Archive of Marcia's Musings August 20-26, 2001Sunday, August 26, 2001
Done-- For Real This Time!!
The garage is "parkable", my office is liveable and I think we are FINALLY done!!! There is only about 12" of space on either side of the garage door so, after you add 16" wall shelving to it on both sides, there isn't enough space to park both cars in the garage. Well, we could park them there but we wouldn't be able to get out because we couldn't open the doors sooooooo, we decided that Brian's car (the Benz) would live inside. Since we use that car socially, it would be nice to be able to get into the car without getting wet during a rain storm or have it be too hot from sitting in the sun all day. My truck (the Blazer) can handle being outside-- afterall, its a truck!! (As my siblings will remember, I once backed through the garage door at my parents' house so I'm just as relieved not to park in the garage and not have to deal with the door.)
After we finished the garage, we came in and re-arranged my office along with putting down the plastic carpet guard runner-thingy, carving out a space at the back of my desk so that the "new" computer I've got will fit under the desk (yes, I know-- I'll miss the pain of hitting my knee on it, too), and re-hanging the Brazilian birds in my office. (I have a South American theme going in my office by the way-- the stuff I have hung on the walls was all purchased while I was in South America or gifted to me by my sister in Brazil.
Brian went out to find a turntable for the LPs (yes, we've still got them!) and, although there's a bounce in the floor/skip on the records when you're near the stereo, he was successful at locating one. Apparently, this is a rare item because the store he went to only stocked one; another store had another one and so on. Hmm, I suppose there's a lesson in there about outdated modes of musical enjoyment but, noper, we're not going to go there!!
Not Soooo Bad!!
Yesterday's bike ride wasn't too bad-- at least, not the bicycling part of it. The part that got to me was the feeling that I had to keep up with Brian-- we're both very competitive by nature so that came easily to both of us yesterday. Another part that was not very smart was eating food-- yes, I earned Points so I could have a burger with catsup and relish. I probably should've stayed away from the potato salad, even though I didn't have that much, it may have been too heavy for bicycling-- my stomach didn't feel great by the time we got home. Beyond my stomach not feeling great was the red face I had-- I'm used to bicycling in the cool of the morning and evening, not for two hours at the heat of the day (11am-2pm)!!! My skin was pulsing because I got overheated; it took some time to cool down-- quite a bit of time but, eventually, I was fine! My muscles aren't any more sore than they are or have been for the last four weeks so this is "normal" for me.
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The good news is that next weekend is a three-day weekend. We're done with the house-- or, as far as I can tell anyway, I am!! Much of next weekend will be spent relaxing-- something we haven't done much of lately!! Knowing Brian, he has other plans-- he just bought some grass seed, starter fertilizer and lime at OSH yesterday so I know what that means!
Oh, well, that's next weekend-- thanks for stopping by and have a nice evening!!
Saturday, August 25, 2001Probably the Only Post . . .
This is very likely the only post you'll see today-- Brian is going to take me on a 12-mile-round-trip bicycle ride so I'm likely to be crippled afterward. The good news is that, other than filling up the tires on his bike with air yesterday and taking a short test-drive, I know for a fact that he hasn't gone anywhere near that distance in at least two years. In other words, he's likely to be more crippled than I am!! Today, we're going to the Linux Anniversary Picnic in a park that's near my office. I think it should be loads of fun, don't you? (Yes, I am being a little facetious here!) The reason that we're bicycling is that there are 700 people signed up to attend the picnic and, I tend to agree with Brian about driving through that kind of traffic. Besides, its a Linux picnic-- which is similar to Green Peace and the EPA when it comes to protecting the environment (or so it seems) and riding a bicycle is definitely protecting the environment!!
We'll be going to Costco in about an hour because-- can you believe-- we've run completely out of Coke again!! Actually, we've been out of Coke since some time Thursday, I believe. You should see Brian: Nervous . . . Jittery . . .Shaking-- he's quite a site, really!! ;>) Anyway, we're also going to be picking up stuff for the party next weekend and checking on shelving for the garage-- we need more and they probably have the best price.
With that, I'm outta here-- have a nice day!!
Friday, August 24, 2001No Joy!!
Brian's boss's sewing machine is in pretty bad shape, too. Right now, the bobbin thread and the needle thread aren't connecting and I don't know why. I didn't break it-- she warned me that it had problems. I did order a new one today-- it'll take 7-10 days to arrive. I do have another source for borrowing a machine and have put the touch on her: a co-worker has a sewing machine that I know worked just a few weeks ago. I hope to get these curtains finished before our party next week but, if not, I'll live cuz I know my machine will be here eventually.
Rough Day!!
I had a bad day all the way around today. To start, I had a customer call and say (essentially) "Oh, we incorporate your software into our software so I hope that's okay." What?? Well, no, it isn't okay but it is a direct violation ("material breach" of your agreement!! Yeesh!! We have a meeting set up with the product marketing people next week to determine if what they are doing is something that they really shouldn't be doing but, in the interim, he's not going to do anything more.
A second customer called today-- we've actually been playing phone tag for three days trying to negotiate a Non-Disclosure Agreement. His first comments? "We're not going to change the law to New York governing law and we're not going to allow the change you requested to Paragraph 5, either." So, I'm thinking: Why did you bother to call? You've already made up your mind about this "negotiation". Then, he did the veiled threat of "Your competitors signed the agreement without making any changes . . ."
I think I've mentioned this before: That's a bad thing to say to me-- I really hate it!! First, up one side: "Just because our competitors don't care about their company's 'family jewels', doesn't mean I don't care! I have a fiduciary responsibility to myself-- a stockholder-- and the other stockholders in this company not to compromise the company's important bits and especially not our confidential information." and then, down the other side, "Besides, you and I both know that our software is better than their software and that's 95% of the reason that they don't care what they sign up to on a non-disclosure agreement!! The other 5% is that they're just happy to get someone to watch a demonstration of their inferior product!"
We hung up with him really worried that I was going to walk away from the deal-- man, I hate that crap!! About two hours later, I got a phone call from him (I have caller ID on my phone) when I was on the phone with a sales rep-- I let it go to voicemail. His message was something like: "Hey, this is Bob. Guess what? Our lawyers are willing to do New York law afterall and, I've been given the authority to find a way to work the language so that we have a compromise on Paragraph 5. Please, call me as soon as you have a chance."
Well, well-- will wonders never cease? Miraculously, we reached agreement on something he was sure his legal people would never go for on a non-disclosure agreement. Isn't that amazing?
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Date night tonight so you have a nice evening, too!
Thursday, August 23, 2001Congrats to Faye!!
My niece, Faye (Karen's daughter), has finally landed the job of her dreams!! She will be working for the American Diabetes Association-- she loves organizing fund-raisers and other events of that nature and, after years of tolerating the wrong job, she's got the right job that she was educated and trained for in the area of the country where she wants to live (Michigan). YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Such very Good News indeed!!!!
Broken Dreams
Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? Well, after talking with Barbara Thompson today about old sewing machines, mine decided that it didn't like the abuse it has been taking all of these years. I was easily within 4 yards of being finished with my curtains when the fabric stopped advancing and it started making a very Bad Noise. Even Brian commented that it sounded like something was very wrong-- it was, needless to say and I am/was not pleased.
Once again, my Knight in Shining Armor came through: he gave me his boss's phone number so Trudy (his other boss's boss) will be lending me her sewing machine. Tomorrow, I'm going to call a place to buy one and have it shipped to me-- I've got the model number and its at a really low price. Not as cheap as the last one that I bought but it is a good price-- I paid $25.00 over 20 years ago for the machine I broke tonight. It is a Singer and it was virtually brand new: the woman I bought it from didn't have room in her Datsun 280Z to bring it back so I paid some of her gas money to move from Texas to California.
I don't sew very much these days but that sewing machine has seen me make and mend wedding dresses, kids' clothes and dozens of curtains. If I didn't have a sewing machine in the house, I'd think something was wrong-- life would be out of balance.
Reprieve of Sorts
As mentioned many times before, my sister (Karen, as noted above) and I have our ICQ chat sessions most every Wednesday night, barring conflicting plans. Usually we're really good about getting together and make a real point of it as it helps us keep in touch.
While we were chatting last night, she told me that she decided to go with a different play than the one that I was writing for her for this year's production. The student that she had "chosen" for the lead in the play I' writing decided that because his parents are being transferred to Denver, he should go along-- who else will pay the food bills for a growing boy? Since that left her without a good character for the comedic lines, she decided that this class would do something more traditional.
I'm still going to keep working on the play-- I'm just going to move it to a back burner. Admittedly, I've been running out of time in my days lately-- I mentioned that to her, as well. I can also imagine that my schedule being what it is, may make it difficult to complete the play in a timely fashion and, I'd hate to mess her up!!
By the way, does anyone know where I can find four extra hours a day? I can't pay a premium price for them but I'm willing to consider bartering of some type.
Back in the Saddle
Bicycle saddle, that is! I haven't been able to ride my bicycle because of quarter-end, temperature hikes, travel plans and moving exercises for nearly two months!! I decided that I wasn't going to let the extra muscles "earned" during the move go to waste so I wanted to start bicycling. I rode for about 30 minutes tonight-- not a bad ride, either. (Weight Watchers doesn't care about distance but time and intensity.) Because of our new location, I have to work out a new route but, overall, it'll be fun getting this set up again.
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Speaking of which, I'm off to the showers so, I gotta run-- as usual! Have a nice evening.
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
(Updated at 8:30pm)No Word . . .
I've received neither an email or voicemail that says that my computer is fixed so, at 6:15am, I am sitting at my desk at home, drafting documents. Now, that's a scary thought, isn't it?
I've sent an email and voicemail to Nina to ask her to check the status of my computer's repair and, in the interim, plan to work at home. I've got several documents to draft and another two or three documents to review-- I've actually got enough work to keep me busy all day and that doesn't count what will inevitably turn up in email as the day progresses.
More to come as things move on . . .
Its Ba-Aaaack!!!
My computer is back and it is working!!! Yeah!!!! They made sure that everything was set up and it was because all they had done was pull my hard-drive and re-insert it. I am missing the email and work from Monday and Tuesday but that is there, somehwere, now. Everything is back to being where it is supposed to be-- I'm a happy camper and they are, too. At one point, I was asked about my Network Card-- not knowing what the "Network Card" is, was a good thing today. See, there is a point to the glazing over that takes place when Brian starts talking tooooo much geek to me!! Had I know, apparently, they were going to be concerned with what I'd messed with but, since I didn't, they were all really relieved. Ya know, I don't care as long as it operates the way that it is supposed to operate.
I did have one glitch: a document, saved in Word 2000, doesn't function normally in Word 97-- I was home working on that document again this afternoon. I finished it up and saved it in Word 97 (or 95) format and sent it to the customer asking them to make sure that they did the same when they returned it to me. Hopefully, we'll get the issues resolved but they are a big company buying a little bit of software and, of course, are asking for the world so, I'm not gonna hold my breath!!
Blocking Work
I'm working on the curtains for my office in my spare time-- yeah, right! I've gotta get them in here because I'm blinded every afternoon but there is a little problem with my sewing machine: its OLD but, because I don't use it very much, its not worth replacing. I just have to finagle it and promise it household oil and it keeps chugging away for me. I'm almost finished so I just need a little more cooperation from it!
Speaking of which, I'm going to do some more work on it-- you have a nice evening, 'kay?
Tuesday, August 21, 2001And the beat goes on . . .
Well, let's see: I've had three hard lock-ups on my computer and one complete re-boot. Sounds like a waste of time to me!! Then there are the list of things that I have been waiting to get set up since the last visit from MIS:
1. The second printer needs to be set-up on my system.
2. Single click to open icons on my desktop (I don't know if its possible or not in NT but I know it ain't happening until someone tells me how to do it!).
3. At start-up on my computer, I shouldn't have to hit "Alt-Ctrl-Del" when I'm the only person who logs onto this laptop-- if it were a PC where people could walk up and flip it on, I could understand but I think we're over-complicating matters here just a bit.
4. Disable Office Assistant in Word-- the little bugger won't go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. Holding settings as default in Word.Since the minions weren't responding, I decided to call the big chief-- I got their manager on the phone and told him my problems. Ori knows that I don't call him unless I'm not getting a response from the other guys and, obviously, I'm not.
Within 15 minutes, Ori was sitting next to me and trying to help me figure out the problems that the computer was having and why things happened the way that they did. I explained why I was told to "upgrade" to NT by both the Atlanta MIS people and one or two of his local guys (they said I couldn't log into the network because of being on Windows 98). He didn't like hearing that as he was shaking his head as I told him what I was told by them (his minions).
The long and the short of it is that Ori left with my computer tucked under his arm-- he told me that he would "have it fixed" tomorrow. If he wouldn't be able to get it fixed by 7am (which is when I normally show up for work), he would let me know tonight so that I wouldn't commute into the office but work from home doing webmail and whatever here. Ori had said something about putting me back on Windows 98 since it does work on the network and then, it'll go on from there to fix whatever other problems are happening with the computer, i.e., locking up when the "Full Mailbox" email arrives.
When my computer is returned to me, I'm going to have someone sit next to me and make sure that its working before they leave-- functionality is the key here and, right now, I don't have it. This is not a good thing which, thankfully, Ori recognizes.
I'll keep you updated as things progress on this topic . . .
And speaking of working from home . . .
I'm going to start doing that more frequently, now that I have an office of my own. I've brought some things home to work on and sent myself some other documents-- it'll be easy enough to do. I've warned John that he will have to get used to calling me on my cell phone to reach me from time to time. He says he doesn't like the idea of calling me at home but, as I've told him, if I work from home, he'll have to or figure on not talking to me very much!!
I think it'll be easier to work from home now that I've got my own office-- my biggest problem before was being distracted by the activities of the apartment complex. Granted there is a lot of street traffic here at the house but, there aren't the distractions of people walking by like at the apartment! I'm planning to give it the "Old College Try" next week-- next Wednesday I'm going to work from home "just because I can" and, I'll let you know how it goes.
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I've got a couple of things that I want to do both in my office and with the curtains now that I've finally bought the burlap to make them. As a result, I'm going to sign off for now and talk more atcha another time.Have a nice evening!
Monday, August 20, 2001No Surprises Here!!
As I was saying good-bye to Brian this morning, I mentioned that I wasn't looking forward to going into the office and dealing with the fact that the installation of Windows NT on my computer probably didn't go right and there were going to be all kinds of problems with it. Well, I hate to say that I was right but, yes, I was right-- again! There really are no surprises left for me when it comes to our MIS department. Each and EVERY personal setting on my programs (from Word to Outlook) were gone because the incompetent jerk didn't copy my profile over!! Bookmarks? What are those?? ARGH!!! As I wrote to Brian:
Well, as expected, the incompetence of the raging incompetents has struck again. ALL of my settings are gone in ALL of the programs and, of course, finding out how to re-set them in NT is completely different than with Windows 98. I have tried several methods of trying to figure out where my profile was so I can copy it over but it has been fruitless. Of course, the specific raging incompetent that did the "upgrade" is now on vacation so, I'm stuck with the replacement incompetents to "fix" my problems. Aren't I lucky??All together, it took from 7 until 10:30 this morning to get everything right again-- my settings were gone so I had to re-set everything but there was one thing I needed additional help with so the back-up "I" handled that one for me. Then, after he left (actually, there were two of them-- they don't come alone to my cube cuz they know I'll chew them up and spit them out for breakfast!), I found three more things that needed to be "fixed" or at least re-set so that it is back to "normal", whatever that is for NT.I've now been told that a back-up incompetent is coming over-- so far, I've wasted about 2 hours on this process. Oh, yes, I'm so glad I upgraded, aren't you?
The more things change, the more . . . Yeah, yeah-- I'll cut them some slack when they start doing their jobs right!!
If its not one thing . . .
Once I was able to function "normally" on my computer, I picked up my headset to call a sales rep but found that it had de-synced (if that's possible) while I was gone. After a trip over to purchasing to get the contact info, I called the company and their tech rep eventually successfully walked me through the re-syncing of the headset. Apparently, they can just do that after awhile even though they aren't supposed to-- hmmm, sounds like something that might be powered by Microsoft, doesn't it?
When all was said and done, I had a hard time concentrating toward the end of the day and left to go home to review a contract. I'd like to say I used my new office but, because of the non-curtained glare, I wasn't able to do that. (I used the kitchen table.)
I did, however, stop to get some fabric (burlap in tan) to make up curtains-- hopefully, I'll get to that this weekend.
What Else Is There?
Apparently, not much-- Brian and I have to make up the invitations for the open house-warming party that we're having but that's about all there is left to deal with regarding the house. I'm fine with that, too, let me tell ya! Onward and upward, I guess-- have a nice evening!
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