MS Support Try #3...Oh the Humanity!


Tried again last night to get the whole XBox Live thing worked out. Spent an hour and a half with an American gentleman (thank goodness) and still did not resolve the issue.

I swear, I was five minutes from breaking into tears. I had to hang up, or I would have gone off on the guy. He was in the process of "escalating" me again to someone who had access to more tools than he did. Can you believe that? It took him an hour and a half to realize he didn't have the right tools? I'm glad he wasn't fixing my dryer.

Anyhow, my cell battery was about dead, I was toast myself, and at that point I'd forgotten why I called in the first place. I suspect I'll try again someday when I'm feeling lucky.

I DID manage to fix my own dryer this week, however. A friend had mentioned at Ben's football game last week that fixing a dryer is easier than you would think. So, on Monday, I busted it open and took a look. It seems the belt had jumped its track, and was not allowing the drum to spin. With Donnas help, I was able to get it back on and put the thing together in an hour and a half. We turned it on, crossed our fingers and viola! It worked like it once did.

I attribute the quick fix to a combination of frustration and a cordless screwdriver. Those things make any job easy and quick. I'm no longer afraid of appliances like I once was. I've now made decent repairs on my stove, dishwasher and dryer. Keepin' my day job, but trying to save a few bucks too.

Tomorrow is my Michael Perry Celebrity Saturday workshop at AllWriters workshop http://www.allwriters.org/celebrity_satudays.asp

I'm looking forward to it. It should be a great chance to learn from a memoir master whose style I love. I'm not sure of the format, but was told to bring something to read to the group as well as something to write with/on. Sounds like a good day.

The only drawback to it is I will be missing Ben's football game. They play at noon and this workshop goes from 9-2.

So the Twins are one game from elimination again in the playoffs. Go figure. It must be early October. Just can't seem to get that Yankee monkey off their back.

It has been a week of pristine Indian Summer weather around here. Just Gorgeous. No humidity, low 70's and clear skies. Can't beat it. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My volunteering at Mosaic is going great too. It really is amazing how God puts you where you belong, especially when you're not sure what you're supposed to be doing. I love working with the middle schoolers. Turns out four of them were in my Boys Club group before this, so there's familiar faces. They're more mature (mostly). It's like Boys Club for grownups. I just hope I can have an impact in some way. As a friend, a listening ear, or a positive influence. Time will tell.

It's nice being able to see Ben during the teaching to see his reactions, yet not have him in small group. It gives both of us our space and yet we're experiencing the same teaching etc. Brandon Brown the pastor is incredible at passing the message to this age group with passion and conviction. Truly a gift. He's teaching me things, and I'm not even a teen. LOL.

Well that's all from the engine room. I'll try and post again with how Michael Perry goes later.

Blogging off...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

National Poetry Month: Issue 18

In a rush, a poem from Richard Brautigan from,  The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. A Good-Talking Candle                    by Richard Brautigan I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me,    so I lit a candle. and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep. Blogging off...
Read more

New Chapters

Image
 As many of you know I retired last week after almost 27 years at Waukesha County. It was a bit of a shock to some, in part because I am only 61. Nevertheless I'd given it much thought and talked it through with my family and determined it was time. I wanted to get out while I am healthy and perhaps more specifically just do something different. I am lucky enough to say I've loved my work over the past 37 years. GIS and mapping has been my passion since college and I was fortunate enough to get paid to do something I loved.  I'll be honest, while I looked forward to the date of retirement, I was not looking forward to the celebration. Like my daughter, who is more like me than not, I do not like being in the spotlight. While I've become more comfortable being in front of people in part because of my writing and its related promotion and readings, deep down I'm still an introvert with extrovert flares, as they say. But dreading it as I did, it turned out to be a spec...
Read more

Local Level Need

Image
A week and a half into retirement and I'm here to report that life is good on the other side. I've kept fairly busy so far, in fact when my wife was questioned by friends on "how Jim's retirement is going," she said, "He hasn't sat down." I think I'm still in the manic, must-get-stuff-done mode that happens when people get a week off of work. Gotta cram it all in. Well, I am starting to adjust to the fact that it will all be there tomorrow and next week, and if I don't get to all of it today, it's really okay. It's been a strange adjustment for sure, but one that I am beginning to appreciate more and more.  Before I decided to retire, one of the things I wanted to commit to was a regular stint of volunteer work. When I mentioned it to a friend who works for Frieden's Food Pantry, he suggested I look into helping in one of their four locations. They vary in the number of families that they serve, but they turn over a huge amount o...
Read more