They grow out of you, and on you, and out again

"You cannot imagine the incredible person that comes out of your imperfections," a line from the movie Smother that I am watching with my father and my son right now.

That struck me as such a true statement. It was so incredible watching our children grow up. First, that these incredibly vulnerable, tiny creatures actually survive through all of our trials and errors! Then, after they have survived they still want us around to be a part of their adult lives! We are honored, amazingly and overwhelmingly, honored to be a part of our childrens' lives.

Of course there are times when we don't see eye to eye, but we don't always see eye to eye with each other, either. And there are other times when they make incredible blunders, that we did -of course- warn them about. But more often then not, we desire to spend our most special moments with them. After sharing a special day, award, idea or moment with each other the first thing we do is reach for the phone to call the kids and tell them about it.

A few acquaintances have said that they cannot wait for their children to turn eighteen and be out the door. These same acquaintances complain about so many of their kids' faults and traits without any consideration of where their kids picked up the bad qualities. They blame school, television, movies and society as a whole but not themselves.

Hubby and I know we are blessed, when the kids do something we aren't particularly happy about we both look back and know we are much luckier than our parents. While I am sure that we don't know the whole story about many events in our kids late teen and early twenties period we also know, for sure, that it is nothing compared to what either of us did (especially hubby, yah I said it) or where we went or who we were with when it all went down.

We tease one another that we are each other's punishment for "sins" that were committed. Hubby insists he was never so bad to deserve me. I say I am merely an example of God's mercy. Hubby grimaces!

We look forward to watching this next generation grow up. Watching as our children learn from the wonderment of these beautiful, awesome and awe inspiring creatures that were created from their imperfections. What a wonderful time to be alive.

Oh, the movie has ended with another good line. I think I will use it for today's adieu:

"You're a special person, and I don't mean the kind who wears a helmet."

A Ranting I will go (High-ho-the derry-o)

I am really tired of products that don't work as described, "freebies" that cost, "fringe benefits" that have very little fringe about them and are hardly beneficial! I despise Dell at the present moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Say whatever you want about the computer only being as smart as the person who programs it but the fact of the matter is that when you order these things they come fully programmed. When I got it, it came loaded with that horrid, horrid, Vista. I just couldn't get it to work, and most of the sites that I needed to work out of couldn't/wouldn't work with Vista.

I call Dell and order (of course for $200 more) the Windows XP and when it comes our friendly techs in India guide me through the process of installing it. In the process I lose my Media Direct, which causes untold hours, days, weeks, months of frustration and tears as I try application after application to replace it.

Then, one day, the thing quits on me. Nie on blows up. Smoke was either coming off the key boards or out of my ears, I really don't know which. I lost EVERYTHING! Thank God, a dear friend of ours found it all and cleaned up ,to the best of his ability, the mess that was created. I was left looking hither and yon for files and articles and research notes and sticking them back in their appropriate folders. Yes, computers have hithers and yons. I know, I have been there and seen them. They are not pretty sites.

Since that fateful day this piece of excrement has frozen on me, at the minimum, four times a day. Right in the middle of typing a story and BOOOMB frozen. What that does to a train of thought is, it FREEZES it as well! It takes 40 EFFFING minutes to start the computer back up again and back online. I do have everything backed up and what I must do is just dump everything, absolutely everything, and start all over again with a clean, BLANK computer (I type this, secretly hoping the computer will see what is being typed and, being horrified at the thought of losing its memory, will start behaving. Sick, twisted thoughts to have towards an inanimate object. Yes, hear that, you are an inanimate OBJECT, thats it, nothing more. Don't you go all sticky keyed on me! I'll give you what for!)

This was NOT a cheapy laptop. While it isn't a $4,000 dollar one, it was just slightly less than $2,000. It should last longer than $1000 per year!!! I am SOOOO frustrated.

I recently received a gift of a Coby MP3 player. Along with it was a gift card for 50 "free" tunes at eMusic and one "free" audio book. Guess what? I go to the eMusic site and register, per instructions on the card. When I sign in it says I MUST give them a debit card or PayPal in order that, after the trial period, should you continue to like eMusic you will be charged the low price of $11.99 per month for 30 tunes and $9.99 for ONE audio book.

I much prefer Amie Street for music, great music, new finds, best prices. I like Downloadaudiobooksonline much more than eMusic's selection. While eMusic does only charge $9.99 for a book that DownLoad is charging $16 for, eMusic has only one price. It doesn't carry as many books as DownLoad has nor does it have all of the $2 books DownLoad offers.

When I contacted eMusic about not receiving the 50 "free" tunes and being charged the subscription rate so quickly. Apparently I didn't read the tiny writing which informed me, "very clearly" that I had 10 days to get my 50 tunes ordered and cancel my subscription or I would LOSE the 50 tunes (as NO they don't roll over) AND I would have the honor of being bilked, er, I mean billed for the next month.

In conclusion, don't buy Dell. Along with its customer support and its Vista programs (I won't even mention the hell I go through each time I boot up and every program is frantically racing to get online first and upgrade itself) it isn't worth the price, even if it is only the $300 'netbook.

IF you get a Coby MP3 player DO NOT use that card to engage eMusic until you have your 50 (yes all 50) tunes picked out. Sign up, use PayPal (if eMusic somehow does end up charging you once PayPal allows you to refuse to pay specific merchants again. Download your 50 tunes and then CANCEL, immediately.

If you don't HAVE to sign up to eMusic, DON'T DO IT! Or, if you like freebie stuff, do it but order all of your tunes RIGHT then and even if you don't use up all 30, cancel your account ASAP. If you wait, YOU WILL FORGET. They are "banking" on it.

Have I said it enough times so that anyone googling Dell for customer complaints wondering what people's opinions are on crappy functioning Inspiron E1505 Laptops or eMusic wondering if it is a ripoff for MP3 or iTune downloads will see see this post? Good! I tried working with both, and as anyone can see by reading posts here I have rarely called out a specific product or company.

In these economic times companies need to know, "you must treat the customer well. "If you are incapable of doing that, you deserve to be called on it, for both the crappy product you are foisting on us and the crappy service you are giving.

(It has almost let me post this. When you don't hear from me for days on end, don't blame me. I have been typing to you, this ... this ... THING just refuses to POST it!)