Last Updated on: 31st January 2023, 03:41 pm
Well, it’s time for a post full of ramblings about the mundane details of my life. Anyone who wants a nap could probably get one now.
Grandma’s service last weekend was really amazing. The service itself was pretty ordinary, but it was all the feeling around it that made it so incredible. We showed up a half-hour early so that we could be there to shake hands and talk to people as they came in. But when we arrived, there were already 15 people there to greet us! Like woe. The church was full by the time the service started. Yup, Grandma was known and loved in the community. The minister was really cute, and included his own personal stories about Grandma. You could tell they actually knew each other. My cousin and my mom got up and made little speeches about Grandma, talking about all the cool stuff she did and the way she was. I think they conveyed a nice picture of her. It’s funny. Mom made an effort not to talk to my cousin or the minister about the eulogy she was writing because she didn’t want them all to start talking about theirs and then have them all sort of bleed together. Even so, there were still a lot of common themes. there was Grandma’s love of gardening, cooking, and people in general and her need to keep busy. That came through loud and clear in all the eulogies.
It’s weird to see neighbours you haven’t seen in a long time. I know that time marches on, but in my mind I always have people frozen at the same age they were when I last saw them. Then I remember that they’re the same age as me, so it makes sense that they’re now married and have a couple of kids. but for a second, I thought it was absolutely unfathomable that they’re all grown up and gone.
While I’m home, I end up texting more than I do here. I don’t use the dialup at home much to check email, and if I just want to send a message to Steve, it makes more sense to text. This weekend, I thought I’d try the whole t9 predictive text thing, and am I ever glad I did!
Before, when I wanted to text, I’d have to spell every word out. This could mean a lot of presses of the same key just to get one letter. It would take me forever just to send a simple message. Now, I only press each key once for each letter I want, and as I go, it takes guesses at what word you want to say. For example, in the old mode, the word message would have been 6, 33, 7777, 7777, 2, 4, 33. Now it’s 6 3 7 7 2 4 3 and it changes its mind about what word I’m going for as more digits get added. It’s surprisingly accurate! If it doesn’t have the word I’m looking for, I can just add it.
Sometimes it’s a bit of a brain-screw when you have to add a word and you have to go back to the old mode. Even though you know you’re spelling a word the old way, you still try and write it the quick way and wait for the guesses. How quickly it’s getting me to adjust.
My new computer is here! My new computer is here! And it’s a dream! I got so used to waiting for the old, stupid computer to come to its senses every time I asked it to do anything new. This one actually responds instantly, and it’s awesome! It’s been so long since I’ve had a decent computer that it feels extra good.
I did have an annoying experience with the Freedom Scientific ILM activation scheme. Remember how I bitched about how you couldn’t remove JAWS authorization keys yourself? Well, I officially got burned by that, although not too badly. Apparently, they’re being more generous nowadays than I thought, they’re just being annoying. The way it works is when you install JAWS on a computer, it sort of looks over the computer to see if hardware has changed significantly from where it was last installed. If it has, it assumes it’s a new system, and asks for another key. When this computer first arrived, something happened when everything was being installed to make the CD drive get jostled and it wasn’t installed properly. Steve got JAWS in anyway, and finally got it authorized. Last night, I got the CD Rom drive fixed, and apparently, putting a CD drive in is considered a significant hardware change, and I didn’t have enough keys. So I had to email Freedom Scientific and ask for my number of keys to be reset. By early this morning, they did, without asking for any money, and all is good, but it was a tad bit frustrating.
I think that’s about it for now. Hopefully people weren’t too bored.