Dictation

I saw a notice on the Morningside Facebook page that a lady had a friend who was doing her PhD and was looking for someone to transcribe oral interviews in the written versions.  I phoned the lady and she gave me the number of the PhD Student.  The PhD student set me up with an account to send me the audio recordings.  She said she could pay $100 for an hour of audio.  She said she had 10 interviews to do.  She sent me an example audio file and an example of what it looked like transcribed and she sent me a confidentiality form.  I tried to transcribe the audio and I couldn’t type fast enough even when I slowed down the recording.  I was talking to my brother in law about it and he suggested there might be some voice to text software I could use.  So I looked up apps on my phone and tried one.  I also remembered that we had tried voice to text on Facebook messenger and I found there was a voice to text feature on Gmail.  I tried to use the voice to text app through the speakers of my computer but it didn’t work.  So I tried listening to the audio recording and repeating it into the phone app and that seemed to work fairly well but I found the listening was slow because I often had to stop and repeat parts and also after it was in text, I had to upload it to the cloud and download it into Word and edit while listening to the audio again.  The PhD student wanted me to transcribe all the 'ums' and 'uhs' and pauses and giggles.  Barb thought that was stupid but the PhD student said she needed the nuance. It would probably take me more than 3 hours to transcribe an hour of recording which didn’t make the $100 an hour sound so good if it was $100 for 3 or more hours but I signed the confidentiality agreement and sent it to the PhD student.  She replied that she would send me  an audio file soon.  When I told Sarah about it, Sarah said she would pay me $100 not to do it.  She thought it was stupid.  I waited and the PhD student never sent me anything and I never got back to her.  So it looks like it is not going to happen and I am okay with that.

Reviews

Barb immediately tried out her new washer and dryer.  The new washers and dryers come with all kinds of new safety features.  Barb likes to put clothes in the washer gradually as it fills with water to see how much she can fit in but the new washer won’t let her open the lid once it starts to fill.  Then after the clothes are washed, spin cycle goes for almost a half hour and wrinkles the clothes terribly.  She went to the internet and read the reviews on the washer and dryer and everyone complained about those things.  Then they said that the dryer turns itself off every 20 minutes or so when it thinks the lint filter is full.  So if you want to dry the clothes, you constantly have to get up and clean the lint filter.  Barb wished she had read the reviews before she bought the new washer-dryer.  I tried to explain to her about safety regulations that are constantly getting tougher and they are trying to protect her but she was not impressed.

Smudge

Barb found our washing machine was leaking.  I thought we should get it fixed but Barb thought it was too old and so she bought a replacement.  She talked to a salesman over the phone and he promised it would be delivered in 5 to 10 days.  Barb was getting upset because our laundry was piling up.  They delivery men finally called and said they would be delivering the washer and dryer between 8 and 12 the next day.  We had to get both a washer and dryer even though only the washer was broken because they were stacked to fit into our little cupboard in the kitchen.  We found out that we had to disconnect the washer and dryer and they said we had to take them apart.  We were able to disconnect them but we couldn’t get them apart.  The next day Barb was playing pickleball in the afternoon and was happy they were going to deliver in the morning.  She got up early and waited and finally they hadn’t come by 11:30.  So Barb started getting ready to leave for pickleball.  She had parked our cars in the neighbour’s driveway to allow room for the delivery truck and she was happy with herself because the neighbour’s had gone away for the winter and they often use other people’s driveways when our neighbours are away.  Anyway she was just about to leave when the delivery men arrived.  We found out that we weren’t supposed to take the washer and dryer apart.  Barb left and I supervised the men as they installed the washer and the dryer.  They were two big strong guys but seemed very happy and they did a good job.  Barb was worried that they would scratch the floor but they didn’t.  Then I moved the kitchen table back in place. Barb saw a scratch on the floor and I thought maybe I had done it when I moved the table back.  But Barb was able to wipe it off.  It was only a smudge.

Sore

We took advantage of one of the last reasonably warm and dry days to clean up the garden for the winter.  Barb did most of the work cutting down the plants and I helped bag them and I took the bags to the yard waste container at the Community Centre.  Barb only had three yard waste bags.  So I had to take the bags in the car and empty them in the container and then bring the bags back.  Usually you just throw the bags out with the yard waste in them.  I was kind of embarrassed reusing the bags when there were other old guys dumping stuff in the container when I was there.  They must have thought I was really cheap.  Anyway, Barb was so sore the next day after gardening that she could hardly play pickleball but we were really happy to have it done because the weather was rainy for the next two weeks until it snowed.

Cargo

I was doing the accounting and was looking through Barb’s Costco bills and noticed a big expense of 7 times $21 labelled Cargo.  We thought it was a mistake.  The only thing I could think of was some kind of shipping fee.  I even looked up cargo on the internet and all that came up was airline cargo.  Then we finally realized that that was when Barb bought me 7 pairs of cargo shorts on sale that I wear all summer in Canada and all winter in Florida.

Accident

Julia and I are always making fun of this friend of Julia’s who drove her car into a house in Barrhaven.  Well today I was at the doctor’s office and when I was leaving I was lazy about looking behind me when I was backing out of my parking spot and ran into the garage attached to the doctor’s office.  I was getting lazy because I was used to driving our new car that has the rear view camera.  I thought the accident was worse than it was.  When I got home, I was able to wash off the paint from the wall of the garage using Barb’s super cleaner sponge.  There was just a small scratch on the back bumper.  But really how do you drive into a house?

Turned Around

On the drive home from the football game, I got turned around a little and took a strange and long way home.  I sort of knew my way home but it was definitely not the fast way home.  Fortunately, Barb and Sarah were happily talking and didn’t notice anything strange and I didn’t say anything about being lost.  Finally, I knew we were going in the right direction but I didn’t really know where we were and then I saw a familiar sight and found my way and got on the highway to get home.

Helmets

During the football game, there was a situation that looked quite bad.  Two players, one from each team, were nose to nose and going at each other.  I thought it was a fight.  Then I realized that it wasn’t when an equipment man came on the field.  The players took off their helmets and the face masks had somehow gotten stuck together.  When they took the helmets off, even the equipment guy couldn’t get them apart.  Then we saw him smash the helmets on the turf until they came apart and the game could continue.

Half Time

At half time in the football game, we went up to the food kiosks to buy a warm drink.  I told Barb and Sarah to go to the washroom because it would probably be warm in there.  So they went to the washroom and spent the whole half time with their hands under the hand dryer that blew out hot air.  Barb didn’t want to go back to our seats in the rain and wind.  So we watched the second half standing up at the food kiosk area which was sheltered from the wind and the rain.  It wasn’t warm but there was lots of room there because most of the fans had already gone home.

Badg

When we got to the stadium for the football game, we were climbing the stairs to our seats and at the top of the stairs was a tent with the words Hamilton Honey Badgers on it.  I think the Honey Badgers must be the Hamilton women’s football team.  I thought it was funny because I didn’t think anybody knew what a Honey Badger was.  We had seen a video on YouTube about Honey Badgers and how badass they were.  So we started calling Sarah, Sarah Badger because she is so badass.

Hiking

Sarah had asked us a couple of weeks ago if were available on October 27^th.  We said we were and wrote in our calendar a Sarah Surprise.  On Saturday morning, I woke up but was still in bed and Barb said you better get up, we are leaving in about an hour.  Barb said that Sarah was taking us for a hike but it was cold and raining.  I said couldn’t we do it next weekend.  Barb said no we couldn’t.  So we went out and picked up Sarah and we drove to Hamilton for a surprise belated birthday present.  We went to the football game between the Ticats and the Ottawa Red Blacks.  Sarah got excellent seats from a season ticket holder’s resale website.  We got to our seat and it was cold and raining and windy.  A couple of old men sat down in front of us with plastic raincoats on.  And a group of young women were sitting close to us and they sounded so keen and sounded like great Ticat fans.  The old men lasted about 10 minutes and the women were gone by the end of the first quarter.  Barb was blocking the wind from us and she was not happy.  She said next year Sarah should pick a game in July.

Extra Innings

I was listening to the World Series game on the internet radio station and it was in the 8^th inning and the score was tied.  I thought Barb would be finished watching television for the evening and I went and put on the game.  The game went into extra innings.  Then in the top of the 13^th inning one team scored a run on a two out error.  I thought the game would be soon over but in the bottom of the 13^th inning the home team scored a unearned run with two out and tied that game.  It went on.  I stayed up until 3:30 am until the game ended in the 18^th inning.  It was the longest game in MLB playoff history.

Podcast

I started reading the book that I got from the liberry and Barb was making fun of me because I was reading a paper book.  She only reads ebooks and I only listen to audio books.  I read the introduction and the author said that the book was available as a Podcast from the CBC website.  So I went to the website and downloaded the Podcast.  Then I returned the paper book to the liberry.  I had to load a Podcast app to my phone to listen to the book while I walked.  Then when I tried to listen to the Podcast, I found that it started at the last chapter and worked its way to the first chapter.  So I had to find the first chapter and then after it played I had to stop the Podcast and find the next chapter.  It was a little annoying but I found it easier than reading the paper book.

Liberry

I found out one of my favourite authors had written a book a few years ago and I had never read it.  So I looked it up at the library and put it on hold in the afternoon.  Then that evening I got an email saying the book was ready to pick up.  I love libaries.

Final Game

I went to the final game of the Kitchener Fastball League playoffs tonight and it was cold.  None of my normal friends were there to watch.  There were just a few parents and girlfriends/wives there watching.  The game was pretty memorable.  The Kings won 10-0 in six innings and the Kings pitcher struck out 16 of the 18 outs.  There were two ground ball outs and one single hit up the middle.  One of the Kings even hit a grand slam.

Rogers Truck

I saw a Rogers Truck over at the neighbour’s house this morning and then in the afternoon my internet stopped working.  I tried disconnecting the wires and restarting it a number of times but that didn’t work.  We have internet phone too.  So I couldn’t phone anyone to get help.  I thought maybe there was something that happened to my connection when the Rogers guy worked on my neighbour’s internet.  When I went over to the neighbour’s house, he said that the guy was only there to fix his internet phone and give him a boosted bandwidth.  Then I went home and found out I could log on to my neighbour’s wifi because my computer had saved her password from when we had used it after we came back from Florida in May.  So I looked up our internet service provider and it told me that they had an outage and were working to fix it.  They said they would post updates on their Facebook page.  The internet came back later in the day.

18th October

I tried to log on my work computer to put in my hours to get paid and I couldn’t get on my email or the website that they use for the time sheets.  I was getting strange messages that I should use my new password.  I tried again and again being very careful to put my password in correctly.  Then I thought about the fact that I got hired on October 16^th last year and there was probably something that happened one year later.  I phone my supervisor and he gave me the number for the help desk and the guy who answered the phone looked up my account and said that my account had expired.  It was a one year account and he needed an email from my supervisor to reinstate the account.  So I got the account reinstated a couple of days later but it was too late to get my hours in.  So I wasn’t going to get paid this coming payday.  I could back date the hours for the next payday and fortunately I didn’t lose anything on my account.

Early

I didn’t sleep well one night and was up in the middle of the night.  I was up early enough to get a phone call from a friend I was planning to have lunch with in Guelph.  He phoned to postpone the lunch because he said he had to handle a fire in the new furnace at his church.  It was very lucky that I was up early to get the phone call.  We had lunch the next day instead.

Talk Talk

I went over to my friend’s house in St Thomas to watch the World Series game.  He talked and talked all the way through the game.  I wanted to hear the commentators tell interesting stories about the players.  They say baseball games are 30 minutes of action surrounded by three and a half hours of talk.  Later I sent him an email about MLB expansion and he wrote back that he had a lot on his mind when I visited and that he thought he talked too much.

Construction

Barb thought it would be good if I picked her up at the airport on a Saturday morning because there wouldn’t be any traffic.  She messaged me from the airport and said she was just boarding the plane in Chicago.  I replied and she asked what was I doing up so early.  I said that I thought I should leave for the airport two hours before she was going to arrive.  She said that was way too early.  So I said I would leave 90 minutes before she was supposed to arrive.  My brother in law had told me about a great free parking lot outside the airport set up to wait to get texts from people who arrive at the airport and want to get picked up.  So I was planning to find that parking lot.  But we forgot that they like to do construction on the 401 on weekends.  So the highway went down to just one lane just before I got to the airport.  Barb texted saying she was waiting outside the airport.  I texted back saying I was stuck in traffic. She thought it was a nice day and was no trouble waiting even though she had gotten no sleep the night before.

Utah

Barb had a big adventure going all the way to Utah for the Huntsman Senior Games.  A friend from The Villages had talked her into it.  She was staying with another couple of Villages people.  She didn’t win anything but she had a great time especially, playing card games in the evenings with her roommates.  Her partner went back to The Villages and told everyone that she never had so much fun playing in a pickleball tournament as she had playing with Barb.  Barb became better friends with the couple they were staying with because she thought she didn’t like them much and they didn’t like her much.  They had a great time playing cards and Barb and partner were always losing and claiming that the fellow was making up the rules to all the games they played.

Softball Team

Barb was afraid she would get lost at the Toronto airport when she was leaving for Utah.  Barb is not the greatest at finding her way around airports but she is not afraid to talk to people.  So she met some coaches and players on a softball team that was flying to Las Vegas on the same flight as her.  Then she lost track of them and found some people who were going to the Huntsman Senior Games like her.

Driving

I had finally got a new CPAP but the new mask that came with the machine seemed to cut into my cheeks.  So I went back and got a mask like my old mask.  But that mask was hurting my nose and air was leaking into my eyes and I was waking up with swollen eyes.   I was getting quite annoyed with the mask and one night I woke up and got my old mask.  In the middle of the night, I found out that my new mask was bigger than my old mask. So I went back to get fitted for another mask.  I was driving to the appointment on the highway and was almost at my exit and I heard someone honking at me.  A car drew up beside me and I saw a round headed person with big glasses waving at me.  It took me a second and then I realized it was Sarah coming home from a work site.  Sarah told me she had thought the CDN sticker on the back of my car looked familiar and then she saw the FASTPTCH license plate and knew it was me.

Suduko

Barb had a wicked flight back from Utah.  She booked a non-stop flight from Toronto to Las Vegas and was getting picked up by her pickleball partner at the airport.  She thought it would be good to get a non-stop flight there because she wanted to be fresh for the tournament.  But on the flight home she had an eight hour stopover in Chicago and it was an overnight flight.  She said she didn’t care how long it took to get home and she thought that coming back on Saturday morning would make it easy for me to pick her up at the airport.  She thought that she could read her ebook while she was waiting at the airport.  But then she thought she could do Suduko while she waited too.  She didn’t have a Suduko book in the house but she had one in the car.  The car was by now at the shop.  So at 10 pm at night, I drove over to the shop to get her Suduko book.  I got there and couldn’t find the car.  I looked all around the parking lot and tried to see inside the garage but I couldn’t see it anywhere.  I came home without the book.  So I decided to look up Suduko on the computer and found a couple of websites that gave free Suduko puzzles.  I printed out some medium level sheets and showed them to Barb but she said they would be too easy.  So I looked at another site and found some advanced sheets.  I printed out about a dozen and Barb said that was more than enough because it takes a long time to finish a puzzle.  I wouldn’t know because I have never done a Suduko puzzle.

Cookies

Barb won a harvest basket with vegetables from the community gardens and gifts from the bake sale that didn’t sell.  Barb said she would have the cookies and since I was diabetic I could have the radishes.

Diamondbacks

Sarah found out that she might get a job offer from the company where my friends from fastball work.  My friends work at the Oshawa office but they were excited to hear that Sarah was going to get a job offer and they said that the people at the Guelph office are fantastic.

Zinc

Laura is an expert on scars and she was worried that Barb would go out in the sun when she played in the Pickleball tournament in Utah and the sun would permanently tan the fresh skin on the scar.  Barb promised to keep putting zinc over the scar while she was outside.

One Left

Barb went to the family doctor to get the stitches removed from her cheek.  A nurse did it for her and she was a little unsure of herself.  She said as she was removing them that every doctor puts in stitches differently. Later Barb realized what she meant.  She had left one of the stitches in by mistake.  When Barb was massaging her scar like the doctor told her to, she felt a little stitch sticking out.

Bag People

We went to Shantz Farm which was a Thanksgiving tradition for us.  Barb came with us for the first time because she had everything ready for the Thanksgiving dinner.  After we went on the tractor ride, Sarah wanted to go through the corn maze.  We knew it would be muddy because it had rained so much in the past few days.  So Julia and Barb went and got plastic bags to put over their shoes.  We avoided the mud as much as possible but Julia and Barb were very smart and stylish too.

Calendar

Barb wrote on the calendar Stitches Out on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.  And Sarah was looking at the calendar and she thought Barb had written Bitches Out on Tuesday because Julia and Sarah would be leaving after Thanksgiving.

Flour

Barb realized that Thanksgiving was coming early this year and she wasn’t prepared to make the turkey dinner yet.  She needed to go out and buy flour to make the gravy with.  She went to No Frills, the local grocery store and couldn’t find the flour.  A lady helped her and directed her to the 10 pound bag that was on sale for $5.  Barb had to laugh because she was only looking for a half pound container of flour.

Frankenmama

Barb was scheduled for plastic surgery on November 28^th which was very inconvenient for our trip to Florida.  She asked if she could be called if there was a cancellation.  The next day I got a call asking if she would be interested in having her surgery on October 2^nd.  I said she definitely would and when she got home from pickleball she called them and confirmed.  She had her surgery and had about 10 stitches on the scar on her cheek.  So she thought she would scare the kids because it was close to Halloween by sending them pictures of her scar and stitches.  Later she thought she should have tried to get them to guess about where she had plastic surgery like she did with her tattooed eyebrows.

Friendly Policeman

I went to Hickson on a foggy night to watch a playoff game and I hadn’t been there this year.  So I had only a foggy idea of where I was going.  Hickson in a small town that is really only the intersection of two country roads.  I got to Hickson and was looking for the lights of the ball park.  I drove all four directions from the intersection and couldn’t see any lights.  There was a police car with its lights flashing on the side of the road.  So I decided to stop behind him and ask if he knew where the diamond was.  He was writing a report in his notebook.  So I waited at his window until he was finished and rolled down his window and asked what he could do for me.  I asked him if he knew where the diamond was and he pulled out his phone and used Google Earth to give him views of up and down the street.  He thought it was pretty cool.  He said it was just up ahead beside the fire hall.  I drove up and couldn’t see anything.  So I turned around and went back to the police car.  He then said to follow him and he drove up to the gate of the ball park and flashed his light at the empty parking lot and I realized that the game had been cancelled.  So that was why there were no lights on.

Barb's Story - Part 6

Barb got a call from the CPAP company.  They said that they had been monitoring my sleep and noticed that I still had some apnea and they decided to raise the pressure from 10 to 12 from their location.  Barb was amazed that Big Brother was watching and what they could do from their location.  Barb said that my nose was hurting from the mask and they said that they had noticed some leakage from the mask.  Barb was going to message the girls about this story too but then see decided that she had to save some stories for the blog.

Barb's Story - Part 5

Ok... More things happened to me... Keep the blog going, Ivan.... I won, guess the weight of the pumpkin!!!!  I guessed 810 pounds, and it was 812!!!!!!!!

I was the CLOSEST by far!!! People guessed 150 or 1400!! I won a harvest basket!!!

Barb's Story - Part 4

The man at the garage told us to start that car with the battery booster and then drive the car for 20 minutes to charge the battery.  He said the alternator would have no problem charging the battery again.  So Barb made sure I had my phone in case I had any problems and I drove to the garage and dropped off the battery booster and went for a drive.  I drove for 40 minutes.  Barb thought it was kind of long time and was worried that I might have had problems and the car broke down.  She was very happy when I got home safe but she was also mad that I had driven so far and worried her.

Barb's Story - Part 3

So off I go, down to the garage, to drop my car off... No Dad...I start walking home...then I think... OH SHIT...that must have killed the battery!!!! Then I see Dad walking towards me...and know that's exactly what happened! I was the last one to use his car...as he was in Ottawa, with my car!! Clearly, I don't know how to use a key anymore! So then we walked back to the garage and told the guy what happened... He lent us a battery charger... We walked home, boosted the battery...and now Dad has to take it for a drive to fully charge it. OMG.... Imagine if we didn't try to start Dad's car, until I was going to pickleball tomorrow morning... OMG, and it's my good pickleball tomorrow.... So, it could have been a lot worse!! Here I thought we were down to one car, where we were actually down to no cars!!!! There... I've just written Dad's blog for him!!!

Barb's Story - Part 2

Anyhoo...I came home to dump my stuff out of it, then wanted Dad to come with his car to bring me back home (it's only an 8 minute walk, but it's damn hot out there...) Then, we couldn't find the key to Dad's car, I told him he should leave it on the bench... He said he normally does...it is nowhere in sight...I said, maybe it's in the car...there is was, in the car.... it was a half click on...I said... hahahaha, I hope that didn't kill the battery...

Barb's Story - Part 1

I drove my new beauty to pickleball... And heard a sound like an airplane, when I went slowly.... Didn't know WTF.... So I drove it to our mechanic and he said it was the back brake on the passenger side... It is metal on metal, and scraping the rotor.... He said I probably shouldn't drive it... But they can't fix it until Monday... Which really sucks, because I'm going to London and Toronto this week...

Ivan's Story

I drove Barb's car to Ottawa for a meeting and when I got to Ottawa I stopped to fill up with gas.  I got out of the car and heard a beeping noise but didn't know what it meant.  So I filled up with gas and then got back in the car and beeping noise was still going.  Then I tried to start the car and it didn't start.  So I pushed the button and the car started again.  Then I realized that I had just turned off the car. I had filled the gas with gas and I hadn't turned the car off.  I could have blown myself up.

Out of Order

I was doing my blog posts and had my little pieces of paper on my lap. When I moved, they all fell on the floor. I picked them up but some of them went under the table and I didn’t see them. So when I wrote up all the posts, there were many out of order.

Watch

As I was driving home from the tournament, I got a buzz on my watch and noticed it was a text from Barb asking me where I was. I pulled off the road and texted her that I was on my way home and would be there in less than an hour. So she started to make dinner for us. I thought it was neat to be able to get my texts on my watch.

Vote

After the last game of the tournament, I was talking to the players from my league and they said that the president of the league was trying to kick them out of the league. They told me not to vote with the president. I said I wasn’t invited to the league meeting. But then the next day, I got an email from our team captain asking me if I could go to the meeting for him because he had to work. Fortunately, I said I couldn’t go because I had to travel to Ottawa for a work meeting. I didn’t want to see them voted out of the league.

Last Tournament

I went to watch the last tournament of the season in Hamilton. I knew there was a team from my league who was in the tournament. In fact, they were the defending champs. When I got to the tournament, I was surprised to see a whole bunch of the guys off my Diamondbacks team playing and they were playing for a team called the Dbacks, short for Diamondbacks. It was great to see them and they played well. They lost in the championship game to the team from my league. One of my best friends from the league hit a walk off single in the bottom of the seventh inning to win the game.

Surgery

Barb finally saw the plastic surgeon about the spot on her cheek. He said it was basil cell cancer which doesn’t spread but she would have to have it cut out of her cheek. He said his first available appointment was November 28^th which was bad because we were planning to go to Florida on November 20^th. Not only that but she would have to come back to his office three weeks after the surgery to make sure he had gotten it all. That would mean we couldn’t go to Florida until well into December.

Creeping

One of Barb’s friends was creeping on Barb’s Facebook page and commented on a picture of Barb with the cheque that she got for coming second in the money tournament over a month ago. That caused the picture to come up again on a number of her friend’s time lines. Her friends thought this was a new picture and that Barb had won some more money. They started commenting again on the same picture that they had commented on last month. Barb was too embarrassed to tell them that they had already commented on the picture last month.

Travels

Laura kept us posted on her trip across the country. She ran into a terrible thunder and lightning storm in Western Ontario. She complained about the lack of radio stations along the route. She stopped a number of times and napped in the back seat of the car that was loaded on the trailer. She got to Calgary during a snow storm. But she made it all the way to Vancouver and her and a friend unpacked the truck into her new apartment. My sister said she couldn’t follow Laura’s posts because she was too scared for her.

Plug

I went to charge my phone and we have some cords plugged into the walls all the time. So I usually just need to plug my phone into one of these cords. I plugged my phone in and waited a few hours. I went back a few times to the phone and noticed it wasn’t charged. Finally, I noticed that the plug was not in the wall.

Cash

I was heading out to the ball park for one of the last tournaments of the year and just as I was leaving Barb asked me if I had any cash. I had none because I had given all my cash to Laura for her cross country trip because she had only US dollars and didn’t have enough Canadian money. Barb gave me some cash which turned out to be very fortunate because it cost $10 to get into the tournament. Usually, getting into these types of tournaments is free.