Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.
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| Like The Queen Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content. |
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0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Thursday, August 11, 2005 Thank you all for the compliments. Those snowmen are done now - and I’m moving into the area just above the heel flap. Of course, Knitpicks doesn’t have a yarn named P & P . It's called something else, which I forget, but it's a merino yarn. I wasn’t sure if I had enough P colored yarn so I ordered another skein. They shipped yesterday This stocking’s a sample, so it doesn’t have to be perfect. Dyelot differences won’t bother me. It’s to show people how one can be creative with a Christmas stocking. I still haven’t scheduled those classes, either and I really have to hop to it on that. I want to teach them all before Thanksgiving - possibly before November altogether. I’m going to be off for a 4-day weekend after work today and all week I’ve been rushed and crammed and tensely trying to GetItAllDone. The day after I come back to work I’ll be hosting a Pizza party for the pre-teen volunteers. I gotta get my act together!! Our library’s website has been down for 6 months - you would not believe the slapstick comedy we have endured to Get Back On-Line. The final 2 month delay turned out to be something the techno-geek - who would not return phone calls, but would speak to me via the receptionist, with whom he was instant messaging - called a "billing problem". The billing problem was that I sent them $150 and they did not register our domain name. Interesting how my demand for the return of my check got the url registered and the website up in 4 hours. It’s official now, though - we are up and running. But the techno-revamp is not over yet. We replaced 3 ancient computers with 3 old computers. We’re purchasing a new server and ups - because our ups died and our server will probably do so any day now. The network engineer we use is a wonderful man who used to be NetAdmin for the local school system. Somehow he fell in love with our library and we’ve become something of a pet to him. He moved on to another county but he still has a library card, belongs to our friends group and continues his role as technology godfather. He does all the work for pennies except when he does it for free. But - we must adjust to his schedule - I can’t call him and say "Come now" and expect him to obey. I wouldn’t anyway, of course, but I don’t even have the right to do so. He’s a 10 month employee in another school system so he has afternoons and summers to fondle his pet library’s wires, bells and whistles. He can come for 2 days the end of next week to transfer all data from old to new equipment. I went on Gateway’s website and selected, with NetworkGodfather sitting right beside me, btw, the machine I wanted. We got a quote, a quote number and a phone # to call. Sam the Salesman was effusive, funny, friendly and zipped through the process and then asked if I had a Net30 account set up. Well - I have ordered from Gateway before but not for a few years. All our machines got updated via Bill Gates Foundation gifts the past year and I used a 3rd party vendor the year before that and I believe there was something on state contract before that. So it’s been a long time since I had to actually pick out and purchase a computer. Although I have bought from the Gateway website I didn’t know if 3 years was further back than a computer business would maintain records of customers. I have grave suspicions of the computer industry’s ability to remember what they did yesterday. Sam the Salesman took my order. "We can ship this tomorrow" he assured me "Once your Net30 account is set up. He faxed me the paperwork to set up the account and lo - I realized I was ordering from the Small Business website - not Local Government. The only difference between the two is how the accounts are set up and whether you have to send them 3 business references plus all your bank info - And list the principle officers of the company and all sorts of business designations that are called something different when it’s a non-profit or a govt./ed set-up. Hmmm. It’s been a while, but I know I didn’t have to send in 3 pages of names and phone numbers and bank account #’s last time. I went looking for the last purchase order I had, 2002, yee gads! and there is a name and phone number. I call and what do you know, the number is still good and that fellow is still working as a sales rep for Gateway. I tel Bill the Salesman what I want and he says "Great. We can get that to you in 10 -15 business days. " "3 weeks! I need it before then" "I guess you need it yesterday" "I’d like it then, but I need it before the 20th." "Well you can always put Rush Order on the PO" "Will that do any good? What about little butterflies and flowers and some tear stains?" So the fax went out with flowery descriptions and gushing compliments and we shall get down on our knees and pray that it arrives in time. But what do you think about this? I could shop as a small business, though I’d have paperwork I can’t really fill out - but if I could I could get my computer in 3 or 4 business days. Or I can go with the Gov/Ed folk, order immediately and they will get me my machine in 2 or 3 weeks. What is wrong here? Do they have special factories that use slower robots to assemble the computers sold to government? Do they figure since the government only pays bills once a month, they need only build the computers once a month? Is this the great conspiracy that makes government so inefficient? Special GI computers? Well. I put in the order to Bill the Salesman, who promised me he’d "see what he could do" about the rush order. I will make prayers and light candles to Mercury, god of messages. Let us hope we can have the data migration done and the new machine up and running before school starts. posted by Bess | 7:50 AM |
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