Vacation and Technology

       Right now, my internet connection is being a jerk along with this huge computer update. It was decided that we needed to switch to Windows 11 since apparently Windows 10 won't be supported too much longer. So it's been a rough few days trying to get things to work let alone properly. Having a hard time trying to upload pictures to stick on here but I am not going to worry about that right this second. Then I am trying to get used to the Samsung Galaxy update and I am not liking it too much. I just don't like slow internet along with system updates. I am just sick and tired of things getting "timed out".

     So far I am day 6 of my first vacation of the year. Yesterday was my mother's birthday and we went out to dinner. Wednesday was marked by one doctor's appointment and I had another one today. But I did manage to go to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. This was the first time that I have been in there since before the pandemic. It took them 4 years to remodel the whole thing. It looks nice enough but there seems to be less stuff on display. No Balto display, no shrunken head display and there seemed to be much less. But then again, I didn't spend a whole lot of time there. There were too many schools trying to get one last field trip in before summer vacation. It seemed that nobody was paying a whole lot of attention to these kids and I was constantly tripping over groups of 10 year olds with no situational awareness. I am hoping that I will be able to go back with far fewer people and more time on my hands. That pesky doctor's appointment said that I couldn't spend a whole lot of time there. In a way, I was a little more hoping that I would go to the art museum and I think that it might have been a little quieter with less kids running around. With every field trip that I ever took as a kid, nobody was turned loose, we all had to stay with our group. Maybe standards have been relaxed.

     Right now, I seem to be beefing with Ulta right now. A couple years ago, I had ordered a bigger bottle of Chanel no 5 edp or Eau Premiere and was sent some kind of celebrity scent. I was not thrilled with that one and it was a massive pain in the ass to fix. And I thought that that was going to be a simple mistake. A month ago I had placed an order and when it showed up, I was missing a couple lip liners and I just decided that I was just going to be refunded. I just didn't want the hassle. On Sunday, I had placed an order for smaller bottle of Coco Mademoiselle Intense and some Lush bath and body stuff and paid with a good chunk of points that I have accumulated. When I got my order, I was a little surprised to find that I was missing the Rose Jam body wash and somehow ended up with a purple eyeliner. I was a whole lot less amused this time around. I don't wear eyeliner and if I did, it wouldn't purple and it was a NYX eyeliner. Since when does a NYX eyeliner cost a shade over $12? And how can one confuse eyeliner and bodywash? For a while the Ulta reps couldn't find my order and when they did, I had said that I have been a loyal customer for 8 years and I have noticed a decline in getting what I have ordered and when I get it. I hate complaining about stuff like this but when these mistakes are becoming more frequent, I think that this is a training problem. And the training problem rests at the feet of corporate suits as I always think it does and some of the blame rests at the manager's feet. I had the choice of either getting my points back or they send me the bottle of Rose Jam and I chose the Rose Jam. After all is said and done, I still have $80 in rewards points but I will wait for when Ulta has a really good point multiplier going on before I go and make another order since I will probably need more lotion and face cream.

The Height of Depravity

I'm typing this on my Kindle, so forgive any kind of spelling mistakes and punctuation errors. Ever since tablets and all the ilk became affordable, along with wi-fi being pretty cheap, I really don't use my computer anymore. Well, not a whole lot. I mainly gave up on owning a computer and having an iPod.

The reason I gave up on iPods is that I am not exactly happy with Apple. For the longest time, iPods were fairly cheap and when the battery wouldn't hold a charge for more than 5 minutes, it seemed to be a whole lot cheaper just to buy a new iPod than replace the battery. Well, now that my beloved Nano's battery gave up the ghost, they're charging $100 or more to replace a stinking battery and discontinued all of the iPods except the Touch. I have got to be the only one that sees the Touch for what it is, an iPhone without the phone. How much longer before they drop the Touch? I'd rather keep my music and phone separate and wish that Apple would quit jamming the iPhone down my throat and keep at least the Nano or Shuffle but give the Shuffle a little more space for music.

What I mean by the height of depravity is that since I am not so hindered by dial up or wires, I can surf the internet, blog, read, or watch TV from my Kindle. The bathroom, the kitchen, outside, the doctors office, wherever. The only time I am hindered is when my battery is low or dead, then I need a wire.

There Are Days

I've never quite understood the appeal of Apple computers nor the iPhone but I will admit to loving iPods. Thus far, I've had 2 iPod Classics, what is probably the first generation Shuffle, the current version of the Shuffle and now an iPod Nano. As of now, I am arguing with my computer, iTunes, and trying to get this Nano to work. This is the first time that I have ever had an issue with setting up an iPod. My computer was finding the new iPod but iTunes was not. Then it hit me, instead of installing and then reinstalling iTunes, why not see if there are up dates. Sure enough there were and I downloaded the upgrades and I was able to sync everything up. After figuring all that stuff out, I was too tired to take a real good look at how the Nano itself worked. Hey, after working 8 hours and then spending 2 hours trying to figure out how to deal with iTunes, I just wasn't exactly willing to stay up until 3 in the morning to test drive this thing.

Now I have had this iPod up and running for a few days now and have been listening to it. I am having a difficult time trying to get this thing synced to my computer. I am not understanding why after all of the aggravation of setting this thing up, my computer will not recognize the Nano. My computer is telling me that the USB is malfunctioning. After spending $150 and after working on iTunes for two hours, I'm more than a little irate that this is going on.

Apple Shuffle 2G, Fourth Generation

I'm a little bit weary of blogging about perfume and it's time to take a short break from it. A few posts back, I posted about traveling with perfume but was thinking about a new iPod. It was not really to replace my iPod Classic but to buy a little more time before I have to replace the battery on my Classic. I've had my iPod Classic for about 3 years now and finally the battery is dying. And during my little weekend trip, I was not about to keep charging the thing after 15 or 20 minutes of use. And I didn't feel comfortable carrying around a $250 iPod with me in the city. So the iPod Shuffle was the way to go for me. And the price on Amazon was right.

After being used to 160 gigs of space, it was difficult on trying to fit what I wanted on the Shuffle with only 2 gigs of space. After filling my Shuffle almost to the max, I have a little over 200 songs on it. What's great is that I can keep changing the songs. One feature that I have discovered is the voice over. Voice Over is a little button that one presses to hear the song title and the artist. For some reason, I am tickled over it.

When Apple started making iPods, your choice of colors were either black or silver. Now, there are many colors to chose from. I liked the look of the green Shuffle and it was a bright color and something I could easily find in my purse. Having all kinds of different colors to chose from is a nice feature but not a very important one to me. The earphones that come with the Shuffle are utter crap in my point of view but finding a better set of earphones, cheaply, are easy to find. For the price that one pays for what one is getting, this is a good deal.

iPods and Montale Jasmin Full Review

For maybe the past 6 or 7 years, the only Apple product I have had is an iPod. It all started when the first iPod Shuffle came out. I had quickly outgrew the Shuffle because at that time there was only 1 gig of space. Then I went to the iPod classic when I could only get one with 80 gigs of space. When I got the 160 gig Classic, my dad inherited my old 80 gig Classic because it was a lot better than using it as a paperweight and he could use it for those long plane rides. Now after constant use, my current iPod needs a new battery. After poking around the Apple website, it would run me about $60 and I am not sure how much labor would cost. It always seems like one has to pay an arm and a leg for labor on top of the cost of whatever you are replacing. Since next weekend, I will be traveling and have a busy week before then, I do not have time to go out of my way to an Apple store or ship it in through the mail, I ordered the latest iPod Shuffle. It maybe only 2 gigs but I'm not really sure how much I am going to be listening to music or watching any kind of video, so it suits my needs for a weekend trip.

I'm still kind of on a jasmine kick and have branched out. By branching out, I mean that I am trying other jasmine dominant perfumes and not quite as hyper focused on Sarrasins or A La Nuit.That has led me to trying Jasmin Full by Montale. Jasmin Full is very different from Sarrasins and A La Nuit. Jasmin Full is a bright jasmine. A La Nuit, Sarrasins, and Bath and Body Works' Midnight Blooming Jasmine were heavy and dense. Besides getting a whopping dose of jasmine, there is a huge orange blossom note. Both jasmine and orange blossom are heavy on indoles, I do not get the fecal element like I do with Sarrasins. Lasting power is about average for an EDP on my skin. For the life of me cannot decide if I like this or not. So getting a bottle or keeping a decant around it up in the air.

Not Buying The Hype

Am I the only one who hasn't bought into the hype about Apple products? Every time I turn around, everyone is talking about the newest iPhone, iPad, Macbook or whatever is being released from Apple. My one friend has just gotten in the past two months, an iPhone and now his mother has gotten one. After playing with his phone, I am not impressed. The said friend was moaning about how he should have waited to upgrade his phone because he wants the iPhone 5. A family member has an iPad and loves it. I'm not a huge tech head and have set foot in an Apple store to see what the fuss was about. The only fuss I have ever made about Apple is with an iPod, the only Apple product that I own. And my iPod is 3 years old and now is in need of a new battery.

Cellphones

Yesterday, I had renewed my contract with T-Mobile and had ordered new phones for my parents and I. Wirefly.com and the T-Mobile website offer many smart phones and Android phones for free but one must pay for the dumb phones. Needless to say, my mother was none to happy that I had to spend money on two dumb phones. It's not like two years ago that you could get a basic phone for free and had to pay for a smart phone. Now it is hard to find a free dumb phone but easy to find a low cost dumb phone. Five or six years ago, everyone was excited over the Motorola Razr but now it's the Android phones and the iPhone. Cell phone companies seem to be pushing the Android phones and getting rid of the dumb phones. Which makes me believe that in the next two years, there will not be any kind of dumb phone to speak of and my parents will be forced to make a choice. Either get a smart phone, cancel thier cell phone plan and live without cell phones, or get a pay as you go cell phone (if they are still around). I am not opposed to getting an Android phone but I am not thrilled about paying extra for a data plan. But I did want to try out having an Android phone.

Cellphones

Even though I do have a cellphone myself, I don't get them at all. A lot of people seem to spend way too much time on them. Even looking around the grocery store, people are just gabbing away about nothing and not paying attention. So many times I have seen thier kids running around messing up displays while thier parents are too busy talking on that damn cellphone. People are just too connected. I have a cellphone for emergencies and use it for pretty much that. Sometimes my parents call me to tell me something important but I barely use maybe a 100 minutes a month.