Top Secret History Stunning Secrets Revealed

SUMMARY: USA vs USSR spying, and there I was...

Just a passing discussion about a piece of my -- and our -- history for you-all:

For my first REAL job, I had to apply for a government Secret Clearance. Why?? asked someone. What were you doing that required a Secret Clearance?

This stuff.
(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

I, er, fed programs punched in paper tape through an antique computer tape reader and changed reels on magnetic tape drives.

And also carried 40-lb boxes of green and white fan-fold sprocket-fed continuous-feed computer paper to each printer several times a shift. (The shop worked 24/7/365.)

Translation: Computer operator in a military satellite tracking station, Secret because NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD KNEW THAT WE WERE SPYING ON THE USSR WITH SATELLITES. 

Except, well, pretty much everyone.

Among the many many difficult questions to answer on the application was: Have you ever been out of the country? If so, where? Well, yes, I lived in New York state and you could, at that time, just drive or stroll casually between the U.S. and Canada. THEN the application wanted to know THE EXACT DATES I had done that.

"Probably several times between 19xx and 19xx." They weren't keen on that answer and I had to spend time with a supervisor coming up with credible answers.

We worked at what everyone knew as The Blue Cube, aka the Air Force Satellite Control Facility (SCF) or the Satellite Tracking Station (STC), later renamed (long after my time there) Onizuka Air Force Station. A yuuuuge structure that sat right alongside a freeway, in plain unobstructed sight, surrounded by six squillion satellite dishes.

Very secret.

Piece of history: One day they called in all the contractors and military people from all three shifts into a top-secret conference room in the building for an announcement from the President.  Pres. Carter announced that we had --ahem-- secretly been spying on the USSR with satellites.  We tried to look surprised but... um... [blink blink]...

Read about that stunning announcement here! https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB231/index.htm

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Note: Photo from this cool article about The Blue Cube.

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Country or Western?

SUMMARY: My latest musical effort. Without any actual music.

From a Facebook Group Oct 8, 2021

This morning, doing my usual preflight check before going downstairs, I said out loud:

My phone is in my pocket
My dog is in the yard--

I know a winner when I say it, just needed more lyrics. Let it percolate a bit, and new realization: Negative would be funnier than positive. Plus I could squeeze in a pun. 

The result: My first-ever country/western song. Top 10 hit for sure.

My phone is in the toilet,
My dog escaped the yard,
My truck is in the kitchen,
My life is dog gone hard.

Smugly self-satisfied, I posted that to a group that loves mostly sophisticated kinds of humor* (ah, hubris rears its head again). And within minutes, someone responded:

If the phone is in the toilet, what are you writing this on?? 😂😂😂

Challenge accepted! I sat staring at my screen, working an answer. Took only a couple of minutes to respond:

Hmmm. Next verse?

My Mac is at the Genius Bar
My PC’s screen is blue
I stole my neighbor’s Android
So this message could get through.

Success!
Doggerel is easy. Although I think it actually keeps its rhythm. I'm sure you'll let me know

-------

* "Welcome to the Devotees of the Style Invitational, the long-running weekly humor/wordplay contest in The Washington Post. Our humor is usually sophisticated, sometimes crude -- from the haughty to the potty. The atmosphere in the group is irreverent, but there's no trash-talking." 

Keeping My Young Self Off the Streets and Out of the Gutter

SUMMARY: Or: What creative things did I do?

Backfill: from a FB discussion July 11, 2021

A friend posted: 

"What time-consuming but creative thing did you do as a child/teen?" She gave the example of her daughter and friends creating a mystery movie, complete with dramatic cuts, etc.  And of her own childhood where she harmonized with herself using two tape players, and also created fake interviews where the answers were all lines from songs (sourcing from a phonograph with records!)

So, other than practicing my flute, taking flute lessons, practicing some more, being in the band, and sometimes playing just for the fun of it -- oh, and choir, too-- here's a quick [maybe] summary.  

(I've posted some of these photos before.)

• Drew.

  

  part of a colored-pencil picture

  
  
• Crafted things. Anything. Clay, paper, glue, beads, jewelry...)
  

• Painted or colored by numbers (mostly of dogs but also The Monkees).
• Painted and assembled models of World War I aircraft.
• Role-playing with friends; you know: cowboys and Indians  (or bad guys), superheroes, pirates, army...
  

• Art Club in junior high. (High school was too full of band, choir, speech and debate, drama club and involvement in performances (as long as that was available) and creative writing club.)
  
• Sewed.
• Wrote tiny bits of short stories. Mostly never finished any until I started making a serious effort late in high school, I think.

(In 4th  grade, got a bad grade on one paper where the assignment was to write about “if I were president“ because I went all nonsense, letting my imagination run wild as a fourth grader who wasn’t very happy with that particular class. (I never said anything about the teacher. I did say that I would do away with all schools. A long long time before I heard “hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!“) She said, "that's a bit silly, isn't it?"  I thought, well, duh... (although "duh" wasn't invented yet). Funny: after that, she became the school librarian instead of a teacher, and she was a wonderful wonderful elementary school librarian! My other teachers usually loved my writing.)

I still love doing all those things. But then, you know, photography, dog agility, blogging, facebook, ...

What time-consuming but creative thing did you do as a child/teen?

Years after, remnants of a shirt I sewed as a HS sophomore.

Ceramic trivets, jr. high

Late elementary school years -- I painted this computer, complete with little lights (or pushbuttons) and maybe blinking displays for Bad and Good?  I had actually seen a tape drive.
(The box, which Dad built for us, is not distorted; that's a trick of the angle and the lighting.)

High school I think.

'90s era

What I've mostly concentrated on in the 2000s: My photography.

----
Ellen - note to self -- there's an HTML comment embedded from here XX to here xx.

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I'm A Data Wonk And Proud Of It

SUMMARY: Do databases save me time or take more?! Hard to tell--

Backfill: Started with a Messenger chat Feb 12, 2021, with a friend who just got in touch after 20ish years. Apparently we're both of that persuasion...but he uses spreadsheets...

Yes, I track all kinds of things in my life using FrameMaker databases! I don’t use spreadsheets because they’re so limited. This discussion aroused my curiosity, so I went to my system and checked how many FileMaker files I have-- Heh, OK, I have 165 FileMaker documents! 😱

Ya know, this is crazy! I should have a database of how many databases I have!🤣 

Oh--wait--not so bad after all: Many are templates and examples that came with Filemaker! Whew!

And, to be fair, some things are basically the same thing but I decided to do a separate file for each year for various reasons. Like, these 2 make up 56 of them: Xmas Gifts given, every year 1992-2018.  And my own timecard tracking and analysis for work-- every year 1994 thru now.

Some are because some databases consist of more than one file -- like Books and Authors.  Gawd, I have a lot of weird ones in here, some of which I had forgotten about!

So, here are most of 'em:

▪ Xmas gifts given, multiple files (see above)

▪ Timecard details, multiple files (see above)

▪ CDs and records

▪ Songs that are on my Classical CDs and records, because sometimes you want to know where the song is. 

▪ Songs on my Christmas CDs and records 

▪ Video media

▪ Books (actually 2 connected files, one for books, one for authors)

▪ All other household inventory, which is over 10,000 items now (you know, each pair of socks is one item…)

Where did each dragon come from? Was it a gift?
When did I get it? Is it worth anything now?
Plus--I have another 5 cabinets like this (not all dragons).
All is revealed in the inventory database.

▪ Oh, plus I have a separate deleted-inventory-items one because how often do you think, “did I get rid of that?! why can’t I find it?”

▪ Dog agility competition scores – – almost 20 years, 4 dogs, something like 300 different competitions, 20 to 40 events per competition…  consists of 3 interconnected files (because I wanted to track points towards titles (sometimes the official systems make mistakes) and what kind of improvements we were making and so on)

▪ Budgeting system, prints a monthly sheet to use to track my expenses,  or a yearly analysis etc. 

▪ Assets and liabilities. 

▪ T-shirts (yes, really) (helpful when doing TShirt Tales blog posts)

Here are some of them...

▪ Christmas cards sendees (and from whom have received them so I don’t lose track)

▪ Contacts (people/addresses/phone numbers)

▪ Special Dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)

▪ Work contracts that I did for different companies over the last 24 years—started, anyway, but I just found that boring and tedious and so never updated it much

▪ Trips taken/places I’ve been, very limited, but again, I didn’t start it until fairly late, so I there are gaps and ? ‘s. I was able to work with my dad a little bit on filling in some of the gaps for when I was with them, the first 18 to 20 years of my life, but of course nothing since then from him. (When he was still around.) 

My trips/travels/places website page header 

▪ Disaster supplies, like, what food should I have, what other gear should I have, when was the last time it was replaced, when is it due,…And it is due to be updated is what it is.

▪ Short fiction that I sent out to various markets, and whether it sold or not (spoiler: only three things sold) But I pretty much stopped writing when I started doing dog agility.

▪ Electricity and gas usage and how much I was paying per kilowatt hour or whatever, and how many hours in different tiers are used each month, but I ended up stopping that, too, after many years Way way way too much information that wasn’t really useful for me.

▪ Rent payments from renters.

▪ Xmas lights, All of the hundreds of strings, where they go (went) on the house, how long they are, etc.

▪ Where bills are paid (e.g., online banking etc.)

▪ Dog agility club inventory (wayyyyy out of date, I should just dump it)

▪ House expenses since I bought this house; mostly for long-term tax use but also handy for remembering what brand of faucet or drapes or how old the broken thing is or where I got the items…

Trying SO hard not to expand
beyond 2 file cabinets

▪ File cabinet contents — I try to label drawers and folders intuitively, but have been thinking more about my heirs lately

▪ Grocery shopping list with checkboxes (all stuff that I commonly buy, so I can just check them off, and they’re organized by type of food or aisle, but I can sort it in different ways, too)

▪ Travel supplies: With flags for whether I’m taking dogs, whether staying in hotels or camping, and so on, so I can generate a report just for what I’m doing. Every little bitty thing because one *always* forgets something obvious—

▪ Savings accounts transactions - cross-posted with purposes (e.g., how much money is set aside for property taxes vs where is money actually located)

▪ And random others

Things I do NOT have databases for:

▪ My photos, but the organization and file naming conventions are sort of like that… They are organized In a folder structure, one folder for each month of each year, folders in each of those for each day or event that I took photos, and sometimes subfolders within those, like when I went on a 16-day multistate trip in 2018, I have different subfolders for each day or place. And I name each file with useful keywords.

▪ movies I’ve seen! I should’ve started that years and years ago. I didn’t start tracking until about 20 years ago, but it’s all a manual list still. Great idea! Just what I need, more databases to maintain! (not even going to try, there's no way...)

Computers: making our lives easier every day in every way!🤯

1990s Technology Flashback

SUMMARY: Macintoshes and software and megabytes, oh my!

I'm sorting through old papers again and found this one saved email from 1990 that is a complete keeper-- so many things I had completely forgotten about! And how very much things have changed!

I bought my first mac -- a 512K -- in 1984, and when the drives stopped working and I couldn't get repairs or replacements, I bought my next mac and sent this plea to the company I worked for. I've just had a blast reading through it.

---

---

Ellen’s original email asking for info, December, 1990


Original-msg:

I've just replaced my old 512K (Mac—Minus) with a IICX but I have a
problem: I bought most of my software 5 years ago and haven't upgraded
it or paid much attention to what's going on Out There since then. As a
result, I have a marvelous machine that none of my software runs on
and I need to (sigh) also spend $ on new software. I'm trying to narrow
down my initial search by asking friends for their recommendations
rather than having to go out and find demos and try everything.

1) Word processing software: The original MacWrite has more features than
I need for 98% of the writing I do--I do a lot of writing but it's mostly
fiction; all I need to do is type paragraphs in and print them out. Macwrite
II looks pretty fancy. . .and expensive. .. what are my other options & why
should I spend $ on which?

2) Desktop publishing: I print things in "newsletter" format 6-12 times a year,
which means I need some sort of page layout thing that also handles
text processing and can at least import graphics. I don't want to spend
more than a few dollars for something that I so seldom use (and in a
purely amateur sense), but about the least expensive thing that looks
reasonable is Publish It Easy (discounted around $110) . Anyone had any
experience with this (it's fairly new), or have other inexpensive
recommendations? I've always used MacDraw in the past, and other than
being pretty inflexible for text processing, it has otherwise met
my needs. (But I'm not sure my old version of Draw works, either.)

3) Database: I spent $50 for Reflex which Borland no longer supports, so
I've got thousands of records of things like household inventory and
savings accounts that I need a new database manager for. A lot of people
have been plugging FileMaker——I've worked 9 years in the Relational
Database Management System world, though, so a little complexity and
programing requirements don't bother me (like 4D or Helix)
as long as the thing is really flexible and cheap. Any suggestions?

4) Project Management: Anyone used MacProject lately? Or any other project
scheduling tools on the mac? Does anyone have a copy I could borrow to
try out?

5) I was forced to buy a system with only 1meg RAM; I’m pretty sure I need
more, but I don't yet have a good feel as to whether 2meg will be
sufficient for most things or whether I should go higher...

Thanks
-ellen





Date: Fri, ll Del: 90 15:33:13 PST
Date—Delivered: Fri, ll Dec 90 15:32:38 PST
From: pbk
To: elf
cc : macintosh_users : ;
Subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In—Reply-To: !our message of "Fri, ll Dec 90 15:21:58 PST"

To cover both aspects of 1) and 2), I have been using Word for many years,
upgrading to the latest version as they come. I may stop at version
4 since there is not much more thing I dream of that it does not
contain. If you used MacWrite, learning Word is easy. It also contains
fancy features like several columns, columns with strange shape because
you have planted figures in the middle of them, automatic TOC, Index,
a mode that allows "structure editing" (ie. working on the overall
structure of the program), spelling checker is OK (in English), not
so bad in French, It builds table, has a sort of sublanguage to write
nice looking math formulas, etc. ..

One interesting thing: This is probably one of the only program who never
blew in my face (you know the little sad looking guy or the little bomb)
and never destroyed or eaten up hours of typing.

Having owned a IICX I can tell you that pretty soon you’ll discover that
there is not much you can do with 1meq, especially if you want the comfort
of the multifinder, If you have a big screen, etc. ...

Philippe




Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 15:12:28 PST
Dute—De1ivered: Fri, ll Dec 90 15:38:56 PST
From: ndw
To: elf
Cc: macintosh users:;
subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Dec 90 15:21:58 231"‘

1. Macwrite II . .expensive. .other options. . .

If you really don't need much beyond whet is pretty much common to
all Mac word processors, I’m sure I have some bulletin board stuff
that will work fine (for free or ShareWare) . If you have a friend
who is a student at Stanford, you can get Textures (TeX) for about
$125. It solves 1 & 2 if you don't need WSYWIG. It's among the best
TeX implementations I've seen.

2. Desktop publishing. . .

You might want to see what fancy features are in the BBB stuff. I
haven't used any of the new cheap programs. I use FullWrite mainly,
Microsoft Word when I have to.

3 Database. . .

I haven't tried Oracle yet, but 4D is the biggest and bestest database
program besides that I've tried or heard of. If you don’t need all
the add on modules that other developers give away on the BBSes, the
high end scripting capabilities, DB fields that are sub databases,
graphical layouts that can be included in other graphical layouts, etc.,
FileMaker is probably your next best bet. (I haven't used Helix)

4. Project Management. . .

I haven't used MacProject in the last year or so. There are a couple of
PM tools on the BBSes, as I recall. Mostly low end, one or both may
have been DemoWare.

5. Ram…

At under $5 /MB, I would buy at least another 4MB. If you are a heavy
user and use Finder a lot, 8MB is nice.



Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 15:46:00 PST
Date-Delivered: Fri, 14 Dec 90 15:ll:01 PST
Fran: vnv
To: elf
Cc: macintosh_users : ;
subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, ll Dec 90 15:21:58 PST

I don't know the answers to your questions; but you might find the
following useful if you don't get answers to them from anyone else:

*  Computerware at El Camino and California Ave in Palo Alto is
a great place to buy (good prices) and try out software. They
specialize in MacIntosh software and have a large selection,
knowledgeable staff, and you can try out any of it. ..

* Another great opportunity to see software is coming up in
January at the MacWorld Expo in SF. This is one of the
biggest Mac shows of the year. It runs Wed Jan 9 thru
Sun Jan 13, 1991. The price is a steep $25 to attend
the exhibits. Often times their are booths selling software
at a steep discount there. I plan to attend; if there is
some literature about a product you would like me to pick
up l will try to do so.

Good  Luck, Victor


Date: Fri, ll Dec 90 l5:lB:2l PS1‘
Dete—De1ivered.: Fri, ll Des 90 15:47:37 PST
From: jds
To: elf
Cc: macintosh_users : ;
subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In-Rep1y—To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Dec 90 15:33:13 PST


The only thing I can add to what’s already been stated is to avoid
WriteNow at all costs, even though various desktop publishing programs
recommend (or require) it -- it is unusually inflexible, and gives you
few of the options mentioned by PBK. You'll hate your Mac if you are
forced to use that program.



Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 15:55:03 PST
Date-Delivered: Fri, ll Dec 90 15:52:01 PST
From: mdw
Tu: jds
Cc : ma¢:intosh__users : ;
Subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In—Reply—Tc: Your message of "Fri, ll Dec 90 15:18:24 PST”


WriteNow is supposed to be about the fastest for flat out mass changing
stuff. Nisus, which I occasionally use, is also pretty fast. Nisus also
has a lot of confusing features. It tries to be everything to everybody
and  so is a bit down on my list.




From: bobbach@mai1_pc
Subject: Assorted Mao questions
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 16:03:00 PST
Date—Delivered: Fri, ll Dec 90 16:04:54 PST

For Word Processing - I recommend using MS Word, mostly because
everyone else uses it, and it might be able to cover your low-end DTP
needs as well. I still use Macwrite 5.01 a lot myself - it should work
fine on your CX. Other good programs are Nisus, WriteNow, and MacWrite II.

For Database SW - I recommend FileMaker Pro (the new version of II and 4) .
It is a flat file manager, but unless you specifically need relational
capacities and features, Filemaker will serve your needs nicely. I also
used to use Reflex myself.

Definitely plan on getting more RAM. I recommend 4 megs  - and for about
$100 you can get Virtual, the virtual memory init that will give you 14
functional megs of RAM with almost no degradation of speed (w/4 megs;
some slowdown w/ 1 or 2 megs). You will probably need an 80 meg HD — 40
will work if you don't fill it up. It is definitely nice to be able to
comfortably use Multifinder.

— BobB


Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 10:56:51 PST
Date—De1ivered.: Tue, 18 Dec 90 12:52:51 PST
From: egb
: T0: jla
Cc:
macintnsh_users : ;
Subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In-Reply-E0: Your message of "Mon, 17 Dec 90 15:16:36 +0100"

re word processing, I'm a fan of word. I wrote my OOD book entirely on word,
and was able to produce camera ready copy from it (we did the illustrations
in adobe illustrator).

re databases, I  use omnis 5 for all my household files. it takes some
programming, but is pretty flexible.

egb


Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 13:29:56 +0100
Date-Delivered: Mon, 17 Dec 90 01:25:10 PST
Prom: jla
To: elf
Cc: jla
Subject: Re: Assorted Mac questions
In—Rnp1y—'!'02 Your message of "Fri, ll Dec 90 15:21:55 PST"

Hello Ellen,

I was a user of the Macintosh in my previous job, and I have at home a
Mac SE/30 bought in feb 90. Therefore I can answer some of your
questions. I did not understand for sure if this is for your job or if
you have to buy software on your own money.

WORD PROCESSING
I have used both Macwrite II and (Microsoft) Word 4.
Macwrite II is much better than the initial Macwrite, while having the
same user—friendliness. For most documents this is my favorite. It can
export and import files to/from other word processing software (with in
general some loss of formatting information however)

I have used also Word 4, when I needed an automatic summary, or to be
able to modify the formatting of many paragraphs at once. This is
necessary when the document contains more than a few pages. You should
be able to transfer files to Word PC format without any loss of information (I
never checked it on complex documents), and probably from Word PC to any
other PC word processing system, since Word is a de facto standard.

I don't think you need both Macwrite II and Word. I can send you a
disquette with these software, not to pirate them, but to try before buying

DESKTOP PUBLISHING
I have no personal experience. I think the standards are Paqemaker and
Xpress. In my previous job they chose Xpress for brochures, etc.

DATABASE
I have no personal experience, but this was chosen in my previous job.
If you have no compatibility requirement with PCs, 4D is the standard,
which allows you to build complex applications IF you write programs in
the internal language (not so complex if you have some experience in
programming) . There is also another product, made by the same editor as
4D, which is cheaper because it does not have all the 4D features
(though relying upon the same "engine") . I could find the name of this
product if you wish.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
No experience .

MEMORY
You should have 4 Mb. The reason is the following : if you want to cut
and paste between 2 applications (say for instance word and Excel), you
must have in memory : Multifinder, Word, Excel, Word document, Excel
document. With multifinder and one application of the size of Word, 2 Mb
are not sufficient. I know Apple memories are not cheap, but you can
find elsewhere 1 Mb chip for around 100$. Check the access time (I think
70 ns is required for a IIcx, but not sure).

However you can start with 2 Mb, if you use the Finder and only one
application. But it depends on the number of fonts you have, of DAs,
etc. I personally could not work any more with the Finder, I am used to
the Multifinder.

Hope this will help you

Jean-Luc

---

---

Couple of follow-on notes:

• Memory: My new current Macbook Pro has 16 GB of RAM.  That's 16,000 times more memory than the default 1 meg that came on that new machine!
• "DAs" - desk accessories, sort of like plug-ins that helped you to do common little things. I think clocks and such were DAs at one point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desk_accessory#Apple_Macintosh
• Finder vs MultiFinder: Used to be that you were either viewing a list of files on your computer (Finder) OR some application. One at a time. No windows!  Multifinder came out and allowed you to have more than one thing open at a time! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiFinder 
• Word processing software-- I can't believe how blase I was about anything other than plain text! My whole life revolves around text formatting!
• Notice no mention by me or anyone about photo editing.
• By "import graphics" I meant little clip art things, which is how most of us got graphics into a  lot of docs--I bought huge collections of thousands of wonderful little bitmapped images and avidly looked through them all to see what lovely creativity they could inspire.
• Number of fonts--  used to spend hours perusing  what was available and installing and uninstalling them in carefully curated sets because memory could handle only a few at a time. Now--  I have no idea, might have hundreds or thousands of typefaces and their variants and I never do any management of them at all.
• $110 seeming like a lot for a word processing tool?  hahahahaha!
• $25 seeming steep for admission to a big trade show?   hahahahah!
• coworker's comment "have been using Word for many years,upgrading to the latest version as they come. I may stop at version 4 since there is not much more thing I dream of that it does not contain. " -- hahahaha! "Everything has been invented that anyone could ever want for a personal computer, why expect anything more?"

Disko Fun

SUMMARY: When good disks go bad...

...turn them over to The Other Ellen for dismantling, as I just did recently with 3 of my old ones. She documented the process with this bunch of photos--very interesting! She added comments to each one. Click the first one to get a large view and comments, and then click the arrows to move through them all and see their descriptions.

Working back to Ups, not Downs, Sunday

SUMMARY: Things looked up in several areas.

When I was able to read my email last thing before bed Saturday night, found that my dad had been safely transported, post-op, to a rehab facility and was already working on walking (with a walker), sitting up, and other positive things. And my mom seemed to be doing OK on her own.

Back at the trial site in the morning, Pairs Relay was up first. Tika had a lovely run with her frequent partner, Brenn, and they placed 2nd out of 11 teams with a clean Q. Oh--and, right, we did the same thing in Pairs the day before. So that actually was good.

Then Boost, whom I took off the pairs course the day before in disgust, had a gorgeous fast clean run, and she and her partner Qed and placed 2nd out of 27 teams. Cold and hot. Down and up.

Gamblers, Boost again popped out of her weaves in the opening and I made her fix them even though it wasted time and didn't give us any points, so now we were among the lowest-point openings and I mishandled the gamble, so no Q, either. Compared to yesterday, where we were hot in the gamble. Hot and cold, up and down.

But Tika nailed the gamble opening and closing, and we took 1st by a wide margin--and, oh, yeah, we did the same thing the day before, too. So that actually was good.

In Standard, both dogs Qed! Boost's run was quite smooth all the way through. I held her on the contacts, so our time wasn't blazing, but the run was very nice. With Tika, she almost went off course into a tunnel when I didn't call enough, and then we ended up taking 2nd instead of 1st by--ack!--.01 of a second! But a Q and 2nd are pretty good. I'll take them.

In Jumpers, oh, my, Boost's run was fantastic. What a lovely, lovely run, showing almost her full potential. She knocked one bar, but her time was very close to the winning dogs, who are top-class national competitors. Oh, if only we could run like this every time!

And Tika's run was smooth and clean, for a Q and a first--oh, yeah, and she did the same thing the day before, too. So that was good.

Boost's grand prix was SO close to being excellent. One refusal at a jump that required a wrap/front-cross, and then off course at the end where I said "go hup!" and she did, when it should've been a "come". But SO smooth.

And remember 2 weeks ago where I exulted about Tika winning Grand Prix and earning a bye for the regionals round 2 for the first time ever with any of my dogs? Well, she did it again this weekend.

So my down view and the things that went wrong had completely clouded my view of how well tika had really done: For the weekend, Qs in 10 out 11 classes, absolutely fantastic in USDAA. Won both Jumpers, both Gamblers, and Grand Prix, second in both Relays and one Standard.

And some of Boost's runs were really lovely SUnday, giving me hope (once again) that maybe we'll get this figured out eventually, and she even Qed twice Sunday (none on Saturday, but her gamblers was very nice). She popped out of the weaves twice but got ALL her entries and didn't skip poles after that, woo hoo! Did ALL her contacts correctly, woo hoo! Left the start line early only once, did both her tables in Standard perfectly. These are all good things that have sometimes given us problems.

For the weekend, Tika completed her Performance Gamblers Silver (25 Qs)--took her 4.5 years to get her Champion Gamblers Silver, and only 2 years to do it all over again in Performance.

She's now only 9 Qs away from her Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) Gold--which would be 350 lifetime Masters, P3, and Tournament Qs. Very achievable this year, then, maybe even within the next couple of trials. That would be super.

And I got home, tried my computer disk utility again, and it got a lot farther than it had before, without saying that the disk was unrepairable. I'm running it yet again, and we'll see--I'm starting to hope that in fact I will recover my whole disk.

One can only hope. Ups and downs, downs and ups.

No Ups, Downs through Saturday

SUMMARY: A rough week, and a bipolar USDAA agility weekend--first, Saturday and leading in to it.

Last Sunday night and Monday, something I ate (most likely) had much disagreement with my system. (When you "call in sick" when working at home, you know it's pretty uncomfortable.) I did spend time at the computer, working and the usual, off and on. So I knew, from her facebook posts, that my sister had had a rough encounter with a hedge trimmer and had been in the emergency room that day.

When I was finally able to fall asleep midafternoon, the same sister called to say that apparently in the emergency room she'd just missed my dad being brought in, from falling and breaking his hip.

The rest of the week involved considerable amount of research on the subject, updating people and being updated, and mostly worrying about my dad's hip and my mom being without my dad around.

Wednesday, my friend with cancer talked with her doctor and agreed it's time for her to start working with hospice. Hospice, from what I've heard, is a godsend of services, support, and advice for end-of-life planning and management, but it's that last phrase that makes it sad. You always hope for a miracle, especially from a real fighter.

Thursday, my disk drive with all my photos seemed to have died, and of course my last full backup had been the previous thursday. Probably not lots of stuff missing, but all the hours of photo editing that I had done in the past week would be gone. (It's soooo stupid--I try to just hit the backup button every day, but then I get into the mindset of "oh, I haven't finished going through all the photos from the last 4 days--I'll wait to do the backup until I've sorted, labele,d & processed all of them. Doh.) Wouldn't have lost the originals--I never erase them from my cameras until I have at least 2 copies of them on different disks. Still, that's a lot of hours of processing.

I can't tell you how many times I restarted & restarted my system and tried various things obsessively. A sys admin friend stayed here saturday evening and looked at it a bit and it was looking pretty sad. The only hopeful thing was that there seemed to be a couple of steps forward, a step back, like that.

So maybe my mindset had already gone into "life sucks" mode for the USDAA trial this weekend. Saturday, it felt like nothing went right:

• Tika's Standard, lovely, except that while she was waiting on the table, I moved out of position for the next jump and she backjumped it. Why, how? Dunno, I did it right with boost before that.
• Except in boost's standard, she had an assortment of bars knocked, refusals, and off courses other than that.
• Tika's snooker, well, a Q, but I couldn't get to a front cross in time and pushed her off the #6 in the closing, so we didn't even place.
• Boost's Snooker, a really nice, smooth opening, but she knocked bar #4 in the closing. So again no super-Q--but even had we gotten all through it, my flowing course wouldn't have been enough for a super-Q.
• Tika Qed in steeplechase round 1 although she hit the broad jump for a fault. In round 2, everything was perfect and fast EXCEPT that she abruptly left the right to go sniff at something in the lawn for about 10 seconds. We were SOOO far out of the money on a very tika-like course.
• Boost's gamble, great opening, as in 4th highest of all masters dogs, AND did the gamble, but knocked the last bar. Might have been my fault, maybe I was slowing down. 
• Boost's Jumpers, bars and refusals.
• As we got towards the end of the day, I noted to a couple of people that at least, after 5 classes, boost's start line had been rock solid and all of her weaves had been perfect. So, in pairs, she didn't stick her startline, resulting in a refusal, then she popped out of her weaves, so I was out of position to get a front x that I really needed, and she went right off course.

I was pretty discouraged by Saturday evening. Didn't even collect the ribbons that I had earned, didn't gather most of my results.  Once again, not having that much fun most of the day, thinking about all the other things I could've been doing other than agility.

I always enjoy the people I spend time with at trials, though.

And I was glad to be able to let an agility friend stay in the guest room here overnight so she didn't have to drive anohter hour home or spend the $ for a motel room, and that was a pleasant way to spend the evening, sharing a pizza, even though we were both pretty beat. The down side was coming home and seeing that the disk repair util that had been running for the last day said that my disk was unrepairable and my friend was a bit puzzled by its behavior, too.

And that was Saturday.

Thank Goodness For--

SUMMARY: --many diverse things--

• Nieces who go to Colorado and bring me back entertaining magnets like this one!  (Thanks, Elizabeth and Katie.)
  
• Agility friends who are stealth blog readers who have bought a new camera so we have arranged for me to get her barely used Canon 40D! Tomorrow! Yay! (Thanks, Cheryl.)
  
• Pet Club store near me, which doesn't take credit cards, but when I am horrified that they charge $33 a bag for my dogfood, I just have to walk into PetSmart and see the same bag for $54 to be grateful for the discount.
• Fanatical agility friends who have brought Sylvia Trkman to Silicon Valley in December so we can do her seminars! (Thanks, Ashley.)
  
• Disneyland-o-phile sisters who arrange trips to Disneyland so I can just go along for the ride! Yay! Just a month away! (Hence the push now to get the camera--) (Thanks, Linda.)
  
• Dogs who let me sleep in in the morning! Even to 9:00! What good girls! (Thanks, Tika and Boost.)
  
• Mild California autumn days,  not too hot, not too cold, everything still in bloom, grass growing-- (Thanks --uh-- whoever's responsible.)
  
• Expert Apple friends who not only arrange for me to borrow a cable that Apple didn't think to send with their new equipment, but also drive out of their way to deliver it! (Thanks, Steph.)