I’m informed that not that many people [after all] know what a Linux log on screen looks like. That is, would you know a Linux operated computer if you sat down in front of one. So take a gander at the sample here. The Linux mascot is a penguin with star-shaped pupils, for which I am certain there is an explanation.
One step closer to another student teaching job, which I don’t mind. I delivered the fully repaired Dell over to 7th Street this afternoon and spent the rest of the hour showing Barbara how to get things going with the computer. She was astonished by what I was teaching her. She reports that over the past few years she has closely watched what the school has been teaching her granddaughter. You may conclude that the school board is not doing a good enough job of it.
Actually, I was wondering why Barbara, as a new student, kept shaking her hands and asking why the school didn’t teach what I did. Now I understand, and there is a comical side to all this. To test her e-mail, she called her sister, Julette, for her addy and the sister bust out laughing. It turns out Julette was floored by the total ring of confidence in Barbara’s voice. I’ll concede that there is very little mystery left to a computer for a student who has spent even an hour with me.
After, I was directly over to Regina’s wig shoppe. Her progress is also above average because she almost naturally knows what parts are important to supervise and employee. She says that she now realizes the last few helpers were giving her the runaround on her own time. Alas, I cannot help her with that and yet that is precisely the kind of help she needs. She has a crisis management style [where everything is left until it becomes a crisis], so although I detect she would like to ask me to set the place in order, it is not the kind of work I do. To discourage this, I have been charging her the full going rate for every moment over there.
She squawks a bit, especially when I have to redo things that don’t fly right off. Like her screen locking up. It acted like some dumb virus, but it finally turned out to be her ALT key was gummy and sticking down. Thus wrong commands kept being issued. This was after I spent an hour running the anti-virus apps. I pried the key loose and threw it in the trash. She hinted she should not pay for that, I hinted I could just leave. She paid.
Part of the difficulties is that she has not allowed enough time to switch over to a computerized system. This is common, many people think you plug the thing in and away you go. It takes a week to dash that notion and slow things back down. I walked her through her email and burned a CD. The idea is to [generally] give her some expectations of what the system can do, how long it takes, and what to seek in a computer employee. Oh, the CD. It was all pictures of a something called Tuesday Fashion Show. The photos were from Elizabeth Lippman – where do I know that name from? No, not the Lippman Center. I recognize both her style and face from somewhere.
The photos are of a blonde model (they pick them just a little uglier each year) carrying the star of the show, the toy dog named Chino. You saw it here first. Unless you regularly hang out at New York fashion shows. This is the show where the wigs for dogs were introduced. Dogs too wimpy to scratch the thing off and bury it in the back yard, that is. The wig on the dog actually looks more natural than the one she is wearing, don’t you think?
Enough ragging on the broad. However, it lends credence to my proposition that instead of a law that forbids sex with women under 18, that should be changed to over 18. Of course, I’m joking, but you get my point. But here is an equal point: if you are teaching a woman to play the violin and at some point you have sex, after that point she expects the lessons to be free. I guarantee you two things. One, that is prostitution. Two, the woman is over 18. It is a learned behavior that most women can never unlearn even if they realized it was the source of most of their problems with men.
JP was on the horn. His dad is in the hospital again, this time for a kidney transplant. Should we make any jokes about who will be the donor? No, not today. I stayed in and programmed late into the night. I see that many others [must have] had the same business card idea. It certainly makes a colorful page. Now explain why there aren’t thousands of these sites. My guess is that there is a major problem that I have not tripped over yet.
