Quigs’ Corner

So, I’ve been spending a lot of time watching TV in the past few weeks, while my body mends from my surgery. I wish that I could say that I’ve been spending quality time watching TV, but this is not true…and I proved it last night.

FOX premiered it’s version of a game show last night, called Are you smarter than a 5th grader?. I should have known when I saw Jeff Foxworthy as the host, that there will be no brain surgeons or rocket scientists on this show.

It’s a simple game really….one contestant ‘teams’ with a fifth grader (hope that they are screening for sex offenders!) to answer ten questions that will add up to $500k. The eleventh question will pay off $1 million. The contestant can ‘peek’, ‘cheat’, or ‘copy’ the answer of their team mate. Contestants can cry uncle and walk away with what they’ve gotten so far (I can’t used the word EARNED here folks) but must look into the camera and say “I am NOT smarter than a 5th Grader”.

FOX won’t be making any signifincant payouts soon if all the contestants will be like the UCLA grad that was up first last night. He needed assistance with every question!!! Then a woman came up next was equally as clueless, though she did get one question right on her own. Here are a few questions that I remember. See if you know the answers.

1. What month is Columbus Day in? Answer from UCLA grad: September. He was saved by his 5th grade buddy that knew it was October.
2. What was the name of the ship that the Pilgrims came to America on? Answer: The Mayflower. Though she struggled, the woman got this one right.
3. What does REM stand for? Answer: Rapid Eye Movement; this is the deep sleep that is required for your body to rev up for the next day. She had no clue what it meant. The 5th grader did, so she was saved.
4. If a triangle has an area of 16 inches and a base of 8, what is its height? OK, I have to say this….I NEVER use this stuff. I struggled with math in high school, and even more so in college. In fact, this is the one thing that scares me about taking the GMAT. But, I have to say that I actually got this question RIGHT! The UCLA grad said 1 inch (WHERE did that answer come from? ANYTHING x1 equals itself!) Tha answer was 4. 5th grader got it right.
5. Who was the first president to be impeached? Answer: Andrew Johnson. Adult-no clue; kid-got it right.

So, this is all basic stuff we all learned in school. I can understand that we might forget things, and there might be a bit of stage fright. But, come on people!!! This is stuff that was pounded into our heads over and over in school. And this is what all the kids in school today should be struggling with. This all makes me wonder if we in the US are really that badly educated, or if the average person just doesn’t care to know things (for the record, I consider myself above average). I have to say that the impeachment question was one that I was unsure of, but for me, it was between two former presidents….and how did I even know this? Because I listen to the news, I read the newspaper and I see news online. This was discussed over and over when Clinton was impeached. Now I know that was longer than 15 minutes ago, but still, if people would just pay attention, they would know.

This is also a reinforcement of what we see on Leno’s Jaywalking segments…people on the street that don’t recognize pictures of political leaders, but know what a bald Brittany Spears looks like. In Jay’s case, I think that they highlight the worst of the worst for entertainment value. In the 5th grader show, I hope that they are not trying to humiliate people, or that they are trying to show how stupid we really are as a society. Either way troubles me.  By the way, did YOU get the questions right?

Last night, I watched the Oprah special about her Leadership Academy she has built in South Africa. http://www2.oprah.com/presents/2007/academy/academy_main.jhtml. If you didn’t see it, I suggest you try to carve out some time to either watch it on her website or again on ABC Saturday night. These girls are AMAZING.

To me, Oprah is one of those people that I can’t decide if I like or not. I have a high level of admiration for her: for overcoming poverty, abuse, and race discrimination to get where she is today. She is no doubt one of the most powerful and richest people in the US today. She gives–time, money, support and hope to any number of people that have needed it for years. My issue is that she is so public about what she’s done; I feel that she is patting herself on the back at times. I have no doubt that she’s done lots of things that we don’t know about, but I think alot of what we do know about overshadows her ’secret’ good doing.

So, I watched last night’s show with cynicism. But, I realized that she had sucked me in when I found myself crying about these girls’ situations and their incredible drive and desire to get an education. Some of these girls had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS, violence, and abandonment. They walked to school through dangerous neighborhoods praying that they would not be the next victim of rape or murder. They did their homework by candlelight because they didn’t have electricity. They carried water on their head from the communal well in five gallon buckets because there was no running water in their shacks that they called home. In spite of all this, they had hope. They had faith and they accepted the hand they were dealt and insisted on forging ahead to get an education, because they know how important it is to get ahead and make a difference.

When these girls were shown their living quarters once they were accepted into Oprah’s school, they were most excited about the bathrooms-toilets and showers–things that they didn’t have at home. One girl did a dance in the shower! And the soft beds–one girl commented on the hard floor that she used to sleep on. Then, the meals….that they would get three meals a day; some girls would feel lucky that they got one meal a week at home!

The effort that Oprah has made for these girls is, once again, admirable. I think that she gets criticism for doing this in South Africa and not in the US, but let’s think about the attitudes in the US. Kids here hate going to school–we’re all in that boat…I hated going, you hated going. We didn’t have to work for school, we just got it. We didn’t (in my case) have to worry about risking our lives to attend classes. What I saw on this show was inspiring. Not Oprah, but these 13 and 14 year old girls.

I’ve frequently said that we take a lot for granted here in the US. This show reinforced this opinion. The gratitude of these girls was indescribable. They recognized the opportunity that they have been given, and I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing some of these young ladies in the future.

Now that Oprah has got me emotionally involved, I hope that she gives us updates on the school and the girls. I really want to see them do well.

In September 2001, we purchased a new Nissan Pathfinder LE to replace the 198something Ford Explorer with 250k miles on it.? One of the reasons we chose the Pathfinder included the stellar performance and only routine maintenance costs on our previous two Maximas.

We continue to drive the latest (1997) Maxima today, and ten years later, aside from LOFs, tires, brakes and belts and hoses, have only spent money to replace a sunroof mechanism and a motorized radio antenna (knock on wood–LOUDLY).? Nissan recalled and replaced the alternator sometime in 2000 or 2001 I think.

I have to say that we have not been so lucky with the Pathfinder.? This is very unfortunate, because we both love the ride, and the interior comfort of the vehicle.? When we bought it, we made the very out of character decision to buy the extended warranty.? Every consumer guide I’ve read tells you NOT to buy the warranty, because it’s a waste of money.? Not so in this case.? Between the time that the original warranty ran out and the extended warranty expired, we’ve had the CD player repaired (about $275), three engine ’sensors’ replaced (about $1600-$1700 total), and the transmission solenoid replaced, which incidendentally I had to diagnose by searching technotes on the web, since I was told that the problem was not happening (repairs about $2300).? These are only the things I can think of off the top of my head; in my calculations about $4100 or so worth of work (fortunately under that ‘unnecessary’ extended warranty)….I’m pretty sure there are more.? Each time I had the truck in for service, I had to pay a $50 deductible for a total of about $250 or so, AND I was usually without a car for the day.

I brought the vehicle in for a ‘once over’ during the summer to be sure there were no additional issues lurking before the warranty ran out…considering that the repairs already done to the truck were well over 10% of the original cost of the vehicle, I wanted to avoid any other immediate issues.? Of course, several hundred dollars later, nothing was found.

I think you know where I’m going here….about three weeks ago, the airbag light came on.? It seems that the computer only needed to be ‘reset’ which cost me a ‘diagnostic’ fee of about $60 I think.? Then, the state inspection couldn’t be done for at least a day since the airbag light had come on.? I got the inspection a week later, since I don’t have time to hang around dealerships, and two days later, the airbag light came on again!? I get a song and dance that it might be a different issue, and they’ll need to look at it and there will be additional fees.? I make an appointment for later in the week, and don’t you know, in the meantime the freakin’ ‘Check engine light’ comes on!!!? WTF NISSAN!?

Estimates to repair the problems were $900.? They fixed one thing for somewhere around $500 and we are waiting on a part on the other, which after Mr Q ‘talked’ to them, they decided that it will not be charged for.

Based on these experiences, we will not be considering another Nissan-EVER.? We generally hang on to vehicles for several years, and are not even close to our life expectancy of the Pathfinder…heck it doesn’t even have 100k miles on it yet!!!

What do we have to do to get a reliable, feature-rich, comfortable car that doesn’t put us in the poor house?? While I can understand an occasional failure of something here or there, the Pathfinder has been anything but occasional.? My recommendation is to do your research, talk to owners, read and digest info on the boards on the web and buy the extended warranty-you might just not regret the extra expense, since they don’t seem to make cars like they used to.

I haven’t given work much of a thought in the past ten days, which on one hand is great, but the other scares me for when I return. I’m posting this comment about DST (Daylight Savings Time) because its a HUGE change to every computer and in talking with a friend today, realized that those that are not in IT departments may not be aware of the change and the impact.

The Energy Act of 2005 (yes, your congressmen and senators made this change in their infinite wisdom to save energy) moved when Daylight Savings time starts and ends beginning this year. Of course, not wanting to make too much of a comittment, there is a line that gives them the ability to back out of it in the future.  Anyway, instead of ’springing forward’ the first weekend in April this year, you’ll now do it (as long as you want to be on the same time as everyone else anyway) starting the second weekend in March. This means that your Windows security patches need to be up to date to accomodate the new DST rules. And, this is really only the tip of the iceberg. Those that use any calendaring software can risk having appointments being off by an hour.

I’ve already patched my Mac, and my XP machine is in dire need of attention. I suspect that it will take me the better part of a day to get all the patches, etc it needs, since it really hasn’t been used much as we don’t pay much attention to it anymore.

I suggest that you be sure your OS patches are up to date, you contact your software vendors for any applications you might have that requires the use of time (you’d be surprised how and where it’s used!) and you might want to think about printing your calendars in advance for those three weeks to be sure you’re where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. Oh yeah, by the way, they changed WHEN it ends too, now the first weekend in November instead of the last one in October.  Our tax dollars at work….

So, my one night hospital stay turned into an [not] all expense paid five night visit to Baylor Plano. Seems that things didn’t go as well as the doctor had liked, then I came down with pneumonia and some other lung ailment most likely due to the anesthesia. So much for my pre-op germophobia semi-isolation routine I had put myself in. While the staff at the hospital was stellar, there is, as Dorothy says, ‘no place like home’. They set me free on Sunday afternoon, and I’ve been giving the cat (and occasionally the dog) someone to lean against in bed.

Those that know me know that not much slows me down, and am very independent (translatation: I find it hard to ask for help). Well, for now at least, this has changed. My energy level is practically nil. I couldn’t WAIT for my cleaning people to leave yesterday so I could go back to bed (all together now: awwwww, poor Lynn). I’ve recruited a young neighbor to walk the dog after school and her mom was kind enough to take Midnight for a few hours to play with their new pup earlier in the week. My friend J has been so nice to help me with my hair too….a cosmetic and narcissistic thing, but one that does lift your spirits.

So, back to relax some and let my body heal. Seems that it’s been through a bit, and is trying to tell me something…and I better listen.

I’m off to surgery in the morning…I should feel like a new woman when I’m done, or so I’m told. The procedure is scheduled to last 5 hours…I’ve haven’t sat still for that long since, well, I don’t know when. I guess that’s why they knock you out :-).

I’ll be out of work for a couple of weeks. It’s so hard to just stop working. It’s what I do, it’s my social network and my purpose every day. Good days or bad, it’s still why I get up in the morning. But, I’m sure the time will fly by and before I know it it will be time to go back to work and I’ll have something more to complain about. I suspect that I will tire of daytime TV pretty quickly anyway!

So, tonight I get ready….no eating, just thinking about the surgery and getting all worked up about it. Wish me luck, and think about me tomorrow. Sorry if I don’t think about y’all, but I think I will be a little under the weather for a bit.

As we go through life, we share significant events with others. The natural progression of these events through life usually start with graduations, then proceed to engagements, marriages, and births. We may console (or celebrate) divorces, and then finally grieve for the death of a loved one.

So far in my life, I’ve been to my share of graduations, weddings, and baby showers. It seems however, that the types of events that I now see are changing as I grow older. More of those that I know and love are ‘passing on’…they are dying.

This week, a very dear relative of Mr. Q’s died. She was one of my favorite people-she was kind, smart, respectful and had a great sense of humor. I never saw her without a smile on her face. She loved everyone unconditionally, and we all loved her back the same way. Her death will leave a large hole in many people’s hearts and lives. I can only hope to live the rest of my life in the same manner that she did.

RIP, Mary, you’ll be missed greatly. I hope that when I die, I am lucky enough to go in the same direction that you did-and I have no doubt which way that is. XOXO

Time seems to fly whether you are having fun or not.  This is not to say that I have not been having fun, only that I’ve been so busy that before I know it, it’s dark out (and the days really are staying light later now) and the dog and cat are nudging me looking for kibble. 

I spent a week in Orlando at Lotusphere in the midst of 7,000 Lotus users, admins and diehard customers.  Lotus yellow was everywhere.  The mood was great, and several new products were announced.  The ’special’ speaker at the opening session was the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong-one of my childhood heroes.  He talked about how he became an astronaut, what he did as an astronaut and his tasks when he was on the moon.  It seems that they are pretty much a ‘tech’ to help the engineers on earth do the ‘real’ work.  He had good stories, and received a well deserved standing ovation.  Overall, it was incredibly cool to see him. 

The thing about these events is that you go constantly-lecture sessions, hands-on sessions, key note speeches, and labs.  All of this was between three hotels near Epcot: Swan, Dolphin and Yacht/Beach club.  When you look at these on a Disney map, they are very close together, but in truth they are not.  Having attended Lotusphere before, I knew that I’d do a lot of walking and brought a pedometer to log the distances I walked (and comfy shoes!).  For the six days that I hiked around, I logged 18.67 miles before the device broke on the final day…I think it was just too tired! 

In spite all this walking and scheduling something in every available time slot, it seemed that I only saw a very small portion of the conference.  What I attended was excellent and worthwhile, but I still feellike I missed so much!

I’m back in TX now, trying to get caught up.  I think I’m close, though I suspect that this too shall change :-).