Where Eccentricity Thrives

For Juno Magic

hypnobarb1 — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 01:25:13 GMT

Waaay back when, I started a story dedicated to Juno Magic. I only had a few chapters done when it was published in her LJ Fangirls group. It's finished and posted.

Each chapter is one thousand words in honor of Juno's 251 chapter masterpiece The Apprentice and the Necromancer"

For Juno Magic, here is Afternoons at St. Mungo's.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8968613/1/

Yes, I really did it.

hypnobarb1 — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:39:35 GMT

After a long hiatus (also known as a dry spell), I put up a new story at FF.net. It's a companion piece to "A Few Thoughts on Turning Thirty" that tells how Hermione saved Snape's life and where it went from there. The new story is "A Few Thoughts on Turning Fifty", which is about how Snape saved Hermione's life and where it went from there.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8964844/1/

When my sister died, it pretty much took the heart out of me for writing. Maybe that's finally getting better.

hypnobarb1 — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 23:39:55 GMT

This year, I took an assortment of gift cards, added birthday and Christmas money to it, plus some on top of that and bought a new notebook computer, printer, and Microsoft office. This is the first time in forever that all of the parts are compatible. Now, I'm learning my way around Windows 8, which isn't too bad once you get past the start screen to things that you recognize. I just got the new Lenova notebook computer (now named The Professor) back from having the data from the old one transferred.

For the last week and a half, I've been using my seven year old Dell notebook. On New Years, I wanted to do the purse dump, so I took a couple pictures, downloaded the photos and tried to get it to post here. Nope. Not one bit of cooperation.

I'm going to settle back with my Windows 8 for Dummies manual and learn a few things. Like how to download pictures from my camera.

Oh, I really want to learn to use Evernote. That looks useful!

hypnobarb1 — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:34:14 GMT

What a lousy armageddon. I was hoping that the least it would do is zero out my credit card balance.

Voting day

hypnobarb1 — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:55:46 GMT

One of the nice things about living in a small town is being able to park, go vote, and be done in ten minutes.

Happy Halloween

hypnobarb1 — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:16:18 GMT

hypnobarb1 — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:01:19 GMT

I'm thinking positive thoughts and lighting a candle for the safety of friends on the east coast.

hypnobarb1 — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 20:42:57 GMT

Thanks to Draco of the Perseus and Draco fame, a link was posted on another site that showed a marvelous specialty terrarium. It was all done up as a cemetery. Of course, with my fascination with cemeteries, I had to have one. They didn't have any more of the one I really liked, so I made my own. I now have a cemeterium.

Everything except the jar, pebbles, and soil were ordered on line. Living in a rural area does limit ones access to tiny tombstones.

In the center is a ghost, because no cemetery is complete without one. Likewise, we have a few cemetery cats.

I'm now looking for an owl of suitable size and maybe a Santa to add for Christmas.

hypnobarb1 — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:23:09 GMT

Gosh darn this 21st century

hypnobarb1 — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:45:36 GMT

As I rapidly approach my 59th year on this earth, I am endeavoring to explore aspects of technology that heretofore have left me behind. Among other things, I still don't know how to text, even though I have a phone that is capable of it.

I decided to buy a tablet. I wanted something small enough to fit in my big honkin' purse and I want to be able to use it during work meetings to take notes. That's not asking too much, is it? So, I asked my seventeen year old great nephew for his recommendation. I figure that individuals of his generation will know more about it than I would. He suggested that since Aunt Barb is on a budget, try the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the seven inch size. He said it is less expensive than the Ipad, versatile, and highly intuitive to use.

My first mistake was asking advice from the 17 year old great nephew who wants to major in engineering instead of the 24 year old nephew who majored in sociology.

If this is highly intuitive to use, they must have meant the psychic from my team, because I am finding nothing intuitive about this and cannot even locate a meaningful HELP function.

*grumble, grumble*

Have just ordered "How to Do Everything" book for this thing. I will not be defeated by another piece of technology. I am beginning to understand why my mother refuses to learn how to operate the dishwasher or the DVD player.

The Rest of the Raptors

hypnobarb1 — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:29:18 GMT

There were three other birds that I got to meet last weekend. The first is Adama, an American Kestrel. They are very big science fiction fans at the Illinois Raptor Center and several birds are named after characters.

The kestrel may be small, but it is as much of a predator as any of them. It just prefers little prey.

Here is Solo, a Peregrine Falcon.

Solo has the most beautiful slate blue feathers. The Peregrines are the fastest animals on the planet. They hunt other birds and when they spot their prey, the dive after them and plunge into them at speeds that have been clocked at over 200 miles per hour.

Last, but not least, we have a Red Tailed Hawk. They're found everywhere in North America. They go after mice, rats, and rabbits. They like going after squirrels, but those are the hardest to catch because they are so smart and really fight back.

The hawk was actually more intimidating than the eagle. He was a bit more tetchy than the others and we were advised that looking him in the eye wasn't the best idea. I couldn't help it, though. He's a very impressive bird.

Raptors

hypnobarb1 — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:04:45 GMT

A new friend.

Allow me to introduce Kenny, the Bald Eagle. And here we have Octavius, the Barred Owl.

It was an amazing experience to see these magnificent birds up close and personal. To actually have them standing on my hand. The witches hat wasn't going to work, because the birds were too flappy. Kenny just about knocked the comb out of my hair when he decided that his wings needed a good stretch.

Both of these birds are non-releaseable. Octavius got imprinted on humans when he got blown out of his nest as a youngster. It was a real hoot (literally) to watch Octavius and his favorite human whoooo at each other. Kenny received an eye injury when he was just a juvenile and so was never able to learn to hunt properly. Both are having as good a life as is possible outside of the wild by living at the Illinois Raptor Center in Decatur. Both are wildlife ambassadors, doing educational programs for kids and us grownups.

There were about fifteen of us there, all middle aged and up. All of us were fulfilling a dream. It doesn't get any better than that.

hypnobarb1 — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 00:19:19 GMT

We think we’ve got it figured out. Last night, the youngest son in the family finally showed up for his interview with Amy and me. He’s been avoiding us for months.

Son #4 is a critical player in the events around the haunted house, mostly because he died on the property.

Yes, that is correct. He died on the property, as was confirmed by one of his brothers and his father, since both were present at the time. Brother is an ER nurse and father is a cop.

It’s the sort of thing that can happen when one of your brothers backs up a one ton skidsteer over you. They had just started tearing down the old farmhouse. One brother was operating the skidsteer (which is like a Bobcat on steroids). Two of the other brothers and some of their friends were watching. One of them decided to holler and toss a brick through the window of the house, while the other maneuvered the skidsteer to rip off the porch. The driver started to back up, the back up horn started beeping, and the others weren’t paying attention and didn’t get out of the way.

It started to back up over brother #4, starting at his feet and working its way up over his legs and abdomen, as he fell face forward into the dirt. By the time it got to his stomach, he vomited everywhere, lost his air, and blacked out.

With the shouting and all, the brother who was driving the skidsteer stopped and then drove forward, getting the tread off his brother.

His brother, the ER nurse, and his father, the cop, both determined that Son #4 was dead. No pulse, no respiration. As the ER nurse was starting resuscitation, Son #4 spontaneously revived.

Ambulance trip later, the ER doctor kept coming out and telling the parents that their son had to be critically hurt. His chest had to be crushed. X-rays later, the ER doctor came out and said his chest wasn’t crushed, but he had to have massive internal injuries. MRI later, ER doctor comes out and says he doesn’t have massive internal injuries, but he does have a broken foot.

Miracle is declared. Mother is head nurse in the ER and knows that with what happened to Son #4, he should have been dead. All of the capillaries in his face and eyes are blown, something usually seen when a person has hung himself. Doctors, many of whom looked at the case, cannot explain how he came out alive, especially given that the ground he fell on was hard. It wasn’t soft enough for him to be pushed down into the dirt in order to escape injury.

Paranormal activity escalates dramatically after that.

Since I learned about the accident, I’ve wondered if something happened during that brief period of time when Son #4 was clinically dead. Did it open a door? Did something come through? Did it attach itself to Son #4 and piggy back for a ride into our plane of existence?

I expected Son #4 to talk about things happening around him that he couldn’t explain. Not just paranormal activity happening at the house, but also happening at work and in other places he went. If the entity was attached to him, things would start happening in other places.

I think I know what happened. Because of the energy river that flows through the land the land and right through where the old house was and the new house has been built, every paranormal entity in the area comes by to feed on the energy. There is a dark entity that comes by and slurps up some energy. It’s not there all the time.

There are different kinds of energy beings. At the top are angels. They are beings of light and they feed on joy, sunshine, and cotton candy. They poop rainbows. Then, there are nature spirits. Way below them, are dark entities. They like negative energy, the kind generated by anger, distress, and sadness.

In the moment that Son #4 was run over by the skidsteer, he knew he was going to die and there was that outpouring of fear and despair. When his brother ran him over and realized what he had done, there was more fear and despair. When his other brother and his father realized that Son #4 was probably dead, there was anguish and terror. The friends who were their were caught up in the same kinds of emotions.

Dark entity has a feast on the fear and anguish. It’s the best steak dinner it’s ever had. So, it sticks around. This is a family where there is love and it’s a big family. It does things with the intention of scaring the family, because that’s food. That sort of fear feeds the entity.

They hear the sound of a baby crying when no baby is present. In the last four months, three of the brothers and their wives have had babies. Weird things, like moving objects and growling sounds happen around the babies when they are at the house. Stuff toys that were nowhere near are found on the babies’ faces. All of them are too little to have moved the toys themselves.

Want to terrorize parents and grandparents? Be a threat to their newborn children.

That’s why the first cleansing didn’t work. It got the ghosts out of the house, but dark entities are a whole other kettle of fish. It takes the family to kick that sort of thing out. They have to be united, they have to participate in the cleansing, they have to reclaim their house and call on angels and family members on the other side to keep the nasty thing out of their house and out of their lives.

We know what to do. Now, all we have to do is help the family understand what they must do. They have to stop giving this thing energy by deciding that they aren’t going to be afraid. They are going to fight back and take back their home.

All I have to do is convince them.

Memorial Day

hypnobarb1 — Mon, 28 May 2012 13:43:37 GMT

For my grandmother's brother who fought in World War I and is buried somewhere in France.

For my father, who fought in Italy and Korea.

For my brother, who enlisted and spent the Viet Nam War in Germany.

For all of the ones who served over the centuries, the ones who came home with wounds seen and unseen, and the ones who never returned at all.

Thank you.

Happy Friday

hypnobarb1 — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:20:27 GMT

Just because I like eagles.

Cost of College

hypnobarb1 — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:10:26 GMT

Lo, those many years ago when I went to college, it cost me about $1200 for two semesters. We're talking the early seventies and I chose the least expensive four year college in my state. That $1200 covered tuition, room and board in the dorm, and book rental. It is true that we had mystery meat a lot and there was nothing elegant about the dorm.

I looked up what it would cost to attend that same university for one year today and went into shock. It costs $16,400 for tuition and room and board in the dorm. Books and fees extra.

Holy Toledo! How does anyone afford to go to college anymore? I came out of college with $3,000 in debt. No wonder people are coming out of college with tens of thousand dollars of debt.

hypnobarb1 — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:50:34 GMT

There is screaming outside my door at work. They are testing the fire alarms, which I had requested happen only during hours when program participants aren't here. The company will not comply with that request without a big honking surcharge. Cannot afford the big honking surcharge.

Thus, the alarms have been going off all morning.
People with severe or profound intellectual disabilities do not like this.
People with autism do not like this.
People who have an intellectual disability compounded by a mental illness do not like this.
People who are just generally irritable do not like this.
The staff don't like it, just on general principle.

To express their great displeasure at the noise, various and sundry individuals in the program have decided to scream in protest. Staff would, too, but we're not allowed.

No work shall get done this morning. Where's my tylenol?

Weather

hypnobarb1 — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:17:38 GMT

Small Town, Illinois is considerably north and east of where the severe weather was yesterday. It's supposed to be a little closer tonight, but still far to the west. Droxy, Bloodcult, and friends who are in areas that constitute the new tornado alley, please stay safe. May everyone who is in the danger zone tonight, come through unharmed and undamaged.

Happy Easter

hypnobarb1 — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:03:41 GMT

I took Thursday off, Good Friday is a holiday at work and the whole weekend. Didn't think about work at all, which I needed badly for sanity's sake. God a whole lot of spring cleaning done.

I'm too lazy to go hunting for a clever Easter graphic, so I stole one from Icanhascheeseburger.

Have a good rest of the weekend.

Why can't anything with computers go smoothly?

hypnobarb1 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:16:57 GMT

I have two Dell computers. The first one is a tower that's hooked up to internet and has all of the goodies on it for paranormal investigating and analyzing evidence. The second computer is a notebook computer that I use while I am on an investigation, so I can download photos on the spot and analyze evidence on the fly. I prefer to type rather than handwrite anything, so I can interview and type, as I go.

When I realized that my old tower was terminal, I replaced it with a new tower. The problem with that is that dial-up with the old tower was okay. Not okay with new tower. So, I hooked up the notebook computer to the dial-up and it worked fine. Except that dial-up was so slow that installing McAffe was impossible. I ordered a back-up disk for McAffe and then discovered that I didn't have enough memory for it to install properly. So, notebook computer goes off to Staples for more memory - which was an adventure in itself because their techs do not communicate with each other very well and is a long and confusing story that took almost two weeks to resolve.

So, high speed internet is installed today. I want the modem on the tower, so it is installed on the tower. I now have wireless (with a very clever secured password) so I can do internet on both tower and notebook computer. Installation dude pronounces the job done and leaves. I go back, sit down at the tower, and the keyboard will not work. How can this be, when installation dude was just using it to set up internet access? The wireless mouse is working. I change the batteries in the wireless keyboard. Still not working.

I call Frontier and tell them that my keyboard stopped working literally the minute their installation dude left. Customer service guy says it cannot possibly be anything installation dude did. Installation dude returns and monkeys with all kinds of things, plugging and unplugging, booting and rebooting, checking drivers, etc. Keyboard still does not work, even though the software says that the computer is recognizing the keyboard.

Notebook computer is working fine. Tower works fine via mouse, but cannot keyboard. Any ideas? Given that we do electronics recycling at work, I can borrow a keyboard from a good working computer to see if the problem is that my keyboard chose to die at a bizarro moment.

hypnobarb1 — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:09:30 GMT

The Federal appellate court rules California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage to be unconstitutional.

I'm looking around.

No earthquake.

No plague of locusts.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are nowhere in sight.

And a choir of angels just burst into song.

The world is a better place.

hypnobarb1 — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:24:01 GMT

At long last, I have my computer back and internet access. It needed more memory in order to run things I need to run. I couldn't get McAffe to install properly and my new video camera wouldn't download properly.

After two long and lonely weeks, it has come home! On Wednesday, high speed internet is supposed to be installed at my house with wireless!!!! I am joining the twenty-first century. Now, I have a lot of posts to catch up on and work to do.

Happy sigh.

hypnobarb1 — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 01:04:14 GMT

I hope that everyone is having a happy holiday. Check any of the below that need improvement this year and that is what I wish for you:

1) Family Relationships
2) Romantic Relationships
3) Health
4) Job
5) Finances
6) Whatever is wrong with your house
7) Whatever is wrong with your car
8) Whatever is wrong with you computer
9) Whatever is wrong with your crazy landlord
10) Weight loss
11) Healthy lifestyle change
12) Exercise program
13) New skill you want to acquire
14) Educational endeavors
15) Happy healthy pets
16) Simplifying life
17) Other: _____________________________
18) All of the above

hypnobarb1 — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:19:16 GMT

Whatever your faith, I hope today is a happy one with many more to come.

In the Holiday Spirit

hypnobarb1 — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:01:44 GMT