Speed up Your Computer for Free

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You bought a computer a few years back, and now it's blazingly slow. It takes forever to get it turned on, and it's getting so bad you can't hardly even load this website without wondering if it's locked up. It's so bad, you're considering throwing it away and buying another one.

FEAR NOT! Help is on the way!

In my nearly 30 years of using computers, I've picked up a few tricks which will help you restore some of your computer's lost horsepower so you can get back to staying up to date on my goings on, which is something all red-blooded Humans should be doing. So prepare yourself to be amazed and eternally indebted to me.

Step 1:

Get a stop watch. Start the stopwatch at the same time as you turn your computer on and boot up all the way to the main Windows screen. If this requires logging in, do so. You should be at the point where you see your pretty wallpaper and the START button. Click on the START button. When the menu appears, choose the CONTROL PANEL. When the CONTROL PANEL and its contents have appeared, STOP the stopwatch and write down your time.

If it takes more than 15 minutes to get to this point, your best bet is to have your computer's operating system (OS) reinstalled using the recovery disks it came with. Hopefully you've got copies of all your important files backed up to a CD or an external hard drive. Stuff like vacation pictures, tax documents, music, movies, programs you've downloaded (as opposed to having installed them from a disk), passwords, email, and porn should all be backed up someplace besides your C: drive. Don't forget the stuff on your desktop!

Programs which came on a disk can be reinstalled, so you don't have to back them up, just the data they generated. Go find the disks while you're waiting. If you're not sure how to do this, get one of your kids to do it for you. Keep in mind, you WERE planning on throwing it away, so don't worry if disaster strikes.

If it takes less than 15 minutes to boot, or if you've got stuff you simply can't bear to lose, then we'll see about cleaning up the junk files, which should help out tremendously.

Junk Files

What the heck are junk files? These are simply files that Windows SHOULD HAVE DELETED on its own, but for whatever reason it didn't, and now they're rattling around on your hard drive, wasting your space, and slowing down your computer. By getting rid of these junk files, your computer will start working a whole lot faster, though it won't be quite as fast as if you had reinstalled the operating system.

Click to zoom! This is Windows 7.

Step 2:
Now we need to look at your system properties. If you have a MY COMPUTER icon on your desktop, right-click it and select PROPERTIES. If you don't have it, click on START, then you should see a COMPUTER or MY COMPUTER choice in your start menu. Right-click on it and select PROPERTIES.

Everybody should have a system information panel displayed. If your computer is really slow, this might take a amoment to show up.

On this system info panel, you'll see your computer's important statistics. Somewhere on there it will tell you what OS (Operating System) you're using and how much memory you have.

If you are using Windows XP, you need to have at least 1 GB of memory. If you are using Vista or Seven, you need at least 2 GB of memory. If you have less than these amounts, you should seriously consider getting your memory increased to these levels. It's not very expensive and not very hard. Hopefully you've got a computer nerd in the family who can help you out, or you know a guy. You CAN get by on half these amounts (512 MB and 1 GB respectively), but your computer is doomed to be slower than it should be. If you have even less than that, you should probably firebomb the people who sold you the computer. I'm pretty sure a jury of your peers will exhonorate you.

Step 3:
Assuming you have enough memory, or you want to try to speed up your computer anyway, let's move on.

Close the window you were just using, and close the Control Panel too. Now wherever it was you had your MY COMPUTER icon, double-click on that. It should open a window in which all your devices are listed; this is known as Window Explorer, or just Explorer, not to be confused with Internet Explorer. Hard drives, CD/DVD/BD drives, USB drives, network drives, and so forth are listed here. You might not have all of these things, but you WILL have a C: drive as a hard drive and probably a D: drive as a CD/DVD/BD drive.

Click on the TOOLS menu and choose FOLDER OPTIONS. This will open the Folder Options window. If you don't see a TOOLS menu, tap the ALT key and it should show up.

Select the VIEW tab and you will see a long list of check boxes. Different OSes will show slightly different things, so pay attention to what I'm saying here.

Where it asks whether to Show Hidden Files and Folders, make sure you select to display them.

Where it asks to Hide Extensions for Known File Types, make sure you select to unhide them.

And where it asks to Hide Protected Operating System Files, make sure you select to unhide them.

Windows will probably throw up a confirmation for this third one; say YES. Later, when we're done, we're going to restore this last setting to its normal value. But for now, click OK to close the window.

Step 4:
It's possible that all of a sudden, you see a bunch of new files on your desktop. LEAVE THEM ALONE.

On your Explorer window (the one with all the drives listed), double-click on your C: drive. This will open it up and you'll see the contents. Now look for a folder called WINDOWS and double-click on it to go into it.

You probably see a ton of blue folders whose names start with dollar signs ($). Any file or folder which starts with a $ can be deleted. Select the whole mass, being sure you didn't select anything but them. Double-check that you selected only the files you want to get rid of. Now, hold down SHIFT and then press DEL. The computer will ask if you're sure you want to permanently delete them. Say YES! If the computer throws up any kind of prompt before it's done deleting them, choose whatever option continues to delete these useless files and folders.

Step 5:
Now find the TEMP folder within the WINDOWS folder and go into it. Chances are, you'll see a ton of files in there. All of them can go away, but be careful of a couple things.

First, you may have THOUSANDS of files in here, and it can be hard to delete that many files. If you don't already see a thing telling you how many objects are in this folder, click on the VIEW menu and select STATUS BAR. This will tell you how many files and folders are in this folder. Write this number down. If you have more than 1000 files in here, you'll want to delete them about 1000 at a time. The status bar will tell you how many you have selected. Trying to do more than this may take Windows an inordinately long time.

Second, there may be a few files in use, and they can't be deleted. Windows Seven and I think Vista allows you to skip these files when they come up, but XP will stop deleting, at which point you have to deselect the offending file (usually it's now at the top of the list) and continue deleting. This can happen several times and become annoying.

It can also happen that a file within a folder doesn't want to delete, and you will be confused because the OS will tell you it had a problem with a file which doesn't seem to be in the list. Simply deselect the top-most folder and resume deleting, then later go into that folder and delete as much as you can.

And third, sometimes Windows will try to panic you by saying that you're deleting important files, or otherwise ask for multiple confirmations. Ignore these deceptions and continue deleting. Nothing in this folder is worth keeping, though there may be a few files which won't delete.

Remember that when you're deleting these files and folders to hold down the SHIFT key as you press the DEL key. And keep in mind that folders likely contain lots of files; if Vista or Seven is taking forever just to count up the job, stop it and select fewer folders. Don't select more than 1000 items at a time for deletion or the task may take a lot longer. If you have a LOT of things to delete, you're just going to have to have some patience; several hours may be required to get rid of it all.

Step 6:
This next step is a little more complicated because the different versions of Windows have moved things around.

First, come back up to the C: drive. What you do next depends on your OS; read this carefully.

You're looking for a folder, which is named either DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS or USERS. Double-click on that folder to go into it.

Inside this folder are the user accounts. Most computers will show folders for ALL USERS, DEFAULT USER, and ADMINISTRATOR. There should be other folders here which are named after your log-in name. Frex, I log in as JIM, and so there is a folder named JIM. If you log in as Jaycee Adams, you should see a folder named JAYCEE ADAMS. Double-click on that folder. If there isn't any such folder, then you're probably logging in under a renamed account. When you create an account, it makes a folder with that name. If you later change the name, that folder's name does NOT change. Most often it happens that your account is a renamed ADMINISTRATOR or OWNER or something like that. If you see OWNER, try that one, or if you see nothing else, use ADMINISTRATOR.

Hopefully that didn't confuse you, but if it did, send your hate-mail to Bill Gates.

Now it's going to get a little confusing again, depending on which OS you're using. You should see a folder named either LOCAL or LOCAL SETTINGS. Double-click on that. Within it will be another TEMP folder; double-click on it to go in.

Now, once again, all these files are garbage which can be deleted. Just as was done in Step 5, there may be a LOT of files in here, and Windows will try to confuse and scare you when you try to delete them. Just use the same techniques already outlined above and get rid of these files.

Step 7:
Feeling breathless yet? We're almost done.

Whip out your handy dandy stopwatch and get it ready.

Shutdown your computer, then when you turn it on, follow the procedure in Step 1 to time how long it takes to get your computer to a usable state. Write down how long it takes next to where you wrote it last time and compare the two. You should have been able to cut your booting time in half or less!

Congratulations!!

You're now a computer tech! You've just done something that many ACTUAL computer techs don't know to do, so pat yourself on the back.

Don't forget to go back and re-hide the hidden operating system files, as we discussed in Step 3, and flush your Internet Explorer cache and that should be it.

If this doesn't do it for you:
Try reloading your operating system. This should restore it to the condition it was in when you first got it. I recommend having someone who knows what they're doing perform this for you if you're unsure how to do it, or if you don't know how to back up your data.

What if your computer is old?
If your computer was built within the last 10 years, it should be powerful enough to handle most tasks short of big games and video manipulation. Computers older than about five years will be hard to find parts for if you need more memory or hard drive space, but those made more recently won't have problems.

Final notes:
When your computer gets unbearably slow, you have four choices: buy a new one, upgrade the old one, reload the OS, or clean the junk out of it.

• Buying a new one takes the least amount of effort on your part and gets you the latest and greatest, but requires the most money, and you still have to get your important data transferred to the new one. The latest and greatest isn't much better than it was 5 years ago, either.


• An upgrade is cheaper and won't require any messing with your files, but depending on the real problem, doesn't always work.


• Reloading the OS almost always restores your computer to its new condition... including not having all your important software and data on it. However, reinstalling all your software is going to take at least as much time as it would take to install it on a new computer.


• Cleaning the junk is by far the cheapest and probably fastest, but depending on the actual problem, might not fix anything, and often still requires a considerable amount of time.

There is no perfect solution. You CAN pre-emptively delete the junk files about once a year so at least that cause of slowdowns won't get in your way. Mark it on your calendar and do it.

That's all I've got for you today. See ya around, and don't forget to pledge your firstborn!

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More stuff you really wanna know:
Allah be Praised
Writing is Easy
Good Thing these People aren't in Charge of our Economy

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Getting Branded

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No, I'm not talking about getting the ol' Circle-J red hot and burning it into your hide so everyone knows you're my property, I'm talking about what you want people to think of when your name is mentioned.

When you hear the name Oprah Winfrey, certain things pop into your head. Same for Michael Jackson. Same for Xerox and KFC and Honda and Coca Cola. That's the power of a brand. What pops into people's heads when YOUR name is mentioned? What do people remember about you? What do you WANT them to remember about you? That's your brand. You can also think of it as your reputation. It's better to pick your reputation than to have it pick you. Here are some of the things people think of when my name is mentioned. (Depends on who it is and how they know me, too.)

"Jaycee is 'Bad'." There are a number of women I treat like girlfriends, in that I act like myself, tease them, make funny, sarcastic jokes around them, and occasionally give hugs to if I think they've earned it. These women all tell me I'm 'bad,' meant in an affectionate way. I get swats and gasps and even declarations that "you're so bad," all said with big, dopey grins on their faces and lilting laughs in their voices.

"Jaycee is Emotive and Descriptive." Anyone who has heard me read, or who has read one of my stories, can see that I'm very good at provoking emotions with my descriptions and with the way I read. My characters are alive in my head, and I give them voice. Primarily women think this because they're more in touch with their emotions, but I've had a few men say it too.

"Jaycee is Smart." Almost everyone who knows me tells me this. A few occasionally think I take it a little too far, and I occasionally DO take it too far. I don't mind; I've spent so long telling myself I'm an idiot, but now that I take more pride in my brain, I do get a little prideful. We all should once in a while, right?


"Jaycee takes Charge and is Reliable." I've always tried to be reliable. If I say I'm going to do something, chances are good it'll get done on time. Lately, I've also been taking charge more often, making decisions when others seem paralyzed by doubt. Better a wrong decision fast than a right decision never. Most people are seeing this, now that I'm doing it more.

"Jaycee is Generous." I give of myself. I do it now even more than I used to. It's fun! The women whom I've "known" will readily tell you this. It makes it a little easier to "know" more of them when word spreads. People who hang out with me are finding out my generosity extends to giving them useful ideas with which to build their businesses too.

"Jaycee knows Computers." I've even had the guts to make money at it. Now that I take myself more seriously, I'll do a lot better at it. I'm not a super-hacker, but I "get" the internet and computers in general, and I have no difficulty teaching it to others, even to complete beginners. Most of my friends and family come to me with computer problems because they know I'm generous, and they know I'll answer their questions in a way they'll understand.

"Jaycee is Healthy and Energetic." I can run a mile or walk five without difficulty. I'm rarely sick. I'm only about 20 pounds overweight. I drink lots of water and usually avoid sweets. I'm usually full of energy when everyone else is run down.

"Jaycee is good at Critiquing and Editing." Many of the writers I know want me to be a critiquer of their work, and my biggest fan loves to tell people I'm her personal editor. People respect my opinion quite a lot more than I'm used to, and I'm learning how to handle that responsibility. I take it seriously; people rest their writing reputations on me.

These are nice reputations, but they're not really brands, except possibly the second one, which will tell you what you'll get if you pick up one of my stories. What you need is something that's uniquely you, that identifies you. If you could choose what people are saying about you, what would it be?

"Jaycee wrote an 800 page novel." I used to use this as a brand - as a way for new people in the writers group to remember me - but I've decided to stop using it. Nothing wrong with being prolific, it just wasn't the image I wanted to project.

Let's go back to that other one I mentioned. "Jaycee is Emotive and Descriptive." If I were a writer of women's fiction or romance, that would be a treasured reputation! Because women are more sensative to and expressive of their emotions and their surroundings, they eat up anything they perceive to be emotive and descriptive. "Jaycee Adams" would evoke images of the fantastic voyages I've taken millions of readers on, and they would crave the next novel, perhaps pound on my door and demand I write the next one RIGHT NOW!!! I could likewise turn such a power to writing mysteries. Or I could channel it into a TV show or movie. (My biggest fan insists my book is actually a movie because she loves my characterizations.)

If all I wanted to be was a writer of romance novels and the like, that would be a good brand to promote and a good reputation to live up to, but I want something more than that. More than anything else, I want to be known for changing lives. The name Tony Robbins evokes that kind of imagery, and I want to do much the same thing he does. The name Tim Ferriss evokes other imagery which I'd like to emulate. Will I be the next one of those?

But what about you? What do you want to evoke? Start doing it, make it your reputation, and you will make it your brand.

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False Advertising

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Bacon Bits. We've all heard of them. However, there's not a bit of bacon in them. False advertising. Another example I recall from an episode of the Simpsons. Bart and his friends were on a wild summer vacation and one of the things they did was go to the theater to see the movie, Naked Lunch. They come out and Nelson says, "I can think of two things wrong with that title."

What false advertising have you encountered?

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Give Peace a Chance

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“It is no longer good enough to CRY peace, we must ACT peace, LIVE peace and LIVE IN peace.” - Unk, probably Dalai Lama

All throughout the Cold War, there were people saying things like, "Give peace a chance" and "make love, not war". These sayings continued and mutated until it became popular for people in movies making a wish to "wish for world peace".

Oddly enough, many of the people who say they want world peace make very little effort to attain it. Maybe they go to a demonstration or something, but often peace demonstrations turn violent. People protesting abortions have been known to threaten and kill those who perform them. Is this really living up to the ideal?

I'm not talking about complete and utter pacifism here. Even the Dalai Lama has no compunction about defending himself from harm if some beligerent fool should make it necessary, I'm talking about living up to the ideals you espouse.


I've watched a couple episodes of the new show, Alphas, and one of the characters is a psychologist. Often, he is put in a position where most of us would feel boxed in and forced to fight. In such situations, it seems perfectly natural to sling insults back, or to see that a fight is going to happen and you may as well get in the first shot, but this psychologist doesn't do that.

In a demonstration of non-judgmentalism FAR BEYOND any I've seen from even the most adept at the skill, he defuses the situation by first, not taking personally anything, and second, asking neutral questions which get at the heart of the matter.

He's not one of the super-powered "Alphas", and to look at his normal body language and listen to the meekness in his voice, you'd think he lived his life in fear of everything, but when the chips are down and you listen to what he says and how he says it, and the way people around him react to him, you see he's really sort of alpha himself. This being the "normal" type of alpha, as in the guy who's in charge and has our backs. Not many of those around.

It makes me wonder if the Dalai Lama isn't a lot like this. Someone who is SO AT PEACE within himself that we regular folk simply can't comprehend it. We're so wrapped up in what our co-workers are saying about us behind our backs and whether someone on the street thinks we're too fat or bald, or whether our friends are going to think we're asking too much of them, and so on that we take EVERYTHING personally.

99% of the anger that gets directed at you isn't about you at all, it's about something else in that angry person's life. If you stop taking it personally (even on the rare occasion it was meant to be taken personally) and let it slide, or better yet, take it as a compliment that that person felt the need to point out the one little thing keeping you from perfection in his/her eyes, you'd have a lot less stress. You'd make the world a better place. You'd actually be giving peace a chance.

Try it some time, and see what it feels like to LIVE a catch-phrase.

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Sugar Rush

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Some friends of mine are discussing Skittles-filled doughnuts and I cringed at the thought. "Too much sugar," I'm tempted to scream as I run away. "I'd get one heckuva sugar rush. I prefer my sugar to be a little more subtle, like half a pound of chocolate, or candied peanut butter, or soft chocolate chip cookies. Skittles are pure sugar."

It then occurred to me that a good chocolate bar probably has as much sugar as a bag of Skittles, so what was the difference?
Well taste, obviously. I won't get a sour-cringe from chocolate. But I realized there are other sweet foods I prefer which give me less of a sugar rush.

For instance, I've always prefered clear soft drinks like Sprite and Slice over the darker ones, like Pepsi and Coke. Even root beer, my favorite, isn't as sweet as a cola. I've also never much cared for fruit-flavored drinks. On the Bataan, when I wasn't drinking water or paying for an overpriced can of pop, I'd drink Red from the galley. Not sure what flavor it was supposed to be, but it wasn't as tart as Orange, and much more appealing to look at than Yellow or Green. We sometimes used it for cleaning brass.

I've also never enjoyed death-by-chocolate desserts. You know, those things made with three or four (or more) types of chocolate treat (chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate shavings, chocolate ice cream, and topped with chocolate syrup being the most common I've seen, but strangely can't find a picture of). Nope, I'll go for a scoop of vanilla on a warm chocolate chip cookie and some caramel on top. (Lines of chocolate syrup will do in a pinch - Red Lobster and Taste of Portugal have a dessert to die for!)

Over-sugaring gives me a headache, and has been known to make me sick. (Fitting, since caffeine is slightly poisonous and sugar is very acidic.) Even the Cadbury Creme Eggs are getting to be too much sugar. That said, I can eat a half-pound milk-chocolate bar or bunny with ease.

For the most part, I've given that stuff up. I've been restricting my junkfood intake to Saturdays only, and lost about 15 more pounds without too much trouble. I ate less junk last Saturday and this week lost three more pounds because of it. I don't normally brag about three little pounds. After all, two Saturdays ago I put on eight pounds in a single day. Most of that was water - I drank about a gallon over the day - but I also ate a lot. I've also had days where I've LOST five pounds in the space of 5 minutes. No, really. Guess how I did it.

I will continue to eat less junk, though I'm not going to cut it out completely because I still feel like I need an outlet for my chocolate and pizza cravings and there's no sense setting myself up to feel like a cheater. Having an anything goes day once per week is genius! I need a good calorie spike on Saturdays, but that doesn't mean I have to eat a week's worth of calories on Saturdays.

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Turtles with Warm Butts

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Similar style to the truck I drove, you can
see the space between mirror and cab.
This one's decked out like Optimus Prime!

I was watching an episode of American Dad a little while ago in which a rabbit and a tortise are having a race, and it reminded me of once when I was driving my semi-truck and, in the middle of the highway, there was a turtle trying to cross. He was just moving into my lane and I saw him just in time to dodge a little to the right. I wasn't sure if I'd miss him or not, but I looked in my rearview mirror at my trailer tires and saw them fly past the turtle closely enough to warm his butt without hitting him.

I was elated to see I'd managed to miss him when I didn't think I would. The feeling lasted about two seconds, until the car behind me ran him over.

And this reminds me of seeing birds performing death-defying dives at vehicles and flying out in front of them. One event in particular happened while I was driving a Peterbilt 379P, which has a boxy frame, narrow cabin, and prominent exhaust pipes on the sides. This bird flew right in front of my cabin as I was rolling at speed down the highway.

In the first instant, I thought, "That's gonna be close!" Next, it flew BETWEEN my mirror and the windshield, and I had an instant to think, "WOW! What a lucky bird!" Unfortunately, an instant later, the truck's wind shear trapped the bird and slammed it into the exhaust pipe with a clang. I don't expect he walked away from that one.

I've had a few other birds suicide on my windshield, but fortunately no big ones, like eagles. Hopefully that's more because they're smart than because they're rare. And a cousin of mine used to have a car which had deer run into it several times. I advised her to sell her deer magnet to a hunter.

I recall hearing a story of a trucker in Alaska whose way was blocked by a moose. He blew his horn to scare it off the road and, taking it as a challenge, the moose charged him and rammed the truck. So if a moose ever gets in your way, don't honk your horn at it. You probably shouldn't do that to buffalo either; forewarned, we didn't test their docility while we were at Yellowstone.

Over the course of May, I got to do some traveling out west. I took a ton of pictures, and I also took notes while we were out, so I've got a lot of story-telling for you, as soon as I get the time. Since I got back, I've been kind of busy, especially in the last couple weeks, writing on one of my books and working on one of my other personal projects, so I haven't had time to devote the usual level of attention to the site. (I've got half a dozen partially written articles awaiting some attention.) And so long as this roll keeps on rolling - I've written about 100 pages just in the past 2 weeks, and that's a lot - I'm going to continue to focus on it. I know you're all dying to see my books on your shelves as much as I'm dying to put them there.

I'm sure a lot of you are good at being creative on demand, but for me, when I get the bug, I have to do something with it before I lose it. It's like having a wonderful dream; if you don't write it down right when you wake up, you lose it. Sometimes even that isn't enough. So while I've got just about the whole book in my head itching to get out, I need to do as much writing on it as I can.

A lot of writers, once they manage to overcome their writer's block for long enough to get some things on paper, get bogged down in editing their work. They may initially decide the night was dark and stormy, then later realize it needed to be cold enough to snow, and that changes a few other things, and pretty soon, they're spending more time correcting the stuff they wrote earlier than writing new stuff. I get that urge too.

But I saw a very helpful piece of advice in a book about how to get a book written in 30 days: when moments like that come up, make a notation to yourself right there about what you want to change, and then continue on writing as if that change has been made. This allows you to continue with your stream of consciousness before you lose it, so you can get more written down. Then, when you're resting your creative muscles, you can go back and make those necessary changes.

Another thing that is invaluable is doing a LOT of reading for fun. I've recently met someone who hasn't ever done that, and so her writing and critiquing abilities are suffering for it. She's learning fast, but there are still a lot of things you can only learn by looking at the examples of other people's work. I may not know what most of the rules of grammar are called, but I largely know how they work. You won't often find a comma or apostrophe out of place in my writing, and my nouns always agree with their verbs. Tense, point of view, and that kind of stuff are second nature to me. Why? Not because I paid any attention in English class - no, my English teachers admired me only for my creativity, when I had the guts to show it - but rather because I did a LOT of reading as a kid, and continue to read as an adult.

Reading for enjoyment, not for business. If you want to know how to write an engaging piece of fiction, you have to read a lot of it. If you want to know how to write technical manuals, you have to read a lot of them. It's called practice. And so I've lent that friend some of my books so she can see how other people write and learn from their styles. Hopefully she'll enjoy them and not critique them.

So you're wondering what all this writing advice has to do with animals too dumb to try to avoid loud, fast-moving vehicles. So am I. Looks like a chain of things I was reminded of after watching TV.

Hope everyone had a happy Aphelion last Monday. I meant to write about it, but I was too busy dodging bottlerockets.

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Atlantis Airborne

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Space Shuttle Atlantis has blasted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center just a few minutes ago on its final launch! The weather around here wasn't all that great - too many clouds and the possibility of continuing storms - but the weather around Titusville was good enough that, with only a minor delay, the shuttle launched. I imagine the million or so people who came to see it would have preferred a clearer sky, but I doubt any of them regret their cross-country trips to witness this historic event. It was a very emotional moment for a lot of people.

I didn't go down there, nor did I head over to the beach. When you watch it on TV, you get the best views and you get to see the view FROM the shuttle! Having attended several launches from multiple locations, I know how awesome it is to watch a launch without benefit of the TV, even when the clouds swallow it immediately. If you're close enough to see it, you're also close enough to feel it. You'll also hear it, although if you're far away, it will take a while for the sound to reach you, and hopefully you're not in a loud place.

Up close, it's the biggest blowtorch you've ever seen. You can FEEL the heat from the engines, even from several miles away. (I'll swear up and down that you can feel it from 50 miles away!) Then comes the rumble, loud enough to overwhelm any other sounds.

As the shuttle climbs on a pillar of fire, disappearing far faster than you can really imagine, that sound slowly fades, but you can still feel it pulsing the air. It takes only about two minutes before that gigantic burst of light is so far away that you can't see it any more, and the world resumes moving.

If you're farther away, you can watch the launch, and it's incredible to watch it move across the sky so rapidly, but then when the sound reaches you, it's like experiencing it a second time.

But, no more will you be able to experience this. Maybe in the future there will be a replacement vehicle, but in the meantime, we will have to tide ourselves over with smaller rockets.

Good luck, Atlantis crew!

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Only in Ohio can you not Fly the Flag

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Being from northwest Indiana, I have a natural distrust for all things Buckeye. As a truck driver, I found justification for this when Ohio's laws required trucks to drive dangerously slow on the interstates. I felt like I should be using my flashers and orange triangle to warn cars that I was in a slow-moving vehicle because of how much slower I had to drive. And it didn't seem to be for any purpose other than as a money grab - either you spend an extra hour crossing the state, and are that much more likely to have to buy food and gas there, or you get a thousand dollar speeding ticket for trying to be less dangerous to the people around you. I'd heard the governor was even declining federal highway funds because the state made so much money off the truckers! And as a writer, I'm finding a disproportionate amount of wacky fans coming from Ohio.

And now, Ohio residents are attempting to forbid a man his right to fly a flag in front of his house.

Normally, something like this might spring up out of some hypocrite insisting he be allowed to blow up American citizens doing whatever he can to make everyone around him as miserable as he is, but this time, it's for a much more mundane reason: it's against the rules.

Who made a rule IN AMERICA that you can't fly the AMERICAN flag in front of your own house?


A home owner's association made such a rule.

In this story, we learn that a 77 year old veteran - a COMBAT veteran, no less - is going to be sued by his home owner's association if he doesn't take down the flagpole. He's not flying anything out of the ordinary or excessively showy; it's a standard pole and a standard flag.

As scary as it is that an HOA would have a rule forbidding flags, what's even scarier is that, instead of reconsidering how that rule breaks the law and that it should be changed, they think the solution is to waste money suing a veteran. A COMBAT veteran. Someone who literally risked his life to defend our liberties! Do the members of that HOA know? Do they approve of travesty?

I can't rag too much on Ohio, not just because I have some very good friends who live there who have no part in something so obscene, but because last year, there was something even worse going on in California, the state which is the root of most evil.

Last year, at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, on the fifth of May, a group of American kids wore American flag tee-shirts and then were suspended for it. Why should this matter? Because it just so happens that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican equivalent to the Fourth of July, and it's celebrated on the 5th of May. A racist Mexican organization, stoically against the idea of harmony and unity with any other group, was putting on a celebration, wearing Mexican flag tee-shirts, and otherwise campaigning to have the American Southwest annexed to Mexico. As you can imagine, it was not a celebration of inclusiveness like Martin Luther King Day and Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo in the rest of the country. It was celebrate Mexico or GTFO.

The principal of the school asked those five American students to turn their shirts inside out, so as not to offend anyone. I'm sure it never occurred to him to do the same for anyone wearing non-American clothing on the Fourth of July, or non-Santa clothing on Christmas, or non-Orthidox clothing on an Orthidox holiday. When the students bravely refused, they were suspended.

Bravely? You may think I'm exaggerating, but refusing really was brave. Not because the principal was going to suspend them, but because the racist Mexican organization backing the day's celebrations, MEChA, is dangerous, and those students were literally taking their lives into their own hands by daring to wear the American flag within the school yard on that day. MEChA's own website declares its dangerous intentions toward our country! It's a domestic terrorist group!

Of course, you never heard about any of this, because we wouldn't want to offend hypocrites whose goal is the murder of our nation or its national pride.

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Three Miles, Island not Included

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This morning I ran three full miles.

Ok, jogged. Whatever.

My previous record was 2.1 miles. My record before that was 1.5 miles, then 1.2 miles, then 0.7 miles, and then 0.3 miles. These are jogs, with no break. They're rather slow jogs, yes, but they're jogs. Finding the proper speed is important.

Last Friday, my 80 year old walking partner and I walked 7.5 miles. Our previous record was 6.6 miles. He didn't feel like walking today, so I decided it was time to see how far I could run, and you see the results.

I'm not doing intense training here, folks. I'm just getting out there and doing it, putting in practice some techniques and habits I've developed over the years, and which are finally paying off. Here are some of them:

Habit 1: Eat breakfast, no matter what. Even if it's just a handful of peanuts (unsalted, of course) on the way out the door, eat something within 30 minutes of waking up.

Habit 2: Drink water. I've trained myself to reach for water every time I feel thirsty OR hungry. For one, most people mistake thirst for hunger; downing a glass of water will almost always eliminate the feeling of hunger. For another, it takes 20 minutes for food hitting the stomach to register and for your brain to tell you you're full. Quickly downing some water not only prepares your stomach for food, it also sends this signal so that when the food does start coming, you won't need to eat as much of it to feel full. When you feel full (BEFORE you're stuffed), stop eating. An easy way to improve your digestion and drink more water without noticing is to have a glass before, during, and after each meal.

Habit 3: Eat something approximately every 3-4 hours. It doesn't have to be a full meal; snacks count.

Habit 4: Avoid sugar, salt, bleached flour, and starch. I've finally broken my habit of ordering pop at restaurants - thank you guys for jacking up the prices to obscene levels - and I avoid things like bread, potatoes, salt, and sugar. Not all calories are created equal. If you eat 1000 calories of sugar a day and I eat 1000 calories of green vegetables, who do you think is going to feel healthier after a month? Who do you think is going to lose weight, and who is going to gain it?

Habit 5: Eat vegetables. I'm terrible at this. I hate a lot of vegetables, especially the best ones. I get mixed vegetables and stir them in with the rest of the food so I don't notice them as much. I also have been drinking  lot of vegetable juice. I have to get the Great Value brand from Walmart because V8 tastes awful and costs twice as much. I drink a glass or two a day.

Habit 6: Stay active. When I worked on the ship, I could walk a few miles a day on my routine to go fix computers, up and down stairs, back and forth to the shop, and so forth. Plenty of activity. When i was a truck driver, I had to climb in and out of the truck a lot and do some walking. I had to keep my head from bouncing all over. I'd park in the farthest spots and stop frequently for bathroom and walking breaks. Now, as a writer, staying active is a little tougher. You have to take the time to actually do it. I walk about 15-20 miles a week, I ride a motorcycle wherever I need to go (weather permiting), which does take some effort. My friend plays a lot of basketball with his kids. If I loaf, I soon look like a loaf.

Habit 7: Cheat once a week. ANYONE can put off their favorite sugary, carb-loaded, starchy junkfoods (and fruit) for a few days. Get in the habit of telling yourself, "I'll eat this in five minutes," and then go do something else for a while. Get in the habit of walking down the most evil aisles in the grocery store and JUST check the prices, then walk away. Get in the habit of eating whatever you want on one specific day of the week. Eventually, you'll be able to push away any temptation, because ANYONE can put off eating crap for a few days. And then don't buy the junk until that day, don't even have it in your house. If you have others in the house who don't love you enough to support your decision to lead a healthier life, you can still get them to hide the worst stuff so you don't notice it. Or move out. And make sure you're active during your cheat day to keep your metabolism up.

Habit 8: Don't beat yourself up. You're going to make mistakes. Don't take it as a reason to kill yourself, or to give up, or as proof that you can't do it. Accept it as part of yoru record. Do you think that when I told myself (and all of you) last year that I wanted to be able to jog 2 miles, that when I wasn't immediately able to do so, I gave up? Heck no! I kept track of what I did and noticed that each time I made improvements. I patted myself on the back for getting closer to my goal. And when I achieved it, I set a new one: to be able to do 3 miles, which I achieved in one stroke.

Those are just EIGHT of the habits I now use to improve my health. And I developed them by asking, "What's the smallest, measurable change I can make?" Try it. What's the smallest measurable change you can make to improve your health?

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Genetics Relegated to Poor Excuse

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"I'm genetically predisposed to be fat," you say. Or whatever your malady is, be it boring, annoying, stupid, tired, bald, poor, irresponsible, et cetera. People have used their learned helplessness - that gut reaction that says, "I have no control over my life and therefore should be pitied and given free stuff" - for quite some time as an excuse for why their life isn't the way they want it to be. "I was bullied in school," "The Man is oppressing me," "I was raped," "They put addictive chemicals in it," and so on are brandished like weapons to justify collective laziness and refusal to take responsibility for one's own life. The most powerful of these excuses has been, "I'm genetically predisposed..." It's the ultimate in having no control over one's destiny.

Attitude determines altitude. It's not just true for airplanes, it's also true for people. Whatever problems you've had in your life, they can be overcome and you can find your happiness. And just today, I've learned of definitive evidence that the tired old excuse for mediocrity - genetic factors - is just that: an excuse.

In this study, 30 men with prostate cancer changed their lifestyles instead of undergoing the "normal" treatments, and in ONLY THREE MONTHS, genes which fought disease had flipped on and genes that caused cancer had flipped off.

They had changed their genes!

I've known for some time that diet and exercise can make a huge difference in the way people feel and what they can do; I've experienced it myself. Tony Robbins was the first to let me in on the secret, followed by several others. More and more people are finding out that they can heal themselves simply by making a few minor changes to the way they live and what they eat, and the investment is paying off. Their friends are noticing.

So what are you going to do with this information? Are you going to continue to let your life slip by you? Or are you going to realize that you can reach for your dreams and achieve them? Are you going to realize you CAN take control of your life?

Believing is believing.

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