Microsoft sent me a "Happy Leap Day" email so I replied with 'Will you marry me?" but so far I haven't had an answer from them.
People forget what Leap Year means for women; it is the one day when women were allowed to propose to men and if they were refused the man had to present the woman with a pair of white gloves. I can remember a Leap Year when I was at University - a friend of mine proposed to a man who had six sisters and who, after he had finished his medical degree was intending to spend the rest of his life at Australia's Antarctic Base (no women down there in those days). He refused her offer but presented her with a pair of white baby mittens in the true spirit of the occasion. For that he endeared himself to me and it is what I most remember about him except that he was stunningly good looking ... and his name which was pretty awful.
Poppy has suddenly come out of her sulks and has become a lapcat again, even forgiving me for muzzling her and clipping her claws. Parsifal has also become very cuddly and purrs in my lap instead of beating up Poppy; although he is still intent on swinging the pictures and I intend to move them into my bedroom and replace them with a couple of unglazed oil paintings which will not shatter if they fall. They will not look as good but will give me peace of mind and they are in the right spirit - the painter always draws the rear view of a tomcat on the back of all his paintings.
Ancestry.com has destroyed Family Tree Maker - it not just no longer supports it but it has removed the files from my computer and left me with a basic tree which is interactive but limited. It is really annoying because I spent years researching my family and now I have to pay Ancestry.com for the privilege of accessing it. I gather that another Ancestry.com program will be replacing FTM but it has not yet been released and I have put my name down for a half-price special offer - more money out for my years of research. When you consider the number of people who have been forced to contribute their family research to a money-making operation it is staggering.
I have been very tired and have not done any yoga for several days but am feeling much better and will get back to it tonight. I think that my 'sleep deprivation' regimen, although it has helped my insomnia, has caught up with me and I just needed to sleep in for a couple of days.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Ouch!
I wheeled the cats over to the Vet for their annual vaccination and general health check. Hah!!
Parsifal hissed and growled all the time and especially when he was having his teeth checked. Unfortunately he has some tartar build-up and gingivitis again so he is going to need his teeth scaled and, if necessary, removed. Wisely, the vet decided not to attempt to take his temperature.
Poppy was altogether more difficult. She started out yowling, hissing and growling before I had even taken her out of the kitty carriage and it got worse from there. I had to muzzle her (luckily I had thought that the muzzle might be needed and took it along with us) before she could even be weighed and even with the muzzle I had to hold her by the scruff while she had her vaccinations and had her teeth checked. She has a mild build up of tartar and very mild gingivitis but it is inevitable that she will need to have her teeth attended to at some time in the future so they are both going in together with a late admission so that they will not have to wait around for too long.
As they need to be fasted from 8.00pm the evening beforehand I am going to have two hungry, angry cats to deal with. I will turn on the happy juice and hope that it will settle them a bit but I can see that every visit is going to be worse than the last one so not a good time will be had by anyone.
The Clinic is being taken over at the end of this month and the nurse suggested that I wait until after 29th February before I book them in to have their teeth done. I just hope that the new lot are good or I will have to return to the Cottesloe Animal Hospital and either buy a new car or take them in an 'animal friendly' taxi.
They didn't used to be like this in the olden days when Parsifal's pica was at its height although he had to be sedated for his untrasounds. Poppy has never had anything so traumatic to set her off. Oh, well ...
Parsifal hissed and growled all the time and especially when he was having his teeth checked. Unfortunately he has some tartar build-up and gingivitis again so he is going to need his teeth scaled and, if necessary, removed. Wisely, the vet decided not to attempt to take his temperature.
Poppy was altogether more difficult. She started out yowling, hissing and growling before I had even taken her out of the kitty carriage and it got worse from there. I had to muzzle her (luckily I had thought that the muzzle might be needed and took it along with us) before she could even be weighed and even with the muzzle I had to hold her by the scruff while she had her vaccinations and had her teeth checked. She has a mild build up of tartar and very mild gingivitis but it is inevitable that she will need to have her teeth attended to at some time in the future so they are both going in together with a late admission so that they will not have to wait around for too long.
As they need to be fasted from 8.00pm the evening beforehand I am going to have two hungry, angry cats to deal with. I will turn on the happy juice and hope that it will settle them a bit but I can see that every visit is going to be worse than the last one so not a good time will be had by anyone.
The Clinic is being taken over at the end of this month and the nurse suggested that I wait until after 29th February before I book them in to have their teeth done. I just hope that the new lot are good or I will have to return to the Cottesloe Animal Hospital and either buy a new car or take them in an 'animal friendly' taxi.
They didn't used to be like this in the olden days when Parsifal's pica was at its height although he had to be sedated for his untrasounds. Poppy has never had anything so traumatic to set her off. Oh, well ...
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
My first COTA client tomorrow wants to learn Windows 7 and my second one thinks that she needs Windows 10. I have been warned that changing the computer from Win 7 to Win 10 will take a long time so I will, as I had intended anyway, take in my two tablets and my hotspot. I had hoped that I would not have to tote two computers to COTA every week now that the computers have been rebuilt but, ah, well ...
The babies are going to the vet on Friday (day after tomorrow) to have their vaccinations and a general health check. I have clipped their claws in the hope that they will not need an anaesthetic to have more teeth out (my rationale being that if they need a GA then I would have their claws clipped while they were anaesthetised).
While Poppy bites when she has her claws clipped and I muzzle her to do that it will not stop Parsifal biting anyone who dares to take his temperature. And so a good time will be had by all and I will be glad to get it over. And speaking of temperatures - we are into our fourth day of over 40 degree heat but Friday is predicted to be down to 32 degrees - hence the Friday appointment to venture out in the Kitty Carriage.
Apropos the SAD Lamp Saga, Amazon is repaying my postage by giving me credit for the exact amount so I have been looking at books and have put two on my wish list for when the credit comes through in about a week when the lamp gets back to America. It is very nice of them and they have made it so easy after all the hassles I had returning it the first time. That was to the supplier of the lamps; Amazon is the selling agent and has bent over backwards to set things straight for me. Thank you, Amazon.com
The babies are going to the vet on Friday (day after tomorrow) to have their vaccinations and a general health check. I have clipped their claws in the hope that they will not need an anaesthetic to have more teeth out (my rationale being that if they need a GA then I would have their claws clipped while they were anaesthetised).
While Poppy bites when she has her claws clipped and I muzzle her to do that it will not stop Parsifal biting anyone who dares to take his temperature. And so a good time will be had by all and I will be glad to get it over. And speaking of temperatures - we are into our fourth day of over 40 degree heat but Friday is predicted to be down to 32 degrees - hence the Friday appointment to venture out in the Kitty Carriage.
Apropos the SAD Lamp Saga, Amazon is repaying my postage by giving me credit for the exact amount so I have been looking at books and have put two on my wish list for when the credit comes through in about a week when the lamp gets back to America. It is very nice of them and they have made it so easy after all the hassles I had returning it the first time. That was to the supplier of the lamps; Amazon is the selling agent and has bent over backwards to set things straight for me. Thank you, Amazon.com
Monday, February 8, 2016
Update on the Saga of the SAD Lamp
I posted the broken SAD lamp back to USA at great expense only to have two unsuccessful attempts to deliver it to the addressee - so it boomeranged back to the Claremont Post Office.
I contacted Amazon and they responded immediately, refunded the money and offered to possibly repay the postage. I suspect that when they find out how expensive it is to post an article from Western Australia to America they may re-consider that offer. All they asked was that I should return the lamp to them - different address but back to America so another $100. If they refund all the postage I will just about break even but since they have refunded the cost of the lamp I felt obligated to return it to them.
Himself and I went to COTA to familiarise ourselves with the rebuilt computers. Himself found that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 were working after a fashion (no Outlook.com) but Windows 10 really is not working to a standard where it is going to be possible to teach using it. To begin with I had difficulty connecting to the internet and ended up going through Control Panel or its equivalent and it didn't show in the task bar that it was connected.
I don't really want to have to try to teach email on MS Outlook so I have reactivated my COTA Gmail account as it is a fairly generic carrier. In the meantime I will try to find Outlook.com which I am told should be in the 'M' section of the apps. Maybe it is still called Live Mail on that patched-up computer.
I need to get in there and put some useful links on to the start menu so that I can navigate easily but maybe the guys who do the Tuesday and Wednesday classes will do that before I have to try. Hopefully any clients I have this Thursday will only want Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 but I will be taking my tablets and hotspot with me just in case.
I contacted Amazon and they responded immediately, refunded the money and offered to possibly repay the postage. I suspect that when they find out how expensive it is to post an article from Western Australia to America they may re-consider that offer. All they asked was that I should return the lamp to them - different address but back to America so another $100. If they refund all the postage I will just about break even but since they have refunded the cost of the lamp I felt obligated to return it to them.
Himself and I went to COTA to familiarise ourselves with the rebuilt computers. Himself found that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 were working after a fashion (no Outlook.com) but Windows 10 really is not working to a standard where it is going to be possible to teach using it. To begin with I had difficulty connecting to the internet and ended up going through Control Panel or its equivalent and it didn't show in the task bar that it was connected.
I don't really want to have to try to teach email on MS Outlook so I have reactivated my COTA Gmail account as it is a fairly generic carrier. In the meantime I will try to find Outlook.com which I am told should be in the 'M' section of the apps. Maybe it is still called Live Mail on that patched-up computer.
I need to get in there and put some useful links on to the start menu so that I can navigate easily but maybe the guys who do the Tuesday and Wednesday classes will do that before I have to try. Hopefully any clients I have this Thursday will only want Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 but I will be taking my tablets and hotspot with me just in case.
We are having a heatwave at the moment with temperatures around 40 to 41 degrees Celsius. Thank goodness for air conditioning and maybe it will put off my clients so that I have some time to try to get some sense out of Boardroom 1 (the computer which I use).
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Knitting in the Round
I have finished spinning my Rincewind/Melange fibre and thought that I had found the perfect pattern to knit it up. It is a loose kimono-style sweater which looks both comfortable and warm and according to the picture it is well suited to handspun yarn.
But . . . the body of the sweater is knitted in the round and I have not done that since the Ds were babies and I knitted bootees and singlets for them - on four needles. This pattern calls for 160 stitches on a 30" circular double ended needle. I was aware that it was necessary to ensure that the knitting was not twisted but that was easier said than done as both the casting on and the cable itself earnestly desired to twist.
My first effort was a disaster because I knitted the first row back instead of round. My second effort seemed to go well until, in the third row I realised that there was a twist. I was about to give up but decided to sleep on it and give it one more try. What I did was to cast on my 160 stitches, put stitch markers at intervals along the casting on and thread another cable through the stitch markers with stoppers at both ends since the cable wanted to slide out of its stitch markers. But IT WORKED and I have now knitted about ten rows with not a twist in sight.
Now I am sweating on the possibility that I will not have enough yarn to finish the sweater and may have to purchase more of the Melange (since Rincewind was a one-off for the Megasal) and put some stripes in the sleeves. But it is going to be very pretty and I am excited about it.
I am back to doing regular yoga after a pause while I recovered from the vertigo I developed over the New Year and, as directed by my doctor, I am drinking my morning coffee in the sun on the balcony and developing a suntan on my legs. Recently I have been joined by Parsifal who has suddenly become a very cuddly lap cat. Perhaps, in his very limited world, it is a new activity to entertain him since the pictures are all out of his reach. He attacks my hat and browses on the cat grass and catnip with an occasional chew at the ponytail palm which invariably makes him throw up.
Poppy's domain is the Master Bedroom Suite which is her 'safe place' and where she sleeps during the day. She is still a chronometer kitten and orders me off to bed about an hour before I am ready and then joins me on the bed when I finally make it there.
We are starting back at COTA in the week of February 8th. The two computers which we use are being rebuilt and will have Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 loaded onto them which is ideal. I will be taking my little hotspot with me just in case clients with Windows 10 laptops need to connect their own computers to the internet; Windows 10 does not accept guest connections. I believe that there is a way of doing it but from all accounts it is a very uneasy connection and flickers badly. I do not want to go down that path and since the hotspot can support about 30 computers it means that Himself can also tune in to it. I am not sure how I will go switching between the three operating systems - I had to think hard about how to get to 'tools' in Windows 7, having spent the last few weeks using only windows 10. We will see ...
But . . . the body of the sweater is knitted in the round and I have not done that since the Ds were babies and I knitted bootees and singlets for them - on four needles. This pattern calls for 160 stitches on a 30" circular double ended needle. I was aware that it was necessary to ensure that the knitting was not twisted but that was easier said than done as both the casting on and the cable itself earnestly desired to twist.
My first effort was a disaster because I knitted the first row back instead of round. My second effort seemed to go well until, in the third row I realised that there was a twist. I was about to give up but decided to sleep on it and give it one more try. What I did was to cast on my 160 stitches, put stitch markers at intervals along the casting on and thread another cable through the stitch markers with stoppers at both ends since the cable wanted to slide out of its stitch markers. But IT WORKED and I have now knitted about ten rows with not a twist in sight.
Now I am sweating on the possibility that I will not have enough yarn to finish the sweater and may have to purchase more of the Melange (since Rincewind was a one-off for the Megasal) and put some stripes in the sleeves. But it is going to be very pretty and I am excited about it.
I am back to doing regular yoga after a pause while I recovered from the vertigo I developed over the New Year and, as directed by my doctor, I am drinking my morning coffee in the sun on the balcony and developing a suntan on my legs. Recently I have been joined by Parsifal who has suddenly become a very cuddly lap cat. Perhaps, in his very limited world, it is a new activity to entertain him since the pictures are all out of his reach. He attacks my hat and browses on the cat grass and catnip with an occasional chew at the ponytail palm which invariably makes him throw up.
Poppy's domain is the Master Bedroom Suite which is her 'safe place' and where she sleeps during the day. She is still a chronometer kitten and orders me off to bed about an hour before I am ready and then joins me on the bed when I finally make it there.
We are starting back at COTA in the week of February 8th. The two computers which we use are being rebuilt and will have Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 loaded onto them which is ideal. I will be taking my little hotspot with me just in case clients with Windows 10 laptops need to connect their own computers to the internet; Windows 10 does not accept guest connections. I believe that there is a way of doing it but from all accounts it is a very uneasy connection and flickers badly. I do not want to go down that path and since the hotspot can support about 30 computers it means that Himself can also tune in to it. I am not sure how I will go switching between the three operating systems - I had to think hard about how to get to 'tools' in Windows 7, having spent the last few weeks using only windows 10. We will see ...
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The Sad Saga of the SAD lamp
My SAD lamp arrived yesterday via courier. The courier rang up to my apartment but by the time I arrived downstairs he had managed to persuade someone to open the door for him and had left it in the foyer. There was an ominous tinkling as I picked it up and when I opened up the box there were small shards of glass, a USA power plug (not an overwhelming problem as I could easily buy an adaptor from over the road but nothing to tell me what the voltage was and because I had ordered it from Amazon I assumed that as an international supplier it would match the goods to the country of destination. OK - so I had only ever bought books from them before ... silly me!
However, the lamp was broken and rather than throw good money after bad by ordering another light tube I decided to return it so I packed it carefully back into its box, downloaded the return label after going to the site to explain why I was returning the lamp and took it to the Post Office to post it back. The helpful lady behind the counter pointed out that Australian postage is very expensive but I figured that anything less than what I had paid for the lamp would put me, if not ahead, at least not totally out of pocket.
Amazon has promised to refund the cost of the lamp plus $15 towards the cost of postage. The postage back to America came to over $100 Australian - ouch! But I will still be about $100 ahead of where I would have been if I had just dumped it out with the rubbish. So I will have about $200 USD returned to my bank account when the lamp returns to sender.
I took my little 'hotspot' which I bought to use at COTA back to Telstra, since Windows 10 will not accept guest connections to the internet, because it was not working and was told that if I had not used it within six days of buying it the connection would not work as it was deemed to be 'uncharged'. So I had it charged up again and was promised that I now had a connection for 365 days and that I would need to pay out more money annually to keep the contract going - same as with my mobile phone which I pay $20 for every November.
I am happy to say that the hotspot now works perfectly and my Surface Pro 3 with Windows 10 reverted seamlessly back to my modem afterwards so I have no fear that my clients will have difficulties when they get home after a lesson. To ensure that I didn't have any problems I inserted a Recovery Point before I tested the hotspot but didn't need it after all. We are supposed to be starting back at COTA in the second week of February but goodness knows what sort of configuration the computers which we use will have. Watch this space ...
However, the lamp was broken and rather than throw good money after bad by ordering another light tube I decided to return it so I packed it carefully back into its box, downloaded the return label after going to the site to explain why I was returning the lamp and took it to the Post Office to post it back. The helpful lady behind the counter pointed out that Australian postage is very expensive but I figured that anything less than what I had paid for the lamp would put me, if not ahead, at least not totally out of pocket.
Amazon has promised to refund the cost of the lamp plus $15 towards the cost of postage. The postage back to America came to over $100 Australian - ouch! But I will still be about $100 ahead of where I would have been if I had just dumped it out with the rubbish. So I will have about $200 USD returned to my bank account when the lamp returns to sender.
I took my little 'hotspot' which I bought to use at COTA back to Telstra, since Windows 10 will not accept guest connections to the internet, because it was not working and was told that if I had not used it within six days of buying it the connection would not work as it was deemed to be 'uncharged'. So I had it charged up again and was promised that I now had a connection for 365 days and that I would need to pay out more money annually to keep the contract going - same as with my mobile phone which I pay $20 for every November.
I am happy to say that the hotspot now works perfectly and my Surface Pro 3 with Windows 10 reverted seamlessly back to my modem afterwards so I have no fear that my clients will have difficulties when they get home after a lesson. To ensure that I didn't have any problems I inserted a Recovery Point before I tested the hotspot but didn't need it after all. We are supposed to be starting back at COTA in the second week of February but goodness knows what sort of configuration the computers which we use will have. Watch this space ...
Friday, January 15, 2016
COTA versus Windows 10
Three days ago the computer teachers at COTA had a meeting about the parlous state of the computers which we are expected to teach on. We have two new teachers which was a surprise and one of them, John2, is very computer savvy, having worked in the industry and his feelings on the subject reflected mine on pretty well everything. The computers which we use are obsolete, slow, have never been upgraded, do not have workable email and as well as a non-upgraded version of Windows 7 there are two non-working versions of Windows XP and Windows 8 which no-one uses and which I believe to have been withdrawn by Microsoft about five days ago.
John2 used to work for the IT company which has the contract to keep COTA's computers up and running and he told us that COTA is entitled to five re-builds per year but it seems that those computers belonging to the admin staff are getting all the goodies.
He also said that the reason that the guest login username and password doesn't work is that the Thursday girls neglect to 'save' on the Visibility system. At this stage COTA is planning on starting classes again on February 5th but it will depend on the health of the computers which we use and what systems can be installed for us. We have specified Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. If they can all go onto one computer that would be good but otherwise there will be one computer specifically for Windows 10. It should be interesting if/when we have to work in tandem and both clients want Windows 10 ... or Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. I don't think that it will work.
More on the thwarted break in at D2's apartment. In D2's own words:
"the owner has issued a breach notice which specifies that the brother is not allowed to be in the apartment. They have offered to break the lease at no cost to the tenant and bearing the cost themselves of a loss of rental while they find another tenant. That’s very decent of them. A single breach is not enough to terminate the tenancy - it has to be three!!!"
John2 used to work for the IT company which has the contract to keep COTA's computers up and running and he told us that COTA is entitled to five re-builds per year but it seems that those computers belonging to the admin staff are getting all the goodies.
He also said that the reason that the guest login username and password doesn't work is that the Thursday girls neglect to 'save' on the Visibility system. At this stage COTA is planning on starting classes again on February 5th but it will depend on the health of the computers which we use and what systems can be installed for us. We have specified Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. If they can all go onto one computer that would be good but otherwise there will be one computer specifically for Windows 10. It should be interesting if/when we have to work in tandem and both clients want Windows 10 ... or Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. I don't think that it will work.
More on the thwarted break in at D2's apartment. In D2's own words:
"the owner has issued a breach notice which specifies that the brother is not allowed to be in the apartment. They have offered to break the lease at no cost to the tenant and bearing the cost themselves of a loss of rental while they find another tenant. That’s very decent of them. A single breach is not enough to terminate the tenancy - it has to be three!!!"
Anyway she is coming to reclaim her breakfast cereal and yoghurt and return my 'get out of jail free' sensor - probably sometime this weekend.
This afternoon Himself is coming over to take a look at Windows 10 and get some idea of what we are up against. I am now OK with the basics but when Himself phoned me this morning with a problem with his Windows 7 computer I had to think hard and resort to looking it up in the book before it all came back to me. How easy it is to forget when I have not used W7 for six weeks or so. It is scary ...
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