Archive for August 2018
1SE for month of August
August 31, 2018BSOD Update
August 30, 2018Still dead but making progress. I talked to nice fellow in India this afternoon about the problem. He was very helpful. He walked me through running diagnostics.
So the hard drive and memory are fine. He offered the link for downloading the recovery disk. I told him that wouldn’t work because I had no other computer (other than my iPad) to create the thumb drive.
So he ordered up a recovery thumb drive for me. Shipped out via FedEx this afternoon. I should receive tomorrow afternoon. He was nice enough to waive the fee (about $50). I had told him that I was a retired HP employee. Maybe that helped.
Unfortunately, I will end up scratching my hard drive. Not to worry, 95% of my files are stored in the cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.). I will have to reinstall a bunch of apps that I use, but that’s easy.
Should be a reminder to everyone. Do your backups.
TTFN
BSOD
August 27, 2018Okay, some of you might not know what BSOD stands for. It is the “Blue Screen of Death” and it appeared last night on my 2.5 year old HP laptop. Luckily, I have my iPad for backup.
So, I had to order the recovery disks last night. Arrive tomorrow. Hopefully I can fix it.
Most of my files are stored in the cloud or backed up on a USB drive. So no great loss, other than the hassle of reloading Windows.
I might just start looking at Mac laptops.
Just a reminder for everyone, do your backups.
Luckily, I am not in a time crunch for travel.
Stay tuned.
Nissan Rogue
August 22, 2018So I have had my new Nissan Rogue for about a month now. Time to write about the things I like about the car and the things that are not so great.
First, here are the things that I really like.
Blind spot detection. There’s a little light in front of each side view mirror. So when you are driving down the highway, the light comes on when there is a car in your blind spot. One has to get used to checking for the light before you change lanes. You can’t see it very well in the picture. I would need to be moving to get it to light up. That wouldn’t be very safe.
Automatic Seat Adjustment When you start the car up, the driver’s seat moves forward to your preselected spot. When you shut it down, the seat moves all the way back and down. Makes it easier to get in and out. There are two saved seat selections. So Paula can have her selection and I have mine.
Adaptive Cruise Control So I’m cruising down the highway on cruise control. The car detects that you have a car or truck moving slower in front of you. The cruise control detects the car in front of you and eases off on the gas. Pull out to pass and cruise control steps on the gas.
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Automatic Unlock Push the black button on the door once, driver’s door unlock’s. Push it again, all doors unlock. All you need is to have the key fob in your pocket or purse. Getting out of the car, push the button, doors lock. There is a corresponding black button on the right front passenger door.
Color I love the color. I was getting really tired of choice of white or black. It seems to me that most cars these days are either black, white or silver. Boring.
Gas Mileage The car is a hybrid. Right now I am getting about 30 mpg. Much better than the Jeep. Not dropping $70 a fill-up at the gas station. It feels a bit weird to have the car shut off at a traffic light. Remember in CA, gas is running at about $3.75 /gallon for regular. It’s also taking a little getting used to having the filler pipe on the right side.
Rear View Camera Put the car in reverse and the rear view camera is turned on. Gives you a nice wide angle view of the space behind you. Has guidelines on the view to give you an idea about the path you will take. Great for getting out of tight spaces.
Here are things that I don’t care for.
Navigation I’d rather use Waze on my iPhone. So I am heading up to Hollywood. The route is to take I-110 north to Rte 101. Then head towards Hollywood. The GPS will warn me to make a left turn in 5 miles on the 110. Well, there is no left turn after 5 miles. What it is really telling me is to stay on the 110 and not take the I-405 exit. Confusing to say the least. So it is telling me to turn left when it really means keep going straight and not take the exit.
One nice thing is that it shows you the lanes you should be in before the turn or exit.
Nissan Connect App The free app is very clunky and not very intuitive on how to use. You can download a destination to the car or remotely unlock or start the car. Nissan gives you the service for free for the first six months, then they charge $8 or $9 a month. It does what it is supposed to do, but a struggle to figure out how to make it happen. Needs work. I doubt if Nissan will do it though. Next winter I will need to decide whether to keep the service.
Control Panel. Hard to see. I can’t make it bright enough. If I wear my sunglasses, the panel is impossible to see. Also, the buttons on the steering wheel are kind of small. Also, hard to see. I suppose eventually I will know them by feel. Muscle memory, etc.
One more thing. Last week my permanent license plates arrived. So I removed the dealer temporary plate and frames with the dealer’s name on it and threw them in the trash. I replaced them with my new Red Sox frames. I don’t feel that I need to give free advertising to the dealer.
Day’s Inn by Wyndham – Novato, CA
August 21, 2018On sunday, we got back from our trip up north for the Grand Ruth reception. We stayed in a “Day’s Inn by Wyndham” in Novato, CA. Novato, CA is north of San Francisco. Here are my thoughts on the hotel. I think that this place was bought by Wyndham and that by adding the “Wyndham” tag to the name one would think you were getting a nicer hotel. Day’s Inn is still a dump with or without the “By Wyndham” tag.
This is a fairly old facility. Probably built in the 1980’s. The building has two levels, street level and a second level up a flight of stairs. No rooms available on the street level so we had to schlep all of our stuff up the stairs. Of course, there was no elevator(s). I need to be sure of the location of the rooms and whether or not they have an elevator. Perhaps, it might work if I were to ask for HP accessible. We could have had a first floor room but that room didn’t have a fridge/microwave. We felt fridge/microwave was more important.
Room was quite small. Two straight back chairs, no comfy chair. Bathroom was very small with hardly any shelf space to put our personal kits (cosmetics and shave).
Bed was okay. I’ve slept on better.
Room had a nice view. Deer came down from the hills to graze at dusk.
They had breakfast served but we didn’t take advantage. We brought our own snacks and cooler with milk and drinks.
The room had free WiFi but very slow. Only 2 Mbps download speed. If you want faster, it’ll cost you $10 /day.
Next time, I need to be more careful when booking a motel room.
So here is my checklist:
- HP accessible?
- Adequate WiFi speeds and free.
- Elevator if room is above 1st floor.
- Check YELP reviews.
- Restaurant(s) within walking distance?
- Review with Paula.
Ramona
August 5, 2018So today we were about to start for home from our visit to Escondido, CA for the Grand Organist Reception last night. So we wanted to do something more than just head back up the freeway to LA. We decided to take a side trip up to the small town of Ramona, CA up in the NE corner of San Diego County.
So our friend Roberta suggested we head up to Ramona. This is a small town up in the middle of nowhere. We had a nice scenic drive. By this time of year, most everything is brown. So we got there in fine time. Stopped for gas and Paula went for a walk. She found a Masonic Lodge, then we drove around and we found a second lodge. Two lodges in town. I’m impressed.
So here’s some info on Ramona. Seems to have many businesses. There was a Dunkin Donuts!. Don’t even have one in San Pedro. Also had a Starbucks, Albertsons and gas stations. I filled up the Nissan. Seems like the mileage is running about 30 mpg.
So I said to Paula, “I think there was a song written about “Ramona”. So I did a search on YouTube and found a couple of ditties from back in the day. Here are the links.
First is a song by Bob Dylan named “Ramona”
Next was a song by David Whitfield also called “Ramona“. Released in 1961.
And finally, “Ramona” by Louis Armstrong.
calherewecome 