Category: LiveJournal

Lazing @ the Lake

This has been a fun (albeit warm) weekend @ my folks cottage. We’ve been having a great time and eating lots of great food. So, ditto what Elsa and Judi said. (Heh heh.)

WRT (with respect to) the things we’ve been viewing: my easy-to-please nature & ability to turn off my brain while watching stuff means that I really enjoyed last night’s Doctor Who and the X-Men movie. 🙂

Also, I post for your culinary enjoyment, a photo of last night’s German Meal. (Supper by elsaf, photo by dad. Oh, and dad supplied the photos for my Lake icon and judiang‘s new Lake icon.)

German Meal - yum!

I couldn’t top that meal, but I did grill some mean steaks & veggies tonight. And Elsa bought us a sugar cream pie for dessert. Yum!

Memorial Day Weekend at the Lake – 2006

Ah, it’s good to be in the 3-season room at mom & dad’s cottage at Lake Loramie again. It means (a) summer’s nearly here, (b) the girls are visiting, and (c) I can nap whenever I want!

Yesterday, I picked judiang up at the airport, took her to KFC for lunch, brought her back to my place, and then finished up at work. After work, the high school teachers were treated to an ice cream sundae bar in appreciation for the great OGT (Ohio Graduation Test) scores that the sophomores got this year. 82% or higher passed each of the tests (Reading, Writing, Math, Social Studies, and Science) and 76% passed all 5 tests. Yay sophomores! Yay teachers!

When I got home from work, Judi was sleeping (no! such a surprise!) so I geeked a bit, transferred some David Tennant vids from her laptop to my PC (for burning onto a DVD for watching this weekend – providing the DVD player here can play ’em) and played with Leo a bit. Once Judi was rested up, we zipped off to BW’s for booze (amaretto sours, of course) and wings, chatted with my coworkers there (many of whom Judi met on our trip to Italy last summer), and then bugged out. We then headed to Pizza Hut to get pizza for the Shorts. I ordered 2 large pizzas, going halvsies on each. Pineapple/cheese, sausage/pepperoni. I figured there’d be something for everybody – and there was.

Once we got to town, I dropped Judi off at Becky’s with the pizza, then popped round to Robbins’ gas station for some chips (ranch Doritos and Munch ’ems) and pop for the Judester and myself. Back to Becky’s for pizza (Becky, Deanna, mom, dad, and my little cousin Taylor were also in attendance) and conversation. And then it was time to play cards. Dad and Taylor bugged out at that time to their respective homes. And in honor of Granny, we started the game off by all saying “Shit!” in unison. We miss you, Granny!

So we played our usual game of Shanghai Rum and, as usual, complained the whole time about it. “Why are we playing this game?” “I hate this game!” “Crap, another bad hand.” You’d think we were a group of masochists, but honestly, it’s FUN to play and bitch about!

As for who won, well, it’s not that important. But I suppose if you really want to know, judiang will probably have the blow-by-blow on her journal. 🙂

After the game, mom went home cuz she had to work the next day (blech) and Judi and I returned to my place. I gave Leo a day’s worth of food, which he proceeded to eat. Then I packed and we headed off to the Lake. We chatted on AIM with hergrace and elsaf for awhile as we got caught up on LJ and chatted on IRC. Then around 2am, we finally headed for bed. And I proceeded to wake up at 5:30am. I think my cat finally has me conditioned. I didn’t get up until 8am, however. So there, Leo!

After half an hour of playing CoH on Judi’s laptop, I started vacuuming the floor (cleaning up after the plumbers who had to install a new water softener yesterday). And I’ve got stuff soaking in the sink (cuz mom & dad couldn’t wash because of the plumbers) which I’ll get to after this.

Elsa should be arriving around noon and dad will get here soon, so we’ll have hot dogs on the fire and whatever else we pick up at Wagner’s before they arrive. Yay! It’s so good to be at the Lake! Yay for memorial day weekend!

Getting back to normal

So, I know you’re wondering – did the restore DVD ever come in? Well, I was afraid it might not. The day after the picture tube arrived in lieu of my DVD I received a phone call from the service lady I spoke to the previous day. She said that they’d had a complaint just like mine that day! Someone else had received a picture tub instead of DVD as well! I was afraid I’d find another large box on my porch the next day. But no! The next day there was a padded envelope in my door. Yay! DVD for me!

Thursday, then, I was able to restore my computer back to Windows Media Center Edition. As soon as that was done, I installed the video card and then transferred all of my files from the SATA drive I’d copied them onto. And as soon as that was done? Yup! Time for my fix! I played City of Heroes for an hour or so and enjoyed it immensely.

Ever since then I’ve been tweaking the computer to get it back to where it was before (or better). I’m currently deciding on skins & desktop colors. I’d been using “Brick” from Winders Classic (we use that at school) but wanted a change. Before then, I had a Seventh Doctor color scheme (lots of red & yellow like the logo). But now I’m going with black/white/gray. I have a few skins for QCD that work with it (one even has purple on it – yay!) Now to find something for Trillian that does the same.

(Hmmm, you know, I really like tweaking my computer. I’m glad I’ve now got this restore disk so that I can do this all over again when things get unweildy. Heh.)

Sony’s new DVD technology…

OK, so today my restore disc was supposed to arrive from Sony. I get home and find not one, but two boxes outside my door. An itty bitty box and a large box. So, of course, I figure the itty bitty box has the DVD. Heh, I figured wrong.

The box that held the box.
This is the box that supposedly held my restore DVD. The umbrella is there for scale purposes.

So, I think maybe they’re just into over packaging. However, it was rather heavy. Could there be a manual with it? I opened the big box to find a slightly smaller box inside of it. And it’s not really the shape one expects DVDs or even DVDs and manuals to be in.

The box inside the box.
Here’s the box that was in the bigger box. A bit more oblong than one would expect.

Well, I opened that box to find something I just didn’t recognize.


It was definitely NOT a DVD.

I had to laugh. Sure, I’m upset that I can’t fix my computer today, but to be sent a picture tube rather than a DVD… Come on, how can you mistake this for a DVD, warehouse people?

So I called Sony and talked with a very nice service lady. She’s sending FedEx to the school tomorrow to pick up the picture tube and overnighting me another attempt at the DVD. Plus she’s returning me some of my money since it didn’t wind up being overnighted originally. Here’s hoping it arrives ASAP!

(Oh, the itty bitty box was a new barcode scanner. Yay me!)

Computer techs are cursed

My dad has noticed that whenever computer techs do upgrades on their own equipment, all hell breaks loose. Upgrading 20 computers for a lab, no problem. Changing video cards on your home computer? Big problem.

When I bought my Sony VAIO PC last summer, it had everything that I wanted except a decent video card. Of course, I bought it all the same, despite the onboard video. But my main addiction, City of Heroes, didn’t play corrently on the VAIO. Bugger. No matter, I decided to upgrade the video. I couldn’t use the card out of my old PC – it was AGP and this computer only has PCI-E and regular PCI slots. So I found an ATI PCI-E card for the computer and installed it.

ATI and City of Heroes are not the best of friends, but my game played. Sure the video card occasionally crashed (well, the driver software did) and I’d lose picture. But it was a rare thing. And sure, sometimes after being off, the card wouldn’t send data to the DVI port and I’d have to turn off the computer blind. But I coped.

But then the fan started going bad. Bleh. I was afraid it would stop altogether and the chip would burn out, so I purchased another PCI-E card online. Yay for NewEgg.com! I found a nice nVidia card to replace the ATI. nVidia and CoH are lovers, you know.

Now, before I installed the new card, I uninstalled the ATI drivers. I know what a pain in the ass conflicting drivers can be. And I pondered, but only pondered, installing the nVidia drivers before I swapped out the old and installed the new. And did I even think about dropping down my resolution? Nope…

So I turned off the PC, uninstalled the ATI card and installed the nVidia card without a hitch. Then I turned it on. And it went into Windows XP without a hitch. Except that once WinXP opened up, no picture. Wrong resolutions for the card! 1280×1024 without drivers is very hard to maintain. So did WinXP automatically switch down to one that worked? Hell no. Incompetent piece of shit software…

No matter, says I, I’ll just see what keystrokes are required to run the driver software disk. I put the disk into the laptop to see what it does. But the piece of shit driver software doesn’t have nice alt-key commands for running it. Still, it does beep when you move over the options. I think I might be able to get it to work blind. But I can’t. Bugger.

What’s a girl to do? Well, go into Safe Mode and change the resolution, of course. Except that the VAIO has NEVER been able to go successfully into Safe Mode. And yesterday was no exception. Grrrrr.

OK, next choice is going into VGA mode. Except I get told by WinXP that it’s missing a key file to do that. Good news – my laptop has that file. Bad news – how am I going to copy it onto the PC? Didn’t have any luck doing it through the network – I never bothered to share the C drive and when I tried the hidden share, I, um, forgot my administrator password. (And bugger all if I didn’t remember it later on after I’d passed the point of no return. Stupid ass tech.)

No matter, I’ll just use a Win98 boot disk and copy it that way. Oh yeah, SATA drive. Duh! The DOS on the Win98 disk hadn’t a clue how to view a SATA drive. I decided I had to go to school and get BART PE and a WinXP Pro disk. And to comfort pissed off treen, I also went to Taco Hell for take away. (I’d been working since 3:30 on this gathering disaster and it was after 5pm by then.)

My first thing to try once Leo and I had eaten supper was BART PE. I was able to copy the file that the VGA mode said that it needed. Only the bloody file was already there. *sigh* But attempts to boot into VGA mode still resulted in black screen, and worse, now when I tried booting into Safe Mode, it rebooted instead of just sitting there showing off all the drivers it loaded.

I’d done some research online and suggestions were to do a WinXP repair if you can’t successfully go into Safe Mode. I follow the instructions and things are going OK, until it reboots and goes into Windows – black screen! Still hasn’t dropped down resolution. I haven’t a clue if it’s asking me to type stuff or key buttons or just wait for it to finish. When it gets to a point of inactivity, I turn it off and try going into VGA mode. Ah! Now I can see a picture. And it says that Windows upgrade is restarting. And just sits there. Bugger all.

A second attempt at the upgrade leads to the same results. No way to get into VGA mode while its installing. And when rebooted, it just sits there. Of course, I later realize why this might be so. My computer had Media Center Edition. XP Pro with bells on, but still no XP Pro like I’m “upgrading” it with.

So now I’ve borrowed a computer from school with a SATA drive and copying my documents, videos, and MP3s onto that computer’s HD. And I’ve just wasted $35 to get the Sony VAIO recovery DVD shipped to me overnight (which really means I’ll get it Tuesday since it’s the weekend now). So hopefully on Tuesday I can get my computer back to where it was when I first purchased it. And then get all my stuff back onto it.

Man, I’m gonna miss City of Heroes while I wait for this. I did try installing it on my laptop, but the graphics on here are so bad it’s black & white. Heh. If all goes well, though, I shouldn’t lose any data in this fiasco. At least, I hope not!

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

No, today is not the celebration of the Independence of Comic Books such that they became free entities. Today is the day that all good comic book stores have free comic books on offer. Yay!

I’m not a big comic book geek, but I do love free stuff. And they had quite a few freebies at The Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn (my comic book store of choice). One major surprise for me was a HeroClix of Wolverine. Wow – I now own a HeroClix other than City of Heroes/Villains! Not that I’ll ever play HeroClix, but they are cute little figurines. 🙂

Today was my day out. I had a meeting in Columbus in preparation of B-WISER, the science camp that I teach at each summer. It was great seeing my summer co-workers again. We met at a nice tavern in Columbus (Red Door Tavern) and I had one of the best reubens I’ve ever eaten. Good eats, good conversation, and good planning. Should be a fun week at Wooster!

On my way home, I did a bit of a detour and headed for Beavercreek/Fairborn to check out Best Buy and my comic book store. (I only get there once every few months.) At Best Buy I finally found a nice cover/belt clip for my iPod. And it was on sale for $13! Plus I got Enya’s latest album. After a few arguments with the card swiping device at the check out, I was on my way to the Bookery. There I got the freebies plus my file o’ stuff. Doctor Who & Dreamwatch magazines, but still no Devil’s Panties. When I inquired, the salesman said he remembered seeing it out in the store, so he picked it up for me and then made doubly sure that Devil’s Panties was definitely in my file. (Alas, I’ve missed out on Issue 1. Here’s hoping I can find it some place!)

When I left this morning, I told Leo that I’d probably be back by 5pm. Well, our meeting lasted longer than I anticipated (we ladies had a lot of catching up to do!) so poor Leo had to wait an extra two hours and a half for me. Still, he’s feeded now, so he should be good. And speak of the devil, here he be! Ready to push stuff off my desk so that he can sit in front of my monitor. 🙂

Garage Sale

Each year in April, our town has a Town Garage Sale. Anyone in town is allowed to have a garage sale without paying any license fees or whatever you have to do to have a garage sale. So this year, my folks and I took advantage of the day to have our own sale. In past years, the weather has been pretty nasty. Some years rainy. Some years cold. Some years cold & rainy. But this year, the temperature was in the mid 60s F and it was cloudy (so not too much sun). Perfect garage saling weather. 🙂

So, what did Trina bring to the sale? My old Gameboy Advance (I have the SP now, so didn’t need the other), and MP3 CD playing boombox that never worked flawlessly, some knick knacks, and lots of video tapes. Since I am now a DVD addict, some of my VHS tapes have been supplanted by lovely DVDs. That left quite a few videos I didn’t need anymore. Dad looked through them last night and picked up a few for the Lake. The rest I sold for $1 each or 5 for $3. And I managed to sell over half of them! Which really surprised me – my taste in videos isn’t very, um, usual. Some of the things in the video boxes: Columbo, Dangermouse, Red Dwarf, Monty Python (Flying Circus & Live at Hollywood Bowl), Monkees, and several movies including some Muppets ones.

Any guesses as to what sold first?

Well, if you would have asked me which would have sold first, if any would have sold, I’d’ve said Columbo and some of the movies.

Heh – nope, it was the Monty Python stuff! A couple and their daughter arrived early and saw the Python tapes. They immediately started arguing whether the son still owned a VCR and if he’d be interested in the videos. So the daughter called her brother, confirmed he had a VCR still, and bought all the Python. And when it added up to only 8 videos, I threw in two Doctor Who videos to make 10 thinking he might like that. (Which two, you ask? Ghost Light and Curse of Fenric, of course. Only quality videos for my customers!)

The stuff that didn’t sell included Red Dwarf and Dangermouse. (The first didnt’ surprise me, the second did! All those little kids who stopped by and I couldn’t sell them on a cartoon about a secret agent mouse and his hamster assistant!)

During the day, I saw 4 former classmates of mine, two whom I haven’t seen in years (I think since maybe graduation!) and one of my sister’s classmates. Dad and I spent most of the day outside selling and chatting with folks as they came. Mom preferred instead to run errands (getting mail, getting lunch – yay! Texas Tenderloins from a vendor on main street).

So, how much did I net during the day?

Almost $60! Wow! I did a lot better than I suspected. So now I’m rich! I think I’ll go to some town garage sale and spend it all! (Hah, yeah right!)

A Fine Day Out

Tis been a lovely spring day. Temperature in the low 70s (F), sunny, pleasant breezes. Prit’near perfect. And I actually spent some of the day outside!

I, of course, walked to the post office in the morning for mail (all junk, except 1 bill). But once I got home, I realized that I’d forgotten to get cash at the gas station (they have an ATM machine). So another walk there. And when I got home, I realized that I really wanted to ride my bike. However, the tires were a little flat from the long winter storage. No matter, another trip to the gas station for some FREE AIR (that’s what it says!) and I was good to roll. I rode over to Becky’s house to chat with her, the little ones, and Deanna. Then I rode more (actually almost wearing myself out – go me! Oh wait, I didn’t ride that much. Bad me!)

Leo and I had lunch after that (mmm, haystacks! Taco salads for those of you who dunno what haystacks are). Leo got a smidge of meat & cheese, I also had lettuce & onions & crushed nachos with mine. A little bit of City of Heroes (yay – my new build for The Dominie rocks – he’s a kick ass defender-controller now! And doesn’t get tired!) But then Leo and I were bucking to get outside.

We went out for about an hour. I read more of Wicked while Leo flopped about in the garage and on the patio. Then he decided to investigate more of his yard. By the time I was done reading, he was trying to see what the neighbors (the ones that aren’t mom & dad) were up to. That was at the edge of his leash, so I unhooked him from the long lead & held his little purple leash. He walked me up and down the fence as he sniffed & stared at the goings on. After a few minutes, I picked him up and we returned to the house.

So, all & all, a lovely day. (This is Trina in Work Avoidance Mode. The house really needs a good cleaning & I have other things on my list, but I’m doing a great job avoiding all of that. Go me! I mean, bad me!)

MP3 Tagging

Whew! I think I’m finally done fixing all of my MP3 tags and making sure every song has a date (hopefully a correct one) and album art. Been working on it for quite a while. But now I’m done. Now I just need to make playlists for all of my music. Using QCD and MediaMonkey, that shouldn’t be too tough.

The one thing that my MP3 collection is lacking is my vinyl collection. Some I’ve found CDs for, so those have been MP3’d. However, some of my albums don’t exist as CDs, so I’m going to need to hook my stereo up and go that route. Scanning in the album covers will be the hardest thing, since albums are bigger than my scanner area. Hopefully I’ll find someone online who’s already successfully done it. 🙂

Anyhoo, that’s all for another day. For now, I’m pleased that I’ve done as much as I’ve gotten so far.

4 Day Weekend

Well, I’m now halfway through my lovely four-day weekend. I’ve been having fun. Yesterday, the folks & I spent the day at the Lake. The weather was very good to us. Pleasant during the morning & early afternoon, cloudy & rainy later when we were ready to watch The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. We all enjoyed the movie. And I’d like to see the same group do Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I both enjoy a lot. (OK, so my favorite versions of them has Sylvester McCoy as Reepicheep.)

Today started out rainy & cloudy and became beautiful. Leo and I spent some time outside while I cleared my cart out of trash & straightened the garage a bit. (It’s still quite a state, but at least there’s room for my bike without being in the road of the car.) I let my car stay out in the driveway all night, so the rain washed it nice & clean. 🙂 The rest of my day has been goofing off & catching up on LJ. Oh and I did work on my online class some yesterday & today. (I’m taking an online class about whether one should make online classes available to people. It’s been an eye-opener for me. I don’t think we’re ready at Newton yet – too much work for the treen!)

Tomorrow it’s round to Becky’s for Easter. I guess it’ll be in the afternoon because mom works. It’s always fun to see my little cousins. (OK, so I see 4/5 of ’em at school most days – one of ’em at least 1 period every day, but still…) And I haven’t had a chance to wish Deanna a belated happy birthday yet. I think she’s turned 23? Eeep! I am so OLD.

Happy Easter to all of you playing at home! 🙂