Just voted.

Just filled out my ballot. When it came to the Senate, I voted for Maria Cantwell. I remember watching Susan Hutchison on KIRO, and while I like campaigns with no personal attacks (take a fucking hint, Dino Rossi), I had to go with Maria Cantwell. Also as someone who has been in management at Mrs. Fields (meaning I had to personally cover when a co-worker was absent), I value attendance at the workplace, and Susan Hutchison was fired from KIRO over attendance…

I voted for Denny Heck.

I voted for Initiative 940. I saw an attack against it saying that it’s anti-police. It’s not the people being anti-police as much as the police are being anti-people. I’ve been stopped for walking on the sidewalk on Pacific Avenue (apparently violating double-secret probation) and I’ve had Pierce County Sheriff's Deputies try to gaslight me into admitting to stealing from a store that I’ve never set foot in. But wanting them to get trained in de-escalating dangerous situations and mental health crisis makes us anti-police….

I voted for the pollution initiative. Seriously, we need to do something about air quality when I have to take a sick day because of haze….

I voted for gun control initiative. I have no problem with people having guns for sporting and/or self defense. But you don’t need military grade assault weapons. The only people who really need military style weapons are SWAT officers and soldiers. Both of whom are in uniform and under discipline. While I have no problem with people owning guns, I am concerned with careless handling. If you own a gun, you have to keep it secured (preferably locked up in a safe)…

There were a couple of other initiatives, candidates and/or issues that I voted on, but will not be commenting here on it. Now to put my shoes on and go to the ballot drop box….

On Birthright Citizenship….

So, President Cheetos-Face wants to revoke birthright citizenship (basically if you’re born in the United States, you’re an automatic citizen) via executive order. Unfortunately, this principle comes from the first clause of the first section of the 14th amendment of the Constitution. It is the law of the land. It is in the Constitution. There is a way to amend the Constitution. But an executive order is not the way to do it. No, Cheetos-Face is not above the Constitution. Just because someone is of a different skin color, practices a different faith, has a different political opinion, or even just simply reports the truth (not you opinion of it) doesn’t deprive you of the protection of the law.

An executive order won’t cut the mustard. The Citizenship clause has been repeatedly upheld in the Supreme Court, and 33 other nations in fact have similar laws.

This boils down to President Cheetos-Face being racist. Not White Nationalist. But Racist.

Almost to where I left off….

After I went back to Windows 7 last week, only to realize it was two cables plugged into the wrong jacks, I decided this week to go back to Windows 10. It took a long while, as I had to factory reset my Tower (thank you for System Restore set). Then I had to install some patches, and download some Windows 8.1 apps that I could not download through Windows 10. Then there was the upgrade to Windows, and the patching, and downloading, and driver installation. And then there was the 1.3 TB of files that I needed to move over (thank goodness for a back-up drive). This time, I made sure that the TV tuners worked when I installed the programs. Now, I’ve restored my virtual machines (a lot easier to do this time than last time…), and Firefox. I’m not quite yet back to where I left off & it’ll be awhile before I play Flight Simulator again.

Once again, the next time I decide to tear apart my system and rebuild it, would someone please remind me what a PITA it is to put it back together again….

D’OH!

Ok, so I thought the latest Windows 10 update was terminally incompatible with my TV Tuner. So I put another version of Windows on the Tower. And then spent all night and most of today installing drivers and downloading updates. Then it came time to set up the TV tuner. And I had the same results as last night. Rebooted the cable box. Then on a hunch I pulled out my usb TV tuner and hooked it up to my laptop. I had a signal, since my laptop had TV. I thought my TV card was bad, so I ordered another USB TV tuner from Newegg (the exact same model I have for my laptop). Right after I placed to order for it, I decided on one last attempt at troubleshooting. My TV card has 2 coax inputs, one for TV and one for an fm radio antenna. Guess who had the cables reversed…

So long story short, I got my Tower’s tv tuner working, and I have a USB tuner on the way. I’ll just put it aside and use it as a spare….

A Deal Breaker….

So tonight, I was working on my Tower, looking forward to enjoying another session of Flight Simulator. But I went to turn on the TV Tuner application, and no image. This is kinda of a deal-breaker for me, so I went back to a previous version of Windows. Maybe later, but for now, I’d prefer an OS that’s a little bit more compatible with my hardware….

Went up to Mrs. Fields today…

Went up today to Mrs. Fields. Brought my laptop. It was my turn to buy lunch, so we had take-out from Red Robin. Then I had to update the price list (added a new cookie). Ran a couple of errands, and then cut my visit short to preserve my voice. Next time I go up, it’s the store owner’s turn to buy lunch…

Had it for a week or so….

Ok, the Windows 1809 update came out last week. It was installed on the laptop right away. Took about 4 hours to install, but it eventually finished. I didn’t have any of the issues that people are reporting with files being deleted (and since my primary back-up is a usb hard drive, I can avoid permanent data loss. Usually). After upgrading my laptop, I used the Media Creation Tool to prepare a thumb drive to install it on the Tower. Again there was no data loss issue on the tower, since I hadn’t yet restored my data. There a couple of improvements over previous versions that I like. Namely the your phone companion app. There’s something to be said about being able to check your text messages at the computer (and reply to them) while your phone is across the room. There’s also the no longer needing to explicitly give administrator permissions just to manually move something over to the ‘program files’ folder, or to place a shortcut in the start menu manually.

So far the only drawback was trying to get my virtual machines working. I use VMware Player. First I had to enable virtualization (took two tries on the BIOS screen). Then I had to disable device guard/Hyper-V (about a dozen reboots and too many PowerShell entries). But I got them to work, and I do not anticipate any further issues when I restore my games….

This update looks like a keeper…

Took the laptop on the bus today…

On my way to Mrs Fields on my day off. And I have my laptop with me. Along with my very rarely used USB modem. SO of course, I’m blogging on the bus. And as per tradiiton whenever I bring my laptop to Mrs. Fields, I’m going to get put to work. But hey, I need the cookies….

Ok, time to call it a night (or day…)

Ok, I’ve reinstalled all my hardware drivers. And my themes. And Firefox & Thunderbird. And some of the other various & sundry programs that I can’t live without, yet I never seem to use. And now I’ll let the computer copy over the TB and a third of stuff (yes I know I have too much crap). But it’s time to go to bed. And I have to get up early. So goodnight…

Strange….

Last Saturday, I decided to wipe my replacement tower (basically when I got it all I did was pull the hard drive from my other computer and just put it into this one, and it booted). Since my previous computer was a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion 500-214, and my new computer was a Hewlett Packard Pavilion 500-314, the hardware was sufficiently similar that I could get away with it. I decided to try using the system restore set from my previous computer to see if I could reset this computer. No, actually. It turns out that the system restore sets are actually matched to your system’s serial number. Anyway, a quick Google search revealed where I could get the system restore set, so I ordered it. For only $32.

So, it arrived today, and I went ahead and reset my tower to Windows 8.1. Basically to download all the Windows 8.1 apps that I’ve purchased, and will work on Windows 10, but I can’t download them from windows 10. Immediately after they were installed, I put the USB thumbdrive in (BTW, Windows 10, 1809 version came out today), and proceeded to install Windows 10. I had my product key ready (remember I overdrew my checking account buying a license for Windows 10 Pro last week). But I wasn’t prompted for it. After Windows 10 installed, it even let me upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. And it says it is activated via a digital license on my Microsoft account. So, basically, Microsoft still thinks that I have the same computer as before. So I apparently didn’t need to buy my Windows 10 Pro license last week. C’est la vie. I figure they’ll eventually catch on, and if and/or when they do, I’ll be ready. Until then, I’ll just hold on to this product key. It may come in handy later….

BTW, the 1809 update is out, and I’ve already installed it on my laptop. The one thing that I like about this one is the Your Phone app. I like being able to read my phone’s texts on my computer, and be able to text from my computer again….

The weekend begins. Again…

Just got home from work. My roommate (aka my brother) has left for his work. My weekend has begun, and I have the apartment all to myself. Not that I’m goint to do much. It’s been almost five years since my last drink, and I don’t see a reason to start again. So, I guess its just eat supper and go to bed…