Technology, election, assault and family

That is pretty much how my time is filled up. Work and technology, decision on the election (thank god it's over), my huge family happenings and plans for the holidays and assault. Wait...what?

Yes. I won't go into a lot of detail. This post is not to elaborate on the assault. The person was my sister 1954. The assault was aggravated rape and aggravated robbery. She is okay. She is no shrinking violet. She has been in prison numerous times and is not a timid person, she survived but was afraid for her life. A knife was involved. That is all I am saying about the actual assault.

The real reason for the post is the technology part. The abuser stole her cell phone. She has a cell plan with her son (my nephew the technology guru/wizard). He called the provider and they set it up so that if the phone was turned on, it would beam the location to a tower and then shut down.

The "perp" turned it on. Technology worked, provider called my nephew, my nephew called the police and they picked the guy up right in front of his house sitting in a car. Wearing the same clothes my sister had described. Yes, it took a while to talk her into going to the police and hospital the next morning, but she did. So, her attacker was arrested within 24 hours of the crime. YAY!

She had already had plans to move out of that neighborhood - the plan was actually in the works. Two weeks notice at the job, plans for a new place - she had one more week, there. Let the healing begin.

What the heck?

So there I am last Saturday after the family party. I plug my phone into my computer (as I have for a couple of years) to pull the pictures off of the SD card. What? The computer no longer recognizes my phone. Kaput. Nothing. I mess with it for a while and then I just open the phone, pull out that tiny SD card and plug it into a multi-port card reader that I had purchased a while back. I got the pictures that way.

The next day, I am thinking - I am going to fix my phone. I work with it. I fiddle with this, with that. I google the problem. I followed one post's advice. Something about changing the phone Settings from Mass storage to Media Sync.

It didn't happen right away. In fact I think it took 12  hours. But lo and behold, I started getting e-mail messages from 2012. A slew of them. There were old 2012 messages that went to co-workers, friends and family. What the hell?

A few who did not read the date were confused. They contacted me and said "What is going on?" I sent a mass e-mail to all my contacts explaining what had happened and to "ignore" any old messages they may get from me.

But, what I got was another story. I can recall a time when I would take pictures with my phone and share (send) it to my e-mail account. I have one in gmail and my regular roadrunner accounts. I never received them so I would send them different ways. Nothing. I finally was able to share some through facebook, others I had to wait until I got home to my PC and pull them off my phone that way.

I must have received twenty old images. It made me smile. The above photo is one such image. Remember a while back when I did the hot sauce episode (for about a month?). I looked it up, it was March 2012. If you click on the "hotsauce" label you can read all my posts about hotsauce.

 At one point I went back to the same store and snagged more photos. The one posted above is from that trip.

Some interesting reading on hot sauces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

http://www.chilliworld.com/factfile/scoville_scale.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_sauce

Mmmmm...spaghetti!

An actual text conversation on my phone:

Coming in from a number I do not recognize...

"I think you should come to our "name of city" fire department spaghetti dinner tomorrow."

I replied:

"I do too. Who is this?"

Where did she go?

There once was a lady who wrapped gifts like this. Where did she go?

Some big discussions in technology in educ@tion today. BY0T (Bring your 0wn technology). Symbols placed on purpose to thwart search engines. Do you have children/grandchildren in sch00l? Almost every child over the age of fourteen (perhaps younger) has a cellular phone. Most have a "smart" phone.

It is true that the sch00l network can block them from access, but most have G3/G4 for connecting. What do you do then? Most of us know that we do not need wireless to gain access to e-mail with our phones. How do tea@chers handle this in the cl@ssr00m? It is kind of a mixed bag right now. You have some who sit back and say "I don't worry about it. They signed an AUP (acceptable user p0licy)."  Does that really cover it, though? Others are fraught with worry. Some are creating an entirely new AUP just to cover the new technology.

Then there are devices such as my n00k. It is small enough (even with the case) to fit in my purse. Most of the schools are issuing netb00ks to $tudents to use. Much cheaper than iPads.

And why does my manager keep posting his "cel phone" number when he is out of the office? It is not a celluloid device. It is a cellular device! Cel is a short name for celluloid. Sigh. Oh, dear. I think I am getting cranky. Time to find my pillow.

Wait! I watched War Horse. Very good. My daughter watched it with me, she said the book went into much more detail and emotions that were not captured in the film.  Did you like the book/movie Black Beauty? The book War Horse is told from the point of view of the horse. (Not certain the entire book is, though). I liked the movie. I did not need tissues.

Really?!

My small circle of the family exchange gifts. We have taken the magic out and just given lists. We have even fine tuned it so that we send pictures and links to show the gift giver exactly what we want. No surprises. Except there is an occasional surprise and always one that brings out a good laugh.

This is a time for us to browse and just pick things that we usually would not buy for ourselves or some items we can never seem to remember to get.

Included in my list, I chose a cell phone charger organizer. At one time or another the family that stays over usually needs to charge their electronics at some point during their stay. Cords and chargers often get left behind as they usually pick an electrical outlet located behind a couch, stand or chair.

I came across the above item. This is definitely a gift you would not want to give cat owners. My cats would either a) try to eat the grass or (worse)  b) pee in it. Probably both.

As I was browsing Amazon for possible selections, I checked the technical details of the one pictured above.  I think they have the wrong product.

Technical Details

• Features -
• Create your Scenes - Use powerful tools with thousands of stickers, brushes, textures, elements, animating objects, and more to create each scene any way you like; dynamic tools bring your scene to life
• Unlock a World of Play - In a game powered by your imagination that rewards you for being creative, unlock new tools, objects, fun challenges, and more
• Experiment with Fun Challenges - Over 100 challenges to spark your imagination; use your creativity in each scene to power-up your play and unlock new hidden areas; experiment with objects and effects to create simple, challenging, or even crazy solutions
• Fun for the Whole Family - A unique experience that's fun and easy for anyone to pick up and play

LOL!

By the way, my fog lifted as soon as I published yesterday's post. Just writing that stuff down seemed to purge it out of me and I was pretty good the rest of the day.

Some minor aches this morning, but nothing like yesterday. Perhaps I can put off seeing the doctor for another month or two.  ;)

Well, the fog lifted until my cats knocked something over just before I started this post and when I turned to see what happened, I spilled my coffee. It is nice to know that if I ever need to, I can use coffee to clean my wood floor. It gives it a nice, shiny sheen. Groan.

Rx

It is one of those weeks where the days zip by and I am not home in the evenings and time slips away and I get no computer time. I barely get time to do the necessities like taking care of the pets and washing clothes. There are not any dishes because I am not home long enough to dirty any except for a coffee cup or water glass.

I wanted to have my hair (roots) touched up before the reunion and I ran out of time to do it myself. I opted for a salon. A rare treat, indeed. Two main reasons. I don't get a migraine when they do it and it never goes "brassy" when they color it. Well, I didn't get the migraine.

I turn my cell phone off during appointments like this because I think that is annoying and rude to have a cell phone ring during anything like this. I finished and took my bright orange head out to the car and checked my messages. Hmmm. 3 missed calls and they were just five minutes ago.

My daughter did not answer her phone but her beau did. He handed the phone over to her. They were headed to the ER but since daughter was speaking to me on the phone and her beau was driving I assumed it was not too serious. She felt that she had a bladder infection and was passing blood.

Mom's don't hear much more in  a case like this. I just wanted to know one thing. Which hospital? It was the one in my town and I met them there. I was kind of skeptical of the ER visit because daughter has never been before and never had to wait while they see everyone else first.

The wait was over three hours. I told her it would be long.  I even took a break to go home to take the dogs out (my house is about 1/2 mile away) and got my cell phone charger. Even though my daughter was fighting an infection and was in some pain her beau and I spent about two solid hours going over our cell phones with updates and tests. 

With the reunion coming up I set up a group of texts to family so that I can keep them updated on our whereabouts during the drive down. For example, if our car caravan stops at lunch I want to let others know the time and location so that if they are within minutes of the restaurant, they can stop in also.

With over 10 cars going the same direction but not necessarily the exact same time and some drive faster than others and some of us have to stop more than others - I felt it would be nice to keep updates.

I sent a test text out Sunday morning. Out of 17 people, five answered right away. At 4 p.m. on Monday another five answered. All within a five minute time span. That leaves 7 not accounted for. One I know will never answer because I accidentally sent it to her home phone. Good luck with that one! I was a bit dismayed that quite a few got the message over 24 hours later. Well, that would not work. That is the reason we spent two hours performing software updates and tests.

Anyway, back at the ER. My daughter was diagnosed with a problem and it had moved to her kidneys. She was given medicine straight away and given two prescriptions. She is feeling much better, now. That was Monday evening.

While in the waiting room of the ER I observed people. There were two women in particular. One was robust and one was younger and thinner. Both had their tops literally bulging out of the tiny, skimpy shirts they were wearing. Both had small children.

Seriously. The robust one sat across from us for two hours and she had to bend over many times to pick up what her daughter dropped on the floor and I swore she was going to fall right out of her tiny top. I am still surprised I did not see a nipple. My daughter's beau and I gave each other looks like "Holy cow!" each time and my poor daughter was too out of it to notice anything.

The younger one was skinnier and had a younger baby but she was very exposed. I found it kind of amusing that the two with the exposed bosoms  were the ones with young children. As long as there are low cut tops, I guess the species will survive in some form or another.

Panorama

I didn't even know my cell phone camera could do this. I was relaxing out in the back yard a few days ago and was messing with my cell phone and the camera. Left to right:  the very edge of my patio. My neighbor's duplex (two very sweet ladies live in them). My little gray house (with all the garbage cans - yes I am trashy). The road where you can see the duplex across the street. My other neighbor's house - two story gray (also super nice people, I am blessed!). The huge pine tree that provides us beautiful shade during the hot summer months. The little white house on the other side of my neighbor's house and my neighbor's garage with the orange/red wheel barrel leaning up against it.

Where in the hell are my dogs?

Verizon update

Here is a photo of my boxer when I told him the story about our Verizon fiasco. He raised up, gave me a look that definitely says WTF?! Even he could not believe how insane the story was.

There is a so-so ending. I am not "completely" satisfied. We returned the phone, thus getting our extra line dropped. All fees waived. Of course I will be going over my bill with a magnifying glass for the next few months because now the company has lost all of my trust.

My daughter turned around and just purchased the phone outright, then. We could not have been treated any nicer. We went to the same store and I tried like hell to get the same sales person and same manager (they were both there) but we were superseded by another assistant who was full of "honeys" and all kinds of nice things to say and call us. A male manager hovered over the entire episode. It was as if they were waiting for us and they ushered us to the back counter. I smirked at this because they could put me in the next county and if I am angry enough the customers in the store could still hear me.

I could tell at the first instant that I was not going to need my anger. It deflated after the first "All fees will be waived, don't worry. We will take care of everything." from the sales assistant.

Also came to find out that the former sales associate had charged my daughter $20 for a phone cover that she repeatedly told her came WITH her phone. My daughter got a lesson in checking the receipt when they hand it to you. They have a sneaky way of putting the receipt in the bag and knowing that you probably won't be looking it over. That you will be too busy setting up your new phone.

I just wanted the fiasco over with and I think it will be a long time before either one of the kids wants another phone. But, I will be damned if Verizon was getting away with this mistake. They have left a scar on me that I doubt will heal over very soon.

I hold a grudge for a long time. There is a fast food restaurant that I have not walked into since 1985. I hardee ever see one anyway. I also have a grudge against a department store. I know they could care less about one person's business but the fact that they won't be getting any more of my money is my kohl, I mean goal.

Customer Service

My Azaleas are popping this year.

This post brings me to Monday the 9th. My daughter wanted a new phone and her contract was not up so she and her boyfriend were going to pay full retail price for a smart phone. I won't go into this but we all remember when we first began making our own money and some of us (if not all) thought that money would stretch on forever.

Sigh. On Tuesday the 3rd, the sales lady talked us into purchasing the phone for half the retail price (retail was $500) and adding a plain line to our plan for $10 a month with a 2-year contract. (I was contacted over the telephone - I was  not at the store).  So either way my daughter was going to pay $500. Either all of it up front or half now and half over a 2 year plan. I could find somebody that could  use a cell phone number in my family. I have a brother who will be 70 and he has never felt the need for a cell phone. I would just find a cheap phone and set it up with the new number and give it to him to take with him when he was away from  home. Done deal. Sometimes people like the security of a cell phone after they begin to use it. I do not know of many people who stop using one after they started.

I decided to research the line to make sure that my brother had 500 minutes of call time and what do I find when I pull up my account? They are charging me $20 a month for the line instead of the promised $10. At $10 a month for 2 years it would have equaled $240, correct? At $20 a month for two years now we are looking at $480 total. That is double the amount quoted to us. With my daughter already paying $250 for the new phone, that would be a grand total of $730.

There is no rebate if you do not add this smartphone to a new plan.

So Mama bear decides to go into the cell phone store and question the bill. I give them my account number and I ask for the same clerk that my daughter had. That clerk is at lunch.  I told them I would wait for her. She came over to me about ten minutes later. She pulled up the account. She said that she had made a mistake. That since I was a previous Alltel customer that the fee IS indeed $20 a month. I gave her a stoic look. 

I can't recall exactly what it is I said at that particular moment. The moment is lost to me, now. I suppose I said something to the effect of "Fix it." To which I believe she replied "I can't. There is nothing I can do."  I do remember I raised my voice. I do remember I did NOT curse. I do remember the manager jumping up off her perch and running over to us. In other words in a fit of rage I lost it. As I am prone to do from time to time.

This is where it got ugly. For starters all I could see was the managers' eye make-up. I can't find an image on the web that even comes close. She wore coffee brown eye shadow straight to her brows. No shading, no lighter blending as you got closer to the brow - total black/brown all the way. She had the god-awful longest lashes I had ever seen any human wear outside of the theater. It was very hard to take her seriously. If I were not so angry I would have been amused.

She was not a kind manager. She treated me as if I were the problem. I repeated myself "She makes the mistake and I have to pay?"  She just kept saying "There is nothing we can do."  The manager took about 8 minutes of my time explaining to me all about how I was an Alltel customer and to move me over to their company I would probably lose money. Her sermon went on forever. I stared at my notebook. Yes, I take a notebook when I know I am going to get angry and cannot recall every word that is exchanged. I knew this was going to be one of those times. Names get written down.

I quipped "How about training your employees a little better?" Was it a cheap shot? I didn't think so. She icily told me "I don't need YOU  coming in here and telling me how to train my employees. She made a mistake. I bet you make mistakes. I have worked here for 5 1/2 years and I still make mistakes. There is a lot of details to learn. You don't need to come in here and berate her!"

Of course you think of a million things you could say back after the initial exchange. I should have said "Yes, you do need a customer coming in here to inform you that your training is sub par."  That is the first one. The second could have been "I  am not berating the employee who made the mistake,  I am pointing out the lack of training she received - so I guess I am berating the person who trained  her."

Ah, well. I know I said plenty. One was the option of returning the phone. She shot back "Yes, you have 14 days to return the phone, but we will have to charge you a $35 re-stocking fee!"  Again, I came back with "Excuse me? She makes the mistake and I have to pay?"  Incredulous. "I am sorry but we cannot waive the re-stocking fee."

At this time I was ready to end my entire relationship with this company. I have been an Alltel/this new company customer for over 12 years. "How much to get out completely?"  I knew there would be a fee to break the contracts.

She punched more buttons on the computer. I swear she laughed and sneered. "That would cost you $950. That is too much money. I know you won't do that!"  At that point I should have told her "I don't need YOU to tell me what I can and cannot do with my money" -  but of course I did not think of that until later.

I said "Money is not the issue."  She remarked "Well, it certainly was when you started."  I looked at her and narrowed my eyes. I said "Now it's about customer service."  She said that I was not going to get a better cell phone range with any other company.

I put my pen in my purse and snapped my notebook shut. "I am done here. Thank-you." I could see I was not going to get anywhere with this clown.   And I walked out the door. I waited 2 hours to calm down before I called the 800 number on my bill. Of course they would waive the $35 fee. This does not help me. My daughter wants the phone. The only thing to do is to return the phone (drop the extra line) and turn around and purchase the phone for $500.

My daughter was livid. Of course they spent the other $250. Actually the cash was all her boyfriends. He is the one that wanted a new phone. Since we added him to our plan he has changed his phone twice. He has apologized profusely to me for this mess. He wanted a new phone. It is his money. Nobody can predict how the company will treat the customer in this instance. I only know that we did nothing wrong but Verizon was saying that we had to pay and through the nose.

I was NOT going to let Verizon get away with charging me double what they quoted me, though. Would you? I have a letter to send to headquarters. My daughter has until the 17th to return the phone. When she does this I will send the letter. I called the corporate 800 number twice. I wrote a scathing e-mail on-line. Again, all reps will waive the $35 re-stocking fee. Still this does not do me a hell of a lot of good. What about the $35 activation fee to start up that fourth line? Do I get credit for that?

I just remembered that little bit. Her boyfriend paid that in cash on the spot. Christ. 12 years! 12 years and no major issues. Alltel's customer service was a dream come true. Now as each contract expires I may just move onto another provider. My daughter and her boyfriend can do what they want with their phones. I am pulling out. 

Unless miracles of miracles the corporate decides to make amends. I won't hold my breath.

Prince Caspian?

No. My daughter - again.
See the movie image here.

Goofy fun

A while back I downloaded a free app to my cell phone called Fun pics. You choose a picture (they have the face cut out) - aim your camera at your subject, line their face up in the little area and click. I have about a dozen of these with different characters. This one is my daughter in the infamous Yoda character.

Lit tree

Only the lights. Still. Nothing else. I have been giving it water like crazy. The kids are responsible for decorations this year. Sigh. I like how this cell phone feature "Polaroid" makes the photo look 30 years old. I think my camera is in the trunk of my car. I took pictures at our big family dinner on the 11th, and have pictures but have forgotten to get the camera out each time. Wait. I unloaded groceries on Sunday. I would have picked up the camera if it were in the trunk. Then, where is it? Aw, jeez. Now I have to go look for it.

I have the week off from work for vacation. There are about 3 problems that I am still trying to take care of remotely from home. They concern the filter. I may try one more thing and then let everything go until I return to the office on the 20th.

The filter may die by then.

Do you have children in school? If you did,  how would you feel about their Internet usage and the filter? Would you be upset if they could play games or access facebook in the classroom? How about reading/writing blogs while in the classroom?  Porn is easy. It is blocked with NO exceptions. Proxies are blocked with NO exceptions. 

Youtube, facebook, games, shopping, gambling - a lot of other categories are left up to the district. The thorn in my side (this month) is a middle school has three games housed on their web page. We are required to categorize all our school web pages as "education" and all my districts allow this category to pass. If they did not, it would be kind of difficult for them. But, this lets those 3 games show up under the category "education" and all the schools in my organization's network can access the 3 games. I have only one district complaining (but they are relentless). I am working with my filter company (they are located on the west coast and I am on the east) but their resolution has not worked. I may have misunderstood and set it up incorrectly.

I have never heard of a parent wanting a list of blocked categories for their district. I have wanted to go to districts and hold a meeting with the parents to explain how the filter works in the districts but I wonder if any parent is even interested. 

Do they think that this technology is without errors?

WWBD

A blast (of snow) from the past.

I am not pictured in the photo above. I would have been 3  years old. I was probably inside eating playing with my brothers' trucks.

The photo is taken either by my Mom or sister 1944. Brother 1942 was off in the AF during this time. I think. I don't know.

He and sister 1944 are having computer problems.

You get an update or do something or the power goes out and your computer needs to/ or has to restart. You get  a black screen with one line of text. Windows cannot start because the blah.dll file is missing or corrupt. What do you do?

WWBD? What would Bill do (as in Bill Gates)? I know what Bill wants you to do. He wants to you run out and purchase the latest and greatest version of Window available. Preferably the Ultimate Professional edition of his OS and install it and begin using it.

My brother came close to hauling it off to the nearest repair center. He does not have very much patience (although he is very thorough and diligent).

After finding the installation disk I was finally able to walk him through installing a new version of XP onto his spare hard drive we purchased a month or two ago.  We would have repaired the Windows that was on drive C: but he did not recall his Admin password. Oops. After we installed a new version of XP on the D: drive my sister found the folder with the lost password. Figures. Heh, heh. Murphy's law and all.

We get that installed and I advise him to call the cable provider to have them set him up with Internet access. They can give  him all the numbers he needs to plug in, etc.. I also warned him about the time it would take the system to update that version of XP (four years of updates can take a while) once he does get back on-line.

The tech with the cable company says that he needs a new driver and a new cable and he will have to go to the nearest (insert greedy cable company name here) center and purchase them before he can get him access to the Internet. They probably did that when they first set him up... but who knows where that update is, now. What cracks me up is they told him he now needs an Ethernet cable to the cable modem (which I thought he was using)... whatever.. I guess he connects USB to the modem? Yikes.

Anyway, I was walking him through trying to access Word/Excel files and the phone kept cutting out. They have cable/Internet/telephone all through the (insert greedy cable company name here). My sister (who lives with him) let him use her cell phone and he told me he had enough of computer troubleshooting and was going to give it a rest after he called (insert greedy cable company name here) and got the phones and cable television working again.

Wow. What really scared me was how lost they were w/out the Internet. I would be lost, but I have four computers and two cell phones in the house that can access the Internet. I also have four machines at work, plus access to a lab of 25 computers that can access the Internet.

What do we do if the Internet goes away? Or collapses? Or the traffic gets so bogged down we can't move? When mine goes out I revert to reading the newspaper, etc... I know this subject has been beaten to death, but seriously what would YOU do if you lost your Internet access? And it wasn't coming back anytime soon.

My sister drove to Akron (her daughter's house) to check her e-mail (she needed a count for cookies she was baking for a Christmas lunch) and to take my daughter's dog out, also. E-Mail was not the only reason. :)

I had set her up with e-mail on her daughters' PC when she stayed there after her daughter's surgery. She did not know how to access her e-mail anywhere else but at home. My brother had set her up so that all she had to do was to click an icon and it opened Outlook Express and she went from there. Imagine me showing her (insert greedy cable company name here)'s webmail and trying to explain to her how Outlook pulls e-mail off the cable company's mail server and places it on the PC hard drive at her house. So that when she goes to her daughter's house and accesses her e-mail she can no longer see her messages. Where did they go? She did get it though after I drew pictures. Seriously. I do that for everybody when I explain things. I think it helps.

Now, I am trying to explain that to my brother when I suggested that once he does set her back up with her e-mail to not set up Outlook Express because she is always going places. To visit family, motels, libraries and she checks her e-mails at their computers. He is not getting it. Of course he has a lot on his plate right now. And I was not there to draw pictures. ;)

I told him tomorrow. Tomorrow I could work with them some more. Between Thanksgiving and New Years I do not have a lot of time. I am late already. I am supposed to have about a dozen things done this morning to get ready for today and I have not done a one. Sigh.

Where did they go?

I have had a mystery that has puzzled me for years. Where do people go if you have missed their call and you try to call them back within seconds? Do they throw the phone over the hill in anger because nobody answered? Do they drop the phone and run like hell? Where do they go?

It happened the other day to me. I was driving and my cell phone rang. I glanced to see it was a very good friend calling. I wanted to tell her I would call her later in the week when I had time to chat.

I drove another 100 feet and pulled the car over. I dialed her number - no answer. Where did she go in 30 to 50 seconds? Did she scream and throw the phone out the window? What?

I don't get it. I have not remembered to call her back since. Now it is past 9:00 and I don't want to call in case she is in bed.

I understand that some phones do not return a busy signal. My work phone doesn't. To the caller it just rings and rings and rings. Work phone. Go figure. No answering machine picks up either. I just tell my co-workers if it just rings and rings, I am probably on the line talking to somebody else. If I am away from my desk and I don't answer the phone, the machine will pick up fine. When I am not actually on the phone.

Wait. Maybe the callers are messing with me. Laughing at the ringing telephone at the other end. "Don't answer my call, will you?! See how it feels?!" Creepy.

Spice of Life

I made a quick run out to the Am!sh country yesterday to stock up on some goodies for the upcoming holidays. I may give some as gifts and I may use them for get togethers. I purchased about five of each of the jars shown above. The hot pepper jelly is not near as hot as I'd like it to be, but that may work for some folks who don't like it all that hot. There is sweet & hot mustard and hot relish mustard and peanut butter spread (which I don't happen to like, but many do) and the various mustards I use with my cheese and meat tray for folks to dip their trail bologna into.

And, I stock up on cream cheese when it is on sale. I don't purchase too far ahead because I do not like it after I have frozen it. It just does not work well in the recipes after it has been frozen.

And, cheese. I purchased about five blocks of cheese. Farmer, butter, jumpin' jack, baby Swiss and mild Colby. I am just hoping that the cheese can last until the Thanksgiving holiday at least. (wink, wink).

As usual the store was packed full. It is a small store and very crowded. There are bulk candies and bulk flour, noodles and other baking goods. Spices galore. All in huge amounts. I also try not to purchase too much of a spice at one time because I feel it also goes stale.

I made plans to see Secretariat today. I hope it is worth it. After, I am going to sister 1949's house. She fell and broke her wrist. Sister 1944 is meeting me there. We are going to do dishes etc... to help out. 

I saw a few snow flurries while out walking the dogs yesterday early morning. They were pretty to look at while under the street lights but I know the havoc they will bring. Bittersweet feelings. My boxer's sweater is too hard to get on him. It fits too tight. While at the boarding place he chewed through his harness. I just got him a collar this time. He doesn't care for it, but he will have to adjust. He tries to move away from the leash leaning on him as I walk him so he ends up walking sideways most of the time. It is kind of funny.

Well, I used my extra hour today in my sleep, so I better get a shower and get crackin'. Making a new cheese ball today with dried beef, green onions, cream cheese.... I'll get my camera out and take pics. The above pic was taken with my phone and I am not real good at it yet. I did download some retro camera features that I am playing with. Here is one looking at the skyline sitting in my car  from across the store. I think I used the "toy camera" feature for this one.

Hello? Hello!

Maybe when the telephone with this type of handset came out, some folks didn't know you had to pick this hand set up to answer the telephone. Maybe they just leaned over the ringing device and barked "Hello? Hello!"

That is what I felt like trying to answer my Fascinate. Come to find out I have to slide (or swipe) the "Answer" button to actually make the connection - not PUSH the button.

My daughter had to tell me. The student has started to become the teacher. Nuts!

Push

There are some things I need to get used to about this "Fascinate". I am not totally "fascinated". My first and biggest complaint is I have no way of knowing if there is a message waiting for me until I pull the phone out of sleep mode and check my screen. My daughter (Droid 2) said that she has a small tiny green light that lets her know if she has a message.

Because (contrary to most folks these days) I do not take my phone with me everywhere (like the bathroom!). I will leave it sit on my desk at work and when I return I am left wondering "Did I get a message? How will I know?" My old Razr would beep at me every 5 minutes if somebody left a message.

This "Fascinate" remains silent.

My sister called me Thursday evening. I was sitting right by the phone. It did not ring. I heard a beep and I looked to find that I had a voicemail. In fact, it said I had "missed a call". How could that be? I was sitting right here. The volume was turned up. Hmmm.

The next day at work, my brother called. The phone was ringing it's head off, I pulled it out of sleep mode and pushed the button. Nothing. It just kept ringing. And ringing. I pushed and pushed. Ack! Another "missed" call. This phone is toying with me.

I tried to call him back. I pushed and pushed - no use. It was as if an invisible shield had come over the face of the phone and was not going to respond to anything I did to it.

It beeped (or hiccuped) with a message that I had a voicemail. Then (and only then) was I able to get a response from the touchpad keyboard. I called my brother back.

I set the phone down and stared at it. It had the audacity to go to sleep.

"So THIS is how it's going to be, huh?" I gave it a stern look. I squared my shoulders and sat up in my chair.

"Bring it on bitch. I will slay this dragon."

Can't touch this

Without getting my fingerprints all over it. I just have to live with fingerprints. At least I got the screen protectors for it. And an extra battery. It is power-intensive.

I also have three (count them, three!) books from the library on how to configure and tweak Ubuntu. Good grief. My head just might explode with information overload this week.

The third book (Ubuntu Bible) is at work.

I am switching from a Razr (red) to the (black) Fascinate. Steep learning curve. Steep.

Eye Dee Ten Tee Error

A picture of my pineapple pudding cake before adding the pineapple and cool whip.

I had to throw almost the whole dang thing out after my party this year. I guess I just had way too much food this year. Nobody ate any of it. I gave a couple of pieces (or with this cake it is more like huge spoon fulls) away, and I ate one myself - but the rest? Garbage disposal got it. Oh, well. Mama said...

Anyway... good news. I figured out half way through the day (when I dropped my cell phone) that it was still missing the battery, so when I went home at lunch I found the battery under a hamper and my cell phone is fine. I am kind of bummed because I really want a smart phone and I need a good excuse to treat myself to one. (Just because I am eligible for an upgrade isn't a good enough reason for me). This coming from someone who will get her daughter the latest and greatest gadget while I take her hand-me-downs.

As to the title of the post, has anybody ever said to you "That's an eye dee ten tee error?" It certainly is NOT a compliment. We techs would jokingly tell each other that and when we came across somebody who did not know what it is, we say "write it down." Phonetically it is pronounced eye dee ten tee. Written down it looks like this:

id10t. :)

What a lousy host I am! A good friend e-mailed me Saturday morning and said she was getting a group together that evening to play cards and such. I said "Sure" because I did not have plans. I had worked on a small "mini-laptop" that she purchased for her niece and this would be a good time to return it. (I'll post more about this unit another day.) Note: I am seriously "NOT IMPRESSED" with this device.

So, I head up north and settle in with good friends, good snacks and good games.

I get a message from my sister in Columbus. She was visiting her daughter (autistic) and she, my nephew and niece were headed to my house and would be there in an hour. I was an hour away. Whoops. I had forgotten they were coming. Yikes!

I tried to call them back, but they were probably travelling through the "no man's land" area where I had worked at a week before and I did not reach them. My nephew still had his key so it all turned out okay, but I felt bad. I stayed to play cards with friends (because we were playing teams and stuff) and I made it home around midnight.

Bad sister! Bad host!

Somebody stop the world.

What is this? What do you do with this? Huh? This "look" is the result of me playing with a cat instead of him. I was taking pictures of Teton (who was playing with the wrist strap to the camera) and I happened to look over my floor fan and see this. Good God Almighty! It is the look of "But, I thought you loved ME best!"

Anyways, my nightmare didn't end. It just moved into my house and follows me around. After my freakish day on Thursday the 15th, Friday was rather mundane and normal. Saturday brought me a ripe and juicy migraine with a side of exhaustion.

Sunday came. I ventured out to buy groceries and cat/dog food. I purchased some frozen food and ice cream. Came home and "BAM" no keys to get in the house. The spare key we keep hidden (LOL!) I had given to daughter's boyfriend so he could get into the house. Oh, my. I looked at my daughter's bedroom window. Is it unlocked? Yes, it was. It wasn't pretty folks and I hope (for their sake) the neighbors were not looking. I got in and I am still feeling the ramifications from THAT!. The dogs all thought it was quite hilarious. I gave them a what for.

Monday came. Work was okay. I stopped at the drug store on the way home. Two hours later I went to balance my checkbook and what? No wallet! I had left it at the drug store. I called them, yes they had it. I went back and picked it up. All money still there. I thanked the cashier and pointed to my head and made a motion that I was losing it.

Tuesday came. I took the dogs out for their early morning walk and when I returned there in the middle of the floor was one of my brand new SAS sandals. The back strap was chewed completely off. I had forgotten to put them in my bedroom overnight. They cost me serious $$ but they are so wonderfully comfortable. I wore my tennis shoes that day and will wear them today. Grrrr.

Wednesday dawns. I go downstairs to take a shower and flip my cell phone off with my clothes and it clatters to the hard tiled floor. It ain't comin' back folks. It is dead as a doornail. I am eligible to upgrade to a new phone. I guess something is telling me it is time to do it. NOW!

I know I mentioned having a couple of links to look back at. Some funny stories from the past. I did not have time to look them up on my blog, but will get to them soon.

Until tomorrow... I am locking myself in a padded room. Somebody stop the world, I want to get off! Ha, ha!