First Day of First Grade

Grace had her first day of first grade today. Of course it was only a "half" day which translates to around 3 hours. Since our school district is low on funds (okay lacking funds) they have reduced the school day as much as they can in order to pay the teachers as little as possible and try and save money that way. So a normal full day is around 6 hours with them getting home around 2:20 in the afternoon. That's fine for a family like us that has a parent home when she gets off the bus, but for the average family I would consider that a hardship. You have to find after-school care for 3-4 hours possibly.

I know most families have to pay for some type of after-school care but it just seems to me that this is a long time to have to get child care each day. I know I didn't get out of school too recently but I remember getting out of school around 3:30 I think every day (honestly can't remember that far back either...maybe I am getting old???) By the time you're either home or at after-school care it would be close to 4 and if your parents get off work early maybe you'd only have to get an hours worth of after-school care. She gets out of school at 2 and is home before 2:30. If you get home at 5 that would be 2 and a half hours (I'm not saying you the person reading this can't add, I'm just spelling it all out :-).) I don't think most people are really home by 5 each day. Julie can be some days if she gets out of work on time and doesn't hit a lot of traffic. If it's the winter and we even have snow flurries, forget it; she won't be home until probably two hours after she leaves work. Just think if we had Grace in after-school care and Julie couldn't get there for a couple of hours. It's like watching the checkout people at the grocery store when they're scanning in your food. Just watch the amount of the total bill going up and up and up. (I hate spending money at the grocery store.)

So anyway she had her first day of school and we of course had to buy a bunch of supplies for her to take to school with her. We had them all stuffed into her backpack to take to school today. When she got off the bus her backpack looked just as full. That's because it was. She didn't take her stuff out yet. She brought it all back home. I don't know if she wasn't paying attention at school and didn't hear that she was supposed to do this or maybe just didn't or if she will just be doing it tomorrow. She said that some people took the stuff out of their bags. Maybe they were listening or maybe they were the one's that weren't listening. Who knows. Hopefully we'll find out tomorrow as hopefully she won't come home with all that stuff again.

She hasn't said how school was yet as she's been playing all afternoon with her friend. They don't have the same teacher but at least they are on the same bus and can sit by each other every day. There was some worry today because her friend didn't come home on the bus. Grace says she saw her outside when school was over but then she disappeared. Her Dad was waiting for her at the bus stop but she didn't come home so he made some phone calls and turns out she stayed at school for after-school care because she will be using that in the future...just not today. The school wanted to be safe, not sorry. I think that's good, but maybe the paperwork they have should better specify when she needs to go there so they are sure where she needs to be each day. I don't know.

Julie and I will try and get Grace to tell us how her first day was at dinner. She's honestly quite vague about everything school related. Without specific questions it's simply a vague answer like "alright" or "okay," nothing with much emotion that's for sure. But at the same time, tomorrow will be a much better day to try and judge how she likes first grade as it will be her first full day. In my opinion - her first true day of school. Sorry for not having a picture like we did last year. I did take one before she got on the bus though and I can post that later.

If you read my entry yesterday, you know about this ALCAT test I took. You should read the comment I got. It helps explain better what it's all about. Thanks "yenvy"! That helped me understand more what's going on. The results actually use the words you say, intolerance, etc. but it still didn't really hit home until you posted your comment. Thanks again!

Today is a rainy day - we've had an inch and a quarter already and I see more rain on the radar coming this way. This will be good for the grass and our plants. It was so nice going to bed last night...I just love the sound of rain hitting the roof when I'm going to sleep.

You're probably wondering why I'm blogging in the middle of the day. Okay...you probably didn't even notice the time but I point it out because Grace is playing with her friend, Riley is sleeping, dinner is already made and the dishwasher and washing machine are running (towels on Wednesdays.) So I had a few minutes to sit and relax DURING THE DAY! WOW! I know it's surprising, but hey I'm just as surprised.

ALCAT

Anyone heard of an ALCAT test? I got my results today from my test. It is a food allergy test and as it turns out I'm allergic to MANY foods I eat every day.

The worst foods for me are limes and the spice nutmeg. So no Corona's and no pumpkin pie - certainly not together as that sounds disgusting.

My moderate intolerance foods are apples, beets, garlic, green peppers, iceburg lettuce, sage, SHRIMP and watermelon. Who is allergic to iceberg lettuce? I mean seriously. And apples? I have an apple tree in my yard with incredibly good apples each year (which will be ripe in just about two weeks by the way.) Craziness! Garlic is going to be hard I think because it's in a lot of things and shrimp are one of my favorite foods. Not that I eat them all that often, I just really like them.

Mild intolerance foods are almonds, bananas, bass, brewer's yeast, buckwheat, eggplant, mustard, parsley, pears, pineapple, sole, string beans, tilapia and turkey. Guess Thanksgiving won't be as exciting this year. And whenever we get to Hawaii (one of these years...) I can't eat too much fresh pineapple either.

As far as chemicals I don't have any severe reactions to any of them. But for moderate intolerance there is benzoic acid, red dye #3 and sorbic acid. Both of these acids are food preservatives. My mild intolerance chemicals are aspartame and MSG; chemicals that I believe everyone should avoid.

Lastly I show an mild intolerance to casein which is found in milk/dairy products. Now that really hurts.

These analyses are certainly going to change everything for my diet. We'll have to change pretty much everything around here for me. For example I usually have cottage cheese and yogurt for breakfast every day. Good thing I'm not allergic to eggs like my Mom is because that's the other thing I have for breakfast most days.

WiGig - Very Cool

You should read this short article. It sounds pretty cool to me.

Intel, Microsoft and Dell band together for WiGig

Rosco P Coltrane Serres

More sad news from our family as our trusty beagle lost his brief but difficult battle with cancer today. He was only diagnosed, we believe, on March 14.

Rosco P Coltrane Serres
27 March 1996 - 7 April 2009

Serres Family Genealogy

So I've been working on researching our family tree, both Julie's and my side of the family. In doing so I re-discovered (my Dad had told me a long time ago, but I forgot) that my Grandfather is just buried about 7 miles or so from our house. So one week on the way home from gymnastics I stopped to look at the grave and get the information off of it. After doing research on this information I found out that an eagle scout had done a research project painstakingly photographing and cataloging all of the headstones at several local cemeteries.

I guess I read too much into this project as I thought it said he also did some research on each of the families. I went to the local historical society to look at the project and all it was was a photograph of the headstone. This would have been very helpful if I wasn't anywhere close enough to go and look at it myself, but I had just done this. It wasn't a complete waste of time however as the ladies working there were giving me hints about doing genealogy research.

I have to say that doing this is very rewarding. I have currently discovered 257 relatives as far back as 1700 in Luxembourg. I didn't even know our family was from this country. I knew we were German and French, but not Luxembourgian. I've also discovered that two of my Grandfather's brothers are buried at a national cemetery because of serving in the military. My Grandfather's Dad served in the Marine Corps in WWI. So we have at least two Marines in our family (I would be the other.)

We also have a lot of farmers (some listed as dairy farmers) going back to the 1800's as listed on the census forms. I never knew any of my relatives were farmers prior to starting this research. What I do have to share is that this is very addictive! Once you start you will have difficulty not doing it all the time. It's hard to stop researching and go to bed. You think the next page you look at will have some bit of information that you need. And sometimes one little bit of information can open up an entire can of worms to reveal dozens of relatives you didn't know about.

I'm using dynastree.com for our family tree since it's free and it has a lot of nice features. And so far I've only used ancestry.com for my research. I will be expanding to other services when I feel I've gotten pretty much all I can out of ancestry.com (at least for the time being.) The ladies at the historical society suggested a particular library in the area as it has a genealogy section. I may have to spend a little time there... ;-)

I also got in contact with a relative up in Wisconsin that has done a TON of research on our family and purchased the book he published about our families histories. This is a serious tome at about 400 pages! But it's complete with a LOT of information. I even found newspaper articles in there describing life events for many family members. That's just really cool! It's interesting to know what was going on way back in the 1800's.

So anyway, that's about it for now.

Hewlett Packard - Part 2

So after talking to this lady, I agreed to have her send me a replacement hard drive and video card even though they weren't the parts I needed. When I got both parts in the mail, they were both the wrong parts. The video card wasn't for my model of computer and the hard drive was the wrong size. So guess what? I got to call again. This time I got a guy and he was pretty helpful in getting me the correct parts. While I had him on the phone, I read him what the form says (as you can see in the first post) about not removing any added components before mailing. His reply was that this was wrong and wasn't HP policy.

A short time after mailing back the defective products I received an email stating I hadn't returned my defective hard drive so I got to call again (yea!) This was really getting fun now. I'm calling HP more often than I call my wife it seems. I was told it was just a mistake and it would be taken care of. It was as I never heard about the issue again.

After all of this aggravation, I wrote a letter to the President of the company, Mark Hurd (Mark Hurd, President, Hewlett-Packard Company, 3000 Hanover St, Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185) explaining everything I've described here in these two posts. I mentioned everything that is still not right with my computer and how I will never purchase an HP computer ever again. I did receive a phone call from some "HP Executive Office" stating that they were escalating my issue to a case manager and to expect a phone call with 24-48 hours. I never heard from them again.

So I don't know what the lesson learned is from this. I guess it's that HP doesn't stand behind their documentation or their repair department. You're on your own if you have a problem. Basically the warranty is pretty much useless in my opinion. Why even offer a warranty if you aren't going to repair your computer products properly? They could have resolved my problems pretty cheaply and avoided losing a customer and the word-of-mouth advertising I was already providing. I will never recommend an HP computer again. I will never buy an HP computer again. I will also suggest to anyone considering purchasing a computer to not buy HP and explain my travails.

I will work on getting that video edited and posted here soon. I guess in the future I will just go back to what I know and build my own PC so I know it will work and that the company that made the product will stand behind it. It's amazing how long some of the parts manufacturers warranty their products. It's much longer than the big PC companies. I've even considered going to the dark side (switching to a Mac--gasp!) :-0

Hewlett Packard - Part 1

This will be the first of several posts about the Hewlett Packard Company. In February of 2008 I purchased a new desktop computer system from them off the recommendation of a friend that currently works in the IT industry who said they made the best desktop at that time. Up until now I had always made my own computer.

I was very happy with this computer initially. I even recommended HP computers to friends who bought one also. But my problems began in November when the sound stopped working. After trying everything I knew to try and fix the problem I contacted HP's "award-winning" Total Care customer support department. As you would expect, I had to go through a barrage of troubleshooting measures to ensure there was truly a problem. While this took time, I realize it's necessary so the repair department doesn't get computers in that don't really need repairing. Anyway, they issued a bench repair order which means they mail you a box with postage inside; all you do is put your computer in and put the postage on the box and mail it to them.

My error was reading the literature/instructions that came with the postage in the box. These instructions lay out in detail what you need to do in order to mail it to them the right way. Here is what it looks like:



Notice what the second and third sentences in item #2 say: Please do not remove components from within the computer before shipping (hard drive, memory, video card, etc.) Any additional hardware added to the PC will also be analyzed and returned.

Some key words from these sentences to take note of: "DO NOT REMOVE components", and "additional hardware ADDED...will...be analyzed and RETURNED."

I received the computer back from HP just before Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to me right? No. One of the added components in my computer was a 5 1/4" to 3 1/2" drive bay rail converter that allows you to mount a 3 1/2" hard drive in a 5 1/4" drive bay. When they repaired the computer, (replaced the motherboard), and mailed it back, they didn't secure this little wonder in the drive bay at all, so it was free to move around inside the computer case during the entire shipping process to my home. Not surprisingly, this damaged the hard drive and also the video card. None of these three products came with my PC. I installed an additional hard drive, the drive bay converter and also a new video card after I purchased the PC.

Since this damage was clearly not my fault, all I wanted was for the hard drive and the video card to be replaced. This is where my true problems began. I again called HP's customer support department and was issued a second bench repair. I mailed it back on 5 December and didn't get it back until 19 December (2 weeks.) I see the box and say "Merry Christmas to me," right? Not even close. Want to hear the diagnosis listed on the paperwork enclosed in the box? "No Trouble Found" -- could not duplicate the error.

Are you freaking kidding me? I was livid. You would have been too if you would have also seen the condition the computer was in when I took it out of the box. This technician simply stopped analyzing it at some point, shoved it in the box and mailed it back; literally. Here is a list of things that weren't right when I examined it closely:

1. 5 1/4" drive bay exterior cover missing (hole to look in and see the processor working????)
2. Hard drive still damaged, mounted in a new location, and not connected to the motherboard
3. CD-Rom drive not connected to the motherboard
4. CPU (processor) fan not plugged into the motherboard
5. CPU (processor) fan not screwed onto the motherboard (this is serious folks)
6. Video card also still damaged (ie: doesn't work at all)

Since I have fairly extensive experience building computers, I fixed no.'s 2-5 as best I could and then I videotaped my 6 year old daughter as I talked her through the process of hooking it up and turning it on so we could see how difficult it might be to duplicate the problem. Keep in mind that most consumers wouldn't know how to do this. The video will be forthcoming, I just haven't had the time to prepare that as of yet.

After all of this and allowing myself enough time to cool off I again called customer support. You'll be surprised to hear what this representative told me. She said (in as many words) that anything I have added to the computer is not their responsibility in any way and that the best she could do was to ship me a replacement of the original hard drive and video card that came with the computer. She even went so far as to say that any additional hardware that is added to the computer was generally disposed of and she was surprised they were even returned to me.

When I asked her about replacement parts for the parts that weren't returned, she looked them up and said she can't order them because they are no longer available. After explaining my distaste for what she was telling me she stated that she has all the authority to make these decisions and doesn't report to anyone; this is HP's policy. She then asks if I've submitted a claim with FedEx. I said no one had ever suggested that before now (realizing in my mind this has absolutely nothing to do with FedEx; they did nothing wrong.)

However, sensing that I wasn't going to get my products replaced I filed a claim with FedEx which is still not resolved (filed 22 Dec 2008). All I wanted from this claim was enough money to pay for the replacement parts that HP damaged and refused to replace properly.

I'll continue soon with Part 2. I need a break.