Parental Units

Let me preface this with one important tidbit. My parents are my best friends, and that is a delicate balance of awesome and strange. They do so very much for me, and I would do anything for them. And by anything I mean attempting to offer IT help and then blogging about the debacle later. I know, kid of the year right?

While at their house earlier I logged into my facebook account to jot down an email address that had been messaged to me. I got sidetracked and failed to log out of my account before I left and went home.
 Fast forward 3 hours and I get a call from my mom. She wants to surf facebook but is still logged in as me.
I try to walk her through logging out without seeing what she is seeing so that she can sign back in as herself. 99% of my own facebooking is done via my iPhone so I was trying to envision what the screen prompts are. I keep mentioning the top right corner being the area she needs, but she clicks the X which results in exiting the window out several times, but not actually logging out, and gets put right back to my account each time.  She is getting audibly angry.
For a second I think that maybe I should just drive over there and remedy the situation without causing her (or anyone around her) further stress.

I can hear my dad in the background, so I tell her to have him use his cell phone to screen shot what she is looking at so I can tell her what to click on to log out. I hear my dad take the photo, mumble, growl, mumble some more, and say that he doesn't know how to send the newly snapped photo to my cell phone. Something along the lines of "I don't know how to get the damn thing off of here". I can imagine that my mom is then burning a hole through his soul for his lack of fixing her current problem. I get off the phone and immediately FaceTime dad so I can just look at her screen that way. Dad answers it like a regular phone call. So I am fully connected via FaceTime but am looking at this:

That, that is the inside of dad's ear/and his face.  

This is also what my brain looks like when it melts from not knowing how to help them sometimes. 

So, I am looking at ear, and I still need to see the computer screen, and preferably before my mom kills him or reaches through the phone and kills me.

Dad: "hello? helllooo?"
in between Me: "Dad! hold the phone out in front of your face! hold the, just, Dad!"
Dad:   *turns phone from ear and out to his face*    "Oh hey! Look! It's Stefanie!"
Me: "Dad, give the phone to mom so I can see the computer screen"
Dad: "Here mom, Stef called us on Instagram, take the phone"
To which my mom shows me a sideways shot of the wrong part of the computer. I crane my neck 180 degrees so I can talk her through logging out and logging back in. She is successful. I? I feel like I have done something pretty major.

God bless America. And my parents.

Thai Food

Recently my niece Chelsia started working with my family at our flooring company, and we share an office. I am pretty sure she has been bored to tears (physically) at least once. At least she gets to look forward to being around dad and I every day.

Dad: Hey kid, what the hell are you eating?
Chels: Thai food.
Dad: What? Cat food?
Chels: No! Thai food.
Dad: *blinks*
Chels: THAI FOOD. 
Dad: Huh? Stef, what is she trying to say to me?
Me: Thai food, dad. THAI food. You know, Thailand/ T-H-A-I.
Dad: Oh, so, ok.
Guess she could be eating a cat. (ok I may have said that last line... but I know dad was thinking it).

Luck of the Irish?

In honor of St. Patrick's Day I would like to provide a little proverb I heard from my father recently.
Let me start this by saying that my parents are a great source for really wacky sayings. Some are true blue southern sayings, and the rest I am fairly certain they just make up as they go. Some of the traditional stuff follows along the lines of: "colder than a well digger's ass" or "madder than an ol' wet hen" occasionally something is "rough as a cob", etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not immune to using the oldies but goodies, and I've been known to come up with a few odd lines myself.

When asking my dad how someone we knew happened to be so lucky all the time he found an interesting adage for me in the recesses of his mind. He could have just said "some people are just born lucky". Instead I got this:
"Some people can take a dump, fall in it, and wind up covered in gold. The rest of us? Well, we just wind up covered in shit".

Happy St. Patrick's Day, may you all wind up covered in GOLD today.

Technology and Old Men are the Devil

This post brought to you by my latest exclamation:

Stefanie Jones ‏@StefanieMcJones

If I had a dollar for every time I got blamed for an old man's technological shortcomings I would have a lot of damn dollars.#ITdepartment

        Now, why do I say all of this? I know you have all heard me complain about dad's new hobby/my new, unwanted career. But this morning was a prime example of why I want to stuff my head into a pillow and scream. I got an email, by I, I mean dad got an email. They all forward to me because he can't figure out how to log in to check them, much less respond to them. It was a fellow in CT asking why dad had not paid for two items he had purchased from him. Dad (I ) always pay promptly. With eBay it is easy peasy. I just log in and see what says Pay Now and click and done, but those days are over.

Somehow my dad felt like he had mastered the art of the interwebs and has discovered a website that is far superior to eBay. He can find higher quality items, and buy them outright, no bidding wars. Oh dad, dad, dad, dad.

        I didn't want to call it out publicly because dad just can't stop the rave reviews, but it is total crap. Even when I tried to read the about us section words are missing because of the large graphic they smacked in the middle of the page. Maybe some poor schmuck living in his parents basement made the site, who knows. No no, that can't be right, a basement nerd would do a much better job. At any rate, someone who needs some help has created this site. Sellers create shops and an account, got it. Buyers have the option to create an account, which is great if you aren't planning to buy anything ever. Otherwise? Make all parties involved create an account.

        Naturally when my dad got all "junk drunk" and started buying shit he opted to not create an account. I guess the 2 extra boxes he had to fill out for a username and password were simply outlandish and inconvenient. So he ( I ) just start getting emails with links to the stellar website.
-A seller sees a purchase has been made and they create an invoice that you can print and pay. Most of these sellers like checks mailed to them. Of course they do. So now instead of my stress-less one click away through AN ACCOUNT on eBay I am printing and reprinting stuff, and then addressing envelopes for dad to just fire checks off across the nation, in hopes these super trustworthy merchants will then ship an item he probably won't even remember ordering in the first place.
       Sounds, so legit, and so stress free doesn't it? I am half surprised that we aren't buying items from Nigerian princes at this point. I will cut a tiny bit of slack- some sellers do have a paypal option. But there is no accountability, I am still unsure how the site handles non payments and non shipments.

       So what happens when you have a buyer (dad) and a seller that both don't know how to use the crappy website? You have items that don't get paid for. And a seller who is confused and mad at you because he can't navigate the site well enough to make an invoice for you. Ask dad how to log in to his account to view a running list of invoices. Account? I don't have one of those? What do you mean, why are you asking me this stuff? Just contact the guy he says. Then I get to rummage through dozens of emails and invoice links to see who he may owe and for what item.

Hey let's leave some feedback...oh wait, we don't have an account, nevermind! Feedback on this site is a joke anyways...

Now you will have to excuse me, I have a wall to bang my head into.

Junk Drunk

"Hello, my name is Dennis, and I am addicted to picking".

Ok, so my dad didn't really say that, but he did say:

Dad: Can you look on that little magic machine    (my iPhone)   and see how long it takes to get to Lynchburg, Virginia?

Me: 8 hours, what's up?

Dad: That's not bad. I gotta go pick up an 8 foot ice cream cone. But first, I gotta build a special crate to hold it in. 

Me: That's cool. Really I was thinking (WHAT THE HELL! WHO DOES THAT!)

      Later that day I tried to figure out what sort of ridiculous items I might buy if I could just for the sake of my out of control hobby. So far I have squat.  I did however find this website, and this website - which lists weird as hell hobbies. Perhaps I will take up Ecstasy pill collecting, Beetle fighting, or Javelin catching. So maybe dad isn't crazy, he is just dedicated.  

      I really think that dad could have his own show. Just yesterday I spent a few hours designing business cards for his "hobby"  - Junk Drunk Pickers. How appropriate! So far his "hobby" has enveloped an entire metal building. It includes; a bar, a service station, a general store, and soon to be soda fountain. There are mentions of a bank and a post office, and I am rooting for an old theater (or theatre if you wish). 

     This has also developed into my part time career between all of the eBay communications and transactions I have to handle, mapping the next pick, and general magic machine errands that require finding websites/antique malls/auctions/other related events. At least I get paid bonuses in way of awesome tea pots and vintage owls for my own collections. I have considered telling dad I now collect money, so if he happens to find any on his picks that will suffice. I do love my owls and teapots so I can't complain! But I can laugh when my dad travels cross country for an ice cream cone, and 8 foot ice cream cone.

A sampling of some of dad's tiny town:

Departures

I have a weird habit of taking my dad's overly pretentious Departures magazines and cutting little pictures out of them. I still can't figure out why in the hell my dad gets the magazine, in 9 years I have never seen him even open one issue. This is the man who got drunk, lost a bet, and brought a turkey(click for that link) home to me as a "gift". So to peruse a magazine chock full of Louis Vuitton gear, and more expensive time pieces than you could shake a stick at is baffling to me. He always just leaves the unread magazines on my desk for me. I also can't figure out what I am going to do with all of these tiny awesome pictures. 

The magazine does nothing whatsoever for me, aside from making me realize how rich I am not. It is borderline depressing to see that many designer ads, and articles about luxurious and first-class-to-the-max world travel.

Just out of curiosity I did a quick review and I found the word Luxury 36 times from cover to cover in this month's issue (and that was after I cut it up). Seriously, one of the cheapest things I could find was a $15,000 per person trip to Mexico. I can get you to Mexico, for $150. Plus interest, or a bag of weed or something. I can sell that quite easily once we get there, I hear we can find some nice gentleman from what I hear is called the Cartel? Yes, they can assist you after I drop you off. I imagine that at the rate of $15,000 for one vacation the person who inquired about the Departures ad for a vacation to Mexico would be transported about the country in that vehicle they put the pope in.  Fully supplied with more issues of Departures for their viewing pleasure.

Now, what to do with all of these tiny little pictures.

Tom

Last month I got to experience something really awesome. I helped my parents host a reunion for Vietnam Veterans. Specifically, the unit my dad was in in Vietnam, the 1/92 Field Artillery. It took me a year to organize all of the details, visit all of the museums, tour possible hotels, restaurants and so on. Just thinking about the 4 day extravaganza made me tired. I really wish I had been able to do more with everyone, see more of the people and talk to them. Adeline and I couldn't keep up though. I didn't want to subject them to a cranky screaming baby just so I could hang out and chat. But we did make one friend in particular along the way. Tom.

You see, Tom has been battling pancreatic cancer for a while, he had lost well over 100 lbs and was very weak. But he made it a point to make this his first reunion, and boy was he determined. He has always had a hesitation to coming to the reunions, but made the plunge this year. At any rate, on the Thursday of the reunion he was just too tired to finish all of the stops for the day, and I was planning to take Adeline home so she could rest so we offered him a ride back to the hotel so he could rest up as well. That is, if he didn't mind a crazy kid riding along side of him. He gladly accepted the challenge. On the ride to the hotel we talked about his kids, and all sorts of stuff. I told him the last time I was in Dallas (which is the area he is from) it was for a Mary Kay event. He explained that he actually worked for a company that used Mary Kay Ash's original warehouse! Pretty neat. He was so grateful for the ride back, and for the work I had put in for the reunion. I of course told him the thanks should be to them, not me, and that this event was the least I could do. I almost cried on the ride home after we dropped him off. It occurred to me that his battles with cancer were probably related to his service in Vietnam, and his exposure to chemicals like agent orange. Meeting people like Tom really make you think, and appreciate your health. But I applauded the strength he did have and his determination to get to Atlanta (alone) to see these guys he fought next to, even if it were for one last time.

We had our big party on Saturday, and Tom was there all day - he and Brett had a good chat while Brett manned the smoker. Tom told him about his reluctance to come to past reunions, I guess he was worried people wouldn't like him. It seemed to me that he was quite the popular guy though! Which made me happy. At the end of the night on Saturday he was really sad to tell us all goodbye. I think we all got a little choked up, and it really was sad to tell him goodbye.

All in all I would say out of the 100+ people that were at the event, I had the opportunity to talk to Tom the most.

Yesterday afternoon I was told that Tom lost his battle with cancer. 15 days after he returned home from the reunion. My face felt hot, almost like an anger, and then the sadness set in, and it occurred to me that it was now time to go and tell dad the news.

There are just some things that you can't explain.

I can explain this though, I am so glad that I had the honor to meet Tom, and everyone else from the reunion. Now I know why it was so hard for him to tell everyone goodbye that night. At least I can say that I helped provide his first, and only reunion and that it was a memorable one. He is in a much better place now. May you rest in peace Tom.

Technological Baby Steps

I feel like a proud parent,

My dad used the internet to look up an antique shop, all on his own this morning. He even looked at some of their inventory, and contact information.

He is growing up so fast.

sidenote - he did however ask me if his computer had "all of it's parts" before he got started. Someone in the office was going to borrow his monitor last week, poor guy thought it was missing. I assured him he had all of the parts he needed to investigate the antique shop deal.

Next step? World domination. I imagine.

Candy Caper

If you came into work and found the above illustrated scenario on top of your desk you would probably think a few things may have happened:

A-perhaps a small family of candy loving mice have taken residence in your office. (One might think the small brown things are droppings, as indicated within the red arrows)

B-perhaps it is "bring your kid" to work day, and someone's child has found their way into your office and has begun constructing the initial stages of a candy bar collage.

C-perhaps someone in the office is a closet eater and they are dumping evidence in your room to lessen suspicion on themselves.

However, I know, that when I come in and see that on my desk none of the above are true. In fact, this simply means that my dad has been here. I know it all too well. Especially when the Halloween season is among us, my aunt stocks the office candy jar chock full of tootsie rolls, junior mints, mini candy bars, jolly ranchers and any other tooth rotting treat you can think of. But do I fall prey to the candy jar's allure? No way. As a new mommy with a metabolism that is a total joke I know that such treats make your clothes shrink.

So how does the evidence of eaten treats wind up in my room? That is easy. My dad has developed an aversion to ripping open candy wrappers, so he sneaks into my office and uses my scissors to cut the open. But that is ok, I love him anyways, even if he does make me look like the fat kid with all of these candy remnants and wrappers decorating my place.

I should be a detective.

Chicken Salads

Let me set the stage: As the local tech guru I get all of my dad's emails forwarded to myself so that they are read and handled in a timely manner. Yesterday we/dad received this email: (name may have been changed to protect the terribly mistaken)

Hello My name is John ______ and I would like to order for individual, grilled Caesar chicken salads in your restaurant for 150 people on 28th September and pick up time is 4pm, and it's for my Mom's Birthday Party. It will be picked up by my courier agent and I am ready to pay the full payment with my credit card so get to me with the following information below...

Restaurant Address:
Total cost for the food:
Personal cell #:
Please Advise.

Best Regards,

John

-----------

Good morning John,

I regret to inform you that you have most definitely contacted the wrong person while ordering your 150 chicken salads. The recipient would have never recieved this message if it weren't for me reading his emails for him. This particular email address ( "Car Man" Dennis) is my 62 year old father who on the best of days does not know how to turn a pc on. The only thing you could order from us would be a classic muscle car, or some commercial floor covering. Just wanted to let you know we certainly are not a restaurant, because your email seems to be pretty important. Hopefully you find the correct email, so your mom can enjoy some salads. The happiest of birthday wishes to her.

Sincerely,

"Car Man" Dennis + his tech savvy kid

p.s. - would you possibly be Canadian? you write like my mother-in-law, especially the -please advise- part.

Business Casual

I think I will let an illustration speak louder than words this post...

I will say this though, my dad brings "business casual" to a whole new level.

I love you dad!

sidenote: the red arrows indicate the possible reasons as to why dad can never find what he needs, thus making me print and reprint dozens of papers.

The Redneck Mafia - the preface

a simple dialogue:

Me: "Home Depot will sharpen mower blades for free I heard. Where is our mower from?"

Mr.Jones: "Your dad. Remember, last summer that guy owed your dad some money and he kept paying him in lawn mowers?"

Me: "Oh right! Cause that's not weird as hell. Fun times, I guess that's how dad rolls."

*an eloquent and well written post to follow explaining how my dad quite possibly runs a redneck mafia

RED FLAG

I think I have talked about this somewhere... Ah yes somewhere in here. You can see that my dad has a lot of people that work for him, and he tries his best to keep us all busy. This makes my day to day work agenda pretty interesting. For instance, this morning after I finished the proposals for the day I was assigned two tasks 1-paint an old bread sign like this one

and 2- go online to Dish Network and set up an installation for him, since he tried twice this week via phone and just cussed them out apparently.

The bread sign was a breeze. I free handed that bad boy and it looks awesome.

Dish Network? Oh dear. Oh d-d-d-dear. I go online and fly through the prompted questions. But when it is time to finalize and pay the fee I get a red I mean RED message saying I can't complete the transaction online, I must call customer service. Oy. I call the 1-800-ah-shit line and try this again. After 45 minutes with a lady who probably lives HERE, we figure out the problem. Dad (and Mom) have been "locked out" for security purposes and can't try to get Dish Network again for at least 30 days.

uhhhhhhhhhh?

30 days?

locked out?

Security purposes?

Yes, my parents, in their early 60's - and mostly retired are a security issue. Please RED FLAG them. I mean, they might be a threat towards each other, but a Dish Network Installer could probably be in and out of there within an hour and come out unscathed. I would recommend the installer be from HERE vs. THERE unlike customer support, but you know whatever.

--My question is...what in the hell did dad say to them that they felt the need to RED FLAG him in the Dish system?Oh what I wouldn't give to see the sidenote that pops up under their names for the customer support staff! Probably something like "-note- Customer is a super cranky old man, do NOT send installers to this location. Customer is probably armed and dangerous. Even if he offers to pay $5,000 in set up fees do NOT send installers.Ever."

Bless my dad's Irish/German heart.

Fowl Play

I am not really sure why I am feeling so nostalgic lately, but the old childhood stories just keep on popping up on here.

As per usual, let me give just a smidge of a background. Sometimes, well, a lot of times my dad does some pretty silly stuff. Particularly if alcohol is involved. How does the saying go...Ah yes, " God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world" -Ed McMahon

Anyways, I guess in my case God created whiskey to keep my father from getting me normal gifts. And losing silly bets.

I have always had a love for animals in all shapes and sizes, I have had dozens (yes way more than 12) pets ranging from pups to exotic reptiles and who knows what in between. I had mentioned sometime ago that I had wanted a goat, particularly a fainting goat. Never heard of it? oh you must see one! At any rate, dad said hell no. Because they eat the back seats of cars he said! How would dad know that goats eat car's back seats? That's easy, he and his cousin lost a game of poker and were awarded the prize of a goat. (or did they win?) They of course thought it would be a grand idea to head on to the next bar with goat in tow. When they returned from bar #2 the goat had busied itself with dining on the interior of the car while waiting. Back seat? Demolished. So no goats for Stef.

Ok---Fast forward like, 15+ years - I am now 5 years old.

Dad comes home and says, "Stefanie! I have a surprise for you! Come on, go into the kitchen, sit in the floor and no peeking until I come back in with the gift!" Naturally I am super stoked and set up in the kitchen ready for my "Big Surprise!" I hear the front door open, and dad stomp in, stop, set something down, and then a little pitter patter noise coming towards me...

Dad: "Ok pumpkin, open your eyes!"

Me: "OH WOW DAD! WHAT IS IT?!?!?!? I LOVE IT" mind you, when I looked down I couldn't have even guessed what creature was staring back at me. It was so....ugly. But maybe not too ugly. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

Dad: "It's a turkey Stef."

Me: "A TURKEY?! YAY"

And as soon as I said that, what did the little turkey do? Peed. My excitement must have startled her, none the less that led to her namesake. Peeper. And as you can see below, is Ms.Peeper and myself (and yet another one of my pets, Sandy the dog)

Now, in case any of you are wondering why in the hell my dad would buy a 5 year old a turkey I will tell you. He didn't. Yup, he lost another bet while he was drinkin' (or as I said earlier, did he win?) Either way, he was awarded with yet another ridiculous animal.

What ever happened to Peeper? Well, she didn't go to live on a farm, or to live with Jesus or whatever they happened to tell me when she disappeared. Unfortunately we have a large snake population around the house, so that is a likely cause of disappearance.

So there you have it people, God created whiskey to keep dad from making wise pet choices. But we love him anyways.

Email Forwarding

I am sure that there are many of you out there on the interwebs that know of someone who is afraid of the "magic machine" aka the computer. They haven't, and don't plan to, catch up with the times. Ever.

For me? Well, I have several of those in my life, but my poor dad is the basis for this blog post. He is not like a lot of other magic machine phobes out there - he is totally cool with buying stuff online with his credit card, and entering in somewhat personal information when necessary...He just makes me do it.

I would say that 10 of my hours a week are spent "using that thing" to look stuff up - old cars - tools - car parts - his account balance - the weather report (10 day weather reports are his favorite). I have set up emails and accounts for him and just use passwords I am familiar with because I am the only one who checks them.

To lessen my burden I bought my parents a desktop a year and a half ago for their anniversary. Normally wouldn't have splurged to get them a machine that was nicer than the one I had - hell we didn't even have a home pc at the time, but I thought it was well worth them trying to hack running their own "online errands" as I like to call them now. The family elected my 18yr old niece to school them on the interwebs in her free time. I assume a lot of the lessons fell to the wayside and the only thing either of my parents retained from those lessons was this: www.Facebook.com -> log in -> semi navigate ->?the end?

*insert a mental image of me hitting my head against the wall here*

Now that my dad is becoming more active in communicating with his old war buddies my job has gotten increasingly more difficult. The influx of howdy do emails is astounding. When I set his email account up way back when I had it forwarded to my personal email account. Because? In the beginning he may have gotten an email a month, nothing that warranted a daily log in on my part. I would print it off and he could read it and toss it in the trash or whatever. He gets tons now, and I religiously print the long winded things unless they are old dirty man joke fwds...those typically get trashed. creepers.

Dad has seen me log into his gmail account, he knows what the format looks like. He knows (I think) that my gmail account looks shockingly similar.

For some ungodly reason dad does not understand how email forwarding works. He constantly comes into my office and looks over my shoulder and asks "Do I have any emails?" I usually reply "Nope not today dad" and yet he still stares at the screen, and I can only assume he wants to watch me log out of my email and immediately into his to show him that no he does not have a new email. Alas - thanks to gmail and email forwarding those are timely and unnecessary steps so I don't do them. I just go about my work. Then as he continues to stand there he usually will start to read all of my available subject lines (maybe he doesn't hear me? trust me? who knows).

Sometimes I can hear him read off my subject lines. And now that I am 6 months pregnant boy does he get a mouth full sometimes! As he reads off my whattoexpect.com weekly emails

"Breastfeeding vs. Bottlefeeding... Oh..." - yea dad, you wanna read that? I could use your advice! hahahahah Silly dad.

Some other good subject lines I know he has read: You and Your Hormones . Swelling and Edema. Hemorrhoid Relief (personal fave) lol.

He really should just trust me shouldn't he?

Hero in a Half Shell, Turtle Power!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my dad.

I like to call him the resident ninja. With the GA heat going on it's 5th steady month you can catch him in this awesome gear daily. As you can see from the red arrows I have highlighted the ninja headband, and a shirt pocket which houses items like: ninja throwing stars, mini samurai swords, and other warrior weaponry (I'm sure).

I always tell everyone that he actually makes these headbands out of old towels and cloth, which makes him much more legit as a ninja warrior.

Close friends and relatives have seen him in the gear so often that they have joked that they will find (or create) baby ninja headbands for our little one. This way Baby Jones and Grandpa can fight crime, or cut the grass, whatever...together.

If you wish to be half as awesome as my old man you can attempt to create your own head band by going here. Even if you have no crimes to fight, you can wear this versatile ensemble like dad does - while washing the cars, mowing the lawn, grilling out...you know, "the tough jobs that somebody has to do."

If he found out I posted this photo on the internet he might just scissor kick my head off. I still don't know if he realizes I even took the photo with my phone. Love you dad!