Later this year, I (and my parents) will hopefully be feeling a lot better. Why, you ask? Well, there's two reasons why, both related to the work my Mom got involved in:

• In June, the current King Lion will be taking over the position of the Secretary at the Kittanning Lions Club in June - my Mom held this position for five years when the Secretary at that time broke her arm (and, some time later, left the club). All I'll have to do is give him the files necessary to take the notes, and show him the formats that Mom and I followed when doing the notes.
• Mom's trying to find someone to help as a Sunday School teacher, so she won't have to teach a class every week - she's been doing this for eleven years (!), is burnt out from doing this so much, and has trouble trying to find new lesson material every week (which tends to involve me looking up a lot of stuff for her at the last minute).

That's the "one job less" part - the "one job more" part is that I'm working at the Courthouse again! With the new touch-screen voting units, I've had a lot less work to do so far...And I won't have to do any more mask punching! =D

Also, my maternal grandparents got a dog recently - his name is Ben, is a Black Labrador mix, pretty big, and only a pup. He tends to run around quite a bit, and will gnaw on your hand if you aren't careful =P I still find it funny when he turns his head to the side after making some "unusual" noises (to him).

I'm not really fond of going with a parent or relative somewhere if I was told about it at the last minute, but I can deal with it - my problem is when they promise to try and get me home at a certain time, yet we all stay there far past what was originally promised, and it's happened a lot.

Also, I found out about this last year, but, well...Remember when I mentioned swearing in front of my Dad at the age of five? It turns out that I heard that word about a year before that incident, from one of my aunts - what's worse is that she actually encouraged me to say it (I found out about this from the other aunt, who was also there at that time), just for fun. I respect them, but what happened after saying that to my Dad was not funny >=(

And now, here's what I did since the last entry:

(more...)

Due to a screwup when updating the stylesheet (the amount of data in the stylesheet was more than what the multi-line text area for it could hold), I've had to revert to the previous color scheme for the blog =(

Here's the interesting things that have happened in the past two months:

January 23: I got my new glasses (half-rimmed, unlike my previous pair)! It's going to take awhile to get used to them, though...Also, I replaced the mouse I got for my laptop sometime during the weekend due to the left button not working right for unknown reasons - I replaced it with a different model, this one being a Logitech MX610. I don't need the E-Mail or IM buttons (although the volume up/down/mute buttons on it have come in useful at times), but it was the closest match I could find to my current mouse.

February 6: I wanted a Table Mate II after getting my laptop, and I got it today! Now I can be in any room of the house and have a place to set my laptop on, so I can comfortably work with it.

I also found out how to successfully add new users in Ubuntu: All I had to do was use the "adduser" command (with the proper parameters), and I could finally add new users that can log in this time! It seems the problem I had was related to the "Users and Groups" application it has for this - I have no idea why I couldn't properly add users with it, though =/

Later in that week, I went to CompUSA and got a retractable modem/Ethernet combination cable (they had to look in the back to find it, though), so that I wouldn't have to deal with the mess of carrying around a long modem and Ethernet cable with me when I need them. I also got a compact laptop desk - now I have something to set it on (and angle it for best use) wherever I go, if I don't have the Table Mate with me (and I can also use the two together =) ). The laptop desk is a bit shaky if I have the laptop centered perfectly on it, but if it's moved off to the right a bit, it'll stay balanced and holds perfectly still (probably since most of the heavier parts are on the left side of it, in my case).

February 16: I worked on getting one of my Mom's friend's computer fixed - it was running Windows ME and wouldn't boot up past a blue-screen message (which stated the problem was with the IFSHLP.SYS file). I brought my laptop and retractable cable with me, and they both came in handy here, as they allowed me to get online at their house and do some research on the problem. I tried everything I could think of that I found during my search, but when I finally figured out what to do before I had to leave (copying the IFSHLP.SYS file from another location on the drive to the location specified in the error message), followed by restarting the computer, it would just shut down when booting it up, leaving it worse off than before. I was there long enough for one day, and had to leave and come back tomorrow, this time with a Windows 2000 SP4 (Slipstreamed) CD.

I went back tomorrow with the disk, and proceeded to install Windows 2000 in place of ME. I wouldn't have done this originally, but they said it was OK, as there wasn't anything on that computer that was important. I spent all day getting the necessary updates in place (which takes awhile when using dial-up), and spent the last hour or so getting the EarthLink programs they wanted (the toolbar and E-Mail client) set up properly. I also showed him how to access his E-Mail with just their client instead of a combination of it and Outlook Express.

March 1: I finally got the leg on my glasses fixed! It doesn't seem to be bothering me anymore now, which is a good thing =)

The stuff that Mom ordered from Autism Gear came in today, too. It took us awhile to get it ordered: At first, it kept getting put off, and when she finally went to order it, no one was on the line - it turns out we were calling the wrong number...Although that was the number they had up at the time, and they must have changed it since then.

March 3: I got a call from the Courthouse today - the county is switching over to new voting machines, and I was asked if I wanted to come in to learn how to use it. I would work just a few days a week at first, and eventually be working at the usual schedule I had during the elections. I said yes, and was told that by next week, they'd have the remaining issues taken care of so that I can come in to work at the Courthouse again =)