H.I.T.S.
Well, it appears that our local weather has become a carbon copy of English weather, or at least what I remember of it. Sometimes, it would rain on and off for months on end.
I’m sure that Tommy Mozden, one of our brave soldiers stationed in Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan, isn’t worrying about having too much rain.
I first learned about Tommy via his sister, Sammie, who is taking guitar lessons with me at Micarelli’s. Tommy bought his sister a guitar and wants her to be able to play him a song on it by early next year. Thanks to lots of practice, Sammie is well on the way to doing it.
Tommy Mozden is also on Facebook (who isn’t?) and I think it would be nice if you Facebook users reading this would do a search for him and tell him how much we appreciate him and what he’s bravely doing to keep all of us safe at home. Many thanks to the Mozden family and Tommy for giving me permission to write about him.
Also this week, I downloaded Skype for Mac from their webpage at http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/homepage. I was thinking of contacting some of my cousins in England and seeing if they could download Skype on their Windows computer and then maybe I could call them for “free.” I’m always wary of “free,” though, because it’s usually too good to be true. I’ll let you know how I go on.
I was also trying to get Mrs. Schulze to participate in a Facetime to Facetime call via her iPad to my Mac laptop over the weekend, just to see if it works properly. Facetime is a piece of Mac software that allows you to video chat between two Mac devices.
My wife merely squinted over the top of her iPad and with a quick eye roll, replied tersely, “No thanks. I have Facetime on here already.” She then spoiled everything by adding, “I’m on the couch across from you, Eric, and I don’t need a video chat program to talk to you.”
Mrs. Schulze then let out a deep sigh and went back to one of her little books that sit on the bookshelf graphic on her iPad, leaving me mildly frustrated and disappointed not to find a willing victim to allow me to see if the video chat thing works.
According to the feedback on the iTunes website, it doesn’t work very well in the opinion of quite a lot of people.
Sometimes reading the user reviews of products on websites can really be very helpful. A case in point came up last week when I saw an online ad for a car scratch remover that looked like a little pen. I recently scratched the side of the Scion and have yet to try to polish it out. This product looked like it might be the perfect thing to use to fill in any imperfections in the clear coat.
I did a little research on Amazon.com and looked at the user reviews. Every single person said that it was a waste of money and made scratches look even worse. My usual rule of thumb when looking at things like this is that if I read one or two bad reviews out of a dozen otherwise glowing ones, then I’m not too bothered. Human nature dictates that you can’t please everyone. Always beware when everyone says something is junk.
It’s amazing how the internet has become a glorified version of Consumer Reports. On YouTube alone, you can find a demo of just about every product you could possibly imagine, along with instructions on how to perform just about every task imaginable as well. As always, you need to sift through the info to find the genuinely helpful stuff.
A large helping of common sense is useful as well. I was reminded of this some months back when Mrs. Schulze and I embarked on a fix-some-plumbing voyage. My wife had done some online research about how to remove a double faucet setup from our kitchen sink.
The guy in the video showed a tool called a basin wrench that made it look a cinch, but that’s only when it’s used with brand new connectors on the faucet’s base. Our firmly rusted-on connectors needed the help of a small Dremel tool to let go of the faucet we were replacing.
This left my poor wife disgusted and holding the basin wrench that she’d seen in the video. At that point, she uttered some choice phrases and tossed it into a nearby box while mumbling, “Well, the guy made it look easy on the video.”
That brings me to my last bit of advice: it always looks easier on the video. With that final tidbit of knowledge, I’ll wish you all a great week.