Caroline’s Kitty Corner

Well, if you have me on your MSN Messenger list, you may have seen this as my sign-in name starting yesterday afternoon. This came out of pure frustration yesterday after dealing with an individual over the telephone. Jim was attempting to help me by ordering me a new insurance card since we can’t seem to find my current one. I had my Medicare card and that was about it.

So, the conversation started when a lady picked up the phone. I was listening in because we figured they’d want me to prove that I really did exist. So this lady asked for my name and ID number. Of course I didn’t have my ID number because it was on the card that I don’t have. So instead Jim asked if we could provide my Social Security number instead. The lady said yes but then she transferred us to someone different. Keep this first lady in mind though.

So now we’re on hold for a while and another lady comes on the line. She asks for the same information, and Jim gave her the same speech about not having the card. I also mentioned that if we had the card it still wouldn’t make much of a difference since we were both blind and couldn’t read it. At this point however I was still polite. So, after stating that A, we didn’t have the card, and B, that we were blind, this lady says that she’s having trouble locating me in the system, and could we please tell her what color card I had. I stated again, very slowly and clearly that this wasn’t possible since we didn’t have the card, and couldn’t see it anyway if we did have it. She then asked me what date my coverage had started, and asked me if I was sure that I had the right company. I said that I had the letter telling me that I had coverage. So, of course, the next question she asked was what color the letter was. So, by this time I was really getting frustrated. I felt like I was trying to communicate with a brick wall. Jim took over at this point and said something to the effect of “We’re both blind. This means that our eyes are broken.” I’m thinking to myself about all the nice words I could say and about how fun it would be to say them but common sense told me that this probably wouldn’t be the best thing to do. She put us on hold and talked to a supervisor. When she came back she said that she still couldn’t find me, and she tried telling me that I must be signed up for a different program and she mentioned a couple of them that were geared specifically for seniors. Um, I’m sorry, but I’m not a senior yet. Don’t push it! SMILE! At this point I’m thinking that I’m blind not dumb, and I think I know enough to know what my stupid drug coverage is, but I’m continuing to stay silent. She told us to call Medicare to see what they said I had for drug coverage.

When the call ended I told Jim to finish it, I was done. I can’t, in this writing, express the frustration level at this point, or how this lady was. So it might be hard to understand where I was at this point, but believe me, I was really not very happy; first because it seemed to me that these people don’t listen to the customers, and second because there seemed to be no record of my coverage and I was wondering what the deal was with that.

So, Jim started making phone calls. At one point he must have called back to the original place because he told me that they needed me on the phone again. I picked up, and it was apparently the same lady we had spoken with back at the beginning. Not knowing this, Jim went through the whole song and dance. At this point, the lady got pretty upset with us. She said that she couldn’t look up anything without a policy number, and she had told us that before and transferred us to someone else. Jim, as calm as ever, said that we didn’t have the information. This lady, voice raised, said that she all ready said she couldn’t help us. It seemed like she was almost screaming at us by this time. Okay, so then I said that if she couldn’t help us could she please transfer us to someone who could. At this point I thought she put us on hold because there was music in the background. Thinking that I was in the clear, I finally let one of my choice words for this lady slip out. Unfortunately though, she still heard. She immediately came back on the line and said that I’d better watch my mouth with the next person or they wouldn’t help us either. I told her that we were being polite to her and she started yelling at us. Until that time we gave her absolutely no reason to become hostile with us. She said nothing and made the transfer. I hung up at this point and didn’t get on the phone again.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Jim called Medicare again, and we found out that I had been automatically placed in some sort of plan, even though I had signed up for this other thing. This really bothered me too, since I had specifically signed up for something else and never got the coverage I had requested and only found out five months after the coverage started. So yes, we were wrong about my coverage. Does this excuse the first lady from yelling at us or the second one from not listening to us? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong. As for my slip, I don’t really feel all that bad about it. We gave her absolutely no reason to treat us the way she did, and I felt that we were treated badly. I know how this is probably going to sound, but I’m going to say it anyway. My only regret about what I said is that I actually got caught saying it.

Now, for those of you who may not know me as well I do have to make one clarification. I normally have a lot of patience. In my work I have to since I’m working with people of all ages and abilities. So, I’ve learned to be pretty laid back when things come up. This situation though just got under my skin. I guess it was one of those things. I don’t want people thinking that I go around verbally abusing people over the phone or things like that. I do enough phone work to know how frustrating it can be. But there are two things I’ve learned. First, if you’re having a bad day for whatever reason, the customer doesn’t need to know you’re having a bad day, so don’t let it show in your voice and don’t take out your frustrations on them. (I had this happen to me in a cab a couple of weeks back but that’s a story for another entry.) Second, you’re representing the company that you’re working for. You may be the only person in the company that the customer ever deals with, and if you’re rude, that’s the impression you’re going to leave with that customer of the company overall. Phone work is tough anyway because you can’t see the person face-to-face, and the voice you use can either help or hurt you. I can only hope that the people at this company will be given more training in both listening and speaking with customers so that situations like this can be avoided in the future.

And now, just an aside. My arm is feeling much better today. I can only figure out one possible way this happened in the first place. I was probably pretty tense going in, and when they gave me that hand squeezy thing I must have been squeezing it pretty hard. I’m guessing I just strained the muscle a bit because of that. I can straighten my arm today and there’s only a small, (and I mean really small), amount of discomfort when I bend or straighten it. So, nothing bad happened and it’s all good.

Well, I guess I should put this down and motivate myself. I’ve got a long day and I need to get ready. I just had to write this before getting started.

Well, here I am again, after about a week of no activity. I wanted to write something to let you all know that yes, I am alive, and yes, I’m still here. It’s been a crazy couple of days and I haven’t been home much. Saturday was my day to do nothing, and that’s just what I did. It was great.

The weekend was quite warm, so I spent much of it in front of the air conditioner. I shut my computer down as well since I didn’t want it to get too hot. There was a major difference in temperature between my office and the rest of the apartment, and it wasn’t pretty.

On Monday Jim and I went to a cook-out. There’s something about brats and burgers in the summer that just makes it feel like summer is really here, so it was nice to start off the season with them. They’re just not the same when cooked at other times of the year when there’s no charcoal grill involved.

Last night several people talked me into participating in a blood drive and donating blood. I’ve done it before, but my last experience was less that satisfactory for me since they put the needle in and then proceeded to start moving it around. They claimed that they couldn’t get it to work, and there was a problem with the tube, and .. Well, you get the picture. So, I really didn’t want to go last night, but it’s for a good cause, and I felt that I should do it. So, I went through the usual. Questions about everything under the sun, a finger prick for an iron test, blood pressure and temperature. All was good, so they got me into the chair for the needle. I was goofing around with the techs that were there and some of the other people, trying to forget about where I was. They put the needle in and everything seemed to go well. One of the things that was read to me last night is the fact that anyone donating blood in the state of Wisconsin will have blood drawn for some study. They’re trying to look for bird flu or something; I can’t remember off the top of my head. Anyway, they say that if you do not want to be a part of the study then you can’t give blood. Fine. Who cares. I’m not contagious, I have no strange diseases, so on and so forth. But, I wasn’t expecting the slight discomfort that went along with collecting the sample tubes. There was no problem with the main part, just this tube thing. It felt like the needle was going all over the place again. Once it was done I got my juice and snacks and then went home. By the time I got home though my arm was really hurting. I’ve done this enough times to know what’s normal and what isn’t, and I don’t remember this being normal. I strapped on my favorite ice pack, (Yes, I have a favorite ice pack. We’ve been through a lot together), and snuggled up in bed with the cats and the TV remote. I had a nice relaxing night. This morning though was a different story. It’s really weird. Not only does it hurt every time I try to straighten out my arm, but I have this tingling and itching under my skin. And, it’s not even at the injection site. It’s above and below the elbow, kind of in the muscle itself, but along the vein. Earlier I was having trouble typing, but that seems to be a bit better now after another bonding period with my pet ice pack and a couple of pain pills. It’s weird though because I’ve never felt like this after donating blood, and it’s really quite painful. I can’t lift anything with this arm, and I can’t hold anything very heavy in my hand either. I’m really glad I chose to have them use my left arm or I’d really be miserable. Hopefully this will go away soon because it’s really cramping my style.

Anyway, that’s about it for me for now. Typing is starting to aggravate the arm again so I think I’m going to go back to reading and giving this thing a rest.

Okay. So it’s been about forever since I posted anything here. I actually had a ton of stuff I was going to write about last Thursday night. Unfortunately, as they say, the best laid plans … I’ve been having this really weird problem with my right foot. It’s like this weird cramping feeling, and every once in a while the bones in the top of the foot crack and sort of shift places. It’s been really weird, and it’s sometimes giving me problems when walking. So, I’ve been trying to stay off of it and keep it up whenever possible. So, that’s what I was doing on Thursday night when I was going to post an entry. I had my Pac Mate out and the wireless card going and all that. I actually even had ACB Radio playing in the background for entertainment purposes since I wasn’t using speech. I brought up the page for post creation and started filling in the different areas. Unfortunately, once I got to the actual post text I ran into a problem. Normally I can tab once from the title and end up in the body of the post. Unfortunately, the PM wasn’t seeing the edit box for some reason. I figured that it wouldn’t be cool to send a blank post so I decided to give up on the idea for a while. Then I was gone all day Friday and Saturday. yesterday I was helping out with a Reader’s Theater performance. I put together a bunch of sound effects for a play the group was putting on, and yesterday was the big day. It went really well accept that there was a group of people who kept laughing at the wrong time. This was supposed to be a serious play, and these people couldn’t seem to understand that. I really hate it when that happens. So today I decided that it was time to put something up here before people started to think that I dropped off the planet.

I can’t believe that it’s almost June all ready! It seems like yesterday was Christmas and now the year is almost halfway through. It’s absolutely unbelievable! We’ve had a relatively cool spring, but they’re predicting 90 degrees for Memorial Day. I’m not looking forward to it being quite that warm, but at least we’ve got air conditioning. I’m a total wimp when it comes to major heat and humidity. Actually, it’s really more the humidity I think. Without that, the heat wouldn’t be quite as bad. So why do I live in Wisconsin? Don’t even ask because the only answer I can give is that I just do. SMILE! So I’ll just become really good friends with the air conditioner this summer yet again and play it by ear.

I’m going to go put my foot up and maybe ice it for a while now. My next post though, (I hope), is rather late in coming, but it wasn’t on my mind so much when everyone was blogging for Disablism Day on May first. Now though, something happened so now it’s my turn. It’s not going to be quite as good as this post that Nickie wrote, but it’s going to tell a story. So, be waiting, it’ll come.

I realized that I haven’t written in a couple of days, so wanted to write something before leaving this morning for another conference. This week has gone by fairly quickly for me for a change, and I’m looking forward to the weekend. As I said before, I’ve got a conference today. tomorrow I’ve got an appointment with a client, and I really enjoy working with him. Sometime, (without mentioning names of course), I should write about this poor guy and the problems he’s had with his computer. He seems to have the patience of a saint though, so it’s all good.

Saturday I’m going out of town for the weekend. It’ll be a short trip, but I think it’ll be a lot of fun. I’ll come back on Sunday and then everything starts all over again.

Last Friday I gave up trying to pretend I could make it on 400 anytime minutes in my cell phone plan. I got this particular plan at the beginning of the year when I got my new phone, and twice in that time I’ve either come within literally 1-2 minutes of going over or going over period. So, I decided to change my plan. I use my phone a lot for work, and I figured that if I had more minutes I would use the phone more. Sprint had a couple of plans in between my 400 fair and flexible plan and the 1000-minute fair and flexible plan that I switched to, but unfortunately they were area-wide, and didn’t offer me free roaming off the network. I like to be able to go anywhere and not have to worry about whether I’m going to have to pay roaming charges or not, and I wanted the ability to use my phone if I traveled to other states. So, those two features were pretty much nonnegotiable. So I switched my plan and it starts in full today. 1000 minutes, here I come! And, let’s not forget the unlimited night and weekend minutes starting at 7:00 PM now instead of 9:00 PM.

I got a really big surprise this morning. I missed American Idol last night because I wasn’t at home and forgot to turn the VCR off so it could tape. Okay, so I didn’t even have a tape available last night either. Anyway though, this morning I found out that Chris got voted off. He was probably the least likely one in my mind to go! I honestly thought that after Kelly got voted off that the final two would come down to Chris and Taylor. Okay, so now I predict Taylor and Elliot. Elliot was actually pretty awesome on Tuesday, despite the fact that I’m not really a big fan of Elvis music to begin with, but I’m just surprised about the overall results. We’ll see what happens. I predict that Taylor will win the title of American Idol for this season though. We’ll see.

Well, I suppose I should get going. I need to take a couple of things off their chargers so that I can get them ready to go for today. Hopefully I can write more later.

Well, I’m waiting for about eleven files to transfer to the Book Port, so I figured that while I was waiting and listening to my computer speakers play the scales I’d write another entry. I’ve had stuff to write about and have just sort of been putting it off. So, let’s see what I can think of off the top of my head.

First of all, Gmail. I’ve had an account now for about a week and so far all reviews are positive. I’ve switched pretty much every email list I’m on over to Gmail, and messages have been sending and coming in very fast. Unfortunately, (and I think it’s more a list-specific thing on a couple of the lists), I’m not receiving my own posts, so can’t always confirm that my messages are getting through. At some point I’m going to have to go up to the list settings and set it to send me a delivery notification message or something. Back to Gmail though. After the initial confusion with getting it set up for POP3 access things have really gone well. The site is a total pain to navigate, but with a little help from people on a list I was able to get things going. And, the amount of spam messages that I’ve been receiving has dropped drastically so that’s another plus. If anyone’s interested in creating your own Gmail account leave me a comment and I’ll send you an invite. I have 15 that I can send out.

Now, for an announcement; for what it’s worth. SMILE! I’ve set up an account over on Feedburner. What does this mean? Well, for some of you it means an alternative way to read my blog using RSS. Unfortunately though, comments are included in a different feed so they aren’t shown by default. I need to add this as a feed I guess. To others, it probably isn’t really that big a deal accept that, I believe anyway, this account puts me one step closer to podcasting. Yes, I’m debating the merits of trying my own podcast. I’ve been listening to several, and to be honest, (and I’m not criticizing anyone here so please don’t take this wrong), I don’t think what I have to say is any less interesting than anyone else so I figure I don’t have much to lose accept for the fact that I absolutely hate the way I sound on recordings. Other than that, I’m sure I can come up with something remotely interesting. SMILE! Everything I’ve listened to just makes it sound so fun, and I’m getting ready to start writing a script. Yes, I want a script, and once the thing is recorded you’ll understand why I’m doing it this way. I’ve got some really cool ideas. It may not have anything as far as content, but what I do say is going to sound really cool; or at least I’m hoping so. So, my next step is to get things written and then recorded, and then I need to figure out where the file gets posted. I don’t know if it gets posted here and then Feedburner picks it up, or if I’m supposed to post it somewhere on feedburner itself. So, I’ll work on that one. I know I’ve got at least two readers who are using Feedburner, so if you’ve got any comments, tips, or suggestions, I’m open to them. Oh, and for anyone who’s interested, I’ll add my feedburner address to my links list. If you can’t access it for any reason let me know and I’ll put it in an entry.

You know, speaking of blogs and podcasts and that kind of thing, I’m really starting to feel kind of lost. I consider myself to be a techno geek, but with all this new stuff popping up all over the place it’s kind of overwhelming. And, I suppose that I’ve never really figured that what I have to say is all that interesting. SMILE! But, I’d like to be able to say that I’m keeping up, so I’m really working on it.

I’ve mentioned in the past that in June I will be attending the alumni reunion of the Wisconsin School for the Visually Handicapped. I went there for seven years when I was a kid, and for several of those years I went between that school and a local public school for classes that I couldn’t get at WSVH itself. Jim went their for a little less than a year himself, but I wasn’t there at the time. In the weeks leading up to the reunion, Jim has decided to write a sort of memoir about his times at the school. He plans to make this an ongoing project that will take him up to the time of the reunion as kind of a way to reflect on the eighteen years since he graduated. I still can’t believe I’ve been out of school for eleven years! SMILE! So, take a look at what Jim has to say. He’s got some really funny stories to tell along with some maybe not-so-funny ones. Enjoy.

Okay, I think that’s about it for me this time. The files have long since finished transferring, and I’ve got a script to write and a link to add to my links list. More later.

At 8:45 this morning our phone rang. It was FedEx delivering Jim’s package that I wrote about on Monday. I got a shipment notification yesterday, but wasn’t expecting it until later this week or the beginning of next week. If this is any indication of the company’s customer service, I’ll take it. Anyway though, I can talk about it now because Jim knows what it is, and in fact, has played with it.

One of the podcasts on Blind Cool Tech talked about something called Play Away audio books. The idea behind it is that there is this little device, (basically nothing more than an MP3 player), that has the audio book loaded onto it. It’s small, (smaller than the Book Port for those who have those or know the size of them), and has 8 buttons on the front. There’s a little tiny visual display, but that’s not important for the functioning of the book. It comes with a battery preinstalled and a set of ear buds which will likely never be used by either of us because we can’t stand them. The buttons allow you to play and stop (of course), navigate by chapter, rewind and fast-forward, change the volume, and change the speed. Apparently changing the speed doesn’t have any effect on the voice quality either, but I haven’t played with that yet. There is also a bookmark button, but the review I listened to indicated that the bookmark may have been pretty visual so I don’t know much about it. The nice thing too is that the buttons are really well defined. They’re not like the buttons on some newer cell phones that only take up about a quarter of the size of the phone. (Sorry for anyone using a Nokia phone that matches that description. SMILE!)

Anyway, ever since Jim was a kid he’s always liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. All the way through school, and even all through college pretty much, he’d get that book from the library at Christmas time and read it. He’s watched both movies also. I heard that this was one of the titles available and thought it’d be a really cool thing to get him. I went to the web site to see where the closest retail location was, only to discover that there was one possibility in our area, and it was a location I had absolutely no intention of going to. So, the other option was to purchase online. I went and looked at their titles and found Charlie, with a bonus. Not only does it have the original book, but it also contains Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. So, on this little MP3 player thing he’s got two books, read by a guy that he really likes, and it’s something that he’ll be able to keep and read any time he wants.

I said that it came with a battery all ready, but obviously you can change the battery if you need to. It’d be kind of pointless if it only worked until the battery went dead. It would sort of defeat the purpose of paying for the audio.

So, that’s it. I personally think that if this thing takes off and becomes available in more stores, it’s going to be the new wave in audio books. I mean, who wants to carry around a box of tapes or CDs when they can carry around a little thing in their pocket or purse and not have to change the tape or disk every hour or so. Kind of a no-brainer, right? Let’s hope that this thing takes off!

Well, today is Jim’s birthday, and he wanted to celebrate it by going to Rocky Rococo Pizza which is his favorite pizza place around. For anybody not familiar with Rocky’s, they specialize in square, deep dish crust pizzas. If you don’t like thick crust, don’t go here! I happen to prefer thick crust so this wasn’t a problem for me. So we ate there and went to Barnes & Noble and got him a couple of books on the history of Great Lakes Ship wrecks. I got his main birthday present of two Chicago Cubs shirts a while ago. He doesn’t consider the Milwaukee Brewers to be a real team even though we’re right in Milwaukee, so he’s a diehard Cubs fan. I got him one other thing, but I can’t write about it here yet because I ordered it at about 10:30 PM last night and it won’t be here for a couple of days. If he didn’t read my blog I’d write about it but since he does … I could always write about it in a passworded entry and then have anyone who wants the password send me an email and ask for it, but I don’t think I’m even that cruel. SMILE! The one thing I will say is that it’s something I heard about on the Blind Cool Tech podcast from a couple of days ago. It’s a review of something done by two women. I’m not saying any more than that, but if you listen to that podcast you may figure out what it is, even if you don’t know which one I got.

Last night I decided to try putting Calamine Lotion on my neck and I’m really impressed. Despite the fact that typically expensive medications are prescribed to get rid of this thing, the calamine is doing a really good job of both reducing the itch and shrinking the blisters. Who needs the doctors anyway! SMILE!

Well, I’m going to go for now and read a book. I’m currently reading The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. It’s different, but I’m enjoying it. It’s a Science Fiction book about a group of people on a planet who lived their lives with no pain or accidents until one day it’s as if someone tampered with their minds and made them start feeling again. Then these two people show up who can read minds, and they want a 14-year-old boy to write a book about their story. I’m not good at giving descriptions of this kind of thing, and from my description it sounds kind of boring, but it’s really not. So, I’m going to go read.

Well, I’m back. I was really hoping to post yesterday, but due to the fact that Word Press was down I couldn’t. Anyway though, I’m back today.

First off, I finished My Sister’s Keeper last night. All I can say is, WOW!!!! I totally wasn’t expecting that ending. I’m not going to give anything away here but WOW!!!!

Yesterday I made pretty much the traditional Easter dinner of ham. We also had corn, cheesy mashed potatoes and biscuits. We ended up with a 5-pound ham, so we’ve got lots of left-overs. I really like it that way though because it means sandwiches and other things. I divide it up enough so that we don’t start getting the uncontrollable desire to go rolling in the mud squeaking and squealing. It’s nice too because then I don’t have to make something new every single day. Left-overs are just never a bad thing, unless they were bad to begin with, and then they’re even worse later. SMILE!

Last week I decided to make home-made pizza. Okay, so I cheated just a little; we got frozen crust. It turned out really great though. I got a pound of ground sausage and a pound of sliced mushrooms, and we won’t even talk about the amount of shredded cheese! A jar of pizza sauce and I was set. I ended up making two pizzas since the crust was a 2-pack, so we had one one day and one the next. It was great, and you can’t compare a home-made pizza to a frozen one or even from a pizza restaurant. My toppings were the best! SMILE!

Well, not too much else has been happening for me. I’ve been working as usual, and enjoying the chances I have to sit around and do nothing. Tonight is the first of the last four episodes of Seventh Heaven, and I’m totally bummed about it. that’s an awesome show and I’m really going to miss it. I’ll have to find some other way to spend my Monday nights.

Okay, so that’s about it for now. I’ve got to get on Skype pretty soon for a conference call for the AAWSVH Program Committee/exhibits subcommittee meeting. Is that a mouthful or what? My two committee members are both on Skype, so I figured I’d use that for our way to meet rather than using another form of conference call. Hey, it’s free, right? SMILE!

Well, that’s it for me. More later.

Well, here I am again. Let’s see where this post leads me.

First of all, I wanted to let everyone know that I finished Cell at about 11:00 PM last night. Man, that was some book. Very interesting, and some really interesting twists that I really didn’t expect. I think it could have gone on a bit longer, but that’s just me. I don’t like open endings.

In other news, I heard that someone from Google said that by the end of April there will be an audio option added to their site. I hope it happens. I’d really like to sign up for a gmail account, but I’ve got two problems. First, I can’t seem to get an invitation, (I keep asking people and they keep forgetting to send me the invites), and second, I don’t have someone around to read for me, and I’d rather not have a Google employee setting up my account for me. Stubborn? maybe so, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. SMILE! I know I could have someone else set it up for me too, but it’s just something that I used to be able to do alone, and I want to be able to do it on my own again. Changing a password is a simple thing, it’s just that I shouldn’t have to rely on someone else.

I think spring has finally come to Wisconsin. We had temperatures somewhere in the 60s today, and they’re talking 70 for tomorrow! And I almost forgot what the sun was like. I’m sure we’ve got more rain coming, but at least for now it’s nice weather and I’m going to take advantage of it.

The office is going to be closed on Friday so I’ve got a short week. On Wednesday I’m going to the capital for the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired Legislative Day. We’ll be able to talk with legislators about different things, and the day is going to be packed. It’s not mandatory for Council members to attend, but I know that last year they kept track of who was all there. I think that only one person missed last year. So, that pretty much leaves me with two more days this week to work. It’s going to be a nice long weekend. I don’t have a clue what we’re going to do for Easter though, but I suppose it’s about time to start planning for that so that we can get the groceries and stuff.

I caught up on all the blogs that I read on Saturday night so I’m back up to speed there. It’s nice to know that I’m still able to keep up with this stuff SMILE!

This is a little thing, but for me it’s kind of a major accomplishment. I am admittedly normally really bad when it comes to software disks. I install the drivers for things that I need, and then the disks just sort of disappear. I have a couple of places where they usually go, and lately I’ve been getting a lot better. But, I needed to find the driver disk for my scanner before Thursday. I figured that mine was a lost cause, so I went through someone else’s disks thinking that maybe she had the disk since she has a similar scanner model. Unfortunately that didn’t work. I could get the drivers off the Epson web site, but I needed more than the drivers, so I knew I had to keep looking. I have a zip lock bag that I use for the software that is currently on my computer, along with my restore DVD in case I need to crash and burn this hard drive. Unfortunately, there was no scanner disk in there. I went through a box of disks that were collected over time, and still no scanner disk. I was about to call in to the office to say that I had absolutely no clue where my disk was, but then I had one more thought. When we moved my desk last September there were two boxes that pretty much held everything that was on my desk when it was being cleared off. Those boxes ended up in the walk-in closet in our bedroom. Normally I beg poor Jim to go in after this stuff, but he wasn’t home, and I really needed to get this disk. I knew where he’d put the boxes, so I figured I’d go in myself and have a look. I came across a bunch of stuff, and then I hit pay dirt! Not only did I find the disk that I thought was the scanner software, but I also found the documentation and slide piece. The only thing was, I didn’t know which Epson model it was for. We’ve gone through several over the last couple of years between mine and Jim’s scanners failing at the worst possible times, (oh and then there was the problem of a great scanner Jim had not being compatible with windows XP when he finally upgraded), so I had to run a test of the disk. If I’d been thinking I would have just scanned the documentation that was with the disk, but I wasn’t thinking about it at that point. I went through the entire installation and heard absolutely no reference to the scanner model number. So, I ended up scanning the paperwork anyway and discovered that it definitely was the correct disk. The CD is now resting quite happily with all my other current software on a shelf here in my office. I just love it when I find something I’m looking for!

Well, now I have to go and read another book. I can’t help it. I love my Book Port!!!!

Well, things have been pretty crazy this week. I’ve actually been out every day this week, and have been doing a lot. The good news is that, after three long weeks, my Book Port arrived yesterday! It’s been great! I love the alarms feature because I can set alarms for reminders during the day rather than trying to remember certain things. also, when I travel, I now have a very nice small alarm clock. Of course, there are tons of other things I like about it too, but that’s definitely a neat thing. I’m getting a 1 GB card tonight, so I’ll be able to listen to quite a bit of stuff. I’ve got that book, Cell, that I was talking about a couple of entries back, and I’ve started reading it. So far it’s really a good book, and I’ll be transferring it over to my new card once I get it. I’ve got a couple of Web Braille books on there that I’ve been meaning to read; (maybe I should put The Notebook up there since i can never seem to find the time to actually sit down and really read it), and a couple of remaining Podcasts left over from CSUN that I want to listen to. I’ve got a road trip coming up on Saturday so I should have time to do some serious reading. The thing that really impresses me though is that even after a day, my battery is still reporting 100 percent. I hope that’s a good sign and not a problem with my unit. SMILE!

In other news, I’m feeling totally detached from the world at large. I haven’t had Feed Reader open in a couple of days, partly because I forgot to open it, and partly because I’ve been upgrading JAWS private Beta builds and need to reboot so wanted to wait until that was out of the way before opening the program again. So, I haven’t gotten to read any blogs since maybe Tuesday. I know i could read them the normal way, but I just haven’t done it yet. Tonight I’ll be able to catch up.

The weather has been absolutely wonderful the past couple of days. After sending all the rain to North Carolina I feel much better. SMILE! We’ve had lots of sun, and we’ve been able to have our windows open. I’m not talking about any 70 degrees or anything like that, but it sure beats 20 and 30!

Well, I haven’t eaten supper yet so I think I’m going to go and get that taken care of. I just hadn’t written in a while and wanted to post something so that people wouldn’t think I’d fallen off the planet.