The tape measure LIES!!!

Yes everyone, it's no longer just the bathroom scale that is a lying, cheating you-know-what. The previously trustworthy tape measure has now been delegated to "the boy who cried wolf" status.

Now before you all go commenting about how tape measures can stretch over time, and should be replaced periodically... this is a FOUR INCH DIFFERENCE!!! In less than an hour! Here is what I wrote on the project notes for my While Shrug earlier today:

Well I’ve discovered that my measuring tape LIES!!! I’ve mainly been working on this when I can’t work on socks… Knit Night, travelling back and forth to the airport, things like that. I had measured it a few days ago and had placed a marker at the 40” mark, since I wasn’t quite a 50” yet, and I knew I had to get to 57” before doing the ribbing for the cuff. Yesterday evening, we drove into the city since Derek had a very early flight this morning. I took advantage of the time and got quite a bit done on the shrug… or so I thought! Measuring on my lap, in the truck, my work was 17” from the marker. When we got to the hotel, one of the first things I did was roll it all out to get a proper measurement. Derek and I checked it, and it was only 53”!!! I have no idea how it shrank that much, since I was knitting away for well over an hour of our drive in on it! I placed new markers at 50”, and hopefully the last bit will be done over the next few days or so! 

See what I mean? It lies... it totally, and completely lied to me! At least it won't take all that long to finish it up. I've got my fingers crossed that this will be done before Derek gets back home again in 2 weeks. I like having FOs to show him, so that he knows I'm actually finishing things, not just starting them! Besides, I'm enjoying watching my knitmeters increase over there on the sidebar.


Nicole =o)

I wonder if my rocket stick is ready??

My main internet access is using a mobile rocket stick for my laptop. About two weeks ago, it died on me and I'd only had it for around three months at that point. Now I know I'm an internet addict, but that's just ridiculous for "wearing it out". I spent a good hour or more on the phone with the customer service/ help department before it was finally decided that I needed to go into town to have my stick sent in on warranty repair.

Now first of all, this all happened the same day as last time I dropped off Derek at the airport. The (normally) three hour drive was extended by less-than-ideal highway driving conditions due to the weather. Plus, I had spent an extra hour or two in town doing some shopping to try and find him a unique luggage tag. I arrived home and was playing along happily when suddenly pages stopped loading. This happens occasionally, and all I do is just disconnect and then reconnect the stick. Even this didn't work, so I tried rebooting, and that didn't fix it either. My next step is to contact the guy that sold it to me, who tells me to call 1-888-ROGERS1 for the customer care department. My next message to him is, "What is that in numbers?" I have a BlackBerry, and there's no letters on the numbers! LOL!! While on the phone with them, I go through my rebooting process again, changing settings in the connection, uninstalling and reinstalling the software... no luck. After finding out that this software is supposed to be compatible with my snail-driven dinosaur in the craft room, I head over there, and once again try hooking up... still no luck. That's when I'm told that I have to take it to the Rogers dealer and have them send it in. I contact my dealer again, and find out that he can't deal with it, that I have to take it to the corporate kiosk... which of course I have no idea where it's located! So after already being stuck in the truck driving for about 8 hours that day, I hop in and dash off to town. Of course it takes forever and three days to get all the paperwork done to send my little stick off, and issue me a temporary loaner. But all is now good in the world again because I "haz interwebs agin".

We shall now fast forward in this story to Monday afternoon. I get a phone call from the dealer to let me know that my stick is back and ready for pick-up. I politely say "thank you", and hang up. I wasn't worried about going to pick it up right away since I already had plans to run some errands in town the next morning. About an hour later, I'm sitting on the couch happily knitting away on my KP-IDP sock and watching LOTR: The Two Towers on Blu-Ray. My laptop is in its usual spot on the coffee table, screen black from being in sleep mode. I hear a bird chirping noise come from it, and am slightly puzzled since I am off-line. I start checking the various open web pages to see if one of them has an ad on it with sound... still skeptical because I've been off-line for at least an hour, and hadn't heard anything, and there was no way a new ad could have loaded. I finally realize that I had received a text message on my connection manager. I am paraphrasing here, but it basically said that my stick had been repaired and was now ready for pick-up. I shrug it off, since it was an automated message, but still a touch annoyed since I had already been phoned. Around an hour after that, I'm in the kitchen doing something with supper. I hear my phone's ringtone for an incoming email. I check my email folder to find that I had now received an email from Customer Care, telling me that my stick had been repaired and was ready to be picked up. REALLY?!!?? YA THINK?!!? Of course this starts a sarcastic conversation between my BFF and I, which is completely typical in this kind of situation.

The next day, I prepare all of my shopping lists, and head off into town fairly early so that I would still have the afternoon to do things around the house. I had to leave the house quite early Wednesday morning to pick up Derek, so I wanted to be able to go to bed early without a lot of housework and such on my mind. I mentally planned my route... start at Walmart, go across town to the mall where the Rogers dealer is, Giant Tiger, and finally Sobeys on my way out of town. I wasn't sure if the mall opened at 9:30 or 10:00, so that's why I went to Walmart first. I get to the mall around 10:30 to get my stick back to find out (after standing there for close to half an hour), that they couldn't do the exchange because their computer system was down entirely! I explained that I lived out of town, and it would be at least Thursday or Friday before I could return... and how their automated system was giving me fits about picking up my equipment already. I was also counting on getting my deposit back for planned purchases in the city the next day. Since there was nothing that could be done, I simply resumed my errands with plans to call them before I left town and inquire if their computers were back up or not. It turns out that they were, but again I was stuck driving across the city to get back to the mall once again... and to add insult to injury, I received my $50 deposit back in $5 bills because they hadn't done any business yet for the day and only had their float for change! I finally arrived home much later than I had intended... totally exhausted!


Nicole =o)

P.S.: I have come to the conclusion that Derek being home not only throws my housekeeping routines off, but my blogging routines as well!

It comes in threes...

All things, both good and bad seem to come in threes. This week I've been blessed with a triple serving of good news. It certainly has been a long time coming, but Derek and I have finally received our blessings that we've been suffering through hardship after hardship for. The last few months have been very difficult for us. For the two people {are there even that many?!?} on the planet that don't already know this, our house in Winnipeg sitting unsold and empty for over 4 months has been a terrible strain on the two of us. Not being able to get a new job, and getting a shift {and days off} that I hate, has been a huge struggle for me personally {and by association, on Derek as well}. Additionally, when you consider that my pay was the only thing being deposited in our Winnipeg account, that job was keeping things barely afloat there. Even though Derek and I have never done the *my money/ your money* thing, I still felt like I was working all those hours, and driving all that time for basically nothing.

Good News #1:
The first bit of good news arrived on Monday morning. I was a bit ticked off because the girls had already left on the bus for school when I arrived home from work, and Alex was still at home! Derek was off work this past week, so he took the drive into Oak Lake with me so that we could take Alex to school, and stop off at Co-op to pick up bread and anything else that fell into our basket. While we were there I had another one of my "ohmygawd it's horrible living in a small town where everyone knows you even if you don't know who they are" moments. The manager comes up to us and asks me, "are you Nicole?" I am puzzled at how he knows my name, but tell him that I am. He then asks, "from Griswold?" Now I'm getting nervous, and thinking "what the heck did one of my kids do *NOW*?" I manage to squeak out that I *am* Nicole from Griswold. This is when he tells me that he's been trying to get in touch with me, and when I get a dirty look from Derek because *noone* can get through to the house because I have the internet on nearly all the time. He offers me a job working 2-3 days a week!!! He also mentioned the possibility of the hours dropping off after New Year's {which I am used to in retail}, as well as the fact that it may become available for full-time in the late spring. I somehow didn't squeal when I accepted his offer, and made arrangements to come in later on in the week to get my schedule and paperwork.
This couldn't have come at a better time. Even though I was working on a promotion at work so that I could work days with every weekend off, the additional earnings are worth *sooooo* much more than my management goals with our current cash crunch. It also opens up my options for what to do job-wise when our house sells in Winnipeg. In the meantime, it means that my online time *and* my sleep time will be seriously restricted... but it's not like I haven't survived on little to no sleep before {and for disgustingly long periods of time too!}. Oak Lake is about a 10 minute drive away, so it's not going to take too much of a toll on my gas usage either.

Good News #2:
The second bit of good news I got at work Friday night. Our store is going 24 hours Mon-Sat from Dec 3rd until Christmas. I had already planned on asking for cash training so that I could work the tills, when my manager asked me if I was willing to change my usual schedule for the three weeks, so that I could work at the fabric table on nights Monday through Friday. This means that after tonight, I won't have any more weekend nights to work until after Christmas!!! Co-op is only open until 6 pm, 6 days a week, so no nights there to interfere with my weekend-free joy! This truly is wonderful news since in the 3½ years I've been with Wal-Mart, pretty much the ONLY weekends I have EVER gotten off have been when travelling to other stores for them. So for the first time in... well... close to forever... I get to actually spend the night on a weekend with my hubby! {Get your mind out of the gutter, this is a family-friendly post... it's just amazing how important cuddling up on the couch and watching a movie with the family becomes when you CAN'T do it!} As an added plus, since I'll be working in the craft and fabric area, that means I'll be able to spend quite a bit of time examining {translation: shopping!} the fabrics and such for our decorating plans here at the house.

Good News #3:
And now the best for last... as of about 9pm last night, our old house is SOLD!!! The offer was less than we would have liked, but it's enough to cover our outstanding mortgage out in Winnipeg. We're expecting a Dec. 9th closing on that house, so by the end of this year Derek and I will know exactly where we stand financially. There's still a lot of utilities and such that need to be paid off, as well as our bridge financing on this house {that we unfortunately won't be able to repay with our house proceeds}. But, we *will* know who, what and where we still owe to, and will be able to make the arrangements needed to take care of the when.

After all that, I get to decide whether to drop down to part-time with Wal-Mart, or quit there entirely and just work at the Co-op and on my website!!! I think I need to make a nice big order to Knit Picks first though! *giggles*

What is so damned difficult about dial-up? {Bright Idea #926}

***WARNING: This post is most definitely not rated G.***

Well I just had a 2 day internet famine that was entirely *not* my fault! The stupid asshats at my ISP have proven once again that they got their membership cards for the human race out of a Cracker Jack box!!! It has taken them since around 8 or 9 am on Tuesday, until now to get my computer back on the net!

It all started with getting my logon corrected. The numb-nutted idiot that originally created my account obviously cannot read, or at least cut-and-paste. Our ISP is also our phone company, so the internet account is linked to our phone account. Our last name is RODGERS... so why we would want dnrogers as our family logon is beyond me. In order to correct that, they have to cancel the old account and create a new one. At least they didn't try to charge me the fee they normally charge for changing your logon. There's no way in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that I would pay a single penny for their stupidity in not being able to read the name of the freakin' account holder!!! For some inane reason the front end of their computer network couldn't talk to the back end of their computer network about my account change, and so I was left stuck somewhere in the middle... my old account had been completely deleted, and the new one was in suspended animation. It took no less than half a dozen phone calls a day, each of which took at least an hour because of the voice mail hell/ muzak on hold purgatory that my call got shuffled into. Between trying my old logon, new logon, password resets, and every other hoop in Manitoba that they had me jump through, they *still* couldn't get my access back. Needless to say that {using my best Queen Victoria voice}, "we were *not* amused."

The second major problem that I tried to get fixed with my dial-up is the craptastic speed that I connect at. I have yet to see anything faster than 28.8 kbps, and have even connected slower a couple of times. For those of you that don't understand what that speed means, just think "slow boat to China..." and there's probably a leak in that boat that the crew needs to spend all their time bailing water instead of rowing! The "helpful" dipshit that I spoke to about my problem is probably too dumb to even know what the hell he's talking about unless he has one of those "help desk" programs open on his computer! After going through the fact that I'm not using a dinosaur computer powered by a hamster wheel, my phone line isn't a piece of string attached to a tin can, and that my idea of turning on a computer *isn't* rubbing up next to it; he had the brain wave that I need a new phone jack installed within 4 feet of my computer, preferably on its own line. Well, it's bad enough that we're paying $30/mo for this shite... now you want me to fork out at LEAST $70 to have them come down and install a jack, at least $50 for the new phone line, plus any charges for being out-of-town service call , and THEN pay another $30/mo for a second phone line? And STILL no guarantees that my speed will improve??? Especially when their own DSL lines run about 100 yards to the south of my house??? To hell with THAT crap... we're better off going for the stupid satellite!

And the sum total of all of this is that thanks to my ISP-from-hell, I've been knocked out of the NaBloPoMo contests because I missed 2 days posting.