Author: DOuG pRATt

Never a DELL moment

I was going to post an “e-toy update” but now my primary PC — a one-year-old DELL Inspiron 530 — won’t start. Not even in safe mode. After running a full scan yesterday, of course. AAUGH!

So I’m on the Acer netbook. I won’t bother trying to figure out what’s wrong. I’ll just go straight to an installation of Windows.

(Later) OK…. I shall not die this day. Not yet, anyway. I ran Safe Mode so it would go to a command prompt, and I was able to launch explorer.exe (the desktop GUI interface). Running chkdsk revealed some file system problems, so I set chkdsk to run with the fix option on the next restart. Why did NTFS develop a problem? Don’t know, but I won’t ever run the Verizon system optimizer again, that’s for sure. It’s the one thing I did differently yesterday than I usually do when doing a maintenance scan.

(Later still) Well… the first restart after the last thing I wrote resulted in a BSOD with PFN_LIST_CORRUPT. So I most likely have a hard memory error, or a bad device driver. I removed the Cisco VPN and its virtual adapter, and the error hasn’t returned. But just in case I burned a bootable Microsoft Memory Test CD.

Snoopy flies in space, lands in Washington state

It’s been forty years since Snoopy flew to the Moon on Apollo 10, the last mission of the program to intentionally not land on the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor. “Precious” seems to be the best word to describe this photo of NASA secretary Jayme Flowers holding a big Snoopy.

Jayme Flowers with Snoopy

Before Snoopy flew ’round the Moon he was a Sopwith Camel pilot, of course, battling the Red Baron in — what else? — dogfights. A traveling exhibit from the Charles M. Schulz Museum, featuring Snoopy’s most famous persona, which was inspired by a bit of boyhood whimsy by Monte Schulz, is now at the Pearson Air Museum in Vancouver, Washington. The origin of the hit song “Snoopy and the Red Baron” is murkier than is generally known, as I hope to explain one day, but for now I am pledged to remain silent.

In another bit of Peanuts news, there are apparently financial problems at the New York auction firm Illustration House, which needed a bit of nudging to make a good faith payment to the owner of a Schulz original.

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Lori McKenna, five times nervous

Lori McKenna, now 40 with a son of 20, put on a great show Friday evening. She was dressed well, but was reassuringly not larger than life.

Lori shares something with Elvis Costello. Her singing voice is strong, distinctive, and immediately recognizable, and it’s very different from her speaking voice. She really cuts through the clutter of many sound-alike women singers.

I have a couple of video clips, and I intentionally didn’t record any of her songs. I want to highlight Lori’s charm as a storyteller, which of course relates to her skill as a songwriter.

This is her entrance…

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…and here’s a fun story that any mom or dad can relate to. You get to see Lori engaged in one of my favorite activities — untangling a cable.

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McKenna’s Gold

Lori McKenna

Lori McKenna is her name. A momma of five, married to a plumber, Lori McKenna is the stand-out best of the best, tipper-topper talent in Boston-based singing-songwriting. Carol and I will be seeing Lori perform this evening. I’ll try to sneak some photos and maybe even a snippet of video.

Here’s how Lori looked for a long time…

Lori McKenna

… and here she is now, all dolled up after going a bit more over to Country from Suburban Folkie. Personally, I prefer her rumpled “Mom-who-rushed-out-of-the-house” look.

Lori McKenna

In 2002, when Lori was first catching some national attention, a Boston TV station produced this profile of her.