Green Choopy Proliferation

If you're still reading this blogger, I am impressed. I've been doing my blogging on MySpace, just because more people will have a chance to read my meaningless words. I call it "Not quite Green Choopy...", since it's not as cool of a website. It's not even green - I went with a Toxin color scheme (see links at left).

So if you found greenchoopy on blogger, find greenchoopy on myspace. Heck, you can even find greenchoopy on Ebay, and for whatever reason on a few dating sites. Green Choopy is taking over, I tell you. But there still is no greenchoopy email address... yet.

Surprise, I wrote a new post!

Dude, it's been so long since I posted here that I forgot my login password! Luckily I keep track of those things. It's been 7 months since my last post - which befitting my original prediction that this thing would be infrequently used certainly seems to fit that mold. So this is my first official Blogger with the new computer I've had for six months. Wow, what historical significance!

So here's the news... my new job is as an inclusion aide for a kid with some learning disabilities and some other stuff. I don't do very much, except sit around and guide her and check to see that she knows what's going on. Makes for unthrilling days, which soon will start to drag more, which will make for a very long year! Maybe it'll propel me into something even better come the year's end.

In other news... just as I caved in and did a Blogger (mostly just to test how I can customize one to my liking), I really caved and started a MySpace because I wanted to spy on friends I don't want to talk to, and needed to be "A MEMBER" to see some stuff. Phooey. I hate it! Yet I've spent 5 hours setting up my page. After last night when I signe dup I was planning on deleting it. Then I came across the function about looking for classmates from high school, and that kept me on - just in case Greg and June and Tricia and all those other people I was never super-close to decide they want to say hi to me. Yeah, right... Anayways, I'm certainly not going to give in to people's ugly themes. Some people have absolutely no sense of what a good website should look like. It needs to be readable! Go see if you can find mine if you're daring enough to waste your time doing that.

And finally... I've seen Gaelic Storm twice in the past two months. And the past couple mornings tunes have been in my head. Fun concert, good band, but they're no McCartney!

Casualties of Data Loss

First of all, let me say that this marks the official end of my "How to..." naming convention. It only goes so far, and it's time to move on to just doing the normal thing instead of having a weak uneffective gimmick. Well, technically the end was a month ago or so, when I write an entry only to have the page crash and lose it all. I haven't had the patience to write again since.

Which brings me to the present. My computer crashed a week ago. It turned on, Windows booted up, I go to click on a file on my desktop, and "click, click" goes the hard drive. Something seems to have slipped inside and with every restart it did less. After 6.5 years togtether, I have to declare it dead. My computer lasted me through college and well beyond, always hanging in there through a bad floppy drive, aging software versions (eh hem, AOL 5.0), random software problems, evil programs lodged inside, but it handled things well. It taught me a lot about remedying simple problems. Moreso it guided me into the webgod I am now, and of course entertained my creative side for probably thousands of hours.

Thankfully I had started backing up my files on the other computer. Started... as in not finished. I got the really important stuff, thankfully. That's all on CD now. But now it's time to log the dead: My address book. My random "storage" folder of files without a home. My recent updates saved for the Sinfonia database. 400 or so MP3s, though only a few were truly unique and will be difficult to replace. Many PSP files, including my stored shapes. My music compositions I wrote in college.

But the biggest losses: my copies of Excel and FrontPage 2000. That's hurting me the most already. Can't re-edit the database without finding a computer that has Excel, and I'm now coding websites by hand, which isn't fun but I can do it as long as they remain simple. I'd buy a new computer just to have Excel.

The next month will be spent trying to recreate what I can so when I decide to buy that new system, I just run a couple CDs and everything's the way I had it... almost.

How to get back on the internet

About a month ago I was shut out of the internet on my computer because of something going wrong with my dial-up networking. At least that's what AOL claimed after everything they tried failed. What is dial-up networking, and why do I have to reinstall it? And do I really need to call Dell? That's what I was thinking after getting done with AOL.

Dell was useless as my warranty expred long ago.

So I managed to find a Microsoft support page with a very complicated set of instructions with long lists of commands and file names I had to do stuff to in order to get my connection working. After viewing it once or twice over a couple of weeks, I decided that today was the day that I would give it a shot and hope to get my computer working!

After learning to create a .bat file and running that, I had to figure out how to extract the files I needed from the Windows 98 CD-ROM. In the process of doing that I realized that their procedure was stupid and that I could just drag and drop the necessary files into their proper folders. Then I found out I did too much with that .bat file, because Microsoft's labeling of "Windows 98" and "Windows 98 Second Edition" was not consistent on the support page, so I did stuff for 98 only that I shouldn't have done. Thankfully corrected that mess of renamed files.

Then, after I completed the reinstall, I discovered again that any AOL beyond 5.0 doesn't work on my computer. So here I am, online on my computer, running AOL 5.0, and I couldn't be happier.

How to remain unconvinced

It's been a while since I've written here, as my emplyment status has kept me otherwise occupied. I'm working in a band and orchestra store helping out with the rentals of instruments, a distant 25 miles away from home. Consistent emplyment is a good thing, but the fact that it's not a teaching job remains its downside. As a result, I continue to wait for the day when I leave this fairly steady employment so I can resume the inconsistency of substitute teaching. That will make me happier that I am in the present.

I remain unconvinced that anyone in this area wants to hire me, and I guess I can't blame them. I just don't have the answers they are looking to hear, all a result of not having had opportunities to experience situations and formulate a concept of how I would approach them. I'm still frustrated and ready to do whatever I need to do to pursue this career that I am not giving up on. Just a few more months until job fairs start - useless as they are. They will at least give me more chances to practice finding the answers that people want to hear.

How to get past the memories

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my car crash, in which after stopping at a stop sign (in a cornfield) I went through an intersection that didn't require cross traffic to stop. The result was a 360 degree spin that came after a big swerve to the left that caused our cars to meet at the front corners, but swung me around hard and also caused our backsides to meet. No one was hurt, but with my pulse way up I declined medical attention after the ambulance guys gave me a quick check. My friend who I was going to visit before heading down to Evansville, IN for a fraternity meeting came to pick me up from the scene after my car got towed away. The night was filled with panic and anger, and the worst pizza ever and "Into the Woods." Though the car drove home the next day, insurance declared it a total loss.

I planned to commemorate the occasion by staying home and not driving - why risk a second accident on the same day? Unfortunately that was not possible to do, because banks and cleaners won't wait for me until Sunday. Driving safety was on my mind all day, but I made it home with everyone and everything in one piece. I haven't thought about the accident in as much depth in many months, but it still seems very clear and very real. It's not something I look forward to having happen again.

How to temporarily sidetrack the future

The school year has begun for many, but this year I'm voluntarily postponing my educational calling in order to do some work that makes a bit of consistent money during this slow-for-subbing part of the year. So thanks to a fellow Brother, I've landed a temporary job at Quinlan and Fabish music in Burr Ridge, IL. That's 25 miles down the road - not exactly the greatest thing to have to do with gas prices, but I've taken it into account and it won't be a noticeable loss in the end.

The first week on the job is complete, and it was a tough one. I was thrown into it without the full breadth of knowledge I need to be comfortable. The result is I've botched a few customer calls, offended one to the point she hung up, and forced my co-workers to clean up some of the mess. The good news is that Friday went well, with no significant errors. It's a very repetitive process of taking instrument rental orders and processing them, so it's not terribly fun and can be quite time consuming. Sitting in that desk chair in front of a computer with the phone ringing non-stop (most of the time) is a different work environment than I'm used to being in.

Overall, I can't say it's a bad job. It's music, it's related to education, and it will last only to October. What more could I ask for for $12 and hour and no homework?