Demob happy teacher

Caught in the Apple web

Keith has fixed the other Apple Macbook and then spent the whole of yesterday evening playing with it. He has loaded all his information, music etc on it, set up iCloud and linked to his iPhone.

Of course, he doesn't really have an iPhone or an Apple Macbook...

He's just testing them.

Of course he is...

For Christmas, I was very, very lucky. Father Christmas, aka Keith, bought me a lovely new iPad, then Elder Daughter was upgrading her phone to an iPhone 5 and passed on her iPhone 4 to me and I was hooked on Apple.

Because the phone had a cracked screen, Keith set to and replaced it and there began a new string to his bow - buying non-working iPhones and repairing them to re-sell. It was but a small effort for me to direct his eyes to non-working Apple laptops and, before we knew it, we had taken delivery of a poorly Macbook and a Macbook Pro.

Now the Macbook Pro was a bargain, sold as having a non-working DVD/CD writer but otherwise in great condition and with a 500 Gb hard drive. I pounced on it as soon as it arrived and soon had it up and running with all my stuff on it. Useless for Keith to protest that it was to be repaired and sold on. Forget it!

The operating system was Snow Leopard, which apparently could be upgraded to Mountain Lion. Yes, I realise all you Windows users out there are probably scratching your heads by now, but stay with me. The previous owner had wiped all his personal stuff off but it took a long time to boot up and I couldn't access iCloud, although I could with Mountain Lion OS, so I bought and downloaded Mountain Lion and proceeded to install it. Simple, right?

WRONG! After 5 hours of frustration and angst, I was between a rock and a hard place and the only way out was to reboot it with the disc that had come with it - which was an earlier OS, so now I didn't even have access to Apple Appstore. Could I do a clean install of Mountain Lion, I wondered and went online to find out.

YES ....Oh, but only if you already have Snow Leopard. Grrrrr!

Snow Leopard could not be downloaded, but had to be ordered and delivered by snail mail, so I rang Apple and spoke to a very nice man.

"I have tried to install Mountain Lion and it's impossible!" I said.

He reacted as if I had kicked his pet dog.

"Oh no, it really isn't!" he protested.

The Snow Leopard disc arrived the following day - great service!

I installed it and the associated updates with no problems and was now back to where I had been before my eyes had fallen on the dreaded Mountain Lion.

Should I?

"Go on, do it!" said Keith, so I did.

It went on like a dream!

So, should the man on the phone be among the millions of people who will undoubtedly be reading this, you were right and thank you, Apple for great service!

Oh and the best bit? Somewhere in the house of the previous owner, there is a small child who inserted a penny into the CD/DVD writer and then watched as his father wondered why it no longer worked.

It works fine now!

Success!

As of today, this young lady is now a consultant in Care of the Elderly!

(And she will probably be none too happy that I have posted this photo...)

Nice one from TK

Getting Married Jack, age 92, and Gill, age 89,
are all excited about their decision to get married.
They go for a stroll to discuss the wedding and
on the way they pass a chemist shop and Jack
suggests they go in.
Jack addresses the man behind the counter:
"Are you the owner?"
The pharmacist answers, "Yes."
Jack: "We're about to get married.
Do you sell heart medication?"
Pharmacist: "Of course we do."
Jack: "How about medicine for circulation?"
Pharmacist: "All kinds"
Jack: "Medicine for rheumatism?"
Pharmacist: "Definitely."
Jack: "How about suppositories?"
Pharmacist: "Yes"
Jack: "Medicine for memory problems, arthritis, and Alzheimer's?"
Pharmacist: "Yes, a large variety. The works."
Jack: "What about vitamins, sleeping pills, antidotes for Parkinson's disease?"
Pharmacist: "Absolutely."
Jack: "Everything for heartburn and indigestion?"
Pharmacist: "We do..."
Jack: "You sell wheelchairs and walkers and canes?"
Pharmacist: "All speeds and sizes."
Jack: "Adult incontinence pants?"
Pharmacist: "Yes."
Jack: "Then we'd like to use this store for our wedding present’s list..."

Just look at this!

As Keith is now on his third day of not smoking, he was interested to see what he's been missing all

this time!

Cooking

It was 'Ladies who lunch' day yesterday, with my two friends, Gill and Julie in Chester. It always amazes me that, as we study the menu, they each say something along the lines of, "Oh I think I'll have xxxxx because I'm doing zzzzzzz for tonight."
The reason that I am always so astounded is that I never know what I am cooking any earlier than the moment that I peer into the freezer around half past four in the afternoon and even then, it's anyone's guess as to what might leap into my line of vision - or not.
The good days, for me, are those when Keith says, "I'm not really hungry tonight. I'll just have a sandwich." That doesn't happen often, though.
What I'd really, really like is to open the freezer door and for something to leap out and cook itself. Well, it is the twenty-first century. You'd think someone would have invented a self-cooking meal!
(Ready meals don't count - not proper food - far too many additives.)
OK, so, in case you haven't twigged, cooking is definitely not one of my favourite occupations and if any of you readers would like to volunteer for kitchen duties, on a non-payment basis, of course, feel free to let me know.
Meanwhile, I wonder what will jump out when I open the freezer door tonight?

The answer to all our problems!

'Borrowed' from a friend on Facebook:

Dear Mr. Cameron,

Please find below our suggestion for fixing the UK 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.
You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:
There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire.
Ten million job openings - unemployment fixed

2) They MUST buy a new British car.
Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage -
Housing Crisis fixed

4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university -
Crime rate fixed

5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week .....
And there's your money back in duty/tax etc

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances

If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know.
Also.....

Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.

They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request.

Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.

Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out.

Think about this (more points of contention):

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria?

And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also;
Think about this ... If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is time for us grumpy old folk of Britain to speak up!