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,

Choices

Beadgirl has instructed me to write the following:

I should be doing my schoolwork instead of blogging. I have an research paper outline on chlamydia due today, but getting turned in tomorrow. I have 20 genereic drugs, their trade names, classifications, and general usages to complete for a test tomorrow. There is also a research assignment regarding medicating a patient for bronchial asthma, and Chapter 5 of Mosby's Pharmacy Technician workbook and textbook assignments to complete for grading tomorrow.

I should not be blogging right now. I should be doing my schoolwork. All while Beadgirl is watching Jeopardy hoping and praying for a new season and episode of Knight Rider. She has completed season one several times over on the internet. She needs a new Michael Knight fix. She wants a new season of episodes to watch.

Keeping Up (Maybe)

Okay, I know my last post was in February. In some ways, I'm shocked I even had the time then to run a post from That Weird Woman. In the mean time, life is trying to keep up.

I'm keeping up with school. I have a very high GPA that would be a perfect 4.0 if it hadn't been for a computer applications course in Office 2007 that landed me a B, after I ended up helping everybody else out with understanding how to actually use the programs and complete the projects. Other than that one computer course, I'm doing very well at pulling the wrong insulin for TPN bags, shadowing in the hood, and cramming eighty generic drugs, their trade names and classifications into a six week period.

I'm not doing so hot at keeping up with bills. I just got off the phone with GMAC yesterday. I was able to keep the house off the auction block for now. Now I get to spend today sitting in DSHS offices and who knows where else trying to pry help out of the State of Washington to get my bills paid up.

And get brakes put on the car. Since our lovely week of snow in December, I've replaced a ball joint TWICE, two cv axles, tires, some kind of oil relay cap, and door hinges. now I get to find a way to shell almost $200 for brakes, food, gas, cable, lights, water and phone when I only make aroud $250 a week.

So goes the course of trying to keep up with things.

The Sears Saga, Part II

OK, here we go again.

The Sears repair man is to be out on the 29th, bright and early. We had talked and he said 8AM and I liked that idea, get it fixed and get some washing done.

The Sears Service Center calls on the 28th and says a repair man will be here between 8AM and 12 noon. This is a standard call they make. I like that.

So I am doing normal stuff all AM around the house but really do need to go out to get some things at the grocery store. We like to eat as well as wear clean clothes.

It is getting close to noon and no repair man. Now these guys are great, they call when they are about 20 minutes from being here. It gives us a heads up so if we need to go potty etc, we can be done.

It is noon, no call. OK he is running late. They get lunch from noon to 1 and I can understand that so not a problem although I would like to get to the grocery store.

I do a few more things around the house, read some e-mails and delete them or send them on, see a new cobweb that needs to be removed, just every day stuff.

I do love the wood stove my son got me for Christmas but I sure see the cobwebs easier now. It seems they grow over night now when it use to take a week before I would see them.

A friend calls and we are on the phone for a long time but I have call waiting so not a problem and the Sears people also have my cell phone number so if I don't answer one phone, I might the other.

I finally realize it is now 2:30 and no call from Sears. I call the 1-800 number and get the lovely sweet female computer voice. She asked me what I would like to do. I tell her schedule an appointment. To which she replies I have an appointment scheduled for the 29th between 8:00 AM and 12:00 noon. And wouldn't you know it, the computer thanks me for doing business with Sears and hangs up on me! I call again but this time I tell it repair so she asked what needs to be repaired. I tell her washer. I get the lovely organ music again but this time it isn't so bad as the last time, not as static as it was in the past.

At last I speak with an Indian sounding lady. I tell her I want to know when the repair man will be out. She tells me between 8 and noon. I know that but I want to know if he is coming at all today. To this she again tells me between 8 and noon. I tell her it is now almost 2:45 so he is really late and I want to know when he will be here. How much longer will it be? She can't tell me that so I told her I would like to speak with someone who can help me, maybe her supervisor? To my surprise I don't have to listen to organ music to long, maybe less than a minute. By now they most likely have my name on their "Don't Blow Her Off" list.

Ah, the Indianish supervisor who can't tell me any thing. I tell him to call the repair man and find out. He puts me on hold - more organ music - and after a few minutes he tells me the man is on his way and will be at my house within 10-15 minutes. Now I am thinking this is not right, he would call me 20 minutes out. But OK, if he says so.

Well the 10-15 minutes drag on and on. It is now after 3:30 and at last the phone rings. The repair man will be here in about 20 minutes. I clock him and 17 minutes later he pulls in.

Now this is the man who has always come out to fix my washer. He knows the machine. He is an expert with Calypso machines. They break a lot. Sears does not sell them any longer.

He looks at the boxes on the washer, sees there is the 1st pump that was ordered by him has finally come and there is the control panel box. He wants to know why the control panel was ordered so I tell him the last man that was out on the 24th said he could not get it to light up so it too was bad and ordered it.

Now this guy on the 24th was here forever and a day. He was making calls to people, he had no clue as to how to fix my machine. He had never seen a Calypso. He then tells me the control panel is bad, he can't get any thing to work on the touch screen so he has to order a new one. Hence the Good and Bad News, The Bad: your machine isn't working yet but the Good is when done, your machine will be like a new one except for the frame work etc.

The nice Calypso fixer guy takes a look at it and tells me the other guy unplugged some wires from the circuits. Well duh, that would make it not work. The lights were on just fine and have been all this time. The nice Calypso guy hooks it up, plugs it into the wall and BINGO, I have lights and it goes through a very short wash cycle to make sure the switches and pump are working. He is done in less than 30 minutes. Nice guy, I like him, I have his ID number and he said to ask for him the next time it breaks and that could be in a few days to maybe a year from now. But mark my typing, it will break, I know it will!

A word to all the wise out there. If you should ever buy an expensive item and you can get a protection plan on it, do so. This machine was well over $1500. I bought the plan and in the over eight years I have had it, it has been broken every year. I have had switches, pumps, control panels, computers etc. replaced. Each time the repair man comes out I get the bill that I just sign saying he has been here but it tells me how much it would have cost. This last repair would have cost me over $1000 alone. I have a package deal with Sears, all my appliances are from them. For just over $300 I have a protection plan that covers all six of them for five years. They will come out once a year and test each one to make sure they are running like they should. They have cleaned coils etc. To me for the $10+ per appliance per year, it is worth it. It has more than paid for itself on the washer alone.