Credit Where Credit is Due

  Because it happens so infrequently, I MUST give credit where credit is due:

   TODAY I experienced a genuine shining moment in customer service via a tech support person with American Family On-line.  As a skoshe of context I will tell you that we purchased an internet safety filter from them about a month or so ago and installed the filter on our "school" computer.  This weekend I finally tackled removing a different filter from our daughter's laptop (took way longer than necessary) and installing the AFO Firefilter.  Unfortunately something went awry in the installation, and as instructed, I called tech support; I left my phone number and a message, without much hope of hearing back from them.  I had not had a bad experience with AFO tech support, just with tech support in general.  Overall it's been about 75% bad vs. 25% good/excellent.  Early this evening I did receive a phone call from AFO tech support and within 10 minutes, at the most, everything was working!  

  Alongside of that glowing testimony in regard to their tech support, I must say that so far I am very pleased with their Firefilter.  Our kids do not complain nearly as often as they did about our other internet filter, although sometimes they are annoyed that they cannot access a web site when they try it once, and then it's accessible the next time they try to visit the site.  It seems great to me that this filter catches things on usually appropriate web sites and blocks the site as long as the objectionable material is there.  I do not believe that a filter alone is enough to protect our kids on-line, but I do appreciate a filter that does what I want it to do.

   A second recommendation:

  I've read it and am provoked; also reckoning on resultant transformation, I am.



  What recommendations do you have to offer these days? 


Minding the Minutia  


  March is rapidly running away to April.  Pondering spring weather's arrival amidst the 8 inches or so of late spring snow has germinated new goals:  run one more day plus add at least one day of brisk walking a week to my exercise therapy.  It also produced a remembrance of  uncompleted school preparation details.  Two revised assignment sheets and a weekly "to do list" later, and I am motivated and pleased with my progress.  

  A second play and our 2nd daughter's high school graduation loom large upon our spring landscape.  These relatively quiet days of early spring will give way to a torrent of events and activities as summer nears and then rushes over us.  In the midst of this future and all other minutia, because of who I am, I cannot at present see the breakthrough that I believe is coming.  I am asking for faith like Abraham when he believed God, despite his circumstances.  Though I cannot hear or see at present what it is that I "was made to do," I will continue to believe I will one day understand and will continue to do what is in front of me.  ~ Looking to Jesus for He is my peace. 
 
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Learning Curve

  This day has been FULL of computer time as a direct result of 45 gigabytes vanishing from our download allowance in less than 4 days time.  Mysteriously, no one knows how that happened, though the "when" is recorded on the Hughes Net Gen 4 web page.  Too late to track it down this time, I spent the morning and early afternoon learning how to password protect our wireless network and how to set the router to create logs of incoming and outgoing activity.  Armed with those pieces of information AND the personal IP addresses of each internet enabled device in our home, maybe a catastrophe of this nature will be avoided altogether in the near future.  Did I forget to mention that we have a mere 754 megabytes left of our download allowance, which will need to last for 4 more days?  Satellite internet is better than a dial-up connection, but not hugely better.

  Recently we decided to upgrade to the newest Hughes Net satellite package, which has been an improvement as long as our 2 collegians are not home for an extended period of time.  Despite the verbal parameters I have set for them (and all) in regard to not downloading or streaming ANYTHING, the d.a. seeps out consistently faster when THEY are in the house.  This I do not appreciate AT ALL!  I do not watch YouTube or other videos nor do I stream anything.  I take care to download updates and files larger than 70 meg during what Hughes Net calls the "bonus hours," 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.  While we are on that topic, according to my calculations, much of our downloaded bytes are happening during the bonus hours, but are being subtracted from the other hours.  Perhaps the new Gen 4 service is not fully functional as of yet.  I'd call and ask, but being on hold is annoying and wastes my time, plus the chances of talking with a non-native English speaking tech support person are more that 75%.  Getting the same unhelpful response to my specific questions after waiting on hold for said treatment FEELS like life being sucked out.

  In the midst of all of this electronic fussing, a familiar error message alerted me that my Hughes Net Status Meter had stopped working; this is a new joke I've had with Windows 7 for a couple of days now, though the meter stopped working correctly about 4 months ago.  Since that time and until after noon today, the status meter in my system tray cheerfully proclaimed that we had 100% of our download allowance for the month left.  I knew that couldn't be true, so I would check each day at the Hughes Net Gen 4 web page for the REAL amount remaining.  That's how I knew that we had 54% left on Sunday, but only 8% left today (so, I don't ALWAYS check daily; I thought with only 7 days left and more than half of our gigs left, we were in good shape).  I don't know what tipped off Windows 7 that there was a problem these past couple of days, but something did.  So I clicked and checked for a solution on-line and closed the program as suggested by the error message.  When I restarted my laptop many hours later, I discovered that my Hughes Net Status Meter is accurately reflecting the download allowance shown on the Hughes Net Gen 4 web page.  Bummer for me that it has to happen when things seem so "dire." 

  Much of this pricks at my justice wiring, because it feels unfair and unresolvable.  Surrendering at just the right moment, when it stops being my responsibility, has been easy today with this particular problem.  I hope that this revelation and application will travel from my head to my heart and bring about transformation.  


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A new twist on an old recipe

 Gloriously I took time to bake yesterday.  Had I thought about it more I probably wouldn't have done so because I should have dashed out earlier in the afternoon than I did to do my shopping trip a day ahead of schedule; winter weather impending today means I want to be at home.  Because of the February birthdays, I tend to bake less in terms of random sweets during the month.  Hooray that March has arrived!

 On my last outing to Aldi about a month ago, I purchased white chocolate chips, dried cranberries and walnuts with this new cookie variation in mind.  I used my stand-by oatmeal cookie recipe from "Eat Well for $50 a Week" and stirred the additions in with love and care.

I had my dear hubbie in mind when I first baked this delectable cookie; he absolutely LOVES them!

As for the winter weather, we are still awaiting signs of it at our house.  May this be winter's last hurrah!  Organizing my unexpected at-home day for maximum productivity and life is my next challenge.

Cracking on...


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