It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

I have a new post all ready to put up, but it requires illustration. The laptop was out of juice, so after plugging it in, I started the camera download while puttering around the room. About ten minutes later, I realized the camera is dead.

Looking around our room for the camera battery charger, it dawns on me that my bedroom is only a slightly more tasteful version of one of the rooms in Disney's "Carousel of Progress." If you've been there, you will recall the room that models the introduction of electricity to the average home - the tangles of electrical cords strung from a couple of wall plugs to every fixture and appliance in the room - the ceiling light, floor fan, icebox, radio,  lamps, coffee pot, oven....

In our bedroom, which triples as Ricky's office and our living room away from the kids, I count sixteen items (and the camera battery charger) that stay plugged in, plus the surge protectors they're plugged into. When you add in all the gadgets that then have to be connected to each other, the snake's nests of cords are mind boggling.

Have we made progress? I'm not sure. My boggled mind is skeptical.

UPDATE: I guess it could look like this, though.

Elvis has left the building

Every year I treat myself to some new business toy - a new printer or computer or fancy shelving or pricey wall decor. Three years ago I replaced my five year old Dell computer with another Dell. The machine bought in 2003 was having compatibility problems with some of the newer hardware components and software programs and face it, five years is a long time to ride one computer.

Unfortunately, I picked the window of time (early 2008) during which computers only came with the Vista operating system. Blissfully ignorant of the trouble ahead, Ricky assembled my new computer and began moving software and data from old to new. After about fifteen hours of trial and effort, nearly everything worked. We had come "this close" to giving up and paying the restocking fee. But like many things in life, the more time spent getting the computer to work, the harder it was to cut our losses.

There were some programs and a printer that absolutely would not work with Vista. But my tax season was already fast and furious, so I made do. There were constant issues and a steady stream of Vista updates that fixed some problems while creating more.

We were miserable - the "we" being me constantly tearing my hair out over computer induced work stoppages and Ricky having to listen to my wails and be my IT guy while I hovered. I'm not a patient hoverer.

As the year progressed, Microsoft, admitting to its Vista disaster, began re-offering the XP operating system for new computers as they worked on a replacement for Vista. Fat lot of good it did me.

In surrender, I bought another new computer in early 2009 - an Apple laptop I used along with a desktop monitor. It has been much more stable on our home network and with the Intel chip, I could run my Windows based business software successfully.........for a while.

Approaching a critical deadline, the Apple hard drive crashed last summer and had to be replaced. Fortunately, I had my data backed up, but the Windows stuff never worked quite as well from then on. Meanwhile, Windows 7 released with good reviews. I put Windows 7 on the stupid Vista computer and got it back in business.

For the past six months, I've run all my tax software on the Windows 7 computer and my email and Office programs (Word, Excel) on the Apple. The two are networked, so that's all good.

It's kinda' like having two monitors with one computer. However...........my eyes are tired of the small laptop screen. I'm constantly shuffling keyboards and mice and could use more space on my desk. And good grief, keeping up with the cords is a job itself.

My little corner of the world

I have decided to put everything I use at work back on the Dell computer, including email and Office so that I will have one computer and one keyboard and will use two desktop size monitors.

Anticipating the laborious process of converting email, loading programs and getting everything working efficiently, I started thinking about this now three year old Dell computer. That's like fifty something human years.

Bottom line - I ordered a new computer, with the features I need and speed I can count on. And in this world of strange marketing, it was actually cheaper to customize a package deal they were offering with a monitor than to buy the same system without a monitor. So I will have two (nearly) new large monitors instead of one large and one medium. (Pizza, anyone?)

Ordered a few days ago, today it shipped!

The strange things that delight me - I can't wait for Elvis to arrive.

Twenty five years ago

I spent the day in Shreveport, part of an audit team doing a final review of our utility client's  financial statement workpapers.

During the morning a rumor buzzed through the office - something had happened to the space shuttle. The rumor ebbed and flowed throughout the day.

There was no You-tube, no cell phones, no internet. Someone in the building had access to a television, but  essentially there was an information blackout, with newscasters as puzzled as we were.

Was it the shuttle or the booster rocket that had problems? Did the mission continue? Was there a splashdown? Were there survivors? School rooms across the country had been tuned in to watch the "first teacher" blast off to space. Space flights were still a big deal.

It is hard to describe the void of information. The shock was similar to the events of September 11, 2001, of course on a smaller scale. But in 2001 we all knew, instantly, what had happened, just not why. In 1986 it was hours before we even knew the "what."

Our group finished up and in the evening flew from Shreveport to Corpus Christi, the location of the next day's assignment. For some reason I thought people at the airports would know something more about the shuttle. Nope.

Watching the evening news in my Corpus Christi hotel room, it was finally confirmed that the shuttle had exploded and all had perished.

What a day. What pioneers our astronauts are.

HOORAY!

My telephones (the old fashioned kind) are fixed!

I can now close this chapter of the "How Many Things Can Go Wrong at Once" book.

While I was in the hospital getting my broken colon fixed, two of our three air conditioners, the pool pump and the telephones quit working. Air conditioning and pool pumps are mighty important in the Texas summer. My telephone lines are critical to my office at home.

One of the air conditioners was fixed before I came home on Tuesday. The second, the one that cools our master bedroom and living room, was replaced and working by Wednesday night. The pool guy replaced the pump on Thursday.

That left the phones.

I have two "land lines" I use regularly - one for work and one for home. They're both on U-verse. Out of the blue, the two lines started acting as one. So if I was on my work line and a call came in on my home line, it terminated the work call. And vice versa.

So imagine being randomly knocked off a high-level conference call, or a call finalizing an IRS audit or a call with the doctor whose time is so precious.

The U-verse technician came on Thursday (the same day I called) and couldn't figure it out. He kept wanting to tie it to some event, but no, the phones have been working fine for over a year. He replaced the modem, tried different configurations, all to no avail. After more than two hours, he gave up and said he would report back that another tech should come out.

Friday I waited and used my cell phone for any call I cared about. Nobody came to fix the house phone problems.

This morning, after another 55 minutes talking to U-verse, we got on the schedule for a second service attempt.

When the tech called this afternoon for better directions, I was skeptical that today would go any better than Thursday. But after about an hour, he used his intuition and tried something. Our home alarm system was wired in to both phone lines. When he disconnected one of the phone lines from the alarm system - voila!

Now why did everything work fine for over a year, and just last week the alarm wiring mattered?

Gremlins, once again!

Can you dance?

On a Saturday afternoon in April, 1982, I was exuberant. My job's busy season had just ended and in a few weeks I would be moving back to the great State of Texas. Words could not express my jubilance. What to do? I put on my cowboy hat and an "Asleep at the Wheel" album and danced around my apartment to the country swing music. Now I am not a dancer in the modern sense of the word. I stomped and swayed and spun and swung my arms to the music played as loudly as our downstairs neighbors would stand it.

I still dance. In times of joy I step and clap around my home office, moving in time to the music of my mood. In times of sweetness I may sway and two-step with a real or remembered baby in my arms. In the car I may crank up the volume and use the steering wheel as my tambourine.

These displays are almost always private, though. It's not that I have any pride in the matter, I just don't want to cause unnecessary concern that I may have truly lost my mind. I could not explain my compulsion, but I knew I was normal.

I confirmed it last night while watching the opening ceremonies to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Part of the ceremonies featured aboriginal dancers. A video clip of those dancers is not available, but I found a substitute (without the elaborate costumes and props) that works.

While watching the Olympic dancers, I realized where I get it from, that need to express myself through motion. Our human nature is hard wired that way. Whether clumsy or graceful, we all can dance. Never mind the reality TV shows which would answer "no."

If you think about it, many celebrations and happy events have choreography.

Envision your favorite sports event. The team huddles with linked arms and chants, perhaps raising hands to the sky. There are fist bumps and chest bumps and flips and struts in moments of success. The involved fan may explode from his seat to warpath around the room after a significant victory.

Graduations, christenings and weddings have their promenades and partner exchanges and kneelings and risings and turnings. Each ceremony incorporates movement into its rituals, because our human nature says there are times we simply can not be still.

So don't be still. Dancing isn't just for the young or the talented. It doesn't have to be pretty or make sense. Soon enough you'll only be able to shuffle along anyway, so why not dance as long as you can?

And the next time you see a grown-up, someone who should "know better," skipping or twirling down the sidewalk, don't turn up your nose at the weirdo. Instead, share a smile and a wave and a hop. You can dance.

More than you wanted to know

But I needed to vent. This is my scary pre-tax season technology update. Not that the update is scary, just the tax software, and getting it up and running.

In my first post on this blog, I talked about moving from PC to Mac, hoping for more stability (less crashes!) So how's that been going? A couple of weeks ago, I awoke to a laptop making ominous sounds. With thoughts of "here we go again," I turned on my computer intermittently during the day, backed up my data and scheduled my appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. Fortunately, only a fan, not a hard drive, had to be replaced.

So I'm ready to start my first tax season running Windows on a Mac. (But just in case, I've bought Windows 7 to put on my pile of crap Windows Vista computer. If programs are operating smoothly on both computers, I'll breathe a little easier and also have a work station if I get some extra help later on.)

I installed my 2009 tax software - everything was looking good and I rolled over data from 2008. I went to the web site to download the license and encountered "Error Code 4-0, Call Technical Support." Without my license working, I could use the software, just not print anything. That's a slight problem. I called the number, estimated wait time twenty minutes. No thanks. Later in the afternoon I called again.

Fernando, the technician, was very nice. Best of all, he was in Tucson, Arizona, not India, and spoke in clear, unaccented English! If you have had many technical support issues, you can understand how refreshing that is. He worked diligently and knowledgeably on the problem. At one point he took control of my computer. That is so weird, to watch the cursor moving on your screen and files opening and changing while you just watch.

Sixty-five minutes later, he reached a conclusion. I had a "corrupt" User profile on Windows. It's the first time I've been accused of corruption. He gave me a case number, suggested I call my computer technician to correct that issue, then call again if I still had a problem.

I stopped for dinner, exhausted by the phone call. Then I called my computer tech support guy, the same guy who made a great dinner of cheesy chicken and rice followed up by homemade Rice Krispie treats for dessert.

I repeated what Fernando had said. Ricky went to the web and found instructions for how to fix a corrupt user profile in Windows XP and got on my computer. He fixed it fairly quickly once I left him alone and quit distracting him with my verbal hand-wringing.

Ten minutes later, I'm up and running, printing forms and emailing them to clients.

As far as I'm concerned, it's all magic. Fortunately, I married a magician. Thanks!

My new best friend, Jacqueline

http://jacqsbloggertips.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-to-remove-border-around-photos-in.html

Well, now, that is the URL, but I have missed some step somewhere so the link doesn't work. You can cut and paste.

I like Jacqueline in Malaysia. She wrote a post on her blog with specific, illustrated step by step instructions for removing the border Blogger automatically puts around uploaded pictures. It was so simple. From now on, when (not if) I get frustrated trying to make things work, I will check her blog first.

She also answers the question "How to create a HTML link to another web page?" I know I have done it, but like Drew Barrymore in "50 First Dates," I have to figure it out all over again, every. single. time. I'll save that lesson for another day. Maybe I'll even come back and fix the link in this post that does not work.

(UPDATE: Now the link works. I do not know why it works today and didn't work yesterday.)

(UPDATE 2: The link works now because my husband fixed it without telling me, so I really am not crazy. I'll use Jacqueline's blog, though, for fixing the link so that it opens in a new window.)

Thank you, Jacqueline!

What is it about that number?

After attending a summer science program in high school, Ricky adopted "47" as "his" number, the "mystical number of the universe."

I am not kidding. I have pasted below the FAQ page from the "47 Society" which documents how often this prime number shows up, and in what capacity. Check it out!

There are of course other meaningful numbers. From the Bible you have the numbers 1, 3, 7 and 12. Each number has its own consistent significance.

I offer another number to the list - 491. That was the number of vehicles we counted off-road on our Christmas Day ice encrusted journey. On a somber note, a news report this afternoon reported 491 Haitian police officers remain unaccounted for after the earthquake. Does 491 have a tragic life of its own? Or is it mere coincidence?

Now back to the number 47.....................

P.S. I am hopeless at changing colors. I was trying to highlight the words below that are links to other pages. Instead, you'll probably have to move the cursor to get the links to show up. Deal with it. I'm done!

THE SOCIETY

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Frequently Asked Questions about 47 and The 47 Society

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What is 47?

In short, 47 appears to be the quintessential random number of the universe. In other words, when a number appears randomly, more often than not, that number is 47. In other other words, if you asked people to pick a number at random, more often than not, that number would be 47. Of course, if 47 shows up more than any other number then it isn't truly random, but using the word random makes the whole phenomenon easier to describe.

What is a "47 Sighting"?

Anytime you notice the number 47 anywhere in your life or in the world (or elsewhere). There are a variety of interpretations as to what constitutes a bona fide "47 Sighting." Whatever your definition, we encourage you to share your 47 sightings and stories with the 47 Society Mailing List.

What is the 47 Society?

The 47 Society is an international interest-group that follows the occurence and recurrence of the quintessential random number: 47. Many suspect that the coincidental nature of 47 carries some mystical, metaphysical and/or scientific significance.

The phenomenon may have first been documented at Pomona College in 1964, when Professor Donald Bentley proved that all numbers are equal to 47. Coincidentally, 47 seems to occur on or near the college campus with amazing frquency, even by enthusiast standards.

But make no mistake: 47 is everywhere and people were noticing it long before 1964. The 47 Society Web Site is the global source for 47 information.

Aren't You Just Seeing 47 More Because You're Looking For It?

No.

Still not convinced? Try this simple experiment. Pick another number. For the next three to six months keep your eyes open for both. 47 will show up more. If you find out otherwise, please let us know!

What's The Pomona College Connection?

In the 1960's, Pomona College's Professor Donald Bentley completed a mathematical proof that stated that all numbers were equal, therefore all numbers were equal to 47. Since then, students at Pomona have been quietly indoctrinated in the ways of 47. Some believe, some doubt. But it is listed in the student handbook right after "Glee Club". At this date, we have been unable to obtain a copy of Professor Bentley's proof, however, 1968 Pomona Alumnus Wayne Phillips corroborates its existence.

What's the Star Trek Connection?

A Pomona College alum has been a writer and producer for the various Star Trek TV shows and films. He indoctrinated the other writers several years ago (while writing for Star Trek: The Next Generation). Since then, nearly every Star Trek episode has included some mention of 47. Some "Trekkies" have put together their own excellent pages dedicated to these 47s. Since these are more frequent and deliberate than randomly-occurring 47s, we generally discuss only the most cosmically significant of these sightings in our own forums. Kirk would have wanted it this way

What about OTHER numbers?

Our research indicates that numbers have lives of their own. 47 appears to be the most playful number, frequently showing up in unusual and/or surprising ways. Other numbers have their own characteristics, and we have heard heated testimonials from followers of some of these numbers, including 3, 11, 19, 23 and 42.

Keep this in mind: 47-spotting is fun. There is no need to make 47 your favorite or lucky number in order to appreciate its synchronicitious ways. Just relax, observe 47 as it reveals to you, and share your experience with the 47 Society.

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Return to the Society Home Page

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Email Webmaster

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Now back to our regularly scheduled program

If only that were true! Do you remember, when we were kids, the television schedule was predictable? Shows started in the fall, took a break around the holidays, resumed in the spring, then did reruns in the summer.

There was order and rhythm and predictability. The "Wonderful World of Disney" was Sunday at 6:00 pm. (Bad timing for those of us at church nearly every Sunday night. I was one of those kids who prayed to get sick on the weekend.) On Saturday nights my dad and I settled in with our bowl of popcorn and watched "Mannix." And when I had a favorite weeknight show, I had extra incentive to be on my best behavior and have all my chores done, so the privilege would be allowed.

We kids also learned to snitch our parents' newspapers near the end of each month, particulary October and November. There would always be an issue that included a schedule for the TV "events" scheduled for the next month. Maybe there would be a "special movie presentation" or you wanted to make sure you did not miss "Rudolph."

You had a few favorite shows that were worth watching and could set your schedule by them. And no one tried to watch them all. In fact, someone who watched television often was accused of spending too much time in front of the "boob tube."

Now the TV schedule is just nuts. Shows start in the summer, the fall or the spring. Or they have a "pilot" teaser and then actually start months later. Or the series kicks off on one night and then runs regularly on a different night. (Or at least it would be regular, it there were no award shows or athletic events or "urgent" political messages.) A show might have four episodes and then skip two months. Or switch time slots. Or switch networks. Or disappear. And the reruns start while the new episodes are still going.

Thank goodness for DVRs. We (that would be my husband) can set the DVR to record a particular show or a particular series, with or without repeat episodes. We can watch favorite shows at our convenience. If there is a new series that might be interesting, we can wait to see if it is going to continue before watching the stored episodes. If it's a bust, then we haven't wasted our time.

Depending on a DVR does have its drawbacks, though. A game in front of your show may go into overtime and throw the timing off. If that happens, and you did not pay attention and adjust the timing of the subsequent recording, you have to watch a truncated show and read an on-line summary for the ending, wait to catch the episode on a rerun, or watch it on the computer, having to sit in front of a small screen and wait through commercials.

Then there is the mild dismay of forgetting to record something or having the DVR break. That happened to us last week, losing all our recordings. But we are so overloaded now with choices, I can't even tell you what we had and will now miss.

Watching TV has become a job, it's wearing me out. A few years ago I dropped out of watching the long complicated series like "Lost," "Heroes" and "24." I don't want to have to think that much, or fret over missing a key episode in a continuing story line. I'm going back to a simpler approach. I am picking a few favorite shows to keep up with, shows that if I miss an episode, it's no big deal. I'm going to watch "Chuck," "Psych," "Glee," "Royal Pains," "Community," "America's Got Talent," and college basketball. That looks like a lot of shows, but with today's year round scheduling, they don't all have the same season. Every now and then I'll add in something new or take something out. If I'm missing anything important, let me know.

Almost a Love Relationship

Our number two cat is the sweetest animal I've owned. Our number one dog is figuring that out. The cat always lets the dog play and bite and maul, only using his claws once in self-defense in the last nine months. This picture is from a typical morning. While I'm slaving away, the animals are doing this.

Or this.

But sometime in between the two pictures, someone did this.

WHY was a roll of toilet paper on the bedroom floor?

WHY is a Big Boggle game on the living room couch?

WHY are work files on the living room floor?

And, WHY did the text in this post suddenly become blue and underlined as I added pictures?

Imponderables, all.

A Woman After My Own Heart

Remember, I said there might be a political comment every now and then, but chocolate has no affiliation, so this is personal, not political.

The following quote was from a Washington Post article about the government spending protest in Washington, D.C. today.

Like countless others at the rally, Joan Wright, 78, of Ocean Pines, Md., sounded angry. "I'm not taking this crap anymore," said Wright, who came by bus to Washington with 150 like-minded residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore. "I don't like the health-care [plan]. I don't like the czars. And I don't like the elitists telling us what we should do or eat."

My point, exactly! Joan is a little more than fifty-something, but she can join my club anytime.

UPDATE: Why, may you ask, is the text of this post larger than the text of my other posts? I don't know. But if I try to fix the text size, the gremlins will screw something else up, so I will let it be. Now that I think about it, that's actually not a bad philosophy when dealing with computers.

KISS For Me

My daughter Lindsay, working for me while waiting for her real job to start, brought leftovers for her lunch. I tried a bite and asked for the recipe. It was a chicken casserole recipe one of her young married friends had passed along. My daughter is going to give me an abbreviated version. It seems her friend, who had never cooked before marriage, put COMPLETE instructions on the recipe. For example, instead of saying "add 1 cup diced green pepper," the friend's recipe included the directions for how to dice - "cut the pepper open, remove the stems and seeds, cut away the white edges, slice the remaining pepper into small pieces." Similar descriptions were written for other ingredients of the recipe.

That is exactly what I need for working with the computer. This chart shows what I do when the gremlins living in my computer(s) act up.

The mysterious box on the chart is the one in the bottom right corner that includes the words "FOLLOW ANY INSTRUCTIONS." Instructions, whether from Help menus or support sites or sympathetic message boards, always seem to assume that I know how to dice the pepper.

In my twenty-five year history of PC use, I've "cooked" a lot. Unfortunately, most of the "recipes" don't include COMPLETE instructions.

In the early 1980's, just after I was promoted to senior staff, my company decided to give individual personal computers and related training to new staff. A couple of years later, after my next promotion, the firm decided to provide personal computers and training to senior staff, too.

Left out again, I purchased my own IBM PC. It had a 20MB hard drive. Yes, I said megs. I probably still have the receipt somewhere, it cost around $2,000. I knew the only way I would ever learn how to use a computer was to just do it! I kept it at work so that I could do my own computer generated notes and schedules and feel less like an idiot when supervising staff.

A few years after that I left the big firm to have my own business, partnering with another woman. She was a few years behind me in age and experience, but she was ahead of the curve with technology, having been there at the right time for the best training. She was my computer crutch for several years.

To my chagrin, I'm now one person using three different computers. I have a fairly new PC with Windows Vista. I should have returned it and paid the 25% re-stocking fee. I have my six year old PC with Windows XP, which runs the software that won't work on Vista. And now, after the Vista disaster, I bought a Mac. I can use both the Apple and the Windows operating systems on the Mac.

My goal is to have the three computers consolidated on my Mac by the end of the year.

With my switch to a Mac, I'm having to start over with new terminology, different task bars and new keyboard shortcuts, just to name a few things. I'm making it up as I go, since I really have never known what I'm doing.

At least I'm generally fearless trying to figure things out. I will push buttons until I've either fixed my problem or created a bigger problem truly worthy of calling in support troops. My computer consultant (husband) and kids sigh and shake their heads.

What I need is for some publisher to come out with a whole series of books that provide basic instruction. Right now you can buy books "... FOR DUMMIES," but what is there for people like me who are dumber than the dummies those books are written for?

If only I knew what all the words meant and could have COMPLETE instructions!

That's what I'm hoping for, a publisher who will insist that its authors "Keep It Simple, Stupid" when writing basic technology cookbooks.

Making Text Bigger

I'm slowly learning how to do things on this web site. I really need to find some book like "Blogspot for Dummies." I see other cool looking blogs that use blogspot but I can't figure out how to do many of the things that should be easy and would help the looks of my posts. Maybe that's why I don't have my own Facebook or Myspace page. This stuff is just not intuitive to me. My excuse for everything technology related is that I'm fifty something and I'm doing the best I can.

But at least I have figured out how to MAKE TEXT BIGGER - a very important feature if I want my generation of friends to read any of these posts. You young folks better not snicker, your turn is coming and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

So I went back and edited my posts to enlarge the font and add some pictures. Now if I just had a clue how to put pictures where I want them within the post and if I knew how to enlarge the font on the post titles..... The other thing that seems to be above my pay grade is linking to another web site from within a post.

After reading a few FAQ's, some of my difficulties may be related to the fact that I'm using a Mac with the Safari browser. Evidently with Safari you have to do some things "manually." What does that mean? How do you do something "manually" on a computer?

Maybe eventually I will install Firefox, the browser that blogspot favors, or just use the Windows side of my computer to connect to blogspot through Internet Explorer.

Or maybe my blog will just stay rather plain. Works for me.

Times, they are changing.

I'm sitting in my office, at home, converting email from Outlook to Apple.  My relationship with the Vista operating system is coming to an end.  I am the last holdout in my family to convert to Mac.  Now that I can run Windows on Mac, there's no reason to postpone the change, and maybe my kids will quit making fun of me for my choice of computers.

It amazes me how technology has changed my life.  In my twenties I was a tax manager in a "Big 8" accounting firm, with a secretary that typed my letters using carbon paper.  It was a big deal for her to get a word processor and lose the carbon paper.  

As often as not, I was signing tax returns prepared by hand.  At best, they were completed using processing input sheets shipped to an outside company for processing on their computers.  Long distance calls were logged in for billing purposes and staff long distance calls were monitored.  Fax machines were depended on, but you had to make sure the information on the fax was preserved before the information faded from the special paper.

Now I sit in my home office, able to work full time without administrative assistance.  I have clients across the country and across the world, seldom meeting personally, but communicating with email and instant messaging.  Technology lets me complete and transmit documents virtually instantly.  

What a glorious time to live - old enough to appreciate the changes and young enough to learn how to apply them!