Get Out and Vote
Hello World,
Greetings from the Ides of September, and then some! Once we get to this point, the juggernaut is really in full swing, as it were, and we've hit the skids on that slippery slope that will speed us along, kicking and screaming, to the end of the year before we know it. Thanks to some friends of ours, we were able to indulge in a lovely end-of-season barbecue over the Labor Day weekend, where we enjoyed ourselves in the great outdoors and had some simply glorious weather besides. It was a special treat, and we were happy to sneak that in before the summer was well and truly over, so we would have no regrets. I was hoping the long weekend would be more relaxing than it turned out, and it seemed like I had things to do every day, and had no chance to rest. One unfortunate result of all of this activity was that I completely forgot to put the flags out on Labor Day, as I usually do, which was a shame, because the weather would have been perfect for it. It seems to me that the Flag Brigade around here does a fair job, all things considered, but the Flag Reminding Department apparently has a lot of room for improvement.
Speaking of room for improvement, lest anyone get the impression that the only illiterate people we have at the hospital are working in our computer department, I can assure you that is not the case. It's the people in Accounting that add new vendors to the computer system, and I noticed that one of our new vendors is something they call the Mercy Surgical Dessing Group. Taking a shot in the dark, I might assume they meant "dressing" instead of "dessing," although since "dessing" is not technically a word, it might be standing in for any number of other possibilities, such as "decking," "messing," "dancing" or "stressing." I suppose we'll never know at this rate. Another order that crossed my desk recently was from our friends at Synthes, proud providers of orthopedic implants for hip and knee replacement surgery, and usually what we get from them is stuff like femoral heads, tibial stems and swivel joints. You can't imagine how surprised I was to see this new order, which included open clamps, clover leaf plates, and my personal favorite, spring loaded nuts. I have no idea what that means, but I have to tell you, it certainly gave me pause.
Tuesday around here was a rather hectic day, starting out early in the morning and not letting up all day. But everyone knows that I'm nothing if not civic-minded, so I was bound and determined to exercise my franchise, and get out there and vote in the primary, no matter what. I love to vote, and do it regularly, for everything from President right on down to dog catcher, if they're having an election for something, they can count on me to show up and cast my ballot. Now, to be perfectly frank, I would have had no idea that the primary was on Tuesday, in spite of all the various candidates being on TV, because those campaign ads tend to all just blur together in my mind. However, the nice folks at the Board of Elections were kind enough to send out postcards to all of us registered voters to remind us of the dates for the primary and general elections, and where to vote in our local area. So I carried the card with me on Tuesday to remind me to stop after work at the elementary school and vote, which I did. Well, that is, I stopped at the school, but they wouldn't let me vote, for the perfectly valid reason that there apparently was no primary election in New Rochelle, so there was nothing to vote for. The lady janitor who steered me out of the gymnasium, where I had gone in search of voting booths, said that a lot of people had shown up there trying to vote, not just me. I said I couldn't understand why they sent out a postcard, if I wasn't supposed to go vote. Live and learn.
At work, I had a visit from the hospital's computer vendor, dropping off a loaner laptop for one of our administrators, whose own laptop was in the shop for repairs, and said if he had any trouble with it, he could call the office, even on Saturday, when someone would be there until 3:00 PM. "At least I THINK someone is there until 3:00," he added sheepishly, even though, as the owner, you would expect him to know when the staff was there or not. I laughed and said he should get a web cam for the office, so he could see if the people were at work when they were supposed to be. "Oh, we have a web cam," he replied quickly, and gave me the address to check it out. So if you have time on your hands during the day, and want to see the hard-working and helpful staff at A-Plus Computer Solutions in Danbury, Connecticut, feel free to check out their web cam at http://69.0.103.86:81 and see for yourself. (For AOL users, you need to minimize AOL and use the address bar in Internet Explorer instead.) When the screen comes up asking for your user name and password, you can type in "aplushome" (without the quotation marks) in both boxes and you're on your way. The place is all full of friendly and knowledgeable staff, so be sure to smile and wave at them as they go by. You can also visit their web site at www.aplusontheweb.com where you will find everything you need in the way of computer systems, peripherals, software, supplies and service, all at reasonable prices and with a smile besides. Sure, anyone can buy a computer from Gateway or Dell, but can you watch the UPS man making deliveries and flirting with the receptionist on their web cam??? I think not!
In other technology-related news, we finally took the plunge and are the last people in civilization to get DSL service for our computers at home. We've been resisting it since, well, forever, as being an overly expensive extravagance that we could do without. We took advantage of their first year introductory offer, which was not such a bad deal after all, once we talked ourselves into it. Bill's favorite part was that he kept getting messages from Verizon saying that although our phone line was pre-qualified for DSL, further investigation might show that we could not get DSL on our phone anyway. Then two days later, he would get another message verifying that we had been approved for DSL, and although our phone line was pre-qualified, further investigation, etc., etc. This went on for two weeks, with the same gibberish every time, verifying that we had been approved, our line was pre-qualified, however, we still might not get it, and on and on. They sent email after email, and left messages on our answering machine, saying the same thing over and over again, and we finally despaired of us ever getting anywhere with this. And then a miraculous thing happened. We came home from work last Friday, and found none other than James Earl Jones himself on our answering machine, saying, "Luke, I am your father!" No, that can't be right. What he actually said was, "Welcome to Verizon DSL service!" I thought that was so cool, that they actually had a recorded message from him to welcome new users. And sure enough, the DSL service was up and running, and we were running right along with it. (It reminds me of that old joke where the guy says his new sports car is so fast -- here's where you say, "HOW FAST IS IT?" -- that it was 12 miles to the station, but he was going so fast, he got there in eight. Oh well, I guess you had to be there.) So here we are, finally catching up with the rest of the world in the 21st century, and with Darth Vader on board, to boot.
Bill and I went to the diner after work, and spotted a skunk walking along the sidewalk in broad daylight, so you know no good can come of that. I always worry when the local wildlife seems to be going batty. Speaking of which, this morning I saw a fly banging against the window screen in the den, and so I put down everything I was carrying, so I could open the window and let him out, figuring I could get my good deed for the day out of the way bright and early. Imagine my surprise, not to mention chagrin, when I noticed that he was banging against the screen from the OUTSIDE, and not the inside, as if he had convinced himself that he was trapped in our back yard, and his only means of escape was through this window screen into our den. (NOT!!!) I know better than to try and use logic with insects, so I tapped on the screen with a pencil, trying to get him to fly away. You could tell that he wasn't sold on that idea, but he flew away, I think, more to humor me than anything else. I have to say that the thought of being patronized by bugs is an unsettling one to me, especially when they're choosing to ignore my good sound advice in favor of their own deluded flights of fancy. And as long as I'm giving out advice, I can think of no greater wisdom that I would like to impart, than to remind everyone to please watch out for those spring loaded nuts, because this is no time to tempt fate. Especially if James Earl Jones is your father.
Greetings from the Ides of September, and then some! Once we get to this point, the juggernaut is really in full swing, as it were, and we've hit the skids on that slippery slope that will speed us along, kicking and screaming, to the end of the year before we know it. Thanks to some friends of ours, we were able to indulge in a lovely end-of-season barbecue over the Labor Day weekend, where we enjoyed ourselves in the great outdoors and had some simply glorious weather besides. It was a special treat, and we were happy to sneak that in before the summer was well and truly over, so we would have no regrets. I was hoping the long weekend would be more relaxing than it turned out, and it seemed like I had things to do every day, and had no chance to rest. One unfortunate result of all of this activity was that I completely forgot to put the flags out on Labor Day, as I usually do, which was a shame, because the weather would have been perfect for it. It seems to me that the Flag Brigade around here does a fair job, all things considered, but the Flag Reminding Department apparently has a lot of room for improvement.
Speaking of room for improvement, lest anyone get the impression that the only illiterate people we have at the hospital are working in our computer department, I can assure you that is not the case. It's the people in Accounting that add new vendors to the computer system, and I noticed that one of our new vendors is something they call the Mercy Surgical Dessing Group. Taking a shot in the dark, I might assume they meant "dressing" instead of "dessing," although since "dessing" is not technically a word, it might be standing in for any number of other possibilities, such as "decking," "messing," "dancing" or "stressing." I suppose we'll never know at this rate. Another order that crossed my desk recently was from our friends at Synthes, proud providers of orthopedic implants for hip and knee replacement surgery, and usually what we get from them is stuff like femoral heads, tibial stems and swivel joints. You can't imagine how surprised I was to see this new order, which included open clamps, clover leaf plates, and my personal favorite, spring loaded nuts. I have no idea what that means, but I have to tell you, it certainly gave me pause.
Tuesday around here was a rather hectic day, starting out early in the morning and not letting up all day. But everyone knows that I'm nothing if not civic-minded, so I was bound and determined to exercise my franchise, and get out there and vote in the primary, no matter what. I love to vote, and do it regularly, for everything from President right on down to dog catcher, if they're having an election for something, they can count on me to show up and cast my ballot. Now, to be perfectly frank, I would have had no idea that the primary was on Tuesday, in spite of all the various candidates being on TV, because those campaign ads tend to all just blur together in my mind. However, the nice folks at the Board of Elections were kind enough to send out postcards to all of us registered voters to remind us of the dates for the primary and general elections, and where to vote in our local area. So I carried the card with me on Tuesday to remind me to stop after work at the elementary school and vote, which I did. Well, that is, I stopped at the school, but they wouldn't let me vote, for the perfectly valid reason that there apparently was no primary election in New Rochelle, so there was nothing to vote for. The lady janitor who steered me out of the gymnasium, where I had gone in search of voting booths, said that a lot of people had shown up there trying to vote, not just me. I said I couldn't understand why they sent out a postcard, if I wasn't supposed to go vote. Live and learn.
At work, I had a visit from the hospital's computer vendor, dropping off a loaner laptop for one of our administrators, whose own laptop was in the shop for repairs, and said if he had any trouble with it, he could call the office, even on Saturday, when someone would be there until 3:00 PM. "At least I THINK someone is there until 3:00," he added sheepishly, even though, as the owner, you would expect him to know when the staff was there or not. I laughed and said he should get a web cam for the office, so he could see if the people were at work when they were supposed to be. "Oh, we have a web cam," he replied quickly, and gave me the address to check it out. So if you have time on your hands during the day, and want to see the hard-working and helpful staff at A-Plus Computer Solutions in Danbury, Connecticut, feel free to check out their web cam at http://69.0.103.86:81 and see for yourself. (For AOL users, you need to minimize AOL and use the address bar in Internet Explorer instead.) When the screen comes up asking for your user name and password, you can type in "aplushome" (without the quotation marks) in both boxes and you're on your way. The place is all full of friendly and knowledgeable staff, so be sure to smile and wave at them as they go by. You can also visit their web site at www.aplusontheweb.com where you will find everything you need in the way of computer systems, peripherals, software, supplies and service, all at reasonable prices and with a smile besides. Sure, anyone can buy a computer from Gateway or Dell, but can you watch the UPS man making deliveries and flirting with the receptionist on their web cam??? I think not!
In other technology-related news, we finally took the plunge and are the last people in civilization to get DSL service for our computers at home. We've been resisting it since, well, forever, as being an overly expensive extravagance that we could do without. We took advantage of their first year introductory offer, which was not such a bad deal after all, once we talked ourselves into it. Bill's favorite part was that he kept getting messages from Verizon saying that although our phone line was pre-qualified for DSL, further investigation might show that we could not get DSL on our phone anyway. Then two days later, he would get another message verifying that we had been approved for DSL, and although our phone line was pre-qualified, further investigation, etc., etc. This went on for two weeks, with the same gibberish every time, verifying that we had been approved, our line was pre-qualified, however, we still might not get it, and on and on. They sent email after email, and left messages on our answering machine, saying the same thing over and over again, and we finally despaired of us ever getting anywhere with this. And then a miraculous thing happened. We came home from work last Friday, and found none other than James Earl Jones himself on our answering machine, saying, "Luke, I am your father!" No, that can't be right. What he actually said was, "Welcome to Verizon DSL service!" I thought that was so cool, that they actually had a recorded message from him to welcome new users. And sure enough, the DSL service was up and running, and we were running right along with it. (It reminds me of that old joke where the guy says his new sports car is so fast -- here's where you say, "HOW FAST IS IT?" -- that it was 12 miles to the station, but he was going so fast, he got there in eight. Oh well, I guess you had to be there.) So here we are, finally catching up with the rest of the world in the 21st century, and with Darth Vader on board, to boot.
Bill and I went to the diner after work, and spotted a skunk walking along the sidewalk in broad daylight, so you know no good can come of that. I always worry when the local wildlife seems to be going batty. Speaking of which, this morning I saw a fly banging against the window screen in the den, and so I put down everything I was carrying, so I could open the window and let him out, figuring I could get my good deed for the day out of the way bright and early. Imagine my surprise, not to mention chagrin, when I noticed that he was banging against the screen from the OUTSIDE, and not the inside, as if he had convinced himself that he was trapped in our back yard, and his only means of escape was through this window screen into our den. (NOT!!!) I know better than to try and use logic with insects, so I tapped on the screen with a pencil, trying to get him to fly away. You could tell that he wasn't sold on that idea, but he flew away, I think, more to humor me than anything else. I have to say that the thought of being patronized by bugs is an unsettling one to me, especially when they're choosing to ignore my good sound advice in favor of their own deluded flights of fancy. And as long as I'm giving out advice, I can think of no greater wisdom that I would like to impart, than to remind everyone to please watch out for those spring loaded nuts, because this is no time to tempt fate. Especially if James Earl Jones is your father.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:22 PM
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