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captainsblogUpdating some things from prior posts:
The two big projects are DONE. At least for now. On the one, I couldn't get a straight answer on whether I had to serve almost 40 copies of an almost-40-page document, knowing full well that I will have to serve those 40/40s again in a couple of weeks. Fortunately, I was able to find precedent for only having to send out four copies of the full boat and just one page notices to everybody else.
The other wound up being just two fairly short and sweet documents, but there's a document dump a-comin' that I will have to deal with in the coming days.
Meanwhile, I'm still dealing with assorted technology fails. I sent a client a text this morning about an "asset deposition" we're trying to schedule in one of his cases. Siri decided it was time to drop some Orange Sunshine on him:
That was after finishing a day of lots of work around the house (not nearly as much as Eleanor) and an afternoon of attempted grocery shopping (half of the contents of the list being out of stock for some reason), only to sit down for Doctor Who at 8 p.m. and discover.... no television on the television. Everything else was working- the BluRay/DVD player, the Netflix, even the "live tv" that we don't have an antenna for but still pops up- but the Spectrum TV app? Last night at 8, I turned on the thing, scrolled to the icon, and it loaded, said "getting program data," and thereafter just displayed a Blue Screen of Cable, not going to the usual "preparing your Spectrum experience" screen. I turned the tv off and on, unplugged it for several minutes, updated the Samsung software, nothing. Tried again this morning, same result. We cut the literal cord to the set over a year ago, and the local channels plus ten national non-premium offerings come in through the internet pipe for an extra 10 bucks a month over our broadband connection. Except when they don't. I'll figure it out, eventually. I suspect it's only Mostly Dead....
----
Which is more than I can say for the news of the past few days in the DEATH department. First came word of Buck Henry's passing. While not an A-list star, he touched so many bases in so many areas to make me love his work. He co-created Get Smart! with Mel Brooks; he was one of the early-year staples of NBC Saturday Night, becoming the first to host the show five times and playing foil to John Belushi's Samurai character in sketch after sketch. He wrote the screenplays of The Graduate and Catch-22. He created one of the 60s spoofs of superheroes I've always adored, Captain Nice. And remember Thursday, when I said I was finally meeting with the guy who (I) tried to get me fired? I didn't mention that our meeting was at the local library; and while I waited for him to write out his payments, I wandered over to the DVD section and, the morning of Buck's passing, found this jumping out from the shelf:
I don't think I'd seen this in all the years since it was in cinema (and I have a vague recollection of seeing it in Binghamton with my sister). Buck co-directed with Warren Beatty and had an acting role in it, as well; understated as he often was, but with little touches that you could just tell he had a hand in. Eleanor had never seen it, and she thoroughly enjoyed watching it, too.
He was 89, so he had no real reason to make Heaven Wait anymore. The next morning, though, brought a much more tragic report: Mark Croce, a local businessman responsible for renovating, if not outright saving, numerous historic Buffalo buildings, was reported downed in a helicopter crash on his way home from Pennsylvania with another friend and business associate in the chopper. He was younger than me by a few years, and while I never met him, his efforts particularly in bringing back downtown's legendary Statler Hotel from within inches of a wrecking ball. While he wasn't related to another famed man named Croce who died in an air crash, the coincidence was pretty bizarre.
And the weekend brought word of the death of Rush drummer Neil Peart. I was never much into the band (other than the occasional Geddy Lee side project, where ten bucks is ten bucks;), but I appreciated its influence on the genre and how much they and he meant in his home and native land.
ETA. Home now, and after a relatively pleasant tech support call, the Spectrum is back on. I also forgot to mention a Happy from earlier: I was quite sure that I was going to be double-booked for court hearings here and in Rochester in about 3 weeks, but I got word that I dodged that particular bullet. And nobody of notability has died today, per the most recent Wikipedia roundup- although Get Smart!'s Dick Gautier died on this day three years ago. I guess it was his time to "hop to it."
The two big projects are DONE. At least for now. On the one, I couldn't get a straight answer on whether I had to serve almost 40 copies of an almost-40-page document, knowing full well that I will have to serve those 40/40s again in a couple of weeks. Fortunately, I was able to find precedent for only having to send out four copies of the full boat and just one page notices to everybody else.
The other wound up being just two fairly short and sweet documents, but there's a document dump a-comin' that I will have to deal with in the coming days.
Meanwhile, I'm still dealing with assorted technology fails. I sent a client a text this morning about an "asset deposition" we're trying to schedule in one of his cases. Siri decided it was time to drop some Orange Sunshine on him:
That was after finishing a day of lots of work around the house (not nearly as much as Eleanor) and an afternoon of attempted grocery shopping (half of the contents of the list being out of stock for some reason), only to sit down for Doctor Who at 8 p.m. and discover.... no television on the television. Everything else was working- the BluRay/DVD player, the Netflix, even the "live tv" that we don't have an antenna for but still pops up- but the Spectrum TV app? Last night at 8, I turned on the thing, scrolled to the icon, and it loaded, said "getting program data," and thereafter just displayed a Blue Screen of Cable, not going to the usual "preparing your Spectrum experience" screen. I turned the tv off and on, unplugged it for several minutes, updated the Samsung software, nothing. Tried again this morning, same result. We cut the literal cord to the set over a year ago, and the local channels plus ten national non-premium offerings come in through the internet pipe for an extra 10 bucks a month over our broadband connection. Except when they don't. I'll figure it out, eventually. I suspect it's only Mostly Dead....
----
Which is more than I can say for the news of the past few days in the DEATH department. First came word of Buck Henry's passing. While not an A-list star, he touched so many bases in so many areas to make me love his work. He co-created Get Smart! with Mel Brooks; he was one of the early-year staples of NBC Saturday Night, becoming the first to host the show five times and playing foil to John Belushi's Samurai character in sketch after sketch. He wrote the screenplays of The Graduate and Catch-22. He created one of the 60s spoofs of superheroes I've always adored, Captain Nice. And remember Thursday, when I said I was finally meeting with the guy who (I) tried to get me fired? I didn't mention that our meeting was at the local library; and while I waited for him to write out his payments, I wandered over to the DVD section and, the morning of Buck's passing, found this jumping out from the shelf:
I don't think I'd seen this in all the years since it was in cinema (and I have a vague recollection of seeing it in Binghamton with my sister). Buck co-directed with Warren Beatty and had an acting role in it, as well; understated as he often was, but with little touches that you could just tell he had a hand in. Eleanor had never seen it, and she thoroughly enjoyed watching it, too.
He was 89, so he had no real reason to make Heaven Wait anymore. The next morning, though, brought a much more tragic report: Mark Croce, a local businessman responsible for renovating, if not outright saving, numerous historic Buffalo buildings, was reported downed in a helicopter crash on his way home from Pennsylvania with another friend and business associate in the chopper. He was younger than me by a few years, and while I never met him, his efforts particularly in bringing back downtown's legendary Statler Hotel from within inches of a wrecking ball. While he wasn't related to another famed man named Croce who died in an air crash, the coincidence was pretty bizarre.
And the weekend brought word of the death of Rush drummer Neil Peart. I was never much into the band (other than the occasional Geddy Lee side project, where ten bucks is ten bucks;), but I appreciated its influence on the genre and how much they and he meant in his home and native land.
ETA. Home now, and after a relatively pleasant tech support call, the Spectrum is back on. I also forgot to mention a Happy from earlier: I was quite sure that I was going to be double-booked for court hearings here and in Rochester in about 3 weeks, but I got word that I dodged that particular bullet. And nobody of notability has died today, per the most recent Wikipedia roundup- although Get Smart!'s Dick Gautier died on this day three years ago. I guess it was his time to "hop to it."