Perhaps my favorite joke of all time--and it's clean!

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry,your duck, Cuddles, has passed away."

The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure"?

"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," he replied.

"How can you be so sure"? she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room, and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs,put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a cat.

The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100 percent certifiably, a dead duck."

Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.

The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried. "$150 just to tell me my duck is dead"?

"The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the lab report and the cat scan, it's now $150.

Problems With Windows Media Player 10 and Yahoo Music

After years of software installations, uninstallations, crashes and general usage, my home computer running Windows XP had become slow and unstable. This is due to the flotsam and jetsam in the form of various orphaned files and registry entries that serve to constipate your computer. Since I had a week to devote to putting Humpty computer back together again after I reformatted my hard drive, I made two separate backups on two separate drives before beginning. (I learned my lesson the hard way when I backed up a machine on a brand new Maxtor external drive, only to have it crash when I commenced the file restore. I now only use Seagate and Western digital drives. The Maxtor drive is in the storm drain by my house if you want to come fish it out.)

After the restore, I began applying the multitude of Windows XP updates to the computer. After installing Windows Media Player 10, my Yahoo Music player Launchcast feature ceased to function, and displayed a message indicating that it couldn’t find the right codecs. I spent a good three hours searching the web, then attempting (in vain) to uninstall the codecs so I could load the K-Lite codec pack—all to no avail. Finally, I can across a help topic (click here) in Yahoo music that recommended re-installing Media Player 10 from scratch. After a full re-install, both the Media Player and Yahoo worked fine. So if you experience the same problem, you might try this before rolling back Media Player to an earlier version, as suggested by some users.

As with all free advice, this may be exactly worth what you paid for it. Also, taking a checkpoint in Windows XP (click here) before making any major changes is also a good idea.

Finally, to those of you who haven’t spent the last 25 years working with PCs as I have, my heart goes out to you as you try to navigate the technical labyrinth of viruses, unstable updates, networks, and poorly tested software. I have no idea how someone without a deep working knowledge of PCs ever manages to use one without ripping their hair out. For those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm nearly bald!

The Best Eyeglass Cleaner I've Found!

I wear glasses with a Crizal coating, and have found that any foriegn matter or smudge really stands out. Just the slightest touch of oil from a finger is enough to smear the whole lens. I tried everything, from exotic (and expensive) cleaners to photographic lens cleaning solutions. Then one day, I thought I'd try the anti-bacterial hand soap from Bath and Body Works. I was amazed at the results. It cut right through anything on the lens and left them perfectly clear!

Warning: be sure to follow the instructions that came with your glasses. Failure to do so may result in voiding the warranty on either the lens or the coating.

Why I Blog

I didn't really get the point of this blogging thing when it first came on the scene a few years ago. However, I can see where it will fill a particular purpose for me.

I really don't consider myself an expert at too many things. However, I have had quite a few life experiences and done a significant amount of research on several topics, and it may be useful to share those with folks who have a common interest. My background includes aviation, handgunning, photography, radio scanning, emergency preparedness and amateur (ham) radio. I've also spent a fair amount of time tinkering with various electronic devices such as GPS receivers, all sorts of emergency lighting and backup power sources. I have no less than 25 various flashlights, numerous high-capacity lead acid batteries, and enough radios to support most small cities.

I have a website where I share some of this material, http://www.houscan.com/. However, updating the website is a bit of a pain, and I tend to be a lot more particular with the HouScan content than what I post there. Here, I can just update a blog when the mood hits, and not have to obsessive with format and the dreaded HTML.

Here in the Haskell Chronicles, you'll find a variety of information on everything from generators, radios, flashlights and hurricane preparedness. As a matter of fact, many of my hobbies come together to support my emergency preparedness activities. I'm a trained CERT member, and have now taught hurricane awareness classes for two years. Again, I don't hold myself out to be an expert in any of these fields--just looking to share my knowledge with whatever seekers may stumble upon my missives out here in cyberspace.