Karbon Kounty Moos

Darn cow rubbed the tread off the spare.

Things here have been more manic than usual. The Baron was recently diagnosed with diabetes. To make matters worse, he has been in a tremendous amount of pain. His back, ribs and stomach have been bothering him. He’s suffering from insomnia. We’ve been running to Red Lodge and Billings to see doctors. Keep in mind that we’re 18 miles from the nearest pharmacy. They’ve been trying different medications. The blood sugar seems to be responding, but the pain and insomnia aren’t. The Baron is staying active. We’ve both found that the best thing is to try to keep moving. And to keep the stress levels down, it’s important not to call your health insurance company. This afternoon I told a nurse that I was considering medical marijuana. She said that the doctor hadn’t prescribed it yet. I told her, “No, not for the patient, for his wife.”

Next week, he has an MRI scheduled. Then a bone scan. Then an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. I managed to get all the appointments on one day. While I was at it, I scheduled my mammogram. Might as well join in the fun. I’ve needed to make a dental appointment all summer. I didn’t. My reason was that I just couldn’t find the time. A few minutes ago I noticed that one of my teeth felt funny. I’ll be making that appointment as soon as I can now. When I checked, a good hunk of the tooth is gone. At least it’s a molar - or half a molar.

Not too long ago, I gave up on dialup and went to DSL. What a difference. Right after I made the switch, I noticed a popup. I never get popups. I thought that it was weird. I closed it, and didn’t give it much thought. I wasn’t paying attention to when and where it was happening. It was inconsistent. Then here on the blog, a few folks let me know that they were seeing it, too. What the heck?! The damn thing was coming up as my blog loaded. Adding to the strangeness was the content of the popup. It featured a video of a woman speaking about diabetes. My husband was recently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes - so he may have his name changed to the Splenda Baron.

I contacted blogger, my ISP and the company the popup was for. I was going round and round with Red Nova. They seemed to be sincerely trying to help me. We went back and forth with over a dozen emails looking for clues. I am clueless about computers, so it was very much like the Three Stooges - minus two. I was waiting for blogger and my isp to get back to me.

Zen Panda and I were corresponding on Saturday night about it. Then we went off on other tangents.

On Sunday, I called my ISP again. I had just started to explain the mess to the tech. He said, “That’s funny, my wife was telling me last night about a blog that popups were coming up on.” My first though was - “Good, so maybe it’s not just me.” As I was speaking with him, I received a message from Jough, who happens to be Pandora’s son with a fix for the problem. By this time, the tech had also determined the source of the redirect. He had also revealed that his wife was none other than Zen Panda. Is this getting stranger by the minute? It had absolutely nothing to do with the ISP, Blogger, or Red Nova. It was being caused by a counter on the blog. The counter had been on here since 18 Sep 2004. Why this started in October 2005 is best left to those who know what they’re talking about - which does not include me. I just took the link off the template. Hopefully, that will be the last.

I’d like to thank everyone in our blogging community for all their help.

Thank You!

So - if you see anything weird here again - I mean weirder than the usual weird - please let me know.