December 13, 2000
Dear Everyone:
Got my hands on “Jeannie’s” new laptop computer
last weekend. More about
that later.
Would have had my hands on the new laptop sooner,
but we spent all of last Saturday with brother “Richard”, who flew into
the Bay
Area to begin a whirlwind tour of California (Los Angeles, Fresno,
Richmond) this week. This
was also the weekend that “Jeannie” had finally succeeded in getting her
painter to come and paint the living and dining rooms.
This is the same “handyman” who helped bring in the
Phone Booth a
few months ago. Every time
they settled on a date for him to paint, something in his more formal
job (taking care of the apartments in “Jeannie’s” complex plus several
more complexes) came up.
Since he works for “Jeannie’s” next door neighbor,
we weren’t too worried about leaving him behind to paint while we went
off to meet “Richard” at the airport.
I thought we were going to be late, because I’d heard the plane
would land at 11:00 a.m. But
it turned out that it wasn’t scheduled to land until 11:30, a fact I
would have known had I taken the time to check my email; but I didn’t
think I had time for email.
And, in fact, the plane was delayed to 11:40, so we had plenty of time
to find a magazine in the Gift Shop (and look for incredibly tacky gifts
that might also become “Circulating
Stocking
Stuffers”).
“Jeannie” bought a home decorating magazine (I had
the forethought to put a book in my purse, along with an umbrella, since
the weather forecast called for rain).
“Richard’s” plane arrived 10 minutes early, thus coming in
exactly on time. From the
airport, we drove back towards “Jeannie’s” place, stopping in
Orinda for
lunch. After lunch, we
walked over to the
BART
station and took BART into the
City. Upon seeing the state
of the traffic in
San Francisco, we all agreed that BART really was the smart move.
Then we did some Christmas Shopping.
We started with
Nordstrom (directly from the BART station), then checked out the
window displays at Macy’s
(Mickey Mouse’s
Night Before Christmas).
Since Mickey’s windows were in the opposite direction from the one we
took, we started at the end, working our way back to the beginning.
Then “Richard” spotted the
FAO Schwartz toy
store, so that became a must.
The whole ground floor is filled with stuffed toys.
Luckily, we never got beyond the ground floor, or we may never
have escaped from there.
“Richard” bought some small things for “Alice’s” two girls and would
have bought a crab, but that seemed to be the only critter that wasn’t
represented.
After that we visited
Neiman Marcus
(just to see the
tree), Saks
Fifth Avenue,
Tiffany, Gumps and
the
Crocker Galleria.
“Richard” and “Jeannie” bought some cards.
Somebody bought coffee and juice and then we headed back to BART
for the trip home. For once,
I didn’t buy anything (other than a $6.00 ticket).
Didn’t see The Perfect Gift and, apparently, wasn’t yet in
Holiday Shopping Mode. But I
did pay for dinner. (And the
paint job at “Jeannie’s” place looked great.
He even moved all the furniture back.)
And I took “Jeannie’s” new computer (no name as
yet) home with me. For a
laptop, it’s pretty big.
It’s 13” by 11”, but less than 2” thick.
It weighs about 7.5 pounds and affords a 14” color screen, which
is really nice. It has
pretty much all the bells and whistles already built in, no switching
one feature out (like the
floppy drive) in order to switch another in (like the
CD drive).
It will even play DVD’s.
However, I predict that it will take “Jeannie” no more than one
minute, 22 seconds to decide that she can’t stand the built-in “pointer
device”, i.e., the “joystick”
that takes the place of a traditional
mouse.
This week, I loaded
AOL and “Jeannie’s”
little expenses database
(minus the data that wasn’t backed up after last October).
By this Saturday, she should be back in the
email world and able to
add in all the data that was lost (maybe a nice “rainy-day” project
while we’re both off from work at Christmas time).
And on Sunday, I officially started Shopping
(online, of course). By
Tuesday evening, I had bought pretty much all but one thing, which I
can’t do without “Jeannie’s” input this weekend.
This will also be the
Tree Hunting
weekend. After which, I’ll
teach “Jeannie” how to turn on, and shut down, her new, as-yet-unnamed,
computer. There’s only one
way to turn it on, but (as is typical with
Microsoft) about
six different ways to shut it down.
Maybe I should get started on a “Cheat
Sheet”.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |