January 15, 2009
Dear Everyone:
In 2007, I hit on a theme for the
Holiday gifts
that I gave to family and friends:
Cute, cuddly, infectious diseases from the
Exploratorium in
San
Francisco. This last
This idea came from “Alice”.
When I asked what I should get for her two girls, she told me
that they both had lists of books they wanted and, as for her and
“Kelly”, coffee mugs would be just great.
I immediately thought of the perfect mug for “Alice”:
The Henry VIII and his disappearing wives mug.
(Pour in a hot beverage and watch Henry’s six wives disappear one
by one.) I had found this
mug in
When I looked at the box, I found the Website of
the dealer. The
Unemployed
Philosophers Guild. Once I got to their site, I discovered a whole plethora of coffee
mugs. There was Henry VIII
and his six wives. (Technically,
two of Henry’s wives survived him;
Anne of Cleves and
Catherine Parr.)
Once I had that one, I quickly found a
Math Mug,
one festooned with famous mathematical formulae, which would be perfect
for “Alice’s” husband, “Kelly”, the mathematician.
Then it was just a matter of picking out mugs for everyone else.
The
Presidential Slogan mug would complement
“Marshall’s” collection of
Presidential campaign buttons.
“Frankie” got a mug covered with twenty-one of
Shakespeare’s
better-known (and lesser-known) passages on the subject of love.
“Jeannie” got the complementary insults mug.
“Richard” got the Men’s Defense of
Coffee, based on some 17th
Century pamphlets responding to the Women’s Petition Against Coffee.
And, as long as everyone else was getting mugs, I
made sure that “Santa” included one for me:
The Global Warming Mug.
Pour in a hot beverage and watch the coastlines disappear.
All the mugs that I mailed to “Alice” and “Kelly’s:
place made it safely. Not so
much for the chocolate Santas.
I’m hoping that the mugs and Santas that I mailed to “Frankie”
and “Richard” made it OK. I
did use more bubble-wrap on their Santas and the mugs came in sturdy
little boxes, so I have hope.
In other news…
For “Jeannie’s” birthday last month, I got her a
wireless router. I have one
and it works beautifully. I
do almost all my computing in the living room now.
When I started to set up “Jeannie’s” router, we hit
a snag almost immediately. I
got into a “live chat” with a technician who “talked” me through getting
the router configured. Once
that was done, I realized that the CD had not installed the program to
connect the router and the computer (wirelessly.)
We decided to table the subject until after the Holidays.
I finally got on the phone with “customer support”
and a person with a very heavy East Indian accent told me the company
doesn’t make the program anymore because all computers with
Windows XP
or Vista now come with “built-in” connections.
I went into the
Control Panel and found the “Wireless Network
Setup Wizard”.
I followed the directions, but so far haven’t been
able to get it to work.
Nevertheless, I will persevere.
If necessary, I can call the “customer support” people and make
them take over the computer remotely and work it from their end.
In the meantime, everyone please continue to pray
for rain and lots of snow in the mountains.
Love, as always,
Pete
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