Winter 2014 March 20 Thursday

46 degrees this morning.  A little colder than I expected 46 degrees to be!  However, Spring is almost here!

The "toss and pack" is continuing.  Kali and Katherine have actually been a lot of help, not bad for 11 and 14 years old.  I was surprised at how many "Hot Wheels"  cars I have (both the Hot Wheels and other brands).  Hopefully they will see the light of day in the near future. I was thinking when I got out of the Air Force and my first move to my first "real" job in Liberal, Kansas, everything I owned fit in a car trunk!  Now I have a hard time getting everything in a moving van!  Possessions truly become our masters if we aren't careful.  

Starting on the book by Joshua Zeitz, "Lincoln's Boys" about John Hay and John Nicolay who were his Secretaries.  I didn't realize that his papers were private until 1947, so basically they were the only two who had full access to his papers.  When I was in Washington D.C. over a year ago, I especially enjoyed going to Lincoln's "Country House", although it wasn't open when  we went there.  It apparently was the only place he could truly relax.

In an epic fight with T-Mobile.  Since I use very little cellular (mostly WiFi) on my iPad, I bought an iPad from T-Mobile since they offer 200 mg of free 4g if you buy a 4g iPad from them.  In this case, I cancelled my ATT service for my old obsolete original iPad which was about $20 per month and agreed to buy the iPad for about $25 a month with 200 mb free per month.  (I actually bought an iPad Mini also at a slightly less charge, same agreement, so only the iPad Air was actually somewhat "free".)  SURPRISE.  There is a $10 per month"demand" charge for each iPad. I had to talk with two people at T-Mobile before I could even get them to agree that the $10 was not mandatory and then I was shunted off to someone else and I finally hung up.  However, at least I got them to agree that the $10 per month charge was voluntary and not mandatory.  They are as bad as airlines.

I have to admit I get really tired and angry of the price gouging by Delta and Hertz, but the personnel actually performing the service are almost always great and very helpful and frequently can find me a way out of some of the bureaucracy of both of them. 

That's it for new.  May add more later today as life goes on.