My Take

I have began to realize lately what it meant to say "in sickness and in health" when my wife and I took our wedding vows. She has been sick, off and on, for several years. We had thought it was some sort of allergic reaction, but nothing we changed or tried helped at all. In the last month, she has started seeing a different doctor and we have been told she has some sort of autoimmune disease, possible Lupus. All of her symptoms seem to point to Lupus, according to what I have been able to find online. The doctor says she may be able to give her small dosages of steroids and trick her immune system into calming down, but it would not cure it and would probably come back. That has been what we have seen in the past. Her symptoms would go away for a while, but when they came back, they were worse than ever. Our only hope now is a miracle from God. I know he can do it because I have seen Him work before. My only problem right now is trying to believe He would actually do it for us. It is very hard to see my wife suffer and not be able to do the things she loves to do. She can't work in the yard or be out in the sunshine for very long at all. If you read this and you believe in God and in prayer, please say a prayer for her. Her name is Tammy and like my forum signature says, she is my best friend.

I have discovered something else about using templates in Opera. This is something I think is pretty neat. In my earlier post about templates, I said to create a new message and save it as a draft. I have discovered that I can actually choose a message that I have already sent to someone, one that I may be using as the same basic format over and over. The message I mentioned in my earlier post is a good example because it always goes to the same two people. All I have to do is right click on one of the messages and tell it to show in the "Templates" filter, without adding a rule. I then only have to double click on the message, it opens in a compose window, change only what is necessary and send it on it's way. Very quick and actually, it is just as easy to use and navigate as Thunderbird's templates. No problems at all, so far.

That's my take!

Earlier this year, I began to get interested in homing pigeons and through the encouragement and help of my wife, Tammy, and her father, I decided to try keeping a few, just to see if I could do it. I have discovered one thing for sure. These birds are amazing creatures, especially in the way God has created them and put in them the instinct and ability to find their way back to their home loft. It is very interesting, that ability, because try as they may, no one has been able to really determine how they navigate back to their home loft. A lot of theories are out there, but no one knows for sure. They are also individual creatures, alike in their ability to fly and find their way home, but individual in their habits and personalities.

I started with Big Red (BR) and Little Red, two red check birds that were already grown. The breeder I bought them from told me to never fly them because they would not come back to my loft. They were unable to fly when young because of a hawk problem and he said they would not learn to find their way back to another loft. Well, I kept them up in a small loft before I was able to get a bigger one and one day, Little Red escaped because I didn't shut the door properly. My fault entirely. I reasoned that I would not see her again, but the next morning, my wife found her in the yard, wanting to be let back in the loft. Needless to say, both of them did learn to home back to my loft and they have raised several birds that are as smart as they are.

Now, let's take Scooby. My father-in-law gave him to me and he is the bird pictured in my profile. That picture doesn't really do him justice because it was taken when he was a young bird. He is really a pretty bird, what is called a Blue Bar Piebald. He can really fly well and he is one smart cookie. He is usually the first one out of the loft when I open the door and when I hit the whistle to call them in to eat, he is usually the first one through the trap door. When I open the loft door to pour out the feed, he is standing there looking at me and cooing at me. I think he is wondering what is taking me so long to get his food to him.

I also have Jessie, Squeaky, Checkers, Boss, and Rosco and they all have their own personalities. Boss, for example, is one of the youngest of the entire crew, but he has no fear of the other birds. They have their own little pecking order, but when Boss was introduced to the loft, it didn't take long for him to make his mark. He even chases Big Red away from the feeder. That's why I call him Boss, after Boss Hog, from The Dukes of Hazard.

Well, I suppose that is enough for now. It may not be real interesting, but it is what I was thinking about.

That's my take!

Last night, my wife and I went visiting some of our friends from church. While there, the subject of email came up and one of them mentioned they had tried to use Yahoo mail with Outlook Express and they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work. Silly me, I had to mention the fact that I knew of a way to make it work with Ypops, a free download. Since I had mentioned it, I felt obligated to download, install, and configure the program for them. I don't know how many times I tried to use the mouse to go back through the history of Internet Explorer. The guy I was visiting probably wondered if I really knew what I was doing, but I was almost lost, trying to navigate without Opera and mouse gestures. It easily took me twice as long to do what I had to do because of that reason. Next time, I think I need to load Opera on a disk and take it with me, in case I need to use it.


That's my take!