I learned new term this week. I went to the doctor to get better pain meds and his prescription described the reason as "breakthrough pain." Apparently there is pain associated with some kind of breakthrough, I'm guessing the pain of reawakening nerves.

In the meantime I am getting very tired of the mistakes my left hand keeps making on the keyboard plus the pain of keeping my arm on the table (my "desk" is a 6 foot folding table with the keyboard about a foot away from the edge. I work with my arms supported by the table and the keyboard relatively flat. That gives me space to work from materials right under my nose literally. Unfortunately that puts pressure on my elbow where the nerve is sensitive and the incision is still healing. I use a pillow but that is not a really good solution.

All that is an introduction to my question. Has anyone had experience with any of the voice recognition programs out there? I'm thinking of getting something but it has to work better than Microsoft's ease of access program that comes packaged with Windows. That one really sucks.

My brother went home to the farm for Thanksgiving and found that someone had broken in and stolen a bunch of the guns and some of the tools in the shed. My mother had not noticed the theft so it could have happened any time. For those who don't know my father was something of a gunsmith and collector though he was too cheap to buy anything really valuable. There weren't many pistols, his personal .38, a replica .44 Remington New Model Army, and a couple of .22s. But they took the long guns including a valuable .45-70 saddle ring carbine from the second half of the 19th Century and my grandfather's hunting rifle, a sporterized 8mm German WWII Mauser with a scope. They picked up the Civil War .44 Remington New Model Army but apparently decided against taking it (maybe their arms were full) because they put it down again; right under a leak from the roof which made it rusty. That pistol was in perfect shape AND easily the most valuable piece there. We have documentation that it belonged to Commodore Peary's (The man who opened Japan to the outside world) personal physician though not at the time of that trip. They also took my replica Thompson Center Hawken caplock.

For some reason they took my father's anvil of all things!

On the plus side they were not interested in the flintlocks nor did they get Rachel, the .58 caliber Springfield rifled musket carried by our ancestor during the Civil War. They also missed the WWII katana leaning in the corner of the gun cabinet. And my brother found an inventory of the guns made up by my father at some point in the past. He has turned all of this over to the police. I do not expect a happy outcome.

The real heartbreak of this is that the evil of modern society has touched The Farm. The Farm (note the caps) is a magical place divorced from the outside world. It is a place of grandparents and summer days, of bullfr4ogs down at the pond and explorations in the old woodshed, and the old shop in the garage. It is walks in the autumn woods and cold weather outside by the fire in a farm kitchen. It is my father (Papa to the next generation) working in his shop making another wonder.

It is NOT drug crazed idiots looting anything they can carry off so they can shoot up for another day.

Sigh.