Managers Amendment to GSE Bill

Last night or this morning, I installed the the pending up-dates for various WordPress plugins that I was using. I've discovered that various things have consequently been broken. Please bear with me as I try to put things back into working order.

(And please comment to this entry if you note something specifically amiss.)

I called GeekAvailable.com at just before 18:00 PDT to query about the status of my computer. I was told that they are trying to get a tracking number from their parts supplier to ascertain what has happened to the part that was ordered to fix my computer, and that they would call me as soon as they had any news.

As the Woman of Interest subsequently noted, it is really poor practice for them to have waited for my query rather than calling me to tell me where things stood. I need to decide on a response to further continuation of this situation.

I've received no phone call to-day from GeekAvailable.com; I'm quite unhappy with how a turn-around time estimated to be 72 hour has thus far run something more than 150 hours.

Meanwhile, Bessie is being further cantankerous, confusing two separate drives, and deleted files from the one when told to remove files from the other.

I called GeekAvailable.com this morning at about 10:00 PDT; I was told that they expected receipt of a part to-day, and to have my note-book computer fixed about half an hour after that; and that they would call me as soon as it was ready.

I surely hope that I'll have it back to-day.

The latest poll at my 'blog has a very similar form to the previous poll, but the scenario is somewhat changed.

I'd like to note that these two polls, and those that are to follow in the series, are not Socratic exercises; they're just an exploration of various intuïtions.

Also, I chose a specific denomination (rather than just some money) because I know that answers may change for different amounts. Unfortunately, there seems no good way to use the poll software to map such nuances.

On Wednesday, while waiting at IAH between flights, I spoke with a representative from GeekAvailable.com about repair of my note-book computer. The rep said that turn-around time would typically be about 72 hours, allowing for order and receipt of parts.

I took my computer to them on Thursday morning. On Saturday after-noon, a technician (the same fellow with whom I had spoken on Wednesday) told me that he believed that a voltage inverter had failed, and that he had ordered a replacement on Thursday or on Friday. (My computer has a large screen with an odd aspect ratio — 1920×1200 — so it's no surprise that this part would require a special order.)

(It's not good policy for them to order such a part without my clearance to actually effect the repair, but in this case I would have given my okay.)

I'm hoping, then, to have my note-book computer back to-morrow or on Tuesday.

While I await the return of that computer, I am using Bessie, a desktop computer that I maintain as a Win9x legacy machine.

As such, Bessie has only 512MB of RAM — Win9x actually becomes more dysfunctional if there is more RAM than that installed, though Win9x can handle GBs of virtual memory. But, with that memory constraint and with Windows' otherwise poor memory management, applications frequently hang or crash or otherwise do intensely annoying things. I really need to clean-up Bessie's file system and free-up a drive so that I can alternately boot Linux on it.

And Bessie connects to the 'Net at noticeably lower speed, probably because of crummy telephone wiring to the computer room.

So I am not doing nearly as much on-line as I otherwise would.

(The Woman of Interest has been kind enough to manage my principal character in the Kingdom of Loathing since my return to San Diego.)

My visit to the Woman of Interest was timed to coïncide with my birthday. That timing was at her suggestion, as I long ago stopped taking much note of my birthdays.

Thursday, 8 May, and Wednesday, 14 May, were largely given-over to travel. Most our time together was spent doing every-day sorts of things, in part because there was a fair amount of rain during my visit. But I didn't view the trip as a sort of vacation, demanding entertainments; I viewed it as a time to be with her.

On my birthday itself, the 9th, she took me to FriSatSun, a restaurant in Philadelphia, noted for excellent food, good service, and questionable décor.

On Monday night, she took me to the police department at which she works, where I met her favorite sergeant and one of the other dispatchers. Unfortunately, she didn't reälize that one of the officers who had wanted to meet me was on duty that night, though away from the station, so there was a later protest lodged by telephone.

On Tuesday, we went to the Brandywine River Museum, in Chadds Ford, to see works by Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Parrish, and various other artists. (Only two pieces by Parrish were on display.)

While we were there, we discovered that Wyeth's home and studio were open for tour, and we took advantage of that. In fact, the tour of the studio proved to be the best part of the visit for each of us (in spite of a few boors also taking the tour). The paintings and other work of the Brandywine School are available many places in high quality reproduction, but the studio was where Wyeth had done much of his work. His tools are still or again there.

I don't mean to slight the Museum, though. It was great to see so many paintings by Wyeth and by Pyle.

After we left the Brandywine River Valley, we went to the Frida Kahlo exhibition at Philadelphia Museum of Art, because the Woman of Interest is an admirer of Kahlo's work, and the paintings on exhibit aren't usually collected into one place.

Unfortunately, we discovered that the Museum was to close in less than 40 minutes. But the Woman of Interest feared that this would be her last chance to see the exhibit; the exhibition was to end to-day, and she is under constant threat of being called into work early if another dispatcher is unavailable.

So we made a sort of dash, skipping photographs of Kahlo from various times and places, to look only at the paintings themselves, and splitting-up individually to deal with sheeple and allocate viewing time. In the gift shop, the Woman of Interest bought an exhibit catalogue, largely so that she could view the photographs at her leisure.

The Infamous Beet Weasel did less biting per unit time than he had during my previous visits. He seems to be growing more sedate with age. He still likes to stand on the Woman of Interest when she is trying to sleep, and he has taken to doing the same to me (though not so much, as he loves her more).

I am visiting the Woman of Interest, my having left home to do so on Thursday morning. On Wednesday night, the display of my notebook computer apparently fried, so I've not brought it.

I'm very uncomfortable with the general feel of her keyboard; and her computer, being a Mac, uses different meta-key combinations from those now familiar to me. (I used to use Macs a lot, because one of my employers insisted on such, but that was long ago.) So I won't be on-line much before I get home, on Wednesday.

When I do get home, I will have to use my cranky old desk-top computer or rental machines, until I get the notebook computer fixed. So my on-line presence will still be more limited for a while.

Uh, er….

At the end of April, I reported

A few years ago, I got it into my head to collect working Mannheim slide-rule tie-clips. I believe that, as of to-day, I have secured at least one complete exemplar of every variety of such that was made for resale.

Yester-day, the clip whose acquisition I was celebrating arrived. It is of a somewhat different variety than any of my previous acquisitions, which is in-and-of-itself a good thing. But I had used the word complete advisedly. I have a slide-rule tie-clip that is missing the indicator (the clear, sliding thing used to check just how the graduated pieces line-up) with which it was originally sold. I was expecting a complete exemplar of the same variety. Instead, I have one that is altogether new to my collection.

So there is at least one sort of which I continue to lack a satisfactory example.