Sheila and I are Engaged!

At this point in time, the whole world can now know.

Sheila and I are engaged to be married.  I proposed marriage on the evening of 4/25/14.  She had just arrived, and we went out to my back patio to talk (we've spent a lot of evenings there enjoying the Arizona weather lately).

I made the decision to propose marriage at 8:45 in the morning of 3/27/14.  I had been praying about it, and while walking over to another building for a meeting which I was chairing, I decided that it was time.

I spent a couple of weeks deciding how to do this.  Do I take her to a special dinner?  That might tip her off.  I wanted it to be a surprise.  Do I wait until a normal day?  With the way things are with me, good luck with that.  Last Friday, as documented in my previous entry, presented its own fair share of problems.  And, I've got another one or two of them to work out as I type this.

Anyway.....our original plans were to drive down to Tombstone last Saturday.  Then I checked the weather forecast....it wasn't good.  High wind gusts were forecast all day long, and there was even rain the forecast.  Rain in April here is unusual, but a day of wind gusts is not.  Usually we get a full day of wind gusts whenever I have an off Friday, but since it wasn't an off Friday it had to instead happen on that Saturday.  The same day I wanted to propose.

So......the weather forecast made me propose one day early.  I knew that Friday morning I wanted to do it, but I needed a day without complication.  Well, I didn't get a day without complication.  My camper shell glass mishap was one of those bizarre anomalies right out of left field.  So I have a replacement on order. Fine.

Then there was that damned malware attack, which may not have been McAfee's fault.  In the headlines today was one of them that Microsoft has a serious security flaw in all versions of Exploder....excuse me.....Explorer.  As much as I would like to blame McAfee for it, I might be wrong in doing so.

Well.....that one was overcome.....even if I had to talk to a call center in India.  (I'm going to give those guys kudos on this one....they fixed the problem!).  At this point, I'm thinking, there's nothing else left go wrong this day.  The H E double hockey sticks with it.  I'm going to propose!  But I had to wait for her to come over, and when I saw her car pull into the driveway from my upstairs window, I knew that the moment had arrived.

We were then on the back patio.  I said, "can you come over here for a second?"

She did.

"Can you set that down right there?", referring to the cold drink she had in her hand.

She did.

Then I dropped to one knee and took her hand in mine.

"Sheila Dxxxxxx, will you marry me?  Will you become my wife?"

As I expected, Sheila said yes.  That was the best answer anyone's given me on a question for several years.  I then opened up a bottle of wine from Chile that I had been saving for a special occasion, a wine that Cost Plus discontinued since too many people liked it.

So.......fifteen years of being single again are ending.  A wedding is in our future.

We don't yet know when this will happen.  I'd like to think it will be later this year.  I don't know.  I have to get my house ready for her and her kids, and, I think all of us, even though we knew this was coming, just might want to let the idea of marriage and family ferment in the recesses of the mind for a little while.

All I can tell you, is that we want to do a road trip for the honeymoon, and we're thinking that Route 66 might be it.  Or.....it might be Santa Fe, Las Vegas, the ghost towns of Nevada......who knows.

The important thing is that this is going to happen.

We ask that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Just One Week....And I Already Have Computer Problems!

My computer commissioning was almost complete, except for hooking up my scanner.  So I plugged it in, loaded the software into the DVD/CD drive, and installed my scanner software.  Then I restarted, and guess what: my E drive, the DVD drive, wasn't even there!

The computer simply would not recognize it.  I restarted, and it was still not accessible.  So, I placed a call into HP tech support, and learned that HP already had a gotcha for me.

My warranty didn't cover software problems!  I had to buy a one year service agreement, reluctantly, over the phone, simultaneously with an online chat with the company they outsource to.  It was either that, or take some time off work which I can't get with my current assignment due to customer commitments to take the computer into some shop somewhere, so I was stuck.

They were able to fix the problem, and to tell me what it was.  I picked up some malware somewhere that had corrupted some drivers.  Yes, malware. 

HP, as part of their package, gave me McAfee, which once again, let malware slip by.  I'm stuck with McAfee at the moment due more to the way in which I'm connected to the net.  I'm going through a wireless router to connect to the net, and it's going to be this way until I can get a business day off from work so's that I can call CenturyLink, and go through my DSL, where I get Norton free of charge.  My next off day is one week from today, though I may take half a day on Thursday and take care of it then.  I only visit a handful of sites so I didn't think McAfee was that much of a risk.....but I was wrong.

Maybe I should see if CenturyLink has tech support on weekends.  Truth is, I don't like being tied up on the phone, so I'll have to take some blame in not having taken care of it yet.  I guess I'll have to bite the bullet on this one and call tomorrow.

The joke's not over yet.

My scanner won't work with the computer!  It doesn't play nice with the new OS!  So I'll have to shell out some bucks for a new scanner.  For right now, I'll reconnect it with the old XP and if I have to scan something, I still can.

One other bizarre mishap for today.  I made a visit to Safeway to stock up on weekend staples.  I loaded the purchases into the truck bed, and then closed the camper shell door......whereupon the glass in the camper shell door shattered into a zillion pieces.  I'm thinking, OK, this isn't as bad as a wheel coming off at 70 mph......but not good either.  I made a quick run to Tucson's only authorized SnugTop dealer, which is downtown. 

Fortunately I can still get parts for it (I've had the truck for 18+ years).  It will set me back five bills, but it's still cheaper than a new shell in its entirety.  The dealer wasn't sure at first if the parts were still made, but they are.

Things could have been worse, I guess.

I have reason to believe that they'll get better soon.

At least on one front.

The New Computer is Up and Running!

The new computer was picked up from the nearest FedEx office last Monday but I wasn't able to get it up and running until now.  I am obviously connected to that information superhighway that Al Gore invented several years ago, and I'm learning this new OS, Windows 8.1.

As a longtime XP user, it's going to take some time getting used to.  I've had to get on the phone to Microsoft to get their help in being able to access the Office applications.....it isn't exactly obvious how to do this like it would be with XP or Windows 7.

That aside, I think I'm going to like this machine.  The new monitor has excellent graphics; I'm very impressed.

I've got some work to do though to get this machine to where I want it.  I'll have to transfer some files from the Dell onto CDs and then from the CDs onto the HP.  I'll have to get my favorite websites favorite on the browser here.  I need to call CenturyLink to somehow get their connection software downloaded onto here; they give me free Norton Antivirus.  I have McAfee on this new computer but I'm no fan of that outfit.

Checking in........4/14/14

Work has been very busy this past week and a half, and will be that way for the rest of the week.  We are under some tight schedules and also under some staffing pressure as well.  It is what it is; I try to keep the momentum going as best as I can.   I frequently get tired of being tired, but again, it is what it is.

My new computer has arrived and I don't figure on being able to get it set up until Friday at the earliest, that is, if it turns out to be an off Friday.  I am scheduled to have it off and I am trying to make my deadline ahead of schedule.  It would be nice to be done with everything on noon Thursday, but often available time has a way of being used up.  We shall see.

Seems as if there are a zillion things waiting for me on my next off day.  I have to get a screen door rebuilt, I feel the need to do an oil change, I probably ought to have my truck looked at as that I'm thinking I might have a slow leak in my power steering system, and of course there's the yardwork, the filing of papers, and the need to spend time with my hobbies.  I'm once again feeling the itch to pick up the guitar to jam a little, and to see if I can bring some songwriting ideas to fruition.

Speaking of music, Sheila and I were at Bookman's Saturday night.  They're a chain local to Arizona best known for used books and magazines, but they also carry some musical instruments.....usually the "starter" guitars and basses.  I picked up a bass guitar that was built to look like and emulate a Fender Precision, but it wasn't a Fender......I want to say it was a Squier but it may have been something else.  I quickly started thumping out the bass line to the BTO song "Not Fragile" and I have to admit that that one is a fun one to play on the bass.  I remember once, years ago, figuring out how to do that on my Fender electric, the six string regular that is.  The rhythm follows the bass line, but with the rock "power" chords, as I think they're called, you have to do that somewhat differently.

In the past I have been tempted to buy a bass guitar and an amp.  What holds me back from that is the lack of time I would have to invest in learning how to play it better.  Plus, when you're writing songs, you're going to use the regular six string anyway to put together a chord structure first.  At least, that's the way I do it.  Get a structure together, and go from there.  I've found it easier to develop the music first and the lyrics second, although I can think of one tune where I had the words written down and the music was done a few years later.

Yes, a bass guitar would be fun.  So would a handheld police scanner, so that I could listen to it while I'm out here on the back porch, blogging away. 

I think the handheld scanner will be the next new toy.

Purchasing a New Computer

Since March 2005 I have been using a Dell computer that was state of the art when I purchased it.  It was the latest and greatest, affording me more memory, more hard drive space, and a neat operating system that was far beyond the Microsoft 95/98/2000 that I had been used to using on previous and work computers.  It has served me very well; I love the machine dearly, but it is getting time to replace it, and so the replacement process has started.

The replacement process isn't something that I'm looking forward to.  That means taking apart my computer infrastructure here and reconnecting it.  It means transferring files from the Dell onto CDs, which will then be used to transfer them to the new computer.  And it means having to work with Windows 8.1.  I'm hoping that the new OS will be just as user-friendly as XP was, and if I had my druthers I'd still be using XP.  Trouble is, is that Microsoft has decided to end support of XP, which is what drove my replacing the Dell.  And let's be honest.....the Dell doesn't handle the browsers as efficiently as it used to, and if I run Google Earth then that really ties up my CPU resources.

Purchasing the replacement has become an adventure of sorts in and of itself, and will be the subject of what follows.

I started thinking about the replacement a few weeks ago.  I had it in mind to order from Dell again, who pleased me back in 2005, but I also felt the need to visit Best Buy to see what they could do for me.  (It could have been worse....I could have gone to Fry's Electronics in the Bay Area, and I have a story for them, as does every engineer who's spent time in Silicon Valley.)  So I waltzed into the Best Buy on Broadway, over near Wilmot, to gather some intelligence.

Now Best Buy really isn't my favorite firm to do business with.  Circuit City, years ago, used to be much better, but Circuit City decided to fire every sales agent who knew his or her stuff so that they could hire cheaper replacements, and they've long since ridden the bankruptcy horse off into the sunset.  Anyway, Best Buy, I figured, would be a decent place to gather some intelligence....and.....what if I came across a good deal?

Well I saw what I thought were good deals.....and they seemed like good deals, until I started asking some questions from their salesman.  He was likely a college kid working part time who knew some things about computers, and he might have even been an engineering major, but I wasn't getting any good vibes from this guy.  Oh, I want Microsoft installed?  That's an extra $140.  Oh, I want a monitor?  Another $140.  Oh, I want this?  I want that?  They had that too, but it wasn't included in the price.  All I was getting was a box that held a hard drive and some RAM, and it might even have had an optical drive except that I forgot to ask about that, and that might have been extra too.

I went out of there thinking, OK, I should call Dell.  But I spent a couple of days thinking it over, asking some co-workers what they used, and one of them pointed out that our firrm has been using Hewlett-Packard, better known as HP, for years and we never had problems with them.  At that time I was thinking that since Dell sold me a good machine nine years ago, they would sell me one now if I wanted one.  I was disabused of that notion when I called Dell the very next day.

Before I called Dell, I visited their website during my lunch break in my office, jotted down some notes, and picked out a model that I thought I wanted to own.  I then called their toll free number, and I was immediately routed to a menu tree.  Fine, I don't really like the damn things, but I navigated thru it, indicating to the robot on the other end that this call was about purchasing a desktop computer.  Then I was put on hold.

Then it got better......I was routed to another one of those dreaded call centers in India!  I'm thinking OK, maybe these guys are going the way of Earthlink, but I'll play along and see where it goes.  The sales agent confirmed that my call was about a desktop computer for home use, and then said he would transfer me to an agent who would help me with this.  I'm thinking OK, am I going to get India again?  Or am I going to get routed to Texas?  I would find out, if I would just hold.

Sitting on hold, like the menu tree, is again a feature that is fast becoming ubiquitous when it comes to trying to get something done over the telephone.  And like everywhere else, I was treated to some music, with robotic interruptions reminding me that my call was important, please stay on the line, and the next available agent would be along soon to help me.

I waited some more.  The robot female came on again, "your call is very important to us....please continue to hold"....blah blah blah.....yok yok yibble yibble and then some more canned music.

Pretty soon I'm thinking, I sure am waiting a long time to get rid of some money here.  How much longer am I going to be on hold?  What will happen if I get thru?  Will I once again be talking to "Edward" or "George" or "Houston" with an Indian accent that I can't understand, or, will they drop the call......since like Earthlink, they're trying to drive down the number of customers to a level that they can handle?

I never found out.

I hung up the phone.

They were taking too long.

My lunch break was over and it was time to push forward with one of the several assigned tasks that I have.  And, I made the decision to not buy from Dell this time.

I spent some time the next few days researching HP computers.  I found that I could order from them, customize a model if I wanted to, and I found a Pavilion model that seemed like it would fit the bill.  One terabyte of hard drive space.  Optical drive.  Six USB ports, with two of them on the front.  Windows 8.1 and a fourth generation Intel processor.

I made the call last week.  I was forced to go thru the menu tree, and after a hold time of maybe fifteen seconds at the most, I was talking to a most welcome American voice that I later learned belonged to someone in Boise, Idaho.  He knew his stuff and he intelligently answered all my questions.  Yes, the machine would do this.  It would do that.  And with the software package and monitor, it came out to a price that I was willing to pay.  So, I placed the order.

It's not going to arrive all at once like the Dell did, but I will know when it will arrive, and I can even arrange with Fedex, a preferred delivery time (it will have to be signed for).  And, I might be spending an evening or two, getting it up and running.  The important thing though, is that I have a peace of mind about this purchase; a peace of mind that I knew I wasn't going to get from Best Buy, and probably not from Dell......though I won't ever know about peace of mind using Dell since they can't be bothered to hire people to pick up the phones to close a sale.

In the meantime, I'll be using my laptop beginning Tuesday, for the next few days, as that the CenturyLink modem also has contained within it, a wireless router.  And, I'm glad to say that not once have I had a net outage from my new ISP.

Once that's all set up and running, I can then start thinking about my next new toy.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.