Ever have one of those days?

Yesterday, my nephew who was writing a senior thesis, called and asked if I could scan him, some old pictures, and I said I would.  I use an application called PaperPort  to store all my scanned documents.  It has an icon at the bottom of the application where I can drag whatever I want to Microsoft Outlook.  I have an older version of Outlook (2007) and the newer version of PaperPort  all running on Windows 7.  I don't know if all that information  is important, but it might be all connected.  When I dragged those pictures, it seemed to be working fine, but then it hung there for about 3 or4 minutes.  I had to use the" control+alt+delete to get out of the program.  I then tried to start up Outlook several times, but it wouldn't respond.

My nephew called and said it would be easier to come get the pictures, which he did, but I still had those saved emails in Outlook, and I wouldn't be able to use the software to write or receive emails.  I called Microsoft, but that was more like a sales pitch to buy the new Outlook 10.  I went to Sam's to buy the student version which costs $229.

Now I had three problems. The first problem was the lost information. The second was that god-awful price, and the third was a non techie wife offering her advice of rebooting.  I kept looking at the receipt for the unopened software box and went over to my laptop and looked at the settings for a working Microsoft Outlook.  I went back to my desktops but the settings were the same as those on the laptop, so I said, " what could it hurt" and shut the desktop down.  When it booted up, I had a working copy of Microsoft Outlook and a wife humming away all proud.  I guess I cleared the cache and memory when I shut the computer down.

I took the software back to Sam's but held my composure when she asked me, what was wrong with the software, I smiled showed her the unopened box and said," it's not what I wanted" but that was the wrong answer because then she said I could trade in for something else.  That's the second time in the last three months that they seemed reluctant to credit my debit card but rather do a merchandise exchange.  She called her manager who properly gave me my money back.
 
I felt good about the exchange, but as I was turning into the driveway,I noticed and I had to bring in the trash can.  You don't distract people who are prone to senior moments like myself because this morning, I was hunting all over the house for my keys and after about 45 minutes, I decided to go look for them in the truck.  There they were; I left them in the ignition with the door unlocked all night long.  I guess I was safe because the truck is too old and ugly for anyone to consider stealing besides crime rate is down in Victoria. It might have been a different story if I parked the truck alongside the Tanglewood Recycling Center;on second thought, maybe not.

Off to a bad start

I know that the events of the first week of January do not necessarily indicate what type of year I will have. At least, I hope it doesn't. This is only day 2 but I'm not off to a good start mentally.

Last nights, Dallas Cowboys loss was upsetting because I really thought they would put in a better effort. The tackling was atrocious as was the blocking, even if they pulled out a victory after a 21-0 setback, it would have just delayed the inevitable because you don't have the fundamental down by week 16; don't expect them to come back in the first playoff game.

I bought my wife a computer tablet for Christmas and after setting it up for her, and I've told it was better for her to learn on her own. That's my way of instructing people; make your own mistakes and learn from them. Things were going pretty good until she told me that her tablet would not charge. I said," you're probably doing something wrong'" but he just left it there on the coffee table, and I took the hint. As I tried to trace the problems, I said to myself that it can only be three things:1. The outlet was bad 2. My wife didn't insert the cable into the tablet or outlet correctly 3. She was too impatient and didn't give the battery enough time to charge. I went with the latter but when I checked it 30 minutes later, the battery icon was a bright red. I connected the tablet to the USB Port of her laptop and the tablet started charging. That left me off the hook, for while so I got to watch the rest of the game but this morning problem 2 came up. I bought the tablet at our local Sam's Club. My wife had already typed in all the information and downloaded the apps she wanted, so all I was interested in was a replacement charger. I called the 800 number, and Rodney answered( with an Indian accent) telling me that Sam's had not reported our tablet as being sold, so I had to scan the receipt to him, he thanked me (I think) and said that a charger would be mailed to me, so I hung up. I got a little suspicious because I never gave him my mailing address, but I did have a case number. I immediately called back but this time Anita answered in an American voice telling me that Rodney should have told me that tablets or replacement parts wouldn't be  in until the end of January , but if I didn't want to wait, she would send me a $65.00 store credit. Huh? I decided to call the local Sam's Club to see if I could replace the tablet, but they informed me that they have completely sold out of that tablet and weren't sure if they were going to reorder. It's not an earth-shaking problem because she can still charge off her laptop but if another problem pops up, I know that it won't be until the end of the month before the problem is resolved. I have a sneaky suspicion that the “end of the month" is not a date certain but more of a stalling tactic.

I submitted my first blog of the New Year to the VA this is morning but as of late I haven't received any comments on any of my most recent blogs. I'm going to try like hell not to respond to the trash talkers and just state my opinion, link some sources and move on. Have you noticed that one trash talker will get the ball –a- rolling and then the rest of the parasites hop on for the ride? I really don't care if a person likes Obama or the Democrats, for that matter, because those are just personal opinions, and it may or may not have anything to do with the issues at hand. I genuinely like the idea of humanizing a poster. I think that's the idea of using real names because then you can take their objective views or rants and not be offended by them. That's just "X" being "X."….User names serve the same purpose as real names to me.

I hope the old timers at the VA  don’t leave in frustration because it will be a lonely year.