A little over a week ago my laptop computer experienced a disk crash. After a prolonged scan and repair, most of my apps and data were still available. The Start feature did not work and the Search feature in the Task Bar did not work. A couple icons on the Task Bar did not work, returning a "Class not registered" error message.
I ordered a new laptop. While I waited for the new one to arrive, I got along with some work-arounds. Ctrl-Alt-Del got a workout. To open applications I had to use Task Manager\File\Run New Task. That works well if you can remember the application name that the System expects. There was one application, a scanner manager, that I never did figure out, even after a long search of the registry.
Wednesday the new laptop arrived. I was pretty good to myself: 1Tb Solid State Drive and 1Tb conventional hard drive. Plenty of memory. The graphics card is not the very best, maybe in the tier just below because I don't want the kids coveting this laptop for gaming.
I made a mistake during the set up which resulted in my C:\Users account name being different than what it had been on the old machine. Fixing that in the registry took a lot of time because that file path appears in many registry entries. I wish I could have found an easier way to change that. I can't be the first person to have that problem.
I have spent two days migrating into the new machine. I used an external hard drive to move files. I audited the files to ensure the same number of files were on both the old and new machines and in all the same places. Setting up email was not too difficult. I checked and double checked all my connection settings.
Most everything went well until this afternoon when I tried to get into my Google Adsense account. The Google Login security raked me over the coals. Being on a new machine probably raised some flags. It doesn't help that I have two Google accounts; that part of the problem is my fault. I ended up in a loop that started with Google Security wanting to verify my account by re-entering my password. I submitted the password; it gave no indication that there was a problem with the password. It looped me back to the screen where Google Security wanted to verify my account again. And the loop just kept repeating. So I selected the "Forgot Password" option to try to get out of this loop. After I changed the password, it put me through the same verification loop as before.
I futzed around with Google Security for over an hour. If Google Security ever steers you toward an option to use your phone with a screen lock to sign into your account, please, please please don't do it. It just put me into a similar loop and when I found the setting to turn that feature off, Google had warning messages designed to add fear to my loathing. I was so frustrated with all the rigmarole Google was marching me through. Has the testing of Google's Security user interfaces reached the level of human trials? Was I in the human trials? Was someone at Google getting paid to torture me, take notes and laughing about it? I was in such an internal storm that I don't even know what I did to finally get into Adsense.
This was not my first Google goat rodeo; probably won't be my last. I need some wine.
Friday, March 27, 2020
Saturday, November 24, 2018
We've Already Postponed Thanksgiving, Can't We Now Just Cancel It?
In preface, this is not a complaint or indictment of Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving holiday is a fine thing. It's just that mine went all wrong this year.
First, we postponed our observation of Thanksgiving from the usual Thursday to the following Sunday. This was done so we could have a little vacation in New Orleans. It also allowed our kids to take the holiday with the in-laws and the out-laws.
On the Friday before Thanksgiving, the first day of the drive down to New Orleans, I had a bit of a scratchy throat. By the next morning it was a full fledged chest and head cold.
On Sunday Ron wanted to go to the WWII museum. I wanted him to go by himself and let me stay in bed. But he protested that we were on vacation to do things together. Pardon me for saying this but if he actually wanted to do things together he would learn how to knit. I got up and went to the museum. Fortunately, they had wheel chairs available so Ron pushed me all over the place. It's a good museum. You need a full day at least to cover all of it. It's not designed for little kids; I'd say it's best for a 9-10 year old and up. I just wish I had been there on a day when I felt like being alive.
The following day we went to the Audubon Insect Museum and the Audubon Aquarium. Both of these are designed to entertain the smaller children. The Insect Museum has a butterfly garden where you can walk among some exotic butterflies.
I never felt well enough to go out in the evening. Each evening Ron went out and got some rice and beans for me. Good thing I love rice and beans.
On the last full day in New Orleans, Ron said he was getting my cold. We went to the riverfront and took a little cruise on the Natchez.
We drove home on Wednesday, a 12+ hour forced march. The next morning Ron was very ill. He asked me where I got this Black Death of cold. I must of got it somewhere at home or work because I had symptoms well before I got to New Orleans. Today, Saturday, Ron is going to Prompt Care because he has a severe ear ache and is bleeding from his ear.
Fortunately he didn't argue about calling off or further postponing Thanksgiving.
First, we postponed our observation of Thanksgiving from the usual Thursday to the following Sunday. This was done so we could have a little vacation in New Orleans. It also allowed our kids to take the holiday with the in-laws and the out-laws.
On the Friday before Thanksgiving, the first day of the drive down to New Orleans, I had a bit of a scratchy throat. By the next morning it was a full fledged chest and head cold.
On Sunday Ron wanted to go to the WWII museum. I wanted him to go by himself and let me stay in bed. But he protested that we were on vacation to do things together. Pardon me for saying this but if he actually wanted to do things together he would learn how to knit. I got up and went to the museum. Fortunately, they had wheel chairs available so Ron pushed me all over the place. It's a good museum. You need a full day at least to cover all of it. It's not designed for little kids; I'd say it's best for a 9-10 year old and up. I just wish I had been there on a day when I felt like being alive.
The following day we went to the Audubon Insect Museum and the Audubon Aquarium. Both of these are designed to entertain the smaller children. The Insect Museum has a butterfly garden where you can walk among some exotic butterflies.
I never felt well enough to go out in the evening. Each evening Ron went out and got some rice and beans for me. Good thing I love rice and beans.
On the last full day in New Orleans, Ron said he was getting my cold. We went to the riverfront and took a little cruise on the Natchez.
We drove home on Wednesday, a 12+ hour forced march. The next morning Ron was very ill. He asked me where I got this Black Death of cold. I must of got it somewhere at home or work because I had symptoms well before I got to New Orleans. Today, Saturday, Ron is going to Prompt Care because he has a severe ear ache and is bleeding from his ear.
Fortunately he didn't argue about calling off or further postponing Thanksgiving.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Friday, November 25, 2016
Denial
Dad once said that he would not want to live his life over because it had been too hard. There is one part of my life that I wish I could live over: the last six months of my mother’s life.
My Mom started to die the day Clinton won the election in 1992. Dad was pissed off about Clinton winning and he apparently took it out on Mom. The stress resulted in her having a gall bladder attack. The operation for the gall bladder damn near killed her.
It should have been a routine procedure. A doctor who had done it many times before should have performed it. Instead, she went to the family doctor. The family doctor had just completed a training course in using a laser scope method to remove the gall bladder. It sounded good. Three little incisions and Mom would be out of the hospital in two days.
It appeared to work but a week after the operation Mom was in intensive care. The family doctor accidentally nicked the bile duct during the operation. Bile fluid leaked into Mom’s abdominal cavity. It literally started digesting her from the inside out. Her liver, intestine and pancreas had all suffered damage. There was a major operation to correct the problems from the first operation. Mom stayed in ICU for a week.
Even when she came home, she had a drain still in place, hanging out of her side. A home-care nurse visited her to attend to the drain. It was a year before Mom got back to normal. But it was never really normal. She lost something. There were the things she did before the operation and then there was a different set of things she did a year later.
Before the operation Mom and Dad went on bus tours with other senior citizens. After the operation Mom had little energy for trips. Before the operation my mother had a slightly stooped posture. Years of bending herself over a sewing machine accounted for her stoop. But after the operation, the stoop was a clear dowagers hump. Raising her hands over her head was painful and finally not possible.
Mom and Dad saw a lawyer about suing the family doctor. Mom was not cut out for her role in a lawsuit. She did not have the spirit of the thing. All she wanted to sue for was the cost of the second operation. She thought that Medicare ought to be paid back for the $30,000 cost of the second operation. She wasn’t interested in any other damages. The lawyer firm turned her away. She did not seek a second opinion. It’s just as well. Mom would have made a lousy witness. She would have apologized for getting sick in the first place. After all, the doctor would have never screwed up the operation if she had not been there. Perhaps the lawyers sensed that about her character. I bet the lawyers thought she was nuts.
After Mom died Dad often spoke about how many things he didn’t know about her. “I never even knew who she voted for.” Huh? Who cares whom she voted for? What has that got to do with knowing her?
It makes sense now. In 1992, the day after Clinton won, Dad probably wanted to know whom she voted for. Perhaps he imagined that she voted for Clinton. He gave himself permission to treat her like dirt. Dad was not a beater; he was a verbal abuser. I expect he said some awful things to her.
The stress had stirred up the gall bladder attack. It was 9 more years before she died.
I never had a good talk with Mom. She did not invite conversation. She was about work. There was always sewing, quilting and mending; but only if all the sweeping, scrubbing and vacuuming was done. Her home was humble, orderly and clean. I must have been a frightful disappointment to her.
I never learned how to sew very well; I was never orderly and I approach clean as a relative thing. She must have wondered whom she pissed off to end up with a daughter like me.
And so we continued for 47 years conversing in only the most functional manner. If I had been interested in quilting and sewing we might have been close. I did like to knit but unfortunately I am a process knitter. I only care about the mathematics of knitting. I don’t care if I end up with something useful. This did not make sense to Mom. Every time she saw me ripping out something I had just knitted, she would look sort of sad and perplexed.
Before Mom’s gall bladder operation, she could work me into the ground.
When she came to visit me, we never sat down to have a conversation.
The minute she got in the door, she started looking for something to clean.
At my house you didn’t have to look hard to find something that needs cleaning and straightening. And so Mom would attack it. She always had a place for me in her vision of what needed to be done. She never ordered me to participate in her projects at my house, but how could I sit while she slaved?. She wore me out. The moment she left, I headed straight to bed. My husband said we should have her visit more often; he liked the results. My kids undid her good works in a few hours. After the operation she still tried to work, but there were many things she could not do. She could fold laundry almost to the end.
The summer before she died Mom and Dad had problems with their central air conditioner. The central air system was not well engineered. The part that broke was up in the attic crawl space.
To fix it required going into the crawl space that was over 120ยบ F. No workman wanted any part of it. The air conditioning still cooled the bedrooms, but the kitchen and living room were too warm to stay in for long. Mom had been very frail for the last year. She had a couple ‘episodes’ of fainting.
The air conditioner problem confined her to the bedroom. Dad put up a card table in the bedroom for Mom to eat at. Dad put a portable commode next to the bed. Mom was marooned. Her back was in pain much of the time.
Dad started talking about putting Mom in a nursing home. He didn’t know how to deal with her when she had an episode. Her condition scared him. I didn’t understand why he wanted to put her in a home. What I didn’t realize until later was that Mom was putting on a good show when I was there. Dad had to deal with a truth I never saw.
In late August Mom went into the nursing home. I still believed that the air conditioner problem had just stressed her out. She would get some rest and be home soon. After she had been there for a few weeks, I remember visiting her on a Saturday morning. When I walked in the room she said, “I can’t walk anymore”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t control my legs anymore. They won’t go were I put them. They want to cross over each other.”
I had trouble taking it all in.
Denial.
My mother never exposed her emotions. I never saw my mother cry. Now, even her subdued presentation showed how dismal she felt. Then Dad came in the room. He told me how Mom’s legs had collapsed from under her a few days earlier when he was helping her to walk to the bathroom.
It had taken several attendants to get her off the bathroom floor.
She would never walk again.
There were subtle things going on during those early weeks in the nursing home; things I did not grasp or understand until much later. I missed a great and important opportunity. In the next few months Mom lost the ability to communicate. First she couldn’t make sentences; then she couldn’t make words. But that day when she told me she could not walk, I missed the opportunity to talk to her. There she was finally unable to work. For the next month she was still able to talk. But I wasn’t there for her. I came on weekends only. I didn’t stay long enough.
I failed her.
My Mom started to die the day Clinton won the election in 1992. Dad was pissed off about Clinton winning and he apparently took it out on Mom. The stress resulted in her having a gall bladder attack. The operation for the gall bladder damn near killed her.
It should have been a routine procedure. A doctor who had done it many times before should have performed it. Instead, she went to the family doctor. The family doctor had just completed a training course in using a laser scope method to remove the gall bladder. It sounded good. Three little incisions and Mom would be out of the hospital in two days.
It appeared to work but a week after the operation Mom was in intensive care. The family doctor accidentally nicked the bile duct during the operation. Bile fluid leaked into Mom’s abdominal cavity. It literally started digesting her from the inside out. Her liver, intestine and pancreas had all suffered damage. There was a major operation to correct the problems from the first operation. Mom stayed in ICU for a week.
Even when she came home, she had a drain still in place, hanging out of her side. A home-care nurse visited her to attend to the drain. It was a year before Mom got back to normal. But it was never really normal. She lost something. There were the things she did before the operation and then there was a different set of things she did a year later.
Before the operation Mom and Dad went on bus tours with other senior citizens. After the operation Mom had little energy for trips. Before the operation my mother had a slightly stooped posture. Years of bending herself over a sewing machine accounted for her stoop. But after the operation, the stoop was a clear dowagers hump. Raising her hands over her head was painful and finally not possible.
Mom and Dad saw a lawyer about suing the family doctor. Mom was not cut out for her role in a lawsuit. She did not have the spirit of the thing. All she wanted to sue for was the cost of the second operation. She thought that Medicare ought to be paid back for the $30,000 cost of the second operation. She wasn’t interested in any other damages. The lawyer firm turned her away. She did not seek a second opinion. It’s just as well. Mom would have made a lousy witness. She would have apologized for getting sick in the first place. After all, the doctor would have never screwed up the operation if she had not been there. Perhaps the lawyers sensed that about her character. I bet the lawyers thought she was nuts.
After Mom died Dad often spoke about how many things he didn’t know about her. “I never even knew who she voted for.” Huh? Who cares whom she voted for? What has that got to do with knowing her?
It makes sense now. In 1992, the day after Clinton won, Dad probably wanted to know whom she voted for. Perhaps he imagined that she voted for Clinton. He gave himself permission to treat her like dirt. Dad was not a beater; he was a verbal abuser. I expect he said some awful things to her.
The stress had stirred up the gall bladder attack. It was 9 more years before she died.
I never had a good talk with Mom. She did not invite conversation. She was about work. There was always sewing, quilting and mending; but only if all the sweeping, scrubbing and vacuuming was done. Her home was humble, orderly and clean. I must have been a frightful disappointment to her.
I never learned how to sew very well; I was never orderly and I approach clean as a relative thing. She must have wondered whom she pissed off to end up with a daughter like me.
And so we continued for 47 years conversing in only the most functional manner. If I had been interested in quilting and sewing we might have been close. I did like to knit but unfortunately I am a process knitter. I only care about the mathematics of knitting. I don’t care if I end up with something useful. This did not make sense to Mom. Every time she saw me ripping out something I had just knitted, she would look sort of sad and perplexed.
Before Mom’s gall bladder operation, she could work me into the ground.
When she came to visit me, we never sat down to have a conversation.
The minute she got in the door, she started looking for something to clean.
At my house you didn’t have to look hard to find something that needs cleaning and straightening. And so Mom would attack it. She always had a place for me in her vision of what needed to be done. She never ordered me to participate in her projects at my house, but how could I sit while she slaved?. She wore me out. The moment she left, I headed straight to bed. My husband said we should have her visit more often; he liked the results. My kids undid her good works in a few hours. After the operation she still tried to work, but there were many things she could not do. She could fold laundry almost to the end.
The summer before she died Mom and Dad had problems with their central air conditioner. The central air system was not well engineered. The part that broke was up in the attic crawl space.
To fix it required going into the crawl space that was over 120ยบ F. No workman wanted any part of it. The air conditioning still cooled the bedrooms, but the kitchen and living room were too warm to stay in for long. Mom had been very frail for the last year. She had a couple ‘episodes’ of fainting.
The air conditioner problem confined her to the bedroom. Dad put up a card table in the bedroom for Mom to eat at. Dad put a portable commode next to the bed. Mom was marooned. Her back was in pain much of the time.
Dad started talking about putting Mom in a nursing home. He didn’t know how to deal with her when she had an episode. Her condition scared him. I didn’t understand why he wanted to put her in a home. What I didn’t realize until later was that Mom was putting on a good show when I was there. Dad had to deal with a truth I never saw.
In late August Mom went into the nursing home. I still believed that the air conditioner problem had just stressed her out. She would get some rest and be home soon. After she had been there for a few weeks, I remember visiting her on a Saturday morning. When I walked in the room she said, “I can’t walk anymore”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t control my legs anymore. They won’t go were I put them. They want to cross over each other.”
I had trouble taking it all in.
Denial.
My mother never exposed her emotions. I never saw my mother cry. Now, even her subdued presentation showed how dismal she felt. Then Dad came in the room. He told me how Mom’s legs had collapsed from under her a few days earlier when he was helping her to walk to the bathroom.
It had taken several attendants to get her off the bathroom floor.
She would never walk again.
There were subtle things going on during those early weeks in the nursing home; things I did not grasp or understand until much later. I missed a great and important opportunity. In the next few months Mom lost the ability to communicate. First she couldn’t make sentences; then she couldn’t make words. But that day when she told me she could not walk, I missed the opportunity to talk to her. There she was finally unable to work. For the next month she was still able to talk. But I wasn’t there for her. I came on weekends only. I didn’t stay long enough.
I failed her.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Ugly Christmas Sweater
Last Christmas the office where my husband works had an ugly Christmas sweater contest. My husband was not part of that contest. He expressed interest in doing it next year. So I told him I would make an ugly Christmas sweater. Let's face it, any excuse to buy more yarn is a good excuse to buy more yarn.
I'm using the Sweater Wheel to generate a pattern - set-in sleeve, pullover. I'm starting on the front of the sweater. Not sure what I'll do on the back. Do Christmas sweaters have to be decorated on both sides? Is there an International Ugly Christmas Sweater Society that has promulgated the rules and regulations for ugly Christmas sweaters? If not, can I start one? Where do all the ugly Christmas sweaters come from? Is there a prison in China where all the inmates are slaves to the production of ugly Christmas sweaters? Who designs these hideous creations? Is the compulsive designing of ugly Christmas sweaters a condition that has its own DSM-IV-TR Code for Psychiatric Illness? I may need to know that before I complete this project. Are there dark forces now poised to unleash a legion of ugly Halloween sweaters? -- I've already seen a few.
But I digress [whenever possible].
I'm going for a Christmas tree theme. After starting off with a couple inches of ribbing, I made 8 blocks of different colors in two different sizes alternating. These are going to be the presents under the tree. Before it is over they will be dressed up with ribbons. The tree is developing from a stack of trapezoids that are smaller as I go up the tree. The lower edge of the trapezoid is adorned with the Three Flowers pattern to emulate strings of lights. There is plenty of space left on each trapezoid to tack on ornaments that I plan to make later from my novelty yarn remnants stash.
This is a picture of what I've done so far:
I'm using the Sweater Wheel to generate a pattern - set-in sleeve, pullover. I'm starting on the front of the sweater. Not sure what I'll do on the back. Do Christmas sweaters have to be decorated on both sides? Is there an International Ugly Christmas Sweater Society that has promulgated the rules and regulations for ugly Christmas sweaters? If not, can I start one? Where do all the ugly Christmas sweaters come from? Is there a prison in China where all the inmates are slaves to the production of ugly Christmas sweaters? Who designs these hideous creations? Is the compulsive designing of ugly Christmas sweaters a condition that has its own DSM-IV-TR Code for Psychiatric Illness? I may need to know that before I complete this project. Are there dark forces now poised to unleash a legion of ugly Halloween sweaters? -- I've already seen a few.
But I digress [whenever possible].
I'm going for a Christmas tree theme. After starting off with a couple inches of ribbing, I made 8 blocks of different colors in two different sizes alternating. These are going to be the presents under the tree. Before it is over they will be dressed up with ribbons. The tree is developing from a stack of trapezoids that are smaller as I go up the tree. The lower edge of the trapezoid is adorned with the Three Flowers pattern to emulate strings of lights. There is plenty of space left on each trapezoid to tack on ornaments that I plan to make later from my novelty yarn remnants stash.
This is a picture of what I've done so far:
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Lace Patterns That Don't Seem To Work Out Right
I had an email yesterday from someone who thought that the Coral stitch pattern had an error on Rows 2 and 6. Specifically the writer indicated the following:
CORAL
SAYS 10 PLUS 1 ST
ROW 2, 6 IS 10 PLUS 4 STS ALSO ON ROW 6 YOU ARE DECREASING 4 STITCHES
BUT ONLY ADDING 2 YO"
I think the problem is a matter of knowing how to read lace patterns.
In lace patterns there are often ‘shared’ elements that have to split when the edge of the fabric is reached. Row 2 of Coral ends with a k2 INSTEAD of a k3. In row 2 of the chart you see three knit stitches in the center framed by an ssk on one side and a k2-tog on the other side – the center stitch of those three knit stitches is ‘shared’ between pattern repeats. At the edge of the fabric these three stitches --must be ‘split’ to maintain the symmetry of the fabric. That is done by adding the +1 stitch and then splitting it into a k2 on either edge of the fabric.
Similarly, on Row 6 the sl 1-k2-tog-psso has to be split at the outer edge of the fabric. Again the +1 stitch allows the sl 1-k2-tog-psso to be split into a k2-tog at the beginning of the row and an ssk INSTEAD of the sl 1-k2-tog-psso in the last repeat. The shared elements are more easy to identify when a pattern is charted. When knitting from a written lace pattern, you may often have to just accept the instructions that tell you how to force the ending at the fabric edge on the last repeat. Whenever I see a double decrease converted to a single decrease at the end of a lace pattern, I know the instructions are just telling me to work ‘half’ of the double decrease to keep the fabric even.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Fishing and Knitting
I just returned home from Stitches Midwest in Schaumburg, Illinois. Very good show; the biggest and best I've been to and I've been attending for at least 6 years.
When I was packing last week, my husband asked me if I was taking half the house.
"I'm only taking my knitting hardware."
Later it occurred to me how a woman might explain her collection of knitting gear to her husband: It's like fishing tackle.
Both fishing hardware and knitting hardware are accumulated over a long time. Additions to both are made for special "catches." Every different type or location of fishing requires the acquisition of different tackle. That cane pole you started out with will not catch sea bass.
Likewise, different styles of knitting and different garments require different tools. Six-inch double point needles work well for socks but you probably need something more robust for a shawl.
Sometimes a fishing lure is purchased just because it looks kind of cool. There is a lot of eye candy in the hard-bait lure aisle at Bass Pro Shops. Or maybe you just like to collect new tools of the trade.
How many knitting tools have I purchased, not for an immediate need or a current plan, but just because of the "pretty bobble" factor. I have lots of stitch markers that are just fascinating to look at but, in any practical sense, I'm not likely to use them. They are my "bling-things." I sometimes buy needles just because they are different from any I already have. It's the collecting bug.
When you plan a fishing trip to some other state or region, there is a tendency to want to take too much tackle with you because you just never know what kind of fishing opportunity or location you may find. What will the fish be biting on this morning?
When I leave the house to drive several hours to Stitches Midwest I have an urge to take every last needle and knitting widget I've ever owned because I'm never 100% sure what I will need. In other words: Back up the truck!
The analogy between fishing and knitting could go on, like both take lots of patience. You get the idea.
When I was packing last week, my husband asked me if I was taking half the house.
"I'm only taking my knitting hardware."
Later it occurred to me how a woman might explain her collection of knitting gear to her husband: It's like fishing tackle.
Both fishing hardware and knitting hardware are accumulated over a long time. Additions to both are made for special "catches." Every different type or location of fishing requires the acquisition of different tackle. That cane pole you started out with will not catch sea bass.
Likewise, different styles of knitting and different garments require different tools. Six-inch double point needles work well for socks but you probably need something more robust for a shawl.
Sometimes a fishing lure is purchased just because it looks kind of cool. There is a lot of eye candy in the hard-bait lure aisle at Bass Pro Shops. Or maybe you just like to collect new tools of the trade.
How many knitting tools have I purchased, not for an immediate need or a current plan, but just because of the "pretty bobble" factor. I have lots of stitch markers that are just fascinating to look at but, in any practical sense, I'm not likely to use them. They are my "bling-things." I sometimes buy needles just because they are different from any I already have. It's the collecting bug.
When you plan a fishing trip to some other state or region, there is a tendency to want to take too much tackle with you because you just never know what kind of fishing opportunity or location you may find. What will the fish be biting on this morning?
When I leave the house to drive several hours to Stitches Midwest I have an urge to take every last needle and knitting widget I've ever owned because I'm never 100% sure what I will need. In other words: Back up the truck!
The analogy between fishing and knitting could go on, like both take lots of patience. You get the idea.
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