No “Phone Home”

As of today, you may not “phone home” like E.T. and reach me. I canceled my home phone and internet. I’m working exclusively off my wireless and 3-G modem card. Talk about freeing.

It was another busy day. I took apart my desktop computer and monitor and packed them up for my cousin. I decided late in the morning to go to the movies and dropped my packages off at the post office on the way.

The movie I saw, Easy A, was extremely entertaining, though a weird plot. The heroine pretends to be promiscuous for all type so noble reasons. The movie is all about the effects of that pretense.

I just had a one and one-half hour nap – boy, it’s great to be retired. I’d been archiving some more tapes and got very sleepy.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the chiropractor then Richard is coming over. He’s found someone who wants to buy my Kitchen Aid mixer. I’ve made a lot of cookies using that mixer, but won’t need it in the camper.

Don’t forget: if you want to call me, use my cell phone number. If you want to email me, use my kathy@kathydillenbeck.com email address.

Until next time…

A/C Okay

Today was the day the fellow from US Air Conditioning came to the house for the 6-month checkup on my A/C. Everything checked out okay – just some minor maintenance in the form of a new filter and UV bulb. Good now for another six months – hopefully, my cousin will have to handle that one.

I spent the morning cleaning off my desktop PC (I backed it all up yesterday) in preparation for packing it up and sending it to my cousin Ethelyn for her son William. I had stored the boxes for both the monitor and the computer in my shed, so I’ll be getting rid of 4 big things: the 2 boxes, the monitor and the PC, to say nothing of the keyboard, mouse, and camera. I hope it weathers the trip to New York State.

I also began cleaning off my old laptop. I don’t know what I am going to do with that yet.

My Go-Video VHS to DVD converter (and vice versa) isn’t working correctly so I took it to Best Buy today. They don’t fix them there and gave me the number of a repair place. After I got to my truck, I called the number – it hadn’t been the repair shop for several years. Instead, it was an AAMCO transmission shop.

Tonight I’ve been working on more tapes: John Anderson, Kathy Mattea, and two of the three Tom T. Hall tapes. I forgot how much I like their music.

I have one more box of books to pack for my friend Linda, who has graciously agreed to take all of my fiction books. The next thing will be getting them in my friend Karen’s car so she can take them in to work with her. She and Linda work together.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with my cell phone, in prep for turning off my home phone tomorrow. I’ve been experimenting with voice commands, but sometimes it just doesn’t listen properly. I’ll have to work with it a little more.

I’ve worked all day to day using my 3-G modem instead of my DSL. It’s at least as fast if not faster. Tomorrow, I’ll cancel my home phone and internet.

Once again, I’ve worn myself out listing all of the stuff I’ve been doing. It’s almost like doing it all again.

Until next time…

Books, Packed and Unpacked

What a day! I got so much done.

My day started with a nice long, with me bouncing along accompanied by ABBA and all that wonderful music used in the movie Mamma Mia. So far, I haven’t allowed myself to use any excuses to avoid my walk, probably because i really enjoy the exercise.

After breakfast, I headed to Plant City where I dropped off five boxes of stuff at Good Will, then on to Sam’s where I got some batteries and boxes. As you will see by the pictures, the boxes are a little big, but I only filled them 2/3 full. Still, they are still too heavy.

There are a few more books on the shelves, as you can also see from the pictures and some in boxes already. Of course there are 3 more bookshelves in my bedroom, but they are specialty books: writing books, I intend to give to my former writing teacher, books by Kay Arthur and Gene Edwards and, of course, the Left Behind books. I may try to store some of them or just put them in the camper.

What a disaster this room is!

Tomorrow, the A/C company is supposed to come by between 10 and 1, so I know where I’ll be then. I’ll spend the time working on my packing. Will I ever get it all done? Sometimes I wonder.

I’ve been learning a little more about my cell phone, now that I will be using it exclusively as of 9/30/2010. I think I finally mastered my Bluetooth headset which is a lot better than the wired headset I used with my landline.

Today, I learned I can use voice commands to call people. My brother Ray, whom I called to show off my new skills, thought it showed how lazy I was. I just told him I was retired and it was okay to be a little lazy.

Well, tonight is one of my favorite TV nights: NCIS, NCIS-LA, and Parenthood. I’m also looking forward to seeing No Ordinary Family; the previews looked great.

Until next time…

Closed Forever

Today, I closed my eBay store forever. I’m all done with the packing and shipping of my household goods that people saw fit to buy. I no longer have an excuse for not getting my house packed up and ready for my cousin once the sale goes through. I’ll just have to blame my lack of progress (if there is any) on my inherent laziness.

I spent the morning closing the store and backing up my Desktop PC in preparation for taking deleting my files and taking it apart. I promised it to my cousin’s son (also my cousin, obviously) William. I was going to take it up there next time I went, but I think I’ll pack it up and ship it up there. Where would I put it in the meantime? It’s a great computer with RAID-protected disk drives.

I packed up my vinyl records today – three bankers boxes – about 200 of them. I’ll let my cousin Dickie go through them and the ones he doesn’t want, I’ll probably take to a local record store called Vinyl Fever. It would be a real shame to just toss them out. I found about 10 that I think I will put on my iPod. It takes some time, but I think it will be worth it.

Oh, I also made some more delicious bean soup – if I do say so myself, this time adding a can of tomatoes. It makes it so much richer and more tasty. Beans are filling, nutritious, high in fiber and one of my favorite foods. – good thing, ‘cause I eat a lot of them.

I think tomorrow, I’ll head to Sam’s and get some boxes for packing up my books. They really represent the most of what I have left to get rid of – well, aside from going through five two-drawer file cabinets full of who knows what.

You know, I’ve spent 50 years collecting these books. It’s kind of tough to see them go, but I can’t afford the space or the weight. Wish I could have bought all of them for my Kindle and, realistically, I probably wouldn’t re-read them anyway.

I’ve made some exceptions: my Janet Evanovich books, my Sue Grafton books, the Left Behind series (but I’ll get rid of them once I read them all), my books on camping, my Gene Edwards books. Oh dear, that sounds like a lot of books. Maybe, I’ll have to re-think some of them.

Well, once again, it’s getting late and I have to watch either Hawaii Five-O or Castle, though I’m pretty sleepy. I’m taping both anyway and watching stuff like that gives me something to do while I do boring things like packing up books.

Until next time…

Tapes, Tapes, and More Tapes

Today, I probably archived about 15 tapes and I think they have stopped multiplying so maybe there is a non-train light at the end of the tunnel of tape. The tapes I copied today didn’t require constant vigilance since there weren’t music tapes so I was able to do some organizing and packing.

Terribly muggy today although it was quite cool this morning – 73 or so. Of course, that temperature didn’t last long. I had a great walk tonight, but couldn’t use my new iPod while walking because there was nothing on it. I attached it to my laptop to re-sync and used my old iPod instead. The music of ABBA is ideal for walking. Several peppy songs in the beginning and then tapering off. I walked about half and hour. It’s so different walking in the dark.

I’ve been reading a Ted Bell book today – I’m working my way through the Alexander Hawke series. It’s a great series, though Hawke’s friends and acquaintances seem to get killed off pretty regularly. But there are real good guys and real bad guys and the good ones win in the end. What more could you want?

I tried to fix my Go-Video which I use to copy VHS tapes to DVD, but can’t figure out why the DVD player won’t eject. I took the top off, but to no avail. I’m going to call the company tomorrow to see if they can direct me to some kind of reset or something.

Tomorrow, the A/C people come for my “FREE” 6-month checkup – it’s never been free. On the contrary, they always find something to do that is expensive. But at least the last time it made a huge difference in my electric bill.

Time for night-night.

Until next time…

Another Exhausting Day

Got up this morning and took a fairly long walk while I listened to a tape titled 7 Reasons You Can Trust the Bible. I think the speaker was Erwin Lutzer – yep, I just looked up the book by that name and he’s the author. It was a good tape.

I’ve decided that instead of listening to the same music every morning (ABBA if I want to walk fast or Gaither Homecoming Israel if I don’t), I would try to learn some stuff. I have hours and hours – probably hundreds of hours – of tapes on my iPod, mostly from Worldview Weekend and Precept Ministries. I look forward to learning a lot. Of course, I won’t be walking all that fast, but I’ll be walking longer – most of the tapes are 35 – 60 minutes long.

I spent some very frustrating hours trying to get Internet Explorer 8 to work right on my laptop. It still isn’t working right. Clicking on links has no result – no error message, nothing. I finally downloaded Mozilla Firefox. It’s 10 times as fast as IE8 and all of the links work.

I spent a bunch of time updating the info on my iTunes – adding Genre, etc, then updated my iPod with it. I also archived a few more tapes.

During the course of the day, I went to the post office and the grocery store. Just had to get some more of those delicious Concord grapes.

I also finally reached my brother Ray. I’d been trying for two days to call him, but didn’t even get his voice mail. I finally got hold of his wife Margie and she had him call me.

My cousins finally got home from Texas; she called to let me know they were home safe. It will be great to be able to talk to her even every day if I want again.

Well, time to go to bed and read a while.

Until next time…

Is It Still Friday, Sepember 24, 2010?

Just woke up at 1:56 and wondered if I had done my blog for Friday – I had not. In hopes of going back to sleep, I’ll be brief.

1. I walked
2. I showered and dressed
3. I drove to the chiropractor and saw him
4. I went back home and had breakfast
5. I got eBay packages ready to send
6. I took the truck to Jarreett-Scott Ford for an oil change and tire rotation
7. I went to the post office
8. I went back home and ate
9. I did more work on eBay
10. I read my email
11. I studied some photography stuff
12. I watched Medium, CSI: NY, and Blue Bloods  -- enjoyed them all.
13. I went to bed
14. I got up and remembered my blog
15. I wrote and posted my blog
16. I went to bed

Until next time…

P.S. I hope everything is spelled right. I’m trying not to open my eyes too much so it will be easier to go back to sleep.