It may not have been the most productive day in a while, but that just means I’m going to write in a way that compares it to what others got around to during the same time. I was up far too early so I read several chapters on networking followed by a chapter on punctuation by Simon and Shuster. I just know all my critics do that once in a while to brush up. Finally I made a sandwich with cheese, peanut butter and peach jam before I ran out the door.
Did I say jam? You should have seen the traffic. Some gorf in an SUV, an easy call because only a gorf would drive something like that in a town like this, decided he was going to outrun the train. Actually we could not really tell it was an SUV until I walked up the other side of Dixie. I wrote all this to Cheryl later so expect duplication. Anyway, I wonder why cops all gather around accident sites. You can’t really arrest dead people, although I’m sure they’d like to be able to do that, too.
I’m suggesting they like accidents. They can spend two hours waving their arms and directing traffic around it, then go home and complain what a hard day it was. There were at least eight of them around the wreck. Now, examine this picture, and take my word that the intersection at Hallandale Beach and Dixie (the railway runs down the middle of the divided Dixie Hwy) is a safe crossing. Six flashing lights, two striped barricades and plenty of signs. More flashing lights on the barricades.
The train stopped in less than 200 feet, so it was not going that fast. Let me think. The barricade was down, so the driver must have tried to drive around it or under it because the train was moving so slow. That also means he was Cuban, that Latino macho thing. Either he stalled on the tracks or the person running the crossing ahead of him slammed on his brakes as soon as he got across. Cubans do that all the time also, once they get what they want, to hell with the next person in line.
Don’t cry, it was only a matter of time. Such people would die anyway, likely from falling off the top rung of a stepladder or drowning in a kiddy pool. It is nature’s way of thinning the herd. I finally got over the rails at Pembroke and into Chip Tech an hour and 15 minutes late. Back at the shop my 9:30 student was understanding enough to laugh it all off. He is the second person who has asked for advanced email this month. By advanced, I mean little more than attachments, file types and organizing the folders. Most students are surprised to learn their email is not on their computer.
At noon that lady Jackie came in to arrange a photo session at her storage bin, the one with $80,000 worth of health spa material. She brought her boyfriend. You know, she is a fascinating specimen because although she is short and plain, she has proportionately enormous and pendulous breasts. What I mean is that she has completely adapted herself and her personality to the fact and may not even be conscious although I doubt that. All her clothes show it, all her moves flaunt it, all her postures shove them in your face. Constantly. There is no way you are in the same room with Jackie without seeing the tops of her tits. Yet it is in a way that you could never prove a thing. Yes, fascinating.
Two sets of tapes came in today. Remind me to run the ad again. I’m way tougher with the pricing, nobody gets anything for less than $18 per tape. I know what is involved so even copies are more these days, at $8 for the first and $5 after that. I like doing tapes, for example I make $18 writing this diary. If I had things lined up I would have two units in operation. That might be wishful because it would be a Sony and the first one is still giving me troubles.
I did solve one problem, the disk full thing, as I knew I would eventually. When you get the message, the solution is to do the exact opposite of your intuition. Eject an unfinalized disk. This wrecks the disk for any other use, but if you slide it back in the machine and let it do the warmup thing, you can now finalize. In any other scenario, Sony wrecks the disk and I admit I chanced upon this solution by hitting the wrong button. It is phooey on Sony that one has to resort trial and error.
Two network jobs also came in. I’ll either have to learn networking software of find somebody who already has. I cannot answer questions about what changes when using standalone applications on a network. The lady asked if she could have Quickbooks set up in a way that she could monitor her employee’s work. I don’t know.
This French couple came in with a good one. On dial-up, you can set your phone to alert you to an incoming call and drop the Internet if you wish to take it. Does anyone know how to do this? Is it something you set on your computer or on your phone or on both. I finally gave up and posted the question on CL.
Aha, did I not predict it? MS has obviously been laying down tracks for years on catching people with pirated copies of Windows. That says it is more lucrative than lowering the price to a reasonable $29.95. Anyway, the last set of downloads after April 10 have a popup that says you may be a victim of counterfeiting. We have not yet determined if it is generic or only appears on some computers, but we most certainly already have the workaround to fix it. I would not object to the popup but I would certainly be against anyone using the Internet to examine the configuration of my computer. If the tactic works, expect a surge in demand for older Windows products lacking this “update”.
Then, over to Diane5’s to finally solve that printer problem. It is working fine, just a few driver problems. Also, the older laptop is not good for much except CDs. The sound problem proved to be sneaky. There is an exposed button that turns it off without any signal or pilot light. She is now completely out of space, even the dogs have to go to a landing to turn around. I had to lie completely down on the bed to get at the equipment. Thus, barring Marion, my best friend, for the second time in my entire life I layed down on a bed with a woman and did not have sex with her. Hopefully, this was not a precedent. She is totally not my type yet it is becoming apparent I am exactly the type of man she may be looking for. One who can fix her things when they break.
Anyway, I also managed to squeeze Enrique’s sofa into the car, sort through a pile of DVDs that had no labels and hook up the drive from the video computer to see if I could recover the data. I can’t. That is so typical of MS to even design a system where that could even happen.
