Apparently we had some sort of power surge that affected BOTH our computers -- my creakingly aged laptop and our fairly new desktop -- and fried both of them beyond repair. [sigh] I am grateful that most of the things I needed to keep were being stored on my 1TB external drive, which apparently managed to survive intact. Still, I miss my old familiar friend. I had grown accustomed to him over the past, well, let's see... I guess I've had him for six years. That's pretty decent for a laptop, no?
We managed to procure a VERY inexpensive desktop to replace them, since both of us really have to have access to the internet to get vital things accomplished... bills paid, jobs produced, etc... but a new laptop for me will have to wait now. I had considered just doing one of the cheap netbook things, but after consideration, I really do require something with a little more oomph because of all the graphics and photography work I do.
On a health-related note, I received the (expected) news that the lumpy-bumpys in my inguinal region really are just odd-shaped (but unremarkable) lymph nodes. Dr. Cichon did mention that the MRI picked up on ovarian cysts... I nodded my head, but kept thinking Well Duh, I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, of course I have ovarian cysts... interestingly, the doctor who gave me my original PCOS diagnosis did not do an ultrasound or an MRI at all, so the presence of actual cysts was never confirmed. I just showed every OTHER symptom of PCOS, so that's what he concluded. And apparently I have now received visual confirmation. [shrug] This, my friends, is why I have only one biological child... and is more proof that his existence is truly a miracle.
Speaking of my one biological child, he got word tonight that he will be part of the cast of the community college's production of Alice in Wonderland. They're re-interpreting the story with a Steampunk vibe, and have done some tweaking. Isaac is playing the part of the Frog Footman, and naturally will have to adopt a French accent for said part. I sink we can do zis, no?
Showing posts with label compewters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compewters. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Friday, May 22, 2009
Keep an eye on the kiddos...
Because you just never know what they're going to do while you're asleep:
Toddler buys real digger online
A good lesson in keeping your computer password-protected AND always logging off!
As an aside, perhaps "Pipi" is a normal-sounding name in NZ, but reading it to myself I'm reminded of something that happened on my recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery in DC. We got off the Metro and walked in to the cemetery; we wanted to make it in time for the final changing of the guard ceremony of the day. Cindy and I both really REALLY needed to go to the bathroom but were afraid we wouldn't have time because the line for the ladies' room was incredibly long and lined up outside the door. Ugh! So we went and lined up for bus fare to ride the shuttle over to the Tomb of the Unknowns.
As we approached the window, I caught sight of the clerk's name tag, which proudly announced her name to the world: Tee-Tee. I whispered this in Cindy's ear, feeling that she needed to know ahead of time so she didn't just burst into uncontrollable laughter when we got up to the window, thus causing both of us to actually Tee-Tee our britches.
Toddler buys real digger online
A New Zealand couple nearly found themselves in a financial hole when their three-year-old daughter bought an earthdigger in an internet auction.
Pipi had only been allowed to use the computer for the first time the week before - but is obviously a fast learner.
A good lesson in keeping your computer password-protected AND always logging off!
As an aside, perhaps "Pipi" is a normal-sounding name in NZ, but reading it to myself I'm reminded of something that happened on my recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery in DC. We got off the Metro and walked in to the cemetery; we wanted to make it in time for the final changing of the guard ceremony of the day. Cindy and I both really REALLY needed to go to the bathroom but were afraid we wouldn't have time because the line for the ladies' room was incredibly long and lined up outside the door. Ugh! So we went and lined up for bus fare to ride the shuttle over to the Tomb of the Unknowns.
As we approached the window, I caught sight of the clerk's name tag, which proudly announced her name to the world: Tee-Tee. I whispered this in Cindy's ear, feeling that she needed to know ahead of time so she didn't just burst into uncontrollable laughter when we got up to the window, thus causing both of us to actually Tee-Tee our britches.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Yet another reason to be crabby
I'm hugely irritated with my LaCie brand 1Tb external hard drive. I've had it about a year and it has had trouble making connection with the cords. Today it completely quit connecting. I know all the information (my iTunes music, all my photos) is all still there. It's just not accessing it.
I ordered a new external hard drive (a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5 Tb ordered from Amazon) even though we really don't have the $$ for it. I absolutely have to have the external memory.
In the meantime, I'm trying desperately to resurrect the LaCie, even if only for just enough time to shift everything in it to the new drive. I don't care anymore about that little sticker blaring a warning about "voiding the warranty" by opening up the box. It's durn near impossible to open this drive, with no visible means of entry. So I'm trying to pry it open.
I am NOT happy about having to do this, but I don't think I have a choice. There's just too much valuable stuff on it.
On a positive note, however, I was contacted this evening by the nearby community college; there is a distinct possibility that they'll need someone to teach the College Prep English class during the June session. This could be an answer to prayer financially; it isn't a LOT of money, but it definitely helps. And the class is in the mornings, so I don't have to worry about leaving the kids alone.
Alice tripped and fell this evening while coming up the front porch steps. For a little while I thought she might've broken one or more fingers on her left hand, but everything seemed better after a while. It's not an unheard-of thing; she can't really catch herself well with her left hand, so if she falls that direction, the chance of injury is much greater.
She and Isaac have joined their older sister in avoiding proper showering. I've had to take steps to make sure they're keeping themselves clean, like smelling their hair after they get out of the shower (a dead giveaway; wet dirty hair smells very different than wet clean hair!) and checking the levels on the shampoo bottle. I hate being a policeman but I don't think I have much of a choice. They've GOT to be clean. At least these two can be reasoned with and can be convinced to obey. The elder one isn't going to keep herself clean if she doesn't want to, nevermind what I want or don't want.
It's nearly ten o'clock now and it's time for me to hit the hay. Tomorrow I'm leaving during my conference period to play for a funeral at church. It isn't a happy occasion, but I will confess that I'm glad to be available to do it. It just means that the more I get to do this sort of thing, the more a fixture we become in this community. I like Ballyhoo very much and I believe that it's the best place to raise the kids right now. Tiny communities tend to be rather close-knit and cliquish, but if you find a need that must be met and meet it, you're in the clique.
I got my official copy of my contract for next year. I'm thinking of framing it. Not really, of course... it probably sounds retarded to even say it. But it will mean that they are hiring me on for a third year. The third year is the charm for being less and less likely to be gotten rid of in a Texas school. After three years, they can't just automatically fire you for no reason. If you misbehave, they can obviously get rid of you immediately, but if they just dislike you or want to hire someone else, after you've been there for three years they have to have specific reasons for dismissing you.
I don't intend to misbehave, and I *do* intend to stick around. It isn't the best pay in the world, but it IS the best PLACE in the world to be for me right now.
Good night, y'all. Let's hope the fire ants don't carry us off during the night. They're getting pretty thick.
I ordered a new external hard drive (a Seagate FreeAgent 1.5 Tb ordered from Amazon) even though we really don't have the $$ for it. I absolutely have to have the external memory.
In the meantime, I'm trying desperately to resurrect the LaCie, even if only for just enough time to shift everything in it to the new drive. I don't care anymore about that little sticker blaring a warning about "voiding the warranty" by opening up the box. It's durn near impossible to open this drive, with no visible means of entry. So I'm trying to pry it open.
I am NOT happy about having to do this, but I don't think I have a choice. There's just too much valuable stuff on it.
On a positive note, however, I was contacted this evening by the nearby community college; there is a distinct possibility that they'll need someone to teach the College Prep English class during the June session. This could be an answer to prayer financially; it isn't a LOT of money, but it definitely helps. And the class is in the mornings, so I don't have to worry about leaving the kids alone.
Alice tripped and fell this evening while coming up the front porch steps. For a little while I thought she might've broken one or more fingers on her left hand, but everything seemed better after a while. It's not an unheard-of thing; she can't really catch herself well with her left hand, so if she falls that direction, the chance of injury is much greater.
She and Isaac have joined their older sister in avoiding proper showering. I've had to take steps to make sure they're keeping themselves clean, like smelling their hair after they get out of the shower (a dead giveaway; wet dirty hair smells very different than wet clean hair!) and checking the levels on the shampoo bottle. I hate being a policeman but I don't think I have much of a choice. They've GOT to be clean. At least these two can be reasoned with and can be convinced to obey. The elder one isn't going to keep herself clean if she doesn't want to, nevermind what I want or don't want.
It's nearly ten o'clock now and it's time for me to hit the hay. Tomorrow I'm leaving during my conference period to play for a funeral at church. It isn't a happy occasion, but I will confess that I'm glad to be available to do it. It just means that the more I get to do this sort of thing, the more a fixture we become in this community. I like Ballyhoo very much and I believe that it's the best place to raise the kids right now. Tiny communities tend to be rather close-knit and cliquish, but if you find a need that must be met and meet it, you're in the clique.
I got my official copy of my contract for next year. I'm thinking of framing it. Not really, of course... it probably sounds retarded to even say it. But it will mean that they are hiring me on for a third year. The third year is the charm for being less and less likely to be gotten rid of in a Texas school. After three years, they can't just automatically fire you for no reason. If you misbehave, they can obviously get rid of you immediately, but if they just dislike you or want to hire someone else, after you've been there for three years they have to have specific reasons for dismissing you.
I don't intend to misbehave, and I *do* intend to stick around. It isn't the best pay in the world, but it IS the best PLACE in the world to be for me right now.
Good night, y'all. Let's hope the fire ants don't carry us off during the night. They're getting pretty thick.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Tara Bites
Well, actually, there's only one TaraBite... or is it terabyte? I forget. Anyhoo, we bought a LaCie mass storage device on Woot some time back and it is supposed to be able to store a whole terabyte of stuff. W00t w00t!! Even as I blog at this moment, I am transferring all my music and photos over to Tara. I'm hoping that I'll be able to free up a LOT of space on my laptop that is making it run kinda slow.
UPDATE: Can someone explain to me why iTunes won't access my library on the LaCie? I have changed the Preferences setting to look for my library there instead of on my laptop's hard drive, but it does nothing.
I used to like iTunes, but I've become less and less enamored with it of late. I had to look elsewhere to find the seventh Potter audiobook even though it had been available on the open market for a year. And now I find its interface confining and even a bit insulting.
If anyone can 'splain to me what I can do to fix this, I'd sure 'preciate it.
UPDATE: I love my readers! I received an e-mail from BlogDog with this extremely helpful web page, which got me started on the right track. Then I read the comment from MaggieKatzen about dragging the library into iTunes to help it recognize the library. Without these two very helpful friends, I would not have succeeded -- but I did! And it's working beautifully.
Thank you!!!!!!!
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Oooh, shiny!
Just downloaded Google's new browser, called Chrome. I was pretty excited about it, thinking it was a way to be another step ahead of the haXX0rs and virus-generator creeps.
But I have a problem: I can't install Google's Toolbar (my preferred way of navigating any browser I use) on Chrome!!
Huh?
Why wouldn't Google build its Toolbar right into Chrome? Google's Toolbar is probably the most widely downloaded and used application that Google produces.
When I downloaded Chrome, it automatically imported my Firefox bookmarks. Problem is, I don't really use my Firefox bookmark list. I use my Google Toolbar bookmark list because it's available to me on other computers and other browsers.
[sigh]
C'mon, Google. Let's fix this, k?
Other than that, it seems to be a decent browser -- super-quick response times and not nearly as CPU-hogging as Firefox. I'll keep using it for now, but [ahem] I sure would like to have my Google Toolbar.
Just sayin'.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Recent commentary
Isaac has been glued to the computer for a significant portion of the evening. "Isaac seems to be making up for lost time," Rick said, referring to the week of having been grounded from the computer and computer games.
"He's a born gamer," I said. "Think about it. He was practically born at the computer." (My labor with him started abruptly while I was IMing with a friend from California.)
Rick thought about it. "You're right. I guess his idea of motherly comfort originates with the glow of the CRT."
"He's a born gamer," I said. "Think about it. He was practically born at the computer." (My labor with him started abruptly while I was IMing with a friend from California.)
Rick thought about it. "You're right. I guess his idea of motherly comfort originates with the glow of the CRT."
Friday, January 11, 2008
No more Pentium-III
I don't expect it will always work, but at least this time, the old "ask and ye shall receive" principle worked for me at school. Actually, mentioning it to the superintendent at a football game did the trick. I now have three (3!!) new HP computers with flat-screen monitors in my classroom. Now we can actually work with images without having the computer lock up.
But I did have to take all the yearbook pictures off the district server, because I was eating up all their space (oops... hehe). At least now my classroom computer has CD-burning capability (not DVD, unfortunately, but you can't have everything I guess) so I won't have to fill up our little server. Next year I'm going to request one of these (not that I'll get it, but it never hurts to ask).
And on the same principle, I think I'm also going to request some *real* cameras with *real* lenses. Probably not Nikons, since they're so spendy... but there are some terrific DSLRs by Olympus and Canon that would fill the bill. Even just one good camera a year for three or four years would be a wonderful investment in not only the yearbook production but also the *real* photography education the kids could potentially receive.
My list of big-ticket items also includes a good kiln and pottery wheel, a computer projector and screen, and a classroom set of textbooks. I'm still deciding what textbooks to adopt; it's fun to have the POWAH to decide that kind of thing!
But I did have to take all the yearbook pictures off the district server, because I was eating up all their space (oops... hehe). At least now my classroom computer has CD-burning capability (not DVD, unfortunately, but you can't have everything I guess) so I won't have to fill up our little server. Next year I'm going to request one of these (not that I'll get it, but it never hurts to ask).
And on the same principle, I think I'm also going to request some *real* cameras with *real* lenses. Probably not Nikons, since they're so spendy... but there are some terrific DSLRs by Olympus and Canon that would fill the bill. Even just one good camera a year for three or four years would be a wonderful investment in not only the yearbook production but also the *real* photography education the kids could potentially receive.
My list of big-ticket items also includes a good kiln and pottery wheel, a computer projector and screen, and a classroom set of textbooks. I'm still deciding what textbooks to adopt; it's fun to have the POWAH to decide that kind of thing!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
All's well
Apparently the short-lived laptop crash we experienced yesterday was entirely the fault of a corrupted iTunes. Once I figured that out, left my frozen iPod off the charger to discharge completely and reset itself, then dl'd a new copy of iTunes, everything was hunky-dory.Thank you, God. We did NOT need one more expensive something to deal with. We're already so far behind... well, we won't be "catching up" anytime soon.
This afternoon we were interviewed by a nearby newspaper about Alice being in the Neiman-Marcus/Adolphus Children's Medical Center Christmas Parade in Dallas in a couple of weeks. I don't trust journalists; they invariably screw it all up and get everything bass-ackwards. But it will be fun to see just what they do with Alice's story, since it's such a convoluted one. If we make it in, I'll post a link to the online version (assuming there will be one).Today I had an official administrative observation
during my sixth period Art class. Of course, I had diarrhea all morning beforehand. This appears to be a standard involuntary body response for me when I'm anxious about something. I don't know how it went, but my class was meek and submissive and cooperative (such angels!), so as far as I can tell, things are o-buh-kay-bee.
One of the other teachers, another newbie like myself, is giving me the heebie-jeebies. That's all I'm going to say about it right now, since I'm hoping it will pass. If it doesn't, though, expect more discussion of said heebie-jeebies.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Finally!!
I was just on the verge of emerging from the withdrawal symptoms and being internet-free... and then Google let me back into my account.
As an aside, if any of you (and if you've ever e-mailed me, you did) received a Quechup invite from me, it was sent out WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Stay away from Quechup at all costs, folks. They are scum. If there were someone I could report them to, I would. And I apologize profusely and copiously for the unwanted e-mail from me. There were people on my address list that I really didn't ever want reading any mail from me ever again, and that probably looked weird getting a social-networking invite from me.
As soon as I realized Quechup had stolen my address book, I went in and changed my password to my Google account.
And then I completely, totally forgot it. Not even a remote clue. Still don't know.
What I didn't realize, though, is that if you forget your password in Google, you can get a notification e-mail sent to your alternate e-mail address.
However, I hadn't changed my alternate e-mail address since leaving Des Moines and our old ISP, so that address was defunct.
In that event, Google will give you your "security questions" (mom's maiden name, etc.) that you put in when you applied for the e-mail account. Yep, they'll give you the questions. But not for FIVE DAYS. I can see why, sort-of... but if they're security questions, why won't Google give them to you automatically?
Today was the first day I could access the security questions, which I promptly answered and then began the arduous task of digging through five days' worth of e-mails.
As a wrap-up, let me remind you: STAY AWAY FROM QUECHUP. They should be shut down for their unethical practices.
As an aside, if any of you (and if you've ever e-mailed me, you did) received a Quechup invite from me, it was sent out WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Stay away from Quechup at all costs, folks. They are scum. If there were someone I could report them to, I would. And I apologize profusely and copiously for the unwanted e-mail from me. There were people on my address list that I really didn't ever want reading any mail from me ever again, and that probably looked weird getting a social-networking invite from me.
As soon as I realized Quechup had stolen my address book, I went in and changed my password to my Google account.
And then I completely, totally forgot it. Not even a remote clue. Still don't know.
What I didn't realize, though, is that if you forget your password in Google, you can get a notification e-mail sent to your alternate e-mail address.
However, I hadn't changed my alternate e-mail address since leaving Des Moines and our old ISP, so that address was defunct.
In that event, Google will give you your "security questions" (mom's maiden name, etc.) that you put in when you applied for the e-mail account. Yep, they'll give you the questions. But not for FIVE DAYS. I can see why, sort-of... but if they're security questions, why won't Google give them to you automatically?
Today was the first day I could access the security questions, which I promptly answered and then began the arduous task of digging through five days' worth of e-mails.
As a wrap-up, let me remind you: STAY AWAY FROM QUECHUP. They should be shut down for their unethical practices.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
FYI
"Delete" doesn't mean "disappear"
Even deleted e-mails can be recovered if someone wants it bad enough.
Even deleted e-mails can be recovered if someone wants it bad enough.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
The Best Apps in 2006
Lifehacker has put out its list of 2006's best apps. If you're not familiar with Lifehacker, you should drop in on that site. It's a haven for people like me, who love geeky stuff but really would prefer that the geeky stuff have a real purpose and further my progress in life, so to speak. Something that actually does save time, whether it has wicked cool graphics or not.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Looky! Looky!
It was super-cheap, of course, and certainly not state-of-the-art, but I got a webcam! Now when I Skype someone, they can actually see me as well as hear me.
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