"Post No. 673"

Well, I got my printer back to working, but not before having to go to the Lexmark home page site and downloading it from there. I've yet to find a small 4"x4" plastic case with the driver discs to my printer, camera and scanner. I've tried to download the scanner and camera drivers from their company sites, but Umax doesn't support my particular scanner any more, and I can't seem to find one for the Sanyo.

Been rearranging my pc/collection room as it was getting just a bit too cluttered with various collectibles: action figures, toys, etc., etc. Packing up several large boxes to put away in storage and just changing it around a bit as every blue moon I get tired of seeing it looking the same way. Getting all of my "Beatles stuff" in one specific area of the room. It'll probably take me a good week just to do this, a little at a time, every night after work. Along the way I've found several items I've decided to stick in my next yard sale. Not sure what to do with all of the extra books I have in the room as they're getting stacked now on top of one another instead of neatly in cases, so I may be forced to store some of that as well.

My mom turned 85 years young this past Monday (the 9th.) and remains in reasonably good health. I'm amazed, quite frankly, at how well she is doing and am very thankful for that. I try to keep a pretty close eye on her and visit, at least for a few minutes, every day and call to check up on her daily. She had a very nice birthday receiving many cards and some gifts. My wife and I try to get her out of the house as often as we can as she gets bored with nothing to do besides reading and watching television (and puttering around her place).

On another note...for those who wonder why health insurance is so high? We got a bill for the ambulance ride my wife took about two weeks ago (which was basically not even needed). 2 miles to the hospital = $514.00. We don't need a government run health plan; we need health insurance that we can afford. (No one can tell me it cost on the average of $257.00 to drive any ambulance per mile.)

As this year starts coming to a close, I think back about how bad finacially we've been hit by it. It began with the television going out ($200.), then the microwave (another $100.), the riding lawn mower getting fixed ($75.), buying a used push mower ($60.), replacing gas lines ($300., and it would have been probably 3 times that much had I not done all of the manual labor laying the lines, digging the ditches, etc., plus the line was given to me free), trimming the trees ($300.), Debbie losing her job, then having to repay all of the unemployment money ($1,256.00), ambulance bill ($500.), starter for my car ($170.), cleaning out the fence row in the back yard ($75.), and we still have yet to get the ER bill (at least $500.). Along with many other misc. expensives it puts the figure at around 5 Grand, which we certainly didn't have extra, nor could afford to pay. I'm just thankful that Debbie still has at least a parttime job, and I'm still working fulltime. Otherwise, it'd been bankruptcy a long time ago.

Off this weekend. I'm sure I'll spend at least half of Saturday on the leaves and gutters.