Cell Phones
More proof I was born 40 years too soon!
People under 30 don’t just sleepwalk, they use their cell phones in their sleep. If you don’t believe me just ‘Google’ sleep texting.
That’s something that I find hard to believe, but apparently it’s true. The experts seem to think it’s true. I am not so sure. I have heard that people have been know to drive, eat and do a lot of other things in their sleep. Since I don’t have any of those problems as far as I know, it’s hard for me to understand. (If I do those things in my sleep, how would I know?)
I just don’t understand the need to be ‘connected’ at every waking moment. I do have a cell phone, but it’s turned off most of the time. I have it for emergency use only.
The local news stations tell me I can access the weather news on my cell phone. Sounds handy, but I can do that on my computer. They say I can access the weather on my cell phone when the power goes off. I have a laptop and it runs off a battery when the power goes off.
Personally I don’t want that phone to become like a third part of me. I already have a third extension; my computer! However, when I leave the house I leave the computer at home. If I decide to work in the yard (I do occasionally), the computer is in the house, not attached to my body.
When I go shopping I concentrate on shopping. When I go to bed I certainly don’t take the cell phone to bed with me. I hear a lot of folks do that as well. When I am driving I need to be focused on where I am going and the traffic around me, not yapping on the phone.
Some jerk yapping on his phone changed lanes right in front of me once and I nearly hit him. He didn’t look or use signals, just pulled over and almost hit me. I hit my brakes and horn at the same time. He just kept yakking. It’s a good thing no one was tail-gateing me or I would have been hit from behind.
I don’t have a problem with other people using cell phones where ever they may be, but I think they shouldn’t use them while driving.
I told you I was born 40 years too soon. If I had been born 40 years later, I probably would have a cell phone attached to me somewhere, more than likely my ear!
Martha
The first really important email newsletter, at least for me, was ‘The LangaList‘. This weekly missive by Fred Langa was something I
always looked forward to. He guided me through the ins and outs of fixing Windows problems, helped me make software decisions and just always provided a really good read. It was the first email newsletter I decided was worth paying for and it was worth every penny, plus a whole lot more.
It was with some trepidation when I received word that Fred was joining forces with Brian Livingston of WindowsSecrets (the second email newsletter I had decided was worth paying for). My fears were soon put to rest as Windows Secrets came along and seemed to get better with every issue. Windows Secrets is full of tips about fixing Windows Problems and also contains tidbits of what’s going on in the world of computing. It isn’t the LangaList, but close. I still miss those reader’s sites submitted to the LangaList. I found some real jewels there.
In my latest issue of Windows Secrets the announcement was made, Fred is leaving! So now I will no longer read those articles by Fred, at least not about computers. Fred is looking for new horizons and I hope he finds what he is looking for, as he truly deserves the best.
Maybe not all is lost, Fred does have a blog! But it isn’t about computers. It is about his new challenges which seems to be a lot of fun!
Although I don’t know if I would want to chase tornados, it sure might beat sitting at a computer all the time.
Good luck to you, Fred! Your loyal fans will miss you and a lot of them, like me, will keep up with you by reading your blog!
Martha
Read the fine print, always!
Sometimes I get the feeling that ‘they are out to get us’, ‘they’ meaning retail or service companies. The old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ is not always true any more. Sometimes you get a lot less of what you pay for, and I have been reading instances of folks not getting anything they paid for. (I love The Consumerist!)
Recently a major department store had an ad in my newspaper for a mattress sale. (Mattresses are always on sale somewhere.) I don’t need a new mattress, but the markdown was big enough to catch my eye. The mattresses were for a major brand and the prices were good, even for this retailer. And of course there was the ‘hook’, free delivery, setup and haul away of the old mattress listed in large print.
Except one little thing. There was a minimum purchase of $699 for the free delivery, set up and haul away. I found that very interesting. The sale price of a queen size set was $599, double set was $589 and twin sets $549. If you bought a queen set, which is probably the most purchased these days, the delivery was $65 and haul away $40. The only set that would qualify for the free delivery and haul away was a king size set for $999.
I wonder how many people bought one of these sets using a credit card and didn’t notice the delivery and haul away charges. I am quite sure the retailer was hoping this would happen. If those folks are like a number of my friends, they carry a balance on their cards and probably just pay the required payments when they are due.
There are a number of retail department stores experiencing low sales these days. I don’t suppose they have any idea that legal but deceptive practices like these may just cost them future business.
Martha
For a whole lot of folks there are not enough hours in a day and for another bunch there are too many.
Normally there are 24 hours in a day, except twice a year. The first time a day doesn’t have 24 hours is in the late Winter/early Spring, when the so-called day has 23 hours. Then late in the Fall/early Winter there is a so-called day with 25 hours. The powers that be change the actual dates this happens and who knows when they will change the dates again. When we change our clocks for the exact dates and times. (You probably thought it was the same down through the years, but no, it wasn’t!)
It seems that many years ago, in 1784 to be exact, good ole Ben Franklin wrote a fanciful essay about saving daylight. It was surely written in jest and no one at the time really took it seriously. The people back then seemed to be more endowed with ‘common sense’!
Then in 1916, in an effort to save energy resources, it was decided to actually implement the farce known as ‘Daylight Saving Time’. Perhaps it did save some energy, but the amount of energy saved surely did not compensate for the effect of changing the time on the population. Losing an hour of sleep once a year may not seem like such a big deal, but statistics show there are more traffic accidents on the Monday following the ‘Spring forward’ event. In today’s fast paced world most people don’t get enough sleep as it is and taking a precious hour of slumber away is tantamount to a criminal act. Not to mention all of the aggravation!
A recent study published by Consumer Reports indicates that Daylight Saving Time is actually costing us more money! While we may be saving the cost of lighting, air conditioning and heating cost us more due to the time changes.
However, I doubt the powers that be that make the decisions will even look at the statistics showing the actual cost and will continue to make the population suffer through losing sleep one day a year.
Martha
I suspect that most people my age have a place where many photographs are stored. I wonder how often they take those memories out of their hiding places and look at them. For me, not very often. The reasons are many; not enough time or other things take precedence.
Recently I started thinking about my memories on paper and decided to go through all of those hundreds of photos. A fire that destroyed someone else’s paper treasures made me think I should scan my photos and store them someplace safe, like a bank safe deposit box. But as I started looking at those photos a terrible thing happened. I realized there were so many of people whose names I can’t remember! So many places I can’t really recall. They look familiar but try as I might, the names just don’t come back. Why oh why didn’t I take the time to write names and dates on the backs of those photos!
The color photos have mostly faded, a great many to the point that scanning and editing won’t really help. This is probably due to the fact I am not expert at bringing old photos to life. I am going to try, but I don’t hold out much hope. A great many were made with a Polaroid camera and some of those haven’t stood the test of time too well.
Hundreds and hundreds of photos, maybe thousands! Albums and boxes of photos! What I really need to do is sort them into ‘times’ to make it easier to find that certain memory.
One of the disturbing things about looking at those photos is comparing ‘then and now’. I see how young we all looked and then how we look now. I think I will have to stop looking at photos or stop looking in the mirror! But the saddest part of all is seeing the faces of those family members and friends no longer here. But I realize how fortunate I am to have these precious memories and now I have to work to preserve them. I suspect after I am gone, no one will really care about these captures from the past. But if a disaster occurs while I am here, I will surely be glad to have my memories safely stored away where they can be retrieved.
So now I have sorted enough and have started the scanning process. This is going to take a long time, weeks, months, maybe years! So guess I’d better get to work.
Martha
Seems like a trivial subject, bed sheets. However, if you have shopped for sheets recently, you know it is no trivial thing.
When I was first married, it was a simple enough thing to shop for sheets. There were two kinds of sheets, muslin and percale. Muslin was soft and inexpensive and percale was smooth and required no ironing. Percale was a little more expensive, but worth the difference.
Today it is an entirely different story. I guess somewhere they may sell muslin sheets, but I don’t know where. I have seen percale sheets in a few places, but you have to really look to find them. The big thing in sheets today is ‘thread count’. The higher the thread count, the more expensive the sheet. According to one website, thread count refers to the number of horizontal and vertical threads in one square inch of fabric.
Theoretically, the higher the thread count the softer the sheets. Sounds good, eh? Really soft sheets! But there is a huge drawback here, they wrinkle. They wrinkle a lot! Wrinkled sheets look terrible! And they cost a lot of money. A really big lot of money!
Now I don’t know about most folks, but this old woman is not about to iron sheets! And IF I were foolish enough to pay the high price for these high thread count sheets (I have seen over $400), I would expect them to change the bed when dirty, throw themselves in the washer and dryer, press themselves and make the bed. Since I know they won’t do any of that, I ain’t buying these suckers! So there.
A Consumer Reports issue some time back reported anything over 400 thread count is a waste of money and 200 thread count will last just as well and provide all the comfort needed. Good Old Consumer Reports, I will follow their advice and I won’t sleep on wrinkled sheets. I will also have more money to spend on other things, like software. I do have my priorities straight!
Martha
The average temperature as told by the weatherman on the news is very misleading to me. For instance, he may say the average temperature for a certain date in November is 65 high and 45 low. How do they come up with that average? Do they add up all the temperature readings for that date as long as they have kept records and divide it by the number of days? They don’t say how they figure it.
The average size of families in the USA is 3.20. So they say. I don’t know any families that are that size, but somewhere there may be one.
An average person in my state is 33.1 years old, according to the US Census information. So does this really mean anything? Nearly everyone I know is older than 33.1 and a lot of my family and friends are a good deal older than that.
Shopping for clothes is a really fun experience too. Just when you think you are an average size, you will get that thought totally out of your head when you try on a few articles of clothing marked ‘Average’. Some of them might fit your ten-year old daughter. A few of them may fit your 200 pound Auntie. However, if you are lucky some of them will fit. If you are not average size, but small, large or even extra large, the same thing applies. I recently saw a top marked ‘Large’ that would have been too small for most skinny ten year old girls. It was on a closeout rack and I suspect part of the reason for it being there was the size marked on the label.
I think average is a misused term. No one I know is ‘average’. Some are certainly above average intelligence; I won’t mention if any are below average intelligence. However I think there are a number of public officials and school administrators (think zero tolerance) who may fit the below intelligence category.
The next time someone asks me how I am doing, I will just say ‘Oh, average’. That should cover everything, from rotten to great. After all, average could be anything based on what I see about ‘average’!
Martha
There are meters for lots of things. Nearly all of them are for charging something for us to pay.
There’s the electric meter. (Ouch!)
The water meter. (Ouch again!)
The gas meter. A lot of us don’t have one of these because our home is all electric. But if you have one of these, it’s in the Ouch category!
A parking meter if we have to go to the business area of our city/town.
There are meters in taxicabs to figure how much the rider has to pay for his or her ride.
I am sure there are other meters for things I haven’t thought about.
A meter generally requires someone to read it so the bills can be sent to customers. Parking meters usually are read by the local law enforcement and will cause a parking ticket if there is no time left on the meter when the meter reader comes around. Those are put under the windshield wipers so the driver will be sure to see it.
Last, but not least, there is the BS meter. This may not be in evidence until someone somewhere starts a tall tale. This usually goes off for me when viewing commercials on TV. It really went off when I saw an ad for this product, Detox Foot Pads and another site who seems to debunk but just wants you to buy their product.
Since I first saw this ad on TV I have done a bit of research about these detox foot pads.There are quite a few other products of the same nature, each claiming to ‘detoxify’ your body by putting a special patch on the bottom of your feet. You can even buy these products at t some of your local drug stores.
I know there are some strange things in this world that apparently work wonders, but my ‘meter’ is still making loud sounds because I just don’t see how this could work. (There is truth in calling Missouri the ‘Show Me State’; I am from Missouri!)
If you have tried the detox foot patches and it worked for you, how did you know it worked?
Martha
In the midst of the Holiday season that includes Thanksgiving and Christmas, I am sorely tempted!
All those goodies that go with holidays just keep calling my name! My problem is I just like food. I mean I really like food, especially the really fattening kind of food. I like it all with one or two exceptions. (I don’t care at all for green bean casserole and I am not real fond of turkey.)
Baked ham, pies, cakes and baked anything, I generally like it. I have always had a ’sweet tooth’ and this time of year there are certainly a lot of sweet goodies to eat!
So I am in a quandary. I need to lose some weight. OK, I need to lose a LOT of weight. I didn’t used to have this problem about weight. I could eat just about anything I wanted and if I gained a few pounds it was easy for me to lose it.
Not any more! If I gain a pound it doesn’t want to leave! Someone told me once that getting older sometimes has this affect and for me it is certainly true. I am not sure it is age that caused it, but I sure would like to find a way to ‘fix’ this problem. I know, I know, diet and exercise will work. That’s easy enough to say, but putting it into practice is another thing.
I just don’t seem to have any will power. I know that’s not true because I quit smoking cold turkey after having been addicted for thirty years. That was almost five years ago and I haven’t smoked even once since then. Hmm, that’s when I started gaining that weight I need to lose.
So okay, I will give myself a heavy does of will power and lose that weight. But not until after the holidays!
Here’s to Happy Holiday eating!
Martha
Every year I get a flu shot. I get this flu shot for several reasons; the main one being I don’t want to get the flu.
Everywhere I look for ’senior’ stuff the advice is to get a flu shot. Medicare pays for the shot; there is no co-pay for flu shots! They figure the cost of the shot is much cheaper than paying doctor bills, medicine, hospital bills, etc. that will incur if someone gets the flu.
Back in 1993 I got pneumonia. It was the worst kind of pneumonia and I nearly died. After I recovered my doctor told me to get a pneumonia shot and to get a flu shot every year. Since I had no desire to get that sick again I took his advice and every year without fail I get a flu shot. One good thing, since I started getting flu shots, I never get a bad cold anymore. Maybe those awful colds I used to get were not colds after all, but were the flu!
This year I found out I needed another pneumonia shot so when the local Walgreen’s had their annual flu clinic I decided to get both shots and be done with it. This was a mistake. By nightfall, my arm was hurting. I don’t mean sore, I mean hurting! Bad! I had a headache as well. I don’t usually have headaches so I figured it was a result of the shots, took some Tylenol and went to bed early.
Sometime during the night it got really cold. Then it got really hot. By morning I thought I might be dying. It went on this way for two days. My arm hurt so bad I couldn’t even raise it up. Fever came and went. I felt so bad I didn’t even read my email. Folks who know me would have been really alarmed by that! My son wanted to take me to the emergency room. I didn’t want to make the effort.
Then on the third day after I got those shots I woke up and I was me again. I felt great! My arm was not hurting. I could raise it up over my head. No more fever. Life was good again.
Now I wonder, which one of those shots made me so sick? The flu shot or the pneumonia shot? The combination? All I know for sure is I am very glad I won’t need that pneumonia shot again!
I will still get a flu shot next year, but I will make sure I have Tylenol that isn’t out of date! Sadly I had to throw a bunch of Tylenol away; the expiration date was two years ago! I figure the flu would last a lot longer than the time I was down with the side effects from the shot.
Martha
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