Weekend Round-Up

I can't make this short. I wish I could.

Last Friday I got online to do our check-in for our spring break trip. Quick, right? I had to enter our passport numbers and expiration dates. Dan, bless his heart, had them scanned and saved to an on-line secure library so I could get the numbers. That's when I found out the kids' passports expired last month. After what seemed like hours on the phone to various government agencies, I found out the kids could get on the ship with a birth certificate and a "laminated government-issued identification card," a driver's license, by any other name. The MVA needs a birth certificate and proof of lawful presence in order to issue a state ID card. Lawful presence is established by means of a valid passport or a social security card. We lost Kevin's social security card in the move years ago. It takes 5 business days to get another card when applied for in person with proof of birth and legal residency, ie, a passport.

Through the State Department's phone system, I got the "next available" appointment at the passport office for expedited processing. Thursday at 9:00. And we depart on Friday.

OK, so that was last Friday.

Saturday, I already posted pictures from Kevin's Special Olympics Basketball tournament. Last year he participated in what they called "skills development." which consisted of dribbling, passing, and shooting baskets. This year they moved him up to a player development unified team. Two special needs athletes play with a regularly-abled player-coach. The team coach and the player-coaches help the special athletes learn to play basketball against another team. As Dan pointed out earlier in the season, it's hard to teach these kids to be aggressive and go for the ball, rebounding, and defense when they've been taught to share and be nice all their lives.

Our team really came along this season, going from losing their first game 0-20 to winning all five of their games Saturday. Some were very close, some were funny, all were exciting. I'm proud of my boy, he's really coming along.

Sunday, I worked at my guild's quilt show. When I arrived I rushed through the displays to find my quilt, you know, to make sure it was really there, and it had a ribbon on it already! I about fell on the floor. One of the vendor's chose it as their favorite.

My parents got to the show at about 2:30, just in time for the appraisal appointment I set up. The guild had Phyllis Twigg Hatcher come to the show this year to appraise quilts. I found the whole process fascinating. Since the quilt was hanging in the show, she asked me a lot of information first before we went in to see it. She asked me if I had a picture of it, she didn't know if she'd seen it or not. I told her she had, it had her vendor's choice ribbon on it. "Oh! That's yours!" After measuring it and quizzing me on fabric and techniques, she said the replacement value of the quilt was over $1500. I asked her why she chose my quilt for the ribbon. She said she liked that it wasn't ordinary, the colors flowed well and borders were nice.

During the show, all guests can submit a ballot of their favorite quilts in different categories. My quilt was in the Large Pieced category and it won first place for viewers' choice! I was so excited, I still can't believe I won.

Mom and Dad got to take the quilt with them at the end of the show. This is the quilt Mom says she'll be redecorating her bedroom around. I have to finish the pillow shams for her to match the quilt. One day.

In the mean time, I need to stop the mail and confirm with the house-sitter, and pack for the cruise. Did I lose enough weight to fit into summer clothes? I still have 3 more days.....


 

User ID and Password

I got a replacement iPhone recently, right before the warranty expired. For some reason when I synced it back to the computer, the passwords didn't get restored. I have three email accounts that I can read on my phone. Evidently, the passwords are all different and I cannot remember one of the three. I should probably keep a list of what I've tried so I won't continue to torture myself with old guesses.

A month or so ago our modem died and I set up the new one. Yeah, now it's password protected, so I can't use the wi-fi on my phone at home until I can remember that password. I have a program on my Palm-Pilot that stores passwords for times like this. Except I hadn't entered this one in the first place.

Yesterday I needed to log into my employee express page to print out W-2's because we're refinancing our house (how can you pass up 4.25%, right?). I couldn't remember my user name or my password. I even got the security questions wrong so they have to mail me the info, instead of being able to retrieve it online. I checked my Palm and in the case of the employee express page, I had it entered twice, each with a different ID.

I had to log into my bank's site so I could print out statements for the past three months for the refi. You guessed it, forgot the password. My Palm to the rescue. But it was no help since the password had been reset. It only works when you keep it up to date.

Why am I having so much trouble with passwords this week? I did have the current password stored in my Palm for AmEx so I could pay a bill online so all was not bad. I hope I never forget the password to the application on the Palm.






 

Oops

All of you unix/linux folks should have noticed I made a mistake in the cron job code. The 5 indicates Friday, not Thursday. So I changed it to a 4 and it worked fine. At least I think it worked. I got my copy but I haven't heard from the teachers yet.

0 12 * * 4 (echo "This is an automated weekly email to check how Fern is doing in your class this week.";echo;echo "Thanks,"; echo "Anne";)|/bin/mail ... list of teachers and myself ...