More settling in at Bethany (setting up wireless, GPS, etc) ; our new dishwasher
(posted from home)
(This post covers 16 – 26 February, 2010)
------------------------------------
Friday, 26 February-
We had four or five inches of snow overnight but it was very lightweight so I had it cleaned up in an hour or so this morning. We then went in to Bethany.
I installed the Skype and the webcam with no significant problems and tested it out with a few calls to my laptop there in the apartment.
Labashi took Mom to her first massage appointment (nice!) while I finished up that install and then we had lunch in the cafe. It's very nice to simply be able to walk over to the cafe or the pool or reading room or billiards room or clinic or pharmacy without ever going outside on a windy, snowy day like this.
Later in the day I decided to install the GPS in Dad's car. After the intial startup process I drove around Mechanicsburg to some of the places I thought Dad will be wanting to go. I went to the Giant and while in the parking lot I hit the Save-to-Favorites function to record it. I then did the same across town at the local Lowe's, Best Buy, Wegman's, Wal-mart, and the Honda dealership (for when they need car maintenance). Along the way I bought a few specialty items at the Wegman's (to encourage Dad to make the trip on his own sometime). And since I was in the area, I stopped at the motorcycle dealership for a look-round at the ST1300 and the used bikes.
After supper with Mom and Dad, Labashi and I made a quick trip to Lowe's. We needed screws to fix Mom's favorite chair so I had Labashi drive using the new GPS to get her reactions to it. The good news is it does an amazing job given the challenge. The bad news is it's not perfect. It sometimes thinks we're on a parallel road. It doesn't do well with mall parking lots or the very complex and odd arrangement of the Bethany parking lots and roads. Once you realize it will only give verbal directions once you reach the highlighted road (on your go-to track), you realize you'll have to look for that visually on the display. But if you just wait for it to talk, you'll feel lost. But our little test session was helpful in pointing these things out and it became clear that when I first introduce Dad to it, I'll need to do the driving while he watches the GPS for awhile to get used to these concepts. In any case, it's a LOT better than not having the GPS and this model is better (and simpler) than most others I've seen.
After we fixed Mom's chair we returned home and watched a few '30 Rock' eps to relax.
---------------------------------
Thursday, 25 February-
Today Labashi and I drove in to York for a shopping trip. I returned the wi-fi adapter for a refund (Best Buy was very good about this) and I bought a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 and a Garmin 255W GPS for Dad. The former is a highly-rated webcam so I can get Skype video calling set up on Dad's PC and the latter is for Dad to find his way around his new hometown.
We had lunch at Fudds and ran some errands at Wal-Mart before going home. Labashi then ran our first load of dishes in the new dishwasher and the results were fantastic. What a difference this dishwasher makes with our old dishes! They hadn't looked that bad and they certainly appeared to be clean enough but now they're shiny and new-looking.
That evening we watched 'Rachel Getting Married' with Anne Hathaway. Director Johnathan Demme did a very nice job with this small film. Anne plays a young woman coming out of drug-rehab to attend her sister's wedding and we see the tensions of long-held secrets and resentments boil over. Yet it's somehow a positive message. The amazing thing about this movie is how real it feels. The cast is almost outrageously culture-mixed and the movie was shot on the fly with no rehersals and with live music. But it works and works very, very well.
------------------------------------
Wednesday, 24 February-
Today the dishwasher installation guy finally showed up. Actually, it was the brother of the guy we had been dealing with. Fortunately, he was very good and an interesting guy to boot. He's a dishwasher installer but also owns a sign-painting business and is a rabid mountain-biker and kayaker. I loved talking with him throughout the install. The one glitch we ran into with the install was that my under-sink connection was apparently a non-standard one so I had to dash over to the hardware store for a washer hose for the final connection.
We then went in to Bethany and I attempted to install the Belkin USB wi-fi adapter. I had successfully installed one in Dad's computer but this one would not work. It hung up Mom's computer and even prevented it from re-booting. I ended up calling Belkin tech support and after an hour or so of troubleshooting learned this unit does not work with Windows XP Service Pack 3. It seems odd that it would work with the predecessor Service Packs and not this one but the Belkin techs seemed very good and said that is indeed the case.
I then went through the research on how to back off to Service Pack 2 but that turns out to be too risky. There are many, many applications which that could affect according to Microsoft and it's not at all clear they know what the heck they're talking about. Their first set of instructions on how to revert, for example, simply didn't work. So now I'm going to trust them to identify what apps it will affect?
That evening we watched 'Apocalypto', Mel Gibson's gory movie about aboriginal Mexico civilizations. This was a repeat for us but Labashi's studying Central Mexico and she wanted to see it again.
-------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 23 February-
This morning the dishwasher installation guy cancelled due to sickness. Thank goodness I'm not having to take off work to wait for this guy!
I spent the day driving all over York running errands. I exchanged the Belkin wireless adapter at Best Buy (and saw the sound bar we've been considering is now discontinued). I played with the cheaper GPS receivers for cars and settled on the Garmin Nuvi interface as best for Dad (as opposed to TomTom's). And once I realized the 255W model was on sale ($140 vs $180), I spent a long time with it.
I stopped off at Office Max and Staples to look for a shredder and decided I'd prefer of the Office Max models. I happened to be on the west side of town so went to a different Office Max to pick up the model I liked. But when I tried a test sheet of paper through it, it wouldn't turn off! I ended up abandoning the purchase altogether. I had been on the fence about buying it anyway so when that one jammed, it became an easy decision to save $100 and do without.
We watched a few '30 Rock' eps that evening.
------------------------------------------------
Monday, 22 February-
I spent the day waiting for the installation guy for our new dishwasher. The Sears installation team didn't know anything and all they could do was leave a message on the guy's phone to give me a call. That didn't happen by noon so I talked to the salesman who sold me the machine and both he and I began leaving messages on the installer's phone. He finally called me around 1400 to apologize and say his computer had gone down so he had never gotten the order. I asked if Sears shouldn't have known that and he said the order requires him to acknowledge, so they should. I had specifically asked the Sears installation people if they had anything showing the unit had been picked up or scheduled and they do not. So what good is an acknowledgement process?
Once we rescheduled, I went in to Bethany to join Labashi in another workday at her parent's apartment and to diagnose a connectivity problem with Dad's computer and re-write some connection procedures. We worked until 1930 or so and then came home to a few episodes of '30 Rock'.
------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 21 February-
I didn't sleep well at all last night. I don't know why this happens but occasionally I'll wake at 0130 or so and not be able to get back to sleep until almost daylight. Then I'll sleep very heavily for an hour or so. I wake very groggy but seem to function okay through the day so it's not a big deal. It just seems odd.
I rode the Concours down to the Tollgate Starbucks for my Sunday cap-and-Times but they were out of papers so I was only there briefly. But I definitely enjoyed riding the bike on this nice 45-degree day.
Once back home I spent an hour or so catching up on the blog and the remainder of the time on the Web. I also watched an interesting documentary on the 9/11 conspiracists. Don't let truth get in the way, fellas!
-----------------------------------------------
Saturday, 20 February-
Today was a very nice day, weather-wise. The 42-degree temperature felt great and we had sun all day. I dug out the snow around the Concours and fixed the windshield. The windshield had collapsed under the weight of the heavy snow on the motorcycle's cover last week. But this situation turned out a lot better than I thought it would. The windshield itself did not break. The nylon machine screws holding the windshield to its base broke off. I had four of them left over from previous installations so all I had to do was install new ones and that only took a few minutes. What a relief!
I spent much of the rest of the afternoon researching a portable GPS, possibly for Labashi's parents. Dad isn't enthusiastic about trying something new and might not be able to hear spoken instructions. On the other hand, if we could get an easy-enough-to-use model, it would allow him to explore on his own and (hopefully) give him the peace-of-mind that comes with knowing you can't get too lost to find your way home.
That evening we watched 'The Closer' Season Four eps.
-----------------------------------------------
Friday, 19 February-
We went in to Bethany today. Labashi took Mom and Dad to an extensive medical appointment (their first meeting with a new primary physician). I took that time to install a wireless network in the apartment. I installed an Airport Express router and (in Dad's PC) a Belkin USB wi-fi N-150 adapter. This went surprisingly well. I had wireless connectivity from my laptop set up in about ten minutes and it was very, very easy. It took me longer to make up passwords for the administration and WPA2 security than it did for anything else. Thanks, Apple!
I had a few minor problems with the Belkin adapter. For some reason it didn't appear to work in the first USB port I tried. It seemed to come up ok in another port but the Windows settings for it to automatically connect didn't appear to take. I downloaded the latest driver (just to be sure I had the most current) and tried another reboot and this time the connection came up automatically.
That evening we watched two episodes of 'The Closer' Season 4.
--------------------------------------------
Thursday, 18 February-
We were home today. I researched soundbars for the flat-screen tv. We're disappointed in the poor sound coming from our Sony flat-screen and I suppose we're doing what they want-- now looking to buy an add-on to fix it. Unfortunately, there's not a lot to pick from. I'm thinking of going with a Samsung unit with a wireless subwoofer but am a bit concerned about interference from or with our internet wireless. I'm not going to buy the Sony unit because the subwoofer is a the size of an older desktop-PC and that's where the cables plug in. So I have the cables all nicely hidden behind the TV and entertainment unit but now have to run cables out from behind the entertainment console to the subwoofer and then it's cable runs back to the soundbar. The Samsung, on the other hand, lets me plug into the back of the soundbar and then it talks wirelessly to the subwoofer. I see a few complaints about cutouts with the subwoofer so that may turn out to be a loser, too.
In the afternoon I drove in to Starbucks just to get out of the house and stopped by Action Motorsports in York to see what's on the floor. I LIKE the new Honda NV700. It's sort of a smaller brother to the ST1300 sport tourer. Its $10,000 price seems high compared to, say, a Kawasaki Versys but I've had too many problems with my Kawasakis to want to go that route. I love my Concours 1000 but both my Concours and my KLR650 had problems from the factory and the local dealer ripped me off (IMHO) on a warranty repair. I'm not fond of the somewhat-weird-looking tail of the NV700 and I don't see enough protection for the lower legs for winter and wet riding. Maybe I should just go for an ST1300...
That evening we watched 'Survivor- Heroes and Villains'.
--------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 17 February-
We went into Bethany today. I spent a few hours working with Dad to go through their various favorite websites to update the email address and be sure Dad's records of userIDs and passwords worked ok. We then had a frustrating half-hour trying to reach AT&T to cancel their old phone and internet service. I can't believe how bad these major companies are with their automated systems. If the point is to frustrate you so you don't call back, well, I guess it's working well. I do not understand how a company that's trying to give the impression of being technically savvy can make me re-input my phone number three different times in the 'Help' process when all the time they have it via caller-ID. At one point I asked one of the customer service people why I had to keep providing the same info they already had and he explained that the systems don't carry it over. They have one system to determine what state to route the call to, another for the function, yet another for a cancellation.
Labashi and I then spent the rest of the afternoon installing the Herman Miller shelving units with the new upright-extenders we made. At one point the shelves nearly fell over when a leg-adjuster fell out and unexpectedly dropped the right end of the shelves a couple of inches. It was too short for the purpose. We caught it in time but I had to run over to Lowe's for a replacement (a longer bolt). But once I had that first unit in place, the rest was easy and Mom and Dad are very happy.
-------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 16 February-
We were planning to go in to Bethany today to install the shelving units but last night's coat of stain was still too wet and sticky.
It was supposed to have snowed last night and this morning (up to three inches) but we only had a trace. I spent the day on the web. Among other things I installed Google Earth and began learning about it. My first impression? It's NOTHING like being there. I flew around to some places we've been-- like Yellowstone, Churchill (Manitoba), and tried some street views of places I'm very familiar with in Michigan and PA. I do like having something other than simple map views but so far haven't found Google Earth more useful than Google Maps. Then again, I have all of about two hours experience on it.
That evening we watched another couple of '30 Rock' Season Three episodes on Netflix Instant via a laptop-to-tv HD link.
*************** END OF POST ***************
(posted from home)
(This post covers 16 – 26 February, 2010)
------------------------------------
Friday, 26 February-
We had four or five inches of snow overnight but it was very lightweight so I had it cleaned up in an hour or so this morning. We then went in to Bethany.
I installed the Skype and the webcam with no significant problems and tested it out with a few calls to my laptop there in the apartment.
Labashi took Mom to her first massage appointment (nice!) while I finished up that install and then we had lunch in the cafe. It's very nice to simply be able to walk over to the cafe or the pool or reading room or billiards room or clinic or pharmacy without ever going outside on a windy, snowy day like this.
Later in the day I decided to install the GPS in Dad's car. After the intial startup process I drove around Mechanicsburg to some of the places I thought Dad will be wanting to go. I went to the Giant and while in the parking lot I hit the Save-to-Favorites function to record it. I then did the same across town at the local Lowe's, Best Buy, Wegman's, Wal-mart, and the Honda dealership (for when they need car maintenance). Along the way I bought a few specialty items at the Wegman's (to encourage Dad to make the trip on his own sometime). And since I was in the area, I stopped at the motorcycle dealership for a look-round at the ST1300 and the used bikes.
After supper with Mom and Dad, Labashi and I made a quick trip to Lowe's. We needed screws to fix Mom's favorite chair so I had Labashi drive using the new GPS to get her reactions to it. The good news is it does an amazing job given the challenge. The bad news is it's not perfect. It sometimes thinks we're on a parallel road. It doesn't do well with mall parking lots or the very complex and odd arrangement of the Bethany parking lots and roads. Once you realize it will only give verbal directions once you reach the highlighted road (on your go-to track), you realize you'll have to look for that visually on the display. But if you just wait for it to talk, you'll feel lost. But our little test session was helpful in pointing these things out and it became clear that when I first introduce Dad to it, I'll need to do the driving while he watches the GPS for awhile to get used to these concepts. In any case, it's a LOT better than not having the GPS and this model is better (and simpler) than most others I've seen.
After we fixed Mom's chair we returned home and watched a few '30 Rock' eps to relax.
---------------------------------
Thursday, 25 February-
Today Labashi and I drove in to York for a shopping trip. I returned the wi-fi adapter for a refund (Best Buy was very good about this) and I bought a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 and a Garmin 255W GPS for Dad. The former is a highly-rated webcam so I can get Skype video calling set up on Dad's PC and the latter is for Dad to find his way around his new hometown.
We had lunch at Fudds and ran some errands at Wal-Mart before going home. Labashi then ran our first load of dishes in the new dishwasher and the results were fantastic. What a difference this dishwasher makes with our old dishes! They hadn't looked that bad and they certainly appeared to be clean enough but now they're shiny and new-looking.
That evening we watched 'Rachel Getting Married' with Anne Hathaway. Director Johnathan Demme did a very nice job with this small film. Anne plays a young woman coming out of drug-rehab to attend her sister's wedding and we see the tensions of long-held secrets and resentments boil over. Yet it's somehow a positive message. The amazing thing about this movie is how real it feels. The cast is almost outrageously culture-mixed and the movie was shot on the fly with no rehersals and with live music. But it works and works very, very well.
------------------------------------
Wednesday, 24 February-
Today the dishwasher installation guy finally showed up. Actually, it was the brother of the guy we had been dealing with. Fortunately, he was very good and an interesting guy to boot. He's a dishwasher installer but also owns a sign-painting business and is a rabid mountain-biker and kayaker. I loved talking with him throughout the install. The one glitch we ran into with the install was that my under-sink connection was apparently a non-standard one so I had to dash over to the hardware store for a washer hose for the final connection.
We then went in to Bethany and I attempted to install the Belkin USB wi-fi adapter. I had successfully installed one in Dad's computer but this one would not work. It hung up Mom's computer and even prevented it from re-booting. I ended up calling Belkin tech support and after an hour or so of troubleshooting learned this unit does not work with Windows XP Service Pack 3. It seems odd that it would work with the predecessor Service Packs and not this one but the Belkin techs seemed very good and said that is indeed the case.
I then went through the research on how to back off to Service Pack 2 but that turns out to be too risky. There are many, many applications which that could affect according to Microsoft and it's not at all clear they know what the heck they're talking about. Their first set of instructions on how to revert, for example, simply didn't work. So now I'm going to trust them to identify what apps it will affect?
That evening we watched 'Apocalypto', Mel Gibson's gory movie about aboriginal Mexico civilizations. This was a repeat for us but Labashi's studying Central Mexico and she wanted to see it again.
-------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 23 February-
This morning the dishwasher installation guy cancelled due to sickness. Thank goodness I'm not having to take off work to wait for this guy!
I spent the day driving all over York running errands. I exchanged the Belkin wireless adapter at Best Buy (and saw the sound bar we've been considering is now discontinued). I played with the cheaper GPS receivers for cars and settled on the Garmin Nuvi interface as best for Dad (as opposed to TomTom's). And once I realized the 255W model was on sale ($140 vs $180), I spent a long time with it.
I stopped off at Office Max and Staples to look for a shredder and decided I'd prefer of the Office Max models. I happened to be on the west side of town so went to a different Office Max to pick up the model I liked. But when I tried a test sheet of paper through it, it wouldn't turn off! I ended up abandoning the purchase altogether. I had been on the fence about buying it anyway so when that one jammed, it became an easy decision to save $100 and do without.
We watched a few '30 Rock' eps that evening.
------------------------------------------------
Monday, 22 February-
I spent the day waiting for the installation guy for our new dishwasher. The Sears installation team didn't know anything and all they could do was leave a message on the guy's phone to give me a call. That didn't happen by noon so I talked to the salesman who sold me the machine and both he and I began leaving messages on the installer's phone. He finally called me around 1400 to apologize and say his computer had gone down so he had never gotten the order. I asked if Sears shouldn't have known that and he said the order requires him to acknowledge, so they should. I had specifically asked the Sears installation people if they had anything showing the unit had been picked up or scheduled and they do not. So what good is an acknowledgement process?
Once we rescheduled, I went in to Bethany to join Labashi in another workday at her parent's apartment and to diagnose a connectivity problem with Dad's computer and re-write some connection procedures. We worked until 1930 or so and then came home to a few episodes of '30 Rock'.
------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 21 February-
I didn't sleep well at all last night. I don't know why this happens but occasionally I'll wake at 0130 or so and not be able to get back to sleep until almost daylight. Then I'll sleep very heavily for an hour or so. I wake very groggy but seem to function okay through the day so it's not a big deal. It just seems odd.
I rode the Concours down to the Tollgate Starbucks for my Sunday cap-and-Times but they were out of papers so I was only there briefly. But I definitely enjoyed riding the bike on this nice 45-degree day.
Once back home I spent an hour or so catching up on the blog and the remainder of the time on the Web. I also watched an interesting documentary on the 9/11 conspiracists. Don't let truth get in the way, fellas!
-----------------------------------------------
Saturday, 20 February-
Today was a very nice day, weather-wise. The 42-degree temperature felt great and we had sun all day. I dug out the snow around the Concours and fixed the windshield. The windshield had collapsed under the weight of the heavy snow on the motorcycle's cover last week. But this situation turned out a lot better than I thought it would. The windshield itself did not break. The nylon machine screws holding the windshield to its base broke off. I had four of them left over from previous installations so all I had to do was install new ones and that only took a few minutes. What a relief!
I spent much of the rest of the afternoon researching a portable GPS, possibly for Labashi's parents. Dad isn't enthusiastic about trying something new and might not be able to hear spoken instructions. On the other hand, if we could get an easy-enough-to-use model, it would allow him to explore on his own and (hopefully) give him the peace-of-mind that comes with knowing you can't get too lost to find your way home.
That evening we watched 'The Closer' Season Four eps.
-----------------------------------------------
Friday, 19 February-
We went in to Bethany today. Labashi took Mom and Dad to an extensive medical appointment (their first meeting with a new primary physician). I took that time to install a wireless network in the apartment. I installed an Airport Express router and (in Dad's PC) a Belkin USB wi-fi N-150 adapter. This went surprisingly well. I had wireless connectivity from my laptop set up in about ten minutes and it was very, very easy. It took me longer to make up passwords for the administration and WPA2 security than it did for anything else. Thanks, Apple!
I had a few minor problems with the Belkin adapter. For some reason it didn't appear to work in the first USB port I tried. It seemed to come up ok in another port but the Windows settings for it to automatically connect didn't appear to take. I downloaded the latest driver (just to be sure I had the most current) and tried another reboot and this time the connection came up automatically.
That evening we watched two episodes of 'The Closer' Season 4.
--------------------------------------------
Thursday, 18 February-
We were home today. I researched soundbars for the flat-screen tv. We're disappointed in the poor sound coming from our Sony flat-screen and I suppose we're doing what they want-- now looking to buy an add-on to fix it. Unfortunately, there's not a lot to pick from. I'm thinking of going with a Samsung unit with a wireless subwoofer but am a bit concerned about interference from or with our internet wireless. I'm not going to buy the Sony unit because the subwoofer is a the size of an older desktop-PC and that's where the cables plug in. So I have the cables all nicely hidden behind the TV and entertainment unit but now have to run cables out from behind the entertainment console to the subwoofer and then it's cable runs back to the soundbar. The Samsung, on the other hand, lets me plug into the back of the soundbar and then it talks wirelessly to the subwoofer. I see a few complaints about cutouts with the subwoofer so that may turn out to be a loser, too.
In the afternoon I drove in to Starbucks just to get out of the house and stopped by Action Motorsports in York to see what's on the floor. I LIKE the new Honda NV700. It's sort of a smaller brother to the ST1300 sport tourer. Its $10,000 price seems high compared to, say, a Kawasaki Versys but I've had too many problems with my Kawasakis to want to go that route. I love my Concours 1000 but both my Concours and my KLR650 had problems from the factory and the local dealer ripped me off (IMHO) on a warranty repair. I'm not fond of the somewhat-weird-looking tail of the NV700 and I don't see enough protection for the lower legs for winter and wet riding. Maybe I should just go for an ST1300...
That evening we watched 'Survivor- Heroes and Villains'.
--------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 17 February-
We went into Bethany today. I spent a few hours working with Dad to go through their various favorite websites to update the email address and be sure Dad's records of userIDs and passwords worked ok. We then had a frustrating half-hour trying to reach AT&T to cancel their old phone and internet service. I can't believe how bad these major companies are with their automated systems. If the point is to frustrate you so you don't call back, well, I guess it's working well. I do not understand how a company that's trying to give the impression of being technically savvy can make me re-input my phone number three different times in the 'Help' process when all the time they have it via caller-ID. At one point I asked one of the customer service people why I had to keep providing the same info they already had and he explained that the systems don't carry it over. They have one system to determine what state to route the call to, another for the function, yet another for a cancellation.
Labashi and I then spent the rest of the afternoon installing the Herman Miller shelving units with the new upright-extenders we made. At one point the shelves nearly fell over when a leg-adjuster fell out and unexpectedly dropped the right end of the shelves a couple of inches. It was too short for the purpose. We caught it in time but I had to run over to Lowe's for a replacement (a longer bolt). But once I had that first unit in place, the rest was easy and Mom and Dad are very happy.
-------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 16 February-
We were planning to go in to Bethany today to install the shelving units but last night's coat of stain was still too wet and sticky.
It was supposed to have snowed last night and this morning (up to three inches) but we only had a trace. I spent the day on the web. Among other things I installed Google Earth and began learning about it. My first impression? It's NOTHING like being there. I flew around to some places we've been-- like Yellowstone, Churchill (Manitoba), and tried some street views of places I'm very familiar with in Michigan and PA. I do like having something other than simple map views but so far haven't found Google Earth more useful than Google Maps. Then again, I have all of about two hours experience on it.
That evening we watched another couple of '30 Rock' Season Three episodes on Netflix Instant via a laptop-to-tv HD link.
*************** END OF POST ***************
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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