T minus One and counting

 

Saturday.  The last day I had to get ready for the upcoming cruise.  Was I ready?  No.  But some things have to be prioritized, and others have to be dropped from the schedule.  And yet, I had last minute complications....

When I woke up, I found that a file had gotten corrupted on my computer.  Unfortunately, this file made it possible for me to restart my email client.  After looking around on the internet for a solution, I was of the mind to delete everything in the "Program Files" folder related to Thunderbird, and reinstall from scratch.  One problem - some files just didn't want to be deleted, even with me in administrator mode.  So, I renamed the folder, and reinstalled everything.  After a couple of tries, I was able to restore the program and was lucky to have the bulk of my old emails.

RQS didn't get moving until 11 am or so.  (I had awakened earlier, and finished fixing my computer problem before going into the living room to chill.) Neither of us were in the mood to start getting ready to go out until 12:30, but this would mean that we wouldn't be going to the movies later on. By the time we got out the door, I ended up changing my dress because it was too warm to wear the heavy dress I had first put on.  (It would have been perfect after the sun had set, but this was yet the daytime.) And then we were off to the nail salon for our mani-pedis. 

Both of us were starting to get hungry, but our next stop was Micro Center.  I needed to buy a new cell phone charger and RQS needed to buy a cruise safe power outlet.  Sadly, RQS could not find what she wanted in Micro Center (or in Best Buy later on).  By the time we left Micro Center, we were both very hungry.  I was getting weak due to low sugar level (I had much less than usual to eat) and needed to eat something soon.  So off to the one Arby's I knew of in Westchester.

I'm not sure of how many of my readers have eaten at Arby's, but i remembered their Roast Beef as being very tasty.  Their Yonkers outlet was very small, and designed for take-out customers.  It took a few minutes for us to get our food, as only two people were manning the store - both doing food preparation duties when not at the cash register.  Although the sandwich was tasty, it did not fit my memories of the place.  Yet, I might go there again if I have a craving for a roast beef sandwich.

Once done with food, we returned home (with a stop for ice cream),  By the time we neared home, I was glad to be wearing leggings under my dress.  Hopefully, I won't return to weather colder than this when our ship comes back from Bermuda.

Visiting a friend sitting Shiva, then spending more money.

 

This morning, I was supposed to have brunch with SJM.  However, we postponed it, as the place we planned to go to was closed - as in no longer in business. (Or, so my friend said.)  And this was just as well for me, as I didn't have the energy to get showered, dressed, and made up as Marian until later in the day....

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When I finally got up and moving, it was well into the afternoon.  This was the last night my friend would be sitting Shiva, so I knew that I had to be there tonight.  So around 5 pm, I shaved, showered, and dressed - and was out the door by 6 pm.  Since I knew I was going to buy a new wallet and not use the one I bought through Amazon, I packed my license, money, and a couple of credit cards into my handbag and went to my friend's place.  It was perfect timing, as I got to spend some one on one time with my friend before people started coming over for the zoom service.  This gave me a good opportunity to leave, as I still had a couple more places to go to yet.

My next stop was Micro Center in Yonkers, where I bought a 30W USB-C charger, so that I could fast charge my phone when needed.  After that, I went to Target to pick up a woman's wallet - and found one that was close to fitting my needs.  So I bought it. 

Next, I went home to take care of things.  I transferred the replacement credit cards into the new wallet, but will not use them until I record them in my data base of card information.  And then, I cloned my BJ's card, so that I can scan it when shopping for less than 10 items.  (Larger purchases will require me to present as Mario and use the legitimate card I have.)  Hopefully, I'll be able to get a BJ's card which doesn't have a picture on it (I saw one when I was last there), and I'll put that in my female wallet for use.

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One thing of note.  I wasn't able to stay asleep last night.  So I decided to catch up on co-op work and write up two sets of meeting minutes.  It's enough to bore someone to sleep, and it helped to put me into the right frame to go back to sleep....

Helping a friend with buying/setting up a computer

 

This is how I imagine I look when at my computer desk, save that I don't have a cat on a nearby windowsill.  However, I helped a friend buy a computer today and set it up for her use.  And she is much more likely to look like this, as she has two cats that want to be nearby their human.

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When I woke up this morning, I really didn't want to go out.  But I'm glad I did, as I felt a little bit useful for a change.  My plans for the day were to drive to meet RQS where she undergoes physical therapy, drive to Micro Center where she would buy a new laptop, then back to her place in Queens to get it set up. Since I knew how long it should take me to reach the Ridgewood area of Queens, I was able to leave the house around 11:15 and reach her on time.

The drive to Queens was uneventful, and I reached her area a little early.  So I waited nearby (not wanting to pay for parking) for her to give me a buzz.  Shortly afterwards, I picked her up and drew a "straight line" to the nearest Micro Center store in Flushing.  (I put "Straight Line" in quotes, as I stayed on the same road under different names, and with curves from Ridgewood to Flushing.) Within 15 minutes of getting to the store, we left with a new computer, heading towards her place.

RQS lives in an area in which it is hard to find parking.  It was fortunate that I was able to find parking within a very short walk of her house.  And then the fun began.  We had to unpack the new computer, perform initial system setup, remove the old anti virus, and install the new anti virus before doing much of anything else.  It was a minor headache to install the new anti virus, as the setup insisted that we add dashes ('-') between several 4 character codes on the barely readable receipt (upon which the dashes were not printed). AARGH!  After a quick bite to eat, we progressed onto the next task of the day - moving data from her old PC to her new PC.  And again, we had problems with product serial numbers before using the Laplink software.  Yet, we got the job done, and I was out of the place by 7:30 pm.

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It was not the right time to tell RQS about Marian - but that time is getting close.  When I do, I hope she can deal with this part of me.  Only time will tell....

 

 

PS: I called RQS the next day.  She loves the computer, but found that I didn't copy everything over to the new machine.  So, she's done some manual work to do so.  On the whole, the operation was a success.

Quick - Find me a 5th Grader!

 

The older I get, the more I find people who are totally uncomfortable with technology. It never ceases to amaze me how well the old joke fits with these people:

"It's so easy, that a 5th grader could understand it.  Quick - Find me a 5th grader!"

And yes,what comes naturally to me is so awfully impossible for some people....

- - - - - -

The other day, one of the two women I've been dating wants to buy a computer to do her work remotely.  So we run over to the local Micro Center to pick up a new computer, and then install it.  Everything is running well until we have to set up the computer on the home network - and then things go sour.  She has left all the technology decisions to her daughter, and her daughter is nowhere around to tell us the password/passphrase used to authenticate us on the home router. As a result, we can't complete setting up the computer.

Last night, she tries to reach me while I'm at work, to figure out how to connect the software she needs to perform her business tasks. Not only is she having a hard time installing the Chrome browser, but she is having conflicts due to Microsoft trying to force her to use its Edge browser and cloud services as part of the standard Windows-10 setup.  So I agree to drive down after work to help her get her software running - and this means that I will need to do a quick change from female to male presentation before going to see her.

I'll bet that whatever problem I find will be relatively simple for me to fix.  And I'll bet that she gets in the way of me fixing it, as she will be nervous due to not understanding what's going on.  If I can't fix it, I'll let her know.  But it's likely an easy problem to resolve, and I feel confident that I can get her up and running before she works with her first client.

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