Wednesday, January 21, 2009

So many things going on today!

Ever had one of those days it was so bad, it was funny? Today was one of those days!

The good news is, I got my "new to me" laptop! Not brand new, in fact, it belonged to someone that "just left the company". That's not good, and I'm not happy to be getting this laptop under those circumstances.. if you catch my drift. The UPS man drove up in front of the house right about 10:00am! Yay! Until I got to the door.. uh oh! He's standing there with an overnight box with the corner ripped out of one end. I said.. That can't be good! He said, "you need to make sure everything's in here. They gave it to me this way at the depot." Are you kidding me? It's a laptop dude! What'd they do, play hockey with it? Use it to scrape ice off their window?? Thankfully, nothing was missing.. it had a laptop and a power cord.. that's all I needed! I was a little worried about turning it on.. thinking, "will it work? This hole in the box can't be good!" I got it turned on, played around with it, finding out how to get into Outlook without connecting to the internal VPN.. I hate using the VPN, it's so slow sometimes, and if I'm in and out of a client vpn, it takes too long to get my emails! Blah blah.... work talk...sorry. So, I loaded up AIM, and was IM'ng (instant messaging) a co-worker, when the screens went blank! Both the laptop and my second monitor! Oh no! And the red battery light was flashing, then NOTHING.. this can't be good! No! I quickly picked up the phone, and called Mark.. "Mark, the battery is bad, and this laptop just shut off. Will it not work with a dead battery? Can you send me another battery?" He said, "I can't believe the battery's bad. That's weird. Is the green light on on the power cord/charger?" Huh? What? Oh, the power cord.. let.. me.. look... OMG! Mark, I'm such an idiot! (not quite what I called myself, but there are some people I wouldn't want to offend with what I really said!...dumb@..) I didn't plug it in! The battery died! Oh my gosh! Mark, let me plug it in, I bet it will work!" Hmm... will you look at that! My friend that I was IM'ng was on AIM still while I was on the phone.. she's im'ng me.. ROFL.. LMFAO.. You're such a dork! I'm crying! I can't believe you didn't plug it in!" Gee, thanks Lauren! Like I wouldn't have made fun of her too! Getting a laptop loaded with Vista really threw me for a loop. Not only do I have to reload everything I need to work with my clients.. ie, their vpn profiles, their versions of our software.. and finding their ip addresses so I can access their databases.. logging into my live meetings, and I thought I had to establish all my settings in Outlook, but God Bless Mark, he did it for me! The live meeting stuff! I couldn't read half the stuff on the screen, because the font seemed to small.. and I couldn't for the life of me figure out HOW to fix it! Everything is so new! It's so hard! Not to mention, it's just cold outside, and rather chilly in my office, and my fingers were NOT working well today. So, I'm trying to adjust to a new keyboard and working with cold fingers!

I worked on my computer set up all day.. the dog really wanted to go for a walk today.. but it was cold! When I dropped the kids off at school, it was 24 degrees. When I picked Daniel up at 2pm (the school called, his fever was back, and he was feeling crummy) their was ICE on the fountain by one of the subdivisions we drive by. Ice at 2pm ... hanging from the fountain like icicles! Did I mention I live in Florida?? What's wrong with this picture? I heard a little from the backseat.. there was ice on the fountain Mommy! I know! What's up with that? Side note.. the fountain is a big point of interest at Villages of Fireside, because often times there are bubbles in the fountain.. on purpose yes, but not intended by the HOA I'm sure! Most likely a regular prankster! My kids love to see it!

When I was headed out to get Daniel, I was trying to call my friend to see if she was going to pick up her son (if he went to school today, he's sick too!), and if she was I was going to beg her to please pick up Hanna. With all the many things going not so well, my phone didn't want to cooperate either. I pushed buttons, and nothing! I had to turn it off, wait.. turn it back on. It would almost work.. then.. not. Ugh! It's not an easy, regular phone! It's a Motorola Q, and had all kinds of stuff on it, much like a Blackberry. I was beginning to feel technologically challenged or cursed today! So, Daniel and I went through the parent pick up, and got Hanna! That was fine. He seemed to recover quickly in the truck, once Hanna joined us, so I don't think he was all that sick.. but, he's staying home tomorrow, just the same. To rest!

I did get my picture loaded from this past weekend down at O'leno, and will post shortly... I had a meeting, the weekly meeting our company has.. but they added live meeting invitations.. so, not only a call in.. but join the meeting online too! The normally 15 minute meeting, went an hour! I was glad I got Daniel early, since I wouldn't have been able to leave on time to get him, and John was working late today. The kids were going crazy around the house. You'd think they'd been loaded up on sugar or caffeine or something! They couldn't seem to calm down! The meeting was going way over, the kids were driving me nuts, and I was juggling cooking spaghetti sauce and noodles while doing all these things. I had to leave the house at 6:30 at the latest!

I originally had scheduled tonight a meeting with our AIG "guy" to discuss what we may still have with his company, and the church called the other day to ask about a choir practice. Sure I'll be there. Hung up.. Oh no! The meeting with Tim! John said, "just reschedule Tim, he won't have anything good to say, he can wait a day." Standing in choir this evening, my mother in law asked.. "is John in the fellowship hall with the kids?" Huh? What? No, he's not here. She said, "are the kids over there?" What? SHOOT! I forgot! There was a pioneer meeting tonight scheduled at 6:30, and it never crossed my mind, although I fully intended on us attending the meeting! Aw man! One more thing not working in my favor today! Oh well, what are you going to do?

So, I'm going to work on posting pictures, and tomorrow I'll work through navigating around in Vista! What fun!

5 comments:

Tarren Prange said...

We hate Vista!!! Nothing but trouble!

Sorry you had such a bad day. I love that you didn't plug in the computer =) Too funny! Hope tomorrow is better for you.

Suzanne Chappell said...

Hi Tarren!

It was certainly a comedy of errors today.. but amazingly, I'm in good spirits about it all! If you're not laughing, you're crying, right??

Tomorrow MUST be better.. I just hope Daniel lets me get a little work done on the side. I've got a meeting scheduled at 10am, but I warned her.. my son will be home!

Kim Lahaie Day said...

Hi Suzanne,

I had Justin load a new Windows program on my cumputer sans the Vista because it was kicking my butt and no one could read the reports, newsletters, or meeting Minutes I sent out. Not good!

It never occurred to me that the kids were not at Pioneers! Probably okay since Daniel was not feeling all that great anyway. Sorry you had such wretched times with the computer, though. although I don't know what the abbreviations means.........Is it better that way?

Hugs,

Kim

p.s. wasn't choir a blast last night?

Suzanne Chappell said...

Hi Kim... lemme bring you up to "IM" speed... ROFL.. rolling on the floor... LMFAO.. well.. Laughing my fat A.. Off... :P IMHO is in my humble opinion, and so on.

Sometimes I start to refer to John as DH, as is common on message boards... (Dear Husband) DD, would be daughter, DS.. son... SP, state park, CG, campground... PUP is the Pop up.. obviously, I hang out on a Pop UP message board.. but, it's fun!

Aw man.. here I am.. after 10, in front of the computer, not a shower yet.. and John asleep in his chair.

TTYL... (talk to you later!)

Suzanne

Kim Lahaie Day said...

Hi Suzanne:

As a "word person", I am not a fan of the code words, but I do recognize the SP for State Park, figured it out myself! My heels dig in when it comes to abbreviations, in fact, I wrote a posting it a while back. My friend, Jami, who works in a prison, wrote about the importance of vowels and that struck a note with me.

TTYL,

Kim