Horse Manure Park

I could categorize this weekend as "first world problems" for myself. Petty stuff, I know, considering some people don't know where their next meal is coming from or don't have clean water to drink. Still, they're my problems. It started last night when I tripped walking up the steps while carrying my iPad (yes, I was still sober at this point). My left forearm hit the stairs and my right hand (with iPad) reached out to break my fall. Somehow the iPad still works, but the case didn't fare so well. I almost had my excuse to get a new iPad since mine is old and S-L-O-W. Maybe better luck next time. Also, yesterday I solidified my reputation as a wold class computer-illiterate moron.  I wanted to update my Mac with the new Sierra operating system. I decided to back up my iTunes data via external hard drive (good idea, Sam). It had been five years since I backed up anything (yes, five years) and I could not remember how to do it. I went to the Apple web s...

We made a big move yesterday.  Neil's bedroom was officially moved to the upper level and his old room on the lower level (formerly known as the baby room or nursery) was transitioned into the toy room.  It was a lot of moving, a lot of stair climbing (and a lot of complaining about the moving and stair climbing) but it was well worth the effort. We also moved our big screen t.v. (an old rear projection set) into the toy room so the kids have their own little movie theater when they want to watch a movie. Best of all, the adults now have the upper level to themselves and the lower level of our house is now being used for something other than laundry and sleeping! The new toy room.... at long last! Playing a fishing game.  Bean bag chairs will be coming this Christmas. In other news, my iPod Classic had a massive stroke yesterday.  I've no idea what happened to it.  I plugged it into my computer Friday night, but iTunes would not acknowledge it - di...

A quick note before the weekend.  We are off to Bismarck tomorrow after Ava's last day of preschool.  Next year she starts kindergarten.  I don't see how that's possible because she was just born yesterday. Got the lawn mowed today.  This is the second time getting that job done so far this season.  We've had plenty of rain and nice weather - a perfect combination for growing a bumper crop of grass... er, the legal kind of grass, I should say.  I suppose the illegal kind would grow nicely in this weather too? I'm adjusting to my new computer.  I tell ya, a Mac is everything my friends were telling me it would be, and more.  Easy to use, smooth operation, and the damn thing just works .  What a nice change! Neil's vocabulary has tripled in the last week or so.  For the longest time he grunted and screeched as a means of communicating, but now he's actually using words and they are coming fast and furious.  "Light" is a new one...

Well what do you know, I'm back!  It has been an interesting couple of weeks here.  We've been inundated with sickness... Ava was sick for nearly two weeks and ended up losing nearly 10 pounds (weight she couldn't afford to lose).  Beth was sick for a week.  Neil was sick for a couple of days.  Somehow, I avoided it.  Of course, I was sick last month, so I did my time. My old laptop was also sick.  Very sick.  Another virus knocked it for a loop and a half.  I ended up making the decision to go a different direction.  Goodbye Bill Gates, hello Steve Jobs.  From one billionaire to another, right? Yes, I got a MacBook.  I am still trying to get the hang of it - it is a different operating system, but I am very slowly figuring it out - sort of.  My old college buddy Dan  has been helping get familiar with the ins and outs of this new machine.  It really is a lot different than what I'm used to, but change is not...

Hello friends.  My laptop has been stricken with a virus and it's been in the shop for several days.  I took it in early last week and Brainerd Computers took the virus off and got my computer back to me the same day.  Unfortunately when I went back online I had another virus within 20 minutes or so.  I called them back and they said, "No, that shouldn't happen.  You better bring it right back in." Luckily the technician who works on my computer, James, is an honest Scotsman (I've done business with him several times in the past) and he said in his thick accent, "I'll be truthful with ya Sam, I think I might have missed something the first time because this shouldn't have happened.  I'm very sorry."  He charged me for the original virus removal, which he rightly should, but he's not charging me a dime more.  Good thing, too, because he's run into problems and he's spent a lot of time repairing corrupted files, and other compl...

I got my computer back today.  I had a virus and 36 items of malware attached to my hard drive, which damaged part of my operating system.  McAfee did a superb job of protecting me, didn't it?  I'll never, ever use that company or any of its products again. James (from Scotland) at Brainerd Computers had to repair my operating system.  When I got my laptop back, things seemed to be running okay although I could not get iTunes to work (which is a BIG deal to me!). I had to call James back and he walked me through a few things that didn't work and he finally said, "We're probably dealing with a corrupt file, which would not be uncommon after repairing your operating system.  Just uninstall iTunes, go to the Apple web site and install a new iTunes program.  That should get rid of your corrupt file and fix things." My heart sank.  I have almost 2,000 songs on iTunes.  I couldn't imagine putting all of that music back on, one song at a time....

I was born and raised in Minnesota.  I am sure I'll die here, too.  I pride myself in being a hearty Minnesotan.  We are used to cold winters around here. But son-of-a-b*tch... is it cold outside! Tonight will mark the third consecutive night where the low will be at least 25 degrees below zero.  Three nights may not sound that bad, but after while it starts to wear on a person.  Actually, it starts to become painful. I liken it to sitting on a hairbrush for three consecutive days.  At first it doesn't seem so bad.  Then it gets annoying.  After a couple of days it starts to hurt.  Towards the end it is downright painful. What I'm trying to say is three nights at -25 degrees feels like a hairbrush in your ass. Okay, maybe that isn't the best analogy, but you get the general idea.    There really is not much else to do but sit inside my toasty house with my wife and children and drink heavily. Actually, a nice cup...

Hello, Bloggerland... I am back.  Happy December 1st.  Only 24 more shopping days 'till Christmas! I am still trying to catch up on my e-mails.  I haven't been around a computer much over the past week.  My laptop suffered a massive epileptic seizure the day before Thanksgiving.  It totally crashed and burned.  I entrusted it into the capable hands of James at Brainerd Computers on Monday and he diagnosed the problem and fixed it right away. It seems Windows automatically downloaded a driver which wasn't certified yet and it corrupted something-or-other in my computer.  At least, that's my layman's understanding of it.  Word of advice: turn off your automatic Windows updates and acknowledge everything manually.  Specifically, do not allow Windows to download or install any hardware drivers from Microsoft.  At least that was the advice Mr. Computer gave to me.  And I trust his advice.  Believe me, it really screwed up my m...

If you follow my blog, you might remember I mentioned a couple months ago that my scanner went belly-up after just 10 months of use. I contacted the assholes at Hewlett-Packard at the time and they informed me the product was not under warranty. I argued and argued that I had purchased the scanner just 10 months ago, how could it not be under the one-year manufacturer's warranty? Well, my arguments were to no avail. They offered me a discount on a different product. No thanks. Well, things got interesting today. I received an e-mail from HP telling me it's time to upgrade my warranty since the one year manufacturer's warranty was about to expire. You can imagine I just about soiled myself. I was on the phone faster than a dog can raise its leg. I talked to Rahib or Abduhl or some damn thing and I couldn't understand a word he was saying... and no, that's not a racist statement, it is the truth . I could not understand him and his name was not Dan or Jim or B...

I met with the Scottish computer guy today. He had my computer fixed in no time. I will get it back tomorrow and I'll be out just a hair over $60. I can live with that. Mr. Brigadoon seems to know what he's doing, although I will know more tomorrow when I have my laptop back in my lap and see for myself. Interestingly, he said I don't necessarily need to pay him tomorrow. He said he'll send an invoice in a few days, but wants me to take the computer home and make sure I'm happy with his work first. That's impressive. I must say I am a little proud of myself for putting aside my total distrust of people and let this complete stranger take my computer away. That's very unlike me, folks! I have to confess, though, I jotted down my computer's serial number and took a picture of it before I turned it over to him. You know, just in case . Okay, so maybe I didn't completely put aside my distrust in people. Hey, I don't have to get burned twi...

I feel like our house has been a MASH unit lately. All of us have been sick, Beth especially. She felt well enough to go to work today, so that was a good sign. Martha's had a couple bad days, too. She was having what appeared to be spasms in her left rear leg (not unlike what you would see in someone with multiple sclerosis). Her coordination is getting worse, but today was a better day for her, so we'll keep trying. And, like I mentioned before, my stupid computer has been sick too. I finally called a business called "Brainerd Computers" today. The guy I spoke to had a Scottish/Irish/English accent, which caught me off guard (actually, I almost hung up on him at first, because I thought he was drunk... or retarded... or both. Silly me). But he seemed friendly and very knowledgeable. I explained the problem to him and he seemed to instantly know what it was. All I could really recall from his rapid-fire Scottish techno-speak was the phrase "very intell...

Can I vent for a moment? Good. Good heavens, am I having computer issues. I have McAfee virus protection, but I'm not overly impressed with it. In fact, I can't even log onto the darn web site right now. My virus protection keeps saying that the "detection signature file" is 8-29 days old and it tells me to click "FIX" to fix the problem. So like a good little lemming, I click fix, wait a few minutes and a window pops up and says everything is up-to-date, but it still says I need to fix the problem. Another issue is my computer freezes when I try to load my personal settings. It takes multiple attempts at shutting the dumb thing off and turning it back on before it finally loads properly. When things finally get up and running, surfing the net is extremely sluggish. It feels like I am back on a dial-up modem. My thinking was that this all pointed toward a virus, even though I just spent a bunch of money renewing McAfee. So I spent $$$ tonight on a ...