sheepdog

Since it's Thanksgiving, and a beautiful day, I took today off and worked out side, but for the last 2 days before I have been driving myself crazy trying to find something to replace my old Versa Check program. At first I started looking around online just to see what was available, because there are some design flaws in my Versa Check program I don't like, can't get the 2 lines spaced out far enough to hardly write out the amount on the check where you write out the number of the amount. Anyway, so far I have downloaded 3 different programs and none of them are worth a hoot. The second one I downloaded had a drop down list of banks and no way to type in your own bank, and most of the banks on the list were foreign banks, like the bank of India or other weird places that I hadn't ever even heard of. The first one I tried did most of everything I wanted, but in the trial version many of the options weren't available, and I'm not one much for paying for something I can't use anyway. All I really need is a program that will print out blank checks for me. . Don't even really need one that will keep my balance and all that stuff. I'd really rather not have that kind of information on my computer anyway. 3 to a page for the printing. I already have the check paper that is designed that way. The last program I downloaded I can only get it to print one check at the top of the page. I have really been tearing my hair out over this one. And now it seems that I am stuck and have to find a new program. I thought I could just go back to my old Versa Check program, but come to find out, it is not compatible with my new computer. So I can't even install the old program. Sure could use some good suggestions here.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Sure hope it works. I find all these extra steps annoying.

Yes, they can set their own prices, however, in any other case where services are deemed a necessity, the government is not hesitant to step in and deal with price gouging. Any number of businesses were changed after drastically raising prices after natural disasters all over the country, from hurricanes and tornado's to floods. Many companies were taken to court and fined. The government also regulates all types of utilities like electric and telephones and does not allow these companies to make outlandish charges. Even oil companies are regulated to some extent, hard as that may be to believe with the high cost of gas today. So I can't help but wonder why the government will do nothing about the insane costs of health care. Other than of course, to implement Obama care. Which just screws up everything.

What a bummer! Glad you weren't hurt at any rate, you sure could of been easily enough. And to think they are legalizing pot in more and more places! We have a lot of electric fence here, it's always a worry when there are several different people working here at the same time. Of course, the electric fence is designed to only be painful and not deadly, it is still unpleasant if you think it's unplugged and it isn't.

LOL, I can understand your concerns about dentists especially handing out candy, since it supposedly rots out kids teeth! But you train kids a lot like you do dogs. Bribe them with a cookie and they will do just about anything! :-) I have noticed in several doctors and dentist's offices they have small play areas for children. It's probably a good thing as best as I can figure. Kids are full of energy and need something to occupy their time with. Without a distraction of some sort they would be running around screaming and driving everybody else crazy.

Yes, recycling is a great thing to do, and I wish people did more of it. Aside from keeping trash out of land fills, it saves those doing the recycling a fair amount of money. My glass jars are a good example. Buying new canning jars are as much as $7-$8 per dozen. And our recycling center now charges us 75 cents to turn in one bag of glass. So there is a big savings right there. Considering the delicate nature of seed, it's need to be protected from moisture, rodents and the like, glass is the best choice to use for storing it. And of course, it is reusable for years and years, providing of course you don't drop it. It can be easily cleaned and sanitized to protect the contents of the jars. I wish more people would get on board with this. Not just individuals either, it would help in manufacturing companies put some thought into their packaging materials. Do you know that now a days it is virtually impossible to find the old style glass one gallon jars? They used to be as common as dirt. They still have some that have a large metal lid that soon rusts out, making the jars useless. But the old ones all had the standard mason size ring and seal that you could replace easily. We have help around here, it's just that the value of the product doesn't always justify the dollar amount it would cost to pay someone to do it. I might be able to sell some of my seed for $1 a bag, but it would cost me $5 to pay someone to shell it out. No money in that! The good news is I finished up digging the last of the canna's yesterday. Will let them dry until the first of the week and then they will go to the basement for storage until spring. I did splurge and buy some (used of course) plastic tubs to put them in this year. This is kind of an experiment, I used to fill a dog food bag about half full and then roll them down to store them. Unfortunately, we have developed a leak in our basement so paper bags aren't going to work until we figure out where that is coming from. I am concerned about them getting over dry in large open tubs, but I am compensating by drying them a little less. I will just need to remember to check them a few times later this winter to make sure they aren't getting too dry. I had hoped to start mowing the debris and grass and stuff along the edge of the bed today, got the hired man to gas up and air the tire on the old mower for me yesterday in hopes it wouldn't give me quite as much trouble getting it started as it usually does. But then it rained this morning so that chore got put on hold. I still need to go out and finish taking my soaker hoses up and out of the way. After everything is mowed and raked up I can burn it all off. So I'm hoping for a few more days of nice weather, but I probably won't get that lucky. I'd like to say the flower bed will be done after that, but in truth, that project is never really done. Even in the winter I can haul manure and stuff to it to help build up the soil for the next year.

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, those 2 extra ports do look a great deal like regular usb ports. Had me fooled. Which of course, doesn't take much. Little by little I am figuring this computer out though. My biggest problem is I really miss my photo editing program. I can't figure out how to use the one I have now. Eventually I find things that I need but it sure is a struggle.

Personally I don't see how political correctness would lead to less aggression. You can be sensitive to the needs of your fellow man but you don't or shouldn't have to sacrifice your personal feelings and what you believe. In some ways I think all this PC Bs could lead to more violence. Keeping all those emotions bottled up inside yourself could lead to a serious explosion of emotions that could get pretty ugly. Not to mention the fact that it also takes all the fun and humor out of our lives. We are so afraid of offending we can't enjoy life's little funny moments. And yes, the government would like to see us all whiny whimps that they could lead around by the nose who minded their business and never stepped out of line. Guns guns and more guns. Everything is about guns. The government hates that we have the right to defend ourselves. It would without a doubt like to see the second amendment swept under the rug forever. Guns protect us from tyrants in government. It's unlikely you will see many countries where they have both dictators and an armed citizenship.

Keeping our roads safe by controlling speeders is a wonderful way to be all self-righteous and taking the high moral road, but we all know they just do it to make money! Things may be different in your country, but here in the USA we are faced with a constant barrage of laws and regulations that are "for our own good" but not a single one of them is any thing more than a way for the city, county, state, or federal government. One of my favorite examples is how cities will fine you if you let your grass grow too tall, and in many cases it's only a few inches before you are ticketed. I'm sorry but 8 inch tall grass is not harmful to anyone. Maybe it isn't pretty but it doesn't hurt a thing. Same with a broke down car sitting up on blocks in your yard. Looks trashy, but in no way a health hazard. Problem is, your neighbor may think it lowers his property value if it looks like he is living next door to a bunch of bums, so a ticket you will get. As I said, it's all about money.

"it won't be the Amish that you all would be blaming, that's for sure" Ok, now that was funny! But yes, everything you say absolutely could come true. How many old time science fiction movies made in years past have actually come true now in modern times? Laser guns used to be a Buck Rodger's fan's dream. Now lasers are common tools used for hundreds of practical purposes. Computers used to take up entire floors of buildings, now you can hold one in your hand. I worry about cars too. These new ones that can put on the brakes for you especially trouble me. I just don't care about a machine doing the driving for me, I'd much rather do it myself. I can think of a whole lot of ways that kind of technology could screw up. So yes, as we advance daily in technology more and more of these futuristic dramas will find themselves playing out in our lives.

One of the problems, or perhaps I should say advantages of living in a free country is that you have to allow everyone to have their freedoms too. (although it seems like at times more and more often, one persons freedom is sacrificed for someone else's but that's a whole nother topic.) Granted, some of us find these folks annoying, but we have to respect their rights to express their beliefs just as we express ours. I am glad they were found to be innocent. And some good did at least come of it.

Outrageous, yes. Uncommon, no. It seems every one who gets an itemized list of their hospital charges finds these kinds of things. Like Doctors who you don't even know walk in your room, glance at your chart walk out and charge you $150. And $7 aspirins. Now there's a mark up for you! I could get a bottle of 100 aspirins at Dollar General store for $1! And we wonder why the cost of health care is so astronomical! My own bill for less than 1 day in the hospital was $20,000. It is unbelievable the stunts they try to pull. I am sure eventually they will find in your favor, but they are just dragging it out now to see if they can get away with it anyway. Hang in there and don't cut them any slack. Threaten to sue them for fraud if all else fails.

Welcome LettieHib. So tell us more about yourself. Like what is trainspotting? My imagination can come up with all sorts of things it might be, but probably isn't, like you standing between 2 trains with flags and giving them the go signal to start a train race, or maybe you sitting on top of a tall tower somewhere watching the tracks so 2 trains don't collide, or some crazy thing like that. Anyway, welcome to Xisto, hope you come back often, make lots of posts and give us someone new to visit with. And of course, the more posting you do the quicker you can have your web site hosted here and save those $$ for having a web site.

I really feel sorry for the generation of children that are growing up today. I don't know how on earth you are ever going to stand even a remote chance of becoming intelligent, fair minded, contributing to society adults. You don't stand a chance with all the political correctness BS that's getting shoved down your throats today. Our society had become morally bankrupt and it's taking all you kids with it. Check out this list if you don't believe me. http://distractify.com/sex-relationships This list will blow your mind! I can't believe some of the things they are actually doing to you poor kids these days! It's shameful and just downright stupid. I mean really, asking a preschooler who is deaf to change his name because saying his name in sign language makes his fingers look like he is pointing a gun? Now there's political correctness taken to a degree that is just insane. And I can see how it would be wrong to walk into a crowed theater and yell fire, but a harmless prank like yelling Bingo in a room full of old foggies (like me) when they are playing is pretty harmless. You poor kids can't have any fun at all! Check out the list, it will boggle your mind. I hope nothing this happens to any of you guys.

All I can say is WOW! I just had the best seed crop ever in all the years I've planted my flower bed! I just finished the seed part of the harvest yesterday. Took me nearly all day. I had a customer come to pick up a puppy fairly early, so I got an early start, got the pup ready then started on gathering seed. It was slow going because I was mostly getting cosmos seed, and it was still a little greed and hard to shell out into the bucket, some heads I had to pick whole, they will shell out ok when they get dry in a week or so, though it will be a tedious job shelling them out that way. I was so tired last night I could barely move. But I counted jars when I got done and I had 49 full jars, and I still have 4 or 5 more racks of seed drying that I need to shell out, so I will end up with well over 50 jars of seed this year. I recycle my used instant tea jars, they hold about a quart, and I pack the seed down pretty hard, so we are talking about one heck of a lot of seed here. One year I only had a total of seven jars of seed harvested, which was barely enough to even get my flower bed seeded back the next year. Now that the seed is out of the way, the hard part is next to come. Digging all the Canna roots. You can't leave canna's in the ground, if it gets really cold they will winter kill, and besides, if I leave them in we can't till the flower bed up in the spring. I hated to start in on it today, but I knew the way things have been going around here I better at least get a start on them. I was really hoping to get some help from one of the hired boys I have, but one of them found a temporary job and isn't here right now. I'm afraid if I don't get started on them I'll be out of luck. Don't know for sure if he will even come back, and I would hate to wait on him and then end up loosing all my bulbs because he found another job. I was dreading getting started, but I went ahead and got started tonight, and now I really am going to hate the job! Those things got HUGE! I wasn't looking forward to digging them anyway, and now that I know how tough the job is going to be I'm really dreading it. I came in tonight and warned the old man I may be making a run for his back hoe before this is over with! I know some of those clumps I lifted out had to weigh at least 50 pounds when they first came out of the ground until I could shake off the loose dirt and start breaking them apart. That's a lot of pulling and lifting for an old fat lady! Sure hope that boy comes back! I got less than one forth of the way down the row. But I guess that's not too bad a start on what is supposed to be my day off, and getting a late start since we went to the swap meet this morning.

So, couple weeks ago as I mentioned, I got a new computer. I'm finally getting used to it and half way starting to like it. But it had only 4 USB ports in it, and I really needed more. There were 2 other ports in the back side of it, that I had no idea what they were for, USB port wouldn't fit, so I thought maybe I could get some sort of adapter to make them work. So we headed back over to Best Buy and after standing around for what seemed like ages I finally got a clerk to help me, I showed him the kind of computer I'd gotten and told him I need more ports and was wondering what the odd size ones where on the back, which he told me were for additional monitors, which made absolutely no sense to me, why would you need 2 more monitors on one computer, anyway, then he proceeded to show me where there were 2 more USB ports on the side of the computer that I hadn't ever noticed. I felt like a complete dumb *bottom*. And I told him I did too, and he just laughed and said, that's ok. Guess I'm not the first idiot he's seen. At least he was kind about it. See, and ya'll think I'm joking when I say I don't know anything about computers. I'm not, really!

I have to agree at least a little with Spyda, it is just a little creepy. I think for the most part it's because in the video the legs of the thing almost look fur covered. Seriously I think I'm more into low tech. With the exception of the heavy loads, a real dog could do exactly the same thing, and actually do a lot better job, they can cover ground a lot faster and if they were looking for something they have a nose to smell out lost or injured people or anything else someone trained them to sniff out. But really, it is a pretty cool thing otherwise. I enjoyed watching it. But I'd still like to know why the government thinks we need robotic squirrels. If they send any of those around here they better make the outer covering out of Kevlar, because we'd be shooting them for sure.

Interesting conversation. And I actually understand at least a little of it! But keep in mind, I am not particularly computer savvy. I'm not even sure what ad ons are. Since the computer is new, unless they are factory installed I don't know what ad ons it would even have. When I was shopping for my new computer the guy at one of the shops was telling me about the alternatives to Explorer, but I have used IE since I started with computers and have never used anything else. My old brains didn't need a new operating system, Windows 8 and a new browser at the same time, I would of never been able to figure out anything. So I can't add anything about the different browsers. Personally I would be a little leary about one from Google. Those people have no respect for or understanding of how some people value their privacy. I would think a Google backed browser would be gathering a lot of information about your personal computer usage that it would report back to the company. I think they are already way over the top with their satellites that can watch people in their back yards. Oh, and another dumb question. I have Windows 7 Professional. Is there any way to chance the settings so I loose the log in screen I have to click on every time I've been away from the computer more than a few minutes? I'm the only one using this computer so don't need to change users or anything. It's rather annoying to not be able to just get started without all the clicking before I ever even get to my desk top.

That works if you already have lots of toll booths set up. Here in the USA we have some, but really not all that many, a lot of miles of highway would not be regulated that way. Also, if the booths were very far apart, you could drive like a demon, and then stop somewhere and have lunch, so they wouldn't know what you had been doing. And it would take a lot of man power to man the booths, meaning more people on government payrolls and more tax dollars we would have to dish out. Here we mostly use the highway patrol and their radar guns. Those buggars can hide just about anywhere to catch you off guard. They study the lay of the roads and like to find hiding places near the bottom of hills where you might of accidentally speeded up because you were going down hill, even without the intention of speeding.

Opaque, you missed the golden opportunity of a lifetime! Our USA government just spent many millions of dollars and took three and one half years to create a web site so people could sign up for Obama Care, and the very first day they opened the site a whole pathetic 6 people got signed up! How very sad is that? I know darn good and well if they would of let you create the site it probably would of worked out much better! And just think of how rich you would be! The site keeps crashing, nobody can get on, it's an absolute disaster. You would of done a better job blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back!

That was really a very good explanation, thanks. Of course, a really expensive camera is out of the question. I got a nice laugh out of the Sean Connery reference too, and that happens to be one of my favorite movies. The graphic designers and set people did one fantastic job I can say for sure! They did a beautiful job designing the Nautalis.

LOL, OMG..... Yes, without a doubt if you started a forum about Obama there would be flame wars to end all flame wars! Opinions on him run the full spector of human emotion. I was watching a video clip of him yesterday, there was a group of women standing behind him, the looks on their faces alone made me want to barf. They were all doe eyed and smiling and hanging on his every word and nodding in agreement with his every word, they were doing it in complete unison which made it look all the more freaky, it was obvious that they idolized the man. Honestly it looked like they were in complete ecstasy to be near him. Mesmerized by his mere presence. Personally I thought it was pretty disgusting. Makes me wonder what kind of men they have to go home to in order to be so raptured by Obama. Now there's a scary thought! I do get more than annoyed though, with this "race card" garbage. It seems no matter what anyone says or does, if you disagree with Obama you are a racist. You can't possibly have a valid opposing opinion because he is black and if you don't agree with him you are racist. They have pulled this stupid stunt way too many times. I suppose it's the only trick they have left in the book to cover all the stupid and dangerous things this administration is doing to destroy our country.

I'm glad I could make you laugh. Glad I'm good for something. Yes, we have had some fun road trips over the years. Nothing like traveling with a car load, or worse yet, an RV load of dogs. The worst trip ever was one we made to Quartzsite. We were supposed to have a reservation at a nice Rv park, complete with electric, water and sewer. Since we were supposed to have such a nice set up I took a LOT of pups. I mean a bunch! Got there, got all set up and the owner came along the next day and said, oh, your selling dogs, you can't do that here! I was furious. My sister in law had made the reservation for us and she had told this dumb broad we had pups. We ended up in a cold camp, no electric, water or anything. Then our generator wouldn't run. It was awful trying to take care of that many pups with nothing to work with.

"vegan alternatives to meat products that look and taste just like the meat equivalents" No. Sorry. No such thing exists. Only meat tastes like meat. My taste buds will never be fooled by meat alternatives. If they are going to grow things in test tubes, I wish they would work on as you say, growing organs for transplanting into humans. Wouldn't even have to be animal organs. A lot of people die every year because there are not enough organ donors. I would really like to see more effort put into something like that. And I don't see why it can't be accomplished with all the scientific advances we have had in this day and age. That seems to me to make more sense of a project to put effort into instead of making test tube meat for human consumption, since making meat for humans is easily done already. Have you every checked to see how many pounds of meat you can get from a single doe rabbit with the multiple litters she has in a year in a very small amount of space. It would really surprise you at how productive they are. You can practically keep a rabbit fed on yard waste. We have great, natural ways for making meat now, I personally think it foolish and wasteful to grow it for consumption. Besides, it probably isn't going to taste all that great anyway. There are just some things that cannot be duplicated in a lab. Like the effect of sunshine on the animal, the flavors of fescue and wild onions in the grass they eat, pond water with all the nice algae and fish poo in it that all leads to the flavor of the meat. Interesting about Lenovo. My new computer is a Lenovo. It's an all in one. So far the second new one is doing fine. Had to take the first one back after a week. Yesterday the old monitor on the old computer completely gave up the ghost. So I finally moved the new one to my desk, which is about 4 inches taller than the table I had it on. When I first sat down in front of it, it reminded me a of a drive in movie, the screen was so big! I sure do like this big screen.

Yes, tracks wear out too, and probably faster than tires, since a tire is basically a solid one piece item. Tracks have multiple pieces that work together, and have a lot of movement to them. Hence they wear out quickly. Equipment that use tracks were never built to cover long distances. Earthmovers are used on a site and then loaded up on a trailer and hauled to the next site. The real benefit of tracks is that they go anywhere, threw any thing, or over it if it can't go threw. Mud, jungle growth or forest timber are not a problem with tracks.