broke my G-string

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Just to be clear, I’m talking about the G-string, string number 3, on my guitar.  I was tuning it and adding a bit of lubricant to the nut of the guitar when so it didn’t make a popping sound and glided smoothly, when

POP!

the string broke.  Oh, so sad.  I rummaged around in my “household” box of stuff to find a replacement string.  No such luck.  I had several other strings but not the one that was needed.  Luckily there was a music shop downtown.  Unluckily, it was in Park Place Mall, and it was Boxing Day.  Ughhh – crowds.  I park at the far end of the parking lot and hiked in with my guitar.  $15 later, I had a new package of strings.

But … I discovered that any similar string will do.  I used a spare B-string (#2 string), and it works fine!  In fact, it tunes better now than it ever has.

In the process, I learned (apparently I have learned to read within the past 7 years) that I have a George Washburn.  Good name, I think.  Except that this was a $150 Costco guitar.  Just the same, it’s a whole lot better than my previous W30,000 (about $30) guitar bought overseas.

Anybody want an unopened package of guitar strings?

Surface Pro 4 replacement parts

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I had to replace the pen on my Surface Pro 4.  I lost it.  Don’t ask me where.  Somewhere between here and the college, I suspect.  I’m a boo-foo.  $120 for a pen.  Wow.

Then came the power supply.  It packed it in somewhere in Manitoba.  The only way to charge it was with the car charger.  Luckily, the machine works on 12VDC, not some weird number like 18 volts or 21 like one of my old laptops.  Why not make 12 volts a standards?  Oh, wait, it already is.  Then why not use that standard?  I tried ordering a new one from a computer shop.  No go.  Online only – that is, if I didn’t want to pay double.  Finally, long after returning from Manitoba, it came.

Then … the machine quit.  Well, it didn’t really quit.  The keyboard (Type Cover, they call it) stopped working.  Several hours over several days chatting and talking with Microsoft later (once actually being transferred between and chatting with seven different people), they found out several things were physically damaged on it, making the type cover and USB useless.

So, the long and the short of it is, everything but the keyboard is actually replaced.  <sigh>  What a world we live in.

To combat the idea of disposable electronics and dwindling world resources, I made a cover out of jeans.  I can see that I am winning the war against waste.  Yay.  …  Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek. 

goodbye Firefox, or on Edge

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I’ve given up on something I’ve used for … a long time.

Firefox.

I have my replacement Surface Pro 4 tablet and am setting it up the way I want it.  I installed Firefox ver. 64.x.  It stole half an hour yesterday and 45 minutes of this morning’s time out of my life to figure out why Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift + Tab was not working.  I went through the web trying things like nVidia / GForce, antivirus, and other software that this tablet does not have.  I finally found a blog somewhere that said I needed to go back to an older version of Firefox to get this feature back.

Well why the hell did they change it in the first place?

Good bye, Firefox.  Last straw.  I’m on Edge now.

Christmas

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This is the Christmas break.  I’ve got 10 days off work.  Now at a movie theatre.  We’ve got a turkey for this coming Tuesday.  Typing on my phone in a movie theatre.  Probably shouldn’t do that.

a pretty good attempt

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I received an email from “Apple”, or “iTunes” a bit ago.  I have to admit, this is one of the better looking spam emails I’ve gotten.  They even took the time to encode each character so as not to be recognized by Yahoo! Mail as being crap.  However, there is an error.  Can you spot the error?

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NGM Bible hunters

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I got an email today from National Geographic.  They have a series called Bible Hunters.  Some investigative journalism on the history of the Bible, I guess, which is all well and good.  It’s a pretty well-known set of texts (if not accurately known).

But I was also watching a YouTube video produced by National Geographic called The Bible’s Buried Secrets National Geographic Documentary HD.  I very rarely see such bias ‘journalism’ from reputable names like yours.  My comments:

This video begins interesting but not too much later gives a poor impression. At 12:00, the video loses ground (no pun intended). Genesis chapter 8 states the rains lasted 40 days & nights. It says the water subsided, not the rains, after 150 days. These are two different concepts. One sentence states it rain, and one states the waters started receding. As well, it clearly states that first a raven was sent out and then, later, a dove. Why is this contradictory? It seems to me that it isn’t. I thought this documentary would rely on ‘documents’ (“documentary”?), but so far it doesn’t hold water (again, no pun intended). It’s like someone saying, “I ate eggs for breakfast and pasta for lunch,” and someone else saying, “Well which is it – which did you eat – eggs or pasta?”

So forgive me, NGM; although I have thoroughly enjoyed your magazines, have a collection of them in paper and electronic form, and have a library of your videos, your journalism shows your true colours.

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ISC drafting

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Wow.  Long time since I’ve updated anything here.

I’ve been at ISP as a drafter for a few weeks now.  The first week I was there, there were no new orders.  Well, maybe a couple.  But not enough to get my feet wet with my trainer, P.  P was quitting at the end of the week; drafting was not for him.  But, with no new orders coming in to cut my teeth on, I didn’t get a lot of practise in.  I did calculations, practise drafting of previously done orders, and getting used to AutoCAD again.

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new toaster, printer, job

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A couple of days ago a few things happened – I bought a new toaster, I found a printer on sale and bought it, and I got an offer for a job and accepted.

First things first – I am now a Drafting Technologist for ISP.  I applied last week, had the first interview earlier this week, a phone call to come in for a second interview on Thursday, and was offered a position during that interview.  I start Monday, Nov. 19, 2018 and will be reviewed after 3 months.

I also got an email from ASET congratulating me on being a Technologist in Training.  Now I must work for two out of the next three and a half years go obtain my C. Tech / C.E.T. designation.

I bought a toaster.  Thanks to Walmart’s Rollback price, I got a Black & Decker toaster for $18.88.  Pretty cheap.  It even has a bagel button.

And, finally, a printer.  I thought I’d drop by the printer / scanner area to try to replace my dead machine.  I was looking at a printer, and a Walmart guy came around and asked, “You’re looking for the one on sale?”  “Uh … yah, I am.”  Eh?  I found a pile of Canon PIXMA MX492 boxes.  I wasn’t expecting to pay $34 though.  I’d be an idiot to not buy it.