Ayn's Multiple World

WooHOO the Eee's In!

Good morning. This is me. We’re still having trouble connecting with the working world. We’re pretty much absorbed into the world of Facebook. We just tried one more communication path in sending out invites to a few people who were mostly relatives. Most of them were cousins, but the list included my mother, a multiple we used to know and one more Marine mother that we miss. I don’t know if any of them will pan out, but so many people now days know about Facebook, that I could see it happening. Maybe some of these people already have contacts, hmm? It would be pretty cool. There might be a possibility in that we put a couple hundred names from our Outlook program and it gave us back only about a dozen names. Some of these names were exactly the people that we were looking for. I’m really hoping those people came across because Facebook recognized them for already having contacts. Now I just have to busy myself in other things as I wait for one thing or another to happen.

I think that I’m easily distracted anyway, but there is more. These contacts we are following are from so many different areas of our life. So far our friends are old computer friends, old neighbors, old high school friends, Marine parents, or family.

There are about 60 people. I think it’s kind of sad, but I don’t have contact with anyone from college. There are just 3 or 4 people I would like to connect with.

Unfortunately, the people I knew also were in relation to my ex husband and I felt he knew them better. I’d like to find Cathy Jester, Ann Singer Elwood, and Cheryl Mohlencamp … there were a few others that played volleyball and a couple that were around the dorm, but these were the few that I knew the best. Again, they all were close to my husband, but we also had an independent relationship with them.

There were too just a few neighbors I’d want to see again. The Oak Park ones are Jerry Lordan and Kay Doyle, and then in Elgin there is Sue Farnham, Barb Chase, one more Sue Galka and a Karen, but I don’t recall all the last names also one more Karen Crosby. Maybe with some snooping around I could come up with a few more last names, but it would have to be some really big snooping around back in the days that Thom was about first grade level. And, then if these people moved, I would have even less idea of where to find them.

WOW!!! That connection to Sue Galka after remembering her name might pan out. I went to her friend’s page and she’s in PA now, but there was a Max attached to her site and that was one of her son’s names, PLUS there was a Brandon Fox!!! That’s the other name I was missing was Karen Fox – Brandon was the name of her son. I can hardly believe my good luck. We wrote her a letter and we’re hoping she responds sometime today yet. Just so excited – I still hope to get the Oak Parkers and the cousins, but this is going to be one sweet alternative! Sue, Sue, Karen and Us were all part of the same kindergarten/co-op. I just loved those guys.

We lost them with the divorce. They are actually MY friends and NOT my husbands, and they were good friends. It was my best neighborhood session ever and I’ve never duplicated that much luck. I am just so excited. I don’t remember what these people remember of me getting divorced, selling the house and going crazy. It is just they were so important to me. I can hardly wait to hear back from them … hmm, I said this already, didn’t I?

Ok, moving onto a new territory. I don’t think we’ve written about it over here yet, but we got two surprise packages from Rosa about lunch time. WooHOO!!! We were hoping for the same. One of the boxes had books in them and the other had books and the new netbook. That couldn’t make me any happier. We’ve been back and forth now between the two computers figuring things out and trying to do some work in between. I read through most of the directions that came with it, though there wasn’t much to learn. Everything seemed self explanatory, except how to use the camera. I’m not sure about that part. I also don’t know how we’ll get programs on it. Hmm, checking that out now … we’re moving some MS Office to the flash drive and then we’re going to bring it over from there and try to install the exe. File. That might be too unbelievably easy, but we’re checking it out. It seems like the program is like a ½ gig so there should be room and it seems to be downloading ok … though the time keeps going up and down on it. Just got to be patient and hope for the best. The netbook has 160 gb hard drive so I’m thinking space isn’t really going to be a problem.

It’s about 2/5ths done now. Maybe 10-15 minutes left? Ok, shhh breath!

The books that we ordered looked pretty military like too. I really hope that Thom is able to appreciate them. We’ll let him know it’s a graduation birthday gift.

You already know the part this is recommended reading before taking the corporal tests. Thom’s got some time and especially if Alexis doesn’t go over he’s going to need putting that time to use. I think he’s going to enroll in some kind of school program too that might take time, but I’m thinking if he’s motivated he will toggle it. I kept thinking today that if Thom was going to be at war, I would want him to have as much knowledge as possible. His life means so much to me!

You know how all that goes. Ok, half way through. 3:33 pm. Hmm, it’s almost time to go home! I’m going to need gathering together the little computer soon. It’s going to have no trouble fitting into the bag I got for it. The bag had been designed for a full lap top. This should really help with the weight. I still don’t know how to get away from bringing the white bag. AND for that matter the black bag. The black bag has gym equipment, the white bag has the purse and the lunch stuff along with anything going back and forth. We could turn the back and forth over to the new briefcase, hmm, I’m wondering if I can get the lunch in the briefcase too because the computer won’t take up so much room. We’ll have to check that out. I don’t like the immediate safety of having fruit cups and computers in the same compartment! We’ll see. Trying to lighting the load. As to the purse … I could deconstruct that and put what is needed into the black case.

I’m not sure if there is an advantage for carrying the black case though. It does seem more sophisticated. The ideal though is to be having the netbook handy at all times and from there condensing is just a work of art. I looked at it and thought … could I bring it with me when I’m taking notes. I’m not sure if sister is willing to put up with that … I would have to type from the corner of her desk or the corner of the table in her office. I’d also have to think about it during all those annuals. It might be improper to have the machine out, though it would expedite the notes to have everything from the meeting listed on the computer.

About 4/5ths now. I sure hope it’s going to be this easy. We need one of those easy buttons on our life.

I’m a little worried about if I moved the whole program from one computer over to a flash drive. I’m not sure if I shouldn’t have copied it. Just going to be a few more tense moments. I’m thinking I sure as hell hope I can get it back to the main computer if that’s what I’ve done. It says 2 minutes remaining. 3:41. 4 minutes … drat! 8 minutes … drat! Ok, girls enough of that.

Maybe we’ll … no I don’t want to shut the other machine down until I make sure it’s formatted proper. I’m really hoping to get the Microsoft office programs over there. It has an imitation program, but I don’t want to worry about file conversions. It’s not set as a default to use a doc file. Hmm, Rich had me print something up … that was just a little too easy. Ok, no no … I don’t want anything harder. It’s the end of a day.

By the way … I think that the Circles group went ok today. It was a little behind though. I’d gotten carried into having the little computer and I didn’t notice the time, but eventually one of the group members came in to let me know that I’d forgotten the meeting. I asked them why didn’t they come and get me. They said that Sr. Theresa had asked them where I was, and they said I was on my way, so Sr. said then just sit and behave yourself. Man-o-man … that’s not something I should do often. They were very ladies and gentleman like, but it’s just not the thing to do.

So we got them started on the farm. There was an odd number so the guy that gives me trouble was told he’d work on his own because he didn’t work well with partners.

He wanted to know what that meant so we carefully explained the trouble that he causes – at least our perspective which included not listening and trying to work independent of the goals. I told him it wasn’t fair that he slow someone else up.

I don’t think he really liked that, but we tried to stay as close to the truth as we could without putting him out. He’s intelligent enough to understand that he’s having a negative response to the group.

He did seem to try, but again worked on his own not following directions. He did however come up with a project that captivated his interest. He was the only one to give his project away so I didn’t think it had become too important to him. I wasn’t hoping for that much, but it still will be good the day he decides to work with the group. It did give me a chance to work directly with him as I went around instead of dividing my time between a set of pairs. There were 11 all told.

The group as a whole has to be given very clear explanations of what to do … they operate lole a discombobulated caterpillar

Things were pretty much set up as they had been yesterday, but there was still the trouble that everyone had in working with each other. I know they understand the rules. Well, I can’t really say that either. This is the 2nd to the top group and they still wanted to put all their pieces on their own farms. I had started them with an example of giving out all but one of my pieces. I explained how they could only count single colors so it didn’t do any good to have 3 reds. It seemed that they were cliquish enough so that if they normally didn’t talk to their peers they wouldn’t ask for support in this project either. I would like to try and get them past that.

And, then the quiet ones refused to go out and get anything from the more assertive pairs. I guess this is going to be then the next frame from which to work. We need to have a system so the two parties can talk perhaps never as equals, but at least more strongly. I was grateful that the problematic one asked questions … that was the best case scenario and it gave him something to think through using words and not behaviors. BUT, we still didn’t get the quiet one’s to break their silence.

I’m going to need coming up with something that will push the dominant to be more needy of the others to achieve their goals. We’ll think about that for a bit.

But, as to the other … it seemed that it moved over well so that it was in both the program file on this computer and on the flash drive. We’ve got it moving now over to the other computers program file. I sure hope this works … I said that though, hmm? Ok, let’s move it on here.

I did just check out the MS programs to make sure they are still functional. That looks good with the exception that the OneNote program expired. If I can buy it from Tech Soup, I can get it for $8, but I wanted to make sure I did it from the netbook in case it was an autodownload. I’ll still ask for the CD, but maybe we’ll save that for tomorrow. It’s already past 4 now.

Ok that sorta worked, but sorta didn't ... we'll have to play with it some more.

posted by Ann Marie @ 4/01/2009 04:20:00 PM Comments: 0