Out of Sorts

Boy, did I have a trying few days!  It started Wednesday when I started 2 simultaneous projects.

The first one was my Halloween costume which I decided to make myself this year.  I went online and searched Halloween costume pictures on Google for a few days until I found what I wanted - green sweats and a hoodie made to look like a cactus.  All I needed were matching sweats and hoodie and some yarn to make the cactus spines.  I ordered everything off Amazon so it would be to our house by Wednesday - figuring that would give me plenty of time to sew the yarn “spines” on the sweats.  Wednesday night I spent time figuring and diagramming until I had marked the sweats with dots where I thought the yarn should go.  On Thursday evening I started sewing the yarn pieces on - almost 900 of them.  The yarn was so thick that I had to use a leather needle and then pliers to pull the thick yarn through after threading the needle for each spine with a needle threader.  Can you see how this might take longer than I expected?  The thing I didn’t anticipate was that the acrylic yarn was going to go up my nose as I was sewing and cutting and give me an allergic reaction that would make my nose run like a had a terrible cold.  It even made my nose hurt with sinusitis so that it felt like I had been punched in the nose.  I did finish the hoodie this afternoon (Sunday) with half the original pieces of yarn  than I had figured at first, and I’m going to wear the sweats without the yarn.  Maybe if I get a wild hair I’ll finish those later.  The costume does look pretty good, but my nose still hurts, and it’s still running, and my fingers and wrists are pretty sore from all the tugging and pulling on the yarn.

The second project was testing a hardware problem on the iPhone 7 I got last month.  I had noticed the screen dimming at odd times - particularly in the car when it was just slightly warmer, and it was really starting to bother me that I couldn’t read the navigation map when I was driving unless the air conditioner was blowing on the back of the phone.   I had called Apple about it, and they had told me that I had to wipe the phone and make sure it would happen with none of my software installed or they wouldn’t replace it.  I have all my business on my phone, including inventories, invoices, schedules, income tracking, and much more, and every time I get a new phone it takes me several hours to get everything loaded on the phone, so wiping the phone and reinstalling all of that is not something I look forward to.  So Thursday evening I wiped the phone after doing a good backup and duplicated the problem.  I called Apple and they approved the replacement phone.  Everything was good so far, but then I started restoring all my data and apps back on the phone.  I went to bed hoping the process would be complete in the morning.  When I awoke the phone wouldn’t turn on.  Seems the backup process had hit a snag and the backup had crashed.  With support’s help I was able to make the phone function as just a phone for the day until I got home again Friday night and tried twice to restore it, but each time it crashed right at the end of a 4-hour process.  Saturday morning the kind support person determined that my backup was corrupted, so I started an 8-hour restore from the cloud backup I had made Wednesday night.  My phone was functioning normally, for the most part, by the time I got to bed Saturday night. Of course I had to determine what I had lost from Thursday and Friday and reenter any data I needed.  Then today I’m doing extra backups so that I’m ready to start the process all over again when I get the replacement phone tomorrow.  Whew!  Are computers really worth all this?  So I’m hoping this week will be less eventful, and I won’t be so out of sorts.

So what have I been up to?

Magpies was a blast the week before last.  It was so good to see all my regulars again, and we had a great time reminiscing and telling stories of our adventures over the summer.  After starting with a variety of songs, the night turned into a sing-along 60’s night by the end.  It was so much fun!

What am I up to this week?

Friday is Magpies 7-10 again, and I already have friends coming from as far away La Veta, so I know this will be a marvelous night again.  Please come out if you can!

That’s it for they week.  I’m still thinking of doing an online concert soon, so stay tuned.

Best always,

Tom

Details this week:

 Who:  Tom Munch
What:  playing & singing
Where:  Magpies, 229 S. Union, Pueblo.  719-542-5522
When:  Friday, Nov 4, 7-10 pm