Repair Man Cometh.......

Well, the plotters repairman came yesterday. He called me en route yesterday afternoon and apologized to me. Apparently living in the state of Ohio your whole life doesn't necessarily mean you know the geography of it. He started out in Columbus and had to travel to Lorain, OH which is a suburb of Cleveland. He said he was driving through traffic but still planned on being here at my office by 3:30. When he got here, he told me he had no idea where Lorain even was he thought it was a little closer to Lima. Lorain and Lima are around 120 miles apart, depending on where in Lorain he was. He got here about 3:45 with his breif case and tools, but no part. He said the part was on back order and he thought he would at least try to get it working until the part arrived. He was here for about 45 mins and decided he couldn't do a darn thing. The part is suppsoed ot be in on the 25th and he would be here as soon as he could that same day with the part. I don't think anyone here is even working the day before Thanksgiving, so it looks like I will be coming in to make sure the plotter gets fixed. No big deal I guess. I could use the time and the pay.

Chilly but not so much so.....

It's a little chilly here this morning. The thermometer says 40 but I am afraid I have officially started to count in the dreaded WIND CHILL FACTOR.



Wind speed is around 10 mph...so let me do my calculations........
Ummm...yep, it's chilly. The Sycamore trees on the other side of the river were shaking, I KID YOU NOT!

I should have built a a wind break on the east side of the shed last weekend, now I will have to do it in a little bit cooler temperatures. The temps are not so bad, it just the wind, I don't like WIND.

Friday the 13th

Well, my day hasn’t been going very well at all. I am trying to put promotional sheets together and having trouble finding the pictures I need to use or the proper text that needs to be spoken. These pages are supposed to be waking someone up…SCREAMING at them telling them, THIS IS THE FIRM I WANT!!! My printers aren’t working right, I keep getting people asking me questions about their problems, people are arguing over what I should or shouldn’t use in my work, and now neither one of the plotters or is the giant scanner is working.

Input on projects is all well and good, but not necessarily taken well when you are already having a bad day.



Yeah, right, like I am supposed to find ANY technical support on a Friday Afternoon?!

**** MONDAY UPDATE ****

The service guy called me back. He had me go through the same thing we went through the LAST time this happened. He finally decided that he was going to have to order a part. It might be here by Wednesday, then he can come and install it.

Seems to me when you spend $27,000 on a piece of equipment right at a year ago, they'd be at least a LITTLE apologetic about the situation. Here's to hoping he gets here Wednesday, he wasn't too convincing that THAT would even happen.

Ok, so here's the story...I got this new phone (verizon). It's a smart phone , I guess that is what they call them. I put all my contact information in there as well as everyone's email address. Since I am now paying for internet access it is cheaper for me to send emails over my phone than sending text messages (which I am not really good at).

The key board on this phone (HTC Ozone) is so small I can hardly even read the keys. Not ever really doing texting and emailing over a phone I really didn't think about the use a keyboard when I got the darn thing. So now I am trying to get my computer to talk to my phone so that I can back everything up. Seems the WINDOWS MOBILE 6.0 has some sort of error and refuses to run certain programs so I have to reinstall. The only thing is, the Active Sync on my computer will not allow not me to back everything up from my phone because it as well is broke. I uninstalled my active sync and tried downloading it and reinstalling it.

I have now come to the realization that Microsoft, I am blaming Bill Gates, has done it yet again!! I cannot sync any of my contacts UNTIL I make Outlook my primary email program, or whatever. I don't WANT Outlook! I don't want anything to do with Outlook. Outlook in my opinion allows all kinds of viruses of to invade my personal space. Microsoft has made (not by design) itself easily infectable!

So, as far as backing up my portable device....it'll be using the old fashioned stuff, a pen and a piece of paper.

Just a few remaining question:

WHO the HECK are some of these contacts in my phone????
Who the HECK is Lynn...I don't even KNOW a Lynn??
What about TG...who is THAT??! WHAT is that??!!
Who put these in my phone and where can I find them?

Well, little Dillon went to the vet Saturday morning to get his last round of puppy shots. It's amazing how one might happen to stumble on a 'Diamond in the Rough' from time to time.




I found this little guy in a cardboard box, it must have been the last day of August of this year. I forgot how much he weighed when I found him but it wasn't very much. The poor little guy was so skinny, every bone in his little body was visible. Just a little over two months later, this is what I have now.



He was in the house for about 5 hours Saturday, investigating, sleeping and climbing on me. He is a happy, friendly, clumsy puppy. He is an AWESOME 'little' guy....I say little in terms of age I guess, because his weight is now over 60#. He is just a little shorter than Festus now but they play together great!



Dillon plays with Festus in short bursts but he continually looks for me. He is almost constantly under my feet, tripping me, pushing me, waiting for me. If I am doing something and get out of his site while he is playing, he searches me out. I still don't understand how someone could toss a living creature out???? They will never even know what they missed out on.........

I got to work sort of WAAAY early this morning.....I pulled into my normal parking spot, turned the lights off and continued on my way into the office. Took my coat off slung it over the back of my chair and sat down and got to work. The boss told me he'd be in early today and I have a project that needs to be done today so I wanted to get things going just before he got there. I did not even SEE another person come in until almost 8:30. Startin' time is 8:00 boys!

Anyway, I went to lunch with someone today and so I got to ride shotgun. As we pulled into the drive coming back it almost looked like my lights were on. Hmmmm....I walked up to the truck and peering through the window, indeed, Yes, my lights were on. Seems I had managed to turned the headlights off but didn't get it pushed down quite enough to turn the running lights off...(sound effects)...wah..wah wah... Jumped in the truck and attempted to start her up......as she spoke back to my in clicks and electrical sputters, I determined that unless a bit of good luck would come my way, I was walking the 18 miles home at the end of the day.

I stumbled around in the barn for a little bit and came upon my goal!! A CHARGER!! I went back out to the truck popped the hood and set the charger up. I know I have an extension cord in my truck almost Always so I went back in the truck to dig out the cord. Got, hooked everything up. Ran the cord down under the fence rail, through the poison ivy and into the building and pulled it in. I let it charge for about 20 mins and went back out and tried to start her up. She fired right up for me!! I put everything away and came back in.
I left her running and I am going to go back out and in a little bit to shut it off.

I love my truck! So what if all the plastic parts are being held on with duct tape! So what is she has over 300,000 miles in her! So what if the drivers side mirror won't stay in place! So what if the tailgate won't stay shut anymore (who needs a tailgate)!! I LOVE my truck!!!

I'm buying some lottery tickets tonight!!

My vacation also included a trip to Bishop Hill, IL. My sister camp with my Mother and I the FIRST time we went. We got into town a little late so we didn't get to see most of the shops or restaurants. We DID get to go to the Village Smithy, a great little quilt shop. I of course bought a couple of shirts and a hooded sweatshirt. The tee shirt for myself of course was "Got Glögg with picture of a a viking underneath. I will have to get a picture of that and post it.

This is the one of the only pictures I took while visiting Bishop Hill (and this was taken just outside of town on my way out).




My sister and I then went through a corn maze which we were informed that the fencing (set up the night before for the haunted cornfield, were taken down. We had to get through 12 check points to complete and of course get our free PIE PUMPKIN upon our departure. We got through #1 & #2 easily enough, but we ran into orange fencing everywhere. We were trapped! We had to cheat and step through three rows of corn to another path and then we were off . Is it cheating when they don't give you maps and you use your cell phone to take pics at the checks points of the maps?? We decided not to tell the authorities about the cell phone use and take the pie pumpkins home anyway.

I think it was the next day my mother and I went BACK to Bishop Hill. She needed quilt material and I helped pick some out. I also bought some more souvenirs. We ate lunch at PL Johnson's Restaurant. It is a very nice Old Time place. Wooden floor boards that sound hollow when you walk across them. Lots of stuff on the walls, it was pretty neat.

I took this pic with my cell phone right by the Park in town I guess is what you would call it, I don't remember seeing a name anywhere although I am sure that it had one.

One day the second week of vacation we traveled to Riverside, IA. For those of you who don't know anything about Riverside, it is the Future Birthplace of Capt. James T. Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise on a five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

James Tiberious Kirk will be born in Riverside, IA on March 22, 2233. We saw the monument to prove it.



I very rough version of the enterprise was also found there. Look like it has already had a few test flights.



A bronze bust to the future Captain was on display at the museum, where the very help woman in charge that day informed us that she hopes to get money from the town so that the museum can purchase the complete series of "The Next Generation"

Here are a couple of panoramic pictures I put together....you know, pasting together individual picture in PhotoShop...Not a real great representation of the how it REALLY looked but I tired my best in taking the pics. Anyway, this was taken on the highest hill I could get to startign out on our trip BACK to Iowa, still on my Aunt and Uncle's Property.

Upper image

Lower part off the roads edge

Now that I see it, it looks like I should have left the upper image a little bit larger. It is WAAAY too small. I may have to try that again....

Well, I have been back from vacation for about a week now and after getting caught up at work I thought I could get a couple lines in....

I got out to Iowa in about 6 hours and the next morning my mother and I left for the Sand Hills Area of Nebraska. We were going to stop for a bit in Winterset, IA so that I could visit the John Wayne Museum. We drove around through the countryside looking for some of the Madison County Covered Bridges, we found three of them before we reached Winterset.

Mom at the Holliwell Bridge

After viewing some of the bridges we arrived in Winterset. Apparently the town was having a John Wayne Festival and that tiny town had absolutley no place to park. Unbelievable....We decided to stop again on the way home. On our way back to I-80 I saw the coolest silo. So I had to turn around to get a picture of it!!

Silo just south of I-80 in Iowa

We arrived well after dark at our destination, or so the GPS Lady informed us. Little could she have known that she had us almost totally lost. No lights could been seen, no dark outline shapes of a house, barn or anything could be see. We were however on the right road, just not were we NEEDED to be. We had no cell phone reception so we were out of luck there but we stayed on the road we were on and and just kept looking for a house on the corner (that was all the valid info we had at last cell call...LOL!!...We did eventully find my Aunt and Uncles house and had dinner. They also had another aunt of mine visiting from Washington whom I hadn't seen in probably 30 plus years. So it really was a reunion of sorts. We then loaded back up again and followed my other Aunt and Uncle to their home a little further south. I got the car all unpacked and we finally got into bed. about 5 mins later, I asked my mom if she heard turkeys??? She told me no and to go to sleep.....HA....the next morning.....

Turkeys grazing I guess....

These were in the trees all around the house, they were in the pasture right aross the road, they were obviously in the front yard. I am a hunter and let me tell you, I had the shakes. Had I only brought the shot gun. I am not even sure I needed a gun, I am fairly certain I could have hit them with a sling shot. Oh well, they will live on I guess.

That's all for now...have work to do....I'll try to post mor later.