RIP

Grandma passed away January 16. It was not a good thing.

Info

The news when I get home tonight:

Grandma Weaver, who was admitted to the Clinic for tests (pulmonary hypertension) is now in the position of having her doctor say to get the family together to decide whether to continue or start, "aggressive"treatment, or just to make her "comfortable". !!??!!

Gary's in Florida, so I am headed to the Clinic tomorrow, by hook or by crook, (we have icy roads and lake effect snow heading in). I have already called off work and David & Loretta are standing by with vehicles that can make it in, if the roads are bad. I need to see the doctor and find out just what exactly is going on. I have said this before, I think, but I really believe that hospitals kill people. this has been my experience.

Now the doctor says she has an "auto immune disorder"although we don't know what - which does not let enough oxygen into the blood, and a "hole in her heart" - I believe she has always had an hole in her heart, from having had rheumatic fever when she was younger, and she had heart surgery before.

She has gotten progressively worse since being admitted to the hospital. Just saying.

In case you don't know, Grandma is my stepmother - she was married to my father. I'm just telling the doctors that I'm her daughter and they can put that in their pipe and smoke it.

I'm for the aggressive treatment. What the heck are they talking about, anyway? I don't trust these people.

So be warned - if your care falls into my hands, I may have you aggressively treated. It's important to me, that your life goes on. Is this wrong?!?

The older you get, the more horrible things you have to decide, some people more than others.

All Is Well

I called Windstream several more times last night because the dsl was out, and I began to notice that as soon as I called them the dsl would come on and stay on - until I hung up. They scheduled another service call, for today.

Then David said if the dsl only works when using the phone, it sounds like a bad filter on the line or something.

OK, we have hundreds of miles of phone wires draped around inside of our house, because of the way we do things. By "we" I mean "me", of course. so Lisa and Bob and I went on a tracking trail (this was a sight to see - joined by the dog and all of the cats, while crawling around on floors)- pulled and discarded three complete sets of long phone wire that weren't doing anything and tracked the phone wire from the dsl to its source and then by testing it at intervals along its path found a bad coupling in one section! whoo hoo, replaced one wire and dsl light came on and stayed on and the internets started zipping along at its new, faster speed. and the movie box has 4 dots quality and does not reload!

I feel so liberated! I haven't felt this exuberant since I discovered that it was ok and even expected, that you cut open the stitching on the pants' pockets that are mysteriously sewn shut when you buy them, usually the back pockets. This always baffled me - why make pockets at all then, if you're going to sew them shut? Why oh why? But I never felt authorized to rip them open - what if it left a big hole in the seat of my pants?! or something. Turns out everyone knows (but me) that you are supposed to cut open the stitching and turn them into useful pockets. Finding this out only made me madder at the pants pocket people, though - why do you not put instructions on the pants somewhere! There are other people like me around, you know. I think.
grrrrr....

Where was I.....

You guys distracted me with the pants pocket issue! Try to focus, people. (although it IS a very valid issue)

Anyway, I fixed the problem myself. They are mailing me out 3 sets of labels to return 3 modems with postage paid by them (they don't know why 3, either - and I don't care anymore).
The only thing left to fix is the weather forecaster which is connected but has not updated and so I fired off an email to tech support and tonight I'll call them if I have to, and -

Uh-oh. That just seems too familiar. I'll end up with 10 techies crawling around on the roof with flashlights, giving me manual weather forecasts.

I think I'll try to fix it myself first.

Help

Although I gave Windstream my cell phone number to call yesterday for the service person they were sending, there were two separate messages on my home phone yesterday, from two different individuals who were both, they said, working on the dsl. One at 1:00 and one at 5:00, who said they would finish up tomorrow (today). In addition, there was yet ANOTHER modem in front of the garage door, with handwritten instructions on it to plug it in and wait for the dsl light to remain steady (it does not), and that my old one would NOT work. Well none of the three/four modems work, for their information. and is he referring to my new/old modem or my old/old modem? I have no doubt this person was yet another THIRD person in addition to the two that already left messages; and yet I still have no dsl. But at least it seems I have a whole team of people working on the problem. I feel important.

I now have four modems, counting my old/original one. I suppose I have to send three of them back at some point.

In my attempt to upgrade my dsl speed I have almost succeeded in cutting myself off from all outside communications, although I have loads of equipment. The home phone isn't working so good either, now.

I know this does not happen to everyone, does it? It must be some kind of static electricity in my person that garbles conversations and confuses everybody that I talk to, and zaps all electrical equipment/gizmos.

grief despair and agony on me

Stupid Computers

Here's a sequence of events, mostly for my own edification:

1. Bob gave me a Netflix box for Christmas, that streams movies from the internet to your TV.

2. I gave Bob a 3-day weather forecaster that hooks into the router (the antenna) but has
a wireless receiver.

3. I tried to set up the Netflix box the day after Christmas, but it could not find an internet
connection. After much misery, I took it to my brother's house and we got it activated, then
David came to our house and fixed the router probs. Yay! On Sunday Dec. 28 I began
watching streaming movies (although the quality never got above two dots - out of 4 dots -
quality - I was happy.

4. Meanwhile I found out that Windstream offered a faster dsl connection for only $5 a month
more, so I called them to order this. They scheduled the upgrade for Jan. 7 (today) and said
it would require a new modem which they would send out to me and I should use the box to
send them the old modem.

5. On Dec. 29 I received the modem. In trying to activate it our whole internet connection was
lost. After an hour on the phone with Windstream and another hour with Linksys, all was
restored. Happiness ensued. Watching streaming movies, all happy.

6. On Dec. 30 I received another modem from Windstream. Now I have to return two of them.
I have not approached them about this problem yet.

7. On Friday Jan. 2 the Netflix box suddenly had 3 dots quality! Yay! The box had given itself
an update.

8. On Sunday afternoon Jan. 4 I activated Bob's weather forecaster, plugging the antenna into
the router and activating the wireless unit.

9. That night the movie box began reloading the movies every 60 seconds, basically making it
unwatchable. So I unplugged and removed batteries from the weather thingy and even hid it
in the bathroom, to make sure that was not causing the problem.

10. It was not. So I emailed support for the Netflix box - Monday I received an email saying I
should "factory reset" the box. Yes. This means again setting up the internet connection,
re-entering wep key for Linksys, blah blah. Surprisingly, all went well. But it did not fix the
problem. So I cold booted the modem and router, all on my own, Monday night (late). I
watched for a few minutes and it seemed to have fixed the problem. I would know more
after watching it longer Tuesday night after work.

11. Tuesday night after work I come home to find that we have no dsl connection at all.
none.at.all. No green light on modem, nothing. I call Windstream, wait 10 mins. for a
"person", who finally answers and tells me to plug the modem directly into the wall without
a filter. I, being stupid, do this. That of course, disconnects our phone conversation - duh.
I leave it plugged directly into the wall and call back again, wait again, and miraculously the
same person answers my call again. He now determines that the problem is outside of the
house, not inside (he can tell this somehow, from India or wherever he is). Now a tech
person is supposed to come to the house today between 5 and 7 pm, to fix our dsl.

12. I have forgotten what I was originally trying to do.

13. I hate computers.

Hello

I have been sequestered with a case of shingles, wanting to keep my path of destruction as limited as possible.

So, I go nowhere. (well, except to work) Two weeks overdue for a hair cut which means my hair is driving me crazy and making me mean. Or maybe it's something else that's making me mean, who knows?

I was overjoyed with my new techno gadget gizmo that I got for Christmas - until Sunday afternoon, when it started reloading EVERY 60 SECONDS. This caused great despair, and contacts with tech support, which led to more great despair. Tech Support always wants to make sure you have it ON and then want you to reset EVERYTHING before they will even begin to address the issue. This is why I am communicating with them by email instead of phone - it gives me more control, I feel.

Anyway last night I reset the gizmo all the way back (per support's instructions), reactivated it - same problems. Which, of course, I knew would happen. So I cold booted the modem and router, and I think that may have fixed it. I will know tonight when I use it for a longer period of time.

Their last email says I should call them on the phone, may need replacement, blah, blah.
I won't tell them it's fixed until I am 100% positively sure.