March 10 - Lisa's Musings From Every Day Life

S-u-cc-e-ss.

After two extremely painful weeks, I have officially birthed my first video.

Not sure if that makes me a mouse or some other small rodent that’s able to pop out young following a two-week gestation period, but … this is my first born.

All one minute and 37 seconds of it.

Please, please, go view the darn thing.

It’s at www.A2Journal.com and look for the video button at the top of the site, or go to the story about 4-H kids and a cattle weigh-in under the Life Section.

So, let’s recap what it took to get that less-than-two-minute video finally published this afternoon.

There were no less than 10 phone calls to the IT guy, Jason, which got progressively more and more frustrated on my end.

There were hours and hours of my time trying and trying and trying and trying to make all these programs work.

There were hours and hours of my great friend Becca Burk’s time (she worked for a half a bagel with warm ham and cheese).

There were numerous phone calls to my editor -- at times whining; other times downright uh, “complaining.”

And, it wasn’t just shooting the video. Once I figured out how to turn the Flip cam on, that part wasn’t such a big deal.

It was the editing and uploading to the newspaper Website part that was the bug-a-boo.

We couldn’t get the darn programs to load.

And we tried and tried and tried.

So, Plan B.

Bring in a computer wiz and I knew just the person. Sheng Han owns Core Components of Ann Arbor.

And, it took him an hour and cost me his hourly rate of $75 to have the appropriate programs installed in my computer; oh, that included the one-on-one tutoring I received to operate them.

I came home, fired the laptop up, and after several tries, did finally figure out how to upload the video to the newspaper’s Web site.

So … in this victorious moment, like an Oscar winner, I’d like to give thanks, in no particular order, to:

My friends, (and I include you, Kathy) who listened to me whine, snark and complain about this process; but didn’t hang up on me; rather encouraged me to forge ahead.

My editor, Michelle, who didn’t fire me, when it took me forever to figure out how to do this.

My dogs, who will keep their mouth's shut about what I said while going through this excrutiating process.

And to Sheng, the computer genius of the day, who was finally able to make these interwoven programs work. And simplify them so even I could figure them out.

Is my five minutes up yet?

Cue music … oh, wait, this is print – there’s no sound.

Or video.

But there will be in the future.

Dec. 29 - Lisa's Musings on Every Day Life

My eye started twitching the moment my feet hit the wood floor this morning.

I knew today was going to be a stressful one, but I didn't expect such an immediate reaction.

No, I didn't have a doctor's or dentist's appointment, this was even worse -- my laptop had an appointment with an IT guru for repairs.

Every time I've had work done on one of my computers, it's ended badly. No matter how well-intentioned or knowledgeable the person appeared to be.

And when a computer is the life blood of what pays the mortgage and feeds the dogs, allowing someone else's paws to mess with its innards, is very, very scary.

I'd planned to just get a new laptop -- but after interviewing the owner of a new business called Core Components on Washtenaw, I liked the guy, and decided to let him hunt for a new one for me and in the meantime, have him repair this one.

I'm pretty tough on a keyboard and most of the letters were illegible, plus, I'd totaled the touch pad.

Despite trying and hating three popular antivirus programs, the owner of Core Components introduced me to a new one I'd never heard of -- it's called ESET NOD32.

When he sang its praises, I decided along with the repairs, I'd give it a try.

He cleaned out all those stupid programs that come in the computer and that no one ever uses, and added some memory as well.

I couldn't watch as he worked, so I headed up the road to the Arborland Borders (again -- see previous blogs on Dec. 24-25), eye twitching all day.

It didn't stop on the way home, either.

I held my breath as I plugged her back in and VROOOMMMM -- the difference was amazing.

Everything worked, and it's like I have a brand new laptop. Maybe I don't need a new one, after all.

And miracle of miracles, as soon as I discovered that the laptop worked even better than it had this morning, I realized that my eye stopped twitching as mysteriously as it began.

Amazing how stress manifests itself, huh?