LONG WHINE - PART 2

After my adventure-filled day shopping as told in Long Whine - Part 1, we headed home, where I hoped to find peace for the rest of the day.  Alas, it was not to be.

The wireless on my router worked well to connect to the internet on my laptop when I was still served by my previous provider, but, after it was disconnected, I downloaded the router CD onto the laptop, and I was not able to access the internet.  What now?  I downloaded the CD again and still no connection.

In desperation, I called my son and told him what I'd done and asked what could have gone wrong.  He was puzzled and said the connection should have worked.  After thinking a bit, he asked me if the antenna button was turned on.  I did not know there was such a thing as an antenna button on the laptop, and I had no idea where it was.  He said I should look on the front of the laptop.  At first, I saw only a red light, but, when I looked closer, there was a small switch.  When I slid the switch to the right, the red light changed to blue, and I was able to connect.  What I've written sounds simpler and less time-consuming than the reality, which dragged on for a couple of stress-and-frustration-laden hours. 

In between failure and success with the computer, I took a break to arrange the curly willow branches I mentioned in my earlier post.  The branches were too tall for the vases and needed to be clipped.  Out came the wire cutters to cut a number of branches.  As some were too thick for the wire cutters, I had to saw them with a knife.  Nothing is ever as simple as expected, but, in the end, I was pleased with the minimalist effect.

Finally, I settled down with a glass of wine to test the computer connection, all the while fearing that, as luck would have it that day, I'd be thrown offline at any moment.  To my great relief the connection held.  Around 11:15 PM, I decided it was bedtime, so I shut down the computer, and, when I reached to plug in the laptop to charge the battery, I knocked over my half-full glass of red wine on the carpet.  Oy!  Not bedtime yet after all!

After blotting up all possible liquid with paper towels, I continued the clean-up with my ever-handy bottle of Resolve Carpet Cleaner, with not much hope that it would do the tough job of removing the red wine stain.  After much rubbing and scrubbing, I called it a night and finally went to bed.

The next morning, when I examined the area I could still see where the wine had spilled, so I rubbed and scrubbed again.  Later in the day, when the area had dried, I could not see stain marks, so I moved the chair and the magazine rack back into place.  I haven't looked closely again, because there's nothing more I can do if there are remnants of stain, except call in the professionals.
 
Grandpère's evening was no better.  When he drove to his meeting down the bayou, he went to the wrong house and got stuck in the mud in the driveway.  The owner of the house was kind enough to tow him out, but he was most embarrassed.

End of whine.  I don't know if  I feel better now that I've written about my woes, but it is done.

LONG WHINE - PART 1

Wednesday was not one of my better days.  I almost never go shopping because I do most of my purchasing online now, but, on Wednesday, it was time for Grandpère and me to make a trip to the nearby larger town.  First we went to cancel the internet service for our laptop at the phone store, because I was not successful either by phone or online in cancelling the service.  We learned to our dismay that our contract did not run out till September, so we'll be charged $90 to cancel. Still, even with the cost of cancellation and the cost of a router at $100, we'll save money in the long run, plus we'll have better service through our cable provider.

Our next stop was the electronics store to buy a flat screen TV for me.  Grandpère recently purchased a new flat screen, and, after several months of comparing the quality of the displays, I decided to ditch the old clunky set for a flat screen.  (No, we mostly do not watch TV together.)  The prices of flat screens are surprisingly low, so why not?  The purchase went without a hitch. Thank goodness.

On to lunch at a restaurant that offers an Italian buffet, with a discount for seniors, which Grandpère welcomed after all the money we had already spent that day  After lunch, we went to the large chain bookstore nearby. I have a discount card for the chain, and I stayed in Grandpère's truck to look for the card. He locked the truck, and went on into the store. When I tried to get out, I could not. The doors were locked and I couldn't open them.  I tried and tried with no luck, so there I was trapped in the truck.  I thought to myself "This is not possible.  Suppose the truck catches on fire."  I thought Grandpère would miss me and come to look for me, but he didn't.  He thought I was somewhere in the big store.

We both have cell phones, but Grandpère doesn't carry his with him, and, even when he does, he only turns it on when he wants to call someone.  If he'd carry his phone and turn it on, life would be so much less stressful for both of us in so many ways.

What to do?  I looked up the phone number of the bookstore and called and told the person who answered of my plight and gave her Grandpère's description and asked her to look for him and tell him to come let me out.  I waited and waited, and Grandpère never came, so I called back.  The woman said she had called for him, but no one came, and she was the only person working in that very large bookstore, and she could not leave the checkout counter to look for him. I sat for maybe half an hour, and finally a man parked nearby, and I waved to him and began to shout through the locked windows to ask if he was going into the store. He said yes, so I shouted Grandpère's description and asked him if he saw him to tell him to come unlock the truck. He found him, and I was rescued.  I wasn't in any mood to look at books, so we checked out Grandpère's book with my discount card, which caused all the trouble, and left.

The next stop (If we're going to shop, we try to do it all in one day.) was a home decorating store to buy curly maple branches to put in two vases in the living room.  Another easy success, and the branches have a nice minimalist look about them that I think is quite attractive, though I doubt everyone will agree.

When Grandpère told my son about my getting locked in the truck, he said it was impossible to be locked in a vehicle.  He came to our house later to check out the situation, and he was right.  There is a lock inside the truck that works without the key.  The problem was that neither Grandpère nor I knew where the lock was.  Now we know.

End of shopping but not end of bad day and whine.  More whine to come!

OLD COMPUTER, NEW COMPUTER

We are looking to buy a new desktop computer. The store where we had decided to buy the computer promised they would transfer my material from the old desktop to the new and clean the old computer for Grandpère to use. He doesn't do nearly as much on the computer as I do, and the old computer cleaned of my stuff should serve him well.

Well, it turns out that the store cannot do all that they promised, because the employees are only salesmen and not technicians. So we took our old computer back home and, by a miracle, I managed to get the plugs in the right place and get the old computer up and running again.

Now, I'm not sure I will purchase a computer from the store, and I will definitely need someone to do the transfer, because I do not want to lose what I have on my drive in an effort to do it myself. Please do not offer do-it-yourself advice to make the transfer, because I will not even try. Grandpère knows nothing about computers, so he's no help at all.

This post as a whine. Consider it not worth reading but simply as a diary post where I vented my frustration - top secret, for my eyes only.

UPDATE: The good news is that I believe I can set up the new computer on my own. I'll see about the rest.