Thus Says Suzanne...

A friend from Zweibrucken

Facebook is kind of interesting in that you never know who you may find, or who may find you.  Yesterday I got a friend request from my best friend from fourth grade.  (I should point out that I wasn't living in this country at that time, and fourth grade was a long time ago.)  

I only signed up for Facebook to begin with because my friend Lorraine wanted me to look at some images she had posted.  When I started adding friends, I specifically searched for Tracy but she hadn't signed up.  I gather she signed up shortly after I did.

I love it when technology becomes a tool to help connect people.  And, I'm glad to have connected again with a dear friend from my past.

AT&T tech support

If you're expecting another rant you're going to be surprised.  I was about as fed-up with my wireless service through AT&T as I've ever been, with constant interruptions of service and flickering orange lights (the one that tells me I've just lost my connection) so I called.  I spoke with a man named Art who (gasp!) took me seriously, didn't treat me like an idiot, and actually solved the problem.  When he pulled up his display he was able to see a boatload of reported errors.  Did I mention the problem was on their end?  

Maybe this seems like no big deal to the casual web surfer but I work from home using my computer.  If I don't have reliable wireless I'm dead in the water.  It costs me time and money.  (And it pisses me off.)

Thank you to Art at AT&T.

bad fact

Things are not looking good for the parents of Madeleine McCann who went missing in Portugal earlier this year.  Reportedly they're now suspects.  It's a bad fact when forensic testing of the car you rented 20-some days after your child goes missing shows traces of the blood of your missing child. 

defrag

I don't like computer troubles.  This one was giving me grief today, and became seriously bogged down late in the day.  It was time for defrag again, along with clearing out the cache, and resetting the modem.  Things are good again.  I love it when a simple procedure solves a problem.

work problems

How is it that I have time to blog today during work hours?  We're having some kind of software situation.  I don't know the details because I don't want to.  The end result is that for the moment I can't work because they (the all-powerful, all-knowing they) have remote access to my workstation and are currently re-installing my software. 

ever hate your computer?

I'm experiencing technical difficulties today with my computer, specifically gaining access to the internet.  I am not amused.  This is my 14,000,001st attempt to post today.

Update - Well, well, well.  What do you know...once I abandoned Explorer in favor of Firefox all my problems went away!  Seriously, this morning I scanned through McAfee, defragged, cleared cookies, etc., to no avail. 

Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator

Seems like every week Dateline does another segment in their "To Catch a Predator" series, and every week there is a fresh batch of dirtbag would-be child molesters parading into the trap house to engage in sexual relations with a minor.  Some of these guys have even watched previous episodes of the show and know what's in store for them, yet when our hero Chris Hansen enters the room these lame-brains still think they're going to weasel their way out of the situation.  Then there are always the seemingly hapless guys who try a sob story about how their girlfriend/wife/mother cannot find out about this, or they swear they've never done anything like this before, or (I love this one) they were trying to rescue a girl from some (other) would-be predator who doesn't have his high moral standards.  They've filmed guys from all walks of life, a rabbi, teacher, doctor, trucker, store clerk, military men, you name it. 

I think this should be required viewing for teen girls so that they can see just what can happen if they start feeling adventurous in chat rooms. 

Kudos to the folks at Dateline for staying on this.  It gets repetitive watching what seems to be the same story with different faces but until people "get" it I hope they continue to run with this story.

Dial-up

My brother sometimes comes over to my house with his laptop to make use of my wireless DSL.  He has dial-up you see.  He voiced frustration about how slow it is and I listened but until recently I didn't realize how bad it was.  Wow.  I felt like I was on a science trip to the past. 

full disclosure

In the interest of full disclosure I will tell you that as fabulous as my new blog looks (no ego here, right?) the grunt work of the setup was done by my sister mosker.  The layout and color choices were mine but by way of magic wand (said sister) things look as they do now.  I loooooove having my own personal tech support who makes me look good!