Ooops! Spilled Wine!

Spilled wine is not really new at my house, but in the 25 or so years I have had a computer, I have not spilled anything on the keyboard.  Until just recently.  On Tuesday night, the 19th of June, I did just that.  I wiped it up the best I could.  And could do no more.   I did not think to get on the smart phone to read what to do, so I just shut down the computer as quickly as possible. (What to do, wipe off the key board, turn the laptop upside down, and take out the battery.  The point is nothing runs, and maybe the liquid will not get into anything and do permanent damage.)  

Well, this was late at night, so the next morning, I tried to turn on the computer, but could not get the keyboard to respond, although the wireless mouse did.  Hope for me.  I took the laptop to the Office Depot near me.  We tried attaching a remote keyboard and wireless mouse.  My files opened, but everything just "rolled."  Something was stuck, I thought.  They did not do internal work on sight, so I took it to Expertech.  Spilled liquid is evidently common enough, they have a standard price for it.  

When I brought the computer in, their comment was wine is better than water:  wine gets everything sticky, water starts to corrode everything.  They would have to dry and clean the laptop, and then install a new keyboard (or I could use a remote keyboard.)  The first thing the technician did? Take out the battery. It took several days, before I heard back.  They said they had cleaned and dried the computer, and it just needed a new key board.  I went with the new insert. They gave me a price for the keyboard, and we went with it.

When I picked up the computer, they showed me the old keyboard, and the new one that was installed. He said he had opened my recent files, and they seemed to be intact and working. He told me to take it home and if I had issues after I got home, to let them know!   

It took longer the than a week to repair, but the price was reasonable, and my files and email addresses were all intact!  So, life is good.  

I just need to be more careful.

Driving

I live down the street from a fairly new YWCA facility.  In the summer the place is very crowded, and the customers park on the street. The parking on the corners made it difficult to see oncoming traffic. I contacted the city councilman for my district and asked if "no parking signs" could be placed one or two parking spaces in from the corners.  That happened.

Yesterday, I was driving down the street.  A car was coming out of the parking lot to this facility.  The driver came out of the parking lot and almost hit my car, coming into the lane I was driving in.  I slammed the breaks on my car to prevent the accident.  I don't think the other driver even saw me.  

That angered me a little.  This isn't the first time that customers for this facility seem to drive as if they own the street.  Mmmmm.

Oh, so Sad

Last night, as I was watching TV and working on the computer, the power went out, oh so briefly.  Enough so, that I had to reset the wireless network in my home, but the clocks did not need to be reset.

I did not think much of it.

But at the 10 PM news, I learned that a private plane, piloted by Dr. Rice, http://kfyo.com/family-and-colleagues-of-dr-kenneth-rice/ had hit the KCBD Channel 11 http://www.kcbd.com/ tower as it headed toward the nearby field. KCBD was basically knocked off the air, but moved to the LISD TV studio http://old.lubbockisd.org/LISDTV/ and aired a special news show about what had happened.

This morning, we got the NBC feed from Amarillo http://www.myhighplains.com/home.  Tonight, we had local news at 6 PM, and were told we would get the national NBC programming through Suddenlink cable http://home.suddenlink.net/. Tonight, after the local news, again broadcast from the LISD TV studio, we got the news from the NBC affiliate for Big Spring, Midland and Odessa http://www.newswest9.com/.  I watched this for a while. It was interesting to listen to the local news from some perspective, other than Lubbock. And, it was interesting to me that the local news was broadcast at 6:30 PM, whereas in Lubbock, the local NBC news is done by 6:30 PM. We really need to open ourselves more to what is happening around the state as well as around the world, and know there are other perspectives and ways of doing things out there.

I did not know Dr. Rice. But from what I am hearing in the news, and from comments of friends, he was quite a man.  He will be missed in the Lubbock medical community for sure.