This blog is a window on my world, and the past two weeks have been A: a never-ending stream of health care appointments; B: an epic case of Password Panic; and C: writing. I\u2019m going to skip number one and go straight to number two.<\/p>\n
A month or so a go while on Spring break, our grandson drove 200 miles round trip so he and his girlfriend could see a movie, The Hail Mail Project, on IMAX. When I learned the movie was based on a book by the same guy who wrote The Martian, a book and movie I loved, I paid attention. Then a week ago, a friend showed up to visit and gave Bill a paperback copy of the book. I watched him attempt to read it, but his tremors were so bad I\u2019m surprised he didn\u2019t get seasick.<\/p>\n
For the past 40 years Bill, a retried Electronics Engineer, has been the tech genius in our family. I\u2019m a Liberal Arts major. Whenever I\u2019d have a problem with my computer and have it go south on me, I would be completely flummoxed. I\u2019ve never quite recovered from the time my laptop filled up with a screen of skull and crossbones! At times like those, the first thing Bill would ask me is \u201cWhat were you doing when that happened?\u201d Usually I didn\u2019t have any idea. And then, once he punched a few keys and magically fixed it, he\u2019d turn to me and say that the solution was \u201cdead simple.\u201d I always told him that if I ever got around to writing a book about the murder of a double E, the title would be Dead Simple!<\/p>\n
But after watching him struggle with the book, I thought to myself, \u201cWhy not buy it for his iPad?\u201d So I went to Amazon on his iPad, found the book, and ordered same. I asked to read it instantly, and sure enough it showed up. But I failed to read the fine print. The problem is, he reads iPad books on his Kindle app, and the Amazon app doesn\u2019t support Kindle. (Don\u2019t ask me why.) I could see the book on his iPad, and Amazon said he owned it, but I couldn\u2019t move it out of the shopping cart and into his library of books. When Bill tried reading it, if he touched anywhere on the screen\u2014which happens a lot\u2014the book would simply vanish. I could get it back eventually, but it took six iPad steps in Amazon which included by-passing the Italian version of the book each time. That happened over and over. Frustrating? You\u2019d better believe it!<\/p>\n
So then I had another brilliant idea. Why not get him an actual Kindle, something with a screen that wouldn\u2019t go haywire if he happened to touch the screen? So I ordered one. It was small. It was lightweight. It looked good. So I tried turning it on. In the process of attempting to register it, I somehow passed the page that would have connected to his existing Kindle account and ended up on the page for creating a new one\u2014WHICH I DID NOT WANT TO DO! Unfortunately there was no way for me to get back to the original page. Not only that, in the process, I somehow managed to disable Bill\u2019s Amazon password. By then, I was two days into the process and tearing my hair out with frustration. Meanwhile, he STILL couldn\u2019t read the book! Let\u2019s just call my situation by then total melt-down mold.<\/p>\n
Not long ago, when my workhorse MacBook Air needed a new battery, it went to a place called Jet City here in Bellevue and came back with my computer looking and running like new. So at the end of the second day of my Hail Mary dust-up, I called Jet City, explained the situation, and asked if they could help. Turns out they\u2019re hardware guys rather than software guys, but they directed me to a place called Nerds on the Go. So I called there and was told they could help but there was a fifty-dollar charge just for making the appointment. I paid that with a happy heart.<\/p>\n
The next day when I went there I was astonished to learn that their office is less than a mile from here. I arrived with my computer in hand along with Bill\u2019s iPad and our brand new, non-working Kindle. Once inside a very nice young man named Josh spent half an hour going zip, zip, zip and fixed everything. He fixed the password issue. He got the Kindle up and working on the right account. He found the book I\u2019d purchased on Amazon\u2014the English version instead of Italian\u2014and somehow transferred it to the now working Kindle. And just for good measure, I had him send Bill\u2019s extensive collection of Kindle books to MY computer in case I ever have time to sit down and read again. Total cost? $169, appointment charge included. Money well spent! As for what did I learn from this case of Password Panic? Next time I\u2019ll ask for help sooner!<\/p>\n
So now I\u2019m back to work on Joanna #22. No, the book still doesn\u2019t have a name, but I\u2019m thinking about it. But having just survived the copy-editor naming disaster for The Taken Ones<\/em>, I\u2019m trying to avoid using the same names over and over. To that end, I\u2019m keeping the name file for the book and the book file itself, side by side on my computer screen, making it easy to go back and forth between them. The problem is, a number of people from previous books, are showing up in this one. I named one guy Walter which seemed harmless enough, but then another guy showed up\u2014Walter McFadden from Joanna #1. At that point I renamed the guy James. Oops, turns out a number of pages later a bad guy named James Ardmore from Field of Bones also ended up making a cameo appearance. So I changed his name again. For the moment, his name is named Roger, and with any kind of luck, it\u2019ll stay that way.<\/p>\n But what did I learn from this? The copyeditor was more right than wrong. Evidently some names seem to stick in my head, and if they\u2019re good enough for one book, why not use them in all of them? So now I\u2019m trying to check every name as I go along, not only in current books but in previous ones as well.<\/p>\n