Day 38, Year 7: Frustrations
Date: Friday, December 16, 2011
Weather: Sunny Day, Very Windy, Temps in the 50’s F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
The weather today was glorious. It was a bit windy, but the sun was shining and it was springtime warm. I brought Sam and Jonah to the boat for a short visit this afternoon before heading home for naps. Sam has been very anxious to see the boat under cover, and once here, both boys had to fashion fishing poles out of sticks and go fishing for strippers and bluefin tuna. Mark worked at West Marine and after work we headed back to Windbird to assess just how much we have to do to be ready to leave here early on Tuesday morning for our trip to New Mexico. Tomorrow we go to Boston with HJJ&S to attend Revels. It is going to be colder tomorrow and the weather report actually predicts snow flurries. I doubt that it really happens, but if it did, it would certainly help to promote holiday cheer.
The frustrations with change come from trying to use my new computer. We were trying to avoid buying Microsoft Office by using a free download called Open Office. Heather recommended it as she used it for months and found it very satisfactory. But after Mark went to bed last night, I wrote my log on the new computer and then copied it to a hard drive to transfer it to Mark’s computer to send. We do this all time and never have a problem, but in Windows 7 using Open Office, it didn’t work. I tried everything with no luck and finally gave up and went to bed. This morning Mark tried everything he knows, and it still didn’t work. So he got frustrated and caved in and bought Microsoft Office 2010 online. It is certainly not like Microsoft Office 2003 that I am used to using, and I have spent the entire evening being very frustrated with the changes. Change is hard, but I keep asking myself why something so simple to use has become very difficult-too many fancy options. We can customize and we will, but tonight was just total frustration for me.
I also had a frustrating contact with Greyhound today. We bought our tickets ages ago to get a cheaper price, had those tickets cancelled for some unknown reason, and then had them reinstated with the caveat that we would call on December 16 to get a confirmation number that we will use to pick up the actual tickets on Tuesday just before departure. I called today and was told that I need to call back on Monday even though the person I was talking to was reading on his computer that I was told to call today. We still have no confirmation number and I am just hoping against hope that when I call on Monday, all will be okay. It sounds like a crazy process to me, but what I was told today is that when I call on Monday, the representative I talk to will email the Boston station. Then someone from the Boston station will call us with a confirmation number. The whole process is just too complicated. It was much easier to arrange for bus travel in India than here in the US. And we didn’t even speak the same language. Something about this is just wrong.
On Sunday, Mark works at West Marine and I will spend the day finalizing the packing for our bus trip to New Mexico. On Monday Mark heads to Boston to meet with his surgeon at Mass General while I spend my last afternoon with Sam and Jonah before we leave on Tuesday. We will have a little pre-Christmas dinner at Heather and Jed’s on Monday evening and then we are off and running on Tuesday morning. If all goes as planned, I should be able to send logs while we are traveling. It will be fun to be able to share with you our experiences as we travel westward on a Greyhound bus.
