Taking A Fall & Being Good At Noon In Hot Texas

I had my bad brain freeze up this morning. That has not happened in a while. With a bad brain freeze I'm unable use my imagination. It just goes blank.

To thaw the brain freeze I decided to go unusually early to the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Sauna Area. Even though it was early, it was HOT.

As I was walking along, on a downhill, rocky path, my phone went off with a text message noise. I reached for the phone, flipped it open and slipped on the loose rock, totally falling down, hitting hard on my right hip, wrenching my back real bad.

When I got back vertical my back was in full backache pain mode. I thought, first total brain freeze, and now my back is out. Yet more misery in this hell I am living. My back has not gone out in a long long time. I was telling someone, just a couple days ago that I never get backaches anymore, due to, I thought, yoga, stretch and exercise ball routines I do religiously. I thought when I said that that I was possibly jinxing myself.

When got stable enough to walk, it was very hard to get to the top of the hill. Each step brought a gasp of pain. I got to where the trail is relatively flat and the walking became less painful. I was pretty sure I'd put my back out. That can take a long time to recover from. So, I'm happy, now, a couple hours later, to be able to type that my back is not out. No pain. And the brain freeze has melted.

And what was the text message that caused all this havoc? Well, it was from my mom and dad. It said, "be good at noon." What in the world does that mean? It perplexes me.

A Taste Of Sedro Woolley Post Tandy Hills

Before I forget, Spencer Jack's grandma sent me a link to a video of Spencer Jack driving to Costco while singing the Beach Boy's Barbara Ann. What a cute kid, but he's too young to be driving. And he was not wearing a seatbelt.

I've been up since around 4 this morning. I was in the pool around 5. It was very dark. This made for minimalist swimming attire, which is my preferred mode.

Around noon, after way too many hours spent on the inner workings of the Internet, I took off for the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Sauna Area to get in some HOT HUMID hiking. In the picture we are looking north. The white building is a bit north of Town Talk, which is where I went when done hiking.

As I slowly drove away, with my seatbelt on, one of the Fort Worth Gestapo was driving rapidly south on dead end Ben Street, barely stopping at the intersection with View Street, where I was stopped.

I found some odd stuff at Town Talk today. Jars of soy butter. For 50 cents. I got some more Cascadian Farm Organic Spinach. It seems an odd thing to find in a Fort Worth surplus store.

On the spinach package I read, "Back in 1972, we started growing fine organic fruits and vegetables on a small farm in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State."

The box also invites the spinach eater to stop by Cascadian Farm in Rockport, WA. Or visit their website, www.cascadianfarm.com. I have driven by there many a time. But I've never stopped. Also on the spinach box it says "distributed by Small Planet Food, Inc., Sedro Woolley, WA."

It is a Small Planet. I lived in Sedro Woolley for a short time. It's about 5 miles east of where I grew up, in Burlington, and about 5 miles northeast of Mount Vernon, where I lived before moving to Texas. Yes, I lived in a Metroplex in Washington, cluster of towns on a much, much smaller scale than the D/FW Metroplex. But with a lot more fruits and vegetables, so much so that spinach gets sent to Fort Worth all the way from Sedro Woolley.

I just remembered, I heard from someone in Sedro Woolley this very morning. And the morning before that, now that I'm thinking about it.

Spencer Jack Invited Me To Read His Blog, While Blue & Max Look After Evie & Marley

Yesterday I think I mentioned that my favorite great nephew, Spencer Jack, was not letting me look at his blog. It was by invitation only.

Well, today Spencer invited me to his blog. Spencer has grown a bit since I last saw him. That is Evie, with whom Spencer is enjoying a Popsicle.

From what I saw on Spencer Jack's blog it appeared he was at my sister Nancy's, in Kent. I saw my mom and dad, brother, his latest wife, my ex-wife and nephew Joey. I don't think I saw Spencer's mom. She must have been taking the pictures.

Evie and Blue and Max take care of my little sister, Michele, and Kristin and Marley. Marley is a new addition. My little sister does not have enough going on so she has foster kids. I can't even take care of myself, properly, and my little sister takes care of 2 little kids and, currently, 2 extremely ailing poodles, while during the day she goes to Olympia and does legal things.

That is Max playing with Marley. Currently both Max and his brother Blue are recovering from being operated on. Blue had bladder stones that could have ruined his kidneys.

Max tore his ACL. I have no idea what that means. But I think, maybe, it has something to do with a leg joint. Whatever it is, Max is currently wearing one of those plastic guards around his head.

Blue and Max are supposed to do no jumping or running for 2 weeks. I have no idea how this is accomplished. I need to ask my sister if she realizes what happens with those poodles when the mail arrives. Utter chaos.

Ukrainians Save Me From Brute Force Hack

That is a pair of Ukrainian soldiers you're looking at it in picture. I think I've mentioned the Ukrainians before. My webhost, which is based in the United States, has Americans handling customer support if you call. But if you submit a support ticket, it goes to the Ukrainian support center in the Ukraine. The Ukraine is now a country. It used to be part of the Soviet Union.

The reason I submit a support ticket rather than call is because it takes less time and usually eventually the Ukrainians solve the problem. A lot of seriously fractured English is usually involved.

I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but recently one of my websites developed a problem so serious that Google pretty much banned it from the Internet.

So, I contacted the Ukrainians, who I'm sure work in a very secure bunker likely guarded by soldiers like you saw above. Saturday they went right to work on the problem. This morning I got a message from Dmitriy Pavlov. It is not as fractured as they often are. However, following Dimitriy's instructions did not work, because his instructions did not match with the reality on my webhost control panel.

Below for your confusion is Dimitriy's message in which I learn I was hacked by brute force....

Thank you for waiting. Our administrators have completely cleaned your account from all malware. During investigation we have found that your account was hacked due to bruteforce attack on FTP. Due to not very strong FTP password hacker was able to get it and used FTP access for adding harmful code inside your files. To get more information you can check FTP logs in files ftp.logs and wrap.log, which located inside your FTP root directory. You will see that a lot of different IP address were tried to access your account. To protect your account we have already changed FTP passwords for all accounts. To get FTP access back you need to change passwords back. For creating FTP password we suggest to use some password generator like at "goodpassword.com". To change FTP password you should login at manage.9webhosting.com, then click manage button for your hosting plan. After this please click on FTP Manager icon and then click on little notepad icon nearly with caption "password".

Also we have found a lot of files and folders with unsecured permissions. Full list of them you can find in file permissions.list, which located inside FTP root directory. We are suggesting to use 755 permission mask for folders and 644 mask for files in your account. For checking/changing permissions please use following steps:

1 Go to webshell in your control panel
2 Find certain folder
3 Click on little folder icon left from folder name (or simple on file name)
4 At right side you will see permissions table
5 Choose needful permission mask
6 Click change

Kind regards,
Dmitriy Pavlov
Technical Support

I Have Been Rejected By My Great Nephew Spencer Jack

I have 4 nephews. Of those 4, one has reproduced. The reproduction is the cutest little kid I've ever seen, named Spencer Jack. Spencer Jack has a blog. Since I live in Texas and Spencer Jack lives in La Conner, that being a very cool tourist town in Washington, the only way I have to check in and see how Spencer Jack is doing is to check in on his blog.

But I can no longer do that. This afternoon I went to check on Spencer Jack and was told, "This blog is open to invited readers only."

Yet one more party I've not received an invite to.

The rude message goes on to say, "It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation."

I don't know Spencer Jack's email address or phone number. By what means can I request an invitation? This could just maybe be the straw that breaks this camel's back in this hell I am living.

In the picture, that is Spencer Jack being held by his mom, Jenny, and my mom and dad, at Bay View State Park, in Washington, last summer.

In case you were wondering, and I'm almost 100% certain you weren't, Spencer Jack is so named because someone told my nephew you can't go wrong naming your kid after your richest relative. Spencer is the maiden name of my ex-wife, Loretta. She is Spencer's richest relative. Jack is my dad's name. I assume Jack was chosen for the middle name because it just sounds good.

And now, Spencer Jack's favorite Great Uncle, Durango Jones, can't check in on him. This saddens his Great Uncle. But somehow I think this sad situation will get rectified, just like my Google Nightmare did. I hope.

Spencer Jack had his first hot dog on the day I met him last summer. His dad owns a burger type restaurant in Anacortes. With, I guess, no hot dogs.

Do The Hustle In A Mao Jacket

I don't often listen to one of the Golden Oldies radio stations while driving. When the Beatles became Golden Oldies I realized I was one too. Some things are best not realized.

Today I had a strong need for contemplative solitude. I know of one good location for that, it being the best place to stand in Forth Worth, yes the same place I stood yesterday, the Tandy Hills Natural Solitude Sanatorium Area.

The temperature was only in the low 90s and there was a breeze blowing, but I was getting no wind chill factor. Very humid. Steambath humid. Ten minutes in I was a HOT, sweaty, wet mess.

After getting all wet I went to my Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. For you who don't live in urban zones with 100s of Wal-Marts, the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market is different from the Wal-Mart Supercenter, that being the place where a guy rammed through the doors last week, in a hurry to get to McDonalds. I've not been back to see if that entry is still barricaded by upside down grocery carts.

Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market keeps its air-conditioning way too cold. Particularly for someone who is coming in from some ultra-HOT hiking. I was shivering in there.

As I left the Wal-Mart parking lot I turned the radio on. I hit a button and it went to a Golden Oldies station. The disc jockey, or whatever you call them now, it must be something different because they no longer spin disks. Anyway, the guy who tells you what song he is about to play said he was about to play Van McCoy's The Hustle.

I felt vaguely embarrassed as I thought back to The Hustle. I'd been in San Francisco on a roadtrip in a VW van. Post hippie era, but that sounds like a real hippie thing to be doing. The first destination of that roadtrip had been Reno, then, if I remember right, we headed to San Francisco, then up through wine country.

In San Francisco's Chinatown we all bought blue Mao jackets and hats. Home from that trip, back in Mount Vernon, one of my friends knew a Navy guy, fresh in from the Phillipines. In exchange for getting home cooked turkey dinner he would teach us how to do The Hustle. Back then there was this thing called Disco, with all these Disco Dances that you danced to Disco Tunes. It was a very tacky period in our nation's history.

It did not take us long to learn The Hustle. Easier for some than others. Not easy for me. We decided to make our Disco Debut the following Friday night. The four of us who had been in San Francisco decided we'd be real revolutionary and wear our Mao jackets and hat.

We all met up to wait in the line to get into Duffy's, it being Mount Vernon's only Disco. It was a fun place, very popular for a few years. At an appointed hour, I think maybe 8, the disco ball starts spinning and the music starts up. I don't remember how long we waited for The Hustle. Maybe we asked the Disco music guy to play The Hustle, I don't remember.

I do remember the song starting up and about 8 of us hustling out on the dance floor where we did The Hustle. We were quite a coordinated dance team. When the song was finally over there was applause for our stunning performance. At least that is how I'm choosing to remember it. I certainly do not remember how to do The Hustle. Nor would I want to.

A Sunday Morning Glass Cactus Texas Headache

I am not a night owl. Night owling is so rare for me I can remember the precise date of the previous instance, that being December 5, 2008, when I did not get home til past 2 in the morning.

Last night I got home this morning, at around 1.

I had a sleep walking incident around 4. Apparently I wanted to go swimming. I made it partway to the pool when I became aware I was walking around wearing nothing but a stocking cap. I made it safely back to bed.

So, I had myself a wild night at the Glass Cactus at Gaylord Texan with Gar the Texan and the Queen of Wink and others. The Queen was more regal than I thought she'd be. Gar the Texan did not have any case of the vapors attacks. I'd not seen Gar the Texan in awhile. He's put on a few pounds, which has him looking healthier than when last I saw him. The Queen is quite the conversationalist and is a bit too quick with the wit for me to keep up with.

Summed up. I don't like waking up with a headache. No matter what the cause.

My Google Nightmare Is Over, Let's Go To The Glass Cactus At Gaylord Texan Tonight

It has stressed me out all day, this Saturday, having my main website suddenly a rogue menace, flagged by Google as a danger to the world.

I have fussed with this all day. Why I get so overwrought over such things perplexes me. But it's the way I am. Maybe it is because it feels so good when it all gets fixed.

Which it now is. Google is no longer warning people that I am a dangerous terrorist about to explode their entire world.

I am grateful that I am now back in the good graces of humanity.

In the midst of my stress I got an email from Gar the Texan, wanting my help with entertaining the Queen of Wink, in town to see her first waterfall and gawk at ancient hair bands. I'd not looked at my phone in awhile. I see that Gar the Texan also called me. He did not leave a message. Had he left a message I likely would have returned the call.

Gar the Texan's dilemma was trying to figure out how to properly entertain a Wink Queen. I know this would daunt me. What a challenge. It seemed Gar's two options were the Dallas West End entertainment district or Fort Worth's downtown. Neither all that entertaining to me.

So. I suggested that Gar take the Queen up to Grapevine, to Gaylord Texan and the Glass Cactus. Trust me, this is a suitable venue for the Queen of Wink. The photo at the top should ice the deal.

Hiking Tandy With Google Gunk On My Brain

Are there few things sadder than an empty swing? Right now I can think of dozens and they all involve me and this hell I'm living.

The empty swings are located at the civilized part of the Tandy Hills Natural Area, well, I guess it'd be more accurate to say the empty swings sit outside the Natural Area.

Google continues to have my Eyes on Texas website generating malware warning messages. On all of the hundreds of pages. Go here and you'll see what Google is doing to me. This morning Google told me they'd determined my website was clean of danger and the warnings were being taken off. But that it could take awhile.

Meanwhile, I learned from Twister that he'd gone to my website at some point recently and it set off his anti-virus program. My therapist, Dr. L.C. told me about the Google warning, but I made no note of it, just figured it was some random thing. I just learned from my therapist that this could have been up to 2 weeks ago that she warned me.

I'm assuming this will all sort itself out. But I did not need this aggravation.

Hiking the humid Tandy Hills helped a bit. My early morning swim came before I'd learned what Google had done to me. The Tandy Hills were pretty much dried out from yesterday morning's deluge, except for that humidity residue.

I called my sister in Phoenix while sitting in the shade of a tree, by that swing with no one swinging. She was my first live opportunity to vent regarding my Google trauma. I called Tootsie Tonasket first, but she wasn't answering. It is monsoon season in Phoenix. They got hit with one yesterday, just like we did here, only in Texas we don't call it a monsoon. So the Phoenix temps were 20 degrees lower than pre-monsoon, but now with extreme humidity. And a lot of mud.

I continued talking to my sister while I drove to Town Talk. I don't think I remembered to put on my seatbelt. At Town Talk I got some cheese, peanut butter, cinnamon, spinach and raspberries. The raspberries were in a semi-large plastic carton, 12 ounces for $1.59.

A little over a year ago at the Fremont Sunday Market, in Seattle, I got 3 large flats of organic raspberries. For free. 2 of the flats made it to my mom and dad's raspberry canning operation. The third flat went to waste in a fat pig's refrigerator. Despite not wanting to, I had to let that third flat go. I don't like getting into a fight with a demanding fat pig. One could get squished.

Google Is Harming My Computer

I've had a bad bad thing happen. This morning I checked on my Google Webmaster Tools to see a big warning in red, "This site may be distributing malware."

I then Googled a search string that brings up the affected website to see that searchers were being warned that, "This site may harm your computer."

Clicking on the link brought up another warning that sounded dire.

In the Webmaster Tools, under the warning in red it said, "Status of the latest badware review for this site: A review for this site has finished. The site was found clean. The badware warnings from web search are being removed. Please note that it can take some time for this change to propagate."

So far the "badware" warnings are still there. I have been wondering why I've had a big drop in website visitors of late. Usually about 80% of searchers come to the website via Google, followed by Yahoo and Bing. Currently most are coming from Yahoo, then Bing, with Google trailing.

I don't know how long this warning has been scaring people off my harmless website. It seems like recently someone said something about seeing a warning. And someone on Facebook said clicking on a link to a photo brought up a "pollutant" warning.

I looked at the source code for 6 webpages the Webmaster Tools pointed me to. Each had a line of code that I had not inserted. The code is:

Now this is interesting, earlier I'd copied and pasted the troubling code in this spot. Hours later I look at the blog and see white space where that code had been. This must seem some dire, evil code to be removed mysteriously.

I have no idea what megastatistic is, but Googling it I found that Google does not like it. I have now removed that code. I hope I found all the instances of it.

During the course of trying to figure out what has gone wrong and fix it, I learned that on January 31, of this year, Google had a malfunction that put the "This site may be distributing malware" warning on every link on their search engine, world-wide, including Google's own webpages. This was quickly fixed.

I have no idea how much AdSense revenue I've lost due to this. For the past several days I have noticed a decline.

Anyway, very frustrating day. I hate stuff like this.