Computer Hell Isn't Really That Bad

I am technologically challenged, that is, I don't invest a lot of energy in trying to keep up and the logic or language do not come "naturally" to me. So it has been a particularly frustrating couple of days fighting with a virus on my PC (and losing) at the same time I have been trying to upgrade to DSL through my phone company. As to the virus, what makes a human want to do this to others? It calls itself "anti-virus 360" and so deviously plays on ones fear of infection. Fortunately, my companero Che Bob ( who by the way is back blogging after a short hiatus) gave me his old laptop which I now have running at "high speed"but I am unable to work on my novel. And its about 30 below outside. Enough of my problems. Life is for learning and going where we are not comfortable.

The Arab world has a new hero in the form of a shoe throwing journalist, although i think "murderous dog" was a bit generous. Bush joked that he "saw his sole", perhaps a reference to Putin, and I heard a reporter on the Today show (fair and balanced) actually say that "the crowd was shocked and awed". It's a movie you can't stop watching!

Getting back to the cold weather, I spent a lot of last Thursday in the Missoula public library and a lot of yesterday in the mall while my wife and daughter shopped.(I bought a shirt but mostly watched consumer world in frenzied motion) What I noticed in both public spaces was the homeless people getting in out of the weather. In the library a succession of rough characters sat around me coughing and hacking and trying to get some rest. In the mall a couple of guys sat across from where I was reading-watching and went over the Greyhound bus schedule. I heard them talking about how it was time to move on (no doubt south) and I wondered about their life. I used to knock around quite a bit when I was young but I always had a warm place I could return to when things got rough.I was a vagabond out for adventure, just a tourist compared to these hard veterans of the bus stations and underpasses. In these hard times there will be a growing army heading south where I suspect there are few prospects for work or a functioning welfare system. Shelters and soup kitchens. Hard times.