Dear Santa: Not These Either

In further news of what is not on my wish list: no more gadgets! Please let me get control over what I already have. The pano below is my dusty desk, covered with computers and wires and external drives. (Not to mention a bunch of desk stuff, etc. I'm begging Santa for control over the gadgets I already have. (Many not pictured here.)

I fell out of love with that iMac. Actually, I never loved it. I ran Windows in VMware. But I did collect a bunch of tunes off the hundreds of CDs we still own in the iTunes on there. If I had any idea how to get them to another machine, I would. I did transfer most of them to an iPod. (Which is in another room connected to our AV system.) I'm afraid to connect that to the iMac because I've heard of newer versions of iTunes wiping out a gadget if tunes are from your own CDs and not purchased through them. Apple is full of surprises like that. Many I've experienced, most I just heard of online, so who knows??? The other two computers are working. One is WIN7. I'm trying to wean myself from it. The one on the left was in use by FFP until, a few weeks ago, I couldn't get it to boot and had to take it back to the beginning of its life as a WIN 7 machine, work half the night to get Microsoft to let me upgrade it to WIN 10 again, etc. I got him a new computer, reinstalled everything, set up his files from backups. Yeah, backups. I take them to the cloud. I take them to external disks that you see, to portable ones in the cabinet or safe. All I do I think, sometimes, is install software and make backups. That machine on the left taught me I should be making restore points, too. 

Last night I updated my current iPhone (a 6) with the software (ios 10 something) that it was incessantly bugging me to get. No great tragedies ensued although there are things I don't like. 

So no new gadgets! There are computers and our current iPhones (FFP's is a 5s I think). There are iPads. (I think there are four in the house? Two we use a lot.) We have three TVs. Satellite boxes, amps, DVD players, a gadget that gets one of the TVs some channels over the airwaves. 

If Santa brought a gadget, all I'd see would be maintenance, upgrades, etc. Enough is enough. Of course, upgrades will be necessary, things will break. But I'm not getting a gadget you talk to (I don't talk to Siri, I like communicating through words on screen) or a camera attached to a flying drone or a watch that lets you keep your phone in your pocket or a new game console (thankfully we've never had a game console). 

I know many of you will get a gadget for Christmas. Enjoy.

Can You Really Control Anything?

Action/reaction. Cause and effect. Can we really control anything? There are all the things we are supposed to do to stay safe and healthy. To keep things running in our modern world of cars, computers, gadgets and appliances (all which have filters if they involve water or air in any way).

The worst things to control involve other people. People you are supposed to be there for in their time of need, physical or mental.

I can't shake the feeling that my dad would have had a different outcome with a different caregiver. Don't get me wrong. Everyone owes a death. I did my best and maybe his came later than it would have in other circumstances. But you make all these tiny decisions even though you are essentially helpless in the world of doctors and treatments. You try to encourage behaviors, look up drugs, get the right professionals. You help make decisions.

With FFP's health I always feel inept as well. After all the surgeries and such he has come down with a stomach ailment. Complaining of cramping and nausea he took himself to the doctor, got drugs, tests. He feels awful. I feel helpless.

And through it all I have been trying to keep things going. Changing light bulbs, getting cars serviced, paying bills, getting Dad's stuff and affairs in order. It runs away from me.

When FFP is ailing (and this happened during stints babysitting Dad at home and hospital and doctor's offices), I sometimes give myself a vacation from all other duties and just sit and read and eat and don't exercise and just be there to fetch things while entertaining myself reading or with my iPhone or iPod.

And, of course, this brings up the question of when caregivers get sick. How do they manage to postpone the sniffles, the sneezes, their own stomach ailments, their own major complications? Last year at this time a friend was at the hospital every day as his wife fought deadly complications of H1N1. Now he fights cancer. Should we be trying to harness this delay of symptoms so that, even if we have something terrible, we can delay the onset because someone else is sick?

Plus...does anyone else think that the routers, computers, phones, Internet access, cars, TVs, appliances, etc. really have a mind of their own and will only work when you, the caregiver, hold your mouth just right and delay getting that cold or allergy attack?

Sorry about this silly ramble, but it just amazes me that we can seemingly control so many things. And yet. Not.

[Photo taken in Vegas at fancy shopping.]

Feature Creature

Chip at Holidailies brings us today's writing prompt: "The one thing I want for Holidailies 2009 ...." I'm not really going to write about that. Rather I'm going to write about the danger of adding features. Or worse sometimes 'improving' them.

Holidailies is a portal that has code to present a changing view of a group of blogs as people register entries. Or, in the case of Holidailies at Home it is a list of blogs and a randomizer to scan through them. When Holidailies started it is unlikely that the participants were called blogs. But I digress. Chip has created a simple interface. You go there and there is a list of participants on the left, ordered by the number of entries they have made, descending. In the center is a list of entries registered with recent ones at the top. Along the right side is news, info, writing prompts and links to other info, contact and to login (when you do there's a link to post an entry). It's simple and anyone who comes here can set off on a blogland journey knowing they can find some new content.

You could make up new ways that this could work all day long. You could ask that the code automatically find your blog and see that it is updated. Our Austin, Texas daily photo participates in a portal like that (City Daily Photo). While it's nice not to have to post to the portal, posting gives you control over the blog entry presented and when it appears as well as letting you select an excerpt.

You could ask that the code grab picture or allow people to link to pictures and have them show on the portal. But this would interfere with the simplicity of the site and its celebration of words, words as a gift.

You could ask to be able to search the list or order it in different ways. (Fact is, Chip had some ordering options and they gave him trouble with his tools so he wisely simply ditched them.) But ordering by number of posts puts the real Holidailies hot shots near the top and a find on your browser takes care of the rest.

You could ask a lot of things, but be careful if you do. Because change and 'improvement' can slay efficiency and simpliciity.

Since I participate in another portal to blogs as I mentioned, City Daily Photo, I'll mention a bit about how it works. On that blog you don't have to post an entry. The code scans the sites and notes new entries, extracting the one picture (you are only supposed to put up one but really it will get the first in an entry). These can be displayed in the (reverse) order of update. It takes thirty minutes or so for your site to be noted in a regular scan. You can also choose favorites. This portal has been through lots of code changes and hiccups, but its coders have done an equally good job. While the portal behaves very differently it's appropriate to its mission and not too confusing. (That has improved over time.)

Things that are 'coded' are just static because we don't rewrite some lines and replace and integrate. It is so easy to change (not really always, but still) that the tendency is to change the code. Sometimes there are bugs. Sometimes they are very annoying. These things need to be fixed. But whenever we touch code we think we need to improve it. We especially think we need to add features. And sometimes those new features are very cool and useful. But sometimes they just get in the way. And even if a new interface is more 'intuitive' (in someone's opinion), it may be very unintuitive to someone who is used to the old and has the old interface pounded into muscle and visual memory. (We look for things where we expect them and push keys without thinking.) Moving things around is like getting in your car and finding that the controls work differently. Maybe reverse is up instead of down. (My car is a standard shift.) Whether that is better is one thing. Changing in mid-stream is hard.

Another interface I've used lately is Facebook. I keep being drawn in there because a lot of friends are there. They say it is a 'social networking site.' But really it's a portal, too, in the same sense as these others. But the thing seems jumbled to me and I have trouble figuring out what I'm doing. I like seeing things change as people put up statuses, but I think I prefer my dull blogs, completely under my control, which are then registered with portals in a rigorous way. I want to simplify my life, even in cyberspace.

[Today's photo is a reflection in the as-yet-unfinished chocolate shop on Second Street which has, obviously, a mirror inside.]

Is It Ever Enough?

[The W Hotel which is under construction near us is due to have condos in it in addition to hotel rooms, bars and restaurants and the Austin City Limits Music Hall. There has been a sales center on site for a while but now they are completely redoing the sales center. Or so they say. We wonder if the condos are being ditched for hotel rooms. So, naturally, I co-oped their sign and shot my reflection in it.]

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you really, finally got everything you wanted? Would there be a point where, really, it was enough?

The Pleasure of Wearing Things Out
Except for things that are consumable and things that wear out, I have everything I need. And most of what I want. It's a pleasure getting a new pair of tennis shoes, new underwear (thanks, big Sis, for that Christmas present) and a new Polartec hoodie. I was thinking the other day that the towels and bathmats we are using are now about four years old. They are holding up pretty well, but it will be fun to replace them.

Naturally, I love buying food, booze, meals out, experiences (tickets to things and travel). But one is limited in the amount of this that one can consume. I guess I could crave more caviar and champagne, but, honestly, I get enough of that to suit me. I would love more trips to Europe and I suppose I could get used to limos and private jets, but really just having the money for a few trips on commercial airliners, a few taxi rides and a few car service trips, moderate to expensive (to me) hotels and museums and restaurants is fine.

I like things that you spend money on and then they are just pleasant memories.

Second Home Not Required
Guys like Madoff (and the people whose millions he invested) needed multiple homes. And yachts with more square feet than my condo. I am not pleased that I own another home besides this condo. Dad lives there and that's great, but I fear that one day I'll have to dispose of it. The prospect doesn't interest me. My in-laws own a little cottage, too. Ditto on not looking forward to disposing of it for them. (Or even owning it if we outlive them which I think most days we will not do.) I wouldn't want to have multiple homes to manage. Let alone boats and planes. Oh, sure, you hire people to manage it. But I have trouble managing help. No thanks. I once said that, left to my own devices, I might live in hotels.

Gear, Gadgets and Autos
I'm pretty happy with my computers and cameras. I know that my seven-year-old (more?) cell phone will have to be replaced at some point. Not today though. Battery still takes a charge, sound crystal clear. I bought an iPod. I got some new computer gear for the condo and flat screen TVs and a Blu-Ray player and surround sound. We're fixed for a while. I do have in mind some new digital cameras and a GPS gadget, but I've put this on hold while I do some research. And, of course, I have the money to buy them if I want them. I'm going to get one of those small computers for travel, too, I think. Maybe. One day. Still researching.

My Hondo Civic is eight years old. It has some dents and dings. It runs fine and gets 30mpg in town. I made my commitment to it by doing some semi-major fixes last time I had it serviced. I don't drive that much anymore. FFP's Accord is only a couple of years old. Seems like brand new. Has an XM radio. Cool.

So, gear and wheels: very satisfied, no desire for a Mercedes or an iPhone (not just now anyway).

And, if I want something I could buy it.

Art, Artifacts, Collections, Furnishings
We can't accumulate too much more art or artifact or furniture without throwing something out. Which, along the way, I'm sure we will do. Not now, though. Of all the things I've dabbled at collecting, that's all pretty much at an end. Not that we don't acquire the occasional thing, but I really am amazed at some of the wholesale accumulation I did in the past. I must say, too, that much of that 'stuff' has moved along the pipeline to, hopefully, be reused somewhere.

What Are These Guys Thinking?
So what goes through the millionaire (billionaire?) mind as they build homes with tens of thousands of square feet, buy yachts, accumulate collections of paintings and sculpture with pieces worth more than my condo? Oh, I understand throwing a big party and having a bunch of people eating and drinking. I understand wanting a nice car. Really. (Although I'd much rather have someone to drive me around in my Hondos. Oh, wait, I have FFP.)

Do these really, really rich folks ever think about reaching a point where it is enough, pretty much, and consumables and maintenance and refreshing is all that's needed? If I can get there, is it possible for anyone? I know that my mom never really got enough stuff. She always wanted a bit more. Just for the thrill of having what she once did not or having something new and interesting. Even when she was dying I could see this. I don't think I'm so different from her. I just think I reached a normal human saturation point we all have. I think Mr. Madoff and his ilk may have damaged saturation meters, though. And that may be part of the problem. Part of what drives people to steal.

Also, I belong to a country club, too, but not one like the Madoff crowd. (Nor would I want to belong.) Which, in any case, was in Florida, a state that doesn't call out to me.

Having Enough Feels Good
Having enough food, clothing and shelter. Having health needs met. Having some fun! Tennis this morning at the country club. (Roddick worked out on the court below us. Does he have enough? Or would being number one for a while be enough?)

Anyway, I had a great time with my three friends playing tennis. A walk over to the Farmer's Market to buy some Texas Pecans for my dad for Christmas. Some pastries from the empanada stand. I'll have a meal and maybe a movie or performance with some friends tonight.

I have enough. It feels good. If I get depressed it's not something cars or electronics (or even travel and meals) will cure.

Odd Effects

Light changes everything. Experience changes everything.

I was working with my computer guru yesterday on installing some new some new software. When I first got my iMacs their pretty faces seduced me. I still like sitting here typing away like now. But the hard drive failure on Forrest's and various little glitches have left me with a less than "I LOVE Apple" impression. Not all of this is rational. I am trying to run Microsoft software on both these machines. (Yeah, I'm not in the I LOVE Microsoft camp either. That ship sailed long ago.) I am trying to run these two HP all-in-one printers wirelessly on the Intranet. I am trying to use VMware and a mishmash of XP programs. I am notorious for changing lots of files on my computer willy-nilly in my ADD fashion and trying to backup everything and, I don't know, maybe demanding more of my environment than other people and not remembering what I did to cause something to crash. I've had some weird problems with the CD/DVD drive on my iMac, too, where the Apple side loses track of the drive and I have to go connect it to the VMware XP, eject it, disconnect it, start over. Once a CD got stuck halfway in, too. Anyway, when I look at my pretty Apple machine now it doesn't elicit pure joy. (OK, maybe everyone doesn't download enough CDs to have 7251 songs in iTunes only one of which was purchased online. Still.) And don't call anything 'genius.' Not people not software. You invite the idiot retort. Would I buy Apple again? Maybe. Would I buy HP printers? (Did I mention that the software for their all-in-ones is a big smelly pile? Yeah. It is.) No, when I see an HP printer now it kind of makes me mad. I'm just saying.

It's funny though how these things that maybe have nothing to do with some object like the software that runs on it or something that attaches to it start to make you think of it in a different light.

Well, things are running OK now. Just OK, however. There are a couple of things not OK. And my guru is going to leave the business for a real job when he graduates. I'm happy for him, but I will miss his help. And talking to him. Interesting kid. Like a son I'd be proud to have. Anyway.

When we were finishing up and banishing a couple of last minute little difficulties, I noticed the light outside. It was amazing with dark clouds in the east and the last of the sun reflected in buildings. The way I perceive an evening is often influenced by how the skyline east of me looks at sunset, assuming I notice it. This view was amazing. See above. (Not that my bad photography captures it.)

It's funny how we react to the things around us. Funny and not all that rational.

The Physics of Tennis and Walking

I got some new tennis shoes in the mail this week. I feel a little bad for not buying them from a local place. But my pro shop at my club doesn't carry my brand (New Balance) and I know exactly what I need (10 B, slightly larger than my dress shoe size) and can get it so easily online. My others had developed a very, very thin spot on the sole and when that happens a toe injury is soon to follow. I'd reverted to shoes -1 because the sole was smooth but intact. So, I wore them for the first time yesterday and played three not very hard sets of doubles on hard court. So they are fine. It's amazing that we humans (even this uncoordinated one) can play tennis. Moving around the court and arranging to have the racket strings strike the fuzzy ball and go over the net and stay in. (Well, sometimes.) It's just amazing, really, what we can do. Like I say: even me. Oh, I miss of course but even in missing your body is conducting an amazing array of spectacular fine and gross motions.

I took a walk yesterday, too. I just felt like getting out and so I walked over to Congress and sat in the Hideout and drank a root beer and worked the Thursday crossword in the NY Times. All but one square without any Google checks or such. I also wrote a little in a notebook and pondered great questions of the world. Like "what is the story of the weird guy who seemed maybe a character, maybe homeless and then engaged the girl nearby with the Mac laptop about Flickr accounts?"And "How is there enough bad art in the world to decorate all the coffee shops?" Things like that. It's good to get away from watching the stock market or wallowing in techno-land turning your thoughts into pixels and just sit in a coffee shop.

Walking back and forth I was struck again by how we walk, adjusting to bumps in the terrain (easier in my hiking boots than in heels, I thought, as I saw one gal teetering across a street). Stepping nimbly over curbs and around obstructions, most of us go along without a hitch. It's really no wonder that sometimes we fall. And sometimes we can't get up.

Speaking of which (falling and not being able to get up) my dad left a message on the phone last night that the Lifeline people had sent him a new phone (which has the antenna and speaker built in to communicate with the Lifeline button). His did not survive its encounter with the Shiner Bock. He was wondering this morning how he could set it up so he could use the phone from his chair (it doesn't buzz his hearing aids and has nice large numbers that announce themselves, etc.) but possibly avoid his liquids. We decided that maybe it could go on another table. Of course, the next misstep won't involve the phone. That's how these things go.

It's amazing how we can do all these things with our bodies without thinking much about them. Until they disappear. Or we do. Dad can still walk and take care of himself (eased by the accessible house and canes and walkers, of course) and after over nine decades that's amazing.

In other random thoughts from yesterday: it's too bad our computing environments are so powerful and yet so difficult to back up. I was anticipating a visit from my computer guru today to look at updating some stuff and why we get some random errors here and there. I decided to record briefly the changes I made to my computing environment on the Windows XP Virtual Machine. I updated spreadsheet cells, downloaded and edited photos, wrote in a journal I keep in a Word document, updated QuickBooks with a stock dividend in one of my accounts and with some checks we'd written, etc. That's not counting, of course, updating my Austin Daily Photo blog. Who knows whether that blether will be 'preserved' or not.

It's too bad that we can't register all our software including versions and option settings, record our file structure, get versioning on all files, be asked to rank the importance of data, etc. without having to develop our own elaborate schemes for not losing stuff when our media and computers so down. It makes me so tired, making backup schemes, making sure they work, upgrading software, looking for files, organizing. I just want to use the computer to make words and pictures and to read stuff. I want it to be there with my calendar, mail, journals, financial software and spreadsheets. There just is no scheme that works flawlessly. Apple has this 'Time Machine' thing but I don't know how well it really works especially if you lose your whole environment. It seems more suited for recovering from your own faux pas. I guess Apple offers some off site backup, too, but I don't know how that works. I think my main problem is that I create too much stuff. Too many e-mails, too many downloaded pictures, too many words. I think it's interesting that I've entrusted all the blog entries to some free service without much of a qualm. I used to create my own HTML journals and such and I would upload those to the servers of companies I paid to host them and then I was pretty blase about otherwise backing them up.

Where am I going with all of this? Don't know. Life is complicated. We are complicated. Computers are complicated. I'm going to go across the hall and exercise and read the newspaper.

In the Yellow

I shot FFP the other day at UT 'inside' a sculpture that invites walking into.

I was in a funk all day. It rained. I felt powerless to do anything positive in several arenas. I wanted to be excited about going to the film festival, but it didn't really feel right.

Then I had a computer problem with connecting printers on my VMware Windows. I hate it when something quits working. Particularly when it quits workig by hanging tasks all over the place. I dreaded trying to boot to fix it because I've had some issues restarting with VMware and I'm wary. So I backed up stuff all over the place so I could go back to a Snapshot and restore data. Then the restart worked and fixed the problem. It's funny how something working for a change makes one feel better. I hate that it matters that much to me, though.

We had a pretty good time this evening. We started over at the Butler Dance Education Center by going to a presentation about the ballet performance next week. There were dance demonstrations, portions of the show presented and lots of good educational stuff to help you appreciate it more. After that we walked over to the Driskill for the Film and Food benefit for the Young Film Makers Program of Austin Film Festival. They had a couple of dozen restaurants passing out great food and lots of Tito's Vodka martinis and Dos Equis Beer. We saw people we knew, met some new ones and except for it being too loud to talk here and there we had a great time. Still I was a little miffed at the computer until I got it working again the way I wanted.

I thought of two other books I didn't write (or four depending on how you count). I was going to write a book or a screenplay (or maybe a documentary) called The Nancys. And, long, long ago I was going to write a set of three novels that would have references among themselves. There would be a novelist in one who wrote a novel that would actually be one of the other novels. Stuff like that. Yes, I actually thought it was clever. I set one of these novels in a future where everything was run smoothly with technology, but some people still choose to live 'outside.' Yeah, I believe I thought that was clever and original, too.

And so it goes. I'm going to go to the film festival and the ballet in the next ten days and I'm going to see the result of other people's artistic efforts and visions. And I will continue to be 'pretending to write but really just blogging.'

Cutsomer Service

Is this a cigarette machine? Yes and no. Yeah, candy cigarettes. I took this at Big Top on South Congress, of course working hard to get my reflection Candy cigarettes. Innocuous enough I guess except for all that implication of imitating adults in a nasty habit, yada yada.

This is not a battle I'll fight. The youngsters I took to the candy store ignored the machine (and the chocolate bacon for that matter).

Big Top is delivering what they promise. Sweets of all stripes. Cheerful help. What more could you want?

Things are not so well in other customer service realms that I'm currently navigating. I called one provider of service for my old address, thinking I might migrate this service to my Dad's house. The result? They increased my bill for my current service. After threatening to do that and then getting management to say that they would not do that.

I had a 'final' walk through of our condo today. Yeah, they fixed some things. They broke some things in the process. They admitted they didn't fix the hot water heater, but they are 'having meetings' about 'final delivery from the contractor.' FFP said this meant that finger pointing was proceeding (at our expense?). You think?

I am so disappointed in the AV provider for the condo that I've decided not to spend any more money with them. (I'm already committed to an expensive set of surround speakers from them.) I have hired a consultant to help me buy components and flat screen TVs and to talk to the EPS guys. (Empty Polo Shirts.)

I had a very sad experience with the TV/Internet/Internet Phone provider (a monopoly for one year as I understand it). On my last foray to their call center, I was told that they had no record of my 'community' and therefore couldn't sell me anything. Today I bought a little LCD TV for the condo (online, Costco, selection assisted by my consultant above) and decided to try to schedule installation of the TV service. So, yeah. Four calls, or more, and every time I punched the button for 'new service' it hung up on me. I got through to a live person by selecting the choice for existing customers. I told them my problem. They transferred me....to the hang up service. I called back, navigated to get a live person and told them I'd run out of time to buy something from them but that the new service choice wasn't working. Later I called and got through. I ordered my service. The person didn't say anything about Internet or phone. She said I needed to pay the installer for installation and my converter. "Can I use a credit card?"

"No. You have to have a money order." I'm totally serious. What does she think I am, drug dealer or homeless person? Finally it became clear that I could give her a credit card.

When we checked out our condo, I asked if the Internet worked. (It is supposed to be "included with the homeowners fee.") She (it's always a she at this point, a she who takes off her spike heels before entering your hardwood abode) said she didn't know and couldn't test it! I said, "I brought a laptop, can I test it?" She agreed. It didn't work. After we'd been through the punch list with mixed results she took us to an EPS that we'd talked to before. He was in a state of high bewilderment. He said our Internet would be installed 'when we got our TV service.' We would have to be assigned a user ID and password. This last info really threw him and he kept repeating it. He was using a (wired) Internet connection in the sales office we were in and seemed amazed that it worked. I told him that I had sent an e-mail to someone he had recommended the other day. This was about enhanced Internet service. He did not remember telling me this nor who it could have been. I asked if I would REALLY get Internet service when I got TV. He said that his installer was 'pretty good' and he hoped he wouldn't be too busy.

Holy crap. Customer service is dead. Well, except for a couple of my consultants. Even the Apple 'Genius' managed to insult me with a "don't call me we will call you" attitude although they did get us a new hard drive in only a week's time. Customer service rule? BE a genius. Don't call yourself one, though.

None of this surprises me, of course. And my only bully pulpit is this blog. But, yeah. Customer service. Dead. Oh. But. We like the concierge folks we've met at our new condo. So far they seem concerned, competent and interested in service. There is that.

There's Something in a Sunday

I'm not sure I feel so all alone (a reference to a Kris Kristofferson song) since FFP and I have been interacting most of the morning and early afternoon. I do feel a little overwhelmed and sad, though. I think that's probably typical for someone a couple of weeks away from acquiring a new place to live that will then have to be decorated, redone, settled into, furnished and adjusted to. All the while, maintaining the old abode and getting it fixed up and things removed from it and somehow getting it sold. Adding to my list of things to fret about is a visit from a bunch of relatives. They are staying with Dad. They won't be here too many days and the hope is that they won't drive him crazy!

When we ask the people at the condo office to let us do something or get information, their standard response is "We know you are excited about moving in, but..." followed by some explanation about why we aren't seeing things clearly. Ha. Excited. No. Scared, weary, afraid I'm forgetting something, certain they are forgetting something. Yes.

So, yeah, we dug into some of our tasks today. We attacked the cabinets in our media room. What a graveyard of anachronistic media. Laser disks, VHS tapes, cassette audio tapes, CDs, LPs, DVDs. If we sell the house to the buyer of choice all the equipment will stay. (All these media have players in that cabinet!) Therefore we decided to leave the laser disks behind. Cassettes are going to thrift store or trash. A few VHS ones survived. I packed four boxes of CDs. Yikes. Perhaps more winnowing will occur at the other end? Yeah, right. We haven't addressed LPs or DVDs yet.

Lots of stooping and lifting. FFP made migas while I started on the job and then he did lots of getting up and down off the floor to get the lower shelves. Finally we lost the will to continue on this particular task and FFP went to get the cars washed. My car would never get washed if he didn't take it.

While I was eating my migas, I sat at the table in the big room (the media room) because our breakfast table only accommodates one person with newspapers spread out all over the place. (FFP said that soon we will have a table where we can both sit. Which is true because our table for the condo is bigger than the breakfast table in question. However, in this house we had two other tables steps away from this one in other rooms. One is gone now, but still. I think he has a point, though, but I'm sure we will be bumping into each other in the condo in more ways than this.) I looked out into the backyard I will soon abandon and watched a blue jay bedevil a junk iron sculpture of a bird. It's beautiful. But there is always something dying or something growing where it isn't wanted as in the vine shown above.

There is a funny feeling that you spent money on components and media and, really, when did you think you were going to sit down and listen or watch all this stuff? I turned the CD player on and we listened to a few CDs. I flipped on the cable first and discovered that all the premium channels were blocked. We haven't watched TV in that room for a while. I'd returned cable boxes from two other rooms and I figured they had messed something up. I called and, amazingly, I got a technician with a big brain. He found something in their "quirky" (his word) billing system that caused it. He checked a box and voilà...we were getting the service we were paying for in that room. I mean we probably won't watch in there again for a while (ever?) but I hate it when things are like that. I still haven't gotten anyone with the company that is providing TV and such for our new condo to discuss it with me. And we are buying new (flat screen) TVs. So it may be months before I have a DVR and stuff in the condo. Not watching TV for a while would probably be a good idea! We could listen to CDs! Watch DVDs! (Yeah, I have three Netflix titles sitting around in the bedroom.)

Meanwhile, the computer transition isn't going too swimmingly. I called the Apple Store on Tuesday and Thursday. Both times the part was going to be in 'the next day.' Thursday the genius said "and then we will fix it and call you when it's ready." Don't call us, we'll call you. This made my guru upset (he's the real genius, I think). He called and they said "the part is being shipped and it will be in tomorrow." Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I'm spending too much time trying to tweak computer environments. I seem to be a master at crashing machines. I crashed the Windows XP in the VMware as well as getting the iMac in a state where it wouldn't restart without a boot to the head. It all came back, but I've got to admit: I'm getting a little gun shy! Not that I'm not backing up everything and not that it isn't fun to break things, but sometimes you just want your computer to work!

But for the moment, I'm going to go through some more stuff. Maybe shred some old receipts. Maybe try to find some more stuff to get rid of. Maybe catalog a few things.

Home Making and Lies We Tell Ourselves

One word that has been on my mind a lot lately is 'displacing.' The meaning I assign to it is a sort of psychological one. It is doing one activity to avoid another. Which is not to say that the activity done is useless although it may well be. I'm not sure that my definition is really correct. (I just displaced from writing this entry which is displacing me from lunch and a number of other things to try to see if my definition was correct and I've concluded it's probably not.)

Anyway, yeah. There are things that need doing. And I'm editing photos (the one above is going to become a favorite, see if you can see why) and writing a blog entry about not doing stuff.

One part of me says that by doing all this stuff on the computer I'm 'burning it in' to be sure that all is well. And, you ask (or maybe you didn't), how is it going with that other iMac which was supposed to be the condo solution for sleek computing environment for FFP? Well, Britney called from Apple. She is a genius, I guess. "We ran a test on your hard drive and found some bad sectors, too." She said she'd ordered another drive and it should be in tomorrow. She offered to transfer data but we'd wiped out most everything and my guru and I feel like starting fresh. I'm happy that we are going to have another go with a new hard drive, but sad that it happened.

I've a huge list of things to do from the ridiculous to the sublime, but (besides blogging) I've been calling providers of AV equipment and TV and Internet services for the condo. (This has been dissatisfying because the TV and Internet people can't find our 'community' in their data base and I got an answering machine for the company we already paid a lot of money to for the AV Surround Sound). Because, after all, what is a home without AV equipment, TV and Internet services....and coffee?

Yeah, coffee. FFP and I were discussing what to move to the 360 and we decided that since we will initially probably be spending most nights here (since our platform bed is being custom built) we would leave the Capresso here. This baby is one of our prized possessions. We decided we'd probably buy a more conventional cheaper coffee maker as backup and to use at the condo until we got the Capresso there so guess what? I looked online at coffee makers! Of course.

Making a home nest is complicated in our digital age. There's the issue of Internet, the home network, TV, sound, etc. without which really it's not a home. The condo has a data cabinet that is supposed to assist in hooking up phones and Internet. In our walk through the assistant was surprised to find a tangle of loose wires there. Hmmm.

Then there are the more mundane things like trash cans, coffee makers and toilet paper. In re that last item, FFP and I had to laugh at the instructions from the condo people about the low flow toilets. ("You may find it necessary to change your use habits (e.g. space loads and flush more often).") We have replaced two of the toilets in our current home with the still low-flow but more expensive Totos that use some kind of vacuum action for better flushing. Better add a plumber's friend to the list of essential condo items!

A lie I've told myself through all this displacement when I've been sitting here messing around with the computer is that I'm 'burning in' this environment for the condo and that the result will be a better, sleeker computing environment for the future there. Of course, with the iMac for FFP the burning in did turn out to reveal a problem.

Anyway, things are going along here. We make progress by fits and starts, I guess. And the deadlines will come no matter what and we will race around, making snap decisions and seeing to the absolute necessities. I think I'll displace to have a late lunch. Since I missed breakfast and I worked out...it's time.

Doing one thing and not another here, but I think I'll quit

Computer Addiction, Computer Affliction

This is an error I'm getting in VMware running Windows XP on an iMac I'd hoped to configure for FFP to use. Once it recovered from this error. Another time it not only lost the entire XP machine but was sort of taking over the Mac side when I tried to restart after this. This time I've left the persistent message which pops up after every retry. Do you find translucent windows disconcerting? Me, too.

I took a picture of the screen from the Apple side for this image. I'm learning a bit about Apple's OS X. (OS 10.5.2 to be exact.) I would convert to Apple only there are programs I don't want to convert. There are so many decisions in one's computing environment.

Forrest hadn't started to use the Apple machine and is still banging away on his ancient (by computer standards) Dell with Win 2K Pro on it. I'm a little frightened that I will suddenly see this death or near death message on my iMac. Because I have converted to it and have not powered on my old (very old in computer years) XP Sony in a few days. I've moved all my files and applications here. I am liberally backed up with a VWare image of this machine on the Apple Time Capsule and nightly backups of important documents to an Internet service and also to the Time Capsule. I still have the documents I moved here on an external drive, on the Sony and I made another backup of my collection of pictures to the Time Capsule. No amount of backups make you feel better, though, if your computer becomes a boat anchor and you have to have guru assistance to get running again. I like to sit down at my computer as I am now and check e-mail, write a blog entry, look up information, do my bookkeeping, write my journal, edit some pictures and just not have that nagging worry that it will quit working. I have had a few odd glitches with this machine but mostly it has run beautifully under stress. If it's physically identical companion four inches away wasn't misbehaving, well, I'd feel pretty confident.

So to add to the mysteries and concerns we had an electrical storm last night. The gum and safety pin wired network in this house wasn't working when we got home from a party. I finally walked it through carrying my laptop from place to place starting at the cable modem (rebooted) to the wired/wireless router connected to that. (Got the wireless working, wired worked directly, replaced the hub connecting to the other part of the house.) Went upstairs and tried the wire that goes up there directly in my laptop, couldn't get the hub up here working, replaced that. It wasn't nearly that straightforward either. I had to pirate the hub for up here from one I had across the room connecting my old Sony and an Internet printer. I thought the printer might work directly but it doesn't. My guru reserved an IP address for it but it doesn't seem to be talking.

Good thing my guru is coming this morning, huh? However, right now things are stable. I always feel bad for FFP as he looks helplessly on, unable to use his computer (because without an Internet connection computers feel useless these days.) He checked his e-mail in the wee hours and looked at a WEB site he heard about at the party.

Am I hoping things can be less complicated in the condo? Yep. Of course, this iMac that is acting up was part of the effort to streamline things.

Do You Ever Have Those Times?

<rant>
Do you ever have times when it seems that everyone is treating you like a child except your parent? That everyone who works for you is trying to tell you what you must do and what they refuse to do and why their offereings are ironclad and only make sense, you fool! I am the customer and people think that means that they get to tell me what the rules are, that they get to tell me that they are sorry but it is 'policy.' Some of them refer to another 'they' which is apparently a part of their company, perhaps a person who doesn't work there anymore or some unassailable management person who is unreachable for the likes of me, and this 'they' has either not kept good notes, or has carefully researched how things should be done.

I'm sorry, but sometimes I'd like people to remember that I'm the customer. If you don't want to cooperate in being the vendor please don't be strident and please don't treat me like a child. Just face that you aren't pleasing me and move on.

Not having a good time of it. The exception is my computer guy who came over here Sunday and worked and worked on my computers but adamantly refused to take money because he was just "getting us back to where we were." I told him it was not his fault we had a hardware or software problem but he was adamant. I'll make it up to him, of course, but it so made me feel like a customer. And not a stupid customer who just didn't get it either.

Photo was taken in the Second Street District of the window at Mercury in April. That phrase 'Take a Seat' was used I'm sure to sell chairs but to me it has those overtones of "you are being ripped off so sit down and take it, customer." So I'm not sure I'd use it to sell even the handsomest of chairs.
</rant>

A Brighter (Pink) Mood

I owe the pink in this refection picture to the Planet Cancer Flamingo-a-GoGo Fund-Raiser. They used the pool deck at the new AMLI downtown to host this big party. This is an image of the party in the glass of the exercise facility. A careful, perhaps enlarged, view will reveal the 360, our future home.

Am I in a better mood today? Maybe. Maybe not. I left a zero out of a bank account number and was as a consequence late paying a credit card. I am not hopeful on the computer problem front although this machine seems to be behaving perfectly. One problem I had (sound wouldn't work on the Windows image) has even magically cleared up at the moment. Perhaps to make up for the very bad behavior of the other box? My computer guru comes to look today. I think he is perhaps TOO hopeful and if it's a long, drawn out process FFP may be using his ancient box until and after we move. Although my guru ought to have more time when school is out.

I shouldn't let these little things get me down. We had a nice time at the party last night and then we listened to some older folks' music at III Forks and had some food there. It was a pleasant evening. I have enough money, I don't have cancer, one day this move will be a memory. Chin up. Cheer up. We are going to a benefit this evening for an individual who does have cancer. Friday night we celebrated with another couple. They have been married ten years as of Friday. They got married in our back yard. She has cancer. Cancer appears to be a theme of the weekend. But chin up, it's part of the chaos. On we go.

Parts is Parts

Wires, phones, cords, adaptors, gadgets. I toss them or give them away and still they multiply. I took this picture a long time ago. This lot is most likely mostly out of here, no longer in my way, as the picture was taken years ago. But there is another couple of cubic feet in the storage room that I've assembled to get rid of. We've been having brief drenching rains so curbside mall is out. I was thinking maybe Freecycle or take the lot to the thrift store to see what they could make of it. Or have the computer guru drop it off at Goodwill. The trash seems irresponsible so I don't usually throw too much of this junk in the trash. (Never say never.)

I'm at great peril of being boring and repeating myself today for various reasons. I was awakened by a mighty clap of thunder and have been watching it rain (and some pea-sized hail) since. I appear to be destined for sitting in my chair with a cup of coffee and The New York Times crossword until time for a brunch we agreed to go to today for some cause.

As long as I'm rambling...we watched (on DVD) a movie called "Blame it On Fidel" last night which I liked very much. Even though I had to read the subtitles and couldn't read at the same time. [Ed: You allege knowledge of French. LB: Yes, and how clever of you to know the film is (mostly) in French as it is set in Paris with references to Spain, Cuba and Chile, and yes I recognize the occasional word but really, yeah, subtitles must be read sadly.]

Enough rambling. I'm going for another cup of coffee and the newspapers. If I doze, don't sue me.

Never Blog When Drinking

I'm not inclined to take my own advice, am I?

I've had various random things to say to my readers today, but life intervened. A Caesar Salad intervened because we had a surfeit of anchovies in a pantry that needed cleaning . Trying to build an environment on the iMac to please FFP intervened.

I wanted to say that we were trying to not just give things away, but use things up. Hence, the anchovies. I had FFP buy Romaine Lettuce so we could use the anchovies. And some fresh garlic. Just as I've had him buy apples a few times in the past few weeks to make tuna salad to use up the tuna. No more can goods until we move, she said forcefully. But FFP bought a jar of sweet relish because I used the last on the tuna. And so it goes.

We've been drinking up corners of whiskey, too. I finished the Woodward, the Jack Daniels Single Barrel, the Blanton's. (Not all tonight, I assure you. Over the last weeks.) I've moved on to some Canadian. We had a bottle of wine with the Caesar. It was a white and over a decade old but surprisingly good. With garlic and anchovies anyway.

I also wanted to say that I've come to appreciate wireless. See the picture? That's my old Sony tower sprouting wires. Of course, a camera battery charger and my laptop, charging, is there, too. My laptop is reflecting the green outside which I find amusing.

My new setup with the iMacs have fewer wires. Even though they are hard-wired to the TimeMachine, they still only have power and an Ethernet wire. They do wireless but backups to the TimeMachine are faster with the wire. One has a wired keybaord. Otherwise, sleek, sleek, sleek. We are looking for sleek. Having monitor, USB, keyboard, mouse, printers, it's less than sleek. I'm sure we will have too many wires in the condo, too, but we are doing what we can. We will have two printers. One will be on the Ethernet itself, though.

It seems I had other things to say to my readers, but I drank the wine and the whiskey. Not all the wine nor all the whiskey. But enough.

By the way, thanks for all the responses to my (it did seem needy, didn't it?) post about tens of readers. Actually, I don't care if you read and don't comment, folks. It's fine. In fact, the comments have to be moderated (or else there is silly spam because the blog is open). It's all just easier if you e-mail me when you really want to talk. Or we go to lunch or dinner or meet up at a charity event. (You know who you are.) And if you miss reading? Don't feel bad. I don't know why I blog, but it isn't to connect with you guys. I like to do that in other ways.

By the way, some strong boys who work for a charity came and took a four-drawer file cabinet today. And we did more shredding. And filled recycling bags. Progress was made, by golly.

Life is Simple

Life is not complex, but computers are complicated indeed. Like us. The work of making a new computing environment continues. For reasons best not belabored both of the iMacs now have two keyboards and one has two mice. They sit side by side. Am I confused? Oh, yes. But this note to my readers is being produced on my laptop which is operating the XP client on the iMac.

Last night I told some friends that I have tens of readers of my blog. Then I laughed and said it was, perhaps, an exaggeration.

So, friends, check in and we will see if ten comments can be collected.

The picture? A quote written on the Oscar Wilde memorial in Dublin.

When Things Aren't As They Seem

What have we here? Two iMacs? With very Windows XP appearing screens. There are also more wires in this photo than I'd like. These babies operate wirelessly just fine, but when making backups to their time machine it's faster going over a wire. I really like the wireless keyboard and mouse except that there's no number pad. For that you need a wired one. (Oh, I could have tried my USB wireless number pad I suppose but it isn't all pretty and aluminum and all.) I didn't catch it in this picture but there's a camera wire peeking around from the back of the right one. Last time I bought a digital camera I made fun of people who would buy one with a wireless feature. (Now they also have SD cards with wireless built in, I think. Seriously.) Now I'm thinking...hmmm.

I found something the Apple OS doesn't support, by the way. (Besides a bunch of software I'm just used to and could probably 'replace' with substitutes.) It's a gadget called Times Reader which brings a facsimile of The New York Times to your computer. They only have it for XP and Vista. Unfortunately, it requires .Net 3.0 Framework for XP. This software seems to have made my VMware image of XP slow to restart (after a little hiccup installing where I had to give it a boot to the head). As usual, 'a version for Macintosh users is planned.' How very quaint, spelling out Macintosh.

I love the poster in this picture, by the way. It's a reproduction, but it's a great one and beautifully framed, I think. I think it works with our color scheme for the condo. Maybe I'll keep it until we prove we can't hang it there.

I Guess I'm An Opsimath

Word of the day: opsimath. [Confession: I'm spending lots more time upstairs now that all my computers are up here. There is a book of obscure words in the toilet.] For those of you not inclined to follow a link:

Definition:	a person who becomes a student or learner late in life
Etymology:	Greek 'late in learning'

Perhaps it is too late for me to learn to be organized. Perhaps it is too late for me to make sense of the Apple OS. If anyone needs someone to stress test Windows XP, I can put it into a tizzy. I'm trying to do everything on my condo-bound machine. Pretty well succeeded with some archives to move. But there were hiccups. And my VMware XP is no longer snappy to restart. Hmmm.

One Last Time

No, it's not my last post on Visible Woman. In fact, I seem to have become rather addicted to posting every day. (Displacing from downsizing, I suppose.) I shot this Sunday, a detail in a thrift store window of mannequin feet and my friend and I reflected. And, no, it probably won't be the last time you see a shop window here reflecting the not so mysterious photographer.

But I've been thinking of the phrase "one last time" a lot lately. As I clean out a closet I think "this may be the last time I clean this out before I move out forever." Or as I look at the winter-bare backyard I think "this may be the last time I wait for the blooming, budding, leafing out of spring." Certainly as I schedule things to be fixed and maintained I think "this may be the last time we have to take care of this particular thing." When we put something in 'curbside mall' or take it to the thrift store I think "I may never see that object again." (Usually followed by "thank goodness!")

I found it all a little depressing for most of yesterday. I'd spent the day with the elderly and in my own not-so-young head. First trying to get a stopped-up sink fixed at my dad's house. Watching the seventy-year-old handyman try to do it and my dad, weary from his 'chores' sitting on his walker seat, everything and everyone seemed old and broken. Then, after giving up and calling a professional plumber and worrying about my dad just supervising them, I had to take my ninety-seven-year-old father-in-law for a haircut. I mean he's amazing. But still. Everything you do with the old folks feels like it's in slow motion and it might be the last time. When Dad had me stop for provisions, he mentioned that I should get a gallon of milk. "It's a little heavy for me at the store, but I can lift it from the refrigerator." What a winding down of capability life is, I thought, curling the grocery bag with the milk in it as I went to the car.

Later my computer guru stopped by to haul away an old external hard drive, a printer and a fax machine. (He not only consults on the new stuff but hauls off the out of commission for recycling.) He is a former ballet dancer and IT guy and now a student finishing a computer science degree. We were talking about my desire to get a new computer setup (it's been quite a few years around here) and he pulled out his Mac Book and started showing me how he ran it with VMWare and XP and Apple windows. He is so young and eager that it made me feel better. Not that he's that young. He's in his thirties, having fulfilled his dream to be a professional ballet dancer before going back to school. I told FFP later that I would pay him just to come over and cheer me up.

FFP and I went back to a place that's recently reopened after a fire for dinner. Mother's Cafe in Hyde Park. We've probably eaten there a hundred times, enjoying the vegetarian fare even though we are omnivores. The menu is still very similar. I wondered how often we'd make it there when we lived downtown instead of North Central. At least I made it there 'one last time' for a Mom's Reuben (an open-faced sandwich where the rye and kraut and cheese have never seemed to miss the meat).

Less and Less of More and More

I took this picture in 2005 but I can't figure out where. Not that it matters. Isn't it amazing how recognizable the person behind the camera is in these pictures?

Today we lost our digital camera. And found it again. We both initially thought it was in FFP's car but we overlooked the first time. This sort of inspired me to have a look at a couple of old ones we have around. One has batteries that are probably refusing to take a charge and some other problems. Another is our second digital camera. What year we bought it I can't say. It runs on AAs and, according to the box, can "capture dazzling detail with over a million pixels." Our first digital camera didn't have an LCD. So this one was a real advance. The funny thing is that this one still works. You have to connect it to the computer with a serial cable and it's about the size of a big, plastic double thick sandwich. I don't know what to do with these. Clearly if we had really lost the 5 mega pixel one we use all the time now we would have replaced it and not tried to use one of these. My -2 camera (the one I had before I had the one that I mentioned above that doesn't work) was identical to one my niece has because I bought it for her. She'd lost the battery charger so I gave her the camera and whole kit and some Compact Flash cards for good measure for her to make use of if she could.

I am considering offering the two old cameras to people in my local Freecycle community. I suppose tinkerers could make some use of them. I'm betting someone would take them and try.

I complain to everyone I talk to about the downsizing dilemma. (Not just to you, dear readers.)

The other day someone said: "Yeah. And you have to touch everything. Decide what to do with it."

Isn't it the truth? When we cleaned out the garage, I came across a good-sized box of old bills and receipts and tax returns and stuff. You feel like you can't just toss it in the garbage. Some of it you feel like you should shred. I've been working my way through it shredding old checks and credit card things even though the bank accounts, card numbers and about everything but the name and address and signature are defunct. This stuff is truly old. As in over twenty years old. Yikes.

I have made another pass through the technical books, too, and have decided I can live without all but a handful. Now to find someone who might want them rather than discarding them. They are a little too specialized for the thrift store. I've found that Half Price will refuse to pay money for anything over a few years old in the technical line in spite of the fact that some are truly classics. The buyers just don't get it. I tried a few friends. I even got one of them to take some of them. That was before I started offering some that I was initially tempted to keep. Whether this makes them good books, I can't say.

So it goes. FFP and I have made a few more trips to the thrift store. Some days I'm hopeful. We have a year, allegedly, before we have to close on our much smaller space. Years can fly by, though. As my dad says: "The years go quickly but the days drag on." I went to his house today to take back some chairs I'd borrowed. He said he hadn't done much today. "I ate, of course. And I read the paper and finished a book."