Friday's Feast

I did this once and haven't done it in awhile. Gawilli said I should try again. So here it is.

Appetizer: Do you believe there is intelligent life on other planets?
When I meet a being from another planet then I will determined if they are intelligent or not. Until that time it doesn’t seem to matter that much to me. It is sort of like if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears does it make a sound. Well sure, but who cares, no one heard it.

Soup: What is one thing you said you'd never do, but you eventually did?
When I was hiking in South American I swore I would never drink water without sterilizing it first. Then I ran out of water on the side of a mountain and found a spring. The rest is history! I took my fill and worried no more. After that I broke every “never will do” while in South America such as: eating things sold on the street. Before leaving I was a big fan of beef and potato cooked on hibachis. I even drank those peach juices in the glasses washed in the buckets without soap. I never had the runs or hepatitis while I was there thanks to that spring water.

Salad: Who is the teacher that influenced you the most in school?
Limiting it to one is difficult. Not because I have had so many excellent teachers, but because I have been a perpetual student.

In high school Mrs. Hightower influenced me more than I realized. Primarily, because she told us that Martin Luther King was the greatest public speaker because he always spoke in the language of his audience, never above them or below them. But, then there was Mrs. Roger who challenged me to read Grapes of Wrath even though I refused. I quickly turned into a Woody Guthrie socialist or Mrs. Sheets who just plain cared about people.

Later in graduate school, there was Dr. Swan at outdoor ed. camp who loved teaching so much that he never hesitated to throw together an ecology lesson on a moments notice and hike out in the field with a group of fifth graders when a graduate student failed to show up for a lesson.

Main Course: If you could trade places with anyone for one day, who would it be and why?
I would be a cowboy in the 1800’s. Those guys were their own man. Ridin’, ropin’, shootin’ and humpin. No seriously, I can’t answer these types of questions. I am truly Popeye the sailor man –I am what I am. I just can’t imagine trading places with anyone. Life always appears to be greener on the other side until you get there and then it’s the same old crap you left.

Dessert: What is your favorite dish to prepare?
A slow smoked (15 hours minimum), dry rubbed beef brisket. It’s work and it’s fun. Of course I like grilling anything or for that matter cooking anything that makes people smile. I also like playing with fire and sharp objects like butcher knives. But, the brisket is particularly naughty because everyone loves it and you see it in their eyes that they enjoy it and that their cardiologist is probably going to make bundle off of them for eating it. Of course deep frying turkey is pretty much the ultimate too. I mean it has fire, it’s somewhat dangerous and you might have a beer while you’re doing it. Then again, beer can chicken is lots of fun too. Those chickens look so cool sitting upright on the can. But then, you can’t beat Fat Tuesday at our house when we cook oyster poorboys and crawfish and bake King Cake. It’s a party for two days with the Subdudes playing loudly on the iPod.

Lost in the Ozone

So where has willi been? Lost in the Ozone is a pretty good description. That would be the ozone of wireless router connections.

We began to experience some difficulty staying connected to our wireless router. Gawilli had a serious blogger need that I managed to meet by running a 50 foot network cable up the stairs to her desktop computer. I continued to connect briefly and read your blogs and proceded to get disconnected while trying to reply. Gawilli began to get irritated at me for not commenting on her posts. Of course I did point out that I had come upstairs to tell her how wonderful her post was, but I think she prefers the cyber connection that we had.

After two weeks of trying to reason this trouble out I finally went to Linksys.com and downloaded linksys advisor. I proceeded to setup the entire network. It worked fine. I thought I was one cool techno dude, then I lost the wireless connection again.

Gawilli returned from birthday shopping with Saraviola and they proceeded to show me their purchases. I was interested until they got to the shoes, then I vanished. I hit the linksys site one more time. This time I went to the question and answer section and typed in my problem -"my wireless connection will not stay connected".

I selected the choice about interference from your neighbors wireless network. I had been seeing new available secured networks, so I figured that might be relevant. Besides at this point I was so frustrated I could settle with blaming all my troubles on my neighbors.

Sure enough the "advisor" told me how to enter the IP address and change the channel of my router. It even gave me the default channel numbers and 2 other preferred numbers. Since I figured all of this trouble was the "default" of the neighbors I selected one of the other 2 numbers. Now, I would tell you what number I selected, but then if you moved up by me we might have "wireless" conflict. So, I will keep that to myself.

I fired up my wireless connection in the basement and it was rock solid -did not disconnect all night. The next day I clipped Gawilli 's wire and made her wireless connection and it too was rock solid. Since solving this high tech problem has made me feel like IT Gawilli and I have not stopped talking to each other through cyberspace! Do not fear we still have coffee in the mornings at the dining room table and read the paper out loud to each other.