It Makes Me Happy
This always gives me a peaceful, easy feeling!
Three happy words, “No new mail!”
Archive for the ‘General’ Category.
Timothy F. Reynolds 1969 – 2019
A friend I haven’t seen in almost 20 years died last week.
Tim, your light of a smile and perennial cheer echo in my eyes and ears these nearly 20 years since our meeting. I miss you. You are with me, always.
Form Filler Help
Dear Lazyweb,
I fill out about 10 web-based time-sheets every day, taking notes on each of the clients I see with a clunky mix of clicking, tabbing, and copy-pasting. The website simply wasn’t built for easy data entry. Do you know of a program where I can write my data in a neat format, for instance, a spreadsheet, and then the program does all the ridiculous click-type-click-tab-type-typing for me?
We’re Moving!
Megan, Abigail, and I will be moving from our apartment in Berkeley to a much larger house in El Cerrito on January 2nd!
We’ve loved living here with the quiet street and long driveway (we’ll miss jumping in Avery’s Puddle when it rains!), the short walk to Monterey Market, and especially King Park. But we’ve been feeling growing pains in our apartment for a while.
Just ask and I’ll tell you our new address!
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all! All the presents under our tree! Abigail will wake to a wondrous sight!
Some tidbits worth remembering about this photo…
See the ice cubes in the base of the tree? That’s how we water it! We’ve been fostering a tree from Mount Shasta for the last 3 years. This is sadly the last year for our beloved Fiona. She’ll be planted in the spring to run and play with her friends.
Megan made the stockings! They are beautiful. There will be three but one is still just pinned together. The finished ones are just gorgeous!
The boxes behind the sliding glass door are part of our move! We’ll be moving to a new house at the beginning of January! Berkeley has been wonderful, hello El Cerrito!
There’s lots of wonderful presents for and from family under the tree. The bike is from Noni (my mom)! Thank you Noni!
Big Things Afoot
In the next few weeks we are planning on moving… twice! Three times if you count our vacation!
– We will be moving my mother-in-law Penelope from Napa to Albany.
– Then the three of us will take a little break to a snow park near Strawberry, California. This will be the first time Abigail has seen real snow!
– Then we are planning on moving to a bigger house just up the road!
All this before the end of holiday break!
Smokey Bay Area
Clean air tip: If the air is smokey, go to the hardware store and get a really good furnace filter. Your home will feel like a bubble of good air in an otherwise smokey mess. (The bay area forest fires are getting kinda crazy. We’re safe but the smoke is everywhere)
Removing the hazy film from your car windshield
I figured out how to get that awful film off the inside of my windshield! You know the stuff. Every window cleaner seems to work but then when it gets just a little foggy, the streaks show up, obscuring your view and looking all terrible. It’s simple: Use a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on the window!
It’s not expensive, it’s easy. It works. Problem solved!
Full instructions:
- Get a magic eraser pad, any brand will do
- Get the pad wet
- Rub gently back and forth, up and down on the windshield. Rub gently, it’s an abrasive!
- Clean the windshield with your favorite glass cleaner
- Triumph in joy!
Credit where it’s due: it was this video from ChrisFix on Youtube that showed me.
Cricket Wireless and Google Voice
If you use Cricket Wireless, you may have found, like me, that Cricket Visual Voicemail sucks. Here’s how to change to using Google Voice voicemail.
Step 1: Get free a Google Voice account with a new phone number
Step 2: Set up conditional call forwarding like so:
**004*[your google voice number]#
Step 3: Have someone call you and the call should be answered by your google voice. Rejoice in the non-suckyness!
You can disable this forwarding with #004#
You can read more about conditional call forwarding for GSM phones here
Update 11-6-19: On the Google Pixel 2, I was unable to use the **004* code. It threw an error. So I did what a few websites recommended: Put the SIM card into another phone, type in the code above, put the SIM card back in your phone. Done!
Why do I say the Cricket Visual Voicemail Android app sucks?
- I have to push most buttons twice for it to work (sounds crazy? it is!)
- When I start playing a voicemail, the first 3 seconds play and then it stops. Hitting play (twice) restarts it as long as I’ve waited the magically determined amount of time. It’s crazymaking like having a big piece of lint under one of my keys!
- It often doesn’t transcribe my messages
- I’ve had these exact same problems for 3 years and 2 phones