Details Available Upon Request
The reasons I've been absent, chronologically, are:
1.) On September 14th I flew to, first, Milan and, second, Venice. (More about that shortly. I need to capture everything that happened in Italy for myself, if not for you.)
2.) I got home around 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 24th. I was exhausted but managed to stay up until 8:30 p.m.
3.) I slept until 8:30 a.m. but woke up still exhausted. Once up, I discovered my laptop was deader than a doornail, and the fan in my second floor bathroom was making so much noise that the only way we could use the bathroom was with the door open and the hall light on. (The bathroom lights go on and off with the fan.)
4.) I used my Fire and paid my bills. In the process, I discovered that I owed the Water Revenue Bureau $298 for one months' water usage. Usual range of Water Revenue bills: $50 - $90. Before I went on vacation, the second floor toilet occasionally flushed for hours before stopping. The periods and frequency must have increased in my absence. I immediately stuck a sign on the toilet: "Do not use." Fortunately/unfortunately, the toilet was in the same bathroom as the noisy fan so lacking light was not so much of a problem.
5.) On Monday, September 26th, I went on line to a site called Thumbtack and asked for bids from plumbers to fix the toilet. I also called my son, John, and asked him if he thought he could fix or replace the bathroom fan. He did. He said he'd come over the next day, Tuesday the 27th, right after his first client. Next I picked up my laptop to take it around the corner to Gadget Fix and found out that Razor had left me a surprise. His parting gesture was to pee on my laptop. I took it around to Gadget Fix anyway, hoping they could download my photos and documents, but they were pretty sure the hard drive was toast. (Also, the laptop was disgusting. My guess is that Alex and his bride, whose name I cannot seem to remember, just disposed of it, hopefully in a environmentally-friendly fashion.)
6.) John called me back and said he had forgotten he had another client at 11:00 a.m., with about an hour's drive between clients. Could he come on Wednesday? I said, "Yes."
7.) Tuesday, September 27th: I got half a dozen proposals for my toilet repair. My toilet is a Toto which is a make that sad experience has taught me, not every plumber is familiar with. I responded to the only one that specifically cited their experience with Toto's: Central Plumbing. They arranged to come the next day, Wednesday, between 10 and noon. I called John up and told him it would be best if he wasn't working on the fan while Central Plumbing was working on the toilet. The second floor bathroom is twice the size of the third floor bathroom and probably four times bigger than the tiny powder room, but it isn't big enough to accommodate two sets of workmen. John said he wouldn't be here before 1:00: clients.
8.) Wednesday, September 28th: The plumber called about 11:30 and said his first job ran longer than expected so he wouldn't be here before 1:30 at the earliest; in other words, he was now on a collision course with John. John arrived about 1:00, took the fan apart, discovered it was clogged with dust (John's mother is a slutty housekeeper), he cleaned it up, and it ran just fine. As he was finishing up, the plumbers arrived and went to work on the toilet. They were obviously very familiar with Toto's, had all the right parts on their truck, and were in and out in half an hour. The second floor bathroom was now fully functional.
9.) John and I sat around for another hour and discussed what sort of computer I wanted to get. We had both independently arrived at the conclusion that an All-in-One was best. My laptop sat on my workstation 24/7; I hardly ever even took it downstairs to the living room. I use my Kindle Fire when I travel. I had planned to go with a low end machine, but John talked me into an upgrade. I ordered it immediately, for delivery on Friday, September 30th.
10.) Thursday, September 29th: I thought about updating my LiveJournal or cleaning up my email Inbox, but knowing that my new computer would be here the next day...I didn't wanna. Besides the house needed cleaning and I had some reading to do.
11.) Friday, September 30th: The computer was delivered late in the morning, and I immediately unpacked it and set it up.
All went well until I got to the fourth screen. At that point I was supposed to type in my Wi-Fi password. I couldn't get my wireless keyboard to talk to the computer because I couldn't find the dongle that plugs into a port on the computer. I didn't know what a dongle looked like (not much, it turns out), and I figured I probably dropped it during the unpacking process. I went through the box, all the packing material, and anything in the area it could have fallen into: trash can, recycle can, To Do box. Nothing.
12.) Saturday, October 1: I finally gave up and ordered another wireless keyboard from Amazon. (Each keyboard is keyed to its dongle and its dongle only.)
13.) Sunday, October 2: No progress on the computing front, but I was glued to the TV for the first presidential debate. My girl Hillary did well on her own, but her opponent's disastrous performance made her look extra-competent. I didn't expect Trump to speak authoritatively or to put forth detailed policies, but I hadn't expected him to be reduced to babbling and twitching. It was a fascinating 90 minutes, in a horrifying sort of way.
14.) Monday, October 3: When the second keyboard arrived, its box looked exactly like the box the first one was in except that a label was stuck to the top of this box: "Important: The receiver dongle is located inside the battery cover on the bottom of the wireless mouse."
There was no such label on the box that the original wireless keyboard came in, although the boxes were otherwise identical. The dongle turned out to be about 1/2 inch long (maybe less), and I had just thought it was part of the mouse.
That's the dongle, on the opened flap that shows the cavity where you insert the batteries.
I got out the original box, found my dongle, inserted it in a port...
...and found my troubles were just starting. It took an hour-long session with Lenovo to get my keyboard talking to my computer, but then, when I tried to go on line, the browser immediately shut down. (Samantha calls it a "forced close.") I'm was using a Microsoft browser, Edge, so I called Microsoft, figuring it was their problem. Two long hours later, when I gave up...Microsoft gave me some code to upload from my Fire to the Lenovo...and I didn't feel comfortable doing that, I found out that somewhere during our struggles, one of the things Microsoft told me to do had purged all references to my Wi-Fi network...to all Wi-Fi networks...from the computer. I went to bed.
14.) Monday, October 3: I called Lenovo again and told them I thought we needed to do a factory reboot and start over. They explained to me that I would lose all my files and downloads. I explained to them, several times, that I. Didn't. Have. Any. Files. Or. Downloads. to lose because I never got on line. Never ever, not even for a moment. First, though, I had to go to Gadget Fix and borrow a plug-in keyboard, sign a statement for Lenova agreeing that I understood I would lose all my files and downloads in the reboot, and then we did it! And it worked perfectly. My wireless keyboard immediately talked to my All-in-One, my Wi-Fi address appeared again, I typed in my Comcast password, and I was on line. What a relief. I love my Fire, but for me it's not the same as a full-size screen, a keyboard, and a mouse.
Since then I've been busy. My email Inbox is finally cleaned up and organized - it took hours - many neglected chores around the house have been dealt with, many skipped errands have been run, and I actually had time to have a holiday dinner with my sister Debbie and John and Pam. And here I am! And hopefully will be around quite frequently, going forward. FanSee
P.S. I mailed the second keyboard back to Amazon today.
1.) On September 14th I flew to, first, Milan and, second, Venice. (More about that shortly. I need to capture everything that happened in Italy for myself, if not for you.)
2.) I got home around 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 24th. I was exhausted but managed to stay up until 8:30 p.m.
3.) I slept until 8:30 a.m. but woke up still exhausted. Once up, I discovered my laptop was deader than a doornail, and the fan in my second floor bathroom was making so much noise that the only way we could use the bathroom was with the door open and the hall light on. (The bathroom lights go on and off with the fan.)
4.) I used my Fire and paid my bills. In the process, I discovered that I owed the Water Revenue Bureau $298 for one months' water usage. Usual range of Water Revenue bills: $50 - $90. Before I went on vacation, the second floor toilet occasionally flushed for hours before stopping. The periods and frequency must have increased in my absence. I immediately stuck a sign on the toilet: "Do not use." Fortunately/unfortunately, the toilet was in the same bathroom as the noisy fan so lacking light was not so much of a problem.
5.) On Monday, September 26th, I went on line to a site called Thumbtack and asked for bids from plumbers to fix the toilet. I also called my son, John, and asked him if he thought he could fix or replace the bathroom fan. He did. He said he'd come over the next day, Tuesday the 27th, right after his first client. Next I picked up my laptop to take it around the corner to Gadget Fix and found out that Razor had left me a surprise. His parting gesture was to pee on my laptop. I took it around to Gadget Fix anyway, hoping they could download my photos and documents, but they were pretty sure the hard drive was toast. (Also, the laptop was disgusting. My guess is that Alex and his bride, whose name I cannot seem to remember, just disposed of it, hopefully in a environmentally-friendly fashion.)
6.) John called me back and said he had forgotten he had another client at 11:00 a.m., with about an hour's drive between clients. Could he come on Wednesday? I said, "Yes."
7.) Tuesday, September 27th: I got half a dozen proposals for my toilet repair. My toilet is a Toto which is a make that sad experience has taught me, not every plumber is familiar with. I responded to the only one that specifically cited their experience with Toto's: Central Plumbing. They arranged to come the next day, Wednesday, between 10 and noon. I called John up and told him it would be best if he wasn't working on the fan while Central Plumbing was working on the toilet. The second floor bathroom is twice the size of the third floor bathroom and probably four times bigger than the tiny powder room, but it isn't big enough to accommodate two sets of workmen. John said he wouldn't be here before 1:00: clients.
8.) Wednesday, September 28th: The plumber called about 11:30 and said his first job ran longer than expected so he wouldn't be here before 1:30 at the earliest; in other words, he was now on a collision course with John. John arrived about 1:00, took the fan apart, discovered it was clogged with dust (John's mother is a slutty housekeeper), he cleaned it up, and it ran just fine. As he was finishing up, the plumbers arrived and went to work on the toilet. They were obviously very familiar with Toto's, had all the right parts on their truck, and were in and out in half an hour. The second floor bathroom was now fully functional.
9.) John and I sat around for another hour and discussed what sort of computer I wanted to get. We had both independently arrived at the conclusion that an All-in-One was best. My laptop sat on my workstation 24/7; I hardly ever even took it downstairs to the living room. I use my Kindle Fire when I travel. I had planned to go with a low end machine, but John talked me into an upgrade. I ordered it immediately, for delivery on Friday, September 30th.
10.) Thursday, September 29th: I thought about updating my LiveJournal or cleaning up my email Inbox, but knowing that my new computer would be here the next day...I didn't wanna. Besides the house needed cleaning and I had some reading to do.
11.) Friday, September 30th: The computer was delivered late in the morning, and I immediately unpacked it and set it up.
All went well until I got to the fourth screen. At that point I was supposed to type in my Wi-Fi password. I couldn't get my wireless keyboard to talk to the computer because I couldn't find the dongle that plugs into a port on the computer. I didn't know what a dongle looked like (not much, it turns out), and I figured I probably dropped it during the unpacking process. I went through the box, all the packing material, and anything in the area it could have fallen into: trash can, recycle can, To Do box. Nothing.
12.) Saturday, October 1: I finally gave up and ordered another wireless keyboard from Amazon. (Each keyboard is keyed to its dongle and its dongle only.)
13.) Sunday, October 2: No progress on the computing front, but I was glued to the TV for the first presidential debate. My girl Hillary did well on her own, but her opponent's disastrous performance made her look extra-competent. I didn't expect Trump to speak authoritatively or to put forth detailed policies, but I hadn't expected him to be reduced to babbling and twitching. It was a fascinating 90 minutes, in a horrifying sort of way.
14.) Monday, October 3: When the second keyboard arrived, its box looked exactly like the box the first one was in except that a label was stuck to the top of this box: "Important: The receiver dongle is located inside the battery cover on the bottom of the wireless mouse."
There was no such label on the box that the original wireless keyboard came in, although the boxes were otherwise identical. The dongle turned out to be about 1/2 inch long (maybe less), and I had just thought it was part of the mouse.
That's the dongle, on the opened flap that shows the cavity where you insert the batteries.
I got out the original box, found my dongle, inserted it in a port...
...and found my troubles were just starting. It took an hour-long session with Lenovo to get my keyboard talking to my computer, but then, when I tried to go on line, the browser immediately shut down. (Samantha calls it a "forced close.") I'm was using a Microsoft browser, Edge, so I called Microsoft, figuring it was their problem. Two long hours later, when I gave up...Microsoft gave me some code to upload from my Fire to the Lenovo...and I didn't feel comfortable doing that, I found out that somewhere during our struggles, one of the things Microsoft told me to do had purged all references to my Wi-Fi network...to all Wi-Fi networks...from the computer. I went to bed.
14.) Monday, October 3: I called Lenovo again and told them I thought we needed to do a factory reboot and start over. They explained to me that I would lose all my files and downloads. I explained to them, several times, that I. Didn't. Have. Any. Files. Or. Downloads. to lose because I never got on line. Never ever, not even for a moment. First, though, I had to go to Gadget Fix and borrow a plug-in keyboard, sign a statement for Lenova agreeing that I understood I would lose all my files and downloads in the reboot, and then we did it! And it worked perfectly. My wireless keyboard immediately talked to my All-in-One, my Wi-Fi address appeared again, I typed in my Comcast password, and I was on line. What a relief. I love my Fire, but for me it's not the same as a full-size screen, a keyboard, and a mouse.
Since then I've been busy. My email Inbox is finally cleaned up and organized - it took hours - many neglected chores around the house have been dealt with, many skipped errands have been run, and I actually had time to have a holiday dinner with my sister Debbie and John and Pam. And here I am! And hopefully will be around quite frequently, going forward. FanSee
P.S. I mailed the second keyboard back to Amazon today.