AtomicMrX

Today my friend Ken turns 46! Happy Birthday Ken!

I’m right behind him. I turn 45 in January 2008! Man are we old!

Well, I since I couldn’t get my Polaroid SD 1GB card to work I thought it was best to try the card Fuji recommended (Fuji 1GB xD-Picture Card) and see if the problem was my Polaroid SD card or the camera. The new xD-Picture Card works; so that makes the old Polaroid SD card the problem. So now I’m gonna see if a co-worker can get the Polaroid SD card to work on one of their card readers at home. If not then I guess the pictures are lost for ever.

I bought the xD-Picture Card online at Best Buy and chose the store pick-up. I was afraid the traffic would be insane and lines everywhere but it wasn’t.

So since I didn’t take long at all I stopped over at Starbucks and got a Grande Vanilla Latte. Once I stepped inside I was greeted with the dreaded line! It was almost to the door, but I wanted my drink and was willing to wait for it. I wish the Wi-Fi at Starbucks was free but it’s not you have to subscribe to T-Mobile HotSpot wireless broadband Internet service (which is $6.00 for an hour - no contract, $9.99 for 24 hours - no contract, or $29.99 for one month with a year contract). I wouldn’t use it enough to warrant any of those options. I get coffee at Starbucks about once a month or less.

Jaki and I made the trip up to Omaha on Thursday morning. I got up like I was going to work (so that would be getting up at 4:30 AM) and then left the house at 6:00 AM so we would arrive in Omaha at 9:00 AM. It was a nice ride up although most of it was in the dark. Jaki behaved the entire way up. Shannon stayed in Raytown and didn’t go home to see his folks. He actually had to go into work on Friday. The drive back from Omaha, Jaki slept the entire way!

I took some pictures and was gonna upload them to the blog but my camera card (brand new) is acting up. I get a camera card error when I turn the camera on. So the pictures sit on the “maybe” damaged camera card in the camera. I’m gonna let it sit a bit and try again. I didn’t take many pictures but still — some of them where pretty good. The camera card is a Polaroid brand so it isn’t some knock off cheappy thing. Maybe the trip back in the car shook it up a bit. I may give my card to someone with a card reader to see if they get the same message or not. It could be the camera or the card I have to figure out which.

I finally found a new phone from Verizon that I liked. Shannon and I actually spontaneously stopped in a Verizon store in Lee’s Summit the weekend before Thanksgiving and saw phones we both liked. Shannon is getting the Samsung Juke and I am getting the LG Chocolate (new updated version). I thought I would like the Juke as well but once I got to the store and held it in my hands — it was great except for the text on that little screen was so small I couldn’t read it easily with these old eyes. So I had to start looking around to see what other phones were new. That’s when I saw the new version of the LG Chocolate. They changed up the interface and added a dial (just like on the Juke) to scroll through selections and it is very much like the iPod interface actually. The LG Chocolate has nice big text on its display for my tired ol’ eyes! Shannon and I decided to wait and get them the weekend after Thanksgiving because they just might go on sale and we weren’t in any hurry since they would cost a lot of money if we got them right then. Mine would have been an extra $30 and Shannon’s would have been $100. I have a new every two plan and as long as the phone is $99, I get it free and the LG Chocolate was $129 — so I would have to pay the extra amount over the $99. Shannon doesn’t have the new every two so the Juke was just the price of the phone.

On Thanksgiving night after my relatives left, Mom and I were in the kitchen waiting for the turkey carcass to cool so we could pick the meat off to use in Turkey Noodle Soup. We were looking through the Friday Sale Ads and that’s when I saw the ad for Verizon and both Shannon’s and my phones were on sale. My LG Chocolate was on sale for $99 (which makes it free for me) and Shannon’s Juke was on sale for $79! So I got online Friday morning and bought them through the Verizon Wireless web site, because the sale was only good through the 26 of November and I wasn’t about to battle the stores to get the darn phones! Their web site was getting hit hard — it was very slow on Friday morning. I guess a lot of other people had the same plan! The phones will ship in 2 business days so I should see them on Monday or Tuesday. It is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday by 7:00 PM.

I took my Wii up to Omaha so my folks could check it out. My Dad could not figure out how the thing works and didn’t know they made such a thing. He is 87 going on 88 so it’s a little beyond his comprehension right now. Mom thought it was pretty fun. She played 27 holes of Golf and played several games of Bowling. I just watched her play Golf because she is much better than me and it was more fun to watch. We played each other in Bowling. I think we tied in the end. My nephews played a little with it but not much. I have determined I don’t like Super Mario Party for Wii. The mini games a kind of fun but the game play (going through the board game style part) is just plain boring. You just watch the game play itself most of the time waiting to hit A button and read a bunch of crap. The most fun was the free games that came with the Wii. Boxing was fun with my nephew Joe. I was getting pounded in the beginning then in the end he was getting pounded!

Since I don’t like Super Mario Party I’m leery about getting “Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2” since I think it has turned more into a Party game then a platform game. I think it will be a rent before I buy. At least I’m enjoying Super Mario Galaxy! I don’t have a lot of time to play it but when I do it is fantastic to watch and fun to play.

Over all it was a great Thanksgiving. The food was fantastic and I still have plenty of leftovers. I will be making Turkey Noodle Soup today with my Mom’s home made egg noodles and the broth and turkey meat we got off the carcass. It has become a tradition for Mom and me to sit on Thanksgiving evening and pick the bones for meat after boiling them for an hour. Its fun and I enjoy it a lot. We talk, pick meat and get our hands all greasy! In a couple weeks I’ll be driving back up for Xmas. I have a few more gifts to buy and then I’m done.

I finally got my iPod Touch to go Wi-Fi at home. I was about to take the Wireless Router to work to see if they could update the firmware. I had tried two different Mac computers using Safari and FireFox and they would just hang while updating the firmware on the router. As a last chance effort I thought I would try my Windows XP on the Parallels on my iMac. First I tried FireFox and got the same hang problem, then on to Internet Explorer and it took the firmware update! I was shocked! I tested the iPod and it had a strong signal and worked! Yea!

We also got ALL the leaves picked up yesterday! I am tired and sore today but it got done! And of course this morning there are more leave on the ground but at least we got the bulk of them up and the trees don’t have much left on them.

I FINALLY got to play my Super Mario Galaxy Thursday night and it has the best graphics of all the games I own so far. Which all the games I have up to now have been the sports and party games which rely more on the event rather than the special effects.

I’ve only had enough time to play the first world on Thursday and get to the end of the second world (where I keep dying trying to fight the big plant monster thingy - darn slow old age reflexes!).

I’ve been too busy trying to get my home Wi-Fi wiped into shape. I can connect everything except for my iPod Touch. I did some digging and found the router has never been updated. I am unable to update it as well - it just spins and says updating for hours and never does it. The “Check for updates automatically” is grayed out along with the “check now” button - which makes me think there is something very wrong with it. There have been 11 (eleven!) updates from my current version! I have tried downloading the most current and also the one just above my version - no joy! I spent all day on it yesterday and all Friday night on the darn thing. I am exhausted and at the same point I was a week ago!

I think I’ll take it into work and have the IT staff fiddle with it. All I want is for it to update to the current version of firmware. Then maybe (just maybe) my iPod Touch will find the Wi-Fi connection and then there will be joy!

On a brighter note. Leopard OS X 10.5 is super cool! I finally implemented Time Machine Friday night and it is so cool and will help out if I ever delete something I should not have.

Today will be spent in the yard with the leaves. I also need to see if I can get the xmas lights up today. Lots to do and it ain’t gonna be in front of the computer today!