I was elected President of the local of my Union. This occurred about a month ago. quiet to start but it is now eventful.
I have some courses at the end of the month, can't come fast enough. i have had a lot of one on ones with the Director. This is to the chagrin of the VP of the local. There are some people that have been burnt by management before who suggest no one on ones. As it stands right now, the knives are out right now when I have one on ones with member, not the management.
Yesterday we had a Union Management meeting - nothing was said by management that wasn't said in the one on ones.
Today, someone started a rumour that I was taking credit for a policy that was changed. When I asked who said this, the allegator was protected. If you don't want to sign your name to it, don't say it.
The Director was saved by the union late today when one of his managers did a mass email dump of an info email. My Executive advised me to let him know. He was not happy.
But i am starting to roll with the punches. It is kind of good. The Fire Department may suffer though, I think I am taking a break for awhile. All the courses for the Union and then a new directive to re-take all the courses at the FD ....I will have no life.
Headed to Fort MacMurray in a couple of weeks for a casino.This will be fun. I am going to see what pictures I can take. Hope I don't get arrested for taking pictures - I promise I won't play any Neil Young.
I think that Windows 8 will never be introduced into an office environment unless it is castrated and made to look like Windows 7. The Charm Bar moving in all the time and freezing the screen is really fricken annoying.
Headed to The Druid with my son tonight, two weeks in a row. Working overtime this weekend. I have a goal to pay off a loan this year. Well it should be paid off anyway, but I am aiming to pay it off by May.
My son wants to go to Mardi Gras now, but next year. I am thinking of taking 5 weeks off again. Go visit Chicago and Memphis as well as New Orleans. Not sure where else I will go. Florida may be out of the question, too wacky.
I have had a hacking cough all week, I am sure it is a flu trying to set in, but I am fighting it.
Second blog update on the new computer...not too painful. But I still prefer the little Apple keyboard and the ipad.
My Ride
Glacier National Park
Friday 17 January 2014
Thursday 2 January 2014
Lac des Arcs
Writing this at home for once, I have a new laptop, an HP one with Windows 8 - I am not sure I like Win8 it is like a pseudo iOS - it tries to do a lot and winds up doing nothing. I am not sure why it boots into the startup page, where I spend my time looking for desktop to get the hell out of the rather ugly GUI. There were helpful and added a lot of preset start pages for you, like Travel and Maps etc. As I said a pseudo iOS. I am not going to be driving down road with lappy open to a map. But I think these startup apps are to train you in how to delete useless things off the startdesktop. MS has also gone out and asked for apps from vendors...there's a Kindle app - which can access your library, but don't use it. If you go back to an iOS device and read - they don't synch, you spend ten minutes trying to find where you were. And even though you hit the Next button, as in next page, Win8 takes you where ever it feels like, deja vu is most likely deja vu - as in you read that page 5 minutes ago. The Facebook app looks nice, but it is broken into sections of the screen, to go down in a section you have to find the scroll bar on the side of that section.
If you bought a laptop with a touch screen life is easier ---- on facebook, you drag your finger and the screen will scroll down. If you don't have a touchscreen, Windows 8 and you will not be happily married, in fact you will be permanently sleeping in separate beds.
The touchpad on the new laptop is screwy too, it does what it wants to and your 'lucky charms' those things hidden on the right side of the screen will pop out at the will of touchpad.
I learned one thing today that is really a pain in the ass. If you log into your bank on the Startdesktop - your bank's page takes up the whole page. If you are trying to relay information from your bank account in an email and you go to Desktop - Google or IE page and the email, everytime you flip from the bank page to the email Windows 8 as a favour to you, logs you out of your bank account. So when you go back, you have to log in again. Microsoft has taken a gigantic step backwards in multitasking - even an iphone3 can handle this chore efficiently,
The computer has no DVD or CD drive, this is to make it lighter and more Mac like. I looked at Mac's before buying this laptop, I would have had to pay about $1000 more. I wasn't prepared to do that.
The salesman, at Costco told me that this was fast enough to run Lightroom5 (LR). After looking at Mac's for a month, I knew that this machine would be able to handle LR. A guy at a camera shop said to get the PC as it had expandable parts, a Mac is a Mac is a Mac and it will stay the same as when you bought it - especially in the RAM department.....which is where LR lives.
So I go to install LR on the new laptop. Windows 8 Internet Explorer decides it doesn't like Adobe. I could click on the download LR for a month of Sundays and nothing would happen. So I had to set up a Homegroup and use my old lap top to download the file from Adobe and then I shared it with the new laptop. The old laptop has a DVD drove so it looks like I may have to copy other files this way.
This worked pretty well. But IE still did not appear to be acting right, even after I updated all of the drivers etc.
It finally came to a head the weekend before Christmas when Win* denied me permission to do stuff. I called HP and this must be a common problem as the tech deleted a pile of stuff and wham, Win8 actually looked like it could operate fast.
I went to install my Microsoft Office 2010 - no disk drive, so I go to Microsoft's site, no download.
I may copy the disk over from my laptop - this I haven't decided yet.
But I was feeling generous and the new MS Office 365 looked like it would work with a touchscreen computer and @ $10 a month what could go wrong?
Outlook, that's what. I have 4 exchange server emails. After setting them all up in Outlook it would not get the mail. I tested it by send 4 emails from one account to another account and Outlook did not receive one of them!
I called Microsoft....I got a person in the Philippines at Tech Support, the problem was easy - it was my computer. That was it, no further discussion allowed.
I rebooted as she must have been right, right. Still no emails.
I called Microsoft again. No sense having a subscription to Office 365 when one of the programs I would use 365 days a year didn't work.
I spoke to Carlo, a girl with a guy's name. First thing she did was correct my pronunciation of my name, she thought I pronounced it wrong. She asked for all my information. When I said that I wanted to cancel my subscription she asked if I called Tech Support. I told her I did. She then said I had to agree to two things before she could proceed. 1) to destroy and delete the office 365 program from my computer and 2) promise to never use them again. She had to repeat each statutory statement several times as she had problems pronouncing destroy and delete and many other words. I asked if I bought a Microsoft Office product and installed it on my computer whether that counted and she said yes. I could never install office again on my computer. I didn't think this was right, but English was not her strong point.
She then asked for all my information again...I drew the line at giving my whole credit card number. She then asked for my email address, even thought she had already asked for it twice. I gave it to her and she said she could not cancel my subscription until I answered the email.
We waited, and waited, and waited. After 10 minutes I asked if she sent the email. She said yes she had. I asked if I didn't get the email, would my subscription be cancelled. She said she needed the confirmation from the email. I am not sure what was in the email, but I am sure that after several times requesting information that she was sure she was speaking with the person who bought the product.
Finally I asked if the email was sent. She said yes, we have to wait for it. I was not confident she had sent one, or sent it to the right place. I asked to speak to her supervisor as she refused to confirm the subscription was cancelled. She refused. I asked for her last name or her operator number, she refused to give me either of those. I finally had to end the call after I told her that I was not confident she did what she was supposed to do.
Two days later there was still no email from Microsoft saying that the subscription was cancelled. I called Microsoft and got someone in North America. She understood my issue and offered to cancel the subscription. There was no swearing on the delete and destroy, there was no code I had to relay back to Microsoft, she had all the information. When she was done I told her about Carlo. She looked back in my account and said that no-one had accessed it since I had registered it. I asked about the last name or operator number, she said that was true. But she also made sure I got an email before the call ended.
I am not sure what went on, but there maybe some people spoofing a Microsoft Call Centre and collecting people's information.
I was in Calgary when that occurred. I let Microsoft have two days as it was Xmas. I went out shopping on Boxing Day and bought a 2 TB external hard drive as HP said I had to create backup disks...with no disk drive. I had fun formatting a partition on the external drive and then copying the recovery portion to it. You can only make one copy, so I bought a hard drive and a warranty plan. Oh, the Costco warranty is great, they double it and if you buy their $99 three year plan you get 5 years no questions asked on a laptop warranty. Apple can't touch that.
While driving around in Calgary the car made a funny noise in the front end. I checked the power steering fluid as the steering got tough. It was down, I went on the net and learned it could be one of three things...the fluid was the first thing, tightening a belt was the second thing and a bearing someplace in the front end was the third thing.
I finally got ATF4 at a Canadian Tire, no gas stations had it. Google said do not under any circumstances use STP Power Steering Fluid if your car says anything else. They were mostly from pissed off BMW owners...must be a n issue with them - power steering fluid usage.
So I put the fluid in and then I was headed off to the mountains to take some pictures. I was driving down Highway 1 headed West. The mountains appeared and everything appeared to be great. Then the nose came back, it was howling. At Lac des Arcs, just outside of Canmore, I decided to turn around. I wasn't going off into the bush with a steering issue in the Winter, especially since I was going up where there was no cell service.
I turned around and headed East. The car didn't make the noise if I drove under 100 kph, so I stayed below that speed. I was kind of a hazard at that speed, but most of the traffic was headed West to the mountains, not East. At Highway 22 I headed North, I figured i'd go on a road with a speed limit I can do, 100.
The wind was blowing me a bit on the road, but not too much. I got to Red Deer around 15:00 and I was standing in line for coffee at Starbucks and mentioned my issued with speed. I said I was kind of nervous as I had to drive in the speed zone from Red Deer to the Ponoka turnoff for 2A. Cars normally go 130+ in that area. He said I should be good as it was foggy North of Red Deer and most people were going slower.
He was right, it was foggy and people were going slower. North of Lacombe blowing snow was added to the fog. Just outside of Edmonton a blizzard had started.
If I did not have the noise in the front end I would have headed into the mountains and taken the David Thompson highway East to just North of Red Deer. I would have been 3-4 hours later than I was.
Just a couple of hours after I got to Edmonton the RCMP had advised no travel on Highway 2. I learned of semi's that were flipped over by the wind on Highway 22 - South of where I got on to it, but I did feel the wind. There were a lot of cars in the ditch that night - I am glad I got back to familiar territory when I did.
The noise never came back, the steering is still a bit stiff, but the whole front end doesn't feel like it is going to fall off, like it did at Lac des Arcs. I have an appointment with the mechanic.
Happy New Year - I have assumed a senior position in the Union at work, this looks like a lot of work. I think it was why I was considering MS Office.
If you bought a laptop with a touch screen life is easier ---- on facebook, you drag your finger and the screen will scroll down. If you don't have a touchscreen, Windows 8 and you will not be happily married, in fact you will be permanently sleeping in separate beds.
The touchpad on the new laptop is screwy too, it does what it wants to and your 'lucky charms' those things hidden on the right side of the screen will pop out at the will of touchpad.
I learned one thing today that is really a pain in the ass. If you log into your bank on the Startdesktop - your bank's page takes up the whole page. If you are trying to relay information from your bank account in an email and you go to Desktop - Google or IE page and the email, everytime you flip from the bank page to the email Windows 8 as a favour to you, logs you out of your bank account. So when you go back, you have to log in again. Microsoft has taken a gigantic step backwards in multitasking - even an iphone3 can handle this chore efficiently,
The computer has no DVD or CD drive, this is to make it lighter and more Mac like. I looked at Mac's before buying this laptop, I would have had to pay about $1000 more. I wasn't prepared to do that.
The salesman, at Costco told me that this was fast enough to run Lightroom5 (LR). After looking at Mac's for a month, I knew that this machine would be able to handle LR. A guy at a camera shop said to get the PC as it had expandable parts, a Mac is a Mac is a Mac and it will stay the same as when you bought it - especially in the RAM department.....which is where LR lives.
So I go to install LR on the new laptop. Windows 8 Internet Explorer decides it doesn't like Adobe. I could click on the download LR for a month of Sundays and nothing would happen. So I had to set up a Homegroup and use my old lap top to download the file from Adobe and then I shared it with the new laptop. The old laptop has a DVD drove so it looks like I may have to copy other files this way.
This worked pretty well. But IE still did not appear to be acting right, even after I updated all of the drivers etc.
It finally came to a head the weekend before Christmas when Win* denied me permission to do stuff. I called HP and this must be a common problem as the tech deleted a pile of stuff and wham, Win8 actually looked like it could operate fast.
I went to install my Microsoft Office 2010 - no disk drive, so I go to Microsoft's site, no download.
I may copy the disk over from my laptop - this I haven't decided yet.
But I was feeling generous and the new MS Office 365 looked like it would work with a touchscreen computer and @ $10 a month what could go wrong?
Outlook, that's what. I have 4 exchange server emails. After setting them all up in Outlook it would not get the mail. I tested it by send 4 emails from one account to another account and Outlook did not receive one of them!
I called Microsoft....I got a person in the Philippines at Tech Support, the problem was easy - it was my computer. That was it, no further discussion allowed.
I rebooted as she must have been right, right. Still no emails.
I called Microsoft again. No sense having a subscription to Office 365 when one of the programs I would use 365 days a year didn't work.
I spoke to Carlo, a girl with a guy's name. First thing she did was correct my pronunciation of my name, she thought I pronounced it wrong. She asked for all my information. When I said that I wanted to cancel my subscription she asked if I called Tech Support. I told her I did. She then said I had to agree to two things before she could proceed. 1) to destroy and delete the office 365 program from my computer and 2) promise to never use them again. She had to repeat each statutory statement several times as she had problems pronouncing destroy and delete and many other words. I asked if I bought a Microsoft Office product and installed it on my computer whether that counted and she said yes. I could never install office again on my computer. I didn't think this was right, but English was not her strong point.
She then asked for all my information again...I drew the line at giving my whole credit card number. She then asked for my email address, even thought she had already asked for it twice. I gave it to her and she said she could not cancel my subscription until I answered the email.
We waited, and waited, and waited. After 10 minutes I asked if she sent the email. She said yes she had. I asked if I didn't get the email, would my subscription be cancelled. She said she needed the confirmation from the email. I am not sure what was in the email, but I am sure that after several times requesting information that she was sure she was speaking with the person who bought the product.
Finally I asked if the email was sent. She said yes, we have to wait for it. I was not confident she had sent one, or sent it to the right place. I asked to speak to her supervisor as she refused to confirm the subscription was cancelled. She refused. I asked for her last name or her operator number, she refused to give me either of those. I finally had to end the call after I told her that I was not confident she did what she was supposed to do.
Two days later there was still no email from Microsoft saying that the subscription was cancelled. I called Microsoft and got someone in North America. She understood my issue and offered to cancel the subscription. There was no swearing on the delete and destroy, there was no code I had to relay back to Microsoft, she had all the information. When she was done I told her about Carlo. She looked back in my account and said that no-one had accessed it since I had registered it. I asked about the last name or operator number, she said that was true. But she also made sure I got an email before the call ended.
I am not sure what went on, but there maybe some people spoofing a Microsoft Call Centre and collecting people's information.
I was in Calgary when that occurred. I let Microsoft have two days as it was Xmas. I went out shopping on Boxing Day and bought a 2 TB external hard drive as HP said I had to create backup disks...with no disk drive. I had fun formatting a partition on the external drive and then copying the recovery portion to it. You can only make one copy, so I bought a hard drive and a warranty plan. Oh, the Costco warranty is great, they double it and if you buy their $99 three year plan you get 5 years no questions asked on a laptop warranty. Apple can't touch that.
While driving around in Calgary the car made a funny noise in the front end. I checked the power steering fluid as the steering got tough. It was down, I went on the net and learned it could be one of three things...the fluid was the first thing, tightening a belt was the second thing and a bearing someplace in the front end was the third thing.
I finally got ATF4 at a Canadian Tire, no gas stations had it. Google said do not under any circumstances use STP Power Steering Fluid if your car says anything else. They were mostly from pissed off BMW owners...must be a n issue with them - power steering fluid usage.
So I put the fluid in and then I was headed off to the mountains to take some pictures. I was driving down Highway 1 headed West. The mountains appeared and everything appeared to be great. Then the nose came back, it was howling. At Lac des Arcs, just outside of Canmore, I decided to turn around. I wasn't going off into the bush with a steering issue in the Winter, especially since I was going up where there was no cell service.
I turned around and headed East. The car didn't make the noise if I drove under 100 kph, so I stayed below that speed. I was kind of a hazard at that speed, but most of the traffic was headed West to the mountains, not East. At Highway 22 I headed North, I figured i'd go on a road with a speed limit I can do, 100.
The wind was blowing me a bit on the road, but not too much. I got to Red Deer around 15:00 and I was standing in line for coffee at Starbucks and mentioned my issued with speed. I said I was kind of nervous as I had to drive in the speed zone from Red Deer to the Ponoka turnoff for 2A. Cars normally go 130+ in that area. He said I should be good as it was foggy North of Red Deer and most people were going slower.
He was right, it was foggy and people were going slower. North of Lacombe blowing snow was added to the fog. Just outside of Edmonton a blizzard had started.
If I did not have the noise in the front end I would have headed into the mountains and taken the David Thompson highway East to just North of Red Deer. I would have been 3-4 hours later than I was.
Just a couple of hours after I got to Edmonton the RCMP had advised no travel on Highway 2. I learned of semi's that were flipped over by the wind on Highway 22 - South of where I got on to it, but I did feel the wind. There were a lot of cars in the ditch that night - I am glad I got back to familiar territory when I did.
The noise never came back, the steering is still a bit stiff, but the whole front end doesn't feel like it is going to fall off, like it did at Lac des Arcs. I have an appointment with the mechanic.
Happy New Year - I have assumed a senior position in the Union at work, this looks like a lot of work. I think it was why I was considering MS Office.
This Lac des Arcs - I made sure I got one or two pics before headed East.
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