Big Brother is Watching!

Technology is wonderful - and kind of creepy, too! Yesterday I went out to the new truck to get the OnStar phone set up. The vehicle comes with a phone built in that is activated through OnStar and you can either get prepaid minutes through them, or if you already have Verizon Wireless as your cell phone carrier (which we do), then you can just have the truck's phone number added to your current Verizon Wireless setup as an additional phone and share the minutes with your existing phones. Anyway, that's what I climbed in the truck to take care of yesterday. I got out the OnStar instruction book and began to read. First I needed to push the OnStar button to retrieve the truck's phone number. Simple enough. I pushed the button and a voice told me that all OnStar representatives were busy but that someone would be right with me. Almost before that sentence was finished, a perky voice came on and said, "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen! Congratulations on your new 2007 red Tahoe! What can I do for you this morning?" Whoa. I felt a little prickle of strangeness and it was a moment before I regained my composure to tell her what I wanted to do with the phone. Well, we got that taken care of and then she asked me for my email address. I gave that to her and she said that my first vehicle diagnostic checkup would be emailed to me within the next 48 hours. What? I asked what this was and she said, "Oh, we just run a diagnostic check on your vehicle every 30 days - you know, check the fluid levels, the brakes, airbags, engine and transmission just to let you know if there's anything that may be needing attention soon". Oh my. This was getting weirder. After finishing my call with the perky-voiced lady from OnStar, Andy and I set up the calling commands for the phone. That's where we said the number, said "home", "Karen", or whatever name corresponded with that phone number, and it was stored by that name. Now we can push the little phone button either on the steering wheel or the mirror and you just say "Call", and then the name and it will call that number. After Andy and I had finished entering in all the names and numbers, we decided to try it out. He pushed the button and said, "Karen". Almost as soon as we heard the phone start to ring, one of the gauges on the dash changed and now read "Calling.....410-474-......", and stayed that way until the call ended, and then went back to it's normal digital readout. We are still figuring out what this vehicle can do! Jerry has it mostly figured out, but I haven't spent too much time in it (this past week was the end of the pay period for both jobs, so I was mostly in front of the computer all week). Jerry discovered a button on the dash that gives you a readout of the tire pressure in each tire. Now if only it could drive itself.........

We went to Jerry's mom's house last Sunday and decided to try the navigation system. There is a screen on the console that either shows the radio information, a map when you use the navigation system, or when you are backing up it shows you a view of what is in back of you which then changes back when you put it back into Drive. We entered Jerry's mom's address and then left the driveway. Almost immediately a disembodied voice said, "Turn left in 2/10 of a mile". Then a little gauge showed up on the map that was going to show us when we had reached 2/10 of a mile. But we didn't need the gauge, because when we got to the end of the street when we needed to turn left, a little bell sounded twice and the disembodied voice commanded us to turn left. Things were going along just fine until we got about halfway to Jerry's mom's when the voice told us that we would be making the next left off of the main route. Huh? That didn't seem right . That would be taking us off of Route 2 to head in a different direction. We weren't sure where it planned on taking us, but we weren't going to find out. We ignored the voice and continued on our normal route, like stubborn children. Apparently the system behind the disembodied voice figured this out too, because it did a rapid recalculation and then adjusted itself to the route that the stubborn children had insisted on taking. We were half expecting to hear at the next turn, "Turn left - if you feel like it", but the voice maintained it's composure despite our ignoring it's earlier command.

Today I received an email with our first diagnostic check. It told me how many miles the truck had on it, the amount of miles the oil had left before it would need a change, the condition of the engine and transmission, the condition of the brakes and airbags, the information about our OnStar service, our telephone number and information about our Verizon Wireless plan, the status of our satellite radio subscription and when that expired (along with a link that you could click for "one-click renewal" - how convenient), the VIN number of our truck, and a little picture of a truck. But alas, even though the little picture of the truck beside our diagnostic report was indeed a 2007 Chevy Tahoe, the one in the picture was gold - not red. I guess there are some things that it can't do!

The Art of the Deal

We have been very busy and I haven't blogged in a while. We spent a lot of time looking online and comparing prices on vehicles before we made the decision whether to get another one or not. I mentioned in a previous post that it was a want-versus-need thing - well, the "want" won out! We did a lot of internet shopping - getting quotes from dealerships all around, and once we got the best price we could find, Jerry bargained with them for three more days before finalizing the deal. He's a shrewd shopper! He and the salesman went back and forth with figures and deals and on the last day they were dealing back and forth over the telephone with calls going back and forth with offers and counteroffers! The good part about it was that we weren't desperate for the new vehicle, and so we had already decided that, good as the price might have been, we would walk away and keep our old Tahoe if we didn't get what we felt was fair for our trade. That's why the dealing took so long. Anyway, we were happy with the way things turned out. Now watching Jerry deal with the real estate people when we're ready to buy in WV should definitely be interesting!

We have also been busy getting Tom's stuff in order. There is a LOT of paperwork that needs to be done for college, and we aren't finished yet.

Andy's school work is going well, but it's a little difficult. This particular curriculum is a little advanced and we find ourselves having to go back to pick up on things that we missed with the previous curriculum in order to make sense of what we're doing now!

Today is our 24th anniversary, but we're really not doing anything noteworthy. Jerry worked on the basement (finishing drywall and painting), Andy did schoolwork, Tom worked on the website he's doing, and I worked (what else?!) Maybe next year for our 25th we'll do something special, but the simple things we did today with everyone here, then sharing a big lunch together, was just fine with me .

I'll try to blog a little more consistently as it seems like things are slowing down a little around here!

Before.....

.....and after!

More Snow!

Yessss!! More snow! I was convinced that we had seen the last of the snow this winter, but what a nice surprise! As usual, Andy and I had a snowball fight, and had a nice walk through the woods. After we were soaked and half frozen, we came inside and made homemade hot chocolate and molasses snow candy. The hot chocolate was delicious. The candy was, well, sticky! We have been making the candy for a couple of years now, and you'd think we'd get the hang of it! To make it, you boil molasses and brown sugar until it gets to the hard ball candy stage. Then you fill a cake pan with snow and pour the candy syrup in ribbons on top of the snow. It hardens almost immediately. Then you just lift it off of the snow and it's hard candy. I think we should have boiled it a bit longer, though. Oh, well. We had fun!

This has been a busy week - busy physically and mentally. Jerry and I visited a car dealership this week. And fell in love with a vehicle. Now the whole want-versus-need thing is rearing it's ugly head! Also knowing that we need to definitely finish the house so we can list it, and find a place in WV.......I've had a lot on my mind this past week. Sometimes it seems overwhelming. It's one thing to have a plan in mind, and quite another to actually start implementing it.

I just finished a book trilogy that is very good. The books are by Lynn Austin and are the Refiner's Fire series. They are set in Civil War times. One book is written from the perspective of a woman who lives in the south, yet has relatives in the north, and personally opposes slavery. She eventually becomes a spy for the north. The second book is written from the north's perspective, about a woman who gets involved in nursing against her family's wishes and a woman who disguises herself as a man so she can fight like her brothers. Eventually the two women cross paths and impact each other's lives. The third book is written from the perspective of two slaves. One is a girl who is seriously mistreated at the hands of her mistress, but doesn't see it as such and doesn't believe her life can be any different. One is a boy who was sold at the age of 9 and was bought by an abusive slave trader. He had a horrible life, but knew it and was angry. Eventually these two also cross paths. These three books seriously cut into my blogging time! But they are very, very good books.

Well, now I'd better go do something constructive - so many things to do and I truly don't feel like doing any of them..........!

Nothing New Here!

I haven't posted in a while but there's really nothing new going on around here. Andy got his new curriculum for the computer and has been using it this week. So far he seems to like it. I really like it! It let us choose the dates for the school year and then broke his assignments up accordingly for the year on a lesson planner. Each day when Andy signs on, his lessons for that day are in front of him. The teacher portion is on my computer and the student portion on his. When I sign on, I see a list of all his subjects and a running grade average beside each. He has switched to Spanish for his foreign language. At the beginning of the year when he chose Japanese, I showed him that the language course he chose was a high school course - it said "for grade 9 through 12" on it! He said that he wanted to try it anyway, and I thought he did very well with it. It started getting a little hairy of late, though. When he needed to choose a language to go with his computer curriculum, he chose Spanish because they didn't offer Japanese. Well, he can speak a little Japanese, anyway, and now I guess he'll speak Spanish too.

Well, not much more is happening around here, so there's not much to type for today. Oh, I'm sure I'll make up for it and write a novel in the near future!

Busy Day!

Today we had to go back to Tom's school for him to take his placement exam. The test started at 10:00 AM and we were told that it would take about two hours. We also had an appointment to meet with the finance office at 1:00. Since we figured we had some time while Tom was taking his test, we decided to take the Metro and explore until it was time for our appointment at 1:00. Jerry, Tom and Andy have never ridden the Metro before and I thought it would be fun to see what we could see! The Rosslyn station is right across the street from Tom's school so it was very convenient.

The Smithsonian was pretty close so we thought we would go there. Andy did not like the escalator ride down to the track level at all. We had just gotten off the Metro at the Smithsonian station, reached street level again and were deciding which direction to go in first when my phone rang. It was Tom - he was finished his test. It was exactly 10:40. I had already bought him a Metro pass because when we first arrived we were a little early for his test so I thought we could get the farecard-buying out of the way. We had planned to do a little riding and sightseeing after our appointment, so we all had a pass. Anyway, we told Tom to ride the Metro to the Smithsonian stop and we would meet him there. There are two exits out of the Smithsonian station. We had taken the Independence Avenue exit and told him we would wait for him there. After a few minutes Jerry's phone rang. Tom said, "I'm at the Smithsonian stop. I'm looking at the monument. Where are you guys?" We looked around - we couldn't see the monument from where we were standing - it turns out he took the Mall exit - not the Independence Avenue exit. We told him to stay put and we would meet him. We finally met him on the Mall, so we got a great view of the capitol and the monument.

We didn't have too much time so we decided to head toward the Natural History museum. We were all getting hungry so we had decided that we were going to try to find something to eat in the vicinity. We saw that the museum had a food court so we decided to have lunch there. What a HUGE mistake. It's a buffet-type food court, so we walked around and picked out what we wanted and met back up at the checkout line to pay. Here's what we got - Jerry and I each got a slice of pizza and a Coke. Tom got a sub - not a whole sub, mind you, but a slice of a sub. He also got a small paper cup full of french fries and a Coke. Andy got two chicken tenders, a small paper cup of french fries and a Coke. Not much food, right? The lady rang it up and calmly said, "$42.50, please". I immediately gave away our tourist/Southern Maryland/not-citified-in-any-way status when I exclaimed "OHMYGOODNESS!!" rather loudly. I was embarrassed afterwards, but I truly was shocked at that price! I told everyone not to eat their food, but to frame it as a souvenir. Well, by the time we ate we didn't have hardly any time left, so we decided we'd better head back to the Metro station. So - we went to the Museum of Natural History - to eat. We decided that we definitely want to go back, though, on a day when we don't have any other appointments and just explore, but we'll brown-bag it!

Shortly after we arrived this morning and were waiting in the school lobby for Tom to be called for his test, Jerry's phone rang. It was his brother, Johnny, informing Jerry that their mom had been in a car accident. She and two friends were traveling together when they had the accident. Jerry's mom and one of the ladies was okay but the paramedics decided that they were going to take the third lady to the hospital to be checked out because her chest was hurting her. It turned out that they released her and that everyone was okay except for some bumps and bruises. Jerry's mom had been driving but not in her car. She was driving the car of one of the friends. She told Jerry later this afternoon that she has a small cut on the bridge of her nose where her glasses hit her when the airbag deployed and some small burns on her arm from that. She said she was a little shaken but okay. She said she's not sure that she wants to drive anytime soon, though! Apparently it was the opinion of the police that both cars involved were totaled. There were two people in the other vehicle. The man driving wasn't hurt at all and his female passenger just had a broken finger. Everyone was very fortunate.

Well, I am very tired and have stuff to do, so enough of this novel for today!

The escalator in the Rosslyn Metro station is very long and steep. My picture is a little dark but you can see people on it and get an idea how very long and steep it really is. Andy did NOT like this one bit and really wished he had an alternative! To be honest, I didn't care much for it myself.

It wouldn't be Washington, D.C. without the pigeons, would it?!

The staircase inside the Museum of Natural History.

Andy was impressed by the monument.

Andy thought the Metro station was okay, but was a little nervous about the whole underground thing!

We saw the capitol building.

The Smithsonian castle.

Andy's first Metro ride!

Looking down the track waiting for our carriage to arrive!

Tom's school again - Art Institute of Washington.

This is the very large building that is reflected in the glass of Tom's school building. I have no idea what it is, but it's very tall!

Here is the building of Tom's school.

Here is the studio of WJLA, channel 7.