Confessions of a Grandma

I wrote about my vacuum cleaner a while ago.  I contacted the Eureka company and the woman who spoke to me said it should be covered by the manufacturer's warranty and she told me of a repair shop nearby.  I took it there ten days ago and have not heard any thing since.  The man who took it did say it would take a few days to get to it and then a couple of weeks for the part(s) to come in so I guess I should remain patient. Other things were on my mind for a while, but now it is about time to vacuum so I hope that I do hear something good and I hope I hear it soon. In the meantime, the screen on my Dell laptop started fading, fading, fading.  I dropped that off at the computer repair place last Wednesday.  I have not heard from them.  The thing was two weeks past its warranty so I am kind of dreading the news from them.  I swear that when I had to have a new hard drive installed last February, they said the warranty would be extended by six months....

My computer problems have continued...oh, the drama...oh, the pain. A technician came to the house and installed a new hard drive, which was fine but Of course I did not have a back-up so I lost everything--ten months of stored writing, pictures, files.  I know that my brother-in-law would have been able to at least try to retrieve some of that stuff.  I should have tried to entice him to travel down here! Now I have no software.  I was sent a disc, but no instruction about how to use it and neither Mike (who is ususally very competent with that stuff) or I (who am hopeless) could get it to run.  That meant another call to Dell Support.  The guy I talked to was very nice and he did not try to sell me anything.  (There is probably a notation next to my name in their files.)  However, the connection kept crashing and we were unable to download anything.  Same thing the next day.  There was a problem with the wireless system used in the park...

Oh, no!  Oh, No! My computer crashed.  The hard drive is down or done or whatever.  It is not working and someone has to come to the house to fix it. I only learned that someone would have to come to fix it after spending a frustrating 45 minutes on the phone with Dell "Support."  I use that term loosely because they were far more interested in selling me various warrenty plans for software, hardware, and maybe even my underwear.  I was so very frustrated that I was in tears. I usually don't have so much difficulty understanding accents, but, with not being at home, I was using a Skype phone that dropped the call and then my cell phone.  On the other hand, I do have very little tolerance for be given the sales rush. I am so cranky right now!

Every one has been saying there was no winter in Vermont this year.  Maybe so, but we are having typical April weather--which means no one would be surprised at the freezing temperatures and the sleety snow fall. I spent the afternoon working at the library.  I met with the state librarian consultant on Wednesday and had a quick tutorial in pulling books off the shelves for de-cataloging.  Our small library probably needs that done more than most because space is so limited.  Of course new books are coming in and there are always donations that need sorting through. Once the books are pulled I have to take them off the computer record, pull the bar code, mark the book as 'withdrawn' and then box them all up.  I can see where this is going to be a long time until completion. I spent the morning sewing some new curtains for my bedroom.  I am about half way finished with that and will maybe get more done later tonight.  Or maybe I will just have ...

I am being totally frustrated with computers today.  It seems that everything I have tried to do has not worked out.  I tried to copy some files from our home computer to transfer to the laptop that we use in Florida.  No luck with that.  I tried to print from the laptop--that didn't work.  I wanted to download some music, but the sound is turned off again.  All these things can be fixed with a little fiddling and changing of settings, but I have to bother Mike to do that because I always forget how--and that's the most frustrating thing of all. I just want to sit down and do what ever it is I have planned to do.  I have no patience for the quirky needs of machines.  For instance, we keep getting a message on the laptop that new Apple software is available for download.  We don't have an Apple computer.  Why do we get that message?   Also, if I  download music on the laptop, it tells me it is being saved in i-something, w...