were in there. The years have gone by so quickly it seems.

Socks, you still haven't said which one you are in that old picture. I'm dying to know! I'm even gonna be nice and not crack a joke about the clothes everyone was wearing (especially the guys). Sounds like you had a great birthday! 57 is a great number, trust me I know, I was born in '57!!! LOL. Tell your daughter happy belated birthday for me too. How cool you both share the same day. I did that with my neighbor kid, 2 yrs older than me, growing up and we had all our parties together and had a blast. (If you don't want to post openly where you are in that pic, feel free to PM me the answer.)

Well darn it all. I've been busy with doctor stuff and haven't gotten in here as much recently. Sorry I missed being able to tease you about being so old this year on the right day. Posted this as soon as I saw the thread, I didn't want you to think I don't love you anymore and was ignoring you ... I just wasn't online enough to catch you on your day. :( Sorry my friend. I do hope it was a good one. My present, belated as it is, you might like, if you haven't seen it yet. Go to http://www.pctoys.com and check out all their super cool computer toys. Orders over 25 bucks they pay postage on and they ship 2 day priority mail! Can't beat their low prices either from what I've seen. We've made 4 orders already and have more planned in the future. They don't sell hardware (MB, CPU, etc.), they sell the fun toys, the extras for your box like LED lights, hubs, card reader/writers, super cool see thru speaker system with blue LED lights thruout (of course I had to order that and it should be here in a couple days, the speakers that is, the hub and card read/write I got last order LOL). They have some really nice cases too, I'm deciding now which one I will get. I'm ready to build my new system for gaming as soon as I get the MB and CPU. Already got the new Vid card (ATI x1650 512 mb RAM) and 500 watt power supply in use that I will move into the new box. I hope you enjoy crusing their site and should you decide to buy, you will love their quality service and just really neat stuff to fancy up your computer. BTW, they even sell a drink holder/cigarette lighter combo that fits under your DVD drive in the slot below it. Yeah, the old CD/DVD drive getting used as a drink holder by newbies joke made real. Of *course* I got one and unless someone is looking really close, they can't tell if I'm hitting the DVD button or the one on the drink holder to open it and stick my Pepsi can in there. (Both are black.) Hehe. Then I push in the lighter, fire up a smoke and the look on their face is priceless. Knowing your humor, I think you'd have as much fun with this as I do, if you have a slot open to put it in. The website is a geek's paradise and I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/18/emotico...y.ap/index.html I wasn't aware it was even known who started using :-) first. This article in CNN tells all about it, the original post he did it in and the reason and also has a great picture of the man next to a smiley written on poster board. :-) was first posted to an online e-bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on September 19, 1982 by professor Scott E. Fahlman. This brings you the fun fact of the day and tomorrow whenever you use the :-). :), :-P. or any of it's variations, you now know who started it and say happy birthday to it!

I have been following the court case of the woman who was told by the judge handling her sexual assault case, that she couldn't use the words 'rape' and 'victim' in her testimony. I am not sure how any woman could proceed with such a case, when the judge won't allow words that need to be used to describe what happened. When I saw the Senator's way of showing how crazy our system is by letting anyone file a lawsuit, by suing God, which in turn can really hurt true cases, such as the poor lady who was sexually assaulted, I wanted to share it with everyone here. While it has a serious side, it has a funny side as well. Papers don't have to be served to God in this case Garth. There's a paragraph that shows how he got around that when filing the case. It says: "The suit also requests that the court given the “peculiar circumstances” of this case waive personal service. It says being Omniscient, the plaintiff assumes God will have actual knowledge of the action." LOL. I think that's a combo of Creative Writing 101 and Bible 101. Personally I think the senator really had to put some thought into how he utilized words in the case paperwork, in order to get around things like having the papers served to God. He did an excellent job. While I did find the link to the article on CNN, the article itself is on a local TV news site for Omaha, Neb. I do not know how long they keep their articles online, so I did make a copy of the entire artlice and saved it to a text file. That way if it disappears quickly, anyone who can't view it via the link and wants to read it can just ask me for a copy and I'll be happy to send it to you. :) While the case that lead the Senator up to filing this suit is tragic, I hope this article about him suing God gave y'all a smile.

News article about God's lawsuit here This is good stuff. Once you read the article you will understand why this state senator decided to sue God, but what struck me as I read thru it was the amount of work he actually had to put into it. You will read how he got all the angles covered, even the explaination why he couldn't serve God with the legal paperwork. I think Senator Chambers did a fine job and is proving his point about all the frivolous lawsuits that are tying up our courts these days. I would have loved to have pasted a copy of the article here, but due to copyright laws, I felt it best to just give the URL and let you all go read it there on the link provided by the CNN website where I found it. Happy reading. :)

That was actually Jonny dressed up as a 5 year old doing the breast feeding! The real youngin's were weaned at the normal times. (I *had* to do that one Jonny, too good to pass up! LOL. I know you will return the favor and 'get' me back one day. Hehe, ya know I love you and please DO have your wife get tested!)

Oh geeze, I am sooo sorry. My post was a joke and not everyone caught that . While there is truth in there, I wrote it with my warped humor added in. I saw my pain doc today and he ordered an MRI. I hate those tests as I am claustrophobic and a full spinal MRI will take about a half hour from what I hear. The thought of being put inside a very tight tube for that long is very unnerving to me and the whole time I am in that thing I will be going nuts. I am just hoping I get the open kind where if you look as far up and back behind your head as you can (without moving the rest of your body, gotta lay still for the entire test), then you can see out of the tube thru a tiny opening and see a wall of the exam room or something. A closed test you see nothing but the lighted inside of the tube and about 5 inches of space around your body when you are small framed liked me. Big men have a worse time than I do as they have maybe an inch or two most between them and the sides of the tube when they are in there. I will probably take 5 mg of valium to relax myself (that is allowed) before I go in to have it done and if I'm lucky I may even nod out and sleep thru the test. That is what I hope happens. If not, I just pray I can keep calm enough to make it thru the test so it doesn't have to be repeated. So I started it in chat earlier tonight by asking for anyone willing to come to Phoenix and take the test for me. Next I read these posts and being in the same crazy frame frame of mind, I got silly with it and was asking where I get that 'other me' to go do the test, so the "me" me that would really feel it can stay home. :) I am dreading having to do this, but it is the best test out there for them to see all they can inside me to see what's going on. I changed from the bad insurance company medicare offers in this state I got stuck on all last year this month. Now that I'm on the best one that will pay for a lot of tests and things, my docs are all ganging up .... err, I mean ordering a lot of tests for me to do so they can finally get me from the good health stage they got me to now, to even better. I still have some tests coming up that involve barium that I will also be trying to find volunteers for .. just prior notice to anyone who wants to take pity on me and drink that nasty stuff for me. LOL. I won't explain the rest of those tests or then I know no one would want to do them! Just the joys of having a few incurable auto immune things going on at once in my ole body and my way of handling it is to laugh it off. Laughing is much more fun than stressing or crying/feeling sorry for myself, so that's what I do. Laugh and make jokes when the docs decide to do some more torture on me that they call medical tests. :) Again, I'm sorry if you didn't see I was posting it in fun. I thought almost everyone here knew I was sick with the Crohn's, Crohn's related things, IBS, a hip joint that went bad from the drugs I've had to take for the Crohn's so it will have to be replaced in the future, Fibro and migraines off and on. The one good thing about it all is when you have that many chronic pain problems at the same time, every morning when I wake up is like XMas morning. I never know which one will hurt the most, so it's a big surprise, just like the surprise of what Santa left under the tree. This just hurts more, Santa's stuff was fun and was pain free. Hehe. :) (Edited for everyone who didn't realize I was joking in my original post.)

OK, answer me this. If there are other me's, how do I find the one that isn't claustrophobic to go take the MRI my pain doc ordered today, so this me typing this post can stay home and not have to take the test with that other me. I even tried asking for volunteers to do it for me in chat tonight and had no takers. LOL. *sigh* I HATE being put in that tiny tube for a half hour or more that this one will take. He ordered a full spinal neck to butt, so I know that is gonna take a longer than normal time. I'm praying for an open one, not a closed one. Only good thing is it may pick up a hint of what my Crohn's is doing in there as an added bonus. If not, the barium gulp, idodine push CT Scan comes next on the list, then the small bowel series. I have to have the test done before I see him next month, so if you can find that other me before then, please send it to the hospital I will be having the test at. That me should know it, we live right across the street from it and get buzzed many times daily by their life flights coming in with critical patients. (Actually it's kinda cool watching the choppers come in low and fast, then land quickly. When every second counts, that is what is needed.) I always say a little prayer when I hear them go over that whomever is in there will be helped by the trauma team and walk out good as new in a few days. LOL, thanks for helping me find that other me for the MRI. I soooo hate getting put in that little tube. :)

Being a coffee drinker, I get the fiberous lumps that are nothing, but need to be looked at. I get squished every year if possible, every other if not. Now that I have medicare it will be yearly from now on ... I keep asking them if they will squish them so once it's over they will be bigger, same with chest xrays, can't there be some advantage for me in it? LOL. Never has worked, so I'm stuck with what I got, unless I ever become rich and buy myself a pair. :P The only cancer that runs in my birth family is in the cervix or uterus itself. Almost all of the ladies in the family have either had their uterus removed or have had the bad cells laser beamed off the cervix in an attempt to avoid surgery. (My older sis did the laser, I hope it does work for her in the long run, I had to go with surgery like mom and grandmom. No word yet on little sis, but she's quite a bit younger than my older sis and I .. about 10 yrs or so.) There has never been any breast cancer history at all, so that makes me feel good. :)

Woah! Hang on here, Tempe? Adios was a Zonie at one time too? How totally cool, I'm in Phoenix now holding down the fort ... should any of you ever decide to come back. :) Remember, it's a *dry heat*, bwhahahahahaha. I'm still recovering after riding the 4.12 mile round trip to my GP doc and back home last Thursday on my mountain bike. LOL. It was actually a cool day too, only 100 out there. I can't wait for winter to get here when it will be down to the 80's daytime. LOL. I better shut up now, before all of you above the mason dixon line start lobbing snow balls at me asap.

I'm so sorry I missed this when you first posted. I know you, but I didn't start posting till recently, so I doubt you would know me. What you know about me and don't realize is my pain, I'm sorry to say I've been where you were 2 years ago, when my first husband was murdered in 1977. It breaks my heart to hear that anyone else, especially someone as sweet as you, has also been thru such a tragic turn in your life. As Shellon said, anytime you need to talk, vent, whatever, please feel free to drop me a line. When she and I are in chat at the same time we run 'the widows club', it's a club we never want to see anyone else have to join, it's easy to see why, but all our love is there if you choose to stop in one night and talk. I've been busy lately with a lot of medical stuff from my various doctors, so don't get in every night as I used to, but try to stop in as often as I can. I'd love to say hi to you in real time. I did post back during the TraceChat days, if you go back that far, using a different nickname. There is a chance you might know me by that if you had found that site or later on in Waydale. I can run it past you when we talk one day, I'd prefer not to post it openly, since I don't use it anymore and so much has changed since then. :) It's good seeing you here again, you've been missed. Again I'm so sorry for your loss, I was only 19 when I became a widow and I'm 50 now. It still hurts when I think about it and I cry still every year on the anniversary of his passing. I moved on with my life though and God has always been there to give me one thing to smile or laugh at every day. I found it's the little things that help me keep moving on, I try not to be too caught up in something or myself and miss them daily. Not sure if that's your way or not, but it's what helps me and I thought I'd tell you. Soooo, welcome back to the cafe, grab a cup of coffee and settle in with us. :)

Elmo has his own cage, it lives in the closet. LOL. He and Cleo have always shared her cage since the day he moved in with us and that is how they want it. Cockies are very social, flock oriented birds, they like to be with others and it doesn't matter if it's another bird or their human, everyone the love they consider part of their flock. You didn't say if your new bird is a male or female. If it's a male, then I'd advise reading up on breeding. They have those little books you can get at the pet stores about different subjects on different types of birds. I have one on breeding cockatiels, even though it has turned out one of ours is sterile because the eggs never develop and hatch. *sigh* They LOVE making them still though. Hahahaha. You will know if it happens, Rascal will make a new noise, what I call the horny sound and look like she's trying to almost lie out on the perch. The male will mount her front behind (she moves her tail to the side to allow him access to her vent) and then will put his vent to hers. They will go at it for 2 to 5 minutes depending on the couple and how good of a grip they have in the cage to allow them to do this. After about 4 days to a week after they start doing this, quite a few times a day with the case of my two, she will lay the first egg and then lay one every other day until done. They lay between 4 and 6 normally. The eggs hatch in the same order they were born in about 21 days, give or take a day or two. If both are females, they they are just becoming friends and want to hang out together when they aren't sharing shoulder time on you. :) Enjoy them, it shows how much they love you when they sit on you together instead of just hanging out on the cage with each other. They want you, their whole flock involved in their lives. Cockies do have attitudes as you know. Expect a fight or two now and then, but it's nothing to worry about. They normally settle their differences fairly quick and everything gets back to normal. I see Elmo reach over and give Cleo a peck on her head many times when he feels she's not doing what she should be, which is the same thing she does to him when she feels he is in the wrong. It's never really gone any further than that with my two, but I know with some birds new to each other it can take a couple weeks of some longer fights before they get the 'pecking order' arranged that they need for their flock, then all will be fine. I'd let them choose the cage they want to live in. If they are happier together, let them share one and put the other one up as a spare in case it's ever needed due to one getting ill or their chosen cage developing a problem that needs to be fixed. Hope all this helps you some. Feel free to ask me anything you aren't sure on when it comes to two birds and I'll help if I have the experience to answer it for you. Tell your son birds can remember a LOT and for a long time. Once Rascal gets used to his changed voice she will act the way she used to with him again, just give her the time to get used to it first and let her make the first approach to him to restart their relationship. When she's ready she will go to him as she used to, but pressing it by trying to make her do that now may scare her and delay the process, so let her pick the time when she feels it's all ok and it's really him. The dogs I think probably came from her getting scared by dogs she came across when she was alone out there, before she was found and rescued by the family that cared for her till they were put in contact with you. She should settle in again with 'her' dogs once she is there awhile and feels secure again. Cleo has never been around a dog, but hearing one outside barking where we used to live would make her run to me for protection, I think from instinct. She knows the barking sound means trouble and will go to her flock for protection from it.... then sit and poop on me. LOL. (Actually she will stick her little butt out and do her best every time to not get it on me when she 'goes'. My chair sits on one of those plastic things they use in offices on top of the carpet so they roll easier and that makes it real easy to clean up then for me. Elmo doesn't poop as much, but he also doesn't eat people food with me when otu of the cage like Cleo does and I think that is the reason. He will hop on the cage when hungry and eat his seed, poop in there and then come back over and resume his stance on the top of my chair. He sits up there and protects Cleo and I from anything bad that could happen (or so he thinks at least, it's really cute). Cleo will vary from sitting on my shoulder and then climbing up to sit with Elmo for awhile thruout each day and night when they are out of the cage. Love ya sweet lady. I'm still so thrilled you have your whole flock back together again now.

Cleo and Elmo are celebrating when I told them your sweet baby is back home with you! I'm sure I don't need to tell you how fast tears formed in my eyes out of happiness when I read your post. I'd be lost without my 2 cockies and know how much it hurt you when you lost Rascal. Praise God for the internet, bird lovers and her being found by good people that cared for you until you could be reunited. Give her a big hug and head scratch for me. :)

Before buying online it's always a good idea to go to www.ripoffreport.com and do a search on the company. If there are a lot of reports there, you will know to stay away from them and avoid getting ripped off.

Thanks for your sweet comments ladies. I'm still amazed at how when I originally posted asking if anyone had a disk they were willing to let go of, that I would actually need it so quickly afterwards. Even if I did have my old XP Pro disk, it wouldn't have done me any good for a full install due to my being unable to get updates from MS these days now that they have cracked down on everyone. I would have been forced into having to buy a new full version XP disk to install and I just really couldn't afford that on the little income I get from SSI. I had saved for months in order to get what I had in the bank that allowed me to buy the video card and the unplanned power supply box. WW really saved the day for me, without knowing it. After it happened, I sent him a PM asking if I could do a post about all I went thru to get my new vid card installed and use his nickname in it. I wanted everyone here to know who it was who helped me so very much. He said I could, but I didn't tell him the full story, he had to wait until I posted it last night. All he knew was that I crashed and ended up needing to install that disk he sent me, but none of the craziness that surrounded it. Once he reads my original post on this thread, he will then understand why it meant so much to me to be able to use his name and to thank him in front of all our friends in here. Being poor, I learned to build my own computers as a way to save money. I upgrade as I can afford to get new parts. I know it's never easy when you are building them, something simple can end up totally different than you expected, but I never in my wildest dreams would have expected the 2 days of hell just to install a new vid card. LOL. Now that it's all up and running, I must say, it's totally wonderful and I feel it was worth all the hassle and problems to get it working. My games have never looked so good visually nor run so well due to the increased power supply now and twice the RAM on the vid card itself. Thanks again WordWolf, I couldn't have done it without you!!!

I did a post on Aug 3 2007, 06:39 PM in the Questions and Some Answers part of the forum in the Computer Questions section. The thread is here: http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=14522 and the post of mine I'm referring to is #22. The other ones I did on that thread aren't relevant. I asked in that post if anyone had a copy of XP Home or Pro they would no longer need once they upgraded to Vista that I could have. My XP Pro disks were missing after my ex roommate moved out and if I would crash, I would have no way to reinstall Win XP. In a couple of days I got a PM from someone and he said he had a XP Home disk he no longer needed that I could have and register to my computer *if* he hadn't thrown it away. He said he would look for it and get back to me. He did in fact find it and then mailed it to me using 2 day express mail. It arrived to me on August 9th and I put it in my CD case where I keep all OS, keyboard, mouse, etc. type of disks. I liked knowing it was there should the XP Pro I had installed on the computer every have a problem, I could just install the XP Home and actually have a XP version I could register and get updates for, along with just having the computer running again. My XP Pro was given to me after a ME crash a few years back, but it wasn't exactly one I could register as the reg number came off a key gen. For a long time I could get most updates ok, but then had to turn all updating off totally when MS got nasty last year. I couldn't afford to buy a copy either, so just made due the best I could. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed what that XP Home disk would actually mean after it was sent to me by our very much beloved WordWolf from here on the GS Cafe forums. Around the same time he sent the disk to me, my hubby's new monitor was giving him fits due to him having such an old vid card in his box. I told him to hang on before just buying one online and let me have a go first at a search. I hit Amazon.com and found an ATI X1650 Pro 512 mb RAM video card which was what I dearly wanted for my gaming and the ATI 9250 256 mb RAM card I was presently running was just want he needed for his monitor to like him again. So we made a deal. He bought my card off me for 62 bucks instead of the 100 plus it would have cost him online. I then bought the X1650 Pro card from Amazon while it was selling for $160 plus 11 bucks for 2 day shipping, instead of the 200 bucks before shipping all other sites online were asking for that same card. We both got the cards we needed at half the price we would have had to pay doing it at different times. The Video card got here Monday, Aug. 13th. I pulled my card out of my box and installed it into his and had not problem one, which was shocking since his box is normally very hard to work on. I was pleased by that. Then I grabbed my new card and went to put it in my box. I cram myself in under the counter top I use as my desk and put it in, then climb out and start up the computer and get ... nothing. *sigh* So I look thru the book that came with it and find a section I'd missed the first read that said I needed a power supply of at least 450 watts. Funny, it didn't say that on Amazon when I read the stats. So off to Staples DR goes on his bicycle (just as the 2 benedryl he'd taken to help him sleep were kicking in of course) and he finds a choice .. 430 Watt for $60 or 500 Watt for $108. Needing at the min. of 450, he had to buy me the 500 Watt power supply. That was money I had NOT planned on spending and I was left with just enough cash in my bank account to be able to pay for my meds I'll get from the doctor tomorrow that my insurance doesn't cover. *sigh*. He gets home and hands me the power supply and I put it in the box and go to plug in the main line that goes to the motherboard ... it had too many holes in it compared to the pins my MB has. Panic time yet again. I look thru the book and find the last 4 are removable for people with the smaller pin MB connectors. I take them off and see then it lines up fine and go to push it in ... it still won't go. The clip on the side that holds it down, that piece is wider than the space between 2 little things on my MB that sit next to where it clips in. Great, now what do we do. I put on my thinking cap. I compared the new one to my old one. Then I got out my big pair of scissors and cut off one corner of the clip where it was the thickest, took everything I had to cut it off. Next I got out my diamond encrusted nail file and started sawing on the rest of it. As I went I would try it off and on to see when I was getting close to where it would fit. I also pushed those 2 little round things welded onto the MB apart as far as I could without doing any damage to them, which gained me a slight bit more room. I finally got to the point I'd filed it down enough that it did snap into place. We both sat back and sighed a big sigh of relief. Next I hit the button and we watched my screen ... it booted up fine! Yes!!! Now all I had to do was get in there and do all the updates to the new vid card and I would be set .. or so I thought. As I was doing this, XP Pro decided to do a major crash and I lost all my video and could NOT get it back. I couldn't even get into Safe Mode and there was nothing in the BIOS to help me and it was the only thing I could see, anything Windows related would not show on my screen, I had lost all my VGA settings. By now it had been about 3 hours I was working to get the new vid card to work and was starting to get tired. Now I had no choice but to pray the XP Home disk WordWolf sent me did install and would register me to Microsoft. (By this point DR was the walking dead and he went to sleep and I continued on ...) In goes WW's disk and I start praying as I watch it go thru the install. At the end it did register to me!!! I was back up online, albeit was now yet a couple more hours gone by, but in doing this, I lost all my .dll files to all my programs I have running on other partitions. Everything will have to be reinstalled before it will run again. First I had to get all my settings done, still get the new vid card set up, blah, blah, blah. I ended up finally getting to bed almost 2 days after the video card arrived via UPS. I've been building my own computers for 9 years now and I can normally rely on DR's giving me fits and having no problems with mine. So much for that, mine made up for lost time. By the time I finally did go lay down to sleep though, I had installed one of my games that I could never see all the graphics on at the best settings due to the card not being powerful enough. It's Black and White 2 for those of you who know games. I reinstalled it and got thru the beginning part and then to the first level when I could really look around at things. I scrolled in tight to the ground and looked around. I saw for the first time the flowers in the grass I'd heard about and then joy of joys ... I found some of the tiny little ants running around and I followed them around awhile getting such a kick out of them. I then scrolled back out to a normal view and built some houses for my worshipers to live in and accidentally hit my mouse button, but it was in an area of grass where I saw nothing, but yet I heard the 'pick up' sound which I found odd. I scrolled in for a closer look and there in my 'hand' was a little chicken. Hahaha. I looked around and there was a whole flock of chickens running around there pecking at things to eat they found in the grass. I was so slap happy by that time, I just sat there and laughed till I had tears in my eyes. Then I put the chicken down so he could go back to doing his thing and scrolled back out, so I could go back to getting the housing finished. I then just moved around the island of that level of the game and saw other 'firsts' like the waves crashing on the beach or rocks. I saw details on buildings that were never there before making them even more beautiful (I play a good god in the game, so get the nice pretty buildings, not the ugly ones you get playing evil). That was when I knew it would all be fine and knew I could go lay down and get some badly needed sleep and wake up in the morning (today) and have a very nice working computer. When I did that post on the thread about Win Vista asking for anyone willing to give up their unneeded XP disk, I had NO idea how much it would become needed and how soon. Had I not posted, had WordWolf not sent me his disk, I would be offline right now waiting until my SSI check comes on the 1st of next month when I would have had more money so I could buy a copy of XP. I want to publicly thank WordWolf for saving me and for his generous heart in giving me that disk. I want to also thank God, for His perfect timing. I can see His hand in all this from my first thought to do that post, to WW reading it and taking the time to look for his old XP disk and then sending it to me quickly. Between the two of them I am still up and running ... and now I also have the added bonus of having a legal copy and I've been able to get all the upgrades and Media Player 11. I'm sure I'll find more things as time goes on, that will add even more joy to it all. They turned what could have been a complete disaster into something good .. lemons to lemonaid. Thank you doesn't feel like it conveys how much this means to me. Being sick as I am with the Crohn's and Fibro, I spend almost all of my waking hours every day on my computer doing something .. I'd be totally lost without it. All my friends are online even, I don't get out enough to meet local people really. My world is 98% on the computer at this point in my life. GSpotters are the greatest bunch, my only regret is I live too far away to be able to give WW a real life hug and can only send him a cyber *hug*.