Catching Up

     Catching up is all I seem to be doing lately so the title is appropriate here. There is a downside in rushing to catch up, something I painfully learned recently. Hmmmm, downside is the appropriate word since what I did was fall down the basement stairs last week.

      Well, actually it was the last couple steps but darn did that hurt. My foot particularly was throbbing with pain immediately and for some reason I thought of that commercial featuring the lady who complained, "I've fallen and I can't get up."

      That could have been me. And I was home alone, so to speak. But I did manage to right myself after a few minutes and drag myself back upstairs where I could check myself for injuries. Turns out I had a sorely sprained ankle and a twisted back muscle. A week later they still bother me but they're healing.

     So what else is new? Here's a first. After close to eight years of blogs, I had one taken down because of a copyright violation. Wow. Apparently I copied a picture I found, most likely on Facebook, and re-printed it on my blog. So, did the person who took the picture and own the copyright somehow stumble across my blog? Then complained to the blog authorities? It's a mystery to me.

      Blogger is giving me the opportunity to edit out the offending material and repost the blog, but since the blog is old anyway, maybe I'll just delete.

      Crazy internet, isn't it? I have a Shutterfly account where I occasionally post photos and compose photobooks. They sent me an e-mail congratulating me on becoming a new parent. I forwarded it on to my wife. Maybe I shouldn't have done that though. I might face follow-up questions from her.

      I also got an e-mail through TripAdvisor, a service I often use to help me plan vacations, including one to Ireland next month. I reviewed a local restaurant where Wendy and I had a less-than-satisfactory dining experience. So the e-mail came directly from the restaurant itself. They kinda protested my review and invited me back to try something else on the menu, figuring I'd like that better. What's the appropriate catchphrase here? Once bitten, twice shy? Fool me once, shame on you . . .?

      I'm still working half-time as a temporary, despite being officially retired. In fact, I just this month got my first distribution from my 401k. Man, getting money from those people is like borrowing from a miserly uncle. Those financial institutions who hold your retirement monies want you to hold off drawing from your 401K until you're dead, or the until end of the world, whichever comes later.

      Back to my copyrighted picture, here's another twist on that. My grandson Grant was here for his usual Tuesday visit and he's still crazy about the crab monster from the movie Attack of the Crab Monsters. We cull through YouTube videos looking for crab monster movie clips. He also wanted to see pictures of crab monsters so I browsed Google images for crab monsters as well. As we were scrolling down--surprise!--there was a photo of Grant himself holding a picture of a crab monster. That was taken from my blog written a few months ago.

     "Hea, did you do that?" Grant exclaimed, shocked to see a picture of himself among all the other crab monster pictures.  

     Well, yes Grant, I sure did. Like I said, crazy internet.