Too Good to be True

I don't know if you have ever received any E mail for a Great deal on a computer but I found out that is what it was just a deal that I could not say no to. My wife has a computer that is just plain old and that is all there is to it. I was thinking of doing some kind of up grade for her when I get this add in my E mail for a Dell computer with an AMD 4000 processor and a 19" wide monitor all for $529 I say to my self if this is not a smoking deal I don't know what is. I get a ship date of 8/20/07 and when the day comes I get a notice in my E mail that they pushed the dated back a week because of a lack of supplies. On this notice I see a link where I can go and read about why my purchase was pushed back a week. There I find a geniric excuse that is just a bunch of ya da ya da stuff about supplies but nothing that reall pertains to my order. Then I see that there are some customer E mails about how pissed that they are and expressed my feelings. I thought to my self I'm not going to let them back out of a deal I can wait this was supposed to be a gift for my wife and I'm willing to wait to get my deal. Then I remember a friend of mine that went through much of the same to get a lap top out of them and buy the time it came it had a bunch of stuff on it like extra ram and a DVD burner that he didn't order but all for the same price. I figure I can wait a week and when I get my next excuse E mail I can start moaning about how I'm beinig done wrong and who knows they might send me the wrong machine like my friend to shut me up. Then my next thought was they could send me something that was a downgrade from what I ordered and then I would be stuck with something I didn't want. I just took a look at my retirement clock and I only have 126 days to wait out dell and I hope that is enough time. :)

Dummies

Yesterday I got to work to find out that I had lost my Cell Phone. I ran out to the parking lot to see if I lost it there and nope it was not on the ground or in the car so I ask the security officer if any one found a cell phone and he said no. I got back to my work place and called home and asked my wife to take a look around and see if she could find it and No it was gone. I called the phone hoping that who ever found it would answer the phone but no luck. Then my next step was to call Verizon and have them turn the phone off. Who ever has the phone how has a Price of junk that they can't even give away. I'm the only person that can activate it so they can't even sell it on Ebay. About the only good part of this is that I get a better phone out of the deal at my ex pence. The phone that I lost was a V3 Razor and for some unknown reason that phone won't hold a charge very long. My second one was better than my first one but it still only would hold a charge for about 3 days. My wife has one and hers works like a champ. One thing about all of this is it did mess up my day and I could not get my mind of the fact that I lost my phone. The main reason I lost it is I didn't hear it hit the ground. That is the real down side of being half deaf I don't hear a lot of sounds that others hear and that is one of them. As a matter of fact the way I found out that I was hard of hearing was the use of my bluetooth. I had it in my right ear and I thought that there was something wrong with it so I tried it in my left ear to find out that I could hear it there but not in my right ear. I had my ears checked out and found out that I had serious hearing loss but the price of hearing aids is $2K each so I just turn up the volume on the TV and the radio and move on with life.

More Fun NOT

I got out of bed Saturday morning full of ambition and it didn't take long for it to fade but I knew I had to finish putting the primer on my Cabinet doors and it was not going to take a long time. I don't know what there is about work it is not fun and that is all there is to it. I guess that is the main reason they call it work. I have to keep telling my self I only have to do this once and then it is done and I can get on with the rest of my life. By the time I got out to paint the cabinets it was about 2 degrees hotter than hell out side. I got the paint on and back in the house and I was sweating like a horse. Then it was time to move stuff to storage and get that over with and that was a lot easier than doing the painting. Once I had that done I thought my work for the weekend was over. I took Judy out to eat and we just had kind of a quickie combo lunch and dinner thing about 4:00. I got home and started playing on my computer and Judy was trying to find something to watch on TV. She gave up at that and went to her computer and all of a sudden I hear from her look at my screen what is going on. I took one look at her screen and I knew she had a problem and was not sure on how to fix it. Judy had a virus. She was in a panic about loosing all of her pictures that she has on her system. I told her why not put a little pressure on me and told her I will do my best to fix it. To me it was obvious this was not going to be an easy task. Every thing I did was not working and soon I had a mess on my hands. Then it hit me I had a repair boot CD that had all kinds of tools on it why not try that out. I put that in and it had a virus scan on it and I ran that and bingo it found and killed the virus the only thing was I had to reload all of the software that was on it. The only upside was she had vista on her machine and that loads quick.

Good News

I went to the doctor last night and he told me that I was doing great with my new diet and I had lost 8 lbs. I didn't think it was so great but he told me it was good to loose it slow and not all at once. It shows that the medication is working and he didn't have to increase the dose. That made me happy as a clam till I got home and found out that some software that I use will not function in Vista so good buy Vista because the software if for Photography and that is what the computer is for not for playing with new operating systems. I think it is time for MS to get on the stick and figure out how to make an OS that has security built in and not make a mess of things at the same time. I think that the big plan at Microsoft is make stuff that works for them and if it doesn't work for other companies tough they can make an upgrade. How about this Bill when you pay out good money for software that doesn't work in the new OS who needs it. I will stick with XP till you can figure out how to make an OS that does work. I think I'm going to have to wait for my next life for that to happen or just spend more time in Linux. Only thing is I'm kind of hooked on Photography and not to many programs I use have Linux versions. FYI for you Microsoft fans Linux runs faster than XP or Vista and just as easy to use if not easier. It didn't take me long to figure it out and I'm far from a rocket scientist. I use Suse Linux and you can download it or buy it for $4 and it comes with just about anything you can think of needing. You have photo viewers and programs that will do just about anything you want to do with an image just no Photo capture and that is what I'm trying to learn how to use at this moment in time. Nice thing about Linux is it works and the best part is it doesn't cost a ton. Most of the software that does run in Linux is FREE or low cost very unlike the trash they sell you for XP and Vista. Linux has a bit of a learning curve but inside a month you should feel at home with it and on your way to trouble free computing. Now back to praying some one writes some capture software for Linux :)

Beginning of the end

I got the bright idea from a co-worker to run this blog of my last days on the job and all of the fun that we have in the lab. Really it is hard to believe but we do have a good time well at least I have a good time most of the time. I really can't talk for the rest but they spend a lot of time laughing so I assume that they are enjoying them self. I have worked for this company for 25 years now and I find that hard to believe because before this job I never had one that lasted more than a couple of years. I guess the reason for that is I never had one that paid enough to hang around for more than a few years. Most of the jobs that I had in the past were just hard work and not much fun at all and the only good day of the week was Friday and I had two days to do as I pleased and did just that. I was young and stupid and never listened to a word any one had to say I just did my own thing and lived for the moment. My Dad told me to save some money for my old age and I ask him what makes you think I'm going to live along enough to get old? I really didn't see my self getting much over 35 and never in hell would I make it to 40 and my last birthday I was 63 and counting the days till I can retire. I decided to retire at 64 for more reason than one. I look OK on the out side but on the inside I'm kind of a mess of bad habits. I'm not going to go in to what those habits were but they were nothing that promoted long life. I thought that a good plan was to get a physical exam before I retired to make sure that I was in good shape for retirement. I think half of it was I knew something was wrong. My eyes are going hay wire and I was putting on weight like it was free. The Doctor checked me out and found out that I have type 2 diabetes and now I have to be careful of my sugar intake. I was going nuts craving something I didn't need or really want but my body told me I had to have it. The doctor gave me some medication and I don't know if that is the idea of the stuff but I quit craving sugar and to me that is a bonus in it self. I don't think there is anything on earth that will drive you nuttier than food cravings. The last time I talked to my eye doctor she was concerned about my vision going wacky. She did tell me that they can control it but she would like to see it stabilize by it self first.I guess the medication for the diabetes is supposed to take care of that.