Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Today I learned of a great, FREE service for persons in need of a cell phone, but who are unable to pay for these services themselves (not yet in all states). This is great. Just a couple of months ago I was assisting a woman who had recently lost her job, was fighting losing her apartment and didn't know what to do since she didn't have a phone or internet--how do potential employers reach her? (We were eventually able to find a program through a phone company to do something similar to this). Anyway, this is worth sharing: SafeLinkWireless A little info on SafeLinkWireless taken from their website: "Lifeline is a federal program created by the Reagan era Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1984. The program was enhanced under Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was supported on a broadly bipartisan basis in Congress. The FCC’s Low Income Program of the Universal Service Fund, which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC...

My computer was wounded in action last week, receiving a fatal blow to the hard drive via a runaway cordless house phone--the story really isn't that good.  On Monday my cell phone died on me. I am a klutz...and have terrible luck. This all happens within two weeks before I am to head to Michigan for some time away from the Farm. Ah, timing is everything, no? Needless to say the last week has been spent having multiple conversations with friend N (also the Farm's IT guy) and the GeekSquad at Best Buy, looking at computers online and in stores, thinking of options. I know that some people might look at this time as a great way to be away from technology, feel out of touch from the rest of the digital world, maybe even meditate and enjoy the silence; I would love to calmly agree with these people, but SHIT! I LIVE ON A FARM IN THE MIDDLE OF A TOWN WHICH BARELY GETS WIFI AND DOES NOT EVEN GET CELL PHONE RECEPTION!! I feel a million miles from things and cling to my daily d...

I have been so bad about writing and posting a couple more vacation trips, I attribute that to a few reasons: Everyone at the Farm has been sick, so I have been avoiding the germ ridden community computers (although now they have hand sanitizers) when at all possible My laptop could not hold the damn signal at the general store or library in town the other day so I gave up trying I have been in a funky mood and thought some time sans blogging might be good for me But, good news! GREAT NEWS dear friends! We finally finally finally, after TSO struggling with stupid Verizon for over a month, have gotten our email which means our phone (through Vonage) will be working too. I realized two things during this time: 1. I have never felt so homesick before, since it felt so hard to actually talk to people, Facebook and emailing aside; an actual voice really does make all the difference. 2. While I have never had any problems with Verizon as far as my cell phone service has gone for the past wh...