Digital Impulses

Life

Worked from home today. 

Had breakfast at Denny's and then paid a visit to the Apple store in Manhattan Village Mall to see an Apple Genius about getting my Time Capsule to work correctly.

Speaking with an Apple "Genius"
He explained to me exactly what I needed to do to get the 1 TB hard disk recognized all of the time and it made sense to me.  Hopefully, this will take care of the issue with the irritating "iPhoto cannot locate your library" pop-up that I get on occasion because the Time Capsule is asleep and Zeus does not know it.

After the Apple store visit, I had lunch with Isa, stopping by Best Buy to buy the Sex and The City: The Movie DVD for her.  She was very happy to get it. It's always a great feeling when you give someone a gift and they really like it.

Maddening Wednesday

Holy shit.  What a fucking day.  Where to start?

Isa goes home from Mom's house
In what was an untenable situation from the very start, my sister made the retarded decision to leave my mom's house today and go home.  She left in the middle of the day and just left some crappy note saying thanks to Mom.

I guess she feels better at home even tho there's more drama there than at Mom's.  Whatever.  I need to separate myself even more from the drama in this family.

Router failed during a flash upgrade
So, I got the retarded idea today to try and be a smart-ass and upgrade the firmware on my router to some non-standard piece of crap called "Tomato".

FAIL.

Killed my router deader than a fucking doornail.  Nothing I googled helped resuscitate it.  I fried the fucking thing.  Nothing for it but to replace it with a new wireless router.  So, I drove over to Best Buy and picked up a Cisco/Linksys "N" router for $59.00 and I will be installing it later tonight.

Dinner with the kids at Olive Garden
The kids were over the house today for their customary Wednesday visit and we decided to go to dinner at the Olive Garden in Manhattan Beach.  Dinner was fine and we had a good time.  After dinner, we returned home to face more drama with the wife related to the earlier POLGVB lawyer disaster.

Not a good Tuesday

It all started with getting pulled over by the motorcycle cop that lurks in the parking lot of the 99-Cent store on the corner of 149th and Hawthorne Blvd in Lawndale.

He gave me a ticket for driving while talking on my cellphone (no bluetooth headset) and for driving without proof of insurance.  Neither one of these are moving violations, so it should be an easy enough issue to resolve.

Work-wise, I created a portal today and then I went home at lunch time and spent the rest of the afternoon with Isa and Mom at Mom's house.  The tension between Mom and Isa was just unbearable and I escaped there at 2000 and headed on home.

Ugly day.  Bleh.

Isa Operated: Day 4

I went to TMMC very early today to help my sister prepare for leaving TMMC and coming home to my mom's.  The release happened around 1030 and was relatively incident and drama-free.  I followed them home from TMMC to my mom's and assisted my sister with getting comfortable at Mom's.

We had Boston Market as food for lunch and then I went home for a while to sleep.  In the afternoon, I went to Aviation High in M. Beach to see my son play soccer and then we came home and watched the soccer game on T.V.

The rest of the evening was uneventful.  Good for me.

Isa Operated: Day 3

Very short after work visit with Isa today.  I arrived at TMMC around 1500 and left just after 1800.  Isa was in OK spirits and I helped her as much as I could while I was there.  It seems she will be going home to my Mom's tomorrow morning.

Great news.  Her recovery starts tomorrow and she is doing fine.  Nice,

Isa Operated: Day 2

I was at TMMC visiting with Isa today from 1352 to 1600.  All things considered, she is doing really, really well. Good stuff.

Isa Operated: Day 1

My sister Isa entered the hospital today to have major surgery.  This is something that we are all really, really happy about, since it is something that she has been putting off for years and something that she really needed to do.

I arrived at TMMC in Torrance at 1300 and left the hospital at 2130.  The operation was from 1745 to 1930 and it was a 2 hour success.

After the surgery was done, We got good all around positive news from the doctor.  Mom, Dad, Pete, Patricia, Tori, Daniel, Reyna, AJ and Cindi were there also.

We were only able to see a glimpse of her as she was wheeled into her room, so we will be returning tomorrow afternoon to see how she is doing.

Yay!  I am so glad my sister's surgery is something we can all put behind us now.  Whew!  What a relief.

Setting up an iPod for Isa

So the evening after work today was consumed entirely by going to Best Buy with my sister, buying her a set of speakers, going to her house, installing the speakers and then getting to work on setting up her brand new green iPod Nano.

Installing iTunes 7.7: NOT
The first snag I encountered was that my sister's PC is horribly put-of-date in terms of MS security patches and service packs and was still running XP SP1.  So, the iTunes install failed immediately because it needs for XP to be running a minimum of SP 2.

Getting Windows XP Service Pack 2
Upon hitting the MS Windows Update web site, I was informed that my sister's copy of Windows XP was "not genuine* and thus Service Pack 2 could NOT be installed. I was then offered a link to a web site where I could purchase a *valid* Product key for $149.00 instead of the regular $299.00 that MS charges for a retail, boxed copy of Windows XP Pro.

I clicked on the link, filled out the form, provided a CC and purchased the valid Product key.  Once the transaction was authorized, I was re-directed to a web site where a tiny applet was downloaded and installed on the computer that upgraded or "legalized" the copy of XP Pro currently installed on my sister's PC.

Once all of that was done (MS will be shipping me a CD of Windows XP Pro SP2 for the cost of the product key I just bought, btw), a reboot of the computer followed by once again visiting the MS Windows Update web site allowed me to being the process of downloading and installing Service Pack 2.  about 15 minutes and 75 MB later, the download finished and the process of updating XP to SP 2 began.

That took another long while but eventually finished without incident.  Of course, REBOOT YET AGAIN, and this time i was able to launch the install of iTunes (+ QuickTime, of course) 7.7

Installing iTunes 7.7: Yes!
This time, the install of iTunes proceeded without a hitch and all was well with the world.  Once the install completed, it trundled for a little while and then was ready to be used.  I created an account for my sister at the iTunes music store and then gave her a quick demo / tutorial of using the iTunes music store.

Connecting her iPod Nano
Once iTunes was ready, I connected up her Nano and it was recognized without a hitch. iTunes synced it up nicely and my sister was able to listen to the demo songs that were put on her Nano by iTunes.  From there it was just a matter of ripping a couple of my sister's music CD's to her PC so that iTunes could put some more content on her Nano for her.

All in all, it was a long and boring and (expensive) process, but my sister now has a modern MP3 player that I think she is going to get a lot of pleasure out of.

Good for her.

An iPod for iSa

This afternoon after work, my sister came by the house and we drove to Verizon to have her exchange her ear piece for her cell phone.  She bought another one and HATED IT immediately.  She decided to return it right then and there and we ended up spending more time on it than she wanted.  Isa left the Verizon store very frustrated.

Dinner at Islands
After Verizon, we drove over to Islands to have dinner.  The food was OK, but the service was so,so, with my sister's chicken sandwich not being cooked to her specifications.  The ensuing complaints and mini drama was par for the course.

A visit to the Apple Store: Isa get a Nano
After dinner at Islands, we walked over to the Apple Store to look at the iPod Nanos. After a little shopping , my sister decided on the green 8 GB iPod Nano and I took it up to the front to pay for it.  Now it's a matter of setting up the iPod for my sister and introducing her to the world of iTunes, the iTunes music store, rented movies, tv shows and other media.

Grand Drama Fizzle with Isa

Minding my own business, on my way home from work at noon, I get a phone call, telling me that my sister had gotten an urgent call from the hospital related to some test she had done earlier.

The amount of drama laid thick in the voice of the caller was unbelieveable.

I then proceeded to have an incredibly shitty afternoon, worried out of my head, until I got the 1600 phone call from my sister, telling me that there was nothing wrong with her and that they "just wanted to make sure" at the hospital.

All of that angst and teeth gnashing for NOTHING.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I am EVER SO RELIEVED that there is nothing wrong with my sister, but jeeeze... could we lay off off the unnecessary drama just a little bit?  My god!

After the call, I met up with my sister at Piggies for an early dinner and then we drove over to her house for me to take a look at her malfunctioning internet connection.  It turns out that her router was inadvertently unplugged and that was killing her connection.

I took care of that and thgen left her house to come home and relax in my office for a while before calling it a night.