Good Luck or Bad Luck?

So, on Tuesday at lunch time, I visited Sally's blog. She had a link to another site called Inspire Me Now, a collection of links to really cool products and images. One of the links on that site crashed my browser and about a half-hour later, my computer had a virus.

This virus killed all my applications except for Firefox. I couldn't do any work except read my mail through the web portal. The guys at the help desk tried to run their virus killer to save my machine and even it was affected. The only thing left was to erase the hard drive and start all over. I gathered all my documents I wanted to save into a folder.

Wednesday, I found my work ID. It was where it was supposed to be, in the storage tray in the car, just stuffed down really far so I didn't see it the first four times I looked.

The help desk guy, a guy with some kind of sinus problems, saved my documents to the network and re-imaged my drive, or whatever the technical term is. Wednesday afternoon I had nothing. I did have my messy desk I could clean, my cell phone for a game of solitaire, but I was growing tired of that, and I had a purse I could clean out. So, I did that while Mr. Sniffy Snort brought my PC back to life.

I found an envelope of money I'd forgotten I had. Nice. I found health care receipt I could send in for about $400+ in claims for 2009 before I lose them. I also found another SD card reader. Good haul, I'd say.

I saw my massage therapist in the afternoon and relayed all the happenings. She suggested I buy a lottery ticket, so I did. Fingers crossed.

This morning, I disinfected Mr. Sniffy Snort's germs from my keyboard and mouse. My PC is almost back to life, still need to get him to install some more work applications, but he'll do that remotely.

Hopefully, I'll be back to normal soon. I'm so tired of loading and rebooting and passwords. Yuck.


 

User ID and Password

I got a replacement iPhone recently, right before the warranty expired. For some reason when I synced it back to the computer, the passwords didn't get restored. I have three email accounts that I can read on my phone. Evidently, the passwords are all different and I cannot remember one of the three. I should probably keep a list of what I've tried so I won't continue to torture myself with old guesses.

A month or so ago our modem died and I set up the new one. Yeah, now it's password protected, so I can't use the wi-fi on my phone at home until I can remember that password. I have a program on my Palm-Pilot that stores passwords for times like this. Except I hadn't entered this one in the first place.

Yesterday I needed to log into my employee express page to print out W-2's because we're refinancing our house (how can you pass up 4.25%, right?). I couldn't remember my user name or my password. I even got the security questions wrong so they have to mail me the info, instead of being able to retrieve it online. I checked my Palm and in the case of the employee express page, I had it entered twice, each with a different ID.

I had to log into my bank's site so I could print out statements for the past three months for the refi. You guessed it, forgot the password. My Palm to the rescue. But it was no help since the password had been reset. It only works when you keep it up to date.

Why am I having so much trouble with passwords this week? I did have the current password stored in my Palm for AmEx so I could pay a bill online so all was not bad. I hope I never forget the password to the application on the Palm.






 

Trouble?

Is anyone else having trouble with blogger?

Someone told me this week they tried to use my 'Follow Me' button and it's not working.
Then I tried and could not rename any blogs on my blogroll, blogger seemed stuck.

Anyone?

Weekend Stuff, Oh, and a Rant

Brrrrr. It was cold this morning, 34°! I had to pull out my gloves and hat for my walk.

Fern got me to take her and two friends to the movie on Friday night; we saw The Secret Life of Bees. She wanted to see it because it had Dakota Fanning in it, the other characters were played by Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys. Given the demographic of the actors, the demographic of the audience was about the same. I didn't want to believe the stereotype that black audiences talk back to the movie, but they do. Oh well, the movie was still good, I enjoyed it. Nobody told me I was going to need to take tissues with me.

I went through my stash to find a fabric for the back of the wedding quilt I'm working on for my cousin. I have fabric stashed away in lots of different bins with no real method of organization. I always have to pull it all out to find what I want, and make a real mess in the process. That would be on top of the mess that already exists. Sheesh. So I decided it was time to sort the stash with some meaningful system: by color.

I need large vessels to put the fabric in as I pull it out. I need something large, cheap, but sturdy. I looked in the dollar store and the largest things I could find were baskets the size of mixing bowls and gift bags. Not gonna work. Then I took a field trip to the mega dollar store and scored a dozen small laundry baskets. I got most of my fabric sorted and found my biggest pile was of greens, followed by blues, and a pile a pieces that clearly have more than one dominate color and I don't know what basket to put them in.

Now I've got to figure out how to store the fabric so I can find what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it. But first I have to fold all these pieces into same-sized bundles. That's going to take forever. I actually have a smaller stash than lots of my quilting friends, but still, it'll take forever to fold up neatly.

I got the greens and purples folded and put back into their baskets, then changed gears. I got the wedding quilt basted and started quilting it. The pattern I picked will take a while to execute, but it should look good when it's finished.

Last night Dan and I went to the Rams Head to see Rodney Crowell. It was a good show, I didn't know his music ahead of time but enjoyed myself, nonetheless. He played for a long time so we got home later than expected and both kids were still up. Oh well. Kevin had given himself a nap after church so he was very much awake at 11:30 and I have no idea when he actually went to bed. He did make the bus this morning, though. That's the important thing, right?

I just spent far too long on the phone with the high school. Our high school is the largest in the state and until when and where they decide to build another school, our 9th graders have classes at The Annex, 10th 11th, and 12th grades are at the main building, along with all the special-ed kids. It's the only school in the district with a split campus.

Well, it seems the lunch accounts systems are separate for the two buildings. Kevin is classified as a 9th grader so his lunch account is at the annex even though he eats at the main building. Which means he has not been able to use the automated account system yet; we have to keep sending in money instead of a check, and I don't want to send in anything bigger than a $20. Dan got fed up with it and started asking who we (I) call to get this fixed.

It took calls on three different days to get a real person to answer the phone. Still, the person I spoke with passed me on to someone else and that person said she wasn't the correct person. Somebody in the registrar's office will have to set the mobility flag so the lunch system will work. Kevin isn't the only one in this boat, why do I have to call? Why can't they just do it for all the special-ed 9th graders? Why does system have to be split? Why doesn't the school district care and fix the system? Oh that one's easy. It only involves one school.

And, for what it's worth, this post might hold the record for the number of labels I tacked on to any given post.
 

Friday Fun

I re-ran the readability gadget on my blog and got a high school level. So I stuck that little resulting sign over in the sidebar.

An exit before I was to get off the beltway this morning, a pair of cop cars got on. The traffic slowed from usual cruising speed of 70 or so to 61 or so. I hate that. Then one of the cop cars crossed all four lanes and pulled in behind me and I gracefully moved over to the next slower lane with all appropriate lane change indicators blinking. Since my exit was coming up, I just kept moving over and kept checking my mirrors. Usually the cops around here just speed up to 70+ (on a 55 mph road) and buzz by everyone. These two cars were still hanging back. I was still checking my mirrors. Then the lights came on. Uh-oh.

I got into work and spent one hour and fifty-two minutes on the phone with the help desk. I'm having printing issues. A banner page with our user ID on it is printed out with every document through our network. It wastes paper but it's helpful knowing whose printout belongs to whom. When I print something, one copy of something, everything works fine. When I specify to print out multiple copies of my document, only one copy prints. If I submit the job many times to get many copies, I get many banner pages. I hate that. It started happening when I got the new CPU back in February. When you're on the phone with the help desk, they remote to you so you don't have control of your machine, can't read blogs email while you're waiting for resolution. Nothing, but jump up to check how many copies printed with this setting or that. Not fun at all. I know, who said work was supposed to be fun, right? Nothing was resolved, the help ticket is still open and someone should be calling me. More fun.

And it's not even lunch time yet.

Jeopardy!

 
AT&T for $5, please Alex.

You need this to add a feature to your cell phone service on-line.

What is my password?

That is correct, select again.

Amazon for $30.32, please Alex.

You need this to make your purchase.

What is my password?

That is correct, select again.

eBay for $77.83, please Alex.

You need this to sign-in to eBay.

What is my password?

That is correct, select again.

PayPal for $77.83, please Alex.

You need this to pay for your winnings on eBay.

What is my password?

That is correct, select again.

AmEx for $500, please Alex.

You need this to make an on-line payment.

What is my password?

That is correct, select again.

Passwords for $1000, please Alex.

This is the key to your life.

What is ***********?

Oooh, I'm sorry, that's incorrect.

Instead of a post recaping my weekend, I'm writing from the waiting room of the auto dealership waiting for the van to be repaired. On the way back from the retreat center yesterday the engine got rough and accelerated poorly. I wondered more than once if I was going to make it home. I thought I'd gotten a bad batch of gas so I put in a bottle of dry gas. It sounded and felt better on the drive to work this morning, so I was hopeful. Phil, the techno wiz-kid I work with, has a friend with a OBD gizmo and got the error codes for me. It wasn't good news. So, that's how I got here. Lovely. Just plain lovely.

Nothing Ever Goes as Planned

I got my new PC here at work on Wednesday. My keyboard, mouse and dual monitors all stayed the same. After the tech left, I logged in and found he hadn't set up my mail properly. The applications I could run, like my shell window interface and browser, were out of focus on the monitors. I left for the day.

When I got to work yesterday, I couldn't log in at all. After spending all morning on the phone with the help desk I got logged in and got to my mail. But the type face had changed, and combine that with the blurry monitors, I had a headache after a few minutes. Consequently, I could only work in short bits and didn't get a lot done all day until another tech guy came with a new video card in the afternoon. By then, the day was shot.

I'm still working through my different applications and getting my preferences set back to my preference, it's not what I really want to spend time on, but it's got to be done so I can be the exemplary efficient employee that I am.

On the upside, this machine is lightyears faster, I only have to wait about 4 minutes to boot up in the morning, instead of about 10. Oh, the joy!

Bigger. Faster. Shinier?

I'm getting a new computer this afternoon.

Wish me luck.

I hope all my "stuff" shows up on the new one.

Remind me to ask the tech about bookmarks.

sheesh.

If this is my last post, you'll know why.

Shoot Out

Did you see the moonrise last night? In my neck of the woods, it was gorgeous! It was a brilliant, red, not-quite-full, waning gibbous hanging just over the horizon behind the bare trees; breath-taking. Truly.

When I see the moon like that I want to take a picture of it. Therein lies the problem, run-of-the-mill digital cameras can't handle moonscapes well because of the dark sky and you're left with an out of focus grainy blob. That happened Tuesday. I was driving around town and saw the moon, grabbed my camera and took this shot. I started to set the exposure and shutter manually to do the shot properly, but by then the clouds had rolled in.



When I see the moon like that, the photographer (of a long time ago) in me yearns for film, a long lens and time to do it justice. Good pictures of the moon just don't happen. The nice thing about the moon, it's always full again next month.

Last Friday a front came through and brought a little precipitation with it. It was late in the day so the sun was pretty low on the horizon when light broke through the clouds and created a rainbow in the eastern sky. I tied to capture it from the office window and got this shot.



The rainbow, another challenge in photography, is hard to see, but it's there. You can also see the progress in the landscaping. It's not much, but you can see they've been working on the "3" at the far end of the walkway to join the "4" and the "2." (Previous views here.) Close-up of the rainbow's end:

I still can't figure it out, but here's another try

I've been trying to figure out how to post a picture on my blog that I took with my iPhone, and this is the closest I've come.

I took this picture at a Chinese buffet a couple weeks ago. Then I remembered I could email in posts to blogger. So I emailed in the photo which was saved as a draft message.
Now I'm editing the draft with this explanation on the computer because I hate typing a lot of text on the iPhone. I am constantly getting a 'P' when I touch the 'O' and an 'R' when I want an 'E.' The lady at the Apple store told me last night it will learn my touch and get better at knowing what I meant to type. Really?

Anyway, I'd like it to be a smoother process, but it'll do for now.

No such number, no such zone

We got at least 3 calls from "unknown" tonight, maybe it was 4, I've lost track. (I love callerID, don't you?) So I re-registered my phone number with www.donotcall.gov

I hate telemarketing phone calls.

Murphy's Law. I guess I should have posted my tirade earlier. Soon after I hit "publish" this afternoon, I got a call from my doctor.

1. their phones were on the blink since yesterday.
2. someone will re-fax my letter
3. someone will call me to confirm I got the fax

I did get the fax and the confirmation call and I did get the letter delivered to the disabilities lady in HR. Today was her last day. sheesh. She will leave it for the other woman in that office (the one with whom I spoke in the first place). She was out today. I might need more documentation, but it's up to her when she gets in in the morning. double sheesh. Isn't a headache everyday for two and a half weeks enough documentation? I reported all of this to my Assistant Division Chief who will help me out if I need more for HR. I'm beginning to get some real hope.

I hate making phone calls, and I hate it when they don't call me back. We have a lawn tractor and the last time I used it I messed up the front tire when I drove it back in the shed. So I called our mower repair guy. This was summer of '05 by the way. He didn't call back. Over the course of the last year I've called a couple more times and nada. We have a push mower so my husband uses that. I prefer the tractor because

• I can sit and mow at the same time
• I don't get all sweaty
• I can't get enough umph to pull-start the push mower

My husband found an ad for another mower guy who also makes house calls and I finally called him. He came out the next day and tuned up both mowers. When I got home from work I went out to start the tractor. Needless to say I was excited about having it back in working order. But it didn't start. Battery is close to dead. I hooked it up to the charger and the next day the needle on the charger is still sitting on "dead."

Wednesday night I bought a new battery at BJ's for $25. 265 CCA (cold cranking amps). The size that is in there now is 160. I took a car care class about 15 years ago from Pat Goss, the guy on Motor week. One of the things I learned (and remembered) is to put the largest CCA battery in your car that will physically fit. If your owner's manual says you need a 675 and the 900 fits, put it in. You'll have more starting power especially for cold winter starts for longer time. So I bought a much larger battery than needed and hopefully it'll last a while.

Now I just have to get it installed. We had company last night and it's raining today. And the forecast for the weekend doesn't sound good. Oh well. At least the tractor's been tuned up....