OK, I give up, I admit the heat is getting to me!

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Just an update on yesterday's blog: I did buy a cordless phone at the local Wal*Mart.  It cost $9.96 so I stayed under my $10 limit.  Now I just gotta hide it from the 4 year old.

Well this is our first official Monday in Texas and we were greeted with searing heat.  This reminds me of the other 6 days we have been here.  All have been over 100° and I mean all.  If you look at the forecast for the rest of the week you will see that they all are that hot as well.  It is beginning to wear me down.  When you walk over any stretch of pavement it feels like you are being baked.  I keep waiting for this giant spatula to come out of the sky and flip me over.  I mean, come on!  Give a Hoosier a break will ya!

Bottled water is real big down here.  By big I mean, everyone has it and everyone's bottle is big.  My wife toured a school today and all the 3rd grade students had bottled water on their desks.  I am not much of an H₂O drinker but I am quickly becoming one (plus I am excited now that I know how to make the subscript 2 in H₂O that and the fact that I am not really into dehydration).

Did I mention that it stays real hot until it is real late?  Even now at 9:10 PM it is still 95°.  When we wake up it is actually down in the 80s.  This way the water is still actually liquid when we fill up our big water bottles.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

I Really Need A New Phone

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

The phone we are currently using cost less than $10 and is corded.  For those of you who may not be familiar with this ancient technology, this is a phone that has the head set tethered to the base unit with a short curly cord.  In some countries, forcing your wife to use a corded phone is a means of torture and punishable by law.  We don't get a lot of phone calls so this works for us.  Ok, let me clarify...I don't get a lot of phone calls and it works for me, the wife on the other hand uses the phone more than I but I am too cheap to get her the cordless phone she deserves.  Corded phones are great though since you always know where the phone is and don't have to go on the frantic "where is the phone" search when it rings.

We used to have a cordless phone.  The 4 year old (who was less than 2 at the time) decided to conduct a science experiment and see if it could survive several minutes in the bathtub.  As you may have guessed (and as noted in our 4 year old's science log from that time frame), the phone did not survive.  Our next cordless phone was purchased for the incredible sum of $2 at a garage sale.  It worked up until a few weeks ago.

We have looked at new phones, but I just can't bring myself to spend over $10 for a phone.  I just know the 4 year old is looking to continue her experiments.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Things Are Getting Back To "Normal"

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

We now have a TV (a Sanyo 30" Widescreen from Wal*Mart).  We went to a Frye's, a Best Buy and ended up at Wal*Mart to make this purchase.  No one else had regular TV's, only flat panel / LCD types.  Good ole Wal*Mart though came through with something in our price range.  It fits nicely in our built in entertainment center.  We still don't have any "channels" yet though (this is what the kids call it).  I will get around to signing us up for the dish network sometime next week.

And it rained today.  This is the first time it has rained here since we arrived.  We are in a stage 3 water alert.

And the wife is making popcorn for the first time since we have been in Texas.  This is about as normal as it gets.  She makes popcorn about 4 times a week.  I used to like popcorn, but I have ate so much that now it almost repulses me.  I mean, how much popcorn can you eat?  We pop our popcorn in coconut oil.  The few times I have actual consumed popcorn recently, I did notice that it was better tasting than air popping.  The coconut oil that we by stays in a pretty much solid state or at least it did in Indiana.  Here in Texas, it is all liquid all the time.

That is definitely not normal (but I guess it will be soon).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Ah TV, How I Have Missed Thee

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

One of the things we sold in our "We ain't gonna move it" sale was our 6 year old TV.  It was a 27 incher and was still in pretty good shape.  But one Sunday while in Sunday School, we were watching a video and all 20 or so of us were straining to see this little 19 inch TV.  I immediately decided that the church would get our old set and we would just pick up a new one once we got settled in Texas.  The wife was in agreement with me and once I explained what I wanted to do with one of the Deacons of the church, we then discussed how big the plaque would be in our honor (just kidding, just mentioning our names every time it is used will suffice).

Anyway, we have been here 4 days now and have not even begun to look for another TV.  Maybe we will get around to it tomorrow.  I have not signed up for cable service yet anyway so the TV will do us little good until then except for watching movies.  Since every human strives to improve himself, I have my sites set on at least a 32 inch TV.  Also, the apartment we are in has an entertainment center built into the wall and it will hold about a 37 inch TV (if I did the math right - darn Pythagorean Theorem).  If I buy too small of a set, it's smallness will really show in the large opening where the TV should go.  If I buy a bigger set then I cannot afford to have cable service turned on.  Decisions, decisions.

But then again, maybe smaller is better, after all the bigger the set, the heavier the set and I do have to lug it up 19 stairs!

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

I Can't Believe We Are Arguing About This

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

A long time ago when we were Hoosiers (you know, last week), all four of us were sitting at the table having breakfast.  A co-worker had given me the largest bag of M&M's I have ever seen as a going away present and the 4 year old was studying the bag with more than a passing interest.  She did not really want the treat inside the bag but was deciding what color of M&M we each would be.

Now there are six colors of M&M's in a standard bag.  There is red, orange, blue, yellow, green and brown.  However there are only four that arecharacters.  Those four were featured on the bag we had.  She decided that she was green since green was a girl.  I was ordained blue and the wife and son were named yellow and red accordingly.

The son did not appreciate being red as he appeared to have angry eyebrows.  Then the discussion ensued.  We discussed this for probably 15 minutes with each of us explaining why we should or should not be a particular color.  In the end I think we remained our original assigned colors.  Each of us then ate a few M&M's of our color (even though it was breakfast).

But if anyone asks, I am really the yellow and not the blue (just don't tell green, er, I mean my daughter).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

No really, I still have the same phone number

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

We switched to Vonage (VoIP) phone service last October.  We had friends who had tried it and they seemed satisfied.  It was also about $40 / month cheaper than the local phone service with the normal long distance plan.  So far we are very satisfied.  But the whole concept of VoIP confuses most people.

The phone number is not tied to your house like a normal phone line.  It is tied to the little router device that you plug into your high speed internet connection.  That means that wherever we go (including friends houses and hotels), the phone number comes with us.  This also means that even though we are in Texas, we still have just our Indiana phone number (this also makes 911 tricky since you have to tell them where you live since your phone number is of no help).

We went to buy some furniture tonight (bunk beds and a leather couch) and of course one of the fields we needed to complete was home phone.  The salesman could not understand why we were in Texas and only had an Indiana phone number.  He kept trying to ask us if it was a cell phone.  Eventually I just agreed that it was like a cell phone, even though it was not (and I have not had a cell phone for about 2 years).  He seemed satisfied with this answer.

Then we got a phone call from Arab Pest Control asking us if we still wanted service on our Indiana house.  I told the guy we had moved to Texas and I don't think he believed me (I was after all answering a local call to Kokomo, IN).  I ended up telling him that our number was still working by mistake (I think I said it was a glitch in the system).  This actually satisfied him more than the truth did.

So if any of you need to call me here in Texas, use my old phone number.  Due to a glitch in the system we will answer it with our cell phone.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

I Don't Think It Is A Sin To Lie To Help Desk People

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So after hearing horror story after horror story about the DSL service provider that I am forced to use (the apartment I am in is contractually obligated to only provide service via this provider), I was not looking forward to hooking up my internet service.  To further complicate things, I do not use a Windows or Apple based PC (I like Ubuntu).  And on top of that, I had a particularly bad first day of work at the new office (oh and have I mentioned in recent blogs about my moving a ton of stuff up a flight of stairs?  I thought I had, just checking).

So, first things first, my package did arrive and was waiting for me when I got into the apartment.  This package contains the DSL modem and a (totally useless to me) CD that works only on Windows based computers.  Everything looked simple, plug this in here, that in there, whammo bammo, we are set.  Uh, no.

I called the provider last night and was told that I could not call this soon to complain about service.  Odd since it was 11 at night and it was supposed to installed that day.  I guess technically they had until midnight.  I was tired so I agreed to call back but was told to leave the modem plugged in just in case it started working (anyone out there buying this?).

I called tonight and one of the questions was what operating system I would be using.  Ubuntu Linux was surprisingly omitted from their list of selections.  I pressed on though and once I reached a real person, was told that they did not support linux and he would transfer me over to paid support.  I pleaded my case that it did not matter what kind of computer I was using, the light that was supposed to be flashing green was flashing red.  No dice.

I hung up and called again and told them I was using a Windows computer.  Now I was never asked to do anything with the computer other than turn it on.  I figured they were going to have me do a real windowsy thing like go into the control panel or something.  All they did was run a check on the line (whatever that means).  Long blog short, in 10 minutes I was up and going (and blogging).

If lying to help desk people is a sin, consider me guilty.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon