HP Webcams, Little Ol' Lady Electric Cart & Darwinian Selection

What I saw today in Arlington is the reason I don't think I want one of those new GM Volt Electric cars that can go only a few miles before running out of power.

I'd been at the Arlington Costco. On the way from Costco to Fry's Electronics I saw this little ol' lady in an electric cart device crossing the Matlock Road overpass over I-30.

As I passed her she was not moving, but was frantically cranking on something.

I was going to Fry's to return the HP Pro Webcam I got there yesterday. I am appalled HP makes such a piece of junk and Fry's sells it. The video was fuzzy, the audio was worse. There was no manual. Just a piece of paper with 3 instructions. 1) Turn on computer. 2) Insert cdrom. 3) Plug in USB cable. That was it.

So I got rid of the HP Pro Piece of Junk Webcam and replaced it with a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. The HP Pro Webcam cost $29.99. The Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 cost $79.99.

You get what you pay for. The video from the Logitech is pretty much high definition. And the audio is also excellent. When I went to Fry's yesterday my intention was to get the Logitech one I got today, as it is top-rated. But then I saw the HP one for 50 bucks less, and figured, HP, they make good stuff, it must be good if it's an HP product. As it so often is, my logic was obviously flawed.

So, with the webcam switch out of the way, it was back on the road. I headed north on Matlock Road, wondering if the little ol' lady had gotten her electric cart moving. Traffic is very bad at this location. I was appalled when I finally got a clear view and could see the little ol' lady and her electric cart were moving again. From her pushing it.

I wanted to stop and help, but there was no way I could easily navigate the 10 or more lanes and get turned around again. It was just way too complicated. However I was able to fumble around and get my camera out and on and snap a picture as I drove by. This was a rather risky move in heavy traffic. I don't know how the little ol' lady was going to get out of that congested zone. What was she thinking? Driving such a thing in such traffic? Is there a chance that that was a Volt? Are they for sale yet?

Veterans Park, Fry's, Sweet Tomatoes and Strawberries

Isn't it about Day 12 of the Swine Flu Siege? Everywhere I go there are kids. It's time for them to go back to school. Then again we are almost at the time of year when school here lets out for the summer, so the respite would be brief.

I have a slightly sore throat and an odd burning sensation. I'm not much of a hypochondriac, but I'm almost certain my immune system is battling something.

I needed to get a web cam today. That meant going to Fry's Electronics in Arlington. That easily turned into going on a hike around Veterans Park on the way.

There were a lot of those aforementioned kids running around in Veterans Park. Veterans Park is in Arlington. Has Arlington closed its schools too? I don't know.

Today the Veteran statue at the memorial in Veterans Park, in addition to his regular guard duty, was also protecting wildflowers, helping to enforce a sign asking people to please STAY OFF WILDFLOWERS. Sadly, there did not appear to be too many wildflowers to stay off of, with no real need for a guard.

I don't like shopping, unless I already know exactly what I want. This was not the case with the web cam. Too many choices of varying levels of quality. I ended up with an HP web cam.

After Fry's it was around lunch time. Since I was in the neighborhood, a visit to Sweet Tomatoes seemed to make sense. Despite previously saying that until this flu crisis abates I was going to stay out of buffet lines.

But, I came prepared. I had my mask, I had several pairs of surgical gloves, I had my hand sanitizer. I'm almost 100% I did not pick up a virus while picking up stuff to eat in the buffet line.

Speaking of eating, it had been awhile since I'd been to Sweet Tomatoes. It seemed particularly good today. Strawberry is the theme for the month. There was a strawberry salad, strawberry buttermilk muffin,, strawberry mouse (is that how you spell that? It does not look right), strawberry cobbler and I'm probably forgetting a strawberry thing or two.

Sweet Tomatoes & A New Computer

I've had me a day of diving deeper into Computer World than I usually like to go. The day started off with me thinking I liked the idea of having the World's Lightest Laptop, a little itty bitty Sony thing that seemed way too little when I saw it in the flesh, so to speak.

Then my eyes fell upon another one, it was also slim, but had a much bigger screen, 3 gigs of memory, a huge hard drive and one of those duo core processors that I know nothing about, except that they must be fast.

The new laptop is a Toshiba. Don't they make cars?

On the way back here a feeding was needed. Fry's Electronics is on the south side of I-20 at Matlock. Sweet Tomatoes is on the north side of I-20 at Matlock. So, it was to Sweet Tomatoes I went after computer shopping made me hungry.

I forgot to mention, I also got that Dragon Speak program that converts the spoken word, via a microphone, to text. This should help me finally be more prolific with this typing words thing I do.

When I got back here, the getting a new computer working thing went way easier than the last time, which was about 5 years ago. I may be remembering wrong, but I think there was some user error involved that time.

I've got this place being a hardwired network connecting a few computers together. Ever since I got rid of Charter Communications and replaced that bankrupt, poorly run company with AT & T U-Verse, I've suspected that that huge modem/router thing they installed was a wireless modem.

I've long noticed when I turn on the wireless connection, on my other laptop, I see several possible connections, with one being at full strength. I suspected that was my own wireless connection. But I did not have a WEP key.

One of the available networks was 2WIRE063. I Googled for info about a U-verse wireless connection. I found out I could use a browser to connect to and control my modem. Doing that I found all sorts of info, including the fact that my broadband connection's wireless connection is named 2WIRE063, thus confirming I have a wireless system here.

But, what is the Network Key? Well, clicking "I forgot my Pass Code" brought up "Hint: Look on the Label." Label? I thought, maybe on the modem? Sure enough. There was a label on the modem and on that label was a number. And that number turned out to be the Network Key!

I feel like a detective who solved a very complicated problem. That should give you some indication of how low the level of technical proficiency operating here is, if I could have a wireless system, unbeknownst to me, that has to be figured out via Googling for help. Pathetic.

The next technical hurdle was getting the network to recognize the new computer. That turned out to be not too baffling. Files are being transferred even as I type.

I am going to try and watch last night's Survivor tonight. I hope I don't pass out again, like last night, but it's been a long day, and my poor little brain has really been overtaxed today. I may pass out at any time.

See you all tomorrow at the Tandy Hills, hauling brush to the street! I can't wait!

Friday's Fry's Day Sony Vaio Laptop

Who wants to go laptop shopping at Fry's Electronics with me today?

Today Fry's has the world's lightest laptop on sale, that being a Sony Vaio P Series that only weighs 1.4 pounds. Its battery lasts up to 4 hours. 2GB of Ram. With a built in camera and GPS navigation system, which I can not imagine using because I never get lost. Maybe it could be used on a plane to make sure the pilot is heading in the right direction.

I think I overdid the running around Tandy Hills yesterday. Sometime after 8 last night I started to watch yesterday's DVRed latest episode of Survivor, but I passed out on the couch before we got to the first challenge. This never happens to me, well, hasn't happened to me in a long long time. Of recent times my problem has been insomnia, not passing out in front of the TV.

Apparently I go from one extreme to another.

Like I can go from saying I'm not returning to the Northwest for another 10 years, after last summer's miserable month of, well, misery, to seeing a picture of tulips on a laptop screen and thinking it'd be fun to be in the Northwest this spring to see the Skagit Valley tulips for the first time in a decade.

This year's Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is a month long, as in the entire month of April. When I lived in the Skagit Valley I don't recollect the Tulip Festival lasting an entire month. If I remember right, last year's late Spring made everything bloom late, everything from tulips to blackberries, the blackberries being something I'd looked forward to last summer, but who's late ripening disappointed me, just like pretty much everything else had.

Maybe the Tulip Festival is being stretched longer to make sure there are some blooming flowers when the hordes, and I do mean hordes, of tourists arrive.

The same month as the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, the Tandy Hills Prairie Fest happens. The Prairie Fest will get about 3000 visitors. The Tulip Festival will get somewhere around a million visitors. This creates epic traffic jams on country roads, requiring a lot of traffic cop direction and surveillance by helicopters. It's a spectacle.

Veterans Park, Sweet Tomatoes & Horny Goat Weed

The early gray, sort of foggy morning, turned, by noon, to a typical blue sky Texas winter day. In the 70s. The windows are open again.

That leafless tree in the picture is in Veterans Park. Veterans Park is in Arlington in the heart of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, in which about 6 million people live, give or take a few.

Does the view, where this tree sits, look as if it is in an urban zone? This is only a few miles from where I live. This is not the only location like this, just a few miles from where I live.

Where I lived in the Washington town of Mount Vernon, population about 30,000, I could easily get to wild, natural areas. Almost as easily as I can in Texas. See why I like it here? For the most part.

After I was done hiking around Veterans Park I went to Sweet Tomatoes. If you live near a Sweet Tomatoes and you've not checked it out, do so. It is good. Real good. You'll be on a health food diet and loving every bit and bite of it. I leave there feeling so nutrified.

After Sweet Tomatoes I went to Fry's Electronics. They did not have the version of Dragon Speak that I wanted. They did not have any sort of Walkman that I wanted. But I did get a camera tripod that I wanted.

After that I went to Arlington's Hong Kong Marketplace on Pioneer Parkway & New York Avenue. I got a lot of good stuff and a box of "Horny Goat Weed Tea Male Vitality-Yang Herbal Tonic."

I'm drinking a pot of Horny Goat Weed right now. So far I'm not feeling any more vital than before I started drinking. It promises to promote vitality, stamina and healthy natural energy levels.

If I get any more energetic I'll have a heart attack.

The Detox Tea I've been taking has had me so relaxed I've slept well two nights in a row. I'm so relaxed I feel like I've been dosed with natural Prozac. I really don't think there is anything that could possibly annoy me right now. My cell phone just rang, a call from Washington. I let it go to voice mail. I don't want to test exactly how un-annoyable I am right now.

It's the dead of winter and there are more flowers in north Texas than in the dead of summer. Heat is hard on flowers. Winter is hard on palm trees. Last week I saw the biggest outdoor tent I've ever seen, on the grounds of a Vietnamese temple place in Arlington. Today the tent was down and I saw what it was covering. A forest of palm trees being protected from last week's freeze. The pansies you see above were in Veterans Park today. They didn't need any tent protection from the freeze.

Veteran's Park, Fry's and a Bad Router

Today started off okay. I went swimming early. The water was cold. I liked it. That's not my swimming water you see in the photo. That's a pond at Veteran's Park in Arlington. Those are turtles sitting on the log. I like turtles, but not in water I swim in. I've had a turtle incident or two. Their heads look like a snake when they are swimming towards you. Not a good thing for a snakeaphobe to see.

A few hours after swimming I needed to go to Fry's to get a new network router. That's when the fun began. I like Fry's. I've bought a lot of computer stuff there. I've returned a lot of stuff to Fry's. They are always good about it.

On the way to Fry's I went to the aforementioned Veteran's Park in Arlington to go on a walk. I like Veteran's Park. I see some odd things there at times. Like Disc Golfers. And people dressed like pirates pretending to do battle with each other. Within the past year a Veteran's Memorial has been added to Veteran's Park. It's a nice memorial, except one thing about it sort of disturbs me. As in there are these two marble-like boxes that look like coffins. I don't know what else they could be intended to be.

Today as I walked along the paved trail I saw something amusing. Apparently yesterday someone was walking with someone named Sara and Sara got grumpy. So, Sara's co-walker made note of her grumpiness by chalking a message onto the sidewalk for all to see. I think I'll start leaving chalk messages when I experience moments of inappropriate grumpiness. I would have needed a whole box of chalk when I was up in Tacoma last summer.

Veteran's Park has this rather cool section of the park called the Wildscape. This is a demonstration zone showing Texans how they can landscape using native to Texas plants that require less water and less maintenance. Parts of the Wildscape are paved, other parts are bricked, other parts are a boardwalk and the rest is just a natural trail.

The Wildscape has a lot of flowers and herbs and things that grow what look like berries. One of the berry bushes has these clumps of whatever it is in the most unnatural shade of purple. My photo does not do justice to the color.

So, after I was done at Veteran's Park it was time to go to Fry's. I bought a router. Or so I thought. But, I had been misdirected by a Fry's employee, few of whom speak anything but an Indian dialect of English.

I left Fry's and headed to Arlington's Chinatown to get goodies at my favorite Asian Market. That went well. Got back here and quickly figured out I'd not been sold a router. So, back to Fry's. It is about 15 miles from here, maybe 20. Got to Fry's, got rid of the non-router, got an actual router. Got back here, plugged it in and all is well again in Durango World.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.