History Lesson?

Not a good post title but here goes. On Thursday I was working at the home of one of our business clients who owns an insurance agency. We had done some work on his office machines and he hired us (CM/IT, specifically me) to fix his daughter's laptop (severely hijacked) and his Vaio minitower. I was sitting at the kitchen table and his two younger kids were getting ready to go outside and I commented to his youngest daughter about the logo on her shirt, which had the shape of a famous ice cream company but it said "Frozen-Assets" with to dots (a german umlaut) over the "o". She said it was the name of her Nanna's boat. I mentioned how it looked like the Haagen-Dazs logo and she and her brother both said "Yeah, our Great-grandfather founded Haagen-Dazs". "Eh?", I retorted. "Yeah and I was named after him", said the brother, Reuben. "But he sold it to Pillsbury". "For a lot of money, I bet". "Yeah".

I mentioned it to their Mother later and it was her Grandfather, Reuben Mattus, who founded Haagen-Dazs. I meet some interesting people in this job.

Job crisis

So I suddenly got a job offer from a company I interviewed with last winter called and offered me a fulltime, 2 month contract job at Praxair in Danbury. Although the hourly rate was less than I was getting at CM/IT, it would be a guaranteed 40 hours/week for 2 months with a possibility of an extension beyond that, and, if it was not extended, there was an 80% chance the hiring company would pull me back into their organization. I would have a choice of full or part time then. Sounded pretty good, especially since I had not been getting very many hours with CM/IT lately.

When I talked with Sandra about it, she started talking about different projects she could put me into and started offering not only more hours, but a guaranteed 20 hours/week. Guess she thought I was valuable. Truth is, I like working for CM/IT and have created a relationship with my clientele so I decided to stay. Pretty dumb, huh?

I also wanted to keep some flexibility in my daily schedule. I will have to book some office time when I am not scheduled for any clients to make up the 20 weekly hours but I don't mind that.

T. M. X. Elmo

Ten years after "Tickle-me Elmo", the latest incarnation does acrobatics. We saw this guy on GMA this morning and everyone was really laughing at him. He sits down, bangs his hand on the floor, lies on his back, lies on his stomach, and, at the end of his fit, stands back up on his feet.

Star Trek TOS Updated!

Wow! They are returning TOS to TV with new digitally mastered special effects. I have got to see this. I checked it out on the TiVo and found two episodes on G4 on Saturday but not sure if they are the updated ones. Guess I will find out.

What about Daddy?

This is so cute! I would be tempted to buy it just to see what they put in it. Actually there are some sample pages. Hits the Conservatives right where they live. I can't imagine what a similar book called "Why Daddy is a Republican" would contain. But here is a possible list for them to start with.

Able and Baker

This comic is very funny. Thanks to Brian for putting me on to it.

Manbag?

So I got tired of having to chase all over for all my stuff before leaving the house to go on a job. Cell phone, Bluetooth earpiece, GPS, XM radio, iPod, PDA, headphones, I was always forgetting something. So I dug around in the attic and found this discarded leather bag of Ellyn's which didn't look too "girly" and was a good size to hold everything. Is it too "hip" for a 57-year-old? Am I too late for this trend? Has it already passed?

Woo-hoo! Free PDA!

Tungsten T3. A nice perk for an IT job well done.

So I was working at a business here in Danbury which I had worked at before, fixing some problems they had and configuring some new software. I had seen that they had a couple of PDAs around and had heard that they were unused. They currently only used the desktop software for keeping schedules and contact lists and they wanted to view the same DB from the two computers. While I was working I asked the owner if he ever used the Tungsten. I had already checked and seen that the battery was dead. He said he bought them but never used them. I also asked if he had the sync cord. He said it might be around somewhere. So I asked him if he would be willing to sell it. I had been thinking of getting a new one, since I had been using Ellyn's old IBM Workpad for several years now.

So I asked what he wanted for it. He wasn't sure how much he paid for it or what it would be worth. I checked on eBay and they covered a pretty wide spectrum of prices. I told him I would give him $30 and he seemed hesitant, so I tried $50. He told me to haggle it out with his secretary.

So after he was gone and I was ready to leave, I gave my card to the secretary and have her charge me the $40 we had finally settled on. She started, then gave me back the card and said to just take it, that I had done a lot of work for them and he would never miss it.

It is missing its sync cable but they can be had pretty inexpensively plus it works in Ellyn's Zire cradle, which is how I charged it and synched over my Workpad data.

Our anniversary party

The 20th anniversary living in Danbury party went over very well. Everyone did not come at once but spaced out very nicely over the day and the weather cooperated very well. After several days of rain, it broken Sunday morning and the sun was actually out for a lot of the day. There seemed to be plenty of food for everyone and there was a lot of schmoozing and visiting going on. We even got to meet a few of our neighbors. Logan and Brian were here from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning. We got a great picture to supplement the one we took 20 years ago in front of our new (at that time) house.