Birthday Treats in My InBox

Birthdays are always fun, especially if you have signed up to get newsletters and special deals from various restaurants you frequent.

I have a birthday coming up next week, and already the special deals are starting to arrive by e-mail.

So far I really like the one from Perkins that offers me a fabulous breakfast of two eggs, any way I like them, a stack of  three pancakes, and my choice of two strips of bacon or two sausage. The best part is that it says to come in anytime, and it doesn't seem to require an additional  purchase of any kind.  I'll be going for this deal for sure.

East Side Mario's sent along a coupon worth $10 off if the bill comes to $30.  Since we usually choose from the $12 pasta dishes, with the all you can eat bread and salad, I'm pretty sure, even with a beverage, that we would be a few cents short to take advantage of that offer. But it might be a good opportunity to try something different without the bill actually adding up to more.


Buds on the Bay, a restaurant in Brockville that is not part of a chain, offers me a free entree, up to $19.99 in value, and will even supply the cake.  I am, however, required to make a reservation and bring three friends with me in order to take advantage of that.

Montana's, on the other hand, offers me a free dessert, as long as I get it within the week before or after my birthday.  It doesn't actually say I need to buy anything else, but I do like their food, and have not been there recently.

Boston Pizza used to treat me to a gourmet pasta each year, but now they just offer free dessert. That's rather disappointing as I never missed a chance to pig out and save $16 in the process.

Swiss Chalet also offers me a free dessert.  I could gain weight just collecting on all the sweets, but I'll likely just choose one or two of the offers over the next couple of weeks.

Kelsey's gets a little more specific and offers me a Brownie Pop.  I think I'll pass.

No birthday would be complete without ice cream, so Dairy Queen has sent a buy one get one free offer for a Blizzard as long as the one you buy is a medium.  My favorites are Chocolate Cherry Love and Salted Carmel Truffle, or perhaps I'll try the new Royal Rocky Road Brownie Blizzard.  I do intend to collect on this freebie.  Dairy Queen actually sends me a few such BoGo deals throughout the year, just for agreeing to receive their e-mails.

That's just today's offers, so there may be more to come.  If you know of any other good birthday deals that I might be missing out on, I'd love to hear about them.

One year I had a very special birthday offer from Lone Star, and really enjoyed it.  I have not seen anything since, however. I just looked at the site, and found that if you sign up to be a "Lone Star VIP" now they will give you $10 in Texas Bucks for your next visit.  This year they seem more interested in celebrating their own 30th birthday, or anniversary, than helping me celebrate mine.  There are deals to be had, but you have to go during the week, and I like to eat out on weekends.

So, if you have never signed up for any of the available deals that can come your way, not just on your birthday, but sometimes throughout the year, I'm wondering what's stopping you.  Some people tell me they don't like all that "junk mail".  My answer to that is to create a junk mail account someplace like Yahoo, Hotmail, G-mail or Mail.com.  Then you can enter contests, ask for newsletters, and sign up for your birthday deals, and other specials, or coupons, without ever having any of that stuff land in your personal e-mail box.  You can just go look for the bargains when you feel like it.

I'll not only be older next time I talk to you, I'll likely weigh more, but hey, birthdays only come around once a year, and at my age, they are definitely meant to be celebrated.

Hello Cortana

Windows 10 has an artificial intelligence agent known as Cortana.  I believe this is supposed to be Windows version of Siri.

She popped up in the bottom left hand corner of the screen and said, "I'm Cortana. Ask me anything."
Cool I thought. Let's try this out.

The next thing she said was, "Before I can help you, you need to go to Settings and change your speech language to one that I  speak.

She was set up to speak English (United States), which I figured was a language she should be able to speak.  I looked though the settings and thought perhaps she sensed I was in Canada so changed my region to Canada so as not to confuse her.  I had already read that the language and the country had to match, so I tried to set the language to English (Canada), but found I had to download a language pack to do so.  I did that, but then was told there were no handwriting options for this language.  I assume that would mean I can't write on the webpage, which had seemed like the best idea MicroSoft had come up with yet.

Of course, once you change any settings within Win 10, you must restart your computer to see how they work.  And every time you do, you have to enter the password you were forced to create.  Really Microsoft, why do I need to password protect my home computer?





Even with the Canadian English installed, the speech language was still in American English, with no other options to choose from. Cortana is a stubborn creature!  That little downward arrow gets you nowhere.

On Twitter, I wrote, "I'm Corana. Ask me anything...Well, I would if you would let me speak English!!! Windows10 is giving me a headache!"

That got the attention of the Windows Support people.  They gave me a link to see what languages Cortana speaks, and of course she speaks all manner of English (American, Canadian, Australian, Indian, and even proper English from the UK).  But for me, she would only load and work if I lied and pretended I was living in the United States and let set her up to speak American English. I gave up. The problem with that was Cortana gave me my weather in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius for a few days until I accidentally came across where it could be changed.  Now at least the weather is understandable.

Oh wait.....there are two versions of the weather within Cortana, and resetting one didn't reset the other.  I don't know why they would put two systems so close together and not have them linked, but I have managed to get them both formatted to the proper units now.  I'm getting good at this. 

 Windows 10 works well, and Cortana can be quite helpful. She not only tells you the weather and gives you traffic reports, she also gives you the news, keeps track of sports and the stock market.  She can help you track your health and fitness goals, get up to date flight status, see show times and trailers for nearby movies, and send you reminders for just about anything.  You can indeed ask her anything There's hope yet.

The Adventure of Installing Windows 10 - Part One

Way last year, when they first offered the Windows 10 upgrade for free, one of my friends downloaded it and fell in love with it. Since he usually complains about all things Microsoft, and actually liked Win10 so much he invested in it, I decided to download it too.  But then I couldn't get myself to install it.  I told myself I would wait until the end of the year.  I run a small business and wanted to make sure nothing happened to my year's worth of accounting. Then when the new year came and I printed off the account statements, I decided to wait until after I was finished with the taxes.

Earlier this week, my computer, which had up until then been reminding me daily to install the program, or at least pick an installation date, decided to just tell me it was going to do the update on Wednesday April 6 at 11pm.  The taxes were pretty well done, but they needed to be checked over, and printed off.  (Yes, I know I can save the files, but I like a hard copy, thank you.) Microsoft was giving me the kick start I needed to get the job done.

I don't care how much they promise you that your files will be right where you left them, I don't trust computers to work properly after such major upgrades. I also don't trust the printer, or other peripherals, to remain compatible with a new operating system.  I know I had to go buy a new printer when I got a Windows 7 machine.

So, off I went to bed, hoping that I'd be able to work the computer in the morning.  I must admit, I put off approaching it until after 10AM.  Thankfully I have a tablet, as I'm an admitted computer addict and needed to get online for various things long before 10AM.  It was time to write a blog post though, and I find that rather tedious without an actual keyboard.

The first problem I encountered was being faced with the legal document before Win10 actually opens for the first time. I discovered  I was unable to access my Read Please at that point. When faced with a page or more of reading, I generally let the computer read it to me. I had to wade though this one on my own. Not fun.

At one point it said "If you live in (or if your principal place of business is in) the United States, please read the binding arbitration clause and the class action waiver in Section 10.  It affects how disputes are solved."  I wondered, what about us here in Canada?

Then for Express Settings, it said "to help protect you from malicious web content and to use web predictions your browsing data will be sent to Microsoft."  I know a lot of people who would object to that!

Then Windows 10 actually said "Hi" to me, right there on a blue screen.  That seemed friendly, and gave me hope that the whole operating system was going to be user friendly.  No such luck. It did assure me that my files are exactly where I left them.  And they might be, if I could figure out where they hid the folders they are stored in.  I cannot, for instance, find the programs, other than the most frequently used ones. I was glad I had shortcuts to some of them on my desktop.  

I do wish Microsoft had left the Windows Express the way it was in XP and the systems preceding that.  It was so easy to find anything you were looking for back then.  Win 10 is set up more like Win 7, but with just enough changes to make it seem complicated. But hey, it's day one, so give me time.

I noticed the screen was breathing, in different shades of blue to the point where I thought it was stuck. But finally a notice came up on the screen that simply said, "Don't turn off your PC."  I still don't know what it was doing at that point, but once it stopped I was finally in.


One of the first things I noticed was that my keyboard had come up with a few glitches.  I tried to type I'm and I got an e with an accent where the apostrophe should have been (Ièm). And when I tried to type a question mark, I got É.  Thankfully a relative on Facebook helped me find out how to change that back.  I decided that may not have been a Win10 problem,  when I found out how to fix it (press the Control and Shift button at the same time).  Maybe I just have had fat fingers, though I've never had that sort of thing happen before, and I've been on a computer keyboard since the days of the Commodore 64.  Coincidence?

Next I discovered the printer didn't work, but I remembered that I had a similar problem when I first got Windows 7.  I had to reconfigure each program to work with my printer all over again back then. I did that for the application I was in, and the printer started working.  Win 10 then popped up a window saying the printer would scan my PC to determine if updates were available. There was one, so I installed it. I can see that this system is trying to be helpful.

And then there's Cortana.  But that's another story.  Stay tuned as I'm going to take you all on this little adventure as I explore and learn how to deal with the problems and delights of Windows 10.

Kingston Kicks 2016

I spent this past weekend in Kingston at the revival of my favourite marital arts event. After being missed for a few years, Kingston Kicks assembled martial artists from far and wide, at the Ambassador Hotel, to put on, and take part in seminars in karate, aikido and jiu-jutsu. There were also special courses in iaido, bo and both women's self defence and cane defence.


I met a gentleman from Belleville who seemed to think it must have been a long boring day for me.  Quite the contrary.  It is always great to see so many old friends and meet new ones at events like this. Some such events are huge but Kingston Kicks is small enough to make it very special.  As a non-participant, I can check out what's happening in each of the six simultaneous seminars four times a day, pick the ones that interest me the most, and actually sit down and hear what the instructor is saying. The seminars are not all put on in one room, as is sometimes the case at other events. By having just one or two seminars in each room, it is much easier for the participants to hear, and work out without fear of being beaned by someone being taught another style in on a nearby mat.

The fact that there are others from our club taking part makes it even more interesting for me. My hubby taught the cane defence and there were several comments afterwards by amazed students who were surprised at how little pressure was needed to make the cane an effective weapon.  I watched a young member of our karate club take the opportunity to learn something about jiu-jitsu and aikido. He had a great time learning break falls and front rolls, and later learned how to dodge a pool noodle. The other members of our club that attended this year were all adults, but they all learned something new and had lots of fun in the process.

The hosts of this event, Carol and Ted Theelen,  of the Rideau Lakes School of Martial Arts always make everyone feel like part of the family. They had a meet and greet on Friday night, a dinner gathering at the Mandarin Restaurant Saturday evening, and even put on a party for everyone to attend, free of charge on Saturday night.  Even some of the young children were there. If you don't happen to be a dancer, the floor show can be quite entertaining as some martial artists apparently have moves we weren't aware of.

Sunday there was a tournament, which was especially enjoyed by the youngsters. They do love to get those metals! After watching such tournaments for over 30 years, I can vouch for the fact that there is a lot of talent coming up through the ranks, and great things to come in the future. 

I'm already looking forward to Kingston Kicks next year.

Spring Bonnets on Parade

I remember, in my youth, we used to get dressed up for Easter.  Often I got new shiny black Patten leather shoes, a colourful new spring coat, or a pretty new hat. I don't know if that's when it began, but I've always loved hats.

This year the New Horizon's Club in Burritts Rapids held a Spring Tea and the powers that be requested we wear our prettiest bonnets.  They could be store bought or something specially created for the event. Some people commented that they didn't have hats, and I offered to share some of mine. I already knew which one I would wear. It lives in a box in my basement and seldom gets out as it is so special there are very few places one could wear such a creation. It's too grand to wear even to a wedding.  It would outshine the bride.  So, when this occasion presented itself, I simply had to wear it.  It had been passed to me by a friend several years back, and the only other time I ever got to wear it was for the Hats and Hostas event.

Now, this is not the sort of hat that one slips on while wearing blue jeans or some other casual duds. I rummaged in the back of the closet and chose a dress. It was sleeveless and since it can be cool at the hall, I hauled out a silver scarf that worked well as a shawl. The chunky pearl necklace finished off the regal look.

The tea was lovely. Almost everyone wore some sort of hat.  Some put in a lot of work to create something very Easter like, pinning chickens and eggs, etc to their hats. We sat at tables set up for four, and were served fancy sandwiches and squares along with out tea or coffee. Then we lined up to parade around the room a couple of times. I'm not sure who was left to watch us, other than the judges.

They say I won the prize for the best hat, but really, it was the hat that won the prize, and I just gratefully received it.  All this did bring back the fun of getting all dressed up, and I do wish there were still more opportunities to do so. I think I may at least have to go on a little spring shopping spree.