You know how they say that bad things happen in threes? Well there is definitely some truth in that statement.
My Mother called tonight to give us the O.K. to go ahead and pay their part of the tour expenses. Since the last fiasco with paypal, Rod volunteered to log in and make sure the invoice was paid using her credit card this time. I handed Rod my laptop and then sat next to him as he navigated through the paypal site. I held my breath as he hit the “Pay Now” button all the time worrying he would somehow hit the wrong button and once again the payment would be sent using the dreaded bank account. I breathed a sigh of relief when he remembered to change the funding option to the credit card. We were in the home stretch now, the only thing left to do was hit the submit button. Rod had saved the day and was our soon to be hero as he hit the enter key...
What was this? a message that the transaction could only be completed using an e-check (aaaaargh). The credit card option was now completely grayed out. Were the planets out of alignment? Was there a full moon last night? I slumped to the phone to call my mother and tell her the bad news and that she would have to make the dreaded call to paypal. After we hung up I patiently waited for her return phone call to see what paypal had to say. It wasn’t too long before my phone rang and my mother informed me that paypal had basically locked down her credit card because of the previous stop payment and the cancellation that the tour company had placed on the invoice. Apparently all of the mishaps with the previous payment attempt had thrown up a red flag and now the only way to pay was through the bank account. After much thought we did come up with a work around and the invoice did get paid so Mom and Bob didn’t have to ride the Chicken bus.
If all that wasn’t enough, then it turns out that my mother had an abscessed tooth and had to go to the dentist the next day for a root canal. Rod told her to wait until we got to Ecuador because dental procedures are so much cheaper than in the States, but she wasn’t to keen on that idea.
The very next day I made an appointment at the Apple Store to take my laptop in and find out why my pictures kept moving within my blog. I would work on a page and place my pictures just so, but when I went on line to view my work, my pictures had shifted, some of them so much that they were creeping up into the text. I walked up to the Genius Bar for my 15 minutes of technical support confident that my problem could be solved in the first five minutes. I was sure the problem was purely operator error.
As I sat down, I turned on my laptop for the technician and we waited and waited and waited for my computer to boot. We sat and watched the beach ball spin round and round. Now my laptop has been slow to boot and usually I start it up and walk away, get a cup of coffee, throw a load of laundry in the machine and load the dishwasher before it is up and running. This time was different though and we just sat there staring at the screen what seemed like forever. Needless to say the floating pictures took a back seat to this new problem.
On day two I received a phone call from the Apple Store informing me that my computer was ready to be picked up. I drove as fast as I could to the store and found out that my backup program was the culprit. It has been removed and now I’m back up and running at a much better speed. As far as the floating pictures go, after a three hour session that issue was resolved as well, but not without many off color words muttered under my breath and much frustration.
Hopefully the mishaps are at an end and we will have smooth sailing at least for a couple of days, but then again we are talking about Dorie and Shelly.
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