Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Stuff V - This Time, It's Personal

Yes, actually personal. It's really too early to talk about this, but it colors my life / our lives so much it's hard to avoid. We're expecting another baby in February, if all goes well.

My physical sense is that things are in fact going well so far, but at my age there is that 50/50 chance of miscarriage. Nevertheless, I believe that includes those really early miscarriages that people often don't even know they experienced. My mother and TheLimey's mother both had their last child at age 42, and it looks as though I will do that as well. All the baby stuff that I carefully saved and packed away from our first one? Still packed away, and in storage in Michigan. We won't be getting it out any time soon, either, so...crud.

We've had....discussions...about exactly what the expectation was when we packed all our things, with my understanding being that we would probably be getting it when we moved out of state, or maybe up to a year later (which would be now). His understanding was that we would never, ever get it back out. (Especially not my VHS tapes and cheap paperbacks collection.) Or at least not until we buy our own house, which could be several years. If I had thought it would be that long, there are a number of things I would definitely not have packed away. The cloth diapers and the Bebe Pod seat are the ones I most regret having to replace (although I also still feel pretty upset when I think of the only copy of my band's one video [on VHS, of course] weathering several broiling hot summers and freezing winters in an outdoor storage bin. Urrgh!)
Anyway!

TheLimey visits a hairdresser down the block who is American and also has an English husband, with a couple of young children. Yesterday he told her our news and it turns out that they are also expecting, maybe a month before us. So I will have someone to commiserate with this time. She has a very outgoing personality, which is completely different from mine, but nonetheless. Commiserate.

At any rate, TheLimey will be taking the husband to see Crystal Palace play a local team next month. I must find some mini Union Jacks for them to wave, or some such.
Meanwhile, now that I am done with that demanding postdoc, I am trying to get all my edits/graduation/licensure exam/licensure hours stuff done...hopefully before the baby comes out. 'Cause it sure ain't happenin' afterwards!

I expect that next year will be another year in which my focus is pretty much baby oriented. I've discovered that this is not because new parents have some sort of hormonal shift or stupid selfishness activation to only think about baby things, but because infant care is so intense and relentless, there isn't time or energy to even think about anything else. Anything!

Stuff IV

At night in bed I compose long rambling blog entries in my head, but they're usually gone by morning. Like now.

For Father's Day TheLimey received (basically) snacks, but ones that aren't widely available here. Twiglets, Marmite, the bizarrely misogynist Yorkie Bar, and something else I've already forgotten. Limelet and I managed to get to Britain's Best* only minutes before closing time, but it was enough time to grab what we needed. And in Limelet's case, to also grab a bunch of other stuff that I had to put back.

Limelet, of course, became instantly addicted to Twiglets, just like his parents. I actually was allowed a piece of the Yorkie Bar. Maybe it was a mistake.

*Apparently what is best about Britain is snack food, tea, porcelain trinkets, little flags, and smarmy celtic CDs.
**Unless that's a contraction instead of a possessive. Then the shop is proclaiming the superiority of the UK.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Canon Scanner and Vista

Unable to select twain source error message, how I hate thee.

If you're reading this, you either already know me and will be bored, or you're someone who is desperately searching for the same solutions I was searching for. You've probably already found the same forums and discussions I found, as well as the official Canon site where you can get some drivers and so forth. So this may not offer anything new (or good), except the understanding that I gained.

My husband (TheLimey) and I spent a cumulative 12 hours (6 each!) or so trying to find a way to get my beloved, beloved Canon Lide 35 scanner to work with our new laptop, which is running Vista (64-bit).

To get to the nub of the matter, it can't work. Canon has downloadable drivers that will work for my Lide 35 with 32-bit Vista. It has drivers that will work for 64-bit Vista with the Lides above 35. But no drivers that will work for the Lide 20 or 35 with 64-bit Vista. Dammit.

Even an emulator (virtual machine) won't work, because it's the hardware, not the software. Supposedly there is a guy out there who got the drivers for the Lide 60 to work with his 35, but I'm suspicious after all our research. (We certainly couldn't get that to fly.)

If only Canon would just write a new driver for use with 64-bit Vista, then everything would work fine! But they probably want me to buy something new instead. Forget it.

My husband initially said that he'd be willing to wipe everything and install the ol' XP, but he later reneged, citing its 32-bit-ness and how it will halve our resources (memory) to use it. Instead, we'll be installing XP on our old "backup" desktop and (hopefully) using that for the scanner base. We just have to get an old monitor somewheres.

Oh, and in case you're appending that path in your environment variables and are wondering--as I did--what's the difference between WINNT and Windows, WINNT is just an older-school variable for the same thing. Try both.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Pay less for luxury and qualitative watches.

Oh, if only I could actually find a qualitative watch. 
 
It wouldn't tell what time it is, but rather how things are going, generally speaking.

 
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ahmad Brunson
Date: Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Subject: Pay less for luxury and qualitative watches.

Our watches are as precious as the brand ones but they have a huge advantage – affordable prices for everybody. Who could think that it is possible to buy Dolce & Gabbana watch only for $219?

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Waving, Not Drowning

I will post again when this job is over.  I promise.  The end (allegedly May 31) just keeps getting delayed by one ridiculous thing after another.