Well, I'm not going to be able to head to Memphis like I planned. My gas tank is empty and quu warned me that most the gas stations around here don't have gas. Frankly I'm terrified that I'll be out in the middle of no where and stuck with an empty gas tank at a gas station that won't get gas for a week. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I tend to go with my gut feelings about things. Things usually turn out better that way.

This sucks because I really wanted to go support synamontwist. Why can't Memphis and Chattanooga switch places? Now I'm really all depressed.

On the weird side, I had a dream last night that I found two miniature yorkie puppies in my bedroom nesting in some old clothes and blankets. They were so tiny I could hold both in one hand.

Ok, finally got Semagic reinstalled.

With hope I can at least post a bit more reguarly. My twitter posts aren't going to LJ anyomre, I think because I changed my password. Not sure but tempted to just leave it off.

Thiis friday I'm going to try to make it up to Memphis for the funeral of synamontwist's mother. If anyone from this area wants to go with me, split gas and whatnot, lemme know.
For good news, looks like we'll be able to recover most/all the data from my hard drive. still not sure which files are affected, but apparently there are actual physical defects that are causing the problem. Keep your fingers crossed.

Friday I was killing time waiting for Quu to get off work. Went over to Apharetta and camped out in the Taco Mac till after lunch, then went back to his office until he got off. It was very productive as I was able to type up some more iPhone App reviews for my wordpress blog. Feel free to head on over there and take a look at them. I've pretty much decided to leave my LJ as social stuff, and my articles/reviews over on my wordpress blog.

That's about all I can think of for now.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lethann/Roadtrip2008

For those who are interested.

I didn't take half as many as I should have, but oh well. I also have found either something has happened to my camera or it's not as good as I remember. I can't take indoor pictures without a tripod and a white piece of paper. Sheesh. I tried taking a lot more but they just came out horrid. Look at the wedding pictures if you don't believe me.

Well, yesterday made it down to Jackson, Mississippi. The trip was smooth though somewhat exciting. Not all my twitters came through over Jott for some reasons. But.. up in North Batesville there were two big fires. One was a small wheat field I actually got pictures of, the other was further west and I can only assume it was a wheat field as well. I only know cause I pulled off at a gas station and asked. Was a good thing too cause they had my Sobe "Lizard Lightening" (Orange Mango combo that I can't find anywhere anymore). To tell you how big this fire was, the smoke rose up so high that it hit the upper levels of the atmosphere. The top part was going east while the long column under it was blowing west. Then when I'm leaving the gas station I see the flames in the field BEHIND the station. OMGWTF! So yea, I have pictures on my phone. I should post them later.. after I find it.

Further south there was another fire on the east side of I55 near Canton I think. Don't know what that was. Didn't seem as bad as the Batesville fire though.

I did stop by the big factory outlet mall in Batesville a few miles after that truck stop. Got a good dress and some new shoes as well as a much needed pair of shorts. After I crossed the Mason-Dixon line I started to die in the car. Gods I love the south. Today I take rhast down to New Orleans. It's a long story but his sister is getting married and my car is a -little- bit better than his so I'm driving him down there for it. Bonus is I get to see New Orleans with a native as well as see Kev and Cat. Only downside is that I now am driving home on Sunday but that's ok. I need to call echuir and see if he's off work on sunday.

I am a wee bit worried.

My phone bricked on me today. I had to do a full hard "return to factory defaults" reset.

Why oh why did the iphones have to be delayed till july? I hope it will be ok for now. Might just not reinstall all the old programs and just leave it be. dunno. Right now I just want something that will work till I get home.

I tell you what, Michigan is probably the pretties countryside on god's green earth. The trip out here to piperchicki and opalibis's was just breathtaking. So green, so alive. Most of the trip was down two lane roads under a canopy of trees. Like driving through living tunnels.

Got out here and was treated to some of the best blueberry cordial I've ever had. So amazing! ^_^ opalibis cooked some chicken parmesan. Was amazing, and sweet. Introduced them to Cooking Mama before we headed out to see "Kung Fu Panda". OMG that movie is soo funny!! I was -crying- it was so funny.

Right now they are practicing their music, I'm talking to Quu on my phone. Getting pretty tired so will be crashing soon. Only takes about two hours to get to my sister's house, so I don't have to rush. Wee...

Had fun with coderjoe in kazoo. When word came through that the iPhone wasn't being sold till July 11th, I went ahead and bought a TomTom One XLS from WalMart. So far really liking it. Need to plug it in to update the maps. Construction and whatnot. Hope he had fun with me dragging him to BestBuy and Walmart, but lunch was fun. A burrito place like Qudoba's.

Soo out of it right now.

Ok, decision has been made that Pat and I will be getting iPhones. Since it will have GPS built in, I'm not going to get a separate GPS but just hold off my trip for a few days and leave on monday so I can try to buy one on my way out of town.

First stop is Kalamazoo, MI, where the nearest ATT store is. coderjoe and piperchicki is a monday meet up good? Look for more details in a email.

Can I get y'all's opinion on somethin? I'm looking at possibly picking up a GPS car navigation system for my trip home.

So far looking at maybe the Magellan Maestro 3210 or the TomTom ONE 130. Anyone have any other suggestions?

Ok. Update on my current route. I've had a couple friends pop up and here's what the current plan is (No dates yet folks, sorry):

• From here up to Kalamazoo, MI probably for lunch
• South down to Mendon, MI, visit some friends
• Then to Columbia City, IN, to visit my sister's family for a couple days
• From there swinging over to Portage, IN, visit a few more friends
• Next is Champaign, IL for a rest stop before finishing heading down south.
• I'm thinking of swinging through St. Louis, MO, just to see the sites before the long trip down to Memphis, TN.
• Be in Memphis for a handful of days visiting old friends
• After leaving there I'll be heading down to Jackson, MS.
• I will be heading across over home though might be making a stop in Birmingham to see another friend along the way.

As for Little Rock and Nashville.. I just can't swing it to go through. I thought there would be a route from St. Louis to Little Rock, but no major routes at all. I want to avoid back roads for too long since I don't want to run the chance of losing gas in the middle of nowhere. To go to EITHER place I'd have to backtrack and.. frankly.. I want to go home a bit too much to do that.

Nashville, well, might be able to go up and visit later this year or on our yearly trip to ShadowCon. LR folk, maybe ya'll can come visit us while I'm in Memphis.

When I get dates, I'll be posting them.

The sun is so deceptive today. Looks like it should be warm and sunny.. while it's actually FREEZING cold. Ok. only 49 degrees, but that's COLD for me. Why can't it at LEAST make it into the 60s? I'm camped out in the Conference room up here at Mom's office because it's the only place I can setup and get connected to the network. however, I can't plug the heater in. If i plug it into the only other outlet in this room, it flips the breaker which includes the computers in the main office. OOPS. My cell phone was dying so I had to sacrifice my external hard drive in order to get it charging.

Ugg.. getting such a headache.

Before heading up here I know I brought this up, but I'm bringing it up again.

As things are wrapping up around up here, I've been looking at the calendar and going over things. I think I'll be heading out of here around the first weekend of June. My plan is to head down to Columbia City, IN first and spend a few days with my sister's family. The next major destination I have is Memphis where I plan on spending a few days with my friends synamontwist and ladyalexis. After Memphis, I'm thinking of swinging down to Jackson, MS to visit rhast and the rest of the folk in that area before heading back across 20 to Atlanta and home.

So, anyone along that route, no matter how far off the beaten track, want a wandering geek goddess to stop in? Doesn't have to be overnight, can just be to meet for food or sit down and hang out for a while. I'm really hoping there is SOMEONE along that route from Indianapolis to Memphis. It's a long route through NOTHING. SPEAK UP NOW! please...

UPDATE: Well, just checked the map and looks like after fort wayne I could head down to nashville and have an easier drive and only ad 30 miles and maybe a half hour drive time.

Mom and I are sitting here watching the original episodes of The Twilight Zone. She got the first DVD off Netflicks. I must say, the every first episode really impressed me. "The Night of the Meek" Is amazing. Probably the best they could have done for the very first episode of the series. Was not expecting it to be an upbeat happy one. Made me teary-eyed. Of course, the second one is the legendary "The Invaders". Heard about it but never seen it. I want to get Netflicks now so I can get caught up on all these series without buying the DVDs.

I have been going round and round with comcast business tech support for almost an hour now trying to get them to take possession of the company domain name. Registration and hosting of ONE domain name is included with the package that the company purchased. These people have no fucking clue what the difference is between "Domain Hosting" and "Web Hosting"!!!!!

Here is what is going on:

The company had their DSL and Webhosting all with a single local provider. Webhosting included physical space and domain registration. This local company is an SRSPlus partner and did their own domain registration. This local company also had so many problems and such horrid service that the Company has left them to get service with Comcast.

I've been working to get everything with Comcast setup. Their DSL is already hooked up and working perfectly. Now I'm working on moving the domain name, website, and email all moved over to Comcast. I finally get the domain names released from the former host and call into Comcast to transfer the domains and... well.. I can't. They don't DO domain transferrs.

I'm soo pissed off at them right now it's not funny. Going to have a meeting with the Office Manager (my mom) and our General Manager tomorrow. This is pissing me off.

Ok.. While mom has needed me less and less, I've actually been doing something akin to "consulting" work for the office. Howso?

Well, they don't have a single person inhouse who knows computers. General concessus is that my mom knows the most out of everyone. Mom's not computer illiterate, but she knows she has limits. So, here's what's going on:

For awhile now, the company has been using high speed DSL from a local provider now. They also have web-hosting, 2 domains, and their email through them. Ever since they started with this provider they have had nothing but trouble. So recently they switched over to comcast.

Yes, comcast. I groaned inwardly, but the problem is that they are almost the only option around here. Well, I think it was last week, they finally got everything transferred over and the comcast internet is working fine. Now there is the issue of the website.

when they canceled their previous DSL, they didn't realize that their website was on the same account so they got notified that it was going to be canceled. It was more of a wakeup call. I happened to be around when all this was going down, so the General Manager (read: boss) asked me if I'd be willing to help sort all this out. Y'all know me, I said yes. It's not so much that i'm regretting doing so, more like I never realized just how much work it was going to be. First off it was hard to find what they had included with their package, then hard to find what they NEEDED for their website. To say it was a mess is an understatement.

Things probably would have gone smoother had I been able to get to a computer with net access. The ethernet drop in the conference room is either a dead end, or their network is specific as to who can connect maybe via mac address. All I know is I plug it in and my computer still says there isn't a connection (yes, made sure the stuff was on, just wasn't getting anything off the cord), as in "nothing is plugged in" even though it is. There is a wireless in there, but it's passworded and no one around there even has a clue what the key is. *facepalm* They don't understand that all this stuff needs to be documented. Their network is done by a group that's hired in, but if the physical cables are any indication of how good they are, I'd have fired them the moment I looked at that mess. Medusa's hair is easier to detangle than that crap. *sighs*

So anyway, spent just about my entire afternoon dealing with that stuff. Got them started with transferring over to digital phones. Figured out what's going on with their web packages. Oh gods I'm so pissed off with that. I got told 15 different things before being directed to this one website where i had to create an admin account for our actual account and THAT is where we pick our webhosting packages. No other way to find out the prices for the packages.

Found out WHY comcast support is so crappy too. Calls go into a national switchboard, even though service and everything are regional.

Tomorrow I go in and hopefully can get everything all setup and done. *crosses fingers*

No, not heading home sadly. Mom and I are heading down to visit my sister's family. I'll be out of touch for most of the day.

Once again I was woken up at 3am by the alarm on my grandpa's watch (needs batteries changed, it's weird). Tossed and turned in bed till 6am when I finally gave up and came out to watch the morning news. Don't think it's the Claritin. *sighs* Going to move that watch out in the dining room or something so it doesn't wake me up at 3am.

Yesterday was up in mom's office with the laptop, phone was near death so I was out of touch the entire day. Today poses to be much the same though I should have my phone.

Packing up the laptop now.

Gods, this week is lasting forever.

So, what's going on.. hmm. For starters, Mom got her staples out of her knee last Thursday. She's been doing much better since then. Making more and more progress.

Last night bought her a new Westinghouse 32 inch LCD widescreen HDTV. So far it's going well and she likes it. Need to get a new cable to connect the DVD player to the tv though.

Anyway.. we're getting ready to head into work.

Must take the claritin at morning. I think it has a stimulant to make it 'non-drowsy' because for the second night in a row I got 2-3 hours sleep then was up the rest of the night tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

Anyway, gotta run. laters.

Dear god today is not starting well. Forgot to keep track of how many darvocet pills mom had left, and she ran out over the weekend. We stretched it out as much as we could, and she took the vicodin at night. However, she has none today. She's not taking any of the vicodin during the day. The kicker? She has physical therapy at 11:30am. Two hours. She's in pain, and when she's in pain she is kinda cranky. *sighs*

Oh.. did i mention that the heat doesn't work? Apparently the pressure switch on the furnace went bad. Got a service call in yesterday, he's ordering the part today, but it will take a few days to get in. So yea, we're without heat.

This morning is NOT gonna be fun, and the day isn't looking up either.

***UPDATE***
Got physical therapy rescheduled to 6:30pm. It's late, but by then she'll assuredly have her pills.

Depressed bad tonight. Pretty much crying myself to sleep.

Just hard. My knees are hurting bad. Meijers was having a Dr. sholes shoe sale, buy one get one for a doller. made each pair about 18 or less. Picked up two pair of really nice black leather shoes. One is casual, closed toe shoes for everyday use, another is a small pump that's really comfy. The only two closed toe shoes I had were my grey boots and a pair of white sneakers. I wanted to get a brown pair of the casuals, but they didn't have any my size. Need to break them in. Left fits perfect, but the right seems a bit too long. I have funky feet anyway: left is a 7 1/2 medium, right is a 7 wide. Near impossioble to get a single pair to fit comfortably.

Anyway, I needed the shoes because its so cold and rainy up here. All I brought were my sandals. My knees are giving out too. Really hurting. Mom doesn't have a working dishwasher so I have to stand there and hand wash everything.

That isn't helping things at all. Mom is... difficult to say the least. Emotional and cranky is about the best way I can describe it. She was doing so well in the hospital. I feel like I'm failing to help her since we've not been doing what we need to do. She's not helping though. Puts off taking her pain meds and resisting taking them at all. I'm trying to be patient, but many times she just doesn't trust me at all, doesn't believe that I've got a brain and know what I'm doing. Trying to be patient, but its quickly wearing me down.

Keep hearing a conversation I had with my sister some time ago. She was saying that I have a real 'gift' for being able to take care of people like I do. What I should have told her is that its not so much that, as I'm able to put on that mask for a time and do what needs to be done. I do it, I don't enjoy it. I'm very good at hiding the pain it causes, hiding the frustraition. I don't let them see me curling up at night and crying myself to sleep wondering how I'm going to make it through the next day.

What hurts the most is that I know it doesn't go both ways. I help everyone else, I be there when they need me, but they will never be there for me. Never really have. Sure Mom's done all the mom stuff, but.. no one can help me with my problems. I stand by them, but I stand alone. Its how its always been. Maybe its my own fault for being able to take care of myself for the most part. Doing what I can to adapt to my difficulties. I don't know.

All I can say is how thankful I am to have quu. He's been with me through the worst, stuck it out and helped me through it. I can count on him. In many ways he is a shealter from the storms of my craziness. I feel so alone up here. Like a lone tree in the middle of a field being buffited by the storms. Just want to go home so bad right now.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Part of my problem is I don't think I've been taking my meds. I know I took them today, but think I forgot for the past 2-3 days. Feel scatterbrained, frustraited, tired, and just short tempered.

Miss my home. Miss my bed. Miss the fuzzy kitties. Miss the puppy belly. And most of all I miss my husband.

Anyone got a spare set of ruby slippers?

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