Dazzled

I just got off the phone with Corel, I had to order Service Pack 4 for WordPerfect Office 2000.  You can't download this service pack, you have to shell out $9.95 for Corel to send you the CD.  When this CD arrives, I'm going to make an .iso image file of the CD, and make it available to all the other tech people on campus, and probably anyone else who wants it.  It's ridiculous to have to pay for them to ship me a CD when I should be able to download the file, I don't care how large it is.  I politely expressed my displeasure to the customer service rep who politely ignored it in turn.  After taking my credit card number, he promised me the CD in the next 3-5 days.  I'm not holding my breath.

J Dylan's grandmother passed away earlier this week.  I'm driving up to Ventura tonight, so that I can attend her funeral tomorrow.  Marcia was always very nice to me, and was one of the hippest "old people" I've known.  I always think of the time that I helped JD. and his sister paint some trim in his grandma's house, I was bored, and it seemed like a fun project.  A few weeks later, she saw me, and insisted on paying me for helping her.  I tried to decline, seriously, I didn't want money for helping her out.  We were at an impasse, until JD. finally elbowed me in the ribs and told me to shut up and take the money.  I did so, but only because he told me she'd feel bad if I didn't.  Marcia will be missed by all.  Here's her obituary, as run in today's issue of the Mason City Globe Gazette:

MARCIA J. SHAFFER

VENTURA - Marcia J. Shaffer, 84, Ventura, died Monday (Jan. 1, 2001) at the Oakwood Care Center in Clear Lake.

Funeral services will be 1 p.m. Thursday at the First Congregational Church in Clear Lake, with Pastor Thomas Healey officiating. Inurnment will be held at Memorial Park Cemetery in Mason City at a later date.

Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today at the Ward-Van Slyke Colonial Chapel, 101 N. Fourth St. in Clear Lake.

Memorials may be given to the First Congregational Church in her name.

Marcia was born June 9, 1916, in Mason City, the daughter of Pearl Morrow and Pearl Mae (Oxley) Hickok. She graduated from Ventura High School in 1934. She attended Iowa State Teachers College and taught elementary school in Dows and Coulter, Iowa, for 3 years.

She married Bill Shaffer on June 29, 1939, at her parents' home south of Ventura. They moved to Clear Lake where they started their family and lived there until 1955. Then they moved back to the family farm and lived there until 1998.

Marcia was active in helping with many aspects of farm life, gardening, selling eggs, raising lambs, unloading grain wagons, and preparing many group meals. Marcia moved to the Meadows until 1999, moving then to the Oakwood Care Center.

She was a lifelong member of the First Congregational Church and taught Sunday school there in her younger years. She was also a 50-year member of the Mother's Study Club.

Marcia is survived by her sons, Larry A. Shaffer and his wife, Kathy, of Ventura, and Arlan L. Shaffer and his wife, Cathy, of Porterville, Calif.; and two grandchildren, Jennifer Shaffer of Monticello, and Dylan Shaffer of Cedar Falls.

Marcia was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Bill, in 1978.

I opened a brand new Dazzle Video Creator II, in order to install it in a faculty member's new machine.  This is the first one of these we've gotten, and I was looking forward to trying it out.  Unfortunately, the CD-ROM containing the drivers and all the necessary software to make the device work was broken in the box!  So now I sit here with a useless $250 video capture device, until I get a new disk.  I called their tech support line, which was not a toll-free number, unfortunately.  After waiting on hold for 20 minutes, it transferred me to voice mail, where I left a message.  The helpful voice promised me that I'd receive a callback within 4 to 5 business hours.  We'll see...

On The Job

I ordered a new mixer this weekend.  My grandfather gave me some money towards a new mixer for my birthday last summer, but I never got around to getting it.  While doing some baking this weekend, I was reminded how inept my current mixer is.  It's fine for a cake mix, but for cookies or bread mix, it doesn't do a very good job.  I'd decided that if I was going to get a new mixer, I'd get a good one, so I chose the KitchenAid 4 1/2 Quart model. 

Fortunately, Amazon.com has free shipping on it right now, or that would have set me back another $30.  Why did I buy it online?  Well, I'm lazy, for one thing.  Also, I had a $15 coupon that I was able to use, and I didn't have to pay sales tax, which I would have done if it was bought locally.

Unfortunately, I re-started my diet today.  I'd slacked off the last few months, and the Holidays were unkind to my waistline.  Now I just have to exercise some restraint when it comes to all the tasty carbohydrates that I'll be able to produce with my new mixer.

I'm back on the job, after a nice rest.  Now I've got to scramble to deliver as many new computers as I can before classes start next week.  I've got them all stacked up in my computer lab, and I need to get them out of there as soon as possible.  Since many of the faculty aren't around, I'm just dumping their new computers in their offices, and e-mailing them to let them know I'll come set them up whenever they're available to be there.

They Did It!

They did it!  The Cyclones completed their first nine-win season since 1906, besting the Pittsburgh Panthers by a score of 37-29 in the Insight.com Bowl.  Iowa State was up 27-7 at halftime, but Pittsburgh came dangerously close to winning it in the second half.  When ISU was up by only five points, I was so nervous I was sweating!  This was ISU's first bowl game win ever, and I just don't think you can put into words how much this means to the Cyclone Faithful.  I was in the stands during the 1-10 seasons, I paid my dues, now it's time to revel in the victory.  As one of the announcers said during the game, Iowa State just appeared to want this victory more than Pittsburgh did.

Congratulations to the Iowa State Football players, for showing the fans the reason they held out hope for so many years...

The Doubtful Guest

The snow is really coming down outside.  It's a good night to make some warm popcorn, crack open a frosty cold beverage, and take in the Insight.com bowl game, featuring the Iowa State Cyclones vs the Pittsburgh Panthers.  It's my alma mater's first bowl game trip in 22 years, and my only regret is that I'm not there in person to see it. 

If you enjoy listening to music on your computer, check out Kick.com.  They've got a handy little application that will display information about the music you're listening to.  It doesn't matter if you're listening to mp3 files or CD's, they both work with this little applet.  Probably my favorite feature is that it works with most audio players, from Winamp to Microsoft's Windows Media Player to Sonique, yours is most likely supported...

For Christmas, I received another one of Edward Gorey's little books.  The Doubtful Guest is great, it's full of creepy macabre humor.  Just like The Gashlycrumb Tinies, my other Gorey book, it amuses me to no end.  The illustrations of the vacant-eyed Victorian-era inhabitants of the house, and the bizarre little guest with his canvas tennis shoes, are combined with a rhyming verse that just makes me sit there and giggle.  Gorey died this year, and his creepy and whimsical talents will certainly be missed...

Back in the saddle

Make it stop!  We've got around 27 inches of snow already on the ground here in Waterloo/Cedar Falls, but now we've got another 4-7 inches forecast for tonight!  This is starting to get very inconvenient.  In case you missed it, Waterloo made national news yesterday, when we tied the all-time December low temperature of -29° F.  I wonder if the University of Arizona is hiring....

While away from the Internet this weekend, I blazed through Richard Belzer's conspiracy book.  I'm a fan of Belzer's work, and think he's a pretty funny guy, but I just didn't really like this book all that much.

UFO's, JFK, and Elvis seems like a book with an identity crisis.  Is it humor, or a serious conspiracy book?  Belzer makes some funny jokes and observations while presenting a strong (and one-sided) case for the existence of a conspiracy in the death of John F. Kennedy.  This extended rant makes up the first part of the book, and I found it to be pretty enjoyable, but not all that convincing.

The second half of the book is dedicated to UFO's, the possible fakery of the Apollo program, and extraterrestrial life.  I found this half to be less compelling than the JFK portion of the book, and it rehashed a lot of the same material I'd read elsewhere about UFO's.  Some of the theories were contradictory, and it seemed to be pretty much an amalgamation of everything you've seen on the X-Files.

That said, the book was still enjoyable to read.  Belzer is certainly funny, but the humor undermined the credibility of his book.  He does have an extensive bibliography in the back of the volume, but citations and footnotes would have gone a long ways in improving his credibility, as would even a cursory mention of any of the counter-points to his views.

Remember when I talked about that faculty member who'd installed Windows ME on his computer, and predicted that he'd come crawling back to me to install one of our supported operating systems on his computer?  Well, he did, but he wants Administrative privileges.  He'll get Power User priviliges, or he can sign a waiver, releasing me from all support duties to him, other than reinstalling the operating system again.  I'm not going to spend my time fixing a box that he keeps breaking.

I'm back at work and I'm about the only one.  Today is a pretty stupid day at the University.  Almost no one is on-campus, the buildings are all locked, mail isn't delivered, nothing is open.  But, you have to come to work, unless you want to use vacation.  So what do I do?  Sit here, mostly.  I predict it will be a short day.

The package did arrive, on Saturday the 23rd.  Amazon.com was kind enough to refund the shipping costs, at least...