Well, That’s Sorted

Another couple of day’s worth of journal entries from the September trip have gone up. They take a lot of time to fool with – aside from typing the entries in pretty much as I wrote them, but without the bad handwriting. That’s only the beginning – then there’s choosing the pictures, messing with them in Photoshop Lite to get them looking halfway presentable, cropping, etc. – and then I realize that I’ve copied the thumbnail size image from David’s photo album (where the original uncropped unmessed-with images reside) and have to do it all over again. And somewhere in between, a lot of Web surfing to find relevant links and maybe discover factual errors and interesting sidelights.

One more picture to post – while we were away, my cat Stuey (Studebaker Baker to the vet) was boarded, and I missed him a lot.

stuey.jpg

So here’s a nice picture of him.

Cold/I Want My Mommy

More freezing weather – it’s a bright day and we’re debating whether to go cross-country skiing or not. I’m holding out to tomorrow, when the temperature is supposed to climb up into the 20’s (Fahrenheit).

Besides which, the snowbase is only about 4 inches, very light and powdery. Which means that it’s blown off anywhere that’s exposed and windy. So I think we need a bit more snow to not risk tearing the 5h1t out of our skis.

Hi, Mom!

Talked to Mom just now and tried to explain “blogging” to her. Aw, she’s so cute. She corrected numerous factual errors about my memories of the time Pop died, but seems willing to let it be partly fictional/imaginary/made up out of whole cloth… because that’s the way she’s always told stories, too, I think. 😉

My sister Timmy (oh, all right, she was supposed to be a boy named Marcus Timothy, but they forgot to have a girl’s name handy as backup) printed out a few pages and gave them to Mom to read. So she’s all proud, and I was telling her she ought to:

  • get Tivo, or at least a VCR
  • get a simple email/webbrowser box of some kind
  • write some of her life experiences down and get out there

I mean, this is a woman who has held the Hope Diamond in her hands, met Harry Truman, watched Japanese cargo ships loading scrap iron in San Francisco in the late Thirties, and nearly moved to Honolulu with her newspaperman first husband shortly before all that scrap iron flew back and whomped Pearl Harbor. Her husband missed out on the story of the century.

She has a lot of interesting or funny stories – I wish she’d do something about writing them down but her hands bother her now and writing/typing them out is probably not an option.

Craaaap. I can type almost at dictation speed.

No. No. No. Don’t do it, Ginny!! Walk towards the light!

Hey, let’s get Timmy to do it, she’s retired now (kidding, she’s busy in retirement, with more activities and social obligations than anyone I know other than my mom-in-law Leah).

And I still think Mom should get TiVo. She’d love it once it was set up, but she’s never even gotten a VCR. She’s just not into useful technology dating later than, say, the old Royal typewriter she used to use for letterwriting.

We Apologize Redux

Invision Power Board Database Error

Ooops, looks like the Television Without Pity forums are hosed – at least this one is. Try again later.

“We apologise for any inconvenience”

I wonder if it’s virus related? DSLreports was down earlier too, but is back up now.

Wonder what happens tomorrow on MyDoomsday?

Virus Sighting – had Novarg briefly. Don’t anymore. Thanks, DGH!

Phone News: we’re keeping the phones for now. The really loud tones on startup seem not to be changeable or muteable, but the shutdown tones are now turned down to the minimum level. The camera seems to work all right – we’ll see if we keep them for the 2 week period trial period. Porting the number from our old service (Sprint) was accomplished overnight. Very smooth and unnightmarelike.

The phones themselves are a little slick (literally and figuratively) that I think I’ll have to get some sort of tactile skin or case for mine. It’s annoying that I can’t get my name to appear on the outer and inner screen banners – this is an advertising banner for Verizon Wireless that is not changeable without some hacking around that we’re not willing to do.

Various solutions are possible, but then the roam banner is on all the time. Which is more annoying than not having my name on my phone, which looks identical to my husband’s phone.

Another good reason to get a distinctive skin or case for mine, non? Oui.

So it looks like we’ll keep the phones for now, and use various techniques to keep them from being embarassing when turned on in public.

Sticking a thumb or finger over the external speaker seems to work best.

Lo-tech rulz!