The World of Grandpa Don  

Tuesday morning my cardiologist's office called to inform me that my stress test results were good. My heart is A-OK. Based on the experiences of of number of well known people recently, that means that I can expect to drop dead at any time. But, of course, that is the normal condition of life. The only difference now is that my urologist can now put me to sleep for his procedure next month knowing he has coved his butt, taking due diligence in case I don't wake up. The fact is that all of my important work is done. No one is depending on me for their survival, their education, or my guidance and I am ready to move on. Not eager ... just ready. It is a great feeling ... when your conscience is clear ... well, as clear as it can be considering the state of being human. So, I'll just keep plugging along as long as I can be useful ... somewhat, that is. My hope, as was Anne's, is that I don't stay here so long that I become a burden ... or, heaven forbid, a nuisance. In that regard, I'll try not to be either but will do my best to be more kind than I need to be. Hay ... that is what it is all about anyway!

Not wanting my close relatives to have to wait until the end of the week for my test results, I sent the above paragraph to them. I immediately got replies which protested that I will never be a burden to them. (Only one said I wouldn't be a nuisance.) My response ... Sometimes becoming a burden is a condition of life over which we have no control. The difference lies in how our burdens are accepted and dealt with. I am confident that my family would deal well with the situation should it occur. However, It would be better for that not to happen. That is what I wish. Allow me the pleasure of that gift for all of us. However, I had the privilege of having the example given by Anne's dad when he came to live with us when he needed someone to live with. If placed in the same situation, I can only hope that I could be a shadow of the gentleman that Harry Lawler was. He was indeed one of the many people who touched my life and left me better for it. It wasn't my intention but my news and comments have elicited the kindest remarks from a number of people. It is gratifying that I seem to have done something right. Anne thought I was hopeless for a long time but she made it her life's work to get me turned around, not so much by nagging, that never seems to work, (she tried that also) but by love and example.

I have been having problems with my right hand man, Microsoft Outlook. It is my mail handler, my address book, my calendar, my note pad, my list of important dates ... birthdays ... anniversaries, my task reminders ... change furnace and water filter, etc, my appointments ... It is my life line to reality. Among other things it filters out a lot of the spam that comes by email and that was the first problem. It stopped filtering spam and I began to get 100's of stupid messages that it had previously ejected from my in-box. I tried to reconfigure the settings to no avail. Then I tried to run Microsoft Office "repair" with no results. I next resorted to trying to reinstall it. That not only failed but it destroyed it completely. That was done on Tuesday afternoon. I have the disk for the 2000 version but I had been using the 2003 version downloaded from the internet, They are both "upgrade" versions of the product so I can not delete it completely and expect to reinstall it. Worse than that ... when I went to use the internet versions of my mail programs, I could not get them to work either !!! I tried resetting my computer using System Restore ... It says there have been no changes. All other programs and applications work as they should. I considered going out to Best Buy and getting a copy of Office 2007 but I was afraid that it would fail to install. And so a message was left for Kevin, my computer guru.

By late afternoon Kevin called. He was about to leave an appointment and would be passing my way after a short stop. Within the hour he was reinstalling my software the right way.  He assured me that I would not want the 2007 version because 1) it is very costly,  2) there is little improved functionality and 3) I would need to learn new and confusing menus. Within minutes he had me up and running ... better than before. He said that he will send information of an anti-spam utility that really works. Wednesday evening I emptied my in box and my Junk mail folder. I set my Outlook Junk mail protection on "High" Thursday morning I found that Outlook had diverted 105 messages to the Junk Mail folder and they were all really junk . There were only 11 junk messages in my in-box. I can live with 90.5% accuracy.

I had not anticipated such quick service from Kevin and I was perfectly willing to wait until he got around to me. After all, I could have fired up my lap top computer if I was desperate and used it for handling my email. There was a time when I would have been all upset over a thing like this but now I realize that there are people out there like Kevin who will come to my aid. That is why we all have different talents, interests, abilities and yes, even personalities. We are here to complement each other so that eventually everything works. Besides, in the big picture, how .important is it?