Where’s the water? It’s in the fax machine.

Gondolas in Venice

“We’re going to vote,” I told my three-year-old as we walked out the door.

We drove the mile to the nearest school and parked.

“Where’s the water?” she asked me.

“I don’t have any water,” I said.

“But where’s the water? There’s no boat.”

“No, not boat. VOTE. You’ll see.”

We went in and voted.

Next stop was Staples, a long overdue trip.

Last summer, while dusting some shelves, I knocked a small water globe onto our fax machine. This is one of the necessary pieces of office equipment for my husband’s process serving business.

While the perfumy smell of the water fill the room, I tried to rescue the machine from the ravages of the water and broken glass.

It was still able to send, but not receive or copy.

Due to a combination of my dislike of shopping and not wanting to spend the money on a new machine, we have gone for months receiving PDF files from clients via email in lieu of faxes. The problem with this is that my husband does not know how to use the computer. So every time he needs to retrieve a file, I need to be home, download the file, and print it out. Sometimes clients use a program that is incompatible with my computer, causing more frustration.

We also have a weird combination of programs that work on one computer and not another, and printer problems, which result in my having to email files from one computer to another in order to print out a simple document.

The other problem with faxing, which was present before the actual machine broke, was that I had to be home in order to manually switch the line to receive a fax.

All my problems related to faxing were solved today!

I found a display unit on clearance, as well as a machine that automatically switches to receive a fax, without requiring a second line.

Ah, freedom! Freedom from having to retrieve documents online, freedom from having to pick up business calls during the day, freedom from picking up the phone to hear the annoying BEEP BEEP BEEP of a fax machine.

It is so amazing what a simple piece of technology can do to change your life.

First week of Facebook for my pre-teen

It has become quite clear from listening to my twelve-year-old’s friends that just about every middle-schooler has a Facebook account. Most of my daughter’s friends are too impatient to use old-fashioned email.

I was hesitant about letting her have one until after having “friended” a few of my daughter’s real friends and seeing that this was actually a great way to keep a hand in your child’s social life. Was I going to be the only dinosaur that kept their daughter from socializing the way kids do it today?

She has demonstrated responsibility with the use of her email and computer time. Having skipped a grade, she is accustomed to acting more mature for her age. After she was invited to play in a 16-and-under softball tournament, I finally decided to let my twelve-year-old daughter turn thirteen in the cyber-world and have a Facebook account.

Rules include:
1. I set up the account with a password I can remember.
2. I am her “friend” and can see everything she posts.
3. No “friending” anyone she doesn’t actually know.
4. No “friending” any adult without my explicit permission.
5. No status updates that tell people too much personal information.
6. No mentioning of her siblings’ names.

After one week, the positives include:
1. Computer time is a great incentive to get her to clean her room.
2. I can see what kind of things her friends are talking about.
3. She and I can play online games together.
4. We can “chat” between floors without yelling.
5. I can forward her all kinds of information that she is more likely to read because it is in email format.
6. Her little sister, who is ten, has two years to show responsible use of the computer time to earn the privilege of her own Facebook account. In the meantime, she can maintain my “Farmville” for me.
7. It is easier for her to keep in contact with relatives and out-of-state friends.
8. I am happy to see how many friends my daughter has.

The negatives include:
1. Exposure to “text” acronyms threatens the development of English skills.
2. Computer time encroaches on reading time.
3. Status updates encourage the focus on “me” and attention-getting.

So the positives outweigh the negatives. This is the simplest decision-making-algorithm, which I was fortunate to learn early in life.

* Author's addendum:
My new third-person version of this article is published at Examiner.com
I offer some suggestions to alleviate the negatives:

1. Encourage the use of journaliing.
2. Encourage the regular sending of hand-written thank you notes and letters to older relatives.
3. Encourage community service outside the home.
4. Speak about your internet rules to the other adults in whose homes you child spends time.

With the proper precautions, you, the internet, and your pre-teen can all get along.

An Anniversary, a Birthday, and a New Computer

Jack Russell working on a notebook

It was a very busy, exciting weekend here at the Miller home. First, we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. Typically we celebrate by doing our normal day-to-day activity: working, softball, etc., even the mundane covered dish (lamb chops) for my husband’s dinner as he will still work his normal hours. We have a cake at the end of the day with candles.

Then we got to work preparing the house and yard (in between thunderstorms) for my three-year-old’s birthday party. When she woke up Sunday morning, I told her it was her birthday and her response was “CAKE!” She was happy when some little girls joined her in the pool, and I was happy to get the adults out of the air conditioning and two of them into the pool. It was a lovely day.

In between all this, I finally got to PC Richard to buy myself my anniversary present, a new laptop, my first new computer since 2001. I purchased it Saturday night after softball practice, put the box away, and kept up with my food preparations.

So I finally opened up the box after midnight on Sunday (technically, Monday). With a small school scissor, I gingerly sliced upon the sealing tape. I peeled back the protective clear plastic to reveal the shiny black casing of the computer. With great excitement, I popped open the laptop to reveal the 17-inch screen. I turned on the power and listened to the background music as the machine powered up. It asked me to create a name and password.

With finality, I typed in “Elizabeth-PC”. Yes, this one is all mine. No kids will use it as a CD or DVD player or for school work. This machine will contain my whole life: family, softball, home business, writing career, finances, educational. With “Phantom of the Opera” playing in my bedroom, I started up the recovery disk program. I had an old bath of DVDs and put in the first one. As it loaded up the backup files I paged through the manual.

A warning popped out at me just in time. Apparently you are not supposed to leave a laptop or the adaptor on a soft surface such as a bed. My sheets were red-hot. I propped up the machine and adaptor on some books and turned on The Honeymooners. Ralph Cramden decided to purchase a summer cottage, a great deal that went sour. Around 2 a.m. I was informed that there was an error verifying the files on the disk. I closed down to start again in the morning.

Monday morning I got a fresh start, with a new disk. We went to get my tires for my husband’s vehicle and came back to the same error message. I put a call into two friends who were more expert than me in computers; they were perplexed. Three times was a charm though, and after several more hours my disks were completed. (Later when I told our friend how old the disks were he said that probably explained it.)

So I’m up and running with the laptop, but still working on the old desktop while waiting for my wireless connection to be installed. Now back to Mavis Tire to get the tires on my minivan.