Over-55 and active

Random musings from a guy who's old enough to know better!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

It's Almost December!

Well, Thanksgiving is over and I'm glad. We had too much food and I ate WAAAAAY too much. My scale groaned when I got on it. And the added weight affects my breathing so I walk so slowly that my shadow passes me.

The darling granddaughter and her parents visited us last Friday through Sunday and Sara slept over both nights. My hat is off to those grandfolks who raise their kids' kids. I don't know where they get the energy! C and I love to see the baby and A and A, but we were wiped out by Sunday afternoon! Whew!! But she's such a cutie! She's into making choices and changing her mind these days. Test, test, test!! And she's only 30 pounds! :-)

I thought that PT on Tuesday would be a terrible hardship what with my (a) pigging out and (b) not exercising in a week, but, dare I say it, everything went well except the treadmill at the end. I had to cut my speed 20% in order to finish 12 minutes. Oh, well. That will get better as I drop the weight.

We saw a great show at the Passage Theater in Trenton about the life and music of Bessie Smith, the "Empress of Blues". She was played by Miche Braden who was terrific!

After failing to replace the single full-sized screen with the full-size glass in my back storm door, we decided to buy a new one, like the ones we have at the front. Its an "Easy Vent" door that has a hidden retractable screen that can be operated with one hand. How nice!!

Did I tell you that C is retiring on Feb 1? And she has signed up for the county Master Gardener course that runs Jan-Mar. She's going to enjoy her retirement!! Me, too. :-)

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Gadgets Have Been Out To Get Me!

I got my first GPS unit, a TomTom ONE 2nd edition, on sale at Amazon, and I've been learning what it can -- and cannot! -- do. Even though it would connect to my Palm TREO 700p via Bluetooth, but I could not get it to use the wireless to get TomTom extra services (like traffic and emergency calls). I did find out that the TREO 700p is not supported, I guess because it does not have GRS/GPRS. It seems to love the GW Bridge -- see my next posting.

Last week, while downloading email from my Verizon account on said TREO, the phone rebooted spontaneously. When i tried to POP more mail, it said "Account disabled". I tried with Thunderbird and Outlook Express on a Windows machine and Tbird on my Ubuntu box. No joy. Trying via their website was no better although the error message was something like "Account in maintenance mode". Of course tier 1 support didn't have a clue ("I don't think we support Thunderbird"!) but focused on the webmail. Said it would be fixed in 24 hours. It wasn't. Last Saturday, I checked and saw a closed trouble ticket!! Digging through some notes, I came across the phone number for tier 3 tech support and called them. She did understand what I wrote above and said she would pass it along to the Operations Group who would fix it in 24-48 hours. By Monday, it hadn't been fixed. I called again and this rep told me that the Op Grp doesn't work weekends! Finally on Wednesday, he called to say that he got an email from the Op Group saying it was fixed. Sure enough -- 3467 messages awaiting to be downloaded. No idea what was wrong or how they fixed it.

And then when I went to hot-sync my TREO, it hung on Memos. I tried a hot sync using j-pilot on the Ubuntu machine and j-p suggested a corrupt file! I spent several hours searching for possible solutions and eventually found one. Change the conduit to not sync Memos (to make sure that Memos was the problem) and then copy the latest desktop Memos file to the TREO. That worked and a few minutes check memos for possible changes got me back to normal.

Last night, while watching "ER", the cable box tried to reboot and then shut itself down. I gave it a few minutes, then tries a cold boot. Same problem. Tried the other TV (in case Comcast was doing something), but it was OK. So I did some emailing. I looked up maybe 20 minutes after the initial reboot and the cable box was showing the time, so I turned it on an d there was "ER" again. Whew!

My electric razor and toothbrush have been OK.

Boston

Love that grandkid!!! :-)

We had a great trip to Boston to visit our family there. Well, it turned out OK after a rocky start. I had searched on Orbitz for a 3-star hotel to stay at since the one we usually use had prices through the roof for last weekend. Orbitz recommended the Bedford Plaza Hotel and the price was about what we had paid at our old place. The BPH website indicated that it might be a little "plain", but hey -- three stars!! So I booked it.

It was awful! First of all, they were doing renovations and there was a slight odor. The entry to the lobby was filthy. The front desk looked like one in a flea bag -- all it lacked was bullet-proof glass. The room was grungy. Baseboard heating coming apart, new carpet laid but not installed, suspicious stains in the tub, broken toilet seat, etc. We decided to stay one night and then checkout.

So we went to Alan and Alisa's where we had delicious Chinese takeout -- the granddaughter is at the "I don't do well in restaurants" stage (but otherwise she's perfect! ;-). Cathy was telling them about out hotel so we decided that if we could get reservations, we would move tonight. Lisa mentioned a Hampton Inn that just opened near Red Hat Software in Chelmsford so Alisa called and got us a reservation. Lisa and I went to the BPH, got our stuff and checked out. The clerk was reluctant to give us any paperwork and now I know why (see below).

We checked into the HI and it was like night and day. THIS was a 3-star hotel! Cathy was mollified, indeed.

On Saturday, we had lunch with Lisa and James at the Uncommon Grounds in Cambridge/Watertown. Great food, but crowded and noisy so we didn't get a chance to talk at all. Next time.

I got to watch the Patriots continue their unbeaten streak and also the surprising Celtics. Boston has become the mecca of sports now with the Red Sox World Series win, the Patriots, Boston College (until their last game) and the new Celtics, and even the Bruins have been above .500. I'm happy.

Also, I got to play with my new TomTom One 2nd edition GPS that I got on sale for less than $200!! I like it a lot despite its attachment to the GW Bridge. A word of explanation: we go to Boston via the NJ Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, Tappan Zee Bridge, I684, I84, MassTurnpike. TomTom like I95 and the GW Bridge which I avoid because there is always traffic and construction. However, Tom don't know from that so at every opportunity until we crossed the Hudson River, Tom has a suggestion on how we could get to the GW Bridge!!!

It did flunk one big test. We were on I91 bypassing Hartford when we got a traffic alert about an accident that had closed the two left lanes. As we got to where there was a slowdown, I took the exit thinking that Tom would find an alternative route to Boston automatically (I didn't think of pushing his "Find an Alternative" button!), but all he did was say "Turn around at your earliest opportunity". <sigh>

I'm learning about TomTom itineraries, a way to plot your own route before you start. Someone has a website that will convert a Google route to a TT itinerary but you have to play with the Google map a lot to get it to mark waypoints that TT will understand. Tedious. Back in my flying days, one of the planes I rented had what they called "RNAV", a scheme in which (if I remember correctly) you could enter waypoints instead of FAA-published routes and use them. But it took only a few waypoints to go from Trenton airport to Logan in Boston, not the dozens that Tom seems to need. Ah, the freedom of not having to travel on roadfs!!

Anyway, I called Orbitz today to see about a refund (after a couple of rounds of emails), and they said they called the BPH and the clerk said their records showed we stayed there three nights!!! No wonder the clerk didn't want to give me any checkout paperwork! However, I do have something from them that I got as we left, and of course I have the receipt from the HI that shows we stayed there those three nights.

I'll keep you posted.

And now some pictures!!



Thursday, November 01, 2007

Red Sox, YAY!!!


Well, we did it again! I have to say that this world series win is nowhere near as satisfying as the 2004 saga, but -- hey -- I'm happy! I've already ordered a couple of coffee mugs and a T-shirt.

I'd be disappointed if they don't offer Schilling a decent contract. Even if he wins just 10 games, he's their post-season hero and while I know it's a business, there's something to be said for loyalty. But if he's not a Sox next year, I hope he's a Phillie!

I can see Mike Lowell getting better offers from other teams and I hope he also ends up in Philadelphia. Coco Crisp is gone --- too bad; I had high hopes. If Lowell goes, Youk can go back to 3rd base and then we need to find a slugging 1st baseman. Even though Big Papi did not disgrace himself during the games in Denver, he is just not a good enough fielder (lack of range) to play every day.

And we need to find a catcher to spell Varitek. (How do you spell "Varitek"? V-A-R. DaDUMdum!!)

And, hip hip hooray for the Patriots! Will they beat the Colts?

I'm having big problems with Verizon: access to email is blocked (I just started forwarding so I shouldn't lose anything). Tech support doesn't have a clue. However, they did dig up another Peter Holsberg. He appears to be a music educator and musician (trumpet and voice) and lives in NYC!!

We go to visit Sara, Lisa, Alan and Alisa tomorrow. Should be fun.


Time to go to dinner at the diner. ("Nothin' could be finah!")