So, another little annoying anomaly for Windows 8.1.  When ever I shut down my laptop which is running Windows 8.1, it starts doing updates and tells me to please wait.

Now, I don’t mind waiting for a couple of minutes, but these updates seem to be taking literally a half hour.  And, this is totally unacceptable.

When I want to shut down my laptop, this means that I am finished with it for the day and that I need to do other things like unplug it and go home.  But, if I unplug before it is finished with the updates, it will start the updates all over again when I power it up.  So, one way or another, I have a half hour wait.

Convenience store?  Gas station?  Drug store?  Nope.  This is the lumber yard.  Go figure.

Maybe they will open a deli too.

The same person who torments would be chefs on Master Chef also torments two teams of chefs on Hells Kitchen.  And like Master Chef, the only purpose of the shows seems to be the humiliation and degradation of the contestants.  And, the only thing that the contestants seem to derive from the show are the occasional perks.

The other night, I stumbled across a TV show called Master Chef.  This program is based on about 20 adults who are expected to create master piece meals from the ingredients that they are given.  And if they succeed, they advance to the next round of cooking.  And if they fail, they are berated by the Master Chef team and asked to leave.

Now, this is not a cooking show where the participants are taught cooking skills.  Rather, this is a show where you either sink or swim.

I am not entirely sure what the point of the show is all about.  It seems to focus on making the contestants squirm under the pressure of an arrogant chef who boosts his own ego at the expense of others.  In did not find the program to be entertaining.

Last Saturday, we had a garage sale.  And as always, garage sales bring in strange people.

In one incident, we had a guy come in and examine every piece of jewelry that we had for sale.  After about 10 minutes he left.  What was he doing?  Looking for gold.

Last Saturday, I needed to grab a quick lunch so I headed for a nearby Micky Ds’.  And, since in needed to get it and go, I did the drive through.  Now, Micky Ds’ has an assortment of high end burgers, but I just wanted a cheese burger.  No, make that the triple cheese burger that I have seen advertised.

When I returned and began eating my meal, I noted that I did not get a triple cheese burger.  Instead, they gave me two cheese burgers.  When I  checked my receipt, they placed my order as a double cheeseburger.  So, not only did they give the wrong meal, they also took down the wrong order.  I ate it any way.

Having suffered two failed attempts at securing a garage door opener that will actually fit, I was very discouraged.  But then I noticed that the neighbor had a garage door opener.  And since that house was the exact same floor plan, we checked out their garage door opener.

Yes indeed, they had a working garage door opener that used a different approach.  Instead of an overhead track with a motor at the end, it mounted the motor right at the door opening.

This certainly looked like the solution.  So, I started calling garage door companies.  And, yes, they were familiar with the product.  Unfortunately, it is no longer available as the manufacturer went out of business.

Well, back to square one.

Having failed at my first attempt to install a garage door opener, I decided to check the Homedepot web site to see if they had any garage door openers that would be short enough to fit.  After studying their specifications, I found one that would fit with almost a foot to spare.  GREAT!!

Another quick trip to Homedepot and I was ready to start my installation.  When I opened the box, I did a quick measurement of the ceiling track sections.  I mentally calculated the track length times the number of sections and concluded that it was still too long.  Next, I performed the calculation with my iPhone and came up with the same length.

So, I spread the track out of the floor and measured it end to end.  Still too long.  Then I pulled out the installation manual to see if I was missing something.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t.  So, back in the box it went and was quickly returned to Homedepot.

After talking with the Homedepot Pro, we concluded that the web site was incorrect.  And a quick call to the manufacturer confirmed that they did not make one short enough for our needs.  RATS!!

Looks like we are out of luck.

As a part of the buy-sell agreement for my wife s house, she agreed to install a new garage door and electric opener.  No problem.  A quick trip to Homedepot and I was on my way with a new garage door and opener.

Once we had the door installed, we started on the opener.  The first step was to assemble the track for the opener to ride on.  This snapped together rather quickly and we were ready to hang the track from the ceiling.  That is when we noticed that the track was too long for the ceiling space.  Much to our dismay, there is a massive piece of duct-work that occupies the space that we need for the garage door opener motor.

We looked, we measured, we looked and measured again and again.  But, it simply was not going to fit.  It was 2 feet to long.  So, back in the box it went and I returned it to Homedepot.

Rats!!

A number of years ago, I got a virus on my computer. It claimed to be an antivirus program and kept demanding that I send them $24.95 for their full program.  Try as I might, I could not remove the program from my machine.

Well, I purchased a new laptop that came with a trial version of McAfee antivirus software.  But, since McAfee wanted $$$ for their full version and since I already had an antivirus program for my two other PCs, I opted for using the antivirus software that I already am using.

However, try as I might, I can’t remove the trial version of the McAfee program.  Maybe when the trial ends it will let me remove it but I doubt it.  I suspect that it will continue to demand that I send them $$$ just like the virus that I had.

It would seem that the antivirus program is become the very thing that it was designed to protect against.