I Think I Killed It

May My Phone Rest in Peace

Today, June 21, 2009, after eighteen months and fourteen days of using only ONE cell phone, I have laid to rest my very sleek, very sexy, very long lived Fire MOTO KRZR. Oficially, as of two in the afternoon today, the Fire KRZR has been de-activated from my Verizon account. The coming of this phone was celebrated, as phone number eleven you can read about it here.

It has dealt with my blondeness. Even while having a bluetooth turned off, it continued to take calls. Funny stories such as this one came from this episode.

This phone lived a life full of activity. Although it never saw a ringtone, mp3 or artwork download, its usage made up for everything it never had. Since its removal from the box, the camera became a lifeline to candid shots of teachers, kids, dogs, Master Masons, Shriners, and other object needing photography when the real camera was not available.

It spent six months of intense use while working with the newspaper, taking in over 50 text messages a day, running the Navigator GPS program, and talking through the bluetooth all at once. The intensity of this activity placed this phone on the car charger for than its fair share for the sake of operating in multiple tasks.

Loyal it was during my job as the Dell chick to Best Buy, a job I love and wish I could have back (thanks to the marketing company that claims to not have any work). It gave continued loyalty during my time with Mitchell Distribution (I will not miss that one) BCM Distribution. It has taken calls from Bigfoot, Beadgirl, that Weird woman, Little-Big Brother, and Bigboy (who no longer calls, but now texts on a regular basis).

It took me only eighteen months and fourteen days to completely kill the battery on my KRZR. I have a personal inability to handle a phone that can't keep a charge. In place of it, is That Weird Woman's not so sleek, far from sexy, yet ruggedized, durable, and functional Motorola V325. The Borrowed is functional. It is capable of holding a charge. And, for the next six months while my contract runs out, IT WORKS.

Count Down

I am not counting down. Three months and 160 hours. I am not counting down to the end of my Pharmacy Technician program. I only have three months and 160 hours of externship to go.

In three months and 160 hours, I will be qualified to work in the Pharmacy. I am in denial of counting down. I'm not counting down. I only have three months and 160 hours left to go.

In three hours and 160 hours, I will not be required to toss another newspaper. My car will no longer be beaten up by the turning and stopping and backing up of newspaper. I will be working in a Pharmacy counting pills into vials.

I'm not counting down at all.

A Sucker for Punishment

I did it. I just couldn't keep my mouth shut at the last parents' meeting for the Boy Scout Troop. Our troop secretary didn't show up, for whatever reason. We needed someone to record minutes from the meeting. Not only did I volunteer to take minutes last month, I suckered volunteered to become the new secretary.

What has happened to me?

Twitter Me Not

Of all things technology related, there are some things I just haven't figured out. I was the Dell chick to Best Buy, a job I loved and miss very much, thank you. I have seen some of the coolest, latest and greatest coming to an American computer near you.

The solid state drive is being perfected as a hard drive. I'm saying within two years (factoring American spending trends and the economy) solid state drives will replace floppy spin drives in our computers. We can put 16GB into a stip of metal the size of my pinky fingernail. Tetrebytes will be coming soon in solid state form.

I actually got to see a Windows At-Home Server. With the exception of pathetic marketing, I validate this one completely. The more America works from home and quits burning oil in our cars, the more we need in-home servers.

I was the Dell chick. I could easily sell you a pc with 8GB memory and a 750 GB hard drive. In the process I will tell you every reason you should spend $1000 on this pc package. In no way did I ever take advantage of you. I just got you to spend more money now than having to replace your machine in two years.

What I don't get is websites that spend American time pointlessly. Twitter would be one of those. Will someone please educate me in the purpose of posting messages on the internet about what you are doing right now? If I wanted to tell my friends what I was doing right now,I would call them. Why Twitter, I still can't figure out. I know the site is free to use, but that still doesn't justify, to me, the time spent telling the world your every move.

So when Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore said they were going to quit Twitter, I had to wonder, Why did they even start? Is America that under occupied that we have to pay attention to what the world is doing at this very moment?

I guess I have too much of a life. I'm a hectic homeschooler. I have two kids to educate (even in these last few weeks of homeschooling), kids to feed, coffee to drink, my own school to attend, coffee to drink, kids to feed, twenty generic drugs to learn every week, coffee to drink, skin care to rep in Costco, kids to feed, coffee to drink, newspapers to deliver, coffee to drink, disc golf to play with my kids. Not to mention laundry to wash, kids to feed, a kitchen to clean, kids to feed, and a perpetually messy house to keep up with.

Am I the only American with no time to Twitter?

Staples, That WAS Easy

The printer issue is finally fixed. Thanks to our good tech guy, Nate, at Staples, That Weird Woman now has the ability to print her pdf files from her computer.

I went back over to her house yesterday an once again uninstalled the darling printer. Today, I installed it once again. The good news coming out of that is that the automatic updates happened this time. YEAH! The updates included a correction in computer to printer communication. YEAH!

That still didn't solve the problem of the unprintable pdf files. Ok, I decided to check out HP tech support online. Wouldn't it be my luck that the precious Internet Explorer decided it needed to shut down as the chat module was loading. Nice. Calling HP didn't get me anywhere what so ever. That Weird Woman is not about to shell out $40 for tech service for something that shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

With the pdf printing mystery still unsolved, I finally decided to take a crack at calling Staples. If they weren't open, I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone should have been open today. But, what would I know? They were open, and our very wonderful Nate, the tech department guy helped us out.

I've learned...
when in need of computer brains, just call Staples. That was Easy.

If You Have to Burn Your Socks, Please Don't Burn Down the House

I've learned...

Actually, it's Bigfoot who has learned, but I learned in the process...

The microwave is a very good place to dry out wet footwear such as shoes and socks. Everything takes only a few minutes and comes out nice and toasty warm.

Shoes when placed in the dryer tend to knock the dryer door open, forcing the dryer to shut itself off, leaving shoes still wet. And the dryer gains a ton of dirt when shoes are placed in there. Shoes in the oven causes the rubber in the shoes to melt. The microwave, on the other hand, does not cause rubber to melt and only after a few minutes, leaves shoes nice and toasty warm. Perfect after a few hours, or a day, or a weekend out camping in the rain.

Now, socks may fair better in the dryer than the shoes, but the microwave still takes half the time. Time is of the essence when there is a dog to play with, woods in the back yard, and rain outside. The microwave is not the best option. That is until the socks are cooked for too long. If the socks are cooked too long, they become more than just a little toasty warm.

So, Bigfoot was asked to mow the lawn of a commuter friend of BigBoy last Monday. I'm a busy person, but I can make time for Bigfoot to get the job done on Monday night. The weather was great all day long; until we were on our way to this gentleman's house. Being Western Washington, the one reliable thing we have came pouring down. Rain has yet to stop Bigfoot. The lawn still got mowed. Shoes and socks came back to car soaking wet.

I can't figure out why Bigfoot was the first person in the door when we got home. Shoes and socks came off and socks went into the microwave. As the scent of wet stinky feet begins to fill the kitchen, I let him know his socks were done.

They were definitely done. Bigfoot took them out of the microwave, ran them to the bathroom, and turned on the shower. The house shack was now filled with smoke. I am required to open every possible window, and turn on the ceiling fan. The socks have several large black spots on them as well as areas glowing gold.

The shower was for putting the fire out.

Fixing This Crazy Printer

At one time, I was a sales rep for Dell to Best Buy. If there was ever a job I loved and never wanted to leave, it was my job with Dell. Unfortunately, that got cut short with an early termination to the campaign.

Now, everybody thinks I am the tech queen. I sold Dell, so I must knwo how to fix everything. Especially the HP living at my mom's house. Except now we have moved beyond the computer to the printer. This HP Color Laserjet 1600 printer will not cooperate with the printing of pdf files. I am not thrilled.

I have uninstalld and reinstalled this piece of mess delicate machinery. I have checked the connection cables of this mess delicate machinery. I have, to this point in time, no clue why every other type of file will print except a pdf.

In my endless earch for assistance, and the posting upon several massage boards, I have come across a very useful website aka www.rinkworks.com and plenty of discussion of printers.

I sympathize with these dear tech support people. They begin to remind me of my days at hell TeleTech working for Sprint. Just a few of the stories tell as follows:

Most of the kids in my graduating class did not receive the best computer
training while growing up. So when I was taking the required computer class,
covering basically Microsoft Word and Excel, I had quite the experience.

On our first assignment, we were required to print when we were
finished. This one guy was getting really frusturated.

Him: "I hit
print
but it won't print."
Me: "Well, show me what you did."
He
clicked
File/Print/OK, then stood and looked around the monitor and CPU.

Him:
"See? It is not coming out! Freakin' computers."
Me:
"Umm...maybe you would
have better luck if you looked for it at the
printer."
I directed him to the
printer on the other side of the room.
It turned out he had printed 24 copies of
his assignment.

I have been the technical support for a group of engineers for several years. In the beginning they weren't sure a female could be high tech enough for them. As a result they often spent a lot of time working on a problem before calling me for help. One day I walked by a cubicle and saw two engineers working hard over a printer. About an hour later I walked by and, noticing they were still puzzled by the problem, I asked if I could help. They began to explain all the steps they had taken to try to get the dot matrix printer to work. I still treasure the looks on their faces as I took one finger, pressed the cover latch into place, and it began printing.

Taken from www.rinkworks.com. Please do visit their site so he won't get on my case overcopywright issues.

Thanks,