No Halloween Kids tonight

This year is the worst yet. Not one Halloween kid came for candy. I'm sure it was due in part to a bit of a drizzle. But the rain let up by 6:30 and I thought sure someone would come by.

Another reason, I believe, is because we're in a neighborhood where people just aren't into Halloween. Even with all the media and advertising hype, we generally don't get more than a dozen youngsters.

Many of our neighbors are originally from other countries, such as Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba. Perhaps those countries don't make too much of this holiday. Other neighbors simply don't celebrate, perhaps partly for religious reasons.

Then, there are the malls. Some families prefer to take their children trick-or-treating at malls where they feel safer and maybe get more goodies with less effort.

Whatever, the reason or reasons, I kind of miss seeing the little cuties in their special costumes.

Last night there was a meeting of about 10 people from the camera club who want to sell some of their work at a local arts and crafts show on the 1st Sunday in December.

I attended mainly to hear more about it. Some of the others are excellent photographers. I don't think I'd consider myself in that category. But it's fun and interesting to see and hear what's involved.

We're entering as the camera club, not as individuals. But our photos would be our own. Of whatever sales are made, 10% goes to the club.

The pres. of the club has this very well organized, though it takes up too much space here (and my time) to enumerate everything.

I would say it takes excellence in the photo, framing, matting department. Then there's the business of whether to do one copy of any one or more photos or several copies of same. Framed photos can be hung; but those simply matted, will be in plastic sleeves and placed for display in "flip bins."

I'm fascinated to be on the other end of this project, i.e. the vendor instead of the buyer.

Also involved is pricing each of item so that it is actually salable since some folks don't have even a local reputation as a photographer. Well, that would be me. LOL But as I've mentioned before, the club has some pro photographers (meaning they earn their living that way) and some are what I call professional amateurs (meaning their work is as good as any pro, though it's their hobby, not their career). So, a few were mentioning prices in the $100's while others poo-poohed that idea and assumed they should keep prices lower than $100, perhaps even lower than $50.00.

Then there was a discussion about who the customers would be and what they would buy. For instance, some said it wouldn't be worthwhile to put up Christmas items; keep it geared more to the artistic and/or what a tourist would buy to take home or to give to someone.

Besides the expected framed photos or matted photos without frames, they talked about cards, calendars and other items.

As far as I'm concerned, to do it right will require quite a bit of thought, energy, and probably a little bit of a financial investment in the materials and time. Consequently, I need to give this some more thought before I decide just exactly whether to participate and if so, what to provide in the way of photos.

I'll keep you posted. . . .

Car Wash

A couple weeks ago a friend washed and wand waxed my car for me. Only $20.00 compared to $30.00 if I had the mechanical car wash people do it.
But of course it got dusty since then. Worse and worse. It just never seemed to be convenient for me to take it to the car wash. So, on Friday I decided to do it myself. It's been more than 2 years since I last did it because of the back injury. My courage paid off and it not only looks good, but I am alive to tell the tale. Believe me, I'm very grateful. It helped that it was a breezy day and the wind pretty much dried it off quickly.

Street Clean

Have you ever seen broken glass on a street and wondered why no one cleans it up? Well I have, many times. Last Wednesday, I noticed brown glass pieces on my street a couple doors down from my house. I would promise myself to clean it up; but once I got in the house, I completely forgot about it.
Well, Friday, while washing the car, I decided not to go inside the house until I had swept up that broken glass. Sure enough, before putting the car into the garage, I carried the broom and dustpan to where the glass lay on the street.
As I swept it up, trying not to glorify myself too much [LOL] a car approached. Of course my back was to it. But it quietly waited until I noticed it. Then I moved aside and it drove on. Another car approached; again, my back was to it. Can you believe it --- the driver beeped at me to get my attention! Did she get out and offer to help? NO! Did she thank me as she drove by? NO!
When I brought the broom and dustpan out, I thought only of removing the glass. I hadn't given any thought about where to put it, once I swept it up. So, I just dumped it on my neighbor's grass next to the street. Probably not the nicest thing to do.
Well, sure enough she came out with her rake and broom and cheerfully said she would take care of it. I can't be sure whether she was upset or helpful. But I took it as part of the teamwork. After all, the glass was in front of her house; she could have cleaned it up herself two days earlier.

I may have mentioned on previous posts that my family sometimes calls me "Mrs. Clean." But I've never cleaned a street before!

Jill Carroll awarded another honor

October 26
Jill Carroll awarded another honor
According to The Christian Science Monitor [ http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1025/p15s01-wogn.html ] :

Posted October 25, 2006 at 5:00 p.m.
Jill Carroll and three other women were honored Tuesday in New York [ http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1025/p15s01-wogn.html ] by the International Women's Media Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to strengthening the role of female journalists around the world. Carroll and Chinese freelancer Gao Yu [ http://www.iwmf.org/courage/ ] - who was jailed twice by the Chinese government as a result of her reporting - were honored for "for putting their profession and the search for truth before their own safety." Lebanese TV host May Chidiac, [ http://www.iwmf.org/features/9519 ] who went back to work 10 months after losing her left hand and leg when her car was detonated by explosives, was honored for "her courage, integrity, and sacrifice." Elena Poniatowska Amor of Mexico received a Lifetime Achievement Award for "her pioneering spirit in paving the way for future generations of female reporters."
Photos of each woman on one or all of the page and the URLs highlighted above. Also in the article in The Monitor is a teeny bit of detail about what Jill is doing now.

New laptop Internet problems

The new laptop arrived last Monday -- as you know.

Mostly it was easy to get up and running. But for some reason, getting access to the Internet turned out to be quite the challenge. Every day I tried tweaking this and that; but nothing worked.

Eventually I got it to find my LinkSys router. But I couldn't get the browser to download any web sites.

Adelphia said it wasn't their fault. It would be with LinkSys and they don't trouble shoot for another brand. (Not that Adelphia has a brand that does wireless; just that they're not qualified to do it.)

In fact, I called three different times, on 3 different days, at 3 different shift times. I figured that everyone was giving me "canned" responses and they weren't really listening to the question.

Finally, on Friday night, I called HP. The first time, I was on hold for 45 minutes and then another call came in which I had to take, thus hanging up after that long wait for nothing. The second time it was after 11:00 p.m. and I figured that surely there wouldn't be any interruptions. But I still had to wait on hold for 40 minutes.

Eventually a live person answered. But guess what? She spoke English with an Indian accent and spoke so fast that I couldn't understand her. Three times I asked her to slow down. She would try and then speed up again. Finally, I said, "Look. I'm not very good with accents and I'm not getting even half of what you're saying. Could you transfer me to someone else?" This time she began to speak slowly enough that I could understand her.

Oh, I should say that while I was on hold re the laptop, I went online to HP.com/support using my desktop. There I found very helpful info including how to access LynkSys and get certain numbers like the IP address, etc.

To make the long story short, -- guess what? The problem was with Adelphia after all! They needed to give me a "Gateway Mask" number! And the IP number. And tweak a dialog box of info.

With the new info, I was accessing web sites immediately. Not that I had the strength or awakeness to do so by now! LOL But after a few trial runs, I turned everything off and crawled into bed around 1:30 a.m.

Whew - What a night. But because the laptop was finally up and running, at least as far as the Internet is concerned, I slept peacefully.

New Hewlett Packard Laptop

Yes, I bought a new Hewlett Packard laptop. Well, it's not only new, it's my first laptop. In September, Office Depot and HP kept having specials and finally, on the last day -- the 30th -- I couldn't hold out any longer. Well, it helped that my desktop has been freezing up lately. [No explanation; completely random; and nothing to do with memory. IRK! It's an awful nuisance.]

Here are the specs:

HP Pavilion dv9000z
AMD Turion (TM) 64 x2 Mobile TL-50
17" WXGA+ Brightview Widescreen 1440x900
1.0 GB DDR2 SDRAM (2x512MB)
Genuine Windows XP Home Edition
80 GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Super Multi 8X DVD+/-R/RW w/DL Support
NVIDIA(R) GeForce (R) Go 6150
802.11b/g WLAN
8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
HP IMPRINT Finish + Microphone
Microsoft(R)Works/Money
No TV Tuner w/remote control

Wow --- that's a lot!

But here's a mistake (I think) that I made in my choice. Since I always want the biggest of anything, esp. screen size, I ordered the 17" screen. BUT --- that means finding a pouch for it is a bit trickier since most are for 15" laptops. Also, although it's not heavy by most people's concerns, I'm finding it a bit heavy for me. Guess I'll just have to start lifting weights!

It came yesterday afternoon and I'm still getting acquainted with it. I plugged it in around 5 p.m. and left it plugged in until this morning to charge the battery. Now I've unplugged it and hope that I gave it a long enough time for the battery to charge to the fullest.

So --- what do you think? Did I do good??? Any warnings? Tips? Comments??

It takes courage to go forward

Whatever you do, you need courage.
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong.
There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.
To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.
Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win them.
--- Emerson

A professional is . . .

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.
- -- Alistair Cooke

A professional is someone who can do his best work consistently. --- Me

Weather

Weather is mundane, I know. Even so, we're always thinking about it, talking about it or planning around it.

I just want to give a simple report for my neck of the palm trees:
We haven't hit 90 in the last 5 days; and it's not expected in the next 7 days.

I do believe we're coming into a Florida autumn.

Next will be the lowering of the humidity.

I have mixed feelings. I love the heat, even the humidity up to a point. But I'm not very fond of cooler weather.

Oh, yes, of course I enjoy a little change of temp about now. But I'll be thinking of the 90's when temps begin to tap into the 60's.