Aaron Ewer
Aaron Ewers thoughts about everything

Server issues have been taking away all my creativity today. It started last night and I tried to fix several bugs, but it seemed like for every bug that I fixed, two more would pop up to wreak their own havoc.

The host company is one of the best and thank goodness they have 24/7 technical support. I had to send in three trouble tickets this morning and they were really responsive - I had suggestions and fixes at the ready within hours.

I don’t mind the technical issues when I have plenty of time and energy. I guess the frustrating part was that I had a lot of other time sensitive projects on my plate and now I’m behind on all of them.

This time of year is when the weeds and grasses burst out with pollen. In this area, ragweed pollen is especially heavy in August and September.

Ragweed is a very common allergy and several people in my family have suffered with ragweed allergies over the years. My mother suffered so badly that she could not leave the house during August and september. She had to stay indoors with air conditioning to just get through the days and nights with constant sneezing, watery eyes and sore throat. On the bad days she would have terrible headaches and the throat irritation sometimes turned into bronchitis.

For severe allergy sufferers like my mother there is now a treatment that involves a series of shots over several weeks - sometimes months - to desensitize your immune system. My mother was one of the first in line for the shots when they became available back in the 1960s. The shot treatments did work for her and it’s been over 40 years of allergy free living for her, thank goodness.

Read a little review online for Google’s new browser that has been released in Beta called Chrome.

The review says that the Beta version worked fine and is faster than Internet Explorer in her unscientific but carefully administered tests at her office. The final version has been promised to overcome the few shortcomings that she noted.

I am a Firefox fan and it will have to be a lot better than Firefox to get me to switch, but it is nice to have a few new choices, too.

One thing that is a big treat for us at holidays is to buy a Honeybaked ham. There are several retail stores in the area and I don’t have to go out of my way very far to buy one.

I’ve enjoyed Honeybaked hams since a former colleague introduced me to them back in the early 1980’s. He threw a huge open house party and had a Honeybaked ham on the buffet table for everyone to serve themselves throughout the evening. By the end of the night that ham bone was picked clean. Forget about any leftovers - everyone loved that ham so much it was gone in hours.

This weekend being Labor Day I’ve been thinking about getting another Honeybaked ham although we have no plans to entertain. I think we’d just like to have it for ourselves so there is less need to cook over the holiday weekend. There will be plenty for sandwiches and even fried slices to serve as a sidemeat for breakfast.

The Honeybaked store has some great side items, like candied sweet potatoes and green bean casseroles. They even have great desserts, like pumpkin pie and carrot cake. I love the food at this store an I’ve pretty much just now talked myself into going to the Honeybaked store tomorrow on my way home from work.

If you think about the John Wayne movies and have to define the Wild West, where would it be? Would you think about the gunfight at the OK Corral? Or the gold mines? Follow the railroad to California? What about Texas and the Alamo?

To me, there’s still the West in Wyoming and Montana, and a totally different West in Arizona and New Mexico. All of them invoke mental images of cowboys and Indians, but the terrain is significantly different and the way of life, the quality of life, and the daily lives of people living there varies greatly.

I’ve always wanted to live in New Mexico or Arizona. I have driven through both states numerous times and tried to vary my routes so I can take in as much of the area as possible. The one place I’ve not yet been is Tucson and that’s at the top of my list for the next trip West.

A good friend of mine used to live in Tucson for several years and has agreed to go out there with me if he can take the time off work. It would be great to go with someone who already knows the area. If he can’t go, I think I’ll call around and find a Tucson realtor to meet me while I’m there and show me around the different neighborhoods with the thought of buying my retirement home in Tucson. Unless Tucson is completely different from what I’ve read and been told, it sounds like the perfect retirement spot for me. Finding a good realtor in Tucson is easy when you search one out using Clicksmart. I’ve had Clicksmart saved to my bookmarks for months.

I’m not opposed to buying a home out there now while the market is soft and renting it out for a few years so that I can be paying off the mortgage with someone else’s money. Then when I’m ready to hang it up here, I can load up a truck and drive west to sit on my own front porch and watch those gorgeous desert sunsets.