Fête de la Musique

Get the tunes going... Today is the first day of summer which means today is the 21st of June which means today is Fête de la Musique day! HURRAY!!!

This is one of our favorite French events of the year. I usually don't like crowds but this is great. Everyone is walking about in a good mood, enjoying snacks from street vendors, and loving the music.

There are musicians everywhere. They are by themselves or in small (or large) groups on the streets, or performing on a stage at a more organized event set up by the various arrondissements. There are usually some big names too, at venues such as Place de la Concorde.

Launched in France in 1982, the Fête de la Musique is now celebrated throughout Europe and worldwide, with events in 700 towns and more than 120 countries on five continents.

Here is a website that has been automatically translated into English. If you touch your cursor to a paragraph you can see the original French. There is also the language option at the top right corner of the page for French, English, Spanish, and Italian.

Oh, to be in Paris right now...

So, as KC & the Sunshine Band says, get up and "Shake your booty!"



So it goes...

Happy Birthday to Paul McCartney

Sending out birthday greetings to Sir Paul...

Video from concert at Red Square, Moscow, 24 May 2003

Birthdate: June 18, 1942 (73-years old today)

Maybe next year he can revamp the song "When I'm 64".

All the best!

UPDATE: Group Policy Client Services Error Windows 8.1 [FIXED]

UPDATED: July 9, 2015

I had this error again. I did the "netsh" procedure as described below and then shutdown and powered on computer. Very slow loading Windows Desktop then received the Group Policy Client error message again.  Darn... Did a restart and all is well. Sometimes you just have to restart more than once to fix things.

-- Original post of June 17, 2015 --

Back in April this year, I experienced a recurring problem with my computer and it is still fixed (unless this sentence has just jinxed me). This has to do with the "Failed to connect to a Windows service. Windows couldn't connect to the Group Policy Client service" error.

Well, last Monday afternoon Bob's computer (same make and model as mine, both running Windows 8.1) had this error pop up.

I went and followed the procedure which fixed my problem (see here Video #1) but it did not fix his computer. All of his registry parameters were perfect. I tried restarting his computer several times but still no change.

The next morning, I decided to use the Video #2 option as mentioned in the previous post which is to run netsh.

VIDEO #2) This video by Straker 32 might have a slightly different problem. I was going to try it if the above solution did not solve my problem. Titled: "How to Fix "Failed To Connect To A Windows Service" Windows 8". Warning, it sounds like it was made by a 12-year old but it is short. CLICK HERE

It worked and so easy!

Go to your Windows Start screen (not Desktop) and click the down arrow at the lower left corner to get to your list of Apps. Then scroll to all the way to the right and under the heading Windows System you will see COMMAND PROMPT. Right click on this app and left click on "Run as Administrator". You will then have a window where you can run DOS commands (remember when it was always that way, back in the day?).

You will have the C prompt:

C:\windows\system32>

Type:

netsh
(and press your Enter/Return key)

The C prompt will look like:

netsh>

Then type:

winsock reset
(and press your Enter/Return key)
(note the space between winsock and reset)

After it runs successfully, it will tell you to restart your computer...

Restart you computer.

This worked. No error message on the desktop... HURRAY! Almost all of the comments on this YouTube video were to say that it fixed their problem. The one that didn't probably did not specify to "run as administrator".

Still doing the happy dance! If this error pops up again on either of our computers, I will try the netsh winsock reset solution first.

Many thanks to "Straker 32" for posting his short & informative fix on YouTube.

I hope this blog post will be helpful to someone else who is in despair.

So it goes...

Greater Good Website

Provide Life-Changing Help to the Animals of Puerto Rico!

"Despite being a US territory, animal adoption programs in Puerto Rico are decades behind their counterpart in America. Less than 45% percent of dogs and 30% of cats that make it to shelters are ever adopted, and there are hundreds of thousands of street dogs and stray cats in this small island chain that will never get a chance at adoption in the first place. You can help. Your click will fund the One Picture Saves a Life workshop in San Juan and the renovation of the Las Marias PAWS satellite shelter in rural West-Central Puerto Rico. Together we can make a significant impact on the welfare of animals in Puerto Rico."  Read more and click the button to help. It's FREE and for a good cause.

The http://greatergood.com campaign changes every few days so do it now. If you are too late to help with this campaign then click on the current one.

Also, click on the other tabs (Hunger, Breast Cancer, Animals, Veterans, Autism, Alzheimers, Diabetes, Literacy, Rain Forest) and then click on their buttons to give help.

I do this every morning after turning on my computer. Make it your habit, too.

So it goes...

June 4th - Hug Your Cat Day

Today is national Hug Your Cat day...

These guys gets lots of cuddles every day.

Great excuse to take the day off as a holiday!

So it goes...

Sgt Peppers - June 1, 1967

Sixty-eight years ago today, Sgt Pepper taught the band to play...

(Click here for a map of who's who on the cover art)

Wow, the Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles was released 48 years ago today on June 1st 1967.  Where were you on that day?

On Sunday, I listened to Little Steven's Underground Garage which had a fantastic radio program featuring this momentous album. My guess is that it will be Show #686 which is not up on Little Steven's web site yet (http://undergroundgarage.com/shows-680-689/).

This album has many "firsts", including first rock LP that included lyrics to all the songs and first rock LP that won the Grammy Award for "Album of the Year".

Speaking of "firsts".... Today is June 1st which is the first day of what I like to call "summer season" as I try not to use the "H" word and hopefully that word will not pop up this summer :)

So it goes...