Monday Afternoon Roundup
I can’t get the lawnmower to start. I think I hit the primer too many times; it must be flooded. Plus, I am way more out of shape than I thought. Mowing is easy; I managed to mow a big yard out in St. Cloud, Minnesota, even while I was whacked-out on chemo, but starting the bugger is a new one on me. (The mower in St Cloud was electric).
Anyway, it’s Monday, and I’m in the thick of it all, knocking down today’s “To Do List” as fast as I can. My bike is being shipped via UPS tomorrow morning. That will change things.
The memory card in my camera really is all the way dead. Don’t worry, the world still has as many “real” photographers in it; I just get deprived of taking snapshots, etc. Bummer.
I did some research into this type of problem and the forums were rampant with bitched-out people discussing several older models of Canon’s PowerShot having memory card “issues” (is that the name? whatever, mine was included, and NO, I wasn’t bitched-out about it in the slightest, just curious is all), but people had workarounds (buying new cards, reformatting cards in PC-based software, etc).
On the higher level Canons, the company even went so far as to replace cameras after warranty expiration. So, we’ll see if a smaller, cheaper Canon card will work or not, at some point here. I think a new card will work fine, since the camera was totally trouble-free.
I did a lot of work on one of my clients’ web sites, over the weekend, and it is here: Joan’s web site.
My life, and my “To Do List”, is divided into sections now: Find Work, Get Web Business restarted bigtime, Play the “Game” as far as resources from County/State/Feds, and Health.
I am doing something about each “section” every day. “Finding Work” is mainly about a part-time job to get me into the real world, aka: The Big Blue Room. (You know … outdoors) and to get money coming in.
“Get Web Business” should be pretty easy to grasp. I have two companies; one to do technical editing (web/print, anything), and the other to do web hosting on my “cloud servers” in San Antonio. I was too ill to work or even focus my attention, for most of last year, so I did nothing except lose money the whole year, paying the overhead for the hosting business. My clients and I are using about 1% of the resources I pay for, so it’s in my interest, to say the least, to drum up a bit more biz.
The funny thing is this: In the old days a company or small business would have to rent/lease enough bandwidth on servers to cover the most “crowded” days of their month. So if a site drew 200 people a day, on 28 days of the month, say, and 20,000 hits on two other days per month, they would lease space to cover the “big” days, every day of the month.
My people can run no matter what, so that if someone’s site gets popular, they can move to a higher level, but if it only ramps up in hits or popularity on an infrequent basis, the bandwidth available will expand dynamically. meaning, no lost visitors while a server, or account, is upgraded. Nice. I researched the tech for 18 months, and then went for it. IBM, Google and a few others went for it shortly after I did. it was just a coincidence, but still … I’m just saying.
A call to my technical support people revealed that none of my web hosting clients had ever called my tech support people in all of last year. What does that tell you, regarding the level of quality on my servers? All of my people, whether they know it or not, had zero downtime.
I still haven’t even started building my own business-related web designing home page/site. Crazy, no? yes, it is, but like I said, I was out of it last year, and when I got the use of my brain back I decided to get my clients up to speed, and then to start on my site. And I won’t do work on my site until I have a weekend. During the week I’m concentrating on the other “sections” of this life.
So, the next “Section” is “Play the Game” which refers to things like subsidized bus passes, food stamps, and maybe even cash. I am still technically homeless. I’m sheltered by the grace of friends here, but there are limits, of course, and I am pretty edgy about needing some breaks, or better yet, results from all those accomplished “To Do List” tasks that I do. We shall see. But in the eyes of the State, according to my career counselor over at the Unemployment center, I am “homeless” and entitled to some sort of temporary aid.
Trust me, I’d rather do it myself. But I’ve been a believer, for a long time, in an old mariner’s rule: “Any port in a storm.”
The last section, “Health”, is pretty simple. I look like 20 pounds of shit in a 10 pound sack. My bike will help that, I hope. My bike will also cut down on transportation costs associated with the “Find Work” section. See how it all fits together, now?
I’m also toying with the idea of joining the YMCA. I was a member for a few years back in the last half of the Nineties, in Montréal, and it was a pain in the ass, but it really did the trick on me. They have some sort of reduced rates for losers temporary cases, too, so we’ll see.
Okay, that’s it. Roundup’s over, save for the fact that there are animals around. There are birds, of course, and squirrels in the yard, and it’s all good.