Tech Guy Go To.

    With all due apologies to the teens across the street, I have an excellent go to tech guy. When ever I'm really stuck I can check with my son on how to do something. Now in some of my previous posts I have described my limitations in the tech world. Thanks to my son the header on my blog was changed recently.


     My son's introduction to tech stuff started a long time ago. In the early eighties Apple decided to give schools computers. What we received were Apple II e's. Now these computers were very primitive. They were on a disk operating system so you had to have a disk with a little program and that's about it. You could write something , print it and store it on a disk.


      My son was about thirteen when we got the computers at school. There were many games and the games were easily copied so all the little beaners wanted in the computer room after school to play games. We had a sign in system for the kids to use a computer after school. It was great fun trying to get these kids to leave after an hour.

     A friend of my was teaching a small community computer class in the evenings. He could not make one session so asked if I would sub for him. He had his lesson very well planned out for me. I took my son along to help me. So on one side the computers did what I asked and the other side nothing happened . I gave the instructions again. My son watched and tried it himself. Finally my son discovered that the one side had put the disks in upside down. From that time on he became my respected adviser.


     My son has stayed with high tech throughout his working life. He was in the Communications Branch of Canadian Armed Forces (Reserve) and became familiar with electronics. He taught four different computer courses at a small college in the 90s & continued teaching to adults in various school districts throughout the Vancouver area for many years following. He has worked for high-tech companies that produced air traffic control systems, DC power supplies and wireless telemetry equipment. Now he is an Accounts Manager for a company that produces Ethernet security systems for control networks.

     So I have somebody with great knowledge and experience to help me with computer challenges.   By the way , he still loves computer games which are a million times better than in the eighties.

Do It Yourselfer Blues

      I am a chronic do it your selfer. I'm somewhat independent. I don't have any skills or talent in mechanics, carpentry, plumbing or electrical but I dabble in all of them when it comes to my house or vehicles. I've written before about my lack of natural ability when it comes to being a handyman.


     So here's the situation. It's about minus 5 here in the daytime. I don't have a garage and my ancient cars are parked outside. From time to time those old beaters will not run. So  I can solve  most of the problems . It just takes hard work and a little know how.


     Last week I accidentally left a car door improperly closed so that the interior light stayed on. So two days later when I discovered the door improperly closed... I had a dead battery. So downstairs and dig out my trusty battery charger. Find cords. Set up the charger. So for a lot of this it's bare hands kind of work. 6 1/2 hours later the battery is charged and the car starts. Problem solved.


    This week I needed the other car to haul some junk and I find it has a dead battery. This is a more serious problem. I set up my trusty battery  charger and soon find out my battery's toast!


    Now the next part is to find a replacement battery. This is where my live in professional shopper takes over. So 6 hours of phoning later she has found the best battery deal and off we go. She's also wangled a free battery test just to be sure the battery is completely finished. Next I have to get the battery out of the vehicle. There is one bolt that holds the battery in place. It's in a very confined space and it's extremely rusty. So making only a 1/8 turn at a time, many bad words, cut knuckles and cold hands I finally remove the battery 45 minutes later. 


     Off we go to purchase a battery. We race home to install the battery before dark. Ten minutes later the battery is installed and the old beater is running. 


    Now I know any farmer reading this will say, "What's he complaining about? I'm outside in the cold every day." For me, as I said in my last post, I didn't have to wear gloves until I was sixty. At 72 it's a different story. My hands don't get cold but the skin cracks to the point of cuts that bleed.


     So when I think this over it's the hard difficult work I do. I don't run with my money and ask the first guy I see to fix the problem. I'll save my money for the highly technical problems that I can't handle.


     I'm disappointed that in all the cold I was not going to take any pictures of this procedure. So I apologize. I hope you'll understand!

It's Rather Surprising What People Lose!

      When I was a teacher the school lost and found bin was rather large. We emptied it twice a year. We had a plentiful supply of mitts, gloves , socks, boots, T shirts, coats, hats, gym strip, watches and the list could go on. We would have the items displayed and beat the bushes for kids to check the items to see if some of it belonged to them. Charities received what was not picked up.


     Shopping malls have piles of stuff in the lost and found. Since it's a large place the pile of lost and found is larger with greater variety. Airports, hospitals, movie theaters all have many lost items.


     Now I have lost a few things myself. As a little kid I had a string that ran through my coat a with my mittens sewed to the end.  I didn't wear gloves until I was sixty. Partly because I didn't need them and partly because I lost them. I have hunted for hours in the house to find something which is usually in some unusual place. 


     When I left the skating dressing room the other day there was one sock left on the bench. I thought it belonged to one of the skaters and thought back to who was sitting in that place. I could tell immediately this was no ordinary sock. It was a therepeutic sock. I put the sock in my helmet and took it home. Five days later I received a desperate call from Red (not me). Red Had come back to the arena looking for his sock and checked the whole arena. He had gone to the hot tub in the pool and had looked  all through the pool. He had been razzing the guy sitting beside him and thought the guy may have taken the sock as a prank. Red phoned the prankster. Red also phoned some of the other skaters. At the Friday skate he asked again. Someone was able to say, Red (me) picked up your sock. So I received the relieved call 5 days after our skate. 


     So the sock was returned to a grateful Red. I was told the pair of socks went for $100.00 a pair!


     So now I have an idea for skaters. Put a string on your socks that goes around your neck and attach your socks to it so that you won't forget your socks. 

As you can see the string is double so it's adjustable.

      Think I'd make any money on this idea?

Sometimes You Need a Chuckle

      I'm a fairly avid reader. I spend the greatest amount of my time on blogs. Next to that is reading.


      I read a fairly wide variety of books, but sometimes I can't find the right book at the time. That's when I can rely on some old favorites and I go back to them. I have lists of books I've read a way down on the right side of my blog. 


      Recently I was looking for a couple of books in the library but they are signed out and have been for some time. I've been waiting for "Oliver's Twist" which is an autobiography by Craig Oliver. Another one I've been looking for is "To Kill a Mocking Bird."  I finished high school before this novel was used for study.


      So because I was in a hurry I picked up a P.G. Wodehouse book. Wodehouse is well known for his English humor. He wrote the "Jeeves" stories which were a television series at one time. Wodehouse wrote 14 books using Jeeves. So I pick up a Wodehouse book and have some light reading where I don't have to concentrate too much and I get a great chuckle out of Bertie Wooster who is such an airhead and unflappable Jeeves who is Bertie's butler and always gets Bertie out of trouble.


     Another writer I read when I can't find anything is Louis L'Amour. L'Amour is easy to follow and there is lots of "Rockem Sockem " action. L"Amour's heroes always draw faster than the bad guys. I'm surprised art how many people read Louis L'Amour.


     I have readers I know and I always ask them what they're reading so that I can find something new . One of my 90 year old friends is a voracious reader. So I always say, Bernice , "What are you reading?" She smiles and says, "You wouldn't like what I read." So then I tease her about reading romance. Some bloggers are really good at telling what they are reading. Some bloggers have a list of books that they have read.


    Sometimes I blunder into a series. I've read all of Jean Auel's Ayla stories. I like historical novels so I have read Quite a few Edward Rutherfurd. I like Leon Uris. I have also read a few James Michener's.

Memory Keepers

       On January 1, 2012 my sister, Doreen  would have been 69 years old. Instead Doreen died in February of 1953 at age eleven years.


       Doreen was a very healthy active child. She became ill and it was thought that she had a cold. She did not get over the cold but was up one day and down the next. She didn't seem to be able to beat what ever bug she had. The family Doctor decided to admit her to the hospital. Her condition became worse and she was sent to a city hospital. She continued to go up and down. My Mom stayed in the city and my Dad spent as much time as he could with her at the hospital. Antibiotics didn't seem to be doing any good. At the end of two weeks Doreen suddenly passed away. 


     This death was devastating to my parents, her brothers and the community. The loss of their daughter was something that stayed with both my parents until their passing. 


     My Dad died in 2008. With that the keeping of the memory of Doreen passes to her brothers. Most of the people my parents age are gone. Very few people now would have met Doreen. My youngest brother was born after Doreen's death so he never met her. 


     In the 1950's it was considered that kids didn't mourn and that deaths would soon be forgotten. No one talked to us about Doreen's death. People talked to Mom and Dad and expressed their sympathy and support. My brothers and I just continued on with our lives. My brothers and I did not talk to each other of Doreen's death until we were in our fifties. We know now that this is not the way to handle losses with kids. 


     However, we survived the loss of our sister. Now we are some of the few left who will keep her memory . People will visit the cemetery and be able to place her in the family. Soon there will be no one living who will have actually known her. 

Blogger Perceptions

       I have always wondered about blogger perceptions. We deal in an almost one dimension medium. Sometimes we add photos and some bloggers use mainly photos. But how close are we to the "real meal deal" in the blog world. 


      When I was teaching I would ask the kids what I did when I first came into the classroom for each class. I explained that I took a look at each individual student before I started my class. I told them that I wanted to see if anyone came in upset. I wanted to identify that situation and try to settle it rather than wait part way through class when everything boiled over. So in this situation perception was everything. I could observe actions, sounds , body language and other student reaction. I could also observe some sequence.


      When we blog , we are limited to the written word alone. Some writers express themselves extremely well and give us a good picture. But we are missing a couple more modes of perception. It would be nice the hear the bloggers spoken word. It would be beneficial to see the body and the body language. We certainly communicate through body motion. I have stamped my feet or banged my fist down a time or two. So how close do we get to the complete picture of the blogger we read or follow?


      Sometimes I read about bloggers who meet a fellow blogger. They are always excited to meet the blogger in person. They usually report a very positive experience. I've only met one blogger in person. It was a super experience. She was older than I thought because I was going by a picture on the blog. However the person I met was exactly who I knew on the blog. The surprise was her partner. I had pictured him very much as a follower. He was no follower and was an impressive character as he held strongly supported views.


      So I was just wondering how we saw things on our blogs. Do we get it right or does it matter.


      What ever the perception is out in the blog world, I like the blogger as is on the blog. That is the real person in the blog world and that's all that matters.  

An Elderly Son and His Father.

     Yesterday I was talking to my son on Skype. I noticed he  was wearing glasses so I asked him why. He told me they were for reading and then added,"I'm old like you!"


      This reminded me of a couple of incidents with my Dad.


      When I was close to 64 I sent my Dad a birthday card for his 91 st birthday. I had told him in the card that in two more birthdays I would be 65. Dad didn't have much site left due to Macular degeneration. He asked my step mom to read the card again. He thought for a bit and then said, "Red's an old man!" My step mom found this hilarious and so did I. There is something extremely incongruous when your father calls you an old man. 


      Two years before Dad passed away he made another comment that was significant. Dad was a farmer all his life. He looked at the world with farmer's eyes. All judgments were from his farm life. I became a teacher and of course you know that Dad's opinion was that I worked from 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM and the money wasn't bad. Furthermore, I had weekends off, two weeks off at Christmas and two months off in the summer. He thought this was pretty soft. He really wanted me to teach near the farm so that I could help him out on the farm with all my spare time. At age 94 he said to me,"Well, you did all right after all!" This comment amazed me. I thought my career was successful and that I was fortunate to have savings and a good pension. I realized that all these years he had looked at me with concern. In his mind if I didn't own 3000 acres of farmland and a few humongous tractors I was not well off.


     Dad died in 2008. How fast the wheel  turns. I am elderly and my son has reached middle age. Slowly the relationship changes.