springading.com

There has been a lot going on this week that I was going to post, but I think it’s going to have to wait. Today is Joshua’s and Amber’s birthday, and it’s hitting me harder than I thought it would.

Joshua would have been 25 years old today. It’s a milestone I can’t help but feel he was cheated out of. And I worry that his sister Amber is always going to feel grief on her birthdays from now on. The thought of that just kills me. Her birthday should be joyous, a day about her. I know the first couple will be hard, but I hope it eventually becomes something wonderful again, something she doesn’t have to share with grief.

Today, though, I’m going to light a candle for Josh and play the hell out of Skyrim, which I bought on Friday. Joshua was very into video games. He actually had a collection of consoles. He had everything from the old school Atari to the newer Playstation 3 and XBox 360 and everything in between. Video games were something that he and I both really loved, so trust me when I say that Josh would approve my playing Skyrim.

Also trust me when I say that he would have been way better at it. For those of us who grew up with the simpler joysticks of the Atari and the original Nintendo, the XBox 360 controller is a little complicated. I really love the game so far, but I’m terrible at it. I hope wherever Josh is, he’s watching me and getting a damn good laugh!

So this week, I’ve:

• Started crocheting a tiny cthulhu, frogged it, restarted it, and am still working on it as I need supplies.
• Been getting rides to and from work all week while my car was (and still is, apparently) in the shop.
• Found out some of my co-workers in Harrisburg are dealing with the aftermath from the F4 tornado.
• Had to take cover in the women’s bathroom at work as more bad storms passed through the area just a couple days later.
• Found out that my raise was bigger than I had expected, and my gainsharing was more than I had expected as well. (Jim and I did fist bumps when I showed him the numbers, heh.)
• Found out that my mom lost her job. (She seems to be surprisingly okay with it, though.)
• Been doing a lot of reading on my Kindle, trying to catch up with our book club.

By the way, I love my Kindle. I still and always will love regular old books, but now I’m wondering why I held out so long on getting an ebook reader.

And The Walking Dead tonight! My co-worker Ryan told me some of his predictions on the fate of a couple of characters, and I’m curious to see it is plays out as he thinks. I relayed Ryan’s predictions to Jim, and we agree: Very plausible.

We shall see.

Okay, time for more coffee and more Buffy. The marathon continues! I’m on season 4. Now, the question is, do I watch the Angel episodes along with Buffy (because, as you know, several the episodes between the two series “go” together), or do I later give Angel its own marathon? Ah, decisions, decisions…

ALERT! If you’re not caught up on The Walking Dead, you might not want to watch the below preview! Or read this post! You might want to check your priorities though.

SO:

The Walking Dead is tonight! As I mentioned on my (rarely used) Tumblr account, it’s really nice to have a show to be excited about again. I have to enjoy it now because I’ll be missing Game of Thrones in the spring. Boo to that.

By the way, I’m completely hoping that Rick kicks Shane’s ass. Shane’s getting a little crazy. Although, to be fair, who wouldn’t be under the circumstances?

Follow up to my last post. Unless, of course, anyone else has been reading the comments. Then you probably know where this post is going.

So, in the last post, we bought a Nook and ran into a host of problems that basically rendered it unusable to me. The tech person at Barnes & Noble said that there was a problem with the networking part of the Nook and suggested I return it.

Unfortunately, I bought the Nook at Wal-mart, so it’s not like I could just do it there.

Wal-mart it was then. We went there, exchanged it, went home, and plugged in the thing to charge it again. Jim left for game. I stayed home and grumbled. I had discovered that it wasn’t a fluke that my laptop didn’t recognize the first Nook. It didn’t recognize this one either.

I had a feeling was about to experience some massive déjà vu.

Because Jim had left for the evening, when the second Nook finished charging, I couldn’t go back to Barnes & Noble to try again because he had the car. So I waited until after work on Thursday. Jim picked me up from work, I dropped him off at home, grabbed the newest Nook, headed back to Barnes & Noble to use their Wi-Fi.

Right off the bat, this Nook had problems connecting. “Are you serious?” I kept whispering to myself. I mean, really? Did I get bad luck with two in a row?

I left Barnes & Noble. And because I wanted to exhaust my options, I went to McDonald’s to use their Wi-Fi, thinking that maybe there was something up with Barnes & Noble.

At McDonald’s, I found a few connections. I hopped onto the first, then it kicked me off. Hopped onto the second–same. Finally, the third really was a charm, although I was already becoming disillusioned with the Nook’s ability to get online. I got on, registered it–and had the same issue that prompted the B&N employee to unregister my first Nook. The dreaded name/credit card screen that won’t let me past it, no matter how many times I enter the information in.

So I tried to unregister this second Nook. Now it won’t connect to anything.

I turned it off. I drove home. I stormed into the apartment. Startled, Jim looked up from the dinner he was making. “Nook is crap,” I told him. “This one has the same problem as the first one. I’m never buying another one again.” I grabbed the Nook Simple Touch box, the USB cord, and my receipt. I stormed out and back to Walmart’s service desk.

“This is the second Nook I’ve gotten this week, and it has the same issue as the first one,” I said to the girl at the desk. “I think it’s safe to say that I’m done with the Nook. Can I exchange this for a Kindle?”

And that’s what I did. I’m now the proud owner of the Kindle Touch.

And guess what?

It works perfectly.

Number one: Sure, you need Wi-Fi to register it. But you don’t  necessarily need to register it to use it. I can read books immediately. I can go out to a place with Wi-Fi at my leisure and register it then. After all the running around I’ve done trying to get the Nook working, I’m happy about this.

Number two, and this is important: My laptop recognizes the Kindle. So the books I already have, I’ve moved onto the Kindle. (Well, after I converted them to MOBI files.) It was a breeze, and I’m already reading three books.

Number three: Well, I guess this is really a summation of points one and two. If I go out later and find out this thing’s networking parts are crap, too, I still can at least get books via the computer.

Verdict is easy. For me, the Kindle works. The Nook does not.

No more Nook for me.

*****

Okay, that is what I said before I had time to calm down. Here’s the rest of it:

If you’re considering buying a Nook or simply prefer Barnes & Noble over Amazon, most people I spoke with who have a Nook love it and have not had the same issues I’ve had. My ordeal probably wouldn’t have been half as annoying if I had Wi-Fi to begin with and didn’t have to juggle work/school schedules and the one-car issue with trying to find time to go to a place that had Wi-Fi. My whole ordeal took a whole week of figuring out that the Nook simply wasn’t going to work for me, whereas it probably only would have taken me a couple of days, if I had Wi-Fi.

Also, my laptop is kind of old for a laptop (I bought it in 2008–isn’t that kinda old?), so if you have a newer computer, maybe you won’t have the issues with the computer recognizing the Nook. Although I do have to say that my laptop doesn’t have issues recognizing anything else, and I did see that others had this problem, too.

So if you have Wi-Fi and a nicer computer than I do, then maybe you won’t have problems with the Nook. Because here’s another thing that Jim pointed out:

We bought our Nook at Wal-mart. While we were there, Jim overheard a woman complaining that the DVD player she had bought didn’t work. In fact, it was the second one that week she had to return.

Hm, sound familiar? Jim is wondering if Wal-mart possibly got a bad shipment, and the Nooks we bought were part of it. You never know what happens with a shipment between point A and point B.

Anyway, between the two e-readers, they’re pretty similar. I do think that the Nook looks a little nicer and feels a little better in the hand–the back is kind of rounded–but the difference isn’t enough to put me off. I’m also not really picky about these things, so keep that in mind.

I’ve also since learned that Kindle supports more formats, including audio, so that’s definitely cool.

Truthfully, I always wanted to have both the Nook and the Kindle. Because there are two of us here, anyway, and because we’re both indecisive, so why pick? And now I have Catching Fire sitting on my B&N account, and I don’t know if trying to go through the process of returning an $8 e-book is really worth the hassle.

So, maybe, when I have that new computer I’ve been coveting for the last two years with Wi-Fi and Jim finally caves about wanting his own e-reader…maybe I’ll look into getting the Nook Simple Touch again.

Maybe. But that day will be a long day from now. I’ve got plenty of reading on my Kindle Touch to do, thanks.

Jim finally got paid for painting that Warhammer army he’d been working on for so long a couple days ago. Upon getting the payment, we immediately went to Walmart, where Jim bought me a Nook. Initially, we were going to go for a Kindle–I’d been eyeing the cheapest, $79 one–but Jim thought maybe, because he had a Barnes & Noble card, we’d get a better deal with the Nook Simple Touch.

As it turns out, that is not the case. We found out that wasn’t the only thing we were wrong about.

As soon as we got it home, first thing I did was hook it up and charge the battery, as the instructions say to do. However, while it was charging, I realized we were going to have a problem: Nook requires Wi-Fi.

We don’t have that.

Yes, I realize that it’s kind of silly that I have a laptop without wireless, but what do you want? It quit working quite a while ago, and we get by. Sure, Jim can’t get XBox Live, but seeing how quickly some people can aggravate him, sometimes, I think it’s for the best that we don’t have it.

But now, we have a problem. You apparently can’t put books on the Nook without registering it first, and to register it, you need Wi-Fi.

Jim was already getting angry; however, there was a little part of me that half-expected this, so I was okay. I charged it. The next evening, I went to Barnes & Noble, sat in their parking lot, hopped online, and registered my Nook. First thing I did was look for Catching Fire, since I had read The Hunger Games with my friends. (We have this book club going on in which I’m woefully behind because reading on my computer just bugs the hell out of me these days.) Anyway, I decided to start with that one just to try things out, selected it, and went home.

Only I found out it didn’t work. I guess it didn’t complete the transaction or something, and by the time I found out, I was already home and in my PJs.

Frustrating, but I figured I could load the e-books I already had on my computer in the meantime. “I’ll just go back tomorrow and try again,” I told Jim. It wasn’t like my card had been charged.

So I started fiddling with the Nook and my laptop. I looked up how to move the files from my computer to the Nook–simple enough, it’s pretty much like moving any other kind of file from your computer to an external device–plugged my Nook in, and opened up the appropriate windows.

New problem: My laptop doesn’t recognize the Nook.

By now, I’m grumbling. Nothing is going right. I do some searching to find out what the problem is. I find that Windows can have issues recognizing the Nook. Several people have stated that if you plug in your Nook and reboot your computer while the Nook is still plugged in, Windows will recognize it upon booting up.

So I try that. The laptop shuts down. It starts up. It freezes on start-up.

I try again. It does it again. “What the hell?” I say aloud.

“Oh, yeah,” Jim says. “I’ve noticed if you have anything plugged into the USB ports while booting up the laptop, it freezes.”

ARGH.

Last night, determined for it not to be a total loss, I start reading Dracula simply because that is what’s already loaded on my Nook, and I want to use the damn thing.

Okay, so this brings me to this afternoon. I had a great day at work–systems were down! no phones! couldn’t do overtime even if I wanted so there was no guilt!–and I was ready to tackle the Nook thing again. I’ve resigned myself to having to just buy stuff from B&N and not moving files from my computer. My computer sucks. Oh, well. That I’m used to.

So we go back to Barnes & Noble and I try to buy Catching Fire again. I get online with no problem. This time, I actually can tell that the purchase has gone through. I try to start reading it, but the Nook wants to verify my name and credit card number.

Um. Okay. Enter it in. Hit “Confirm.” It deletes everything in the boxes. I’ve got the same damn screen.

I enter it over and over. Jim comes over. He grabs an associate; she tries. No luck.

First thing she does is check to see if I have the security set up to verify with a credit card. I don’t have that set up, so she’s not even sure why I’m getting that screen. I admit that I registered in the parking lot the night before, where it was mostly dark and maybe I just hit a wrong number while entering my credit card information…maybe that’s why it’s not working?

“Maybe,” she says. “Let’s just unregister you first and start from scratch.”

So she does that. She has me log into the Barnes & Noble site with the info I had put in the Nook the night before when I registered it. Everything matches. So it’s not that.

She finishes unregistering my Nook. She turns it off. She turns it on. We wait for it to boot up. Wait. Wait. Wait.

“There it is,” she says. It brings up the network screen, showing all the wireless connections. It connects us to Barnes & Noble’s Wi-Fi. She hits “next.” Then it brings up an error message, stating that it can’t connect.

We repeat that last step over and over again. It won’t connect.

She gets a girl from tech. The girl told us that there’s something wrong with the network part of the Nook–I’m going to have to go back to Walmart and exchange it.

So. Now, we’re back to square one. My newly exchanged Nook is charging. Because Jim has game tonight, he’s got the car, so I’m stuck home with no wireless to register the thing. Also, what really worries me is that I was charged this time for Catching Fire. I’m wondering if it’ll load onto this Nook.

I’m honestly wondering if I’m ever going to get this thing working at all. My confidence in this product is slipping fast.

Sadly, I like the look of it. I like the feel of it. It feels good in the hand, even if you have small hands like I do. I love the feature of looking up words by touching them, and if I can get this thing to work, I think I’ll really like the Nook.

But look where we’re at with this. I’ve now had a Nook for three days, and I’ve yet to have a single book downloaded onto it. With all these problems we’re having, a part of me can’t help but wonder if we would have been better off getting a Kindle.

If anything, it’s convinced me that getting a new computer with working wireless is becoming a priority. It’s becoming a priority fast.

I’m getting very bad about updating, I know. And at first, I started to tell you why (mostly, because I get annoyed at squinting at the screen–my Internet surfing has dropped dramatically as my eyes get worse, let me tell you), but I’ve decided to pitch it. You don’t need to know how much my eyes suck. Just know that they do. They really, really do.

So. A couple days ago was Valentine’s Day. There are some people who complain about it being too commercialized, that it’s just some stupid gimmick for Hallmark to make money. To those people, I say you’ve forgotten the real importance of Valentine’s Day. Or, at least, the importance to me. Wanna know what that is?

It’s a day to cheat on your diet. 

So, yeah, nay-sayers. Shut up. It doesn’t matter who buys you chocolate! Buy it for yourself! Valentine’s Day is an excuse to gorge! Who cares who invented it?

Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to tell someone you love them while stuffing your face. There’s that aspect as well. It can be your dog, though. Hallmark doesn’t judge.

Anyway. Besides chocolate, Jim got me the third volume of the Buffy comics. Turns out, we also had the first and second ones here, but I did not know this. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS? Apparently, Jim brought them into the relationship and forgot he had them. I’d divorce him for forgetting to tell me, but I’m afraid he’ll take them with him. So I just hog his comics instead.

And his chocolates.

I bought Jim the complete collection of H.P. Lovecraft. Should keep him busy for a while, I think. It’s a pretty big book that would take anyone else forever to read. So for Jim? He’ll probably have it done in a week, once he starts reading it.

Anyway, on Valentine’s Day, Jim and I went to Evelyn’s, which was short-staffed but was still sooo good, and then we went to Walmart and picked up Serenity and Stargate: Season 1. I was excited about Serenity, since I’ve been wanting it for a long time. Admittedly, it was nice to finally get something “frivolous.”

I’ve been thinking about this lately, actually. One of my friends at work told me that I needed to learn to be frivolous sometimes. This is because…well, truth be told, I’m a bit of a tightwad with money. True story. Anything that is not in the food or bills categories gets deemed “non-essential” and I refuse to spend money on it. This is why I haven’t gotten my hair cut since my wedding (why should I PAY someone to TAKE my hair?) and why just about all my clothes have holes in them. Even when I buy yarn, it’s in small amounts to make functional things like dishcloths and beds for the cats.

Luckily, Jim got his loan money in and is able to help out with gas and groceries, allowing me to knock out the car stuff with my check. (The mechanic has ordered the parts! Can’t wait until my girl has her whole face back!) He should be getting paid for painting those Warhammer figures, he’s insisting I take half of it, and he’s suggested that I get a Kindle. (Not sure if it’s really going to help with my reading-on-the-screen issues, but it would be nice to have.) Soon after, we should be getting our raises at work (my review was good!) and our gainsharing checks. I’m hoping to put this check toward a new computer because this laptop, I’m afraid, is on its way out. Although, if I get a new computer, I’m thinking it better have a much bigger screen. Because of, you know, the eye problems.

Anyway, to me, that’s “frivolous,” since technically, my laptop hasn’t broken, and even if it had, it’s not like we couldn’t go to the library to use theirs. Although we can’t if we don’t want to kill someone. The library computers are absolutely awful. Someone remind me, if I’m ever a millionaire, to donate nice computers to our library.

But after that? My eye is on Medieval Times. And maybe even House on the Rock. The ultimate in frivolity. And I will totally get there. Who says I don’t have goals?

Jim started a new blog last week. In his last post, he mentioned I haven’t been writing as much on my own blog. I guess that’s a hint.

So, here’s a new post to prove I’m still around. Nothing much going on. Still working a lot, still getting put on the phones most days, although it is finally slowing down, and Fridays are pretty much the days we don’t get put on at all. (Last week, we were only on for 20 minutes. THAT, I can handle.) Next week, we’re not supposed to sign in at all–they claim they’re going to try to keep us off the hotline. I’m not delusional; we’ll probably be put on. But I see this as progress. Calls are slowing down again.

And thank god. Being on the hotline so much has made me start disliking work, which has been pushing me toward depression. I don’t mind calls here and there, but for 6-8 hours a day? It just wears me out.

That, honestly, has been why I haven’t been around. Also, when Jim’s in school, I don’t have access to the laptop as much. Oh, and he’s also been working on his novel again. Not that I’m arguing. My vision has really been acting up, and squinting at a computer screen some more at home when I’ve been doing it all day just isn’t my idea of fun.

Honestly, I’m too tired to say much more, and I have Lexx waiting for me on my big screen TV. (Which, admittedly, is still kind of blurry. I’m going to make an appointment for new glasses this week.) So I’ll end this post with pictures, showing what 2012 is like so far:

Weird, the bread from my new bread machine is pretty much the same color as my cutting board.

I crocheted a dice bag for Jim. It has since been completed. He seems happy with it.

I made a "cat mat" for Piper, but at first, she wouldn't stay in it until I put it next to Emmy. Awww. She LOVES Emmy.

I found this in my lunch box on Monday. It's some sort of scroll thing. When I opened it up, I found that Jim had put a love poem in it. Sweetest thing ever.

Things I also did this week but don’t have pictures of: I got an award of appreciation for the massive amounts of overtime I did the last 6 months of 2011, along with a keychain. (Sounds lame, but I’ve actually been wanting a new keychain, so it works out. ) I also went to a visitation for Angela’s mom, who passed away last Sunday, and I went to an art exhibition where another friend was–is, actually, as it’s still going–a featured artist. I did both of these things on Friday night. I know. I’ve never done the “partying on Friday night” thing right. Oh, well. One day I’ll learn.

When did Pandora start displaying ads from Match.com on the right-hand side of the screen? How annoying. Especially when you’re a happily married woman. That’s just a recipe for trouble if your husband happens to walk by, sees the blissful expression on your face, and thinks it has to do with the guys on the screen.

No, honey, really, it’s Amy Lee’s voice that’s doing it for me!

Actually, I don’t know if that explanation would get me in any less trouble, heh.

Anyway. For someone who likes her life to be uneventful, there have been a lot of “events” around here. As promised, Tuesday was hellish. We were on the phones all day; queue times were crazy. Our work served pizza for lunch to help make the day more bearable. That would have been awesome, if I were not on a diet. While I do allow myself a “cheat day” once a week, Tuesday was not that day, and I was not wasting my cheat day for pizza at work. So I had to grit my teeth, take phone calls, and smell pizza I couldn’t have.

To make the day worse, it ended a text from Jim while I was rebooting my computer for something like the third time that day. I glanced at my phone. You’ll need to get a ride home. I’ve been in an accident. I’m okay.

Sigh. I got a ride home from Angela, which was fun, as I haven’t gotten to talk to her in a while. We pulled up in the parking lot and checked out the damage of my car.

My poor car. My cute, little car. Yeah. It’s not so cute right now. The passenger front below the headlight and along the right side over the tire are gone. Now the windshield wiper fluid tank and a tangle of wires around it and the headlight show for all the world to see. You know those sci-fi shows where there’s an android, all nice and human-looking, and the android inevitably gets injured so pieces of flesh go missing, so you see part human face, part scary robot face underneath? Yeah, my car reminds me of that. It’s kinda creepy, if I think about it too much.

Luckily, though, everyone’s okay. Most the damage was taken by our car. The other guy only got a broken finger, and Jim wasn’t hurt at all. With the exception of having to pay my deductible, insurance is paying for everything else. Jim, of course, feels terrible about the whole thing, but hey, when you drive around as much as he does, it’s bound to happen.

Also? This is what insurance is for. I’ve had my own car since I was 18 years old and have never filed a claim. As far as I’m concerned, this is kind of like the pay off for paying through the nose all these years. Kind of a crappy pay off, admittedly.   But still.

Oddly enough, while you would think I would be freaking out about money, I’ve decided that Jim and I should go out to dinner and a movie tonight. There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned car accident to make you realize that life is short and that you spend too many days doing nothing, saving money for “someday,” when that elusive “someday” may never come. And it’s true: Jim and I rarely go out. Oh, we talk about it. We’ll be like, “Let’s go crazy! Let’s go out! Let’s cut loose and party!” And then we’ll go to Walmart and sulk around the aisles, knowing full well that we’re not going to buy a damned thing.

Tonight, though, it’s gonna be Mexican food and a movie! And it’s gonna be awesome. I’m glad I didn’t give my cheat day up on Tuesday for that stupid pizza. Even now, I’m pretty much skipping lunch to make sure I have plenty of calories to work with for dinner. And let me tell you, I am starving. The fact that I’m daydreaming about what I’ll order tonight is probably not helping.

I just gotta hang in there for three more hours. In just a little under three hours, Jim and I will be celebrating life with a plate of nachos.

Okay, for real? I’m going to find something else to do. Something that will keep my mind off food. Ugh, dieting. Wish me luck!

So, that was it. My three day weekend. Damn, that was fast. I did manage to make some bread and get to the craft store, but my sewing machine is still sitting on the same box that it has been for the last year and a half. So much for that idea.

I did, however, finish crocheting Piper’s cat mat, polish off season 1 of Buffy with Jim (we’ve agreed that it’s high time we had another Buffy/Angel marathon), and we started watching season 2 of Justified. By the way, Jim has given me the heads up that season three of Justified starts tomorrow. I don’t know how many people watch the show, but if you’re not familiar with it, check it out here. It’s awesome.

I’m really glad it’s starting tomorrow, too. Tomorrow promises to be a hellish day as it is predicted be the busiest phone day of the year at my company. My thought? I’m going to need some cute guys in cowboy hats by the end of the day.  Thank god Jim will be there watching it with me. It just makes everything better.

Eating very little during the day just so I can eat a couple slices of homemade bread fresh out of my bread machine and still stay under my calorie count = WORTH IT.