Last week we had ice storms that closed down the area. Trees were
laying across power and telephone lines as well as blocking the
road. My son lives in east Texas. His area also suffered from the
ice and he called me on Wednesday to ask if we had heat; he didn't.
We did. In fact, through the whole episode our lights were out for
only about 15 minutes. We lived in Michigan for several years and
Ethan learned to drive in winter conditions so I wasn't too worried
about his three hour drive on icy roads, however, I did encourage
him to leave right away and travel by way of interstate where the
roads had a better chance of being dry, rather than waiting until
night when the temperatures would fall and he would be traveling the
damp, two-lane roads of Louisiana. He arrived safely about a half-hour
after dark and ended up staying a full week before his lights back home
were restored. That was an extra treat for me having him home and
Silly really enjoyed having someone here to play with her. My
husband also had two days off because of the weather. Last night
I heard on the news that we're expecting another ice storm next Monday
or Tuesday. My son will be back for the holidays and may get to stay
a little extra time. I can always hope :o).
Despite having power during the storm and following thaw, we did
experience some problems with our electricity in that we kept getting
spiked. My husband and I each have our own computers, neither of
which are very fancy, but they both were turned off. They may not be
much as far as computers go but they both work and because they were
off a lot of the time and plugged in to surge protectors they both
survived. But I can't say that for the VCR. On Tuesday after we had
thawed and were no longer receiving power surges, Ethan popped a
video into the VCR for me as he was walking out the door. When he
returned later that evening he found Autumn on the floor with VCR
pieces scattered all about. I hadn't gone 5 minutes into the movie
before getting spiked. The VCR quit. I turned it back on and ended
up feeding tape to the machine which was now running backwards and
the clock was displaying military time. All the coaxing my husband
was able to do couldn't fix it. He pronounced that Dr. Who must have
stopped by and reversed the polarity on the thing.
Two weeks ago I asked my husband to write the newsletter for me but he
wouldn't. He said he'd have to say that I was too busy playing rather
than doing anything useful like getting those links online. So, I've
spent the past two weeks working on them. Right now there may not
appear to be many but they are scattered about my computer in several
different files that I have to pull together. There is a category for
every apple on the tree and they will eventually all get posted.
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Since I've been working with the links I decided to send a few select
links for your viewing. These are for an upper grade level and deal
with the computer. Enjoy.
Computer Stupidities
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/
A listing of stories about clueless computer users. Even if you don't
know much about computers, this site will keep you in stitches.
Tech Tales
http://www.techtales.com/techroom.html
More hilarious stories from the tech support personnell. My aunt works
in tech support for a well-known company so these two sites have been
selected with her in mind.
WhatIs?
http://www.whatis.com/
Ever wondered what that particular computer related word or phrase
meant? This site will let you know.
Typing Test
http://www.TypingTest.com/
Want to know your typing speed? This site will test you and let
you know. My speed? Well, when I was working as a professional
secretary it reached 105w.p.m.
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And finally, here's a listing of the fonts that were added during the
last two weeks: