The last few weeks have been a bit challenging on the computer front. We started having problems with an add on to Microsoft Word that I had installed quite a while back for real estate. I haven't used it in quite a while but it over time had started to mess up the registry. Not a big problem just uninstall it right. Not so easy. It didn't want to go without a fight. After a week or so of running every registry cleaner I could find I finally was able to make it go away and restore at least some functionality to my Microsoft Office Suite which was trashed in the process. However, that turned out to be quite a bit more than just reinstalling as I had upgraded Office 2003 to Office 2007 instead of buying a full copy. Turns out that was a bad idea. After much pouring through tech sites on the web I found an article on how to get my old Office 2003 limping along.
I then decided the better part of valor was to install a new email client, Office Suite and Internet Browser. Open Office works quite well for what Pam and I need and the price is right, free. It reads and write all of our old files. My new email client is Thunderbird by Mozilla, it handles spam much better than outlook and has some neat features outlook does not. And finally the new internet Browser is Firefox also by Mozilla. All have given new life to my office PC. I was actually out shopping for a new one on Saturday. Now there is no need.
On another front I have been working a temp job for the last four weeks and probably have four more to go. I don't know if I will make it the full four weeks. I am sitting in front of a computer from 8:30 until 5:30 every day typing pretty much non stop. Short lunch break and lots of typing. Not exactly my cup of tea. I have never in my career done anything remotely similar. The closest I could come would be when I was scheduling the High School back in the 80s and that only lasted for about a week. Foreclosure Listing Coordinator is what I am doing for this company. However you would never guess that is non stop email. Oh well. Live and learn.
Hope all of you are well.
Bruce and Pam
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
A Short Trip Down Memory Lane
When Pam and I first got married we were pretty creative. We had to be to live on a starting teacher's salary. We built or remodeled most of our furniture and apparently had a pretty good time doing it. We have recently begun to revisit some of those types of projects now for hobby more than for necessity. It seems we not only enjoyed building the funiture or crafts but also got exactly what we wanted rather than buying what was offered. In the last year or so we both returned to sewing, Pam makes cards and I have returned to carpentry. She has enrolled in a quilting class starting in October. I fully intend to drag back out the lathe and the woodcarving tools (still in the planning stages) in the near future.
The jist of the story is that I finished a project that has been on the board for a while. It has just been too hot to get out and build the frame for it. However, a recent brief reprieve in the heat sent me scurring into the garage to get the frame put together and below is the result.
Smokey had to put his two cents in after giving it a good sniff. Blaze is small enough he can fit under it and I left a secret hiding place inside for him.
The jist of the story is that I finished a project that has been on the board for a while. It has just been too hot to get out and build the frame for it. However, a recent brief reprieve in the heat sent me scurring into the garage to get the frame put together and below is the result.
This ottoman was the first upholstered project in about 25 years. For good measure I threw in a matching pillow for the chair. Designed and built from scratch the neat thing is the fun we had finding the fabric and then also that we can redo it anytime we want.
Blaze's favorite project is still the new cat beds I made for the bathroom window (kitty TV) that match the new curtins I made.
Blaze also likes to sit on the back of my chair. That way he doesn't lose track of me and miss out on getting a cat treat.
Pam started making Baby Quilts for the teachers at here school that were expecting. Little did we know there would be a baby boom. This is just some of them.
For most of these we included recieving blankets, burp cloths and wipee and tissue holders that match. For several I made matching gift sacks (diaper bags) from the same material.
Most were coordinated to a theme (at least color wise) that they had established for the baby's room. Several were baseball themed. Finding baseball material is not easy. I ended up at several fabric outlets on Harry Hines (Dallas' Market District) to find something that would work.
Well this was a long post so until later. Ciao
Bruce
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Saturday September 4th
Well, the heat here in Dallas has finally broken and we have returned to more normal temperatures for this time of year.
The last few weeks have been busy. Pam has returned to work and the school year is underway. I have managed to close out my Real Estate business. Tying up loose ends took a little more effort than I expected and reworking my phone back to a normal phone (or what I consider normal phone) turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. After many hours on the phone and in the AT&T store though I did get it done.
I am also back down to one email. I you have anything beside the Verizon.net email it will no longer reach me. It has been a real treat to stop receiving the 50-100 emails per day I was getting. Not to mention dropping the email off my phone has been great. I know I spent a lot of years teaching people and schools about technology. However; I am not sure with what I seeing around me these days that it is necessarily a good thing. So many people have a zombie like look on their face as they walk around with their smart phones, ipods, ipads, etc. Seems like they are forgetting how to talk to an actual person. Pam and I go out to eat and see families sit down and every member pulls out some electronic gadget and proceeds to entertain themselves. I seems we are losing the ability to appreciate silence. I still freak out the car salesman when they want to go on about the sound systems in the cars and I look at them and say I wouldn't even have a radio in the car if it didn't come with it. I seldom turn it on. They look at me like some sort of alien. Pam usually has to assure them I am not pulling their leg.
I will step off my soap box now. I was approached shortly before the end of August to do some temp work in September, October and November. I start training on Sept 3. This will be interesting as I have not been tied to a desk in quite a few years. This is largely handling paperwork on foreclosed properties. We will see is this is something I do more of in the future. While I have retired I have always intended to have some thing to do at least part time. One of the things Pam and I had discussed not only for me but for her when she retires is to temp 4-6 months out of the year to have play money to travel or pursue hobbies. We will see how this works as to if the future will be part time jobs or short term full time temp work.
The nice thing is to have the luxury of figuring it out. Pam and I hope all are doing well and until the next post, God Bless.
Bruce
The last few weeks have been busy. Pam has returned to work and the school year is underway. I have managed to close out my Real Estate business. Tying up loose ends took a little more effort than I expected and reworking my phone back to a normal phone (or what I consider normal phone) turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. After many hours on the phone and in the AT&T store though I did get it done.
I am also back down to one email. I you have anything beside the Verizon.net email it will no longer reach me. It has been a real treat to stop receiving the 50-100 emails per day I was getting. Not to mention dropping the email off my phone has been great. I know I spent a lot of years teaching people and schools about technology. However; I am not sure with what I seeing around me these days that it is necessarily a good thing. So many people have a zombie like look on their face as they walk around with their smart phones, ipods, ipads, etc. Seems like they are forgetting how to talk to an actual person. Pam and I go out to eat and see families sit down and every member pulls out some electronic gadget and proceeds to entertain themselves. I seems we are losing the ability to appreciate silence. I still freak out the car salesman when they want to go on about the sound systems in the cars and I look at them and say I wouldn't even have a radio in the car if it didn't come with it. I seldom turn it on. They look at me like some sort of alien. Pam usually has to assure them I am not pulling their leg.
I will step off my soap box now. I was approached shortly before the end of August to do some temp work in September, October and November. I start training on Sept 3. This will be interesting as I have not been tied to a desk in quite a few years. This is largely handling paperwork on foreclosed properties. We will see is this is something I do more of in the future. While I have retired I have always intended to have some thing to do at least part time. One of the things Pam and I had discussed not only for me but for her when she retires is to temp 4-6 months out of the year to have play money to travel or pursue hobbies. We will see how this works as to if the future will be part time jobs or short term full time temp work.
The nice thing is to have the luxury of figuring it out. Pam and I hope all are doing well and until the next post, God Bless.
Bruce
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)