Scamp

I have a dog named Scamp. Maybe I should say Scamp has me, because he seems to be the boss!



My younger son brought this rambunctious Cocker Spaniel into our lives almost 14 years ago. He was about six weeks old at the time and was already a little scamp, which was why he was named Scamp.

This ornery little pooch wants someone to be with him all the time. During the day he sleeps in his doggy bed placed next to my computer desk. He raises his head and looks around at me and then goes right back to sleep. If, however, he raises his head looks around and doesn't see me, he jumps up and hunts until he finds me. My sons say he's on a 'Mommy hunt'.

This morning Scamp wanted more attention than usual. Early and I do mean early, this morning he woke everyone up whining and scratching at my son's bedroom door. Now if you have a dog and he starts this behavior; you will get up and see what this is about because he probably needs to go outside. So my son got up and let him out. Then he starts barking to come in and mom wakes up. We let him in and all go back to bed.

About 20 minutes later the whining, scratching and barking begins again. So this time I go outside with him. He runs around the patio and wants to go back in the house. It is now about 5:30 AM and I am thoroughly awake, so I turn on the coffeepot and my computer. Before long, Scamp is asleep like nothing is going on.

I am reminded that when my younger son was about six weeks old, he would wake up in the middle of the night and just wanted to be held.

Kids and dogs; love them both!

 

Martha

Bugs and Spiders, Oh My!

I don't like bugs. In fact it is pretty accurate to say I hate bugs. Roaches, ants and bugs in general; I hate them all.

Where I live there are a lot of (shudder) spiders! All sizes of spiders, big spiders, small spiders and even some teeny tiny spiders. I am not sure what kind they are, although I did kill a black widow in the garage a few weeks ago. I am pretty sure most of them are not really dangerous other than giving me the creeps. I even found a scorpion on the kitchen floor the other day!

This is a relatively new housing development; most of the houses in this are are less than three years old. I suppose we have moved into the wild habitat of these little but scary creatures. However, I still don't want to share living space with them. As long as they stay outdoors I won't bother them, but I do NOT want them in the house!

I once saw a really creepy movie about spiders. They invaded and took over everything! Spooky, but I knew it was just a movie.

Now it looks almost like that movie in a park here in Texas! The Internet is all a buzzing about this huge spider web in Lake Tawakoni State Park. It covers several trees, bushes and even the ground in places. It is so scary some people won't go near it. (I would be one of those people!) Web sites like USA Today and a lot more have stories about this huge spider web.

They do say just about anything can have a good side and this huge web is trapping thousands of mosquitoes! Sometimes folks can hear them screaming! (I don't like mosquitoes either!)

Big Spider Web


Martha

Customer Service

Whatever happened to 'real' customer service? If you are old enough you may remember there was a time when the meaning of customer service was that someone would help you if you had a problem.

Merchants would provide this service to customers with a problem, hence the title 'Customer Service'. Years ago, there was also another phrase, 'The customer is always right'. This meant even if the customer wasn't right, the merchant would try to 'make things
right'. Sometimes merchants would even follow up with phone calls or letters to make sure a customer was satisfied with the results of contacting the 'Customer Service' department.

That was then and then there is now.

My newspaper has a column named 'The Watchdog'. The folks behind this column try to help people with problems that should have been taken care of by a now so-called Customer Service' department.

Some of the most frustrating instances seem to involve seniors, who certainly don't need to be punished by the lack of customer service. Case in point, a lady who was billed over and over again for a bill she had already paid. Numerous copies of the cancelled check were provided to no avail. If she hadn't contacted the Watchdog who managed to get the problem resolved, who knows how long this would have continued?

When the Watchdog gets involved, these problems are generally quickly solved. I suspect merchants, companies, etc. don't want to find themselves maligned in print which is read by a great many people. They manage to all of a sudden find what caused the problem and immediately get it resolved.

What I want to know, why couldn't Customer Service resolve the issues? I suspect the reasons may be lack of interest; the representatives have no real power to fix problems, not enough training and the list goes on and on. The real reason is the companies, merchants, etc. don't really care about their customers. Oh they pay lip service as in the infamous line to customers on hold, 'Your call is important to us', yadda yadda yadda. I truly believe they just hope customers will go away and stop bothering them. This is especially true for utility companies as they know there is no other place to get water, phone service, etc.

More about Customer Service later!

Martha

Stuff

I used to have a house chock-a-block full of 'stuff'. Some of it was pretty good stuff, but most of it was really just junk. Mind you it was good junk! I thought I just had to keep it.

A lot of this 'good' junk was acquired shopping at garage sales, yard sales, junk stores and flea markets. At one time in my life I would go through withdrawal if I couldn't go to some kind of junk sale.

Then events happened in my life that made me realize I didn't really need all of this 'good' junk. It started about 21 years ago when I moved from one city to another. While packing up to move, I realized a lot of the so called treasures I had accumulated through 'junk' shopping was really just junk. So I had a massive garage sale of my own and sold a big portion of my junk treasures. I said to myself, "Self, never get this much junk again!"

Ah, how good intentions can go awry! The house we moved to wasn't as big as the last house and some more of my treasures again left through the event known as a yard sale. I promised myself if something new came through the front door, then something old would go out the back door. Didn't happen though.

Two years ago I moved again. This time it was a real nightmare! I couldn't believe how much stuff had been accumulated in those 19 years. I had several months to get ready as we were waiting on the new house to be built and completed. It was a good thing I had that much time as I wouldn't have made it otherwise. Even then it was a terrible time, deciding what to keep, what to get rid of and where to dispose of it all.

A good deal of it went to Good Will, more to the trash and a lot to the local Freecycle Yahoo Group.

Some went to friends and relatives and some to a charitable resale shop. I sold over a housand books. In the end, only really good 'stuff' got moved to the new house. However I have a sneaky suspicion some of what I think is 'good' stuff needs a recalulation and may need to go somewhere else to live.

Yesterday one of my neighbors had a garage sale and all at once the old yearning to prowl through someone else's stuff came over me. I watch the Antiques Road Show and still hope one day to find a real bargain on an extraordinary treasure! I looked through all of the offered goodies and admired some of them, although no valuable treasures jumped out at me. I was very good. I bought 3 books which will go to Half-Price Books once I read them.
Martha

A Flaming Mixer

I just know I need one of these, a flaming mixer! Now it doesn't really have flames; it just looks like flames!  You know, like the flames painted on 'hot' cars! I suppose I could get by with something else, but those flames just look so cool. Apparently you can buy stickers to put on your mixer, according to an article in the paper.

A lot of other folks are making their mixers look like something they aren't, like some of the folks in the *"Bling Your Mixer"* contest. I think I would rather have the flames though, they look pretty cool.

Now if only those 'blinged' mixers could mix on their own and make delectible goodies, I would be all for having one.  However, I think you still have to put the stuff in the bowl and turn on the mixer and then pour it into the appropriate recepticle to finish it up. Sigh! One of these days they will invent a kitchen robot that can be programmed to do all that kitchen stuff. Then I will get excited!

In the meantime I think I will pass on the stickers and just leave my mixer in the pantry. Out of sight and out of mind.

Martha

Enjoying it While it Lasts

I have a new email address. It really isn't new, because I have had it awhile, but didn't use it. I checked it today and there was nothing there except two emails that were very old. No spam, no new messages and the spam filter was turned off. Oh boy!

I am so tired of all the Phishing emails! A new phish is introduced at least one a month and there must be a cajillion zombie computers out there, sending all of the phishes on command from whoever is running that malware scheme! I am so tired of all those emails trying to sell me stuff; especially for parts of anatomy that I don't have!

I don't expect the clean in-box to last very long, but I will enjoy it while it lasts. Someone (or several someones), on one of my many email lists has one of those Zombie computers! The sad thing is, that someone has no idea what is a zombie computer and is just wondering why the computer is so slow.

I am working on a plan to keep this email clean for a while, but it probably won't work. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained! Anyway, I am enjoying it now!

Martha

Carbon Offset

Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon about 'going green'. Generally speaking, I think that is a good thing. We need to conserve our resources, water, energy etc.

However, this idea of 'paying a carbon offset' is a bunch of hooey! All it amounts to is someone has figured out a way to make money from 'going green'. You send them money to assuage your guilty conscience about using so much energy. They put the money to use and then sell what they do to people with more money than sense. There may be some of these folks who are really trying, but if you put ‘carbon offset’ into a Google search field, you will get almost two million hits. Figure it out.

Supposedly if you drive your car to work every day, go on a road trip or fly to your favorite vacation spot; you can 'pay' a carbon offset to make up for the pollution your car or airplane ride puts into the air. Nuts! I don't care how much you pay, the pollution is still there. You can pay all you want, no one has yet figured out a way to get paying money will remove the carbon that modern life has filled our atmosphere. True, there are projects that are trying to find ways to clean up the junk, but you can do your part by using some common sense.

Go green by turning off appliances when they are not being used. This includes lights and TVs. Replace your light bulbs with energy saving florescent bulbs. They do cost more, but last a lot longer and don't burn nearly as much energy. The old incandescent bulbs give off heat. If you live in any area that is hot and you have air conditioning, that heat just makes your cooling unit work that much harder.

There are so many ways to conserve energy. I won’t list them here, but nearly every utility company has a website with tons of ways to save energy listed.

Some of the projects that are supported by the ‘carbon offset’ sites include planting trees and shrubs. This is a good thing; planting trees and shrubs is always good. I think there is a society that has been practicing this for a very long time, The National Arbor Day Foundation.

They will send you free trees to plant. Just read this article The Carbon Neutral Myth! It is pretty large pdf file, but worth reading.

Martha

The TV

I think I want my money back! The TV is not showing anything good anymore! An article in the paper described some of the new fall lineup for TV and now I know what is meant by a 'vast wasteland'.

What happened to the good shows? I guess those little jerks in TV writer-land think all of the mature people in the world don't watch TV anymore and guess what? We don't!

Is it really entertaining to watch a so-called comedy show that consists of no plot, sexual innuendos and put-downs? Not for me; and my family and friends all agree.

And what about all those Reality shows? Tell me, do you really like to watch people eat worms or try to get the other people thrown off the island or where ever they happen to be? Is this what people really find entertaining?

I recall reading sometime ago that once a writer hits the 30 year old mark; they are considered 'too old' in Hollywood. Well if that's the case maybe that explains all of the drivel being displayed on TV these days.

If it weren't for the Science, Learning, Discovery and National Geographic channels, I wouldn't have anything to watch! Except of course, my favorite sport, FOOTBALL!  (Guess I'll keep my TV for now)

Martha

Do the Paperwork

Today in my newspaper there is an article titled "Do the Paperwork and Get Your Rebate Money".

The article goes on to tell folks 'How to get your rebate'. Follow all the instructions, make copies, yadda yadda yadda. It also tells you what to do if you never receive the rebate. (Better mark this one for a follow-up!)

I have much better advice! Just don't buy anything that has a rebate! Just look what you will gain by following this advice. A huge time saving consisting of the following items. Unless you need it today, sooner or later someone will put it on sale without a rebate.

No trying to read the tiny print telling you what to send.
No cutting out all the tiny UPC codes, locating serial numbers, etc.
No having to make sure you beat the deadlines for sending all the required stuff.
No making copies and filing them away because you will undoubtedly need them later.
No checking the mail in vain looking for a rebate check.
No making calls (if you can find a phone number) to find out what happened to your rebate.
No getting denied your rebate because of a 'mistake' in what you sent. (One rebate center tried to tell me I mailed it too late. I mailed it the day I bought it! Eventually I did get the $$, but only after many calls and threats!)
No writing letters of complaint to the Attorney General of your state or anyone else you can think to write, because you didn't get what was promised.

Rebates have to be the best consumer rip-off ever conceived. They are legal (shouldn't be) ways to make consumers think they are getting a good deal and the sad thing is the fact that consumers have to jump through too many hoops to (maybe) get what was promised.

Whatever happened to just putting something on sale?  If people would just boycott those rebate promises, pretty soon they would go away and save consumers a lot of grief!

I'm still reading the paper. Where else would I get such good material to write about?

Martha

The Dress Code Re-visited

I am appalled! It's no wonder school kids think it's OK to go out dressed like they are going to a ragbag party! Their moms go out wearing their pajamas!

A front page spread in a section of today's paper showed how moms can leave the house in their sleepy-time clothes looking stylish! The title of the article was 'The Slipper Club'.

Please tell me moms don't really do this! Since all of the pictures of the 'cutesy' dressed moms in their jammies gave information on where to buy all of the so-called outfits, I thought maybe the merchants in the article were behind all of this drivel. But I am afraid that wasn't the case.

The article started with the reason why moms don't dress before they leave the house to take the kids (I hope the kids are dressed!) to school.  The poor mommies don't have time to dress!

Now if this isn't the worst reason why moms don't dress in the morning, I have yet to hear it. Don't have time? Then get up just five minutes earlier. I am not suggesting they have to put on makeup, panty hose (I bet they don't wear panty hose anywhere!) or dress like they are going to the opera, but how long does it take to put on jeans and a blouse?

Most children learn from their parents more than any other way. What they learn, good or bad, depends on what examples are set before them.  Not taking the time to dress properly before leaving the house certainly is not the way to set an example for kids.  I wonder how a mom would feel if she was involved in traffic accident and the police talked to her in her jammies? I would hope she would be so embarrassed she would never leave the house again unless she was properly dressed.

Perhaps the schools should also publish a list of what moms should wear while delivering their kids to school.  Maybe then the kids wouldn't need to be told they can't wear pajamas to school. This was one of the items on the list of 'not allowed'.

I really have to stop reading the paper!

Martha

The School Dress Code

I'm afraid! I think this is a sign of the times, and it 'ain't' good!

This week in the Sunday paper there was a big article about going back to school and the article included the School Dress Code.

There was a list of what is acceptable and another list of what is unacceptable. By the time I had read that list; I was fuming! Good grief, what are parents thinking of? If I had a school age child, he/she wouldn't even own some of the things on the unacceptable list!

Schools shouldn't have to be responsible for what kids are wearing to school! This is what parents should be doing! Parents should make sure their daughters don't look like they are going out to work on street corners. They should make sure their sons wear pants with belts so the bare parts of their lower anatomy aren't showing.

I can't imagine what parents who try to do the right things must be going through these days. There seem to be a lot of kids whose parents give in, don't care or otherwise are not involved with how their off-spring appear in public. I can just imagine the fights and arguments that parents who don't give in, who do care and are totally involved with how their off-spring appear in public, have with sons and daughters.

I looked at some of the store circulars in the Sunday paper as well. Oh my heavens! If I had a daughter I wouldn't want her to see that crap that passes for fashion! Those teen-age models look like trollups!

Again, parents are responsible for the stores sell. If parents wouldn't buy that tacky, revealing and otherwise awful stuff, the stores would not have it for sale.

I think I must have been born 40 years too soon and I also think I may have to quit reading the paper, my blood pressure may not take it.

Martha

Computer Brands

I just hate it when someone starts bad-mouthing a program I use and like. I hate it even more when they start telling me how ‘bad’ my computer manufacturer is.

Recently I was involved in a rather ’spirited’ argument about PCs and Macs. This is an argument that no one is likely to win.

There are a lot of reasons why I don’t have an Apple computer, the first and main reason is price. In order to use a Mac, for what I do on a computer, I would have to pay a lot more money for the programs I use. I would also have to learn how to use the programs as the programs I use are not available for a Mac. Apple programs rend to be a lot pricier than programs for a PC.

The argument that an Apple computer is a lot safer than a PC is quite good, but I have never had a security breach, virus, worm or trojan on any of my computers since 1994. I did have one virus then, and learned my lesson about security on computers. I got the virus from a floppy disk, who knows how it got there. I guess if I was into going to questionable web sites, opened strange attachments, etc., I might have had more problems.

I like HP computers. The reason I like them is I have had four of them and none of them ever caused any problems. They are affordable and I can go to just about any place that sells computers and buy one. I can look at it, test the keyboard, view the display and decide on which model I want.

I hear people say they are ‘No good’, a piece of c**p, etc. Well, if they are that bad, how come they are the number one or two (depending on the current market) sellers of computers? If they were as bad as some folks say they would soon be out of business!

I have some friends that have Dell computers. They are good computers, perform well and I have only had to fix problems for them a few times. The problems were user related, not hardware related. But I don’t like the look and feel of the keyboards. This is a personal thing with me and the reason I won’t buy a Dell.

I have a new HP laptop ordered and it has a 17 inch screen. Dell also has a laptop with a 17 inch screen. But the keyboard on that laptop looks exactly the same as the keyboard on the 15 inch screen and does not have a keypad. Folks, I have to have my keypad! I could get a separate keypad, but with the HP laptop I won’t have to because it has one.

I ordered this laptop with Microsoft Vista Ultimate installed. I have also been in another rather spirited argument about how Vista is ‘bad’. The people arguing have been using beta versions of Vista and I guess they don’t like it, mostly because of what is known as DRM (Digital Rights Management). I have been using my new laptop with Vista Ultimate for about six months and so far I like it! It has a pretty ‘face’ and I do like my eye candy! However, that’s not the only reason I like it. The verdict is still out as to whether I will like it later.

I still like Windows XP and I will not upgrade to Vista on my computer with XP installed. It has always been my experience that upgrades are just not as good as clean installs and are prone to more problems.

Martha

Lemons

Have you ever heard of a ‘lemon’? Not the kind you eat, but a product. It could be a car, a kitchen appliance or in the case of this article, a computer. A lemon in this aspect is a particular item in a line of mostly very good products, but this item has many problems that just can’t seem to be fixed. One problem after another occurs.

There are not as many ‘lemons’ these days, as quality control is much better than in the past. However, there are still the few ‘lemons’ that manage to get sold to a frustrated consumer.

Most people don’t buy a computer every year. When they buy a computer, they usually are influenced by what friends who already own a model of the computer they are thinking about, ads they may see on TV, etc.

If someone has had a bad experience with a particular computer, they will tell the prospective computer buyer, “Don’t get a XXXX computer!”

This may or may not be good advice. There are a lot of reasons why a computer may cause problems, just like there are a lot of reasons why a car, or an appliance might cause problems. It could even be, a lemon!

Unfortunately, a lot of ‘lemons’ are not the fault of the manufacturer, but are caused by the owner of the ‘lemon’. A computer, just like any other appliance requires maintenance. The problem is, computers require more maintenance on a regular basis than just about any other appliance. Depending on how a computer owner uses the computer, this maintenance may be required as often as daily.

A computer is much more susceptible to power fluctuations than most other appliances. A power surge that won’t affect other appliances can cause damage to a computer. A very strong surge protector should be used with every computer item that is plugged into an electrical outlet. An even better option is to use what is known as a ‘UPS’ or Uninterruptible Power Source. This can not only prevent damage to a computer, but can also give users a chance to save their work in the event of a power failure. (Just because you use a laptop doesn’t mean you are safe, if you have the laptop plugged into an electrical outlet your laptop is a risk of a power surge.)

A surprising number of computer users do not use security programs. An unprotected computer can be infected with virus, worms, trojans and spyware. This can cause data loss, an immense slow down of processing power and general all round havoc.

Martha

Side Tracked

Yesterday I really intended to post on my new blog (here) but I got major side tracked! I nearly always read my email before I do any writing. Yesterday one of the emails I read led me to another blog; I clicked on a link there that took me to my favorite web page validation service and decided to check a page on my web site. OMG, what happened to my site? At least a fifth of the pages had ERRORS! Some of them had a LOT of errors! So I spent most of the day fixing code errors. Some were minor, but those can be hard to track down! I think that sneaky Front Page has been adding stuff to those pages; they validated when they were created!

I decided to stop using FrontPage for my site; from now on it will be strictly Expression Web!

Martha 

There Are Blogs

I wonder just how many blogs there are on the Internet? I suspect the number may be in the millions by now. I think just about everyone who uses the Internet has probably thought about making a blog and there are so many places are available to put one with almost no effort. So even if just a small fraction of Internet users have a made a blog, well the number of blogs just about bloggles, I mean boggles, my mind!

I made another blog on blogger.com, but I really don't post there very often. I plan to do better with this one!

I find the older I get, the more I rant about everyday stuff, like fashion (it's awful), the drug companies and a slew of other stuff. So I will vent here.

So here is to my happy blogging!

Martha