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Oct. 21st, 2007 06:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaOur anniversary was nice. Went out to dinner, drove around a bit and took some touristy photos, saw the Plano International Food Festival at the downtown park where the Interurban Railway Museum is, got to see a fire engine up close (again), stopped by the used bookstore, and allowed hubby to buy himself the least expensive of the fancy little GPS units at Radio Shack.
Yeah, I know, but he really wanted it, and we spent an hour or two driving around just to see what kind of directions it would give us to various spots such as (1) to our house from the Radio Shack on Campbell (ha--it wanted us to get on the freeway! I go the back roads. But the unit caught on after we went out the back way and turned on a different street, so it gets props for that) and (2) to hubby's workplace from home (it suggested a quite reasonable route that he used to use until he started going the Really Back Back Way). When he turned the opposite direction to head towards the used bookstore, it kept saying, "Turn back in 500 yards" and so forth until I figured out how to tell it we weren't lost and that we weren't gonna go to work on Saturday.
It's a Mio C220 with a palm-sized screen. The display is fairly clear and it does have maps built into the memory card. It insisted we were in Phoenix for the first fifteen minutes, though, until hubby figured out that he had to insert the memory card. There is no printed manual; it comes on a CD-ROM. He had gone to their website and downloaded the manual, but wanted to save my paper for printing novels (+5 for consideration) and so he had to "wing it" with the QuickStart instructions and with educated guesses. Radio Shack on Campbell has it for around $170 with taxes and everything, but that could be a manager's special, as the price on their national flyer is a little higher. The manager there also has the higher-end units on sale.
Hubs wanted to buy two, right off the bat. "We should both have them in our cars," he said.
Oh, absolutely. As if I haven't lived in this town since July 4th, 1967, and have seen most of the roads get paved. If I can't get you there by the back roads, it ain't worth going. If we can't get there MY way, you can't GET there from here. (*grin*) But, of course, it would come in SO handy for going OTHER places.
Now, where the heck do I go? I only got back to driving around two and a half weeks ago (see broken-kneecap entries for details), and the only opportunities I really have to go anywhere are (a) to the doctor or Mama's doctor with her, (b) physical therapy, (c) grocery store, (d) dollar store (but I dress up!! See earlier entry for explanation of joke), (e) fast-food joint, and (f) post office. Yes, (f) the post office anyhow for always knocking off the magic fairy dust so that the manuscripts can't make the cut, but we go there anyhow and enjoy seeing all those people lined up with large cartons to mail off to the troops and to their kids in college who have spent all the money that Daddy and Grandma slipped them on booze and wild living and therefore rely on shipments of Care Packages From Mama to survive. (These Care Packages contain anything from cookies to Cliffs Notes to boxes of Ramen noodles or Hamburger Helper . . . I suppose the starving students eat the Hamburger Helper without the hamburger, if they're really out of cash, but the noodles can keep them going, as we found out with my cousin last year.)
Anyway, I told him, "Let's wait and see if we like this model that well. We might want to go one level up." I lie pretty well off the cuff when I'm thinking about not spending all the food money on some new piece of electronics, after all.
He was content to fool around with this model and thinks it's cool. It does have neat features. It will allow you to plug in a backing-up camera. My van has the "beep beep BEEP BEEP *BEEP* I REALLY MEAN IT BEEEEP!" feature for backing up, but the chip needs adjustment, for it "sees" the fence on the other side of the alley and faraway bushes as threats and often misses the detection of small children on pink bicycles (but *I* see them and wave them past.) The backing-up cam could be cool, but I don't know if it would look much better than a cartoon, as the resolution of the screen might not be perfect . . . then again, it's pretty good for the maps and routes.
It would be an ideal way to try this gadget out if we got the opportunity to go to, say, Albuquerque in a couple of weeks, as we could make the trip easily by van. But I'm not gonna hold my breath for that one. I hate turning blue. (If you don't think breathing is important, try not doing it for a while and see how you feel about it then.)
I didn't get a card, but I got HIM a card. *weeps* I think he meant to get me one today, but he got kind of dizzy and light-headed after consuming three spinach-and-onion enchiladas, a side order of guacamole, borracho ("drunk") beans, Mexican rice, and a crispy taco. And no wonder!! So we came straight home where he could play "Lord of the Rings" online and I could ice down my leg, which had decided to swell a bit.
It was just as well we came on home, as Mama had fainted. Momentarily--she got right back up, but she did apparently *faint* while we were away. She stood up off the potty too fast, leaned forward over the sink, and fell down backward, hitting her head on the bathroom doorknob on the way down and making a small goose egg on the back of her head. She did not call my cell phone, but when I called to see if she wanted me to pick anything up at Target (that French boutique) on the way home, she mentioned that she was kind of waiting for us to get home and watch her for a bit. Good grief! That's what the cell phones are for! But she wasn't drowsy and didn't have any symptoms of concussion. I suspect that she got dizzy from taking her inhalant and the nose-squirt allergy medicine and then her blood pressure pill one after the other *and then* standing up too fast. However, it concerns me that she can black out for a moment and actually fall down!
She bruised her elbows and wrenched her right knee, but she's only a little achy. We have all had kind of a stomach bug where I have felt as if I might pass out a few times, or else I would be a lot more concerned. She hasn't had any other episodes. Keeping a close eye on that, though. Began novena to St. Jude mentioning this, my knee, hubby's impending nuclear stress test (the one he refuses to schedule, but he had an Abby Normal EKG, and the doc keeps calling him and leaving voicemail about scheduling it, and he keeps saying he's too busy at work to go), and keeping a couple of other family members safe and well . . . oh, and I may have mentioned my books *mumble*, but with the caveat of "if God approves." I paraphrase here. But I don't want to spoil some vast eternal plan . . . at least I don't want to *intellectually*.
And we're not even Catholic. But an acquaintance told me today that all paths lead to the same God, and that her church was doing a special novena period starting today, and that she thought it couldn't hurt and might make me feel as if I had done SOMETHING positive. It did help me feel more serene, too.
"From now on, y'all buy only used books," said my mother's best friend. "It's the best revenge."
I'm starting to see her point of view. After all, I've never been in it for the money anyway. I only want the New York publication deal because it's symbolic of many things to me, among them validation that I didn't waste my life with this. If any money were ever to come in, I would replace what I've used out of hubby's fun-fun account on those critiques from editors and so forth first, and then use the rest for promotion. I would be just as happy to see people reading my book regardless of where they got it, although I might feel a pang that somebody didn't feel it was a keeper to retain on the shelves. But then not too many people have the space at home to do that, and/or they aren't crazy library-accumulating pack rats.
I kind of appreciated Mousey thinking up a way in which she felt I could "fire back," as lame and inconsequential as her way is. At least she's on my side, to her way of thinking. . . .
(And she's never shopped at a certain store again since the time the local store wouldn't take back something that they sold her that wasn't as billed, and the corporation just turned in a crappy third quarter performance, so she feels this shows the effectiveness of her methods. *grin*)
Yeah, I know, but he really wanted it, and we spent an hour or two driving around just to see what kind of directions it would give us to various spots such as (1) to our house from the Radio Shack on Campbell (ha--it wanted us to get on the freeway! I go the back roads. But the unit caught on after we went out the back way and turned on a different street, so it gets props for that) and (2) to hubby's workplace from home (it suggested a quite reasonable route that he used to use until he started going the Really Back Back Way). When he turned the opposite direction to head towards the used bookstore, it kept saying, "Turn back in 500 yards" and so forth until I figured out how to tell it we weren't lost and that we weren't gonna go to work on Saturday.
It's a Mio C220 with a palm-sized screen. The display is fairly clear and it does have maps built into the memory card. It insisted we were in Phoenix for the first fifteen minutes, though, until hubby figured out that he had to insert the memory card. There is no printed manual; it comes on a CD-ROM. He had gone to their website and downloaded the manual, but wanted to save my paper for printing novels (+5 for consideration) and so he had to "wing it" with the QuickStart instructions and with educated guesses. Radio Shack on Campbell has it for around $170 with taxes and everything, but that could be a manager's special, as the price on their national flyer is a little higher. The manager there also has the higher-end units on sale.
Hubs wanted to buy two, right off the bat. "We should both have them in our cars," he said.
Oh, absolutely. As if I haven't lived in this town since July 4th, 1967, and have seen most of the roads get paved. If I can't get you there by the back roads, it ain't worth going. If we can't get there MY way, you can't GET there from here. (*grin*) But, of course, it would come in SO handy for going OTHER places.
Now, where the heck do I go? I only got back to driving around two and a half weeks ago (see broken-kneecap entries for details), and the only opportunities I really have to go anywhere are (a) to the doctor or Mama's doctor with her, (b) physical therapy, (c) grocery store, (d) dollar store (but I dress up!! See earlier entry for explanation of joke), (e) fast-food joint, and (f) post office. Yes, (f) the post office anyhow for always knocking off the magic fairy dust so that the manuscripts can't make the cut, but we go there anyhow and enjoy seeing all those people lined up with large cartons to mail off to the troops and to their kids in college who have spent all the money that Daddy and Grandma slipped them on booze and wild living and therefore rely on shipments of Care Packages From Mama to survive. (These Care Packages contain anything from cookies to Cliffs Notes to boxes of Ramen noodles or Hamburger Helper . . . I suppose the starving students eat the Hamburger Helper without the hamburger, if they're really out of cash, but the noodles can keep them going, as we found out with my cousin last year.)
Anyway, I told him, "Let's wait and see if we like this model that well. We might want to go one level up." I lie pretty well off the cuff when I'm thinking about not spending all the food money on some new piece of electronics, after all.
He was content to fool around with this model and thinks it's cool. It does have neat features. It will allow you to plug in a backing-up camera. My van has the "beep beep BEEP BEEP *BEEP* I REALLY MEAN IT BEEEEP!" feature for backing up, but the chip needs adjustment, for it "sees" the fence on the other side of the alley and faraway bushes as threats and often misses the detection of small children on pink bicycles (but *I* see them and wave them past.) The backing-up cam could be cool, but I don't know if it would look much better than a cartoon, as the resolution of the screen might not be perfect . . . then again, it's pretty good for the maps and routes.
It would be an ideal way to try this gadget out if we got the opportunity to go to, say, Albuquerque in a couple of weeks, as we could make the trip easily by van. But I'm not gonna hold my breath for that one. I hate turning blue. (If you don't think breathing is important, try not doing it for a while and see how you feel about it then.)
I didn't get a card, but I got HIM a card. *weeps* I think he meant to get me one today, but he got kind of dizzy and light-headed after consuming three spinach-and-onion enchiladas, a side order of guacamole, borracho ("drunk") beans, Mexican rice, and a crispy taco. And no wonder!! So we came straight home where he could play "Lord of the Rings" online and I could ice down my leg, which had decided to swell a bit.
It was just as well we came on home, as Mama had fainted. Momentarily--she got right back up, but she did apparently *faint* while we were away. She stood up off the potty too fast, leaned forward over the sink, and fell down backward, hitting her head on the bathroom doorknob on the way down and making a small goose egg on the back of her head. She did not call my cell phone, but when I called to see if she wanted me to pick anything up at Target (that French boutique) on the way home, she mentioned that she was kind of waiting for us to get home and watch her for a bit. Good grief! That's what the cell phones are for! But she wasn't drowsy and didn't have any symptoms of concussion. I suspect that she got dizzy from taking her inhalant and the nose-squirt allergy medicine and then her blood pressure pill one after the other *and then* standing up too fast. However, it concerns me that she can black out for a moment and actually fall down!
She bruised her elbows and wrenched her right knee, but she's only a little achy. We have all had kind of a stomach bug where I have felt as if I might pass out a few times, or else I would be a lot more concerned. She hasn't had any other episodes. Keeping a close eye on that, though. Began novena to St. Jude mentioning this, my knee, hubby's impending nuclear stress test (the one he refuses to schedule, but he had an Abby Normal EKG, and the doc keeps calling him and leaving voicemail about scheduling it, and he keeps saying he's too busy at work to go), and keeping a couple of other family members safe and well . . . oh, and I may have mentioned my books *mumble*, but with the caveat of "if God approves." I paraphrase here. But I don't want to spoil some vast eternal plan . . . at least I don't want to *intellectually*.
And we're not even Catholic. But an acquaintance told me today that all paths lead to the same God, and that her church was doing a special novena period starting today, and that she thought it couldn't hurt and might make me feel as if I had done SOMETHING positive. It did help me feel more serene, too.
"From now on, y'all buy only used books," said my mother's best friend. "It's the best revenge."
I'm starting to see her point of view. After all, I've never been in it for the money anyway. I only want the New York publication deal because it's symbolic of many things to me, among them validation that I didn't waste my life with this. If any money were ever to come in, I would replace what I've used out of hubby's fun-fun account on those critiques from editors and so forth first, and then use the rest for promotion. I would be just as happy to see people reading my book regardless of where they got it, although I might feel a pang that somebody didn't feel it was a keeper to retain on the shelves. But then not too many people have the space at home to do that, and/or they aren't crazy library-accumulating pack rats.
I kind of appreciated Mousey thinking up a way in which she felt I could "fire back," as lame and inconsequential as her way is. At least she's on my side, to her way of thinking. . . .
(And she's never shopped at a certain store again since the time the local store wouldn't take back something that they sold her that wasn't as billed, and the corporation just turned in a crappy third quarter performance, so she feels this shows the effectiveness of her methods. *grin*)
