Pine Hill Cemetery . Com

We are now on line with our own web site at http://pinehillcemetery.com/ . I am building the site and it has been a real challenge. During the past several weeks I have been having all sorts of problems with my computer with a little problem called locking up and shutting down. Makes it a little tough to download things for uploading to my new web site but I managed. Still haven't figured out how to make the mail work but I will soon, I'm sure. Usually I deal with this locking up type of problem by buying a new computer but this time I decided to tough it out and figure it out for myself. We have our own guru that handles our company computer but this one is my problem. I figured that it probably revolved around around my extensive photography collection in the computer. That is where I started as I organized everything I had. 4 years worth of photos takes up a lot of room. I went through every photo I had in the computer and found that about 60% needed to be deleted. The remainder fit on three CD-R's and are now all nice and neatly organized in files. I actually can find what I am looking for now. My interest got piqued on cameras again and I have decided to buy a new one. My old one doesn't work very well anymore and about 75% of the time I have to pound it on something to make it turn on.

This is my new dream camera

My next step was to take a look at programs and I found a bunch that I didn't even know I had. I got rid of most of my old programs. I did all of this deleting and removing and nothing really happened. When I was doing my photo's my computer would shut down about two or three times per session. Two days ago I found a thing on my desktop called "Recycle Bin" and I emptied it. Don't think I have ever emptied it. Made a world of difference in my speed. Tonight I got rid of all of things housed under "Internet options" and my computer now operates at the speed of light. What a difference. Been fun and I have learned a whole bunch from it. Wonder where the money is going to come for the camera?

Getting back to our new web site, it should be fun to keep tabs on what is happening. Lots of stories to tell and lots of photos to show off. We're going to leave stories and photos for the most part open to anyone that wants to post them. This blog is my forum and I will try and remember it, otherwise I could dominate the entire web site. Too many photo's, too many stories, too little time. Keep us in mind as we keep building the site. Still a little bit rough around the edges but it gets better. Next month we will post our second story in our series of interesting people titled "Santa Clause is dead!"

My daughter the Barber?

My daughter is very good at keeping her marriage alive and exciting. Her latest was to mess with her husband Mike's hair. Ellen cuts Mike's hair and does a pretty good job at it except that for the past three haircuts she left part of it uncut. She wanted to see if she could get him to grow a tail without his knowledge. I knew about it but didn't notice anything until just before this last haircut when it appeared like he was going a little bit too long between haircuts. I just looked from the side and I thought it was getting long on the neck but it turns out I was looking at his new tail. Shows you how observant I am about these things. Mike said a few people were looking at his hair funny yesterday but no one said anything but his boss who walked behind him and said "what the hell have you got growing out of your head?" The jig was up and he figured out how it got there, He owes her for that big time. Hopefully he is good enough to pull if off. I would even offer to help him.

Knee Surgery

Monday my wife had the cartilage removed from her knee and is now recovering quiet well I might add. She is getting along with the aid of a cane that her grandfather used and it is over 100 years old. Neat! Before I tell you her experience I shall bore you with the details of two other torn cartilage incidents both involving me.

I grew up as a jock and a pretty good one but golfing eluded me somehow. I started out very young playing with a couple of my friends learning on sand greens. I looked promising but In 1961 I gave up the game because the frustration level was too high and I was not a very good scorer. Great form but the ball never went where it was supposed to go. 20 years later [1981] I stood on the number one tee at my old golf course getting ready to hit for the first time in 2 decades. I looked back at the club house as I addressed the ball and to my amazement were three of my old coaches, now retired sucking up mint juleps or something on the veranda and they were watching. I re-addressed the ball by talking to it saying "you had better go straight down the middle of the course or I will cut you in tiny pieces and scatter you in the parking lot". I wound up and hit the ball harder than I ever had in High School, and it went right down the middle of the course and about 300 yards. I was elated as I limpt off towards the card. It seems that as I was elating I was also crying because I had just tore the cartilage in my knee and it hurt like hell. I saw my Dr. and he sent me to a knee surgeon who I met on the following day. He and his father were the best orthopedic surgeons around and they knew what to do. The following week I went in for surgery and they had to cut my knee open on both sides in order to properly remove the cartilage. I was on crutches for 6 weeks afterwards. They sent me home with orders to put two cans of string beans, in water, into an old sock, hang it over my ankle and work out with leg lifts every day. At the end of the six weeks, my muscle tone had returned, the pain went away and I could walk again. It was a miracle.

About 15 years ago I was Foreman on a framing crew and when I walked off of a deck the 2x10 walking plank kicked out on me and I fell about 10 feet on frozen ground and against the foundation. I went to the hospital and they got me over to see an orthopedic surgeon in Springfield who looked over the x-rays and ordered an MRI. A couple of nights later I got the MRI and the next day I visited with the Orthopedic Surgeon again and he told me I had tore the cartilage in my other leg and gave me a cortisone shot and said "if it gets to really hurting you, come on back and we will remove the cartilage". I have had no problems at all with that knee.

Now on too my wife's experience. She goes to her Doc with a sore knee but her Doc is really a PA and refers her to the same Orthopedic surgeon that I had 15 years earlier. The difference is she doesn't see the surgeon but instead she is seen by his PA who gives her a short of Cortisone and sends her home. Soon she tears the cartilage even worse with much more pain as she is now getting around only with the aid of a walker. Her last PA now prescribes a MRI and an appointment with the surgeon. She now has an appointment with another PA to discuss the now impending surgery. Just before the surgery the surgeon meets with her, looks at the knee, the MRI and explains the surgery. This photo is inside the knee showing the tear on the left Monday we go to a hospital extension bright and early and we meet the anesthesiologist and the real Dr comes in and signs her knee. After surgery the Surgeon came in and explained what he did and they gave her a bunch of pictures of the inside of the knee. She immediately was walking with the aid of a cane and she recuperated at home for about 3 days and then back to the orthopedic center for the appointment. There we met with another PA who observed the stitches that the nurse had just removed and he explained what the pictures were all about. It was pretty obvious that this guy could care less how she was doing or anything else. Just putting in his time. It seems that you don't get to really see Drs. anymore as they are blocked by a whole bunch of PA's.

I have been with my regular clinic for 25 years now and have had 3 primary physicians none of whom I have ever met. I just meet the PA's. Something has changed?

Pet Peeve Day

Today is the day that I have chosen to share with you some of my very insignificant pet peeves. The first one is "fast food liter". We live next to an intersection that is fairly busy. The first thing in the morning we get a large rush of folks heading off to work. The rest of the day and most of the evening we get college kids going everywhere and they seem to be the worst litterers. This is a picture of what I usually find on the street everyday. Usually it is McDonald's or Burger King but today Wendy's gets the spotlight. Lucky them. The secondly photo is a closeup on top of my trash receptacle before I tossed it in. I noticed lots of Advertisement for the fact that the food all contains zero transacts but nowhere does it say "Do Not Liter", not that it would make much difference with college kids because apparently most of them can't read.The thing I have continued to notice about these, treasured remains, I pick up is they usually contain lots of french fries. For some reason the kids don't eat most of their fries? Why buy them? Ordering the meals without the huge order of fries just has to be cheaper. I'm just saying.

This morning, as I gathered in my morning newspaper, I found a Yellow pages . com telephone book on my front porch. As I went by the side door and porch of our home I noticed more Yellow pages . com books on our side porch. The back door which is close to the office door surprised us with two more books. Inside these building we already had 6 Yellow Page from Verizon. Today was our normal recycling day and all of these extra yellow books made their way to the recycling bins. Great timing but what a waste in the first place