A brand new year with the same old clunky technology

Greetings, readers. Hello from head cold land. Don’t worry, I’m probably not contagious anymore and we are taking precautions on the laptop with disinfectant wipes. I am staying in my corner and Rebecca is staying in hers. I had thoughts of calling her off today, but we have a lot to get done, my accountant is coming, and I actually sound 100 times worse than I feel. I feel dandy, but I sound like I am breathing through mud.

I have an app on my computer desktop that I really like, that lets me see new emails and reply to them without going to my email site and logging in. I like it a lot, but it has one bad drawback. I found out from an email I sent to Darren using said app that the name Lisa shows up instead of Joseph in the sender line. It doesn’t happen when I compose an email in the site itself, just from the desktop app I like so much. I believe I have found a way to fix it, but both times I’ve tried, just when I go to hit the save button, it starts to do something and then freezes. And alas, I am still Lisa. A big technology grrr. I am also having massive computer problems today with the laptop running slow and freezing. That may be the problem with changing Lisa today, I will continue to work on this issue to get it solved.

Darren and I are doing a contract for Four’s a Crowd, with a lawyer drawing it up for us to sign. We both think it makes a lot of sense to have our agreement in writing. The lawyer’s appointment that we had scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed. It gives me a week to kick this cold and us more time to flesh out the points we want the lawyer to put in the contract.

As soon as I’m feeling better, I want to take my proof copy of the book and plow through it in a week. That is my goal. Everyone else already has their edits in. As usual, I’m the one lagging behind. More than likely, I will go to Panera, find a big table where I can spread out, listen to my music under earphones, and lose myself in a good novel … and it is a good novel.

After work hours today, I have a couple of errands to do, one of which is to stop at the market and pick up items such as cold tablets, O.J., and tissues. Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu works wonders. If I’m still stuffed up on Friday, I’ll take a couple of packets to work. At 3:30 I have to go to therapy, and then I’ll be back for the day. I have another day off from the job tomorrow to rest and recoup and be ready for Friday. Some people can do this, I cannot; I cannot be cheerful and smiley when feeling sick. I would probably turn to a grumpy customer and say, “What the heck do you want? And here’s your darn food.”

Lastly, on a weather note, our cold snap has finally broken and we have more seasonable temperatures. The week-long single-digit temperatures were actually beginning to affect my nervous system. Yes, cerebral palsy reared its ugly head yet again. Now that the temperatures are in the 20 and 30s F, I am feeling much better. I do expect more frigid temperatures, but heck, it is only January and spring time is quite a ways away.

Please send good thoughts to me for a speedy recovery. Take care, have a good day, and happy reading.

From Rebecca: Reflections in the first week of the new year

For the first time in three weeks, I am sitting in the office, AKA Joe’s apartment, at work. Two weeks ago I had surgery to take out my gallbladder. I truly expected to be back to my normal routine the following week, but I was fooling myself. While I was able to go home the same day as the surgery, I needed a little more than a week to recover, rest, and heal. My husband, Darren, was a big help to me, especially in the first few days when I was groggy, cranky, and in pain.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to write a blog entry and edit Joe’s entries from the comfort of my own home. That was mega-cool. Thank you to Joe for letting me do that and for your patience and support.

Speaking of modern technology, last year we got high-speed internet at home, and we have been enjoying Netflix streaming through Darren’s PS3. He especially likes watching shows with no commercials. He was watching Lost for a while, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I watched the four-part special of Gilmore Girls, and Longmire. While I was recovering, we started to watch The West Wing, and we are up to the second season. It has been a while since I watched it, and I am enjoying it a lot. I remembered some things and other parts were a surprise reminder. So many of the issues were from the Bill Clinton presidency and I am strongly reminded of that administration with its ideals and its problems. We binge watch a bit, but we want to be careful with the PS3 so we don’t wear it out. A few hours at a time seems to work for us. I am certainly looking forward to exploring more of what Netflix has to offer in the coming year.

So, back to a new year starting. Next to me, I have my work folder ready for notes and reminders and my new engagement calendar, full of January’s information, and waiting for the appointments yet to be made in the next twelve months. We ended 2016 with the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds nationwide, and locally the shocking unexpected death of a resident of Addison Court Apartments, Joe’s next door neighbor. A new year feels like a new start, like anything good is possible. I’m ready for that new start and I want it. There was so much yelling and strife in 2016, and with the new Presidential administration coming in there will have to be a lot of people taking action to hold on to civil rights in the coming four years. But right now, this day, 2017 is a new beginning and it has a lot of promise.

Technology Grrr 5

Greetings, readers. Sorry for the repetitive title, but this morning it was Me versus my PS3 and the Playstation Store. I lost miserably. Grrr. Here’s what happened.

There was a two-year old game, a soccer game to be exact, on sale for $20. The only thing I had to do before purchasing said game was input my new debit card info. The billing info page accepted my name, debit card number, and back card pin number. When I went to put my address in, though, it would not accept it, no matter how hard I tried. I think I tried six variations of my address, spelling out the word East, trying E., etc. No such luck. After six attempts it timed me out and said try again later. I almost opened the window to see if my PS3 could fly. :-S

With Rebecca coming to work this morning, I had to stop and will try again later. If I cannot get the problem solved, I will have to purchase the game from a store, which will cost more money, especially if I need to order it online and have it shipped.

I always marvel at the fact that certain things that take people two minutes to do, take me an hour. To keep with today’s theme, this usually happens on computers, televisions, or other such technologies. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing; I’ve ordered things from the Playstation Store before. After my daily chores are done, I’ll figure it out.

What really drives me nuts is that I went to the Playstation Store website and couldn’t find a customer service number to call. That would have solved the problem in a matter of minutes. I’m quite certain that what I’m doing wrong is a minor gaffe. Anyway, that’s been my frustrating morning.

Am I going to let that ruin the rest of my day? Absolutely not. It is sunny and warm here today, probably the last warm day of the fall. I’m going to get out and enjoy it.

That’s the news from here. I’m taking a personal day off tomorrow, however I will have a blog entry ready for Rebecca to edit and put up tomorrow. So until then, take care, have a great day, and happy reading.

The technological age is starting to scare me

Greetings, readers. I have seen YouTube videos and read on-line articles dealing with the wonderful new technologies in computers and robotics. It is causing me to wonder how much technology is too much. One TV commercial sells a doorbell with a little camera in it that, via your smart phone, you can see who is standing at your front door. The only benefit I can see from this is to make it look like you are at home even when you are not, in case that person is up to no good. Or, if you have forgotten an appointment that someone shows up for, you can apologize and tell them you will hurry home, if possible. The big problem I have with it is, depending on how much it costs, is it could be a waste of money. If the UPS man shows up, and you miss him, you have the option of asking him to leave it at the front door or hold on to it if you are afraid of theft.

Another interesting invention I’ve seen, created in Asia, are life-like humanoid robots which come complete with inter-active learning skills. Most can carry on a conversation, and some can get you your favorite beverage, and actually remember what it is after they are told once. I have no problem with that to a point. But when are humanoid robots going to take jobs from humans, such as working at a retail store, because they are so much smarter? These robots are absolutely incredible, but we need more jobs for people, not fewer.

As far as automobiles go, back in the 1950s and 60s, anyone with any kind of mechanical know-how could fix his or her car. Today we are driving junior space shuttles. A friend of mine told me that her car quit and would not start and all that was wrong with it was an oxygen sensor. Not the oxygen intake, the sensor itself. Think of it, folks, one sensor and the whole car shuts down. Too computerized for my liking.

Do I want to go back to the 1800s and live a life where there is no technology? No, I’m not saying that. But there has to be a point in time where we say an invention is just a little bit too scary. If that turns on us, we could be in trouble. Enough is enough.

Please chime in, in the comment section, with what you think about the technical advances of the modern world. Until Friday, have a nice day, take care, and happy reading.

What an extremely frustrating morning I had

Greetings, readers. I can’t believe this computer is cooperating. I woke up this morning at 8:00 and by noon I had gotten absolutely nothing done. My five-and-a-half year old Asus computer was flipping me off and giving me the f-word. I was not pleased.

I had hoped to check Facebook and Twitter by 9:00 and then spend the rest of the morning writing new pages on my novel. By 11:45, I was so frustrated that I almost opened my window and let the Asus fall to its death. I’m very glad I didn’t, since I wouldn’t be able to type this entry in now.

Some pop-up ads come up last night. One of them had some sexual content on it – I have a feeling that might be the culprit. After work hours are concluded, I’m going to run the virus scanner, the mal-ware scanner, and de-frag the computer. Hopefully this will solve the problems.

I’ve told myself that I want to try to keep this computer running until October. With camp time just around the corner, I really can’t be spending money on both things right now. This Asus will have to do. If it breaks down completely, I think I actually have a typewriter somewhere. Ah, remember the good old days.

On a positive slant for today, the weather is beautiful outside. Sunny, warm, a cool breeze, and moderate humidity. I sure could take more of these. Rebecca tells me that rain is on the way for tomorrow, so I’ll probably be taking my hoodie to gaming day.

Next Friday, I hope to have some kind of post dealing with the 4th of July. I’ve always loved that holiday. And when the fireworks are shot off at the stadium, Keekee and I have a great view from our living room window. I turn off all the lights, open the windows, and Keekee and I watch what I tell her are “the boom booms.” She is fascinated by the many colors.

Hopefully this entry will post without any issues, and it will link properly to Facebook and Twitter. If it doesn’t, we will fix it later. I bid you a super weekend, do take care, and happy reading.

I defeated the computer!

Greetings, readers. Welcome to this rare Thursday blog entry. I thought I would share with you what happened this morning. I started off at my usual 6:45 wake up time, which I’ve been trying to hold to. I washed up and made coffee and was planning to put four or five videos from YouTube to my Facebook page. That would consist of me singing the songs, typing in the information, up-loading the video to YouTube, and then when it was finished being processed it could be transferred to Facebook. That was the plan.

At 7:30, I turned on my computer and was going to spend the morning singing and enjoying myself, knowing that friends and family on Facebook had been waiting to see a few of these videos. They are selections of songs from my previous show, which I perform in my apartment sitting down, for people who couldn’t make my show. I have what I call morning throat. Because my allergies don’t drain very well at night my voice sounds like a scratchy old bear. With coffee and water, I got that part of the dilemma cleared up by 8:30. Then I had computer issues.

First, Spotify music would not open, and once it did, YouTube malfunctioned half-way through my first recording. Once the technical problems were solved, you would think I had it made. But no. I then became hopelessly tongue-tied and forgot the words of the song. Back to Spotify I went to activate the lyrics; thank goodness for that function.

Finally, at 11:25, I was able to put one video up on Facebook. I was actually considering calling Rebecca to change our meeting plans. But it wasn’t necessary. I won out over the computer.

On Friday, along with a possible other topic, I’ll let you readers in on a minor dilemma of mine, which is me learning how to make ends meet until next Wednesday. Mr. Silver-Spoon Kid still has a lot to learn.

Until tomorrow, take care, have a great day, and happy reading.

The ultimate in technology grrr day

Greetings, readers. I am dictating this blog entry while gritting my teeth. My alarm went off this morning at 6:45 and I turned on my laptop by 7:15. I was going to enjoy a morning of Train Simulator 15. Ha ha ha.

After coffee was made and I had my comfy seat arranged just the way I wanted it, I activated the game. The error message read something like: Missing start application. Right there I knew my whole morning was screwed. After fiddling with it for ten to fifteen minutes, I decided to play some music on my PS3 using Music Unlimited, go back to my laptop and uninstall said game. It shouldn’t take long to reload and I will have it running by 9:00. Ha ha ha.

By 10:15, I was still struggling to get the program to run. With no one else in the room, I actually said out loud to the computer, “Eight stories is a long way down.” Yes, readers, I talk to myself when I’m angry.

By 11:15, I had to leave the apartment to get some brunch and meet Rebecca. I shall try one more time to re-install the game this afternoon after work hours. Most of you, I’m sure, are thinking, “Well, what’s he complaining about?” But my days and weeks are very rigidly scheduled. Afternoon is writing and creation. Evening is filled with activities with friends or getting caught up with Netflix, so my mornings are slated for personal computer time. After almost four hours today with nothing but troubleshooting, I threw my hands up in the air and said, “I’ll try this again later.” As my pop would have said, “So it goes.”

While waiting for Rebecca at Panera this morning, I almost grabbed a newspaper and read my horoscope. I would have laughed if it had said stay in bed, for today is going to be a terrible day.

Okay, I’m done ranting now. For this weekend, Saturday will be my usual Dungeons and Dragons day with Rebecca and Darren, and Sunday will be filled with watching football and having someone come to help keep up the apartment. So I wish you all a good weekend, do stay warm if it is cold outside, and happy reading.

From Rebecca: Techonology grrr 5

Happy belated 4th of July to everyone. Joe dictated and I typed an entry on Friday for the holiday, but the internet connection on Joe’s laptop is not working and we could not get to the internet in order to post the entry.

Joe is taking the laptop to an expert early this week, so hopefully the problem will be solved by Wednesday or Thursday. so he can do his blog posts this week (among other things he likes to use the internet for, like Facebook and iTunes). If you don’t see another entry from him this week, you’ll know he is still struggling with it.

So, as Joe would say, until next time, take care, have a good week, and happy reading.

Technology Grrr 4 … with a favorable outcome

Greetings, readers. Today as I sat at Panera cafe working on a new story for the upcoming camp book, something happened to my dear old laptop that has never happened before. It completely froze; no cursor, no arrow, no running clock, or battery drainage indicator.  What’s worse was I was really on a roll. When Rebecca arrived, I was fuming and must have had that “help me” look on my face. I had already begun to copy by hand what I typed, figuring that we were gong to lose at least a part of what I had written.

Rebecca took over the copying while I packed up to go over to the office. When she was finished, I had to do what is known as a hard shutdown. This is not the best thing you can do to your computer. I didn’t see that we had much of a choice. Luckily, when we got back to the office, and started the computer, everything seemed to work fine. What really irked me was that I was aiming for between 350 to 400 words and fell well short of it.

Minor technology moment: although I love my new phone so much more than my old phone, I’m still having a wee bit of trouble with the buttons on the top row of the keypad. Somehow my big fingers don’t cooperate with the buttons on the top row. This means texting Rebecca when I need to is more difficult than I’d like. But at least everything on the phone works.

Now, close to 2 pm, I am hoping that everything that will gone wrong today has gone wrong, technology-wise. I don’t know if my computer will freeze up again or if this was a one-time anomaly. I really shouldn’t be too critical. The Asus laptop I have is five years old and we have sure put some miles on it writing three books and almost 200 blog entries. If I can get through the rest of the day without aggravation from technological items, I shall be very happy.

Yes, I know this is a rare Thursday entry, surprise-surprise. Whether Rebecca and I will put up a new one tomorrow is 50/50. We might have that be a work-on-the-book-only day. So until soonest, have a great day, take care, and happy reading.

From Rebecca: Quick post about Joe

Joe gave a performance today, Friday June 14th, in tribute to his friend Erin who passed away earlier this year from cancer. He did some lip-sync, some singing, air guitar, and air drums to KISS songs (and one Beatles song) in the community room of the Arnold Addison court building. He did a great job and it was a fantastic show. The local newspaper, the Centre Daily Times, covered the show and will put the human interest story in this Sunday’s paper, probably the front page.

He had to do a lot to get ready for it, so he was not able to blog this week. We also had a couple of technology glitches to work on, so that took time too. We will get back to regular blogging next week.

Have a great weekend. Thanks.