KCNET NEWSLETTER
07/16/06 & 07/23/06
COMMENTS AND CLASS SCHEDULES

MIKE'S COMMENTARY
COMPUTER CLASSES AND COURSES
ADVANCED USERS CLASS NOTES
NEWS & NOTES BY SUE FOUST

MIKE'S COMMENTARY AND SOME BITS OF WISDOM
I'm making this Grandma and Grandpa week!
 

Grandma's Aprons ~ Sonya VanOrder sent this one ~ I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, but along with that, it served as a pot holder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables.  After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that "old-time apron" that served so many purposes.  I suspect that the apron and the Grandma my generation knew will never be the same.  That Grandma is a lost art. Today's Grandmas, although quite different, are pretty much ok.  (Mike)

Grandfather's Clock ~ Kathy Fasiq ~ In the dining room of my grandfather's house stood a massive grandfather clock. Meals in that dining room were a time for four generations to become one. The table was always spread with food from wonderful family recipes all containing love as the main ingredient. And always that grandfather clock stood like a trusted old family friend, watching over the laughter and story swapping and gentle kidding that was a part of our lives. As a child, the old clock fascinated me. I watched and listened to it during meals. I marveled at how at different times of the day, that clock would chime three times, six times or more, with a wonderful resonant sound that echoed throughout the house. I found the clock comforting. Familiar. Year after year, the clock chimed, a part of my memories, a part of my heart. Even more wonderful to me was my grandfather's ritual. He meticulously wound that clock with a special key each day. That key was magic to me. It kept our family's magnificent clock ticking and chiming, a part of every holiday and every tradition, as solid as the wood from which it was made. I remember watching as my grandfather took the key from his pocket and opened the hidden door in the massive old clock. He inserted the key and wound; not too much, never over wind, he'd tell me solemnly. Nor too little. He never let that clock wind down and stop. When us grand kids got a little older, he showed us how to open the door to the grandfather clock and let us each take a turn winding the key. I remember the first time I did. I trembled with anticipation. To be part of this family ritual was sacred. After my beloved grandfather died, it was several days after the funeral before I remembered the clock! "Mama! The clock! We've let it wind down." The tears flowed freely when I entered the dining room. The clock stood forlornly quiet. As quiet as the funeral parlor had been. Hushed. The clock even seemed smaller. Not quite as magnificent without my grandfather's special touch. I couldn't bear to look at it. Sometime later, years later, my grandmother gave me the clock and the key. The old house was quiet. No bowls clanging, no laughter over the dinner table, no ticking or chiming of the clock. All was still. The hands on the clock were frozen. It was a reminder of time slipping away, stopped at the precise moment when my grandfather had ceased winding it. I took the key in my shaking hand and opened the clock door. All of a sudden, I was a child again, watching my grandfather with his silver-white hair and twinkling blue eyes. He was there, winking at me, at the secret of the clock's magic, at the key that held so much power. I stood, lost in the moment for a long time. Then slowly, reverently, I inserted the key and wound the clock. It sprang to life. Tick-tock, tick-tock, life and chimes were breathed into the dining room, into the house and into my heart. In the movement of the hands of the clock, my grandfather lived again.

COMPUTER CLASSES AND COURSES
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KCnet Camera Club To Meet  Monday, July 17, 2006 @ 6:00 PM The next meeting of the KCnet Camera Club is at 6 PM Monday, July 17, at Keystone Community Network (KCnet), 18 East Main Street, Lock Haven. The first KCnet Camera Club meeting was held last month. Twenty-two people, young and old, came in to start this new group. And, there's been some interest from others since that first, startup meeting. We hope this will blossom into an active group that will be able to dawn our halls with art, enter some on-line competitions, and show their accomplishments to others in this area - even world-wide through the web. Bill Raco is the organizer of this Club.  Sessions will also include presentations by special guest speakers.  Some of the topics planned for meetings are: digital photo manipulation; lighting and composition;  photo sharing and theme assignments, etc.  Bill is a member of the Clinton County Arts Council. He's locally known and has also won several national awards for his photos. He is also the KCnet Board President.  Another member of the club, Michelle Peters, has recently won an on-line photo contest.  Members are invited to share their knowledge and experiences, as well as learn new ways to enjoy photography.  Meetings are on going (third Tuesday of each month) and everyone is invited to attend. ~ If you are interested, please call KCnet at 893-8111 ~

 

ADVANCED USER CLASS NOTES:

NEWS AND NOTES WITH SUE FOUST:

Sorry to have to caution you about more on-line Scamming, but here goes. Job candidates should be cautious when seeking employment online, according to the FBI. The FBI has released a warning, saying it is investigating several online employment scams.  The FBI outlined several schemes and advised candidates to protect their information and be skeptical of some prospective employers. Some of the cases under investigation involve fake job interviews or offers of employment that are actually ways to lure people into helping crime rings. According to the warning, fake recruiters are pretending to do background checks or set up bank accounts for direct deposit.  Instead of getting a job, the candidates become victims of identity theft or owners of empty bank accounts. In other cases, job ads for correspondence managers or import/export specialists are ruses to get people to ship items, purchased illegally online using stolen credit cards, to Nigeria and other places. The FBI states that people should never pay upfront for any job opportunity and never provide identification or financial information to prospective employers.  Job hunters should consider posting resumes anonymously, withholding personal information and using e-mail as a primary means of contact.  The FBI also warns people to be wary of ads with misspellings, grammatical errors and terms like "money transfers," "wiring funds" and "package forwarding." "Those are some big clues that something is amiss," the FBI warned in its prepared statement. Authorities advise people who are scammed to immediately close all bank and e-mail accounts that could be jeopardized and contact all credit bureaus to place fraud alerts on their files.  They should also regularly monitor credit reports for signs of theft and report the fraud to the site that posted the scam as well as the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, http://www.ic3.gov. New Internet scams can also be found on a fraud page.  A private site, at http://www.LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com provides similar alerts. We had to cancel the second session of Techno-Tots because there were not enough kids signed up.  That was a great program - the kids and adults that attended the first session had a wonderful experience. Don't forget to pass the word: There will be another week of Techno Teens Camp, starting on August 7 at 9 AM.  Cost is only $50 for 5 days, 9 AM to 2 PM, lunch included.  It's an affordable opportunity for Middle School Students to learn and rub elbows with the people who work in technology daily.  And, if you know a student who possibly can't afford the full fee, we have some scholarship money, donated by members of the Advanced Users Group that meets at KCnet every Wednesday morning. If you have questions about anything I've written, or if you need technical assistance, we have a help desk with very capable technicians available and of course, I'm available by phone or just stop in.  Our office is next to Dollar General, across from Beiter's in downtown Lock Haven - 25 E.  Main Street, Lock Haven. Until next time… KCnet Board Of Directors Officers:   President Bill Raco, Vice President Bob Rolley, Secretary Jon Ahrens,  Treasurer Don Miller and Past President Judy Yoho.   Other members of the board:  Carolyn Carl, R.  Keith Kelly, Paul Korn, Donna Lannan, Amy Lapriola, Tom Livingston,  Ray McGill, and Rich Wykoff.

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