Computer woes

I remember reading my friend Brian's post when his Imac crashed and while I cannot compare my problem with my DSL to his- it still was very aggravating. I was down for an entire week! I spoke to tech support so many times that I knew 80% of what they were going to ask before they asked. Still didn't help. Every time you call or get transferred- you have to answer all of the same questions over. What's worse is half the time the tech support staff is in India, so you spend most of you time saying,, "can you repeat that". On day one the tech said it was my modem and I would have someone come to fix my problem on TUESDAY- but on Monday they call and say it's been corrected- yet the DSL doesn't work. Finally, 4 technicians later I get one who says "It must be you modem"- aaaarrrrggggggg!!!! Yet when it arrives I have to problems. 1- it doesn't "plug in and play" as I was assured, and 2- it's not wireless. But by Wednesday night after I find out from tech support that the modem had a glich it in- WE"RE UP! When I get home on Friday the wireless modem arrives and I'll be honest- I was dreading going downstairs to plug it in. When I do - it doesn't work- but fear not- the modem has a disc with the instructions! We're saved!- well not quite. After I bang away on this for an hour I finally cave-in and call tech support AGAIN, only to find out that the "odds were stacked against me" because there is a bug in the system and even if I had wrote the installation manuel i still would not have gotten on.

After all that I will now have to call again- to go over billing for a wrong modem and to have a week removed from my bill. Wish me luck- I'm certain no one speaks plain english in that department.

The one thing I learned - how lost- no, how totally disconnected I felt without internet for a week. I felt so dysfunctional in doing my job because I wasn't connected via e-mail to my company. So you can bet the last time I called tech support I wrote down how you get around that bug.

On another note- the photos was Jake trying to offer his own tech support - and I can barely understand him any better then the guy from India- and the next day he played "Barbie" with Brooke and Meagan.

Japanese banquet

Each year the home school co-op has a banquet on something they are studying. Last year it was a Medieval dinner, this year it was a Japanese banquet. The girls made costumes and did their make-up and of course Jake snuck into Brooke''s room and got into her lipstick. I guess I don't know much about lipstick because I caught him as soon as he put it on and it was like paint! That stuff wont come off! It took three days to finally wear off.

Jake's Brithday #3

The big day finally arrived, and you know what his birthday wish was? He wanted a doughnut- so off to the doughnut shop we go. The deal is he likes to eat doughnuts because he likes to put his finger in the hole and eat around it.

As for the birthday, everything went great. Sorry no photos cause Nancy videoed the thing, and I was busy cooking hamburgers- no body to operate the camera. Jake had a great time, we started late (6:00) and the weather was awesome.

Of course Jake got everything "Cars". "Cars" clothers and "Cars" toys- the photo of him at the table is of the big haul he took in that day. He got alot (actually too much) of other stuff- including the G I Joe Hover Chopper which he uses to fly patrol over his Cars collection. He also got an ESPN baseball tee that he plays on the porch that he loves.

First Painting in 15 Years!

Yep, that's right- first painting in almost 15 years. After visiting my old college friends back in October I realized two things, 1. I don't want to be 65 and look back at my life and say, "you had a gift and you wasted it", and 2. I really do have a God given gift. I knew when I helped Brooke do her first painting that it would fire me up- which it did.

So what's it like to paint again? Great! I was very pleased with the result considering what I was wanting to acchomplish.

1- didn't want to do the super detailed stuff. 2- want it to look painted- so I didn't "blend" any paint, all the colors were premixed and laid on wet-on-wet. 3- I painted about half the size of my old paintings.

And I learned that I made several mistakes.

1- I didn't do a super tight detailed drawing. 2- I didn't do a monotone underpainting but a flat wash. 3- I didn't lay in a flat base color.

Those three mistakes cost me. In the past I always did a really tight drawing, and in painting flowers and leaves- you need a tight drawing- plus the underpainting is to help you to see where to apply what colors. In the end I had to go back and outline each leaf and stalk. I also laid in the underpainting to define depth so I would know where each color went.

In the end I realized I can do a much better job- but ironically the frist three steps are identical to doing a high-end detailed painting. The only real difference is how you apply paint and brush sizes.

But the best thing of all was that this painting was done from start to finish in nine days. NINE DAYS! In the past the super detailed version would take months. It's good to be back.