I bought Windows XP Pro upgrade last weekend and spent the entire weekend installing Windows ME and installing the the upgrade from scratch. I backed up my data from my C drive onto my D drive, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped it would. I lost patience transfering data and decided to delete what was left - bad move. Now I really have a lot of work to do installing things. A person doesn't realize how many programs and web sites one has usernames and passwords for. It is amazing. In fact, right now, I am going to solve my e-mail address problem by exporting my Yahoo e-mail address book and importing it into Outlook Express. I tried last week and it failed, but I am going to try again today. Ta, ta for now.

Today a former coworker asked me if I would like to apply for a job and I thought, why not?
It seems this job is only for overflow work, but it could be a good way to make a bit of extra money for a trip that I would like to take. It would also help me justify the cost of trying to start up my own business, which is slow in developing. I will see how it works out, if I manage to pass their test. I probably should review basic medical terminology, because believe it or not, "classroom" medical terminology makes little difference in the "real world of medical terminology." I could write another paragraph to try to explain what I mean by that, but as I said, I am going to shut down and get to bed. Another time perhaps.

Today is my birthday and although I have a lot of people in my life that I consider to be good friends, only my family remembers my birthday any more. I am not complaining. Just stating a fact. I have childhood and school friends, and old work friends, and new friends and they are all separate. People seldom purchase cards these days (and who can blame them with the high cost of Carlton and Hallmark cards). There are the lower cost cards available through the Dollar Store chains, but am I alone in worrying that I am buying the same ones each year, not realizing it? There was a company in Canada called Regal that sold affordable and high quality cards, but they have recently gone into receivership after 75 years, I believe.
With e-cards taking over, many of us are sending and receiving them instead.
By the way, I am going to check my e-mail to see if anyone (my sister perhaps?) who has sent me an e-card. I got to eat all the food I wanted today. I told my mom, "no calorie counting today!"

Yesterday afternoon I wanted to drive my car to the store, but it wouldn't start. It was totally dead and I assumed it was the battery, as the battery is quite old. I phoned Canadian Tire Auto shop and booked an appointment for this morning. I phoned the autoclub this morning and asked for a tow truck to be sent to my home. The fellow in the tow truck tried to jump start the engine, but the first attempt didn't work. He decided to kick underneath the drivers side of the car and determined that it was the fuel pump, not the battery. I managed to get the motor running on the second attempt. He told me not to shut the motor off until I arrived at Canadian Tire. It took them most of the day to repair my vehicle and $450 later, I am broke. I just had the exhaust system replaced to the tun of approximately $300 a couple of months ago.
I'm glad I had my photos taken by Walmart on Saturday, because if this had happened to me prior to going to get a formal photo taken for the family for Christmas, I may have had to postpone it once more. I am goint to shut down now because the words are not showing on the screen as fast as I type them.

Lack of Telephone Manners

One of my recent pet peeves has been the tendency of people in their 20s and 30s to answer other people’s phones and not indicate who they are or whose number has been reached. My 30-year-old son has had several room mates in his apartment and they all seem to answer his phone on the first ring, even when my son is home. They do not give their name and they do not say that I have reached my son’s phone number. I finally asked the latest room mate if David ever answers his own phone and the fellow replied, “no.” I don’t know why my son, David, allows these guys to do this. He has no idea that a lot of us “old” folks consider this behavior to be ill mannered and, in fact, downright annoying.

I was so irritated the last time I phoned that I said the fellow, “This phone is in David’s name and it is his phone.” He replied, “I pay board and I pay for my phone calls.” I thought to myself, that is not the point. I don’t think he actually pays for 50% of the basic phone line, but I could be wrong. A lot of young people seem to believe that as long as they pay for their long distance phone calls that is sufficient. If I knew for sure that my son was charging them 50% of the phone bill or was happy not to do so, I probably wouldn’t be a ticked off. I think the part that really bugs me is that my son is always short of cash. Mind you, he doesn’t bum money from me, so maybe I should be more relaxed about this.

The reason I decided to write this rant in my blog is because the same thing just happened when I phoned my sister long distance. The first call was answered by someone whose voice I didn’t recognize. So I thought perhaps I got the wrong number. I checked my sister’s phone number and dialed again. Again I got the same stranger’s voice answering. This time I asked her if this was 1-780-123-4567 and she replied, “I don’t know.” Then my sister’s daughter came on the line and I told her that I thought I had the wrong number because I had no idea who had answered the phone. She replied, “I didn’t hear the phone ring.” Well fair enough I think to myself, but couldn’t you ask your friend to say whose phone number they reached? But I held my tongue.

Am I the only person ticked off about this issue? I invite you to put a comment on my blog.