I Am Angry Today Because . . .

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Spideyman

Uber Member
Jul 10, 2006
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Just north of Duma Key
The USPS does not consider a package lost until 30 days past mailing date. You then need to request forms to "go through" the process.
Once had a package sent to me from NJ. The last # of the zip code was wrong. I watched the package track the entire state of FL before someone finally looked at the hand written city and corrected the zip #. Unreal. That took over 3 weeks.
 

Moderator

Ms. Mod
Administrator
Jul 10, 2006
52,243
157,324
Maine
The USPS does not consider a package lost until 30 days past mailing date. You then need to request forms to "go through" the process.
Once had a package sent to me from NJ. The last # of the zip code was wrong. I watched the package track the entire state of FL before someone finally looked at the hand written city and corrected the zip #. Unreal. That took over 3 weeks.
And yet we get mail delivered for Steve at the office with nothing more than "Stephen King United States" on the envelope, even from international areas. ;-D
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
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Cambridge, Ohio
And yet we get mail delivered for Steve at the office with nothing more than "Stephen King United States" on the envelope, even from international areas. ;-D
stephenking.jpg
 

CoriSCapnSkip

Well-Known Member
Jan 16, 2015
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Saw my tech yesterday and wrote him this today:

Thanks for checking my RAID external hard drive to see if the lost pictures might still be on it. I was hoping there might be previous backups before that one done after the upgrade, but it seems not. Thanks also for giving me the equipment to transfer data from the G4 hard drive. I await your explicit and detailed instructions on how to perform this vital and delicate task. It's just as well you didn't send them today as it will take all day today and well into the day tomorrow to psych myself up into attempting this unnerving operation.

In the meantime, I kept busy by finally getting all my pictures (just those I have shot and not put in albums, not counting family and others) along one wall of one room. The last time I attempted this was in 2010 when I had to find images for a funeral, but ran out of time and shelf space. From when I started photography till 1985 everything is in albums. From then on it is just in envelopes in paper bags. In 2010 I got all but about five years' worth onto one shelf. Two years and part of another were left on another shelf and three years in a bag in another room. I moved things around enough today to finally arrange all of them in order on one shelf! Right now I will concentrate on choosing the best ones for the frames and probably use the frames as is, and later print backing images on calendar weight paper as we discussed and figure out the fine points of attaching a backing board behind the metal frames.

Although Photos is evil spawn, it seems a good program for putting together a slide show relatively fast so after I do as much scanning as I can get to and retain cognitive function for all the other preparations I must undergo, I will concentrate on making the frames as perfect as possible and throw the slide show together fast and they get what they get and they'll like it the way I give it to them. I need to leave time to figure whether we're going to bring our TV to play it on at the party, or what.

Anyhow, please send the instructions and I will brace myself and prepare for whatever may materialize. I don't remember how long I was able to continue putting pictures on the G4, so hope there's not too much of a gap if any between then and June 2014 when I started saving memory sticks.
 

CoriSCapnSkip

Well-Known Member
Jan 16, 2015
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I've just about had it. Wrote the following to my tech:

Okay, serious and severe weirdness going on here. In short, all hell has broken loose!

After following your instructions to remove the G4 Hard Drive--at first I thought I must be doing the wrong thing the wrong way, as they could scarcely have made that screw smaller or trickier to manage--while you were on the phone with me I got it removed and connected to the Tower and all seemed well--it claimed to be copying over 20,000 items!

So there were folders labeled iPhoto Library 1, 2, and 3. I figured 3 would have the later pictures I was worried about, and tried to open it. It said I had to upgrade so the pictures could be opened in the latest version of iPhoto, so I did. I then tried to open iPhoto Library 3 and it said there was nothing in it! Maybe it was just a combination of the other two. See the enclosed screenshot and see what you think. So, whatever. So I opened and imported the other two.

Well, when I opened my iPhoto Library, instead of the 16,000 and some images going to at least 2014 it formerly contained, it now contained only 6,271 dating to March of 2010! I searched repeatedly and frantically for another folder containing the newer images. Please note on the Screenshot that these folders date to 2014! Having ejected and removed the Hard Drive, I reconnected it EXACTLY the way it was before, made sure the connectors were tight and the unit turned on, and IT DID NOT APPEAR ON THE SCREEN! I tried Rebuild, Repair, and restarting the computer, and iPhoto still came up with the same 6,271 images! Time Machine shows a lot of earlier updates, but won't let me open them. Perhaps the RAID drive has to be connected for it to work?

So we are now not only no better off on restoring the lost images, WE ARE MARKEDLY WORSE, AS iPHOTO HAS EATEN THOUSANDS MORE OF MY PICTURES, AND THE ONLY COPIES OF MY REMAINING IMAGES ARE IN PHOTOS WHICH IS JUST WAITING TO DESTROY THEM ALONG WITH THE LAST SHREDS OF MY SANITY!

Can you please check whether you may have data from my G4 somewhere? If not, at least GUARD THAT RAID DRIVE WITH YOUR LIFE, as it contains the ONLY other copy of most of the remaining pictures! But what we are to do about the missing ones, even as far as determining how many are gone, I do not know, and it's using up time I need to go through the archival images to have prints and a slideshow for Saturday!!! I can't face anyone and am rapidly losing my will to live.
 
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AnnaMarie

Well-Known Member
Feb 16, 2012
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And yet we get mail delivered for Steve at the office with nothing more than "Stephen King United States" on the envelope, even from international areas. ;-D

He's like Santa Claus.

(Apparently most countries, if they receive mail addressed to Santa Claus, North Pole they send it to Canada. Because this is where he lives...postal code H0H 0H0.)

~~~~

My son's package from the US arrived yesterday. Must say, I'm impressed with the quality of the shirts. But they smell awful. Some chemical odour.
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
He's like Santa Claus.

(Apparently most countries, if they receive mail addressed to Santa Claus, North Pole they send it to Canada. Because this is where he lives...postal code H0H 0H0.)

~~~~

My son's package from the US arrived yesterday. Must say, I'm impressed with the quality of the shirts. But they smell awful. Some chemical odour.

Do the shirts smell like motor oil? The sizing in Pinson sheets smells like motor oil - I always wash them twice before using them.
 

AnnaMarie

Well-Known Member
Feb 16, 2012
7,068
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Other
Do the shirts smell like motor oil? The sizing in Pinson sheets smells like motor oil - I always wash them twice before using them.

The odour actually reminds me of a dry cleaners. Or at least what they used to smell like...most around here are now "green".

My son didn't want to wait for me to wash them. He had them hanging in his room (not in closet...out where he could see them). Walking past his room, I could smell them in the hall.
 

CoriSCapnSkip

Well-Known Member
Jan 16, 2015
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Wrote the following to my tech:

Well, we survived Mom's 90th birthday party. I was till 9:00 p.m. Friday night just doing the framed displays. My cousin who helped me carry them to the hotel Saturday did an entire music album which was an homage to Pink Floyd's The Wall, so I sang to him (to the tune of "Another Brick in the Wall,") "We don't need no stinkin' slide show/We got lots of prints to see." I also told a group of relatives on Friday night that anyone who mentions the state of the house and yard risks physical assault, and anyone who says, "Great prints, where's the slide show?" will be fiercely bitten about the head and ears. In truth, many more people will see the slide show images in a Facebook album (I still want to do a high resolution version of everything for relatives--another story) than would have seen a slide show at the party (considering that many more of Mom's friends and family were unable to attend than were able) and everyone can look at each picture as long as they want. Her actual birthday is not for three more days so I am willing to be tortured that much longer and then post something the night before or on the actual birthday.

Pictures taken before 2007 were all printed (though I never did find most of mine from 2007 in any form--I'm getting worried and have to check into that)--and everything for the slide show for as far as I got either for scanning or framing, were scanned straight from the prints! I did not attempt negatives as scanning just three slides with my equipment drove me into near fits. A cousin brought some other type of slide scanner (which I didn't even have time to look at) along with thousands of her father's slides (a few of which I saw) and we will get together about exchanging scans.

So here are my thoughts. Please tell me if they make sense. I said I was fed up, had it, through, with the Photos App. Thing is you did that neat thing with connecting everything on the Cloud so that it all shows up on my cell phone. This is mostly good as when I want to show pictures, I have a choice of all pictures, not just those shot on the phone, and it saves using up memory on the phone. I would like to keep this, so I am thinking when we get a complete, clean copy of whatever is digitized--which I hope, if those four years' worth of pictures are not lost, will be everything--that we should, using the app you recommended earlier (and you told or can tell me how to install that) redo or correct the Photos Library so that it has one copy of everything and no duplicates, and I will keep that copy!

I still want to do the Adobe Lightbox, but as I understand that's only a Photo Library with editing tools, it doesn't come with full resolution Cloud backup, or does it? Because if it does perhaps I need only the sorting app you recommended which works so well with Macs, and the Adobe Lightbox, if not I need at least either Amazon Photos, Google Photos, Backblaze, or all of the above, as I don't trust Photos to a) PUT my cherished pictures on the Cloud, b) KEEP them there, and c) Store anything so I can ever find it again!

As for the G4 hard drive situation. The G4 had more than one hard drive and obviously if there was a right one the one I pulled was the wrong one. So pictures taken 2010-2014 never even got looked at along with a lot of others. I got so harassed and flustered I threw the hard drive into a drawer still connected to the transferring equipment and there it sits. Later today I hope to become brave enough to replace it, remove the other, and see if it may contain the missing information. Then we can proceed with completing and streamlining a full library. Thanks so much for your wonderful knowledge!
 

Agincourt Concierge

Far and Away Member
Sep 10, 2008
6,759
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the Wastelands
More doublespeak and runaround from the Government.... as many of you know, Teddy has been fighting for disabilty for 4 years now. Well, we finally won that battle in June. We have now been waiting for 2+ years of back pay from the feds. It has beens months now, so I placed a couple calls yesterday, first to our lawyer, then to Social Security.... I was literally on hold for 45 minutes waiting for them....when I finally spoke to a SS rep, he said, we weren't going to see any money until things were reviewed by a judge, before our lawyers got paid, before the feds checked to see if Teddy owed any money to Feds.... yadda yadda yadda...

Which is completely opposite what our lawyers had just told me.
So, needless to say... poor Teddy was so very upset yesterday.... he just feels this nightmare is never ending...

Thank goodness I have enough reserve for the both of us... I decided to call our lawyer back today and tell them what I was told by SS... the case worker for his lawyer said she couldn't understand why the feds were holding up his settlement payment and she was going to make some calls to SS today to see what the heck was going on.....

I used to think Uncle Steve only came up with scary sh*t.... the federal government has him beat by a long shot....

Sorry, just venting here..... it just seems to go on and on and on....
 

Spideyman

Uber Member
Jul 10, 2006
46,336
195,472
79
Just north of Duma Key
More doublespeak and runaround from the Government.... as many of you know, Teddy has been fighting for disabilty for 4 years now. Well, we finally won that battle in June. We have now been waiting for 2+ years of back pay from the feds. It has beens months now, so I placed a couple calls yesterday, first to our lawyer, then to Social Security.... I was literally on hold for 45 minutes waiting for them....when I finally spoke to a SS rep, he said, we weren't going to see any money until things were reviewed by a judge, before our lawyers got paid, before the feds checked to see if Teddy owed any money to Feds.... yadda yadda yadda...

Which is completely opposite what our lawyers had just told me.
So, needless to say... poor Teddy was so very upset yesterday.... he just feels this nightmare is never ending...

Thank goodness I have enough reserve for the both of us... I decided to call our lawyer back today and tell them what I was told by SS... the case worker for his lawyer said she couldn't understand why the feds were holding up his settlement payment and she was going to make some calls to SS today to see what the heck was going on.....

I used to think Uncle Steve only came up with scary sh*t.... the federal government has him beat by a long shot....

Sorry, just venting here..... it just seems to go on and on and on....
Agincourt Concierge -- have a girlfriend who fought for 7 years to get disability. They finally agreed and to back pay but that took another full year of he said, she said, fill out another paper. Sending positives you way-- you know--- Love and Green Lights!!
 

Agincourt Concierge

Far and Away Member
Sep 10, 2008
6,759
10,368
60
the Wastelands
Agincourt Concierge -- have a girlfriend who fought for 7 years to get disability. They finally agreed and to back pay but that took another full year of he said, she said, fill out another paper. Sending positives you way-- you know--- Love and Green Lights!!

thats exactly what scares me, another year of nonsense... but thanks for the love and green lights..... always appreciated... :smile: