I'm so glad you could stop by. This is my personal blog of daily life and my journey through life. You will find a strong emphasis on family and friends as well as finding my ancestors through genealogy. Unlike my other blogs this blog is more of a catch-all so any topic is fair game.
Sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous. I'm on a canning group because I am a large scale home canner, canning upwards of 1.400 jars of food annually. In the canning world acidity is a huge issue but the problem is many home canners really don't understand acidity as measured by the pH of the homogeneous product prior to processing. The pH (not ph or PH!!!!!) scale ranges from 0 to 14 with pH 0 being most acidic and pH 14 being most alkaline (basic). For safe BWB processing the pH of the product must be below pH 4.6 otherwise the product is considered low acid so must be processed using a pressure canner.
Well, one member posted an article acidity of a particular fruit. I have a very strong scientific background so caught the error simply by reading the title of the paper. The thing is, it was a scientific paper discussing the acidity level of one acid in the fruit NOT the total acid. What this means is even though the fruit could have a high content of that particular acid, it could actually end up being classified as being low acid when the total acidity is considered. Essentially telling someone to go ahead and BWB that fruit based on that scientific paper is akin to getting them to play Russian roulette with their lives. In this case the lack of knowledge of being able to understand what the paper was saying combined with the little knowledge that acid is important in home canning really could have caused someone to become ill or worse if they followed the misinformation!
Garden Gnome
©2006-2012
[edited July 7, 2011]
[My apologies to my readership other than my internet stalker. This post is directed at my stalker so others can disregard. Normal posting will resume tomorrow.]
Have you ever had a gotcha moment? Well I finally have the proof that my online stalker has been using a proxy server to view my blogs. You see all along I had my suspicions but now I have the physical proof. Apparently "hide my ass" anonymous proxy did not hide this person's IP . See that little line that says "IP Address"? How pathetic can a person actually be? Despite a very clear indication that I do not want anything to do with this person, she has not got the message. Time to launch the LARTs!
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Number of Entries: 2
Entry Page Time: 23 Jun 2011 10:00:23
Visit Length: 5 mins 53 secs
Browser: IE 7.0
OS: WinXP
Resolution: 1024x768
Total Visits: 1
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
IP Address: Bell Canada (74.14.230.164) [label edited to not name my stalker]
Referring URL: www.hidemyass.com/
Entry Page: 5.hidemyass.com/ip-1/encoded/Oi8vZ2FyZGVuZ25vbWVzam91cm5leS5ibG9nc3BvdC5jb20v&f=norefer
Exit Page: 5.hidemyass.com/ip-1/encoded/Oi8vZ2FyZGVuZ25vbWVzam91cm5leS5ibG9nc3BvdC5jb20vc2VhcmNoP3VwZGF0ZWQtbWF4PTIwMTEtMDYtMTZUMDclM0EwMCUzQTAwLTA0JTNBMDA%3D
Garden Gnome
©2006-2011
For the past 16 months I have been dealing with essentially a troll. The online version of a troll is to create a huge disturbance usually in a newsgroup, get everyone upset then the troll sits back to enjoy all the ruckus. In this case the troll initially contacted me through my private email address then by phone contact so this has been something that has been going on in real life as well as online. Without going into a lot of detail this Gnome has been around the block a time or two so is not stupid. Gnomes are natural enemies of trolls and they will defend their territory. With a little help from my Gnome Empire pretty much all contact has been severed for this troll. The troll can no longer keep up with what I'm doing through Twitter and trying to read my blogs is just not going to happen. Email and phone contact is futile. And that should teach the troll that this Gnome knows exactly how to deal with trolls :)
Garden Gnome
©2006-2010
The Troll aka My Stalker
2010
When I wrote
Toxic People last May I seriously thought that would be the end of my online stalking experience. That has not proven to be the case. Despite me banning her through Twitter she is still accessing my blogs through Twitter. Now ideally banning this person would mean she couldn't read my tweets at all. Instead it would according to my stats appear she has gone through the search feature on Twitter to find me once again. After a few tweets from her that gradually escalated I realized that she would make a horrid tweet then a couple of days delete it. I quickly came to the conclusion I am dealing with a seriously unbalanced person. I decided to take the approach of absolutely no contact and no acknowledgment of any attempted contact. That worked for all of about 3 minutes. Attempted contacts went from Twitter to this person leaving anonymous comments on my blogs. Apparently the game was to find any error to correct presumedly to make herself look better than I am. The problem is this has very quickly become a personal attack. The person has been told no contact. At one point the person said she was closing that chapter of her life aka leaving me alone. After a blissful break in her nonsense it started up again with multiple visits to my blogs followed by leaving a lot of cryptic messages on Twitter. It has now moved to the point of anonymous comments and since I moderate comments on all of my blogs that isn't working well for her.
I was seriously to the point of giving up on Twitter or making drastic changes. My husband asked why I would do this when I'm the one being harassed. He's right. I've done nothing wrong. In light of everything that has happened and continue to happen I have awarded this person the fine distinction of the
Donkey Award! The last time I awarded the
Donkey Award was 2008.
Believe me this person is richly deserving of this award! I view her lower than telemarketers and we all know how much I detest them!
My Final Word: To the person who for whatever reason can't get the message let me spell it out for you. GO AWAY! GET STUFFED! DON'T READ MY BLOGS (because I know you are and have proof)! TAKE A HIKE! GET OUT OF MY FACE! Either leave me alone or I will take the necessary steps to ensure you leave me alone. THANKS AND HAVE A GREAT LIFE THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE ME! Enjoy your award. It is very well deserved! Congratulations.
Garden Gnome
©2006-2010
The BeachAugust 15, 2009
Last weekend we spent a wonderful couple of days boating and swimming. The weather turned quite warm to the point of being uncomfortable. We finally broke down and turned on the air conditioning. So Monday morning I was all gung-ho to get a bit of blogging. I was in such a grand mood that morning! As always I checked my email, made a couple of replies then checked the groups I follow and made a couple of replies. Within a few minutes of one of the group replies there was an extremely nasty and hateful reply. I sat there looking at it for a minute then decided to take the high ground, thank the poster politely for her reply and move on although the way I feel right now it will be quite some time before I participate in that group again!
It is so easy online to forget that the words you type affect real people. Folks under the cloak of anonymity say things online they never would dream of saying directly to someone's face. Yet those words leave just as big of an impact especially when it comes from a trusted source. Feelings get hurt and unlike footprints in the sand the impressions have a lasting effect. Unlike the footprints on the beach the impact remains.
So to the nice and I'm sure you are a nice person who for whatever reason lashed out at me with your spiteful nastiness, I wish you well. I hope you don't experience someone lashing out at you the way you did to me. I hope you had a pleasant and restful day full of good vibes and I seriously hope no one left negative footprints on your soul and heart. May someone throughout your day tell you that you were appreciate and are loved and your knowledge had value in their lives. Perhaps the memories of their kind words will help take the sharpness off of yours before they are spoken forever to leave a footprint.
Garden Gnome©2006-2009
