Company-wide laptop issue

I'm glad that I took Monday off. My company had a worldwide laptop issue. It makes you wonder what the IT department loads that causes every single laptop to flicker and die.

I got my first work broadcast text. I don't have my cell phone number listed publicly in our company directory, but it is there for emergencies. It worked.

I did boot up my laptop tonight and it works fine. It's just in time for my returning to work later on today.

Rainbow horn incident

The hairband with rainbow devil horns that I got from the dollar store the other day looks like the following:

You are also seeing my new Chromebook.

Yesterday, I went out wearing a sweater with a built-in cape (it's pretty cool), this hairband, and a comfy pair of joggers. Sadly, I busted the right horn of my hairband, so I was working on reduced devilishness.

I got to my usual tea place. The owners were so great. I indicated that I had busted one of the horns. I had recommended Alien Tape to them to hang up a small rug on the wall. The female owner went to get her Alien Tape and cut a small piece off for me to re-attach the horn. It worked. Yay!

I'll be going out today to do a pickup downtown. I'm be wearing my fixed hairband. I like it.

Happy Halloween!

Meeting up with my colleague for cheese tarts and bubble tea

I had a food perk to pick up on Saturday afternoon. I then met up with my former intern who is now my colleague.

We have been trying to get an application to work on his laptop. Our IT group sucks. We told them right off the bat that it was a profile issue. Well, they finally got around to resetting his profile. Everything works. Finally! We were both elated on Friday, but also annoyed at how incompetent this IT group is.

Anyway, he treated me to bubble tea. It was so thoughtful of him. He placed the order and I went to fetch it, as it was on my way from the food perk place and I didn't mind fetching the order. I wanted to split my food perk with him (I got four Japanese cheese tarts) because they are so good.

He loved the two tarts that I had given him. He loved them so much that he devoured them without taking a photo. Luckily, he saw me take a photo of all four before I handed two to him that I simply texted him my photo.

The bubble tea was amazing. I'm so glad that he recommended this place. I got this blue Curacao soda with small bits of pineapple. It was so refreshing and delicious.

We hadn't seen each other since last August. We see each other on a weekly meeting through video, but it's really not the same. It was great seeing and talking to him briefly yesterday afternoon.

Daylight Saving Time glitch on my phone

The weekend has come to an end. I appreciate weekends more as I get older.

With Daylight Saving Time, my Google Pixel phone didn't automatically flip ahead an hour. Luckily, I spent the day at home, so it didn't really matter. The issue was fixed by Google by asking users to reboot their phones.

Weird. All is well.

Hot water and a lockdown are back!

The good news is that I have a new hot water heater. It was installed on Friday and I am so pleased to have hot water again!

I enjoyed taking a warm shower on Friday night that I didn't bother writing a post yesterday.

On Monday, York region goes into lockdown. I frankly won't notice much of a difference, other than getting my hair cut on Saturday before said lockdown. I had already scheduled it before the lockdown announcement was made on Friday. Great timing!

I mainly go out to fetch groceries, hit the drug store, and order takeout. These stores will all be available during lockdown.

New smartwatch with new syncing challenges

I recently went back into the world of smartwatches.

For over a year, I had a Pebble Time Round watch. It's a smartwatch that looks like a regular watch. I loved that it would keep track of my steps.

Sadly, Pebble went away. Fitbit bought the company. The app that used to count my steps died. So, I had to go back and use my Fitbit.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Fitbit Alta. However, I hate tapping the screen to figure out what time it is or how many steps I have taken. It's not the most sensitive screen. I would sooner have a button to cycle through the data.

It was one of those fluky moments. I was in my guy's neck of the woods. I decided to visit Fossil at one of the local malls. I have wallets, jewellery, and cell phone cases from that store. I never really looked at watches.

The young saleswoman showed me the hybrid smartwatches. They look like regular, classy watches, but they are indeed smartwatches that sync to your phone through an app. Instead of charging the watch, it runs on a battery. She gave me a thorough demo of both the watch on her wrist and the app that she had on her phone.

I loved the watch that the woman had on. I loved the concept. I even had one that I had in mind to purchase, but had to think about it.

I am such a geek. I sat in the mall and researched this watch. Was there a way to sync the steps over to my corporate health app? I need to have this feature, as you earn cash incentives for exercising with my company.

Sure enough, I figured out that I could get it to work. So, a couple of weeks ago, I bought my hybrid smartwatch in rose gold. It's nice. I love it. My guy smiled at me when I first told him about it. He loves when I get excited over technology.

The trick is that the Fossil Q app needs to sync with the Up by Jawbone app first. My company uses the Virgin Pulse app for our health program, which Up links to.

I couldn't get any of my steps to sync properly from Q to Up. I contacted Fossil support. It is slow, but they are friendly.

I am a decent troubleshooter. I decided to unlink and link Up from my Q app first. I then went into the Up app and removed the link to Virgin Pulse. Finally, I went into my Virgin Pulse app, disconnected and reconnected the link to my Up account.

The last step was verifying that my Up app had the Virgin Pulse app links again. It was.

Guess what? All of these actions got my steps to sync properly. Go, me! I still have yet to hear from the support guy.

The best part of this exercise is that I do not have to wear my watch and my Fitbit Alta on each wrist.

Sick day, windshield replacement, sleep, and a one-word meme

I decided to take a sick day on Thursday. It worked out fairly well.

I got a solid block of sleep overnight. However, I wanted more. It wasn't going to happen, as it was garbage day. All I heard were doors opening and closing on my street, garbage and recycling trucks stopping and going, and kids screaming as they made their way to school. Ugh!

On a good note, the windshield to replace my car's cracked one was in stock. I drove my car over to the glass shop and got a courtesy shuttle back home. Three hours later, it was done. So, said shuttle came back to fetch me and my car looks new again. I'm thrilled!

I slept from 15:30 till 18:45. It did a world of wonder! I feel less grumpy and more rested. More importantly, I don't seem to be coughing as much. Perhaps my bronchitis is slowly dissipating.

The other day, I saw a one-word meme on Fondles' blog. So, here goes:

1. Where is your phone? Lap
2. Your hair? Medium
3. Your dad? Sleeping
4. Your other half? Sleeping 
5. Your favourite food? Tiramisu
6. Your dream last night? Jumping
7. Your favourite drink? Mojito
8. Fear? Heights
9. Favourite? Vacation
10. Favourite way to relax? Sleep
11. Your mood? Tired 
12. I love? Relaxing 
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something that you aren't?  Petite
15. Muffins? Sometimes
16. Wish list item? Money
17. Where you grew up? Toronto
18. Last thing you did?  Showered
19. What are you wearing right now? Pyjamas
20. Something you hate? Tardiness
21. Your pets? Fish
22. Friends? Grateful
23. Life? Rollercoaster
24. Regrets? Some
25. Missing someone? Boyfriend

It's tough to narrow a description down to a single word. Give it a try if you feel like it!

Technology baffles me, but at least my photo-syncing issues are fixed!

I have always been a troubleshooter. My latest issue with upgrading my Mac mini to the Sierra OS and then attempting to sync my photos to my phone has been fixed. I simply don't know which change that I performed actually fixed everything.

Technology is odd. I am immersed in it at work. It's an interest of mine, too. It's such a love-dislike relationship.

Anyway, I have done a few things to fix this issue:

1. Changed the properties of my Photos library so that read and write access is granted to all programs accessing it.
2. Powered off and on my external hard drive, which houses my iTunes library.
3. Tried to rebuild my library by pressing the Option + Command (Ctrl + Alt) keys. I didn't get the repair option, so I loaded my photos library as normal.
4. Started iTunes. I tried syncing both my iPod classic (yes, I still own one, as it fits my entire music collection, which is large) and iPhone. Both actions prompted an error message indicating that my photos library was unavailable.
5. Closed my Photos program.
6. Tried syncing my iPhone again. My photos synced!
7. Synced my iPod again. It synced successfully, too!

Again, I did a bizarre set of steps. It will be a miracle if all this syncing works tomorrow. I can then get on with writing about my last spanking.

There are days where I want to book some time away from technology, fly to some tropical location, lounge around, and write in a ruled notebook with a fountain pen. It sounds perfect right about now.

Cell phone restored from water damage

This post is a mild segue from my intended spanking experience that happened last Saturday.

A cell phone owner's worst nightmare finally happened to me. I dropped my cell phone in water.

The good news is that I quickly retrieved, cleaned, and dried my iPhone off. Everything seemed to function. Well, that's what I thought.

I could still use my phone as I normally would. I listened to podcasts through bluetooth in my car. I could plug in my earbuds and listen to music. E-mail and browsing was fine.

I woke up on Tuesday and didn't hear my phone's alarm. I woke up to my trusty alarm on my ancient iPod touch. I have had this iPod touch for probably nine years. It doesn't die and it works well as an alarm clock.

My morning wake-up routine consists of streaming music. I heard nothing. I tried playing songs on my phone. Nothing. My speakers were dead on my phone.

When a colleague over a year ago had dropped her phone into the toilet at work, I told her to stick it in a bag of rice. She did that and her phone was saved. I decided to do the same to see if my speakers would come back to life. I also read online that sticking a Q-tip in the earphone part and moving it around will soak up some of the water.

I stuck my phone in a bag of rice at 07:30. I retrieved my phone at 22:00. I used a Q-tip on my phone's earphone area and then powered on my iPhone. Guess what? My speakers work again!

Earlier in the day, my guy and I had a lunch date. I told him about my dropping my phone in the sink. He said that it's normal and that I did everything correctly.

I am geeky in the sense that I own two phones. Obviously, I use my iPhone. I also have a BlackBerry Passport. I love both of my phones for different reasons.

My guy admired that I chose two completely different phones running different operating systems. They look completely different and function differently. He also liked that I can switch seamlessly between the two.

He's sweet for loving a naughty geeky girl.