April has started so beautiful here, it’s hard not to celebrate every day. So, Happy April 2nd! Today’s weather forecast is sunny, high 70’s, with a nice ocean breeze to keep it comfortable. I do love the 5 days of spring we get in Florida before the humidity jumps to one gillion percent and I melt on the way to the car every day.
If you fell for the Google April Fools joke that I wrote about yesterday, give yourself a hug for me. Ah, wouldn’t it be great if the sewers were dual-functional? I had hopes for catching sis with it, but after last year she was just too smart. How smart is she? Well, don’t tell anyone (she hasn’t, so I guess she wants to keep her anonymity), but I think she was a big part of solving Lie group E8.
I rescued a few veggie seedlings from dehydration at the hardware store last week, so I’ll be putting plants in the ground this week. My seedlings are still too young to go in - I really should have planted the seeds when they got here, damn it! Doesn’t do much good to order seeds and never get them in soil. Ah well, one of my rescuees is an Early Girl Tomato plant, so if I can nurse it back I’ll have fresh tomatoes by the end of May. After seeing the horrid pickings at the grocery store yesterday, I can’t wait to taste the lusciousness that is vine-ripened again.
Enjoy your day! Hope it’s a beautiful one.
Ready to fully utilize your indoor plumbing? Tired of not getting a signal while you’re balancing your laptop on your knees, perched over the porcelain throne? Then TiSP may be fore you!
Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.
After following along the beta reports, I can tell you I am eagerly awaiting delivery of my own installation kit! Yet another reason that the debate will no longer be PC vs Mac, but sewer vs septic tank.
Welcome to April!
I officially killed the new laptop last night. I couldn’t even get to the BSOD - no, the best I could do was pull up an invalid boot.ini message, and an invitation to reformat my hard drive.
After 30 minutes with google (on the desktop) and a few half-hearted attempts to convince myself it wasn’t a bad hard drive, I caved in and called Dell support. And after 45 minutes on the “what did you say” cordless while the kids argued in the background (I only had to lock myself behind the bedroom doors twice to hear what the non-English-native tech was saying), she confirmed that yes, indeed, I had a bad hard drive. They’d be happy to send me a blank hard drive, since I still had all the installation disks, and I could install all the software myself.
I vented. Loudly and vigorously. And demanded her supervisor, after insisting she give me her name. That got me put on hold again, but after 5 minutes she was back telling me - hey! - we can send you a pre-installed replacement.
Now, I’m not sure what happened exactly over the next 20 minutes. She confirmed all my information, then put me on hold for 19 minutes. No really - I timed it. And when she came back she gave me a shipping number, and said I should have the replacement in 3-5 days. Which was just fine with me. I hung up the phone and finished the dishes, content with knowing that probably sometime next week I’d have my replacement.
Sean came home for lunch today, and brought me a box. What’s that? I asked him. Probably your hard drive, he told me.
I looked at the clock - it had been less than 18 hours since I called. And yes, inside that box was my replacement hard drive.
Holy Toledo, bat delivery!
So today I’m installing software. For what I think is the fourth time since Christmas. Please, please, let this be the last time this year I have to install 18 applications at one time.
One last note - was it a pain in the ass having to deal with a bad hard drive? Yes. But it won’t keep me from getting another Dell - I’m still amazed at my less-than-24-hour delivery. As long as this hard drive works (once I’ve got all my goodies on it) it will be the happiest pc-death I’ve ever had.
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| 13 words of the day (from http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/) - I shall, perforce, bring you a Thursday 13 on “13 words of the day”. Bonus points for you if you use one or more of them in the comments  1. perforce: By necessity; by force of circumstance 2. vivify: to endue with life; to enliven. 3. interstice: a space between things or parts. 4. neologism: a new word or expression; the use or creation of new words or expressions. 5. derogate: to deviate from expectation; also, to detract; also, to disparage 6. redact: to edit. 7. bloviate: to speak or write in a pompous manner. 8. concinnity: elegance — used chiefly of literary style. 9. sui generis: unique. 10. apotheosis: a model of excellence or perfection of a kind. 11. grandiloquent: lofty in style. 12. Ides: the fifteenth day of March, May, July, and October, and the thirteenth day of the other months 13. surcease: cessation; stop; end. I shall surcease! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 2. Elle Fredrix 3. Lene 5 Kim Rees 9 Jamie 11 dayna 12 Tilly Greene 13 RG 15 - Emma Sinclair 16 - Loribelle Hunt 17 - Heather L 18 - Kate Willoughby 19 - Denise Patrick 20 - Karen Erickson 21 - Gina 22 - Shannon Stacey 23 - Jennifer Bianco 24 - Jennifer McKenzie 25 - Lauren 26 - Tempest Knight 27 - Kuanyin 28 - Michelle 29 - |
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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Winter is gone!
I woke up to feel Samantha’s cold feet burrowing up against me as she climbed into bed, and enjoyed a whispered giggle with her while I tried to convince her it wasn’t time to get up just yet. Unfortunately the brightening sky - and her dad’s alarm clock - gave me away.
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Link of the day - Free Text Message Reminders
I’ve been looking for a good reminder system. Microsoft Outlooks is nice, but only actually works if you’re at your pc when you need to be reminded of something. I had hopes for Remember The Milk, but that didn’t do it for me - I had to actually log into the site to see what I was supposed to remember. Then I found Text Memos today, and while it has no catchy name it does do exactly what I need. I tell it when to send me a reminder, and it sends me a text message at the exact time I need it. Now, to get all those niece and nephew birthdays in there so I am not three weeks late with cards anymore….
The Caffeine Database has an extensive sortable list of caffeinated beverages on their site. I was surprised to find Starbucks Grande coffee - that’s just a large cup of coffee - at the top of the list,well above regular old “coffee, brewed”. Maybe the countries love of Starbucks isn’t because of the great taste (mmmm, burned roast) but because of that great caffeine kick?
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| 13 toasts to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day
No one can toast like the Irish. If you’re sharing a drink or three this St Patty’s Day, whether it be green beer, Irish Whiskey, or a Diet Coke, add some of the spirit of the day to the moment with one of these heartfelt phrases. 1 - “May you live as long as you want, And never want as long as you live.” Links to other Thursday Thirteens! |
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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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| Thirteen Things I need to do today - (I wrote this up at 6am - almost 9 and a half hours ago - and have gotten 1, 2, half of 3, 7, 11, and 13 done. And added another 13 to the list.)1. Blog. So you can stop commenting on last months posts. 2. Call in some prescriptions that need to be refilled. Must do today! 3. Laundry. 4. Go to the bank. This one is a week overdue. 5. Clean the pool. Except it’s raining off and on, which makes this one very easy to put off another day. 6. Call and get quotes on having our vents cleaned. Where did that coupon go? 7. Report my scores from the Golden Heart entries I judged this year. I read the things two months ago, I just keep forgetting to log into the website and input my scores. 8. Finish working on the Passionate Ink bookshelf. 9. End of month account reconciling. Ugh. 10. Get a headcount on the attendees to the Passionate Ink workshop this next week. 11. Tell my kids I love them. 12. Figure out what to do about the books the post office lost, that needed to be in a judges hands two weeks ago. 13. Call the State of California AGAIN, and hope I get someone on the phone who knows about California State tax laws. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! |
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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Sean is home from Vegas. The house has the normal balance of arguing kids, stinky dog, exhausted husband, and me. I’m having decadent thoughts about a bottle of bubbly, chocolate, and hot tubbing with my husband after the kids go to bed.
It’s very likely that the bubbly, chocolate, and hot tub will stay no more than thoughts, because by the time the oldest kid goes to sleep I will be into my fourth hour of snoozing. But that’s ok; at least I can look forward to hearing Sean snore next to me tonight.
Yes, all is right in my world.
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| Thirteen Things I want to do this year -1. Watch a sunrise at the beach - we live 1 mile from the coast, this *shouldn’t* be that hard 2. Sell a book - probably shouldn’t put something on here that I don’t have total control over, but it’s on my mind quite a bit - so, here it is. 3. Go somewhere I’ve never gone before. Hubby has 2 vouchers on Delta that expire in September - I’ve got to find somewhere new, somewhere it costs less than $400 to fly to, and somewhere he and I both want to go. On a weekend when he has no golf, when his parents can watch the kids. This is going to be nearly impossible… 4. Pay our taxes in full, and in advance of the deadline. No more monthly installments! (This one looks like its going to happen, woohoo!) 5. Stay in bed past 9am - almost as out of my control as #2 6. Tour a vineyard Mmmm, Calera or St Augustine? 7. Embarrass my kids more often. (My son is having 3 friends for a sleepover this weekend - this should be a great chance to work on this!) 8. Learn to cook something new that everyone - my picky eaters, and myself - love 9. Read 100 books. I’m actually really far into this, if I count Novellas - well over 20 already. I need to track them, since the whole “Now Reading” thing has disappointed me (most of the books I read aren’t in Amazon) 10. Write 8 books. Getting there. 11. Tell my kids I love them, every single day. This should go a long way towards making #7 come true. 12. Grow my own garden from seeds - doesn’t sound so hard, but would you believe those seeds I ordered last month are still in their packets in my in-box? 13. Visit a museum. I’m going to be so mad at myself, with no one but myself to blame, if I don’t get to this before March 18th! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 2. Bubba 5. Annie |
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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