The Neon Nurse's Charting

I'm back again. Kind of.

The window of opportunity finally opened up for the clone's brother to come down and help us with some long-standing plumbing problems. He drove down from the mountains to Denver to leave his truck at a shop for some repairs. I drove UP and fetched him home to Lamar. Over the weekend, I amassed some apprentice plumber credits I'll never use, and had a surprisingly good time busting up parts of the bathroom.

We all got to have a really nice visit, and now we also have a whole new toilet, sink and cabinet, shower and tub fittings, and lines to and from them all that actually meet code!

The downside is that I am zosted after the four days of major activity and driving, yet there's still a ton to do in the bathroom. Not to mention catching up on all the usual stuff I DIDN'T do while all this was going on. (Like reading my LJ flist!)

Funny spam subject line: I need your assistant

Jerry needed someone's assistant this weekend, too, but he had to make do with me.

As you may recall, I recently gnawed on the ol' bullet and bought a new computer, since my old one had developed the distressing habit of having fits and spells every other jump out of the box. It WAS four years old, which is at least 100 in computer years, right?

I had been hoping that the complaints and criticism going around about Windows Vista were exaggerated, the usual response to Them Changing Stuff Again. Almost as soon as I started the setting up I began to suspect the worst, but I tried to keep an open mind. I thought maybe it would be like in a classic buddy-cop movie, where the grumpy old veteran (played by me!) is given a new partner, a flashy young upstart who wants to do things his own way and ignore all the rules. They don't get along at first, but adversity brings them together and in the end, they're pals.

Sadly, this is not to be.

There are half a dozen programs I use for my business and stuff. I couldn't just transfer ANY of them over! I had to either download and install a new version, then tediously transfer the data, or worse, BUY a whole NEW program and hand-enter the data! (I'm lookin' at YOU, Microsoft Money!)

Plus, hand-entering and tweaking is about six degrees of difficulty harder than it should be, because of how Vista is apparently intended to be used. As best as I can tell, they've made this thing with big fluffy icons to click and explanations in easy words (that mean nothing) because they believe this makes it User Friendly for the untapped market of people who are computer wary, if not downright phobic.

Which would all be well and good if the damn thing wasn't so buggy and unstable.

I keep getting a pop-up wanting me to connect to the internet. When I am already connected. If I have my printer plugged in and I turn it off or unplug it, the whole computer shuts down. Hell, sometimes it shuts down on its own little whim, for no reason! (By the way, I have four times the minimum stated requirement of RAM, so that SHOULDN'T be the problem. It DOES boot fast, I'll give it that.)

I guess I shouldn't complain. (Although why would I bother to have a blog if I didn't want to complain now and then?) At least it is more or less working kind of okay now, so I can move on with my life.

So now I'm going to go finish unloading my car from the auction we really should have skipped last weekend so I will be able to haul new plumbing items for our upcoming weekend project.

When I get to the part where I'm having fun again, I'll let you know.

I got some spam the other day where the subject line said, "Not for oversmart people". Talk about your truth in spamertizing, eh? And yet, the spammers know how to cover their bets, because the same bunch sent another spam later that same day with the subject "This is not for idiots". So I guess they are aiming for customers somewhere in the middle....

There has been more than the usual evidence of me not being oversmart lately, but tonight I really outdid myself when I tried to blow up our stove. Actually I was trying to clean it with a little more zeal than usual. The stove has used to have a clock on the front with a buzzy timer and such. The faceplate had gotten seriously grimy and I got the bright idea to try to pop it off and clean it REALLY WELL.

Instead of the plexiglass face popping off, the whole clock mechanism popped OUT. While I was trying to figure out what to try next, I somehow touched the leads of the wiring to the metal edge of the stove wall...and was treated to a short but exciting fireworks display.

We were planning to buy a new stove soon anyhow.

The good part is, I didn't get hurt, and also the stove still works after I fixed all the clockish wires so they can't leak electricity. The CLOCK doesn't work, but it didn't before either, so that's no big. All we have to do now is remember that the safely light which is supposed to light when the elements are turned on doesn't anymore....

In other not oversmart news, I almost have things working right on the new computer. In general, I feel that this project should not have taken me a week to complete. More about that soon.

I'm not really at the top of my game lately. What with one thing and eleventy-three others, the ol' laser-like focus is getting a bit diffuse.

Here's one minor yet faithfully ever-present problem. I call her Smiley McFriendlyPants.



Although she belongs to the neighbors, she spends most of her time here. (Hmmm, there's that indefinable sense of deja vu again....) Mike is lobbying very, very hard to keep her. He is even being HELPFUL and COMPLIANT with parental requests, which is even harder to resist than his continual protests of undying love and her soulful pup-eyes.

In between all the everything, I have been managing to bring order out of chaos in small isolated spots.

There used to be a woodstove flue in the ceiling here. Birds kept getting stuck in it. Our adventures and experiments in dealing with addled avians in Teh Tubes would make a whole post in itself. The next-to-last adjustment I made solved the bird-trap problem, but it was unattractive and also leaked during thunderstorms. Now I've taken out the bottom half of the stovepipe entirely and double sealed the gap, which I HOPE will waterproof it. (Thanks to a former woodpecker resident, wandering birds CAN get out of the attic itself without our help. In case you were worried.)



While I was at it, I spruced (palmed?) up the oasis. Had to remove Kermit later, though. Smiley kept knocking him off the light-up flamingo....



In closing, yes, I am still far behind on correspondence, and it won't get better for at least a few more days. I chomped on the bullet and bought a replacement for my 4 year old desktop which has been giving me such fits recently. So now I have THAT transferring-over chore to do. So don't panic if you don't hear from me much, okay?

As you may recall, we have been having some problems with things breaking down or acting wonky on a far too regular basis here at the House of Unruly Fish. Like, the lawn mowers (both push and riding), the air conditioner (it came back, but will it last?), my printer, my (admittedly four year old) computer, my CAMERA, and a host of smaller things.

But when people I love get on that list, I'm sorry, it just crosses the line. My mom called a few days ago to let me know my sister has been admitted to the hospital because she has leukemia. No definitive word yet on exactly what type.

I can have the Stuff that breaks down fixed or replaced. But I cannot buy a new Bee-be Sist-O.



So I am Putting The Universe On Notice.

Enough, already. It was a little funny for a while, but it's getting old.

No more bad things are allowed to happen to people I love, care about, or admire. Or would like if I met. It just needs to stop.

Seriously.

I'm pretty sure I did some stuff on Friday, but I don't remember what.

Saturday, we went to the fair. It was boatloads of fun, but I personally walked about three times further in one day than I usually do in whole week, and it like ta keeled me ded. I did not do ANYTHING more strenuous than eating yesterday, mostly lying in bed with my warm cozy laptop on my chest, catching up on internet stuff in between naps.

I feel quite a bit more the thing today, and I plan to share a few pictures, spaced out in time so as not to swamp anyone.

From the Colorado State Fair midway -- The Amazing Spideman...and his pony.

(I think someone's Spider-Sense needs adjusting, as he seems to be completely unaware of the lion about to attack!)