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Tossing Pebbles in the Stream

This blog is my place to sit and toss pebbles into the stream. The stream of Life relentlessly passing before us. We can affect it little. For the most part I just watch it passing and follow the flow. Occasionally, I need to comment on its passing, tossing a pebble at it to enjoy the ripple affect upon Life's surface.

Friday, April 03, 2009

Rain, Rain . . . . ..

"April showers bring May flowers." Oh, how I wish! But first the rain will have to get rid of the snow on the ground.

The last two days I have been trying to regain access to my Blogger dashboard so I can post a piece. It has been frustrating to say the least. Blogger requested that I use a gmail address with my blog. I guess so all Goggle owned programs usesa gmail account. Well I do have a gmail account I seldom use so I went about replacing my AOl mail address with Blogger. Somewhere along the way it got all screwed up. I went around and around trying to straighten it out. I even cleared my cache and cookies as suggested. I also lowered my firewall protection a little . I made sure my java scripting setting was enabled. For two days this went on all the while being told my username and password don' t match, or worse still the account does not exist. etc., etc., etc.

Finally, a miraculous breakthrough. I get the opening page of the dashboard BUT with an offer to set up a blog. But I have no way of accessing the blog I have been maintaining all these years.
At this point, I realized I had opened an account for "philiprobinson2002@email.com" rather than "Philiprobinson2002@gmail.com". There seems to be a solution here. After some more diddling first on AOL Browser and then on the Firefox Browser, all got sorted out.

If I had been able to get Blogger help on the phone I think I would have been abusing some poor tech guy at the other end.

I have also been learning to touch type. I think I will actually do it this time. It too is stressful which I relieve by periodically having to call the pigs home. I seem to be making progress.

When I went to high school only dummies or girls or both took typing. Those of us in the academic stream took Latin instead. We were supposed to learn some lovely penmanship, which was beyond me who was left handed handicapped.Typing was below us.

I went through 8 years of university paying someone to type up my essays (On occasion I wrote them out long hand in my difficult hand writing.) When I got married in the second year of University my wife often did it and increasingly did more as I went further in school. The day I graduated from graduate school I got the word. "I will no longer type anything else for you."

When I took my first job as the minister of a church I spend many hours in my first year teaching myself to type. I tried to learn to use all my finger while looking. I got quite good at it for letter and sermon writing. I was slowed when I had to type a quote into a sermon as I then had to look away from the keyboard.

When I got a computer, after years of not typing much. I found using just two fingers worked for me on the small laptop computer. Until now this is what I have been doing. It works OK but it always frustrates me that I never learned to touch type properly. A couple of years ago, I tried to teach myself to do so but got distracted and went back to two fingers because of Instant Messenger.

Well after a week of a real effort with a free online program, ( not being able to access my blog and it raining outside,) I have made real progress. . . .I thinkI I actually may master this skill. Perhaps, April showers will bring something other than flowers. . . .. 30 word per minute perhaps.

13 Comments:

At 5:24 p.m., Blogger Cathy said...

Hello Phil
Even after learning 'properly' years ago I still find I don't use all my fingers so I would be interested in the URL of the programme you are using. Maybe I could relearn lol

Remember to think about what you wish for - some of our states wished for rain and ended up with being declared disaster zones from the floods that came recently. None of it came our way (Victoria) it all went further north (Qld and NSW)
Take care
Cathy

 
At 8:45 p.m., Blogger @JDHealingTimeOnEarth said...

I was raised in the era where girls learned to type well, because those were the types of jobs we were expected to take. Even took that and shorthand in business college. Wow, how times have changed!! Yep, I can type without looking at the keyboard, no problem. You will get it down too, Phil, I'm sure.

 
At 5:05 a.m., Blogger Tom said...

This post touched a nerve with me.... first I tend to use two fingers and it dose me for what I need in blogging.
You mention being a lefty, handed that is. So I'm I Philip.. I soon get used to never using a ink pen.... forever wiping what I had just wrote across my school books. At that time the school was very old fashioned even for the early 1960s. I was told that being left handed was the devils work. I would be smacked for smudging my work. I was eventually given a pencil and sent to the back of the class room... Ha! and they said being left handed was the devils work.

I alway enjoyed Technical Drawing... but again because of the way I held my pencil and being a lefty it was not to be a choice of the work I could do.

Sorry to here about your PC woes.... I hope all stays well their.. Give Heidi a pat on the head for me....
Tom
Wiggers World

 
At 8:42 a.m., Blogger Anvilcloud said...

I never learned to touch type either. When I started computing, I gave Mavis Beacon a try, but I didn't persist. I have gotten into employing some sort of basic four finger method, maybe using another to hit the shift key. I get along fairly well this way.

 
At 11:44 a.m., Blogger KGMom said...

You poor men, never learning to type. Actually, it was all a female plot to keep you men from essential skills. And you fell for it! HA.
Now we women rule the world (maybe we always did).
Anyway--I had a boss in my last job who not only did not know how to type, he had no clue how to use email. So his secretary dutifully printed it off, he wrote his responses on the paper, then she typed it. I suggested to him that she was the real power in that set-up. He was not pleased.
Sorry for your troubles--Philip--but glad you have something to occupy your rainy days.

 
At 10:27 p.m., Blogger Ginnie said...

Sorry that it's been such a frustration but I'm proud of you for persevering. I learned to type in High School and really didn't use it much until I took up the computer. Now I love that I learned early on and it came back to me very readily.

 
At 12:20 a.m., Blogger Loretta said...

I only took one year of typing but I'm doing o.k. with two fingers.We've been in the high 60's but now Monday night's low is suppose to be 32/34. I guess this is Blackberry winter!

 
At 7:59 a.m., Blogger amelia said...

I think I will scream if we get any more snow but of course, some is forecast for the next few days so I'd better get some screaming practice!!

I can't touch type either, I wish we weren't given a choice in school. I was lazy and couldn't be bothered. Now I wish I had!!

 
At 10:06 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is the name of the free online typing program?
Thanks

 
At 10:47 a.m., Blogger possum said...

I kind of took typing in a spare time slot I had in high school... it was not worth the effort - old surplus military typewriters, extra long cartridge with the letters on the keys. sigh. In college I traded art projects for typing... so today I use more than 2 fingers, but not all of them. pitiful,
We are having our first thunderstorm... the temps are dropping, now down to 62. Next break I will go pick some daffodils for the table before the BIG storm beats them to the ground.

Blogger tried to make me switch to a gmail acct - but so far I have resisted. Too many problems!.

 
At 10:56 a.m., Blogger Tossing Pebbles in the Stream said...

For Anonymous:

The typing course I am working on is http://www.typingweb.com/tutor/courses/.

After about a week I type better than 20 wpm net. On one occasion of typing a paragraph I typed 30wpm. Each time I return to the program I seem to make progress. I now type all my notes on the computer using touch typing even if it takes a little longer. Good luck, persevere!

 
At 8:20 p.m., Blogger Caddie said...

I thought I was touch typing until I read this post and noticing my method. Ha! Not entirely. That's okay though; I'm getting by - some touch, some one-fingered. You tend to forget what you learn in high school after 50 years of not using it. It's too late to go looking for a typing job anyway.
Enjoyed this post very much, Phillip.

 
At 12:15 p.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link! I am 50, back in college and take a lot of notes on the pc. Never learned to type either.
Candy

 

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