• Category Archives Life in the USA

  • What do my new printer, a hand dryer and a petrol pump all have in common?

    Posted on by beno Comment
    April 4th, 2008
    Its my 4th day at work, and so I’m guessing that you all get the idea that its work as usual and I’m loving it, so we are going to move on in the blog from work to things of interest (with some work stuff tossed in from time to time).

    So, a printer, hand dryer, and gas pump….. whats the link?
    Oh, come on, try!
    Ok, I will give you a huge hint, my new printer is one of the new HP things that allow you to print direct from a memory card, it has a little 3.5 inch color touch screen to walk you through the process…… That hint should give it away………

    No, still tossed?

    Ok, well, when you are in the bathroom and you hit the button on the dryer, the built in screen starts up and gives you a little entertainment while you get your hands dry…..True. It plays little short adds at you while you are ’stuck’ there getting your hands dry.
    I pulled in at the petrol station to get some gas, did the swipe your card thing (just love it!), and put the nozzle in the car, and next thing I know, the ‘add sign’ on the top of the pump starts up and starts playing all these little 5 second adds at me while I am standing there holding the lever to fuel my car….. It was pretty bizarre.
    Last night. I finally get my new printer working. It works over the network and took some getting going (my router is also a DHCP server and gave it a different address from the one it was installed with, I don’t know how non-geeks go with these things, I really don’t).
    Anyway, so I get this thing going, and print a picture, while I am standing there waiting, my printer starts flashing all these adds for HP products and services at me!!!!!! Unbelievable!

    So, what do my new printer, a hand dryer and a petrol pump have in common? They all spam me with stuff I don’t need or asked for!!!!

    Welcome to America.


    Life in the USA

  • Seven hours.

    Posted on by beno Comment
    April 8th, 2008

    I just remembered that Victoria (and some other parts of Australia) have come off day light savings this weekend……
    That means there is seven hours the difference between us and you (them and us?). So, keep that in mind when you call…. please…..

    Ok, now, heres really what happen…..I did my usual daily check of Gary’s weather station, and I saw that it was an hour behind what it should have been, I got all excited that it had crashed, but, having been burnt (ie SMS stormed) in the past for getting it wrong, I doubled checked and thats when I found it was just me forgetting the ‘new’ (ie different this year) rule……. Pretty down that it was not his station


    Life in the USA

  • Freddys over the moon

    Posted on by beno Comment
    April 10th, 2008
    So Freddy goes down to the DMV to see whats needed for us to get our driver license, only, she doesn’t just see about it, she takes her written test, and PASSES!!!!!!!
    We are both very excited. She picked me up a copy of the book which I read last night. She is booked in for her driving test May 12th (I think). And she has shown that its all pretty straight forward for us to get our licenses.
    Looks like Freddy will get her license before I will. Totally unfair, but very cool.

    Life in the USA

  • Courtesy beep.

    Posted on by beno Comment
    April 11th, 2008
    The Passat, like pretty much most cars over here, gives a little beep from it’s horn when you lock it. You get one little beep when the doors are all locked ok, and you get two beeps when a door is ajar. (Thats two unhappy beeps for you Dan).
    This sounds all well good, but the problem you have is when you live in an apartment and there is a near by car park. As people come and go all night, you get this ‘constant’ beeping. It comes in waves. 6pm, when people get home. 8pm when they are back from dinner or renting a movie. 11pm when they get home late. Then it gets hard to tell, but there is a morning shift and night shift wave in there, and then again from about 5am as people leave for work.

    This all dove tales into the next generation of motor sports I have come to notice……
    The Passat, thankfully, does not have a car alarm, unlike most other cars in America.
    People love to set their alarms to a hair trigger…..it’s like; ‘Dude, come and breath on my car, see, you blow on it and the alarm goes off! How cool is that!?’. Well, I’m here to bust his bubble, it aint cool, here is what happens………
    Other dudes, dudes with big loud V8’s with grumpy exhausts like to drive though car parks, giving their V8’s a squirt every row they drive down. The noise and vibration sets off first dudes car alarm. So you get this, Blatttttttt, pause, beep beep beep, chirp. You hear them going down the isles of cars and you hear the alarms in stereo as both rows get their alarms triggered. It is sooo the new motor sport over here.
    I just wish the finals were not held at 2am!


    Life in the USA

  • If you miss it, best to go around and have another go.

    Posted on by beno Comment
    April 15th, 2008 No Comments »
    Another busy weekend.
    Friday night it was up to Jason and Brittany’s again. This time we were able to do more than just lay around and talk about how tired we all are…. Jason and I helped the kids with their teen bible study essay and Freddy and Brittany sat on the couch and solved the worlds problems.
    Saturday was what the locals call ‘mega sabbath’, its the 2nd sabbath each month. You have spokesman’s club in the morning, then pot luck lunch, then services, then teen bible study, then there is the teen activity. It was a really good day. The club was fantastic, I mean really, really good. The quality of the speeches was fantastic. Some of the guys giving them were 16!!. The evaluations were also really helpful. The table topics were pretty deep and caused a lot of good answers. Then the closing comments by the guy taking the club (its on a roster, so you don’t always have the same guy taking it, what a great idea!) were amazing. In a nut shell he showed how what we learn in club can be applied to our jobs here and now. It was truly excellent.
    The teen activity this month was a spaghetti dinner and a DVD. We dropped the kids off and went to dinner with a bunch of friends. It was a Brazilian place, its pretty much a meat fest (heh, it just occurred to me right now how much Gary would love to eat there). You get your plate, and if you are game, you can self serve some salad, or, for the Garys of the world, you just sit. On the table there is a little double ended marker, green on one side, red on the other. While its showing green, they bring meat. All different kinds of meat. Its cooked on swords, and they bring it to your table on the sword, announce what it is, and if you want some, they slice it off right there, you have these little tongs and you grab it. And so it goes until you flip the marker to red. Sit, talk and get hungry for more, then flip the marker, and start again!
    From there were picked up the kids and drove to Steve and Karrie’s place. Spent the night there, next day we did some spring cleaning with them, then headed off about 11:30.

    The GPS is great, I would truly be lost with out it. There is only one time when I have had trouble with it, and this has happen enough times that I am almost getting ‘relaxed’ about it……. Where freeway interchanges are…… Its a mess, I am going to start taking Freddys camera with us, you need to see it to really get a handle on it…. There are at least 2 freeways, often 3, so you have up to 6 lots of ramps and over passes. Its amazing to look at, almost art. Every one else knows where they are going, and while the signage is pretty good, every now and then me and the GPS totally get it wrong. When you do miss your exit, you really do have to double back and double back and have another go at it…… Reason is, the new freeway you are on, will quickly (just how quickly is the topic of another blog soon) take you in the wrong direction.
    The ‘trap’ is, the interchange is so big that you have to drive for a mile or more (2-3k’s) before you get to an off ramp with an on ramp next to it. Then you have to go back though the interchange, find another off and on ramp, then try and get your exit. My record so far is three times. Its a handy dandy way to soak up a solid half hour! Even the kids are not bothered by it any more.
    So, two and a bit hours latter, we got home.
    It was a busy, but enjoyable weekend.


    Life in the USA