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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 27 May 2000 (Week 22)

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To respond or comment on something I have written email me. I would love to hear from you. 

Saturday, 27 May 2000

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Duncan and I had a nice visit with a family who applied for a dog from CBCR. He enjoyed playing outside with the two young girls and they took him for a short walk.

I plan to use this morning to work in/on my office. I need to find some things, file some stuff, and generally get it back to the organized state it is usually in.

If if doesn't rain this afternoon in Charlotte, I will watch the Busch race and catch the third round of the Memorial Tournament in Ohio.

We are very lucky that not a single life was lost in the storm that ripped through the center of North Carolina. No advanced warnings since the weather service missed the call. It just struck, which is how these storms usually cause death and injury.

We are apparently under the gun tonight and tomorrow. Tennessee, which has been hammered all week, is getting it today. That means it will be here tomorrow.

I am finally far enough "into" November 1916 by Solzhenitsyn to do a brief summary. Solzhenitsyn has three fictional characters which tell the story of the various opinions of the Russian people and military during this war. Using a smaller print, he intersperses Russian history from actual journals, papers, court documents, etc.to present the true facts of the government and the downfall of Russia during this period of the war. At 245 pages I am now a fourth of the way through the book. 

I know, it sounds boring. This book can only be read by person interested in Russian history or someone who likes to read historical fiction that is not in the romance genre.

Sunday, 28 May 2000

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We had an adventure in our house last night. The weather forecast was for severe storms and possibly tornadoes overnight and into early morning. Whenever we have chance of this type of weather, Bob and I have always slept downstairs. We were encamped down there when one of the Hurricane's came through here back before Lenore moved in with us.

Last night the two dogs trooped downstairs to prepare for our overnight camping event. I pulled out Lenore's sleeper sofa and put a sheet on it and prepared for bed. This was Malcolm's first experience sleeping anywhere other than the bedroom.

Border Collies do not like change. He had a hard time settling down so I finally put him in his big crate to sleep. Kerry found his place and Duncan started out on the bed with us.

We did not have any bad weather. It did not even rain. We are still under the gun for today. But, it was better to be safe than sorry and be woken up with a tree lying on your bed.

Speaking for Border Collies. The Winston-Salem Journal newspaper's deputy editorial page editor adopted a Border Collie from Carolina Border Collie Rescue last year. Since then, she has done a number of very nice stories about our rescue program and about how wonderful Mirk is. They live on a sheep farm in nearby Stokes County. 

In today's paper she has another funny Border Collie story which you all might enjoy. For those of you new to my diary or are unaware, I do volunteer work with CBCR.

Today is cleaning day. I will tidy up the downstairs a little since I put it back together from last night anyway. Then I can do the upstairs. The NASCAR race is not until 6:00 pm tonight from Lowes Motor  Speedway in Charlotte, NC. 

Let's hope we don't have to flee to the basement again today or tonight.

Monday, 29 May 2000

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Bob and I both worked all day. After I cleaned upstairs and finished the downstairs, I worked most of the day on my logo and web pages. Bob is doing chapter rewrites from the tech editors' suggestions.

Bob started the laundry and I finished it. I had about six loads to do and only got about half of them done. I will finish them this morning. And speaking of laundry. Can you believe that Bob was concerned about our white clothes not being as white as they should be? We were washing in cold/warm water and tried those safe bleaches, but they really don't do the job as well.

I have never been a big fan of bleach. I can't stand the smell on my clothes and it makes me itch. But, he was right our underwear was looking a little dingy. So we switched to hot/warm and added bleach. Bob was walking around last night singing that little ditty from the TV ads "our whites are white and our darks are bright" or something like that.

Last nights Winston Cup race, The Coca-Cola 600 from Lowe's Motor Speedway was quite a race. Even though the race was dominated at times by several different drivers, there was a lot of good racing up front for the lead. They had about a 50 minute rain delay just after the halfway mark but the race started up again and ran the full 400 laps. It was truely rookie night in Charlotte. Rookie Matt Kenseth won the race which was dominated by the other rookie Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Jerry Nadeau is not a rookie but is fairly new to Winston Cup racing led almost the entire first 200 laps up to the caution. A broken valve spring put him out of contention but it was nice to see the third Hendrick team having a good run. And the crowd roared when Dale Earnhardt and Dale, Jr. were racing each other for the lead. 

This year the racing has been much more competitive and no one person is dominating the wins or leading all the races. It makes it much more fun to watch with lots of lead changes and new drivers out front that fans are not used to seeing in the lead.

Even though today is a holiday for many people, it is business as usual in the Thompson household. After my morning workout at the gym I have quite a few projects to complete today both computer and household. I still have those three loads of laundry to finish. Bob does chapter rewrites and I read them over when he is finished. 

Tuesday, 30 May 2000

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I have been working on a logo for my web page and my business now called Research for Authors. I have created a rather nice looking logo in Microsoft PhotoDraw. It did not take me very long to learn how to create the logo and get it look like I wanted it to. 

There is one hitch. When I insert it on my web page the text looks fuzzy compared to the other text on the page. I am graphic challenged once it gets down to the natty gritty of pixels and percentages per inch, etc.

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Here are the two version I have saved as .jpg. The only difference is font and size. If anyone that reads my page can explain what I am doing or need to do to make it clearer, I would appreciate the advice. Thanks.

Bob and I worked all day yesterday. He did four chapters of rewrites. I started on my links pages for my site and worked on my sample research project.

I was a drizzly, cloudy day with a high of about 63. That is real cool for us this time of year. I finished trimming back a large azalea that had died in the middle from not getting enough light. That happens when they get too big. I decided to wait to mow today.

I also have to take Lenore to the doctor this afternoon. 

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. 

--William James.

Wednesday, 31 May 2000

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First off, I want to thank all the people who responded from Bob's page with a plea for help on my logo. I am working on those suggestions and hopefully you will see my logo atop my page by next week. 

Ever have a Duh moment? I realized this morning after doing my diary page for a half a year, I did not have a please respond or comment line at the top of my diary with a link to my e-mail address. I have a link at the top of the navigation column but it is not very visible. Bob was holding that space for a picture of me but I prefer to put my logo up there is I can get is perfect so Bob will use it.

I have been answering mail all morning and need to get ready to head to the gym for my spinning class followed by that weekly trip to the grocery store.

High yesterday was 65 and  the high tomorrow will be 90. We are having some kind of weird weather.

Thursday, 1 June 2000

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Short post today. Not much going on, dad and I are going to try again today. The forecast is for sunny and warm weather, so we are playing golf this morning. I hope there is not another storm lurking out there to get us like it did last week.

I want to work on my logo today and get it up if I can by the end of this week. Bob is trying to knock out chapters on the rewrite. 

Speaking of my logo. I had several good suggestions about fonts and .jpg's and .png's. Brian Bilbrey coincidentally has a logo on his page where I want to place mine. He sent me a new version that does just what three other gentlemen suggested. Use a sans serif font and save it as a .gif or .png for better web quality. He did just that and saved me and another gentleman who offered to help a lot of time playing around until we got it right. I think Brian's will work. When the "god of websites" approves my logo, I will post the logo information.  I know one gentleman asked not to be named and I was not sure about the others who offered to help except for Brian. And, I know he does not mind if I mention his name.

As I personally thanked each one in private e-mails, I said Bob has a wonderful bunch of readers out there. Whenever he or I have made a plea for help we always get a lot of response.

I have found the same thing on several list serves that I read. Whatever the profession, readers are willing to share knowledge and lend a hand whenever possible. 

Gotta go.

Friday, 2 June 2000

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The logo is finally up. I am working on the page design to now incorporate the logo. Some pages I managed to finish, others I will polish up. I am only using it on my business pages to separate them from my personal pages.

Bob has been working real hard on the rewrites. Dad and I managed to get a round of golf in without a hidden tornado ripping through.

I worked all afternoon and then decided to fix dinner. We had one of my favorite meals. I take two pork tenderloin about one pound each. Cut them down the side almost to the other side, sort of like filleting a fish. Baste with a little mixture of olive oil, garlic, and soy sauce to keep them from drying out on the grill. I sliced some yellow and zucchini squash and bought some portabella mushrooms already sliced. These, I marinate in olive oil, red cooking wine, garlic and thyme. 

Bob made instant Idahoan mashed potatoes which are almost as good as the real thing. I grill the veggies on one of those special grill racks. The tenderloin do not take much longer than a thick steak to cook.

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