Theatre

This past weekend we went to see Safe House with Denzel Washington, and my mother and I enjoyed it. The film is about a rogue CIA agent, who also happens to be an interrogation specialist, and a rookie agent who has to survive on the streets with him. I don't want to give too much away, so I just highly recommend you see it. In addition to Red Tails we also saw this at the Great Escape Theater. I like Great Escape better since we've been there because the theater numbers are large enough that even I can see them. This Friday, February 17, we went to see Big Miracle, and like The Help turned out to be better than I thought. The film is based on a true story, and depicts the travails of three gray whales trapped in the ice. It shows quite literally the whole world was drawn in to help them.

We also got new cell phones last week. My mom wanted an iPhone, but my father and I stuck with regular ones. I think they have some apps to make the iPhone easier to see, but my Fred Flintstone age cell phone is just fine. In addition to my problems with Siri only doing certain things by voice, I also don't know how well I’d do with the touchscreen. My father and I took a trip to the Verizon store to transfer our contacts, and then my father went to a sporting goods store. While he went in, I was able to set up all my own voice settings. The phone announces the caller ID before starting the ring, the phone says what numbers are being pressed, or I can merely say call then say the number I want to call. Mark sped up my previous phone to do the extra things by voice, but he lives in DC. Since he's a lawyer now, even if he were here he'd probably charge me $200 a second.

I purchased a new sound card for my computer from Dell, and it arrived promptly. My sound card functioned properly, however it didn't work the best with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. With my previous soundcard Dragon could never pass the check microphone test, but for some reason it still worked fairly well. I called Dell to inquire into which soundcard upgrade would function properly with my computer, and I spoke to someone who determined which one would be appropriate then ordered it. He said the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCI Express Soundcard looked to be compatible, so that was the one on its way to my house.

It arrived Monday, February 6, and I originally scheduled it to be put in that Wednesday between 8 and 10 AM. On Tuesday night at 9 PM someone called to say it was very unlikely that a technician would be able to come at the time scheduled, but they would try to get someone. Since there was a remote chance for installation I stayed home from genealogical that day. No one called until around noon to reschedule for the following Monday, but I did sign for the phones that day. It therefore wasn't entirely a wasted day.

To be continued