I'm sorry to hear you're frustrated. I'll do my best to resolve the issue. Are you ready to get started?
I remember DOS 3.2, when you issued commands at the C:/ prompt. Simple commands, like: copy, move, list, delete.
Those were the days, my friend. (…yeah, yeah… “We thought they’d never end.” )
In the radiolab podcast about Limits that I referenced last week, another story was about the Limits of Science. Scientists have created a computer program that can deduce mathematical relationships in nature, through simple observation. The mathematics work out every time and therefore the scientists are sure that they are correct. The catch? The scientists don’t have a clue WHY they are correct — they can’t explain the mathematical equation that the computer developed.
Cue the clip from 2001: A Space Odyssey where Hal won’t open the pod bay doors.
My printer (which is a printer/copier/scanner/fax all rolled into one) is several years old, and I’ve been very happy with it (except that it goes through ink faster than the club goes through water after the Taylorstown run). It was working perfectly well up until about three weeks ago when, coincidentally, my Windows XP software went through one of those automatic updates that you sort of hold your breath and click OK to allow. After that, every time I booted up the computer (do they still use the phrase “booting up?”) I’d get a strange error that Windows was trying to configure my fax and would I please insert the CD into the drive.
As if I still had the installation CD for the printer! (OK.. I probably still have it, but alert readers of this blog will remember that I have a little problem with organization.)
I spent the better part of Monday chatting in a little servlet application with the HP support personnel. It was a “two-steps forward, three back” situation as I kept having to go back and back with more information, or a new symptom of the problem.
I never got the same person twice, of course, so I kept having to repeat my problem and give them time to research the issue and get back to me. I’m never sure whether I’m talking to a real person or whether it’s a sophisticated computer program that can parse my sentences — not unlike the Verizon cyberwench that I hate with a passion. After Monday’s experience, I decided that they probably are real people, (most likely in India, however), because some of them seemed to make fewer typos, and grasp my problem more quickly.
Lincoln was pretty helpful. Paloma, on the other had, walked me through refreshing all of my USB ports by uninstalling them, one by one. This seemed to be working very well, until I hit the one that controlled the mouse. By the time I got that rectified and came back to talk to Nash P. I was not a happy camper.
To make a long and very tedious story as brief as I possibly can, I’ve been uninstalling and re-installing and even (gasp) editing the registry, all under the careful tutelage of whoever (or whatever) is on the other end of that little aplet.
Is it too much to hope that one day I could get back to where I was not so long ago: with outdated printer software that worked just fine and really didn’t need to be updated, except that someone at HP thinks you can’t just leave it alone… you have to update it.
They’ve updated it to the point now where it doesn’t recognize my printer at the other end of the USB cable.
Nice.
At some point in my ordeal on Monday, I glanced up at the corner of the little servlet ap and realized someone had selected EXACTLY the correct image. Except for the obvious gender/age difference, that picture could have been taken of me, at any time during those 5 hours. Just sitting there staring at the monitor, one hand on the mouse and the other holding up my chin.
At least it was a bit of comic relief in an otherwise frustrating day — a day that ended with absolutely no resolution to the problem.
On, on, on… past exhaustion and boredom. Just. Keep. Going. (that’s the best I’m going to be able to do to tie this to running).
Perhaps my next step is to try very hard to find that original CD — the one that still has the outdated software on it that worked just fine. It might just work.
Weekend Runs
I’m going out of town this weekend, but the Hamilton Elementary run looks like a good time. Sorry I’m going to miss it.
How far is too far?
This week on one of my morning runs, I listened to a radiolab podcast about Limits.
The first section — Limits of the Body, focused on Julie Moss, who competed in an Iron Man competition in Hawaii in 1982, and was actually in the lead near the end of the marathon when, during the very last stretch, her legs gave out several times. Over an agonizing few moments, she willed herself to get back up and keep moving even though her body obviously had other intentions. The second place runner passed her just a few yards from the finish as she collapsed again. In the end, she crawled across the finish line.
The program investigated a theory that the body has a secret store of energy that your brain tries to hold in reserve (in case you find yourself tapped out… and faced with a hungry Saber Toothed Tiger). The theory says if you can push past the pain and the exhaustion that your brain sends you as a deterrent, you can force your body to let you access that store.
Interesting theory.
I’m sure most of the ultra-marathoners in the club are nodding as they read this. They’ve been there.
For now, I’m content to just trust that it’s there and hope I don’t encounter any Saber Toothed Tigers while I’m out on a run.
Weekend Runs
I’ll be taking the short loop for the Round Hill run on Saturday.
It has to begin somewhere...
I’m always amazed at what people believe they can do. Or maybe they don’t have any idea of what it is they are going to create, they just do SOMETHING and then it grows and grows.
“The first Earth Day was organized from an office that smelled like hamburger grease and teemed with flies. … it was a bunch of 20-somethings working in an office over a diner.”
I guess I was 17: If the first Earth Day happened 40 years ago, that’s what the math would indicate. I vaguely remember it. Might have even been some mention of it at school. Seemed like a pretty good idea.
Turns out it was just a bunch of young people — kids really – who didn’t know they couldn’t possibly do anything that would change anything — who thought something should be done and so they did it.
I remember when our rivers were polluted, and the skies over our major cities were dark with smog, and you didn’t think too much about tossing trash out of your car as you drove down the highway.
Little by little, one person at a time — Change happens.
Weekend Runs
I see a lot of little raindrops on the forecast map for both Saturday and Sunday. Could be dicey (for me, at least!).
If I have ever done the Bluemont run (Sunday), I can’t remember it. Maybe the predicted showers will just be here and there — or later in the day.
Hey.. it could happen.
Combine lines 26, 32, 37 and 40. Enter the result on Form 1040NR, line 18.
Remember when every April 15th the big story was how late the Post Offices were going to be open? Reporters were sent out to interview the procrastinators who were filling out their tax returns while they stood in line.
Postal Service workers stood outside with large bins so you could drive up and drop in your return. (I’m not sure how that worked — how would you know how much postage it needed?)
That’s all changed now. E-file is a wonderful thing. As is TurboTax.
My personal plan to get the tax code simplified would to be lock every member of Congress into a room with multiple copies of the entire code, and every form imaginable and tell them to knock themselves out preparing their own returns without the aid of a CPA or TurboTax. Maybe they could use a calculator. Maybe.
Then, of course, their returns would be scrutinized extensively by the IRS to make sure they were filled out properly.
I think they’d be just a bit more willing to simplify things.
I’ve never understood filing for an extension, because you have to send in the money that you owe anyway. If you haven’t finished your form, how do you know how much to send in? If you know how much you need to send in, why haven’t you finished your return?
Seems like a Catch-22 to me.
Weekend Run
So, with your taxes all neatly e-filed and the weather looking near perfect, Saturday’s run at Waterford should be much more pleasant than completing your 1040 and writing out a check to the US Treasury.
So lovely -- for such a brief time.
I spent the first twenty years of my life in Wyoming.
Spring in Wyoming means the snow cover that’s been on the ground since mid-November is about gone. The grass on the prairie is at its greenest. And there will generally still be one last snowstorm (I remember one the first week in June) — a wet, heavy snow that breaks the limbs on the deciduous trees that were foolish enough to leaf out so early.
I don’t remember that trees bloomed in Wyoming. It could be that I wasn’t paying attention — because it lasts for such a brief period of time — but I don’t think so.
I learned about sagebrush and Indian Paintbrush and Aspen trees and Yucca, so you’d think if there were Forsythia trees and azaleas around, I would have known about it.
The cherry tree in my front yard bloomed this week. You’d think I’d remember from year to year that it’s just a few days and I should take time to appreciate it — but I always forget. Not even a week, and then the yard is covered in little soft pink petals and the green of the leaves starts replacing the flowers on the branches. Good thing I took a picture when I did.
I was worried about my Japanese Maple in the backyard — it took a big hit in the second snowstorm. I had to cut off three or four large branches that had broken with the weight of the snow. (We didn’t have those in Wyoming, either.) But it is leafing out nicely and I think it’s going to be all right.
My azaleas are even going to bloom this year. I was toying with the idea of pulling them out because they haven’t bloomed for a couple of years, and they’ve been looking rather leggy. I think they sensed that they were on borrowed time.
Evidently they want to stay.
Weekend Runs
Ohboyohboyohboy!!! Saturday is Taylorstown and it should be beautiful this week! I’ll just be doing a little walk/run for the last two mile section on Bald Hill Road.
I don't want to run Old Waterford Road!!
After the run on Saturday there was a voice mail from my son that his wife was having some contractions and they were going to go into the hospital to have things checked out.
About noon the word was that they were going to go ahead and induce labor.
By 5 pm he said things were progressing slowly and that there was no hurry.
I got to the hospital around 9 pm and settled in with the other grandparents for the vigil. It was slow going until around midnight. By 1 am the urgency in the steps of the nurses back and forth from her room had increased and the doctor was called.
At 1:48 am Sunday morning, Amelia Elizabeth Wiley came screaming into the world with ten little fingers and ten little toes. She is my fourth grandchild and (of course) she is beautiful. Everyone involved is doing fine.
It just doesn’t get much better.
Weekend Runs
Saturday looks perfect for a nice little out and back on The Woods Road.
YUCK!!!
Last Saturday after the Faith Chapel run in Lucketts, I noticed an advertising banner for the Saturday night bluegrass concert at the old schoolhouse in Lucketts. I like bluegrass music and for several years I have intended to check this venue out. Since it was such a lovely day last Saturday, I decided the time was right. Before last Saturday, I thought – in general — bluegrass was bluegrass. However I now know that not all bluegrass singers are created equal.
Last Saturday’s band was The Hazel Dickens Band.
What can I say about Hazel Dickens? Since my mother taught me that “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all,” let me just say… Bless her heart.
The old schoolhouse at Lucketts was packed to the gills last Saturday — full of people who probably know a lot more about bluegrass than I do, and when we left at the first intermission, there didn’t seem to be a mass exodus.
Did all those people hear something different than I did? I know there is a sophistication that happens with repeated exposure to things like music, but I don’t know why you would subject yourself to that the second time?
I’d like to go back another Saturday for another evening of bluegrass at the old schoolhouse, but I’m definitely going to do a little research first the next time.
Google is my friend.
Weekend runs
Looks like the weather will be good for another twofer this weekend!
Market Station on Saturday — might be an opportunity to go from Purcellville to Paeonian Springs.
Rust Library on Sunday — walk up those hills, baby!
Are we going up or down?
(No, this is not a picture of Amelia. My daughter-in-law’s blood pressure has stabilized and the doctor is now letting nature take its course.)
I’ve sat through my share of graduation keynote speeches. The only one I remember was Scott Hamilton, the Olympic Gold Medal figure skater, who spoke at my daughter’s graduation ceremony from Ithaca College in 2004.
He spoke of the tremendous high points in his life, and he told of the incredible challenges he had overcome, including a mysterious childhood illness that caused him to stop growing, testicular cancer and a brain tumor. He’s not unusual for this, I suppose — few people have lives that are completely struggle-free (and would you want that even if you could?). What was unusual was his perspective on it.
He said that he used to think that after every victory in his life, he had been cut down with a hardship.
At some point, however, he realized that the opposite was actually true — for every lowpoint in his life, a victory had followed.
Within a week, Sandra Bullock was celebrated for being the worst actress of the year and also the best actress of the year. And now, if tabloid reports are true, her real-life circumstances are eerily similar to the plot in another movie she made in 1998 entitled Hope Floats.
At the very end of Hope Floats she narrates:
Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad, but it’s what’s in the middle that counts. So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will..
For every ending there is a beginning of something else and another chance for success. I like that. A lot.
I’m having these thoughts today because I’m taking a friend of mine out to walk/run the last two miles of the Taylorstown run this afternoon. It’s really a beautiful couple of miles, and I’m glad I didn’t let my apprehension about the difficulty of the “run” stop me from going out to check it out that first time.
I don’t have to run uphill.. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I can do that.
Peaks and valleys — a lot more interesting than the flat track at the rec center.
Weekend Runs
I haven’t done the Faith Chapel run yet and it looks like Saturday is going to be a beautiful day for it. I see a <5 mile option that looks quite suitable.
Good old Greenberry’s on Sunday would be a very nice twofer.
…unless Amelia makes her grand entrance, in which case I’ll be enjoying another peak in my personal life doing the grandma thing.
Can Spring be far behind?
I went for a walk with my little grandson Tuesday afternoon and was excited to be able to point out undeniable evidence that spring is coming. There it was – a tiny little purple and yellow flower amidst the dried up leaves and twigs in the mulch of a neighbor’s landscaping. We bent down and inspected it and he said it looked like a butterfly. I suppose it did.
When we resumed our walk, he looked up at the cloudless blue sky and said, “What a beautiful day!”
No question about it.
My family is anxiously awaiting the arrival of another new life this week — my son’s first child, Amelia Elizabeth. The doctors have said that if she isn’t here by Monday, they will induce labor. I look forward to sharing a picture of her next week!
It’s that time again
Daylight Savings Time returns this weekend. Don’t forget to set your clocks forward Saturday night before you go to bed, or else you’ll miss the Sunday run — which is the trail cleanup, beginning at the high school — on the corner of Dry Mill Rd. and Catoctin Circle in Leesburg.
I’ll be there — unless Amelia has made her entrance, or the drops on the weather map turn out to be a deluge (which it looks like could happen on Saturday).
It's melting... melting... melting....!
The glacier that is my front yard is beginning to recede. (I’m still waiting for a verdict on the shrubs up by the house. The front yard faces north, so it takes a LONG for anything to melt in the front yard.)
I don’t see anything awful in the 7-day forecast.
The stock market seems to be holding its own for the time being.
The Girl Scout cookies that I ordered from the little girl who lives next door arrived yesterday.
I’m recovering fairly quickly from a little stomach something my grandson brought home from pre-school that laid waste to the entire family this week.
I finally got around to loading up the Theme from Rocky(the first one) onto my iPod. Can’t believe it took me so long. I can almost picture myself bounding up a flight of stairs two at a time (after I completely recover fromt he little stomach something, of course!)
The vernal equinox is only 16 days away.
All these things lead me to conclude:
Life is good, my friends. Life is good.
Weekend Runs
The Saturday run is from Market Station. I might just be up for that by then. No muss, no fuss, just a friendly out and back on the W & OD. (no 10K loop for me!).