TGIF

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I used to work and way back then, I worked a job that had "normal" hours - Monday through Friday! Well, to be totally honest, frequently at that job I also worked Saturday and Sunday too and lost of evenings as well, but at least when I did that then, I got paid overtime for my efforts.

Work I had over the years from 1980 to 2002, often was shift work and usually entailed a different work week as well -more often than not, Sunday was the equivalent to Friday for normal folks in my life. And usually, the only time that was a big problem for me was when there were special events in my life that required following the normal person's work week cycle and I would need a Saturday off or an occasional Sunday. And every June and July for many years, I would need off work for a long weekend entailing Friday, Saturday and Sunday off! (Those were for Teamster Picnic Weekend in June at Conneaut Lake Park and the last full weekend in July for my family reunion.)

That really has no bearing on anything in my life today since I am no longer able to work and every day could be considered a "holiday" or "weekend" type in my life I suppose. But, I just thought I would use the TGIF thing here and recap the past week - since it's been a bit different for me.

Today marks a week since I got the new computer. It's been a lot of fun sometimes as I've been playing around here, trying to get all kinds of software reloaded into this computer, playing around with Windows XP and some of the features new to me. I'm learning - slowly, but I am learning how to use it and some new stuff I have on it that wasn't available before.

I still don't have my old data available although Dave, the Computer Guy, has transferred it now from the old computer to cds for me and is supposed to bring it down this evening along with the old computer too. THe game plan right now is to give the old computer maybe to Kate, the stepgranddaughter here to use to type up homework, etc., on it - no internet connection for her, sorry about her luck there! But she has not proved herself to be trustworthy in having access to the internet so she'll have to make do with a computer that has WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT loaded on it and she can always save her homework to a floppy to print it out from this unit later or in school. And, she can play Solitaire to her heart's content and use whichever format of it she wants without interference from me or Mandy either.

We got hit here Tuesday with a snowstorm - first one of this winter - and received probably about 12 inches of the white stuff. School was dismissed at noon Tuesday and the kids have not gone back yet. Yesterday and today, it is closed apparently due to the low temps (wind chills of minus 10-minus 20) so lucky kids get another vacation day.

Wednesday, Mandy bundled little Maya up and took her outside to let her play in the snow for the first time ever. How I wish we'd had a camera here to take some pictures of her playing in it! She took to sliding on one of those little plastic sleds like a fish to water! I don't know who enjoyed the outing more either - Maya or her Mommy! Mandy was just all smiles and laughing as she played with Miss Maya out on the snowbank in front of our house and Maya really didn't want to come back into the house either!

Yesterday, most of my family and I - along with the step-grandkids' maternal grandmother and the little daughter of my son-in-law's ex-wife too -all went to PIzza Hut for supper to celebrate stepgranddaughter Sierra's 11th birthday - which actually was Wednesday but the weather and road conditions kept us from going out that day. It was a fun dinner which everyone seemed to enjoy very much - especially me, since that meant I didn't have to cook yesterday and got to dine on Pizza and breadsticks and tossed salad! Yippy skippy, huh?

We got a notice too in our tv cable bill yesterday that they now offer internet (broadband) connectivity and I'm going to call the 800 number listed there to see if that is available to everyone on the cable or only select areas. If it is available with our cable here, I may opt to go that route as DSL is NOT yet available here through Verizon although they have been advertising it is coming here for over a year now. But so far, they haven't gotten to this exact area yet with that type of connection. THe cost to access Broadband through our Cable company would be an additional $42.50 a month - a bit higher I think that what Verizon had been advertising DSL would run - if they ever do finish installation of accessibility to that service.

I don't know the differences -exactly - between Broadband and DSl - just that either one is way faster than dealing with dial-up and Broadband would not require using the phone line either. Hmmm - might mean we could go back to one phone line service to the house then I suppose. But if anyone reading this can give me some data on differences between Broadband and DSl, any recommendations of one over the other too - that would be a welcome bit of information for me to try to digest.

And, finally - yesterday for some reason or other, I forgot to post the Bushism of the day, so guess what? Today you get yesterday's, today's and also an extra one - the one for Saturday and Sunday which is a combined "Bushism."

Thurday - February 15, 2007
"Sometimes, Washington is one of these towns where the person - people who think they've got the sharp elbow is the most effective person." New Orleans, Louisiana; December 3, 2002

Friday, February 16, 2007
"My answer is, b ring them on." - On Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces; Washington, D.C.; July 3, 2003

and
for Saturday and Sunday - Feb ruary 17/18, 2007
"And there is a new history now that has been done, and that history needs to be included in the process." - Bratislava, Slovakia; February 24, 2005

Hope everyone has a good weekend - stay warm, safe and "be happy."