Category: Technology


When I checked my e-mail, I saw a lot of e-mails from WordPress. It surprised me, I get a few comments now and then, but this was highly unusual. As I read through the comments they seemed to have a theme, “Don’t quit.” One comment by Rex: “Well, Bella, if you don’t get a lot of comments today, I don’t know what else would work.” Then I read this comment by Debbi is 24atHeart and the last sentence was: “(BTW – congrats on being recognized today by The Daily Post!)

My response to that was “What?” I played with my iPhone until I figured out how to show the sidebar, clicked on the link to The Daily Post to find a blog post titled: Help a friend not quit Post a Day. In case you don’t want to click on the link I’ll summerize, in this post Scott mentions that someone, who may or may not be named Bella Foxx was thinking of quiting Post A Day.

Can you help her out by stopping by her blog today, A Commuter’s journal, and giving her some Daily Post love on her post? In Likes and Comments? Or just drop a comment here with a short word of encouragement? Thanks.

People came, I got 474 hits on my blog that day. That is the most ever, today I have 115 so far. And comments were left. Every time I checked my e-mail there were more comments. 31 on one post (Topic #107: What percentage of Americans believe in the devil?), 9 on Baseball season and a few others scattered around to other posts. Some people even left multiple comments. I was, in a word, overwhelmed.

The comments ranged from “Don’t quit” and “Maybe you could try Post A Week” to “You might need to take a short break from blogging”. Some made a comment about the post and then said very briefly, “Don’t quit”. Some were quite complementary, like this one: jerzygirl45: “At least your stuff is incredibly coherent and readable.”; and Chuck: “Well, if an excellent writer is thinking about giving up her blog, then a hack such as myself, should bury his or her head under piles of crumpled virtual paper. Don’t stop!” I’m going to have to buy a bigger hat.

Seriously though, I have gotten some good ideas and some encouragement and a whole lot of, “People are reading my blog! Squeeee!” Most of all, if you can feel love coming from a website, I have felt the love and it has given me the energy to keep going, to muddle through this dry spell and keep writing.

My heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you.

And that is all, says she.

Em had a nail appointment so we went to the city even though it was raining. The rain was supposed to stop at noon, it didn’t. It stopped eventually, but a long time after noon. I wore my gray coat and figured that would be enough, I wouldn’t need my rain poncho. I was wrong. As for the common sense factor of going to the city to walk around in the pouring rain, we went to NYC when a hurricane was coming. Yeah, common sense doesn’t come into play when we plan to go the city. Two things you will notice about me when it’s raining in the city. One is I never carry an umbrella. The other is that instead of waiting for the light at the curb, I stand back by the buildings. There is a little bit of protection there, it the wind is strong I can usually get out of it by going around the corner. Also, there is less chance of being splashed by cars.

When we first got to Manhattan I wanted to get food, Em had this store she wanted to go to that she didn’t want to take me to. We were going to meet up at this coffee place that I had a Groupon for that I won’t name, you’ll see why in a minute. The store she wanted to go to wasn’t open, so she went to the Apple store to get an iPod Shuffle, (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition iPod, a portion of the purchase price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. She wants it for music when she goes to the gym, currently she has an iPod touch, but she is planning to get an iPhone in June or July and she doesn’t want to take that to the gym. So she was very happy to find it at the Apple store. Then she came to join me at the coffee place.

She was starving, but they only had pastries and sandwiches, we ended up just getting drinks. The cappuccino looked just like the picture in the Groupon I got. The service was terrible. First I was told they provided table service. So we sat down, no one came to our table so I went up to the bar and ordered our drinks. The waitress brought them, after drinking them, Em had to leave for her appointment. I waited for the check. And waited and waited. Finally she brought it, then took the Groupon to refigure the bill. Then she never came back for the money. I waited almost 20 minutes before I took it up to the bar, she acted surprised when she saw me. The place is in the lobby of a hotel, so they have hotel guests charging things to their room, but it is also open to the public, so come on! I left her less then 10% for a tip.

After meeting up with Em at the nail salon we decided to try another place for the items she was looking for in the store she wouldn’t let me come with her to. Then we used one of her Groupon’s for lunch. This place had much better service even though the waitress appeared to be less experienced. Not saying she was, just that was the impression I got, but our order was right and she was prompt, it was more of a bar then a restaurant but the food was good.

Then to Ashley’s so Em could get another hole poked in her ear, then to Harney’s for tea, then home where we watched the end of the baseball game.

Do you know anyone that is an Apple Fan? I don’t know if I can really say I am an Apple Fan since I just have an iPod and an iPhone. But I do love them.

The iPod I have had for a while, I kept it when I got my iPod touch so I would have something to take to the gym. Also it has my name engraved in it. Then this week I got the iPhone 4 and I absolutely love it. LOVE IT! It is very similar to my iPod touch so it wasn’t hard for me to figure out how to use it, I have had a few glitches, I didn’t realize I had to set up my voice mail and I had to add my contacts and apps by hand.

But what I like is the battery lasts all day. I go online, I check twitter, facebook, my e-mail and whatever and the battery lasted from this morning until I got ready for bed. Not only that, but my sparq can be used to charge it. This makes me happy.

All my apps work, except Facetime, which I used twice with my iPod and I don’t really see why I need it.

Any new gadgets in your possession?

Spam, not the food

Before I started typing this post I checked my spam folder and deleted 10 spam comments. If you have commented and your comment has not appeared on this site, it probably went into my spam folder and I deleted it. If I see a comment in my spam folder and the link is to a business web page, or the comment appears to be trying to sell me something, it stays in the spam folder and is eventually deleted. If I have two comments that are almost identical, they get deleted.

Em and I went to the game. We were so cold, I am still cold. My neck hurts from below my ear to my shoulder, the Yankees lost, but so did the Red Sox and Orioles, so the Yankees are hanging on to first place, by half a game. They need to pick it up and win tomorrow!

Someone got my debit card number and used it to buy stuff. I got the e-mail during the game. I tried to call, if I moved into a quiet area the reception was bad, if I moved to better reception, it was too loud to hear. So my card has now been cancelled, they said they would refund my money. I won’t have a debit card for a few weeks and I have to change by regularly scheduled charges and saved financial information at Amazon and iTunes and Sony and …. I think that’s all.

That is all, says she.

Reunited

The other day on Facebook, I got a friend request. I didn’t recognize the name or the face, but we had friends in common. After I approved the friend request, she started commenting on my pictures. “All those familiar faces!” (picture of my family) “You look amazing!” so I started to really wonder, perhaps worry a little.

So I started to investigate, I started with her profile pics. It didn’t take long to get to a wedding picture, with a bride surrounded by 9 bridesmaids (each in a different color dress), a flower girl and maid of honor. Then I remembered her. I was the maid of honor at her wedding. If I hadn’t seen that picture, I would have never remembered her.

While some may think that it absolutely horrible of me, despite the fact that I was the maid of honor, we weren’t really that close, and after she got married we really didn’t do anything with each other anymore. I am so surprised that she recognized me. Although someone else from that time period posted on the picture of my family that everyone looks the same after 20 years. It appears they are right.

And that is all, says she.

Back to work

My life, work, Manhattan on weekends and baseball. Whenever possible. Maybe I can’t come up with anything new and fresh to say because my obsession has surfaced with the beginning of April and all I can think of is, “Are the Yankees going to make to the post-season?”

Does it make me a hypocrite to tell people, “Calm down, it’s only April.” While in the back of my head I am thinking, “If these guys don’t start winning more games …. ” Deep breath, deep breath.

On another topic, last night Gwen was looking at apartments (for me) on-line. Every time she steps in my room her eyes light up with the thoughts of what she is going to do when it is her room. And she talks constantly about it. She is driving me crazy.

Sometimes, I hate everybody in this house.

This is my new favorite E*Trade commercial. If I had money to invest, I would probably do it with E*Trade.

Just a man and his thoughts, and his smart phone.

What? Me worry?

Yes I was worried about Gwen coming to the city on her own. I even raced to Grand Central Terminal after leaving the office 20 minutes later then I planned in a panic to catch the train to get to Yankee Stadium before her. She was fine, she was better then fine. And stayed for the whole game.

She seemed to be having a good time, talked to the players, cheered, ate junk food. After we went into Manhattan to have dinner. I was thinking we would go back to a place she had really liked, but neither of us could remember the name or where it was. We stopped at McDonald’s so she could use the bathroom and I tried to find the place on my phone, then it died. But McDonald’s has free wifi, so we started searching on our iPod touches. That is where she found Tony’s Di Napoli on 43rd St. It is a Family Style Restaurant, which means their dinners are to share so we did, and still couldn’t finish it. Have you ever been so stuffed you couldn’t eat another bite? That is how we felt when we left there, like we didn’t even have room for air.

So it was a good day. And now time to sleep.

Day two

All over again. I have missed a few days and need to get back into the swing of posting again. Fortunately, its only a few days and so I can make them up.

For yesterday’s post, I was supposed to add a personal comment at the bottom. I kept putting it off because I have no personal experience with anyone with autism, I have friends with children with autism, on Twitter.

So there you have it, something else twitter has done for us. It makes it possible for us to connect with people we may have not met before, allows single mothers to connect with other single mothers in similar situations without having to get a babysitter.

The internet can be a source for good. You just have to be careful.

What Twitter has done

Last Friday an Egyptian Cobra escaped from the Bronz Zoo. Well not actually from the zoo, from the place its supposed to be in the Reptile house and is hiding somewhere in the Reptile house, according to zoo officials. The first thing that happened is the ‘snake’ signed up for twitter.

The fact that it has a Twitter account has turned this seemingly insignificant escape into international news. Both my boss and myself say it online on news sites from other countries.

It started me thinking about other events in my lifetime, significant events, ones that happened before twitter and wonder what would have happened if we had twitter then.

Can you imagine how quickly the news of John Lennon’s assassination would have spread around the world? As it was Howard Cosell interrupted Monday Night Football to announce it. Or more recently, can you imagine the reaction if Twitter had been around on September 11, 2001? I think that about 0.1 second after the first tower went down, so would have Twitter. Then when everybody switched to Facebook, that would have crashed next. Of course this is just speculation on my part, you may or may not agree. Something to ponder.

Thanks for the kind offer WordPress, but I think I have enough blogs right now. Any more would be irresponsible.

This has been an unkind day for me, this whole evening I have been fighting with my computer and wifi, neither one wants to work.

Also there is a rumor going around that iPhone 5 will not released until next year. I think that it is true for one reason, I really want one.

After all the fussing and fighting, I am ready to go to bed so good-night all.