I finally got fed up with my computer problems and did a complete reformat.  I tried to reformat a couple of months ago but I found out that Dell didn't provide a way to reformat on their computers built prior to a year ago.

In the past I would just put in a disk that came with the computer, boot it up, and POOF!  Reformat--back to out-of-the-box condition!  So, I just assumed the disk I had would reformat it.  All it did was re-do Windows XP and make most of my programs not work right.

I had to reinstall most of my programs and they still didn't all work right.  I couldn't get a few of them to work at all after that.

I no longer had the option of having log-in boxes automatically filled in for me, so every week I had to fill in all the passwords and such to update this, to send you the newsletter, and whatever else needed to be logged in.

I went to the Dell site and found out that they must have gotten complaints about it and the newer computers now have a built-in reformat option.

I took my computer to the local repair place and got them to reformat for me.  I've been reinstalling things since Saturday.  I had difficulty getting back online.  Then, something happened and I took my son's computer offline because of some setting I changed on our router.  Oh dear, what a mess!  I had to call my son who lives in Arkansas (he's the same one who used to live in Tennessee) because he is my computer expert.

So, as you can see, he helped me and I am online.  The last problem I am having is transferring my email backups to my computer so I can retrieve all my old email.  I made a mistake and stored it on our old computer because we had our computers networked.  Now I can't get the network back up.  There is something wrong with the old computer and it needs to be reformatted, but I can't reformat it until I get my stuff off of it!!

I can't get it to transfer the file (it is a big file!) all in one piece to a cd.  So, I am kind of in email limbo.  I figured out how to temporarily work around the problem, but when I finally transfer my stuff it will wipe out the email I've written between now and then.

Oh my, it is always some kind of nonsense that makes things more difficult than they need to be!

Remember when I told you about the neighbor that tried to beat up my son because we have told him to slow down when he "tests" his dune buggy on our street at 90 miles per hour?

Well, I wrote a long letter to the sheriff's department about the series of difficulties we've had in getting them to take us seriously.  Going back a long time we have had some really dumb experiences with them.  Some of the things that we were told by the dispatcher were amazingly stupid and the investigation of incidents was minimal or didn't exist at all.

So, my letter got a response.  It was amazing!  I now have the direct phone numbers of a sergeant and a lieutenant.  They told me they were amazed at how we have been treated and were going to make sure that those things didn't happen to other people.

They reopened the assault case on my neighbor after listening to the altercation on the 911 tape.  They are sending it to the District Attorney, which is what should have happened in the first place.  I'm sure nothing more than a warning will happen because it caused minimal damage to my son because of his fancy footwork as he dodged the man's assault.

Three squad cars pull up to our house to talk with us.  The neighbors probably wondered what the heck was happening.  Then, the really creepy part, was my husband took me to dinner after they left because of Secretaries' Day (I'm his secretary).  No, the going to dinner wasn't creepy... it was what happened at the restaurant.

The restaurant was hosting a fund raiser for the Special Olympics.  We have a local team.  All the law enforcement agencies from around here were at the restaurant.  Every waiter, bartender, and employee of the restaurant had a law enforcement officer following them around.  They were bussing tables, bringing out food, and asking for donations.

We were overrun that day with law enforcement from our home to the restaurant!  We went from famine to feast!!  It was a very strange feeling!

One of my husband's ex football players is a sheriff and he came to our table and talked for a long time.  A highway patrol officer ended up stopping and talking a long time and we didn't even know him!

I was told by the lieutenant that had called me to call him if I had any more problems and he would make sure that whatever problem I had would get handled!  Wow!  Praise God!

I'm going to jump on ahead to the Bible study.  I'm excited about it.  I hope it ministers to you.

Gosh, I am busy busy busy.  Last week I spent three days at my mom's house.  Now my oldest son is visiting.  He will be here for a week.

Then, two days after he leaves, I leave for my in-laws' for a little over a week.  My niece is getting married on the 28th.  My husband and I are driving our camper up and my sons will fly in on that Friday.  My husband and sons will drive home after the wedding and I am staying a few more days to help my in-laws finish unpacking (they moved in to their new home in February).  Then I will fly home.

Then, a day after that we leave for Laughlin, Nevada for our bowling league finals.  Oh, my, I've really overbooked myself, haven't I?

If you don't see me for a while you will know why!

I changed the background on the Bible study page.  I was notified that I was using an eagle picture that belonged to someone.  Silly me.  Since I got the background picture at the web site that she said her picture came from I changed the background.  It turned out it wasn't the background picture she was talking about.

It turned out that it was the eagle head picture that was at the top of the page and was on some of the other pages here.  I have had that picture for so long I can't remember where I got it.  I'm sure I didn't "steal" it off of her pages.  Someone else may have had it on their page and I got it there.  I don't remember.  It really was a beautiful picture, though.  Too bad.

So, I had to stop everything and search the pages at the Clarion to remove all those eagle heads... and there were a lot of them!  I think I got them all.

Some of them were active "buttons" so I had to come up with a new eagle head picture.  I spent a while working on that, too.

Oh, it is always something coming along to throw a wrench in the works, isn't it?