So, as most people know, Java has MAJOR security issues.

So why don't they FIX them??? What gives with that?

Meanwhile, there are lots of sites that won't run without Java. Thankfully I don't use any personally. At least, not at the current time (knock on wood). But my sister Sue and her daughter (my niece) Candy DO -- one of their fave game sites.

I took ages to uninstall all the OLD versions of Java on the computer I took over for Candy. Then I downloaded and installed the latest version. Then I enabled Java in the Control Panel and on the browser. Come on! Could there be about ten more steps???

Finally, I checked at the official Java website to see if it showed up as installed on her computer -- which it DOES (with the very latest version).

But no matter what, I can't get the damn game site to work. I tried on Tuesday and I tried today. No luck at all...

I suppose I'll have to uninstall and install again, just in case it's corrupted or something. (In which case, why would the official site be able to 'find' it?) I've no clue what else could be the problem...

Java, what gives with this, anyway?

Well, in the middle of working on it, my TeamViewer connection was LOST. I'm so done with it all that I just don't care.

This entire day has been like that, by the way. Nothing but annoying crap from morning until now (it's around 6:30). I hope the evening is better!

You know, if not, could we just leave annoying behind as of tomorrow morning, please?

(Marilyn's been having one of those days, too... sigh...)

Busy, busy day (yes, AGAIN). Finishing up the eNewsletter after people had checked it over, for one thing. Getting some other website work done, as well.

Thanks to everyone who offered healthy wishes (and prayers) to Marilyn! She's feeling better today, thankfully. (I doubt she's 100% -- but she's still looking forward to this coming weekend and having her birthday off.)

This morning I took Marilyn's old desktop computer over to Sue's house for her daughter Candy to have. Then I had to set it up, which took much longer (!!!) than expected. In fact, it was taking so long that I finally installed TeamViewer (for Remoting) on there and left it still installing Java.

And that was a BIG mistake. (sigh)

It's possible that Buddy (Candy's boyfriend) stopped the Java install when he got on her computer to play games. He said he didn't, but... Or maybe it just didn't work correctly. First you have to go in and remove every version (and update) of Java -- then do a download and reinstall. This can take up to two hours, for whatever reason -- and it was taking FOREVER on that computer. Maybe we got a corrupted DL, who knows? But there's no way to do this Remotely. I need to get back over there again and try uninstalling Java -- then I need a new DL and I'll have to install again, from scratch. (sigh) What a pain. But in the meantime, I guess Candy might have to hook up her old computer (!!!) and use it. Seriously???

That was hours of my time over at Sue's and from here at home. I hate the waste, but what can you do?

So I'm working away on festival stuff and suddenly I remember that it's Wednesday -- and I have a dental appointment at 2:30 p.m.!!! I'd totally forgotten about it (and so had sister Sue). I call her and we initially want to postpone. But I can't reach anybody at the dentist's office, so we just decided to go in. The good thing? That's my last appointment until I go back for more x-rays in June! (woo hoo)

After the appointment we went to Burgerville. I'd received an email from them, mentioning strawberry goodies -- and Sue wanted a strawberry shortcake. Let's just say their strawberry shortcake -- which has the old-fashioned biscuit-like cake -- are HEAVEN. Delicious! If you happen to be near to a Burgerville, don't miss out! (smile)

Back home I got right back to making eNewsletter edits, plus website edits. Marilyn and I finally talked for the first time all day (she was in tons of meetings today) -- and she needed me to work on the GFP page and add a PayPal donation element for the Vancouver (Washington) float -- which turned out nicely, if I do say so myself!

She was on her way home past 7:00 when I got a call from a security agency. Turns out there was an alarm at the Rose Building (where the festival office is located)!!! I told the woman I was sure it was a false alarm -- and that's what it turned out to be. Marilyn was ready to head back alone to be sure. I was ready to have her get me to go with her and check it out. But Christie phoned and said she'd cancelled the police, so all was well...

I made refried beans for dinner, which we had with loads of fresh (and very good) celery -- and a fresh pot of coffee. We've been sitting chatting (discussing work and other things) and watching some TV. And now I'm blogging before heading to lie down with my Kindle and read and nap. I'm ready for that nap, believe me!

Today doesn't sound as impressive as yesterday, I know -- but I was busy all day long. I ate sitting at the computer (except for a few bites of shortcake in the car coming back home) and was on the go most of the day.

Oh! Sue and I did take a break first thing today to go to Starbucks over on Hayden Island (where she lives). They took out the old Starbucks ages ago, and just opened the NEW one last Friday. It's good to have one there again, that's for sure! We didn't finish our drinks there, but we did sit for a few minutes to sip and chat -- then headed to her house for all the computer stuff...

On the battle front...

The ants are still around -- but perhaps a bit more controlled. That Terro stuff seems to at least be drawing them away from the cats food dishes, thankfully. We still have ants, though. (sigh) I need more stuff to treat them with, but there hasn't been time to go out and get anything.

I need to go and buy Marilyn a card and some GIFT for her birthday (which is Sunday!!!). I can't believe I haven't done that, yet. Sue was asking me about it today. I can't tell her what to get, because I don't know what I'm going to get! We're both getting a bit anxious, because we don't have much buying time left. Hahahahahaha.

And we were originally planning to go down to the beach house Thursday night. Now we've decided to wait until Friday and give ourselves a break. We'll probably want to WORK LATE tomorrow, considering we won't be working for four days in a row (!!!). That makes perfect sense to me -- and I know Marilyn feels the same way. We were laughing, saying we could tell ourselves we'll get up early Friday and head out -- knowing that will never happen. We'll be lucky if we leave before noon on Friday, I think...

Sister Sue plans to come down Saturday and stay over night (and go home on Sunday). Friends June and Jim are also planning to come down (for the day) on Saturday -- and all five of us will go to dinner that night. Should be fun!!!

I'm probably forgetting something I wanted to share, but I'm toast, so I'm off to nap now...

The first festival eNewsletter for 2013 went out just past noon today. I spent much of the morning working on it, so I guess I'd have to say I spent a day and a half this time around. I did resolve some spacing issues -- that was interesting! The service we use didn't use to support divides (as in: <div align="center"> xxx </div>) -- so I phased those out of my coding in favor of paragraph coding (as in: <p align="center"> xxx </p>). But we've had some odd white space in several of our eNewsletters that I couldn't account for. It turns out that divides don't cause spacing issues, but some paragraph coding does. Odd. But it was great to fix it!!!

I also went over to sister Sue's and resolved the Java issue on her computer. I'd uninstalled one update and then installed the most recent version -- but I literally had to remove ALL previous versions of Java (including the recent install), then reboot and reinstall Java (the latest version). Then I had to really mess with both Firefox and Chrome to get them to SEE Java. At first I thought I was going to have to make Sue use Firefox to play her paid games -- but I finally got Chrome working, too. (She prefers Chrome, as it's much faster.)

I can't believe it was so simple to disable Java -- and such a pain to enable it again! What gives with that??? I disabled it because of all the recent security issues. But Sue wanted to play her games -- and considering she subscribes (meaning she pays for them), I don't blame her. Anyway, it's all fixed now. (Hopefully she won't end up with security-related problems from having Java enabled again...)

I also discovered what her problem was with LiveJournal... She was getting emails in Thunderbird -- created by LJ, these notifications tell her every time I update my blog. They include a link so she can go and read. But every time she tried to comment, she was told she was 'anonymous' -- which didn't make sense, as I'd logged her in myself recently (via TeamViewer). But somehow she'd made Chrome her default browser, I guess -- so the link was pulling up Chrome instead of Firefox -- and I had her logged in Firefox, only. Now she's logged in for both browsers. But I did reset Firefox as her default browser -- and made Thunderbird find it (and not Chrome).

There was one other thing I needed to tackle, but it's more complicated and less important, so I decided to skip it for today. The work took under half an hour, then Sue drove me down to the office so I could get to work.

Dental? I can actually CHEW on the left side of my mouth -- which hasn't been true for ages now! There's no pain at all today! I don't know what that means for the rest of the root canal, but hopefully it's a good sign.

Went to lunch with Rich (we brought food back for Marilyn who didn't get a single break all day long... !!!) -- we had Chinese and it was good!

I need to do a health report update. Maybe tomorrow. I just want to wrap this up and get a nap in. I'm dead tired (it was a long day). But I found out something IMPORTANT about my medications today! More soon...

Marilyn did a good job on the PowerPoint, which was shown at the winter Board Meeting tonight. The meeting went well (though it ran a bit long). Poor Jeff got sick right before the meeting and after doing his part at the start he had to leave (and ended up throwing up before he could get to the bathroom -- he was that sick).

Marilyn and I took a large coffee pot and two air pots over to Rosanna after the meeting for Sunday.

Then we came home and I fixed dinner -- I'd been really hungry at lunch and was really hungry at dinner, too...

We watched "The Walking Dead" (we missed the last episode). Now I need to do the garbage and recycling at some point. But first I'll catch a nap...

I've gathered and put out some of the recycling. I need to do the composting and gather the garbage (it's 'real' garbage week) -- plus clean the cat boxes... (sigh)

I have a busy day at the office tomorrow. Donn's coming in bright and early to meet with Steven and Caroll for a Rhino (CAD) session. Then we'll deal with computer problems (I hope!).

Nap time!

Marilyn came home from work, picked me up and we went directly over to our friend Rosanna's house to visit. Her father (who was in stage four cancer treatment for months) passed away early Monday morning (1:30 a.m.).

We stayed there for over three hours, but finally had to go. We were both starving and worn out from work (we were both yawning when we left). But we were glad to spend time with her, of course, and felt terrible for her loss.

We dashed to the store for some veggies and a couple other small items, then hurried home to fix dinner. We've just finished dinner and are ready to sleep...

Dinner included raw carrot chips (love those), celery and snap peas tonight. We're enjoying adding more veggies to our diet.

I tried to help sister Sue with her computer today, using TeamViewer to Remote in. But I couldn't get the damn Java to work in either one of her browsers (Firefox or Chrome), no matter how hard I tried. What gives with that??? I uninstalled the old version. I installed the newest version. I followed all the steps to enable Java -- but it wouldn't WORK. She can't use her favorite game site without it, so I need to try again at some point. I had to stop, because I had to work on the eNewsletter for the festival (due to go out Thursday morning).

I needed to make SURE the eNewsletter would be DONE today -- so any tweaks could happen tomorrow. My dentist is sick and probably won't be in tomorrow -- which is when I'm supposed to have the second half of my root canal from last week. Anyway, I got an appointment for Thursday, just in case. But it meant I needed to be ready to 'push the button' on the eNewsletter early Thursday, so I could make my appointment that's just before noon (when I'm normally sending it out).

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