September 21, 2000
ylophones
are fun! Or maybe not.... do you have any idea how hard it is
to start sentences with an X? You see, I have these neat initial
caps graphics, that I'm trying to share with the world.... and
for some reason, it feels like I'm using the same ones over and
over again. I think I may have to start an equal rights protest
group for the rest of the alphabet. Some of the letters get more
use than others, and I think it just isn't fair!
My parents rolled into town yesterday. They'd been up in Nova Scotia seeing the bounties of nature, and were heading back into the states when the "slide out" portion of their motor coach stopped working properly. So, off they trundled, to Decatur, Illinois where the factory is, to get their coach fixed. Since it's only a few hours from here, and they're heading towards Texas to get a medical checkup from their "home" physician, they've decided to spend a few days here in Mooville. It's quite nice to see them. I have to admit, I like my parents. I know so many people who have difficulty dealing with their own that I'm always quite grateful to have a good pair... someone's looking after me :)
Of course, I found out something weird. Now, much of my computer skills come through my Dad, who was a systems analyst for a "beltway bandit" company outside of DC. He was an early adopter of Macs, and both he and my Mom are extremely well connected. So, their poking about in a motor coach presents a minor problem to them...staying connected to the internet is rather hard, when you don't have a land line (phone, cable, DSL, you pick it). Even satellite connections (DirectPC) requires a phone line for data going upstream. So, they're having a hard time keeping up with this daily log, as well as my brothers. So, of all the silly things, my sister cut and pastes the text into an email, and sends it to them, so they don't have to wait on the pages to load, they just get them when they download their emails. Of course, that blows any graphics (like my init caps) that we have... but it does make some sort of sense. Of course, I'll always be concerned that if I do something that has a lot of graphics in it, they'll be completely lost (like Suz's explanation of Pan & Scan from a few days ago). In fact, my Mom was ribbing me (or herself) about all the links I put in these, since they can't click on them and see what I'm referring to. The fact is, as a family, we're pretty damn silly, the entire lot of us. :) Of course, they won't understand my opening paragraph today, but there isn't much I can do (except maybe teach my sister how to email HTML).
I spent last night with them, parked in a hotel casino parking lot, watching the Olympics. Someone had pulled in just before I arrived, parking so close that I couldn't open the door to the coach all the way. 400 open spots in the lot, and he parks in the one right next to my parents. Go figure! In any case, they want to come over to the house, and use my cable connection. Fortunately, last time they were here, we figured out a way to just plug the thing into the back of their Mac (I forget if we did both the portable, and the big machine, but I know we did at least one) and they're off and running. They've said they will stop by the office to pick up the key to my apartment, and then come over and use the place. Now, that just makes me nervous. I am not the best housekeeper in the world.. nor am I the worst. But there will be people rambling around my apartment, without me being there! Invasion of private space! :) I suspect I'll get over it.
Well, let me post this, and see if I can remember to save all the pages this time before uploading them, so that all of the information I've worked on gets transferred to the host...