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isabelladangeloI got home and saw the CD for the desktop *finally* arrived. I had ordered Windows 98 (since I have the XP update cd, why bother spending $$$ on a newer OS when I can buy an outdated one for cheap and just update it?) and failed to realize the guy lived in Australia until I checked later. That was fine -the CD would still work- it would just take FOREVER to arrive.
When I got home, I also saw the second notice from Fedex on my door. They needed an actual signature or I could go to the store and pick it up "after 7:30 pm". It was about 6 pm when I got home so I looked at Ginsie and opted for the car ride out to Crofton. (Yes, the Fedex I went to is very close to the MD renn fest.)
Well, I found the fedex building quickly and decided to see if, by any chance, my package -which I knew was my laptop- was there. Nope. Turns out, it was one of the "late" guys that had my route. Great. The lady behind the desk told me that he'd be back at 8. I pointed out that they closed at 8. She promised that, as long as I was in the building at 8, they wouldn't kick me out. Fine.
Figuring that driving the 20 min home just to wait for, by that point, an hour, and drive back was relatively worthless, Ginsie and I found a far more preferable way to pass our time. Rita's! For those not in the Washington DC/Maryland area, Rita's is an outdoor Italian ice shop that also sells custards and other yummy summer treats. I love Rita's. Ginsie does too. She gets her own cone when we go.
So, I ended up with Cotton Candy Italian Ice and Ginsie had a lovely cup of Vanilla custard. (They do have dog cones! At the Rita's closest to me, a lot of owners bring their pups to get ice cream. It's a great way to help the pups cool down and get them use to begin around people and food. Plus, they get to have their own ice cream!) A lot of little kids were fascinated that Ginsie was eating the Custard since she really was going to town on her little cup. I think she got a brain freeze about half way through because she looked up at me with squinted eyes and licked her lips. It didn't take long to get back to her own little cup of custard though.
After having dessert, we went for dinner at the Chick-fil-A down the street. Hey, I have my priorities...besides, Rita's was closer. By the time I finished with all of that, it was 7:30 and I headed back to Fedex.
When I got there, a lot of the same people were still there! The two men that looked to be just hanging out and the woman with her three kids -including a crying newborn- were all still there. This time, a different cashier gave me a name for the driver and I just waited with everyone else. But, boy, what a show while I waited.
The woman with the three kids was entertaining. First, she was on her cell phone like it was a part of her ear. The newborn -poor kid!- was wrapped up in a blanket! It was 80 out for crying out loud! Of course the kid is crying! (Ginsie was safe. I had the sunroof down and the windows rolled down. I was in the shade and the sun was setting by that point. The car was still cool when I came back.) The 3 year old girl was constantly taking her shoes of and the boy -five or six- was being, well, a typical six year old boy and climbing on things and being whiny about wanting to go. I didn't blame him if they had been there since before I first got there at 6:30 pm. It was now about ten til 8 so, yeah, I'd be whining too.
So, this woman had two kids that aren't really running amok but they clearly are ansy and one crying newborn while she's on the phone. We weren't sure who she was on the phone too but she was bitching about not being able to get her package. She complained because the address on her license was different from the address the package was addressed to so they wouldn't release it. (Umm, duh! Identity theft anyone?) So, she finally, after nearly two hours, showed the manager both her license and her re-issued paper license (I've had one. They give you a paper license that goes with your pretty plastic license. The paper license has all the changes and tells whomever you show it too that it's valid with the plastic license.). The paper license, that she didn't show before, had the correct information and they gave the woman her package -while she was still complaining on the phone. When she left, everyone cheered.
One of the two men whom I noticed from earlier pointed out that, out of everyone, he felt bad for the baby. One of the cashiers stated that that woman had been rude to another customer when the customer asked her if she wouldn't mind taking her conversation outside. (The woman had been quite loud.) All of us waiting also found out that, not only was the woman's address incorrect on her license, so was her last name. Umm, yeah, because they are really going to release a package to you when neither the name nor the address match up. Really. Apparently, she had just gotten married -which is fine- but why she didn't show the paper license with all the correct data to begin with is beyond me.
So, the cashiers get to lock the doors at 8 and then some of the other weirdness starts happening. The lady cashier went to let one very lucky person out around 5 after. Well, a man was standing there -in full fishing gear. She told him that they were closed and to come back tomorrow. The man put his hand on the door to stop her and said "Oh really?" and reached into his pocket. Well, luckily, the lady was stronger and faster than this man and quickly closed the door. He apparently was trying to bribe her with $5 to open the door. Umm...not after that creepiness of trying to hold the door open!
I did get my computer and one of the gentlemen that had been there this entire time waiting for his packages made sure the creepy guy was gone before I went towards my car. Ginsie was fine and I got home, managed to get the wireless connection to work for the mini-netbook and then went to work on the desktop.
Note for the future and anyone else that ever tries this, do NOT put the Windows 98 boot disk in if you just want to Windows XP -a, it most likely won't work and b, this way is so much simpler. Put the windows XP update cd in you cd-rom drive. Wait until it gets to that blue screen that says to put a full version of Windows 95/NT/98/XP in. Put the Windows 98 CD in another drive if you have it (I have a feeling it would work if you only have one drive but I have two.) What it will do is it will take the necessary files off of the 98 cd and then just change the files it needs to so you end up with Windows XP in a one step process rather than two.
After I got it up, I realized I needed to hard connect it -rather than wirelessly- to the internet to get all the Windows XP updates so I could get the wireless internet to work. Since that would mean disconnecting the modem, I decided to wait on that until Sunday...which will be part of the Sunday report!
By the time I got everything to the point where it worked, I gave up and went to bed. It was about 11 at that time since I had been playing with the desktop for a while to get it to upload Windows. Next report, Saturday and the new Highland River Melees...along with the pink linen dress of which I know there is a photo of me somewhere wearing it.
When I got home, I also saw the second notice from Fedex on my door. They needed an actual signature or I could go to the store and pick it up "after 7:30 pm". It was about 6 pm when I got home so I looked at Ginsie and opted for the car ride out to Crofton. (Yes, the Fedex I went to is very close to the MD renn fest.)
Well, I found the fedex building quickly and decided to see if, by any chance, my package -which I knew was my laptop- was there. Nope. Turns out, it was one of the "late" guys that had my route. Great. The lady behind the desk told me that he'd be back at 8. I pointed out that they closed at 8. She promised that, as long as I was in the building at 8, they wouldn't kick me out. Fine.
Figuring that driving the 20 min home just to wait for, by that point, an hour, and drive back was relatively worthless, Ginsie and I found a far more preferable way to pass our time. Rita's! For those not in the Washington DC/Maryland area, Rita's is an outdoor Italian ice shop that also sells custards and other yummy summer treats. I love Rita's. Ginsie does too. She gets her own cone when we go.
So, I ended up with Cotton Candy Italian Ice and Ginsie had a lovely cup of Vanilla custard. (They do have dog cones! At the Rita's closest to me, a lot of owners bring their pups to get ice cream. It's a great way to help the pups cool down and get them use to begin around people and food. Plus, they get to have their own ice cream!) A lot of little kids were fascinated that Ginsie was eating the Custard since she really was going to town on her little cup. I think she got a brain freeze about half way through because she looked up at me with squinted eyes and licked her lips. It didn't take long to get back to her own little cup of custard though.
After having dessert, we went for dinner at the Chick-fil-A down the street. Hey, I have my priorities...besides, Rita's was closer. By the time I finished with all of that, it was 7:30 and I headed back to Fedex.
When I got there, a lot of the same people were still there! The two men that looked to be just hanging out and the woman with her three kids -including a crying newborn- were all still there. This time, a different cashier gave me a name for the driver and I just waited with everyone else. But, boy, what a show while I waited.
The woman with the three kids was entertaining. First, she was on her cell phone like it was a part of her ear. The newborn -poor kid!- was wrapped up in a blanket! It was 80 out for crying out loud! Of course the kid is crying! (Ginsie was safe. I had the sunroof down and the windows rolled down. I was in the shade and the sun was setting by that point. The car was still cool when I came back.) The 3 year old girl was constantly taking her shoes of and the boy -five or six- was being, well, a typical six year old boy and climbing on things and being whiny about wanting to go. I didn't blame him if they had been there since before I first got there at 6:30 pm. It was now about ten til 8 so, yeah, I'd be whining too.
So, this woman had two kids that aren't really running amok but they clearly are ansy and one crying newborn while she's on the phone. We weren't sure who she was on the phone too but she was bitching about not being able to get her package. She complained because the address on her license was different from the address the package was addressed to so they wouldn't release it. (Umm, duh! Identity theft anyone?) So, she finally, after nearly two hours, showed the manager both her license and her re-issued paper license (I've had one. They give you a paper license that goes with your pretty plastic license. The paper license has all the changes and tells whomever you show it too that it's valid with the plastic license.). The paper license, that she didn't show before, had the correct information and they gave the woman her package -while she was still complaining on the phone. When she left, everyone cheered.
One of the two men whom I noticed from earlier pointed out that, out of everyone, he felt bad for the baby. One of the cashiers stated that that woman had been rude to another customer when the customer asked her if she wouldn't mind taking her conversation outside. (The woman had been quite loud.) All of us waiting also found out that, not only was the woman's address incorrect on her license, so was her last name. Umm, yeah, because they are really going to release a package to you when neither the name nor the address match up. Really. Apparently, she had just gotten married -which is fine- but why she didn't show the paper license with all the correct data to begin with is beyond me.
So, the cashiers get to lock the doors at 8 and then some of the other weirdness starts happening. The lady cashier went to let one very lucky person out around 5 after. Well, a man was standing there -in full fishing gear. She told him that they were closed and to come back tomorrow. The man put his hand on the door to stop her and said "Oh really?" and reached into his pocket. Well, luckily, the lady was stronger and faster than this man and quickly closed the door. He apparently was trying to bribe her with $5 to open the door. Umm...not after that creepiness of trying to hold the door open!
I did get my computer and one of the gentlemen that had been there this entire time waiting for his packages made sure the creepy guy was gone before I went towards my car. Ginsie was fine and I got home, managed to get the wireless connection to work for the mini-netbook and then went to work on the desktop.
Note for the future and anyone else that ever tries this, do NOT put the Windows 98 boot disk in if you just want to Windows XP -a, it most likely won't work and b, this way is so much simpler. Put the windows XP update cd in you cd-rom drive. Wait until it gets to that blue screen that says to put a full version of Windows 95/NT/98/XP in. Put the Windows 98 CD in another drive if you have it (I have a feeling it would work if you only have one drive but I have two.) What it will do is it will take the necessary files off of the 98 cd and then just change the files it needs to so you end up with Windows XP in a one step process rather than two.
After I got it up, I realized I needed to hard connect it -rather than wirelessly- to the internet to get all the Windows XP updates so I could get the wireless internet to work. Since that would mean disconnecting the modem, I decided to wait on that until Sunday...which will be part of the Sunday report!
By the time I got everything to the point where it worked, I gave up and went to bed. It was about 11 at that time since I had been playing with the desktop for a while to get it to upload Windows. Next report, Saturday and the new Highland River Melees...along with the pink linen dress of which I know there is a photo of me somewhere wearing it.