November 5th, 2026

 Well, it's been a while since I've been active here on the ol' Intarwebs. I'm going to try to resolve that by making it an attempt to post at least three or four times a week. Maybe more.

This has not been a good year for Casa Del Meig'h, what with the inflation and such. I know we have weathered it so far due to owning our home outright. If we had a mortgage to pay on, we might not be in very good shape.

 Anyway, I'm just busy at the moment setting up some laptops with non-Redmond based operating systems.

"Bluey" A Dell Inspiron 17R N7110, running Linux Mint, Cinnamon desktop

"Blackie" Another Dell 17R running Running Debian Linux, Cinnamon desktop

"Greenie" Yet another Dell 17R running  Manjaro with KDE desktop

"Newbie" You guessed it, a Dell 17R running Fedora 44 with a KDE desktop

"Cheapie" Not a Dell. A Lenovo Ideapad running Kubuntu. That means it has a KDE desktop environment.

To clarify the multiple Dell 17R machines Bluey was the first one, bought new in 2011. The following additions were Blackie, bought as a spare a few years back. Greenie was bought for parts but turned out to be a full running system, too good to part out. Newbie was again, bought as a parts unit but again, too good to part out. Cheapie was gifted to me by my oldest daughter. It's not big on horsepower (AMD Ryzen 6225, I think) but it gets the job done.

By the way, the younger daughter has the fifth Dell 17R, still running Win10 Home. Blech.

Anyway, time to post this and go to bed. Have fun and be safe!

Kel 

Fourth of January 2026 Update

 I'll try not to make this a long, rambling post. Promise

2025 was not kind to us, at all. I was sick with a 13mm gallstone, despite not having a gall bladder. Yeah. Spent a week in the hospital, then twelve days getting an infusion series for sepsis. Not fun. Then I had the long COVID, and I was not fully recovered when Mrs. Meig'h came down with Meningitis. She spent several weeks in a hospital and a rehab facility. Basically learning to use her body again. Once she was home, I ran myself ragged, taking care of her and the house. I had help from my daughters but still, it ran me ragged, which leads to now. I am certainly not up to my A game, probably not to my Z game level, to be truthful.  I'm pretty sure this is the lingering effects of COVID, so when and if I recover, we don't know.

As an aside, My computers do not run Redmond products, except in a Virtual Machine. I need Win10 so I can connect with the servers to upload my Freestyle Libre II glucose monitor. I also need WinXP Pro SP3 to run my greeting card/calendar/business card/etc. software. I'm also trying to fudge some games on there, too. BTW, I run Linux Mint 22 for an OS and Oracle VirtualBox for a VM. It just seems to work. And it's supported by a great group of people on a forum. and it's free.

Anyway, I'll cut this off here, and come back in a few to update things. Take care, all.

Kel 

First Of December 2024 Update

 Here we are, the Second day of December. Overnight low of 16℉,  might make 30℉ today if we're lucky. Thank goodness we have a decent boiler for the steam heat.

So, Window$ 10 Home was evicted from my main computer that now runs Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon desktop. No more having Micro$oft badger me to upgrade or doing things like installing Copilot without asking. I understand that was a one-time mistake by the Redmond gang, so You may not get that "upgrade" on your Win10 box.

My writing has come to an impasse that I just can't seem to break through. I'm not sure what the issue is, I just don't feel motivated to do any writing of any form at the moment. I also have the same problem with my guitar building. There are six guitars that are basically not started and a seventh that was torn down for repairs that has been sitting for months. I guess it's a general malaise that I'm suffering from. Who knows.

The coming new year; The missus and I would like to do more than we have in the past. Camping, traveling, things like that. To do that, we need a good vehicle to get around in. That means I need to get my butt in gear and start collecting parts to put our low mileage Ford Explorer back on the road. I also need to work on the house, get some things squared away in the domicile.

That's all for now, I'll be back later in the month with some more ramblings.

Kel

It's Been A While

 It's been a while. Really. The last post was over two years ago, and I was still working out the finger affected by surgery for Dupuytren's Contracture. Well, things have gone pretty good, I would say. I have about 90% of full mobility of that finger, which is fine by me. At least I can type again without much trouble.

My future plans are to dump Window$ fully in the next month or so. Anyone still using Window$ 10 will know how they are being nagged by M$ to upgrade to Window$ 11. Well I ain't going there. I'm moving to Linux Mint for my OS of choice. I am through with Micro$oft wanting to spy on me, selling my data to the highest bidder. Linux Mint 22, or even Mint 21.3 is a more than adequate replacement for any Window$ variant. No spyware. No nagging to upgrade. No need to restart after updates. Most gaming supported on Steam. Yeah.

I'll type some more as I have time in the coming week. Until then, stay safe.

Kel

Hand Surgery and Follow-Up

 I did not post here at the time but I had hand surgery on my right little finger August 4th of this year. It was needed since I could not open that finger more than half-way. Made for interesting typing, for sure.

Surgery went good, according to my doctor and ehab by a therapist went as well as could be expected. It's been over two months since I went to my first rehab appointment and I would put recovery at maybe 80% or so. Now the rehab is on me to make headway on recovering that last 20% of motion range. Final report from the doctor was it was a tumor, scar tissue from past surgeries and yes, Dupuytren's Contracture. It may come back but hopefully that is long after I quit writing.

I will be trying to post Chapter 7 of "Rift" soon.

Kel

Chapter 6 of "Rift"

 It would seem that I have been remiss in keeping my blog current. As such, I apologize. If you go to the page for the tome "Rift," you will see we're up to chapter 6. Please emjoy.

The Tome "Rift"

Kel

Here's The Sequel "Rift"

 Well, here it is, "Rift," the sequel to the tome "Scribe." I hope you all enjoy the ride!

Kel