Sunday, April 6, 2014

What to wear.

It’s hard to know.  It’s sunny,  *almost* warm in places.  HOT in the car.  Man,  it’s confusing.

But that’s not to say I’m complaining.

Now,  if I were complaining,  I might bitch just a little about the fact that now the printer has decided to take a cr*p.  There’s something wrong with the mechanism that plucks the top sheet of paper off the stack to pull it through the rollers.  I recall having a laser jet printer a few years (decades?) ago that I took for a repair with that malady.  That sucker was too pricey to just say,  “Meh,  let’s turf it.”

With the exception of the fact that I can’t print anything right this minute, there’s not much really to complain about.  This is a printer that we bought in 2002 in Puerto Rico at Wal*mart,  and it’s been around.  Moved it back home,  moved it to The Netherlands, then on to Vienna and back home again.  It’s coming up on 12 years old.  Or, it was coming up on 12.  *mumble*

There are a couple ironies there too.  First of all,  it miraculously worked with Windows 8.   Unlike the webcams and scanner.   Oh,  did I not mention that my scanner is no longer supported?  That was a pisser.

Then the other irony is,  I had just bought new printer cartridges.  Son of a…! 

Meh,  you pays yer money and you takes yer chances.  Especially with computer cr*p.

 

Lemme see,  what have we been up to?  Nothing too exciting,  that’s for sure.

 

Went to a “Home Show” here in Burlington on Friday afternoon.  Now,  I put “Home Show” in quotation marks here because well,  we were able to cover the whole thing in maybe an hour and a half.

It was “Senior’s Day”,  which was something that had kind of escaped my attention,  until I mentioned to Travelling Companion that there were a lot of White Hairs there,  and what the heck would they be doing at a Home Show, looking at renovating ideas?   Well, it was explained to me that quite often Seniors are just looking for something to do,  and free admission is the biggest draw.  

And,  what’s that expression?  Something about the pot and the kettle?   What little hair I have,  ain’t exactly brown anymore.

 

We got in for free as well,  which was something that I hadn’t really expected,  but it so happened that T.C. had taken along a cut out from the paper, just so we’d know where to go,  and it was a coupon.

Just as well it was free,  since it was worth every penny.

I did feel a bit bad for the vendors,  since there’s a lot of work involved in setting up those displays,  and you’re not really guaranteed too darned much.  Well, certainly not with Friday’s bunch.

I didn’t bother with too many pictures,  except for this guy,  who was peddling some little contraptions for hanging your blue bin and green bin from the wall.

OK then.

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I didn’t want to tell the poor guy that I had been hanging our green cart off the fence for years in order to keep the raccoons out, so it wasn’t really an idea that was all that exciting to me.  They’re pretty clever, (um, the racoons,  not the hooks) and we’ve witnessed some pretty impressive circus acts trying to get into that bin,  but they’re thwarted most of the time. 

He also did have this nifty little latch gismo,  but I just kept on moving. 

I know, not very charitable of me.

 

Oh,  and I suppose I could have done a whole post on this subject,  but Daughter Number Two and I went to Slovenian Class on Saturday morning.  T.C. was supposed to go too,  but she had already scheduled a sewing class. She’ll be going next week.

This is kind of like mending the paddock after the horse just galloped over the hill,  but there’s always the chance that we’ll go back to Slovenia at some point,  and I just wanted to be able to connect the dots.  Doesn’t mean I’ll ever be anything more than a mute,  but at least I’ll have the straight dope on a few things. As I explained to the teacher, I couldn’t conjugate a Slovenian verb to save my life.

Besides,  there’s still too much Russian in my brain,  and I need to somehow write over those files.   I even caught myself starting to write some words with the Cyrillic alphabet.  That will never do. 

Many of the sound combinations are the same or similar,  but most everyone west of Bulgaria uses the Latin alphabet.  Except for the Serbs.  They use both.  Don’t ask, ‘cause I have no idea.

And don’t take me to task on that,  because I’d have to look up who uses Cyrillic and who doesn’t.  You’re welcome to do the research and get back to me.

Fill yer boots.

There’s only something like 10 of us in the class,  and I’m too old to worry about embarrassing myself.  Although I suppose I could embarrass the women folk who are coming too. 

“And it’s about time they came too,  I say!”

Sorry,  old family meme.  The kids learned a long time ago to never ask. “Can I come too?”

 

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It wasn’t actually in that part of the building,  but rather in the Credit Union.  I know.  Seems a bit odd,  but they have a conference room upstairs.

Nice and peaceful.  There were a lot of parents and kids going in and out of that door,  so I wasn’t sure what was taking place in there.  Dance classes?  Skeet shooting?  OK,  maybe neither.  We’ll never know.

 

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I don’t think our teacher realised I was taking his pic. 

Anyhoodle,  we’ll see if I manage to remember anything.  Might help if I go over my notes.   Kind of like that guitar that I need to get at at least once a day.  Gah!   There’s no getting better unless you practise.  Such a drag.

 

Meanwhile,  I continued to unpack our generator.  There was a little bit of extra room in the packaging,  so it’s not quite as huge as the box.  Still pretty big just the same.

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I’d almost go so far to say it’s a thing of beauty.

Seems odd that I have it stored inside for the time being,  even though it’s meant to spend its useful life outdoors,  but it’s OK sitting right there for now.  Plus,  I have to pour a pad,  buy some conduit,  wire and stuff,  so we’re in no hurry.

It continues to get marginally warmer as spring progresses.  That’s the theory at least.  April can be a fickle month in these parts.  I try not to look at the temps in Vienna.  It’s been way too nice there. HOWEVER,  they have had some major dust blow up from the Sahara I see.  It happens from time to time,  and I recall that same phenomenon once when we were there.

 

I think that’s all I have in my pea brain for the moment. 

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

Thanks for looking in.

7 comments:

  1. Free, anything free is worth while checking out, and the warmer weather, will take that too.
    keep having too much fun there.

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  2. Is the guy on the right hand side asleep in his water glass?

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  3. You have (er had) a 12 year old printer? That actually worked! You have been blessed by the printer gods.

    I like our Epson Expression 410 or even the better 610. Don't pay more than $89 as they do go on sale.

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    Replies
    1. I've been reading the reviews of the 410 and 610, and probably either one is all we'd need. I'm concerned with the notion of this "chip in the cartridge" issue. It won't let you continue if it senses that the cartridge is low, but not empty. Have you had this problem?

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  4. our printer did the same thing..seemed to forget how to feed the paper through..darn thing..it was no where near 12 years old though..it will get turfed and yes we have a new one now!
    everything is so disposable now a days!!

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  5. Read like a full schedule. Good on you.

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  6. That is a sweet looking genny. Since it will live outdoors, do you have to wash and wax it? Wouldn't surprise me a bit if you did with your constant need to find things to tinker with. OCD? You? :cD

    ReplyDelete

Well, I've been getting too many spam comments showing up. Just a drag, so we'll go another route and hope that helps. So, we won't be hearing anything more from Mr. Nony Moose.
I guess I'll just have to do without that Gucci purse.