Category: Miscellaneous Ramblings

Sometimes I am a strange mixed up mess of a girl. I know this shocks you – especially if you know me in “real” life. But it’s true. Sometimes I can’t remember whether or not I put on pants that morning. Monday I looked at a water bottle I use to spray the plants and wondered who had filled it. Since I live alone with cats, the answer would seem obvious. But I could not for the life of me remember filling it. And if you call that a “senior moment” I’ll have to track you down and hurt you.

On the other hand, sometimes I get an idea in my head and it keeps buzzing around in there until I’m forced to do something about it. I suppose that’s a good trait for a writer. After all, if I could easily push my ideas to the side, I’d be spending my life playing Final Fantasy or Sims.

Unfortunately, in muggle life, not every idea is a good idea.

For example:

It was not a good idea for me to go to a sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert without tickets, and with a girl I didn’t really know. It was not a good idea to try to find her house in a section of Philadelphia with which I was not familiar when I couldn’t remember her last name. Yeah. Angels were watching over me that night.

It was not a good idea to spend all of my cash money at another concert only to get turned around so I was heading to New Jersey in the exact change lane of the Walt Whitman Bridge with no money in the car. My friend and I scrambled through the ash tray where I tossed spare change (among other things) and dug out enough money to get over the bridge. Then we didn’t have any money to get back. So we drove around New Jersey late at night trying to find an ATM. The angels had a shot of bourbon after that one.

It was not a good idea to trade in my dearly beloved Chevy Nova to purchase a Ford Mustang as soon as the Nova was paid off. It was especially not a good idea to get a T-Roof, but no air-conditioning because I couldn’t afford both. It was like driving around in a portable greenhouse.

And, most recently, it was not a good idea for me to decide to move my desk on Sunday after I had fallen in the mud – twice – on Friday.

I know I told you that I wasn’t going to move my desk, but it was one of those ideas that wouldn’t give me peace. Before I knew what was happening, I was moving books and bookcases. I thought to myself “WTF? What are you doing?” But it was too late.

My timing sucked because on Friday I’d lost my footing walking to my car and fallen face first in the mud. Hard. Then, as I was trying to get up, I’d fallen in the mud AGAIN. *splat* *OOF* Curse words were spoken. All of which meant that I ached BEFORE I started moving all of the furniture around.

Monday morning, after my furniture moving frenzy, I woke, stiff, pained, and feeling more than a little senior. Once again the bitter truth dawned.

Not every idea is a good idea.

But the desk? It looks MAHVELOUS.

So maybe it was a good idea after all.

 

 
Hello, everyone!  It’s so good to be talking with you all again.  I had an unexpected blog hiatus when the snow storm from hell hit on Saturday and took my power out for five days.  And, since it was a COLD five days, I was more concerned with getting under enough blankets than finding an Internet connection.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and I have turned my recent Arctic adventure into a blog post.  So here you go – 12 ways you can tell the electricity’s been off too long when it’s cold outside.

After 5 days of temperatures in the 40’s during the day and high 20’s, low 30’s at night, the power came back on at the Palatial Horvath Estate yesterday evening.  Today it was 60 degrees outside.  Ah, irony.  How I love thee.  And how I love me some electricity.

Happy Belated Halloween!

If you’ve read my post from a couple of days ago, then you know the lunacy I went through trying to get my dearly beloved iPod set up on my computer. And how I bought a computer for my iPod. Well, lest you think that the insanity ended there, I thought I would tell you what’s happening now.

Sometimes, I am an ass.

Anyway, my laptop – the laptop I got for my iPod – has a 250gb hard drive. My iPod holds 160gb. Theoretically that seems fine – computer hard drive is bigger than iPod hard drive.

But the problem is that I have other things on the computer too – like programs and, oh yeah, stuff for my writing and like that. It’s gotten to the point that the computer can’t handle the size of my iTunes library (120 gb) and my Sims games and all of the other stuff that needs to be on the computer. Like, you know, programs. And the writing. So I had to remove all of my Sims games and I haven’t been able to play them for months.

But when life gets rough all I want to do is go torment a Sim. And eat carbs. I’ve been eating the carbs, but I knew I needed to do something drastic so I could torment a Sim again.

I have a 500 gb external hard drive, so I thought I would move my iTunes library there. But it’s attached by a USB cable and I like to take my laptop to other rooms in the house. Plus, being me, I wanted something NEW. So I bought a NEW external hard drive. It’s wireless! Awesome!

But the computer didn’t treat the wireless hard drive like it does the external hard drive hooked up with a USB cable. The computer thought it was a network drive. And that’s okay, except that the only way I could figure out to move things to the new drive was to drag and drop. And THAT’s okay, except that I couldn’t tell iTunes to store media there automatically.

So I thought I’d put iTunes on my USB external hard drive. And I did.

Do you want to know how long it takes 120 gb of data to move to a USB hard drive?

No. You do not.

But I moved it and all was well, except that I thought I’d move the actual iTunes program to the external hard drive too. And that effectively wiped out all of my playlists and all of the other personalized stuff I had set up on my iTunes library.

And then I decided that I would move the program back to the laptop’s hard drive, which wiped them all out again.

And then I thought that I would keep most of the library on the wireless external hard drive after all, and just let the new stuff be on the laptop’s hard drive. Then I would use my USB hard drive as a backup. So I moved the 120 gb file from my USB hard drive to my wireless hard drive.

Do you want to know how long it takes 120 gb of data to move from a USB hard drive to a wireless hard drive?

No. You do not.

And then I realized that I could “map” my network hard drive and give it a letter and the computer would think it was a regular drive.

And then I changed iTunes so the new stuff would reside on the wireless network hard drive.

And then I blew away all 120 gb on my iPod.

And then I synched the iPod with the new iTunes library.

And that took all night, but everything seemed to be fine.

And then I tried to update all of the podcasts I listen to.

And it didn’t work.

The podcasts and the playlists are in the iTunes library, but they aren’t coming over to the iPod.

And I don’t know why.

And then I cried.

And now I’m wondering if I’ll need to…wait for it…move everything back…to the laptop…hard drive…hmmmm.

*sigh*

The passing of the brilliant Steve Jobs has reminded me of the story of when I acquired my dearly beloved iPod, and I thought I’d share it with you. I think this saga will give you an idea of my single-minded determination as well as my tendency towards knuckleheaded idiocy.

As you read this, please know that I have many friends who are actually computer technicians and would have been happy to help. I also know many people who, at the time, had a high-speed internet connection. And notice that I DIDN’T EVEN THINK ABOUT calling them. Only after it was all over did I think to myself “Hey, I could have called…” Or gone to the library and used their connection, for f****s sake.

But anyway, here’s what happened. I don’t watch television, I listen to audiobooks. And, as you might imagine, that can be a little hard on a CD player – especially when Brillance Audio had like 99 tracks on each CD. Getting to the track you wanted required a lot of button-pushing. So, about three years ago, I decided to buy an iPod.

Me, being who I am, wanted to get the biggest and bestest iPod out there. Never mind that I had no idea how it worked. I went to the Best Buy and spent a significant amount of money on an iPod with the ability to hold 160 gb of stuff. Books take up a lot of room, I reasoned, so I needed a big Pod. And actually, I’m kind of glad I got that one – they didn’t make them very long because most people thought they were TOO big.

Oh, by the way, my laptop at the time had a 40 gb hard drive, with about 20 gb available. Do you sense a problem? I didn’t.

Oh, and I had a dialup internet connection.

So I brought home my shiny new toy and opened the box, prepared to be delighted. And I was…until I realized that the software to run the thing didn’t come with it. It needed to be downloaded over the internet.

Do you even want to know how long it took to download a 68 mb program over a dialup connection? No. You do not.

But eventually it was downloaded and I proceeded with the install. Only to find out that iTunes required Windows XP Service Pack 2. I had been dutifully downloading my updates (and THAT was fun on dialup), but apparently Microsoft had determined that my computer was no longer worthy, so I did not have Service Pack 2 installed. I went out to the Microsoft site, eventually found the download for Service Pack 2, and started the proceedings.

It was going to take 36 hours to download.

A trifle miffed, I stopped the download. Then I realized I had an old version of iTunes already on my computer. HUZZAH! I put some songs in there, and synched up my brand new lovely iPod.

My iPod would not recognize the old version of iTunes.

See, now this is the point where I should definitely called some friends. Well, actually I should have called them before downloading the 68 mb program.

But I was determined. I had an iPod and as GOD WAS MY WITNESS music was going to go on that thing.

So I went and bought a new laptop.

I can’t explain it…I think I was just in the zone. This was going to work. I was going to make it work come hell or high water. And at least the new laptop would have a hard drive big enough to hold all of the songs and books the iPod would hold.

Rationalization is a lovely thing.

I brought my laptop home, and (eventually) got it set up. I was feeling pretty good about myself because I had saved the iTunes download on my old computer. I figured I could just move that to an external harddrive I have, then load it into the new computer, and I wouldn’t have to download the program again. That’s what I did.

It didn’t work.

The new laptop was running Vista. The old laptop had been running Windows XP. The iTunes I downloaded on the old laptop was the Windows XP old computer version.

So I downloaded iTunes – the 68 mb file – over a dialup internet connection AGAIN.

But at last, SUCCESS! iTunes was downloaded…the program was set up and running…. there were songs in the library. All that was left was to move them to the iPod. I hooked up the iPod and…

it didn’t work.

Apparently the iPod thought it was corrupted because it had synched to the old version of iTunes, which MEANT…

I had to download the 70 mb iPod software file and reinstall it.

Over the internet.

With a dialup connection.

After a week, I had songs on my iPod.

And peace reigned once more in the Palatial Horvath Estate.

 

 
Sometimes as I drive to work, I amuse myself by checking out the names of the roads on my way and wondering about them.

Yup. That’s me. Living the dream.

Anyway. The roads I take are a little strange, because they’re a combination of old twisty-turny farm roads and newer roads around subdivisions. I always wonder why the roads are named the way they are.

Some roads around here are named after people. “Brunner”. “Stryker”. Or, in that straightforward Pennsylvania Dutch way, for pieces of equipment – “Sickle”. “Chock”.

Some are named for landmarks. This can be a little confusing. For example there isn’t any blue church on “Blue Church Road”. The church that’s there is made of respectable grey stone. On the other hand, maybe the church feels blue? Does it play the blues? Does it have a Blue Christmas?

Some road names are ironic. “Beverly Hill Road” is indeed a hill, but the houses on it are respectable middle class, not high-end boutiques. People always give me a second look when I tell them I’m driving on Beverly Hill. Swimming pools. Movie stars.

Then there are the names that seem to come out of nowhere. I noticed this morning that one of the subdivision roads was named “October Glory Circle”. Wow. What a great name. Sounds majestic, doesn’t it? As if angels should be singing it. Oooocccctooobberrr GLLLLOOORRRYYYY!!!! AHHHH!!!!

We seem to have a lot of roads named after nuts. I can’t count the number of “Chestnut”s, “Acorn”s and “Walnut”s around. Sometimes a road is named after a physical characteristic, a landmark AND a nut. Thus we have “Chestnut Hill Church Road”.

Speaking of “Chestnut Hill Church Road”, it goes merrily along its way, then comes to a very short, gentle hill. At the top of the hill it’s Chestnut Hill Church Road. At the bottom it’s “Baumgartner Road”. WTF?

A lot of roads around here change their names at various points for no apparent reason. One road I drive on has at least three names from beginning to end. And it’s a straight road – no dog-legs. Hardly any turns. The main street in the town where I work changes names three times in about 5 miles. Why? Who the heck knows! “Take Second Street…I mean Chestnut Hill…I mean Grant…Oh, hell.”

And don’t even get me started on all of the roads with the same name. “Acorn. No, not that Acorn, THAT Acorn.”

Thus you now know the reason why nobody around here will give you directions.  It’s not that we’re rude.  There’s just no point.

 

 

One interesting fact about myself I did give to Carina Press to post on their Twitter feed is my belief that I scared Baryshnikov one day. Since this was a defining moment in my life, I thought I’d give you the whole story.

So, my friend Lisa and I were in New York City. We were in our early twenties, probably 21 or 22 and, like all other young adults going to NYC, we had been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Yes, as a matter of fact, we WERE geeks.

I am still a geek. Lisa, on the other hand, is very cool.

Anyway, we went from the museum to the Lincoln Center. I can’t remember if we walked or took the subway, but I DO remember that I was carrying a coffee table book about the Met in my backpack.

Have I mentioned that we were geeks?

I think we might have been going to see an opera because we stopped at the Metropolitan Opera Shop at Lincoln Center. Lisa went towards the back of the store, but I was lingering closer to the door when a man walked in. He was kind of short, had light brown hair, and was wearing leg warmers. Obviously he was a ballet dancer.

I was a HUGE Baryshnikov fangirl at the time (still am, come to that). This man looked a lot like him. Baryshnikov wasn’t really dancing anymore, but he was with the American Ballet Theater as a director. The ABT performs at Lincoln Center. We were at Lincoln Center. This man was wearing leg warmers.  Ballet dancers wear leg warmers.  He looked like Baryshnikov.

Ergo, thought I, he must be Baryshnikov.

I believe that I let out a shriek. I did not fall upon him, however. I had more dignity than that. I ran to find Lisa and squealed (pretty loudly) “I think I just saw Baryshnikov!” She came running back with me to see for herself.

And he was gone.

It was just SO odd…why would he leave? Could he have sensed that we were about to mob him and create a scene? Hmmm….

All of these years later, I look back on this incident and ask myself, “Did you really scare Baryshnikov? Or did you just terrify a random man wearing leg warmers?”

I’ll never know for sure.  But I tell everyone it was Baryshnikov. It just sounds better that way.