Birthday Catsup ...

I mean Catch up ... our modem died late on the 18th, I'm suspecting the Gremlin had something to do with it ... no chance to blog until this evening. Please don't mind the offline blog that I wrote and pasted here. It's late and I'm sleepy, too sleepy to try to write a proper blog. LOL.

December 18, 2010

LOL. I don't know if I'll have time tomorrow to blog, it's the big StarFleet Christmas Party. Seems it's tradition to have it on my birthday anymore. But then, I'm used to my birthday being upstaged by Christmas, lol. Company parties, school parties, church youth group parties, you name it. I'm not bitter, lol, in fact I always thought I was something special by being born so close to Christmas!

You know, when I was growing up, I never realized that Hallmark (or the others) made anything but Christmas paper. My birthday gifts were wrapped in Christmas paper. Brother Deere, born January 5, also had his birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper. It wasn't until I was eight, when Little Bro was born on Valentine's Day, that I found out that Hallmark made more than Christmas paper. They also made Valentine's paper! Who knew? Dad was born on the Fourth of July, Mom's birthday occasionally falls on Easter - yeah we're a family of holiday or near holiday babies, LOL ... yet they never had gifts wrapped in birthday paper either ... Mom always had so much extra inventory of Christmas paper that that's all we ever saw gifts wrapped in (besides Valentine's paper)!

Today there's presents to wrap, cookies to bake ... okay, who am I kidding? I'm not baking cookies, I'm cheating by stopping by the bakery on the way to the party tomorrow. Two dozen chocolate chip cookies should cover it. Plus the stuff Single Son said he'd bring ... pop, cups, cheese and crackers and ... and ... oh I hope he remembers what else he said he'd bring.

As long as I'm wrapping gifts for the Trekkie Party, I may as well wrap family gifts, too. It's either that or I'll put it off until literally the last minute.

I'm so relieved that the shopping is done. I picked a great day, too, to go shopping! The one store I went to ended up not only having everything on my list, but everything was marked 50 to 80 percent off - an in-store unadvertised sale! Yes, 80 percent off. Eureka!!

Seeing as part of the shopping today was to buy my own birthday and Christmas gifts (from Mom) I really hit the jackpot!! Blue jeans for ten bucks, and a beautiful sterling silver amethyst and marcasite ring (valued at $90) for $18 and change!! Combine that with the Flylady order, and Mom spent 25% less on my gifts this year. And no, I didn't run around the store trying to spend the rest of the money. Let her enjoy some savings, LOL.

Speaking of running around the store, I'm beat!! Three hours in one store, unheard of for me! But I did search high and low, far and wide (and circled the place a few dozen times) in search of the perfect gift at humongous savings.

Sore as I am now thanks to *someone* wearing the wrong shoes for marathon shopping, and a few too many wayward carts rammed into the back of my heels by people not paying attention to anything but shelves and I can tell you I'm ready for a soak in the bathtub.

And soak I plan on doing, as soon as Alien gets here to pick up some mail and a ring I told her she could have. We both love amethyst (it was my brother's birthstone). I didn't tell her, but the mail is a check from Aunt Silly ... a hundred dollars to help Alien with Christmas for the Butterball. Now how sweet was that? But that's Aunt Silly ... generous and loving.

Well, I was going to post this ... We've lost internet about half way through my writing this. Seems our router just died. I'll post when I can (hopefully it'll come back to life, even if for only a few hours).

Hmmmm, nope, not the router it turns out, but the modem that went poof.

Nope, no such luck. Single Son said there was a small “explosion” followed by a stench. Great. Monday I get to call AT&T and order a new modem. I wonder how long that’ll take?

Until then, I blog offline, I’ll play catch-up with ya’ll when I can.

December 19, 2010

Just got back from the Star Trek Christmas party. Had a great time! We ate way too much delish food, opened presents, had birthday cake and played the game “Apples to Apples” while the *guys* held their end of the year Star Fleet teleconference call.

Our hostess, “L” had mentioned she’d sent me an email early this morning to ask me to bring a deck of cards, which of course I wasn't able to read, when I said that our modem had died she got all wide-eyed “we have three extra modems here, you’re more than welcome to take one home”. Yay!! As I type Single Son is working on swapping out the old, dead modem for the new one. And I mean new. They never used the one they gave us. It’ll be nice to be back online tonight. Hopefully tonight anyway.

You really don’t know how much time you spend online until you can’t get online. Haha.

It looks like I will be going to Port Huron for New Year’s after all. Single Son pretty much has to go for the swearing in of our new Star Fleet Commander, but he won’t be staying too long after midnight. So, knowing that he’s not staying overnight, or that I won’t have to drive the distance at night, I decided to go. A break from my normal tradition of meditation and reflection as the new year comes.  

The Gremlin Strikes Again ...

Free to a good home ... One Gremlin. Age unknown. Fun loving. Creative. Loves to lavish attention on others.

And here only yesterday I was thinking how quiet it's been around here. It's all *my* fault!! The Gremlin must have felt sorry for me and created some excitement. Grrrrrr.

Went to pay some bills. Stopped to pay the phone bill and when I came out of the place not five minutes later there's a huge green puddle under my car. It's anti-freeze and it's just gushing out from under my car!! There's no smoke coming from under the hood, and the hood feels fine to the touch, so I pop it open. Yup, a huge crack in one of the hoses.

Called around for someone to come get me. Can't find anyone. Out of desperation I call Bubba, Alien's dad. Yup, he'll come get me, he'll even look at the car for me. He was able to rig it so that I could at least get the car home. Yeah!! And *no* duct tape needed, lol. The break was close enough to the clamp he was able to trim the hose and re-clamp it. At least it'd get me home. Now I'm grounded for a few days until I can get it fixed.

So, any takers?? Anyone want to adopt my Gremlin?? He'll keep you entertained, that's for sure!

It's Been One Of Those Days ...

I had written a long vent blog earlier. Posted it even. Then deleted it. I didn't want a reminder of how lousy this day has been. Nothing overly horrible, just a day of one thing after the other. I thought once I got home it'd get better. Nope. Same shit ... different faces!

So, with the Gremlin being so active today, I decided to take the day off from homework. I know the minute I start the Gremlin will rear his ugly head again!! I'm pushing my luck here blogging.

At least I got to see Grandson, so something *good* did happen today. I tried to take a few pictures of him on his tricycle. No such luck! LOL! Little booger stole my camera and proceeded to snap about a dozen pictures with it. He needs his own camera! Something that won't get broken if he accidently drops it He didn't drop mine, but I was worried a few times!

Guess I start keeping an eye out for inexpensive children's digital cameras, eh? LOL ...

Problem Solving ...

Single Son is at work. I get the following instant message from him (edited, LOL) ...

Single Son: ::yawn::
LCM: hi
LCM: bored?
Single Son: YES!!!
LCM: that sucks!!!
Single Son: YES!!!!!!
LCM: what time are you there til?
Single Son: 2200 hours (10 PM)
LCM: bummer
Single Son: Yeah
Single Son: So what are you doing?
LCM: watching *Twister* ... doing a little blogging and talking to you
Single Son: Twister is gay!
Single Son: Blogging sucks!
Single Son: Talking to me rocks!
LCM: lmao
Single Son: What are you blogging about?
Single Son: Probably something gay...
Single Son:
LCM: lol, about computer problems ... got a few responses suggesting either a virus or conflicts w/ windows and my other hard drive
LCM: lol
Single Son: No, it's got some bad primary sectors.
Single Son: It's been an issue for 3 years or so, but it hasn't posed a problem until now.
LCM: figures it does once i take over the computer, eh?

So ... that's the official word. LOL. He knew it's been bad for a while. Loaned me the computer anyway after my computer had it's *melt-down*. Didn't warn me of potential problems. No biggie. He'll just have to do the swapping of the hard drives, and re-install the motherboard drivers. Half an hour job. An hour if there's complications. LOL.

I'm just grateful it's a solution that won't cost me a dime!!

 

Gremlin Strikes Again ...

As usual I spoke too soon. The Gremlin has returned!! And he seems to be making up for lost time!

Seems he's going after electronics this time. My cell phone had been acting strange for a few days. I could receive text messages, but not incoming calls. And the texts I was receiving where *not* from anyone I know!! Then people calling me would get a modem sound instead of ringing. It's better now, but it was a few strange days with the cell.

Then yesterday ... Computer froze on me. So I did a cold-boot to it. Got some weird warning I've never in my life seen ... nor has Single Son. It said something to the effect of "Warning! Back up all files on your hard drive immediately. Disk failure is eminent." I get the warning every time I turn the computer on now.

So here I sit on a computer that's going to crash - and soon. I feel sort of like I'm driving on sheet ice. I know a crash is going to happen. I just don't know *when*.

Luckily for me I have the hard drive from my old computer installed in this computer as a second hard drive. It's only a matter of having Single Son swap it for the "main" hard drive - the one that's on a crash course.

Geesh, this'll be two computers in less than six months that have met their death with me at the keyboard. Sorta gets me re-thinking that maybe web design isn't my *best* choice for majors?? I mean ... all I have to do is sit at a computer and the gremlin sneaks up on me and sabotages it somehow!!

Oh, like in class the other night. My teacher was sitting at her computer. I walked by. Her computer froze on her. My fault?? Probably not, but the timing just seemed a little too perfect to me to *not* take responsibility for it! LOL.

So if ya'll don't see or hear from me for a few days it's because the computer finally crashed and Single Son hasn't had the time yet to swap over the other hard drive to replace the dead one.

Gremlin Strikes Again!

Slowly catching up with ya'll. Not leaving a lot of messages ... and I *love* the fact I get updates to everyone's pages in my email, this way I'm sure to read everyone's entries. Leaves less room for me to get all confused trying to catch up.

OMG!! What a day. My computer teacher had emailed me the other day, there was a computer glitch and some of my test grades were lost. Did I happen to copy the score sheets for the tests, or otherwise record the grades? Of course not, so I had to retake ALL of the course tests. No biggie. I scored 100% on all of them (but couldn't document that), I could do it again. Just come in early today to do the re-takes she said.

Right, early. Sure, no problem. Only ... the Gremlin had other plans for me at 8 AM besides sitting doing test re-takes.

I go out, scrape the ice off the car only to find that my left rear tire is every low. No biggie, just drive up to the tire shop. They know me. I'll be in and out in less time than it takes to say "fill it up to 30 psi, please". A few minutes later I'm on the road ...

Only to get stuck in traffic because of the 8:15 train that rolls through every day. I pull into the school parking lot at 8:45 AM. A full 45 minutes late. I see the teacher in the smoking area. She'd forgotten all about me coming in early today. So, no biggie about the rough start I had, she says. Besides, we're done with the book work, so there'll be an hour of class today to do my re-takes. Whew!!

Then there's my graphics class. Handed in all sorts of projects today. Worked on my last project, too. Only ... I messed up. I hit the wrong function button in the program and lost everything! Now I have to start all over again. It's due Wednesday. I'll be heading up to school tomorrow to do that entire project again. Geesh.

The rest of the school day went fine. We even got out of drawing class an hour early today. Yippee!! Until ... I get out to my car, only to see the same tire that was low this morning is now flat as a pancake. Great!! Just what I needed. Oh, WAIT!! I have a portable air compressor in my trunk. I search the trunk. Nothing. Someone must have borrowed it and not returned it. Then ... THUD!! as the high winds slam the trunk on the top of my head. Yup, still hurts hours later.

I called Campus Security. They have a compressor. They'll be right out to fill my tire. Moron they send has no idea how to use the damned thing. He finally figures it out, and I can see my tire slowly inflating.

Common sense says to head up to the tire shop and have them check it out. So that's exactly what I did. Or ... tried to do.

Maybe I should mention here that my gas gage doesn't work. Hasn't since I got the car. I use the trip odometer as my gage. A little math is required to figure out how many miles the odometer will show when I'm low on gas and need to refill. Sooooo ... that said ...

I ran out of gas on the way to the tire shop!! I ran out on the main road, but managed to coast about half mile (downhill) to the gas station. The car petered out just inches from the pump!! WHEW!!

However, the bad news is ... my tires are beyond help. They need to be replaced as soon as possible. Or, the way my schedule is this week, the sooner the better! LOL!

I'm praying they'll make it until Friday when I have a day to devote to the tire shop.

I wonder if I can keep the Gremlin distracted until then? I don't need him to make my tires his entertainment for the rest of the week. LOL!