UPS Access Point Locker

Well that was a new experience. On Friday 03 Nov or maybe Saturday 04 Nov I received a letter from Comcast telling me that my current modem would be obsolete in Jan 2018 and they would be sending me an upgraded modem complete with wi-fi router built in. They said "they" would be sending an email soon giving me the shipping and tracking info. Well they didn't send an email but UPS sent me an email on Sunday 05 Nov stating that my package was scheduled for delivery on Monday and that a signature was required. Monday came and went and I had one of those handy "We Missed You while trying to deliver your package to you" notices. The notice was marked with the address of a UPS Access Point Locker for the pickup location. I wasn't quite sure what the deal was. I was thinking it was the same as the pickup/distribution station about 2 or 3 miles from me that I had been to once or twice. I guessed fairly close but not exactly. It was some kind of holding/storage area to pick up my package along the lines of their distribution centers. It is a storage/holding area like a bus station locker. It is all self serve and open 24/7. The photo above is a generic UPS Locker photo looks similar to one I used. Same sort of situation up against a wall with parking nearby.

OK so on Tuesday (07 Nov 2017) during the day I looked up the address and it looked close to where the regular UPS shipping center near me was, but not exactly. Since I had a vague idea where the thing was I planned on picking up my box that night after work. It was a dark very rainy Tuesday night here in Suburban Silver Spring, MD. Technically the UPS Locker is in the Burtonsville area of Silver Spring (very North Silver Spring) near where I live, and the UPS center I had been to is technically in Laurel.

So I go to the UPS center, but of course it is a little farther than what the directions had said, and the center isn't on the street mentioned. So in a nearby parking lot I breakout my portable GPS, Yes my GPS is separate from my 2002 Ford Focus but that is beside the point (and another indication of how often I do upgrades. Its mostly due to the costs of upgrading and the "if it ain't broke" mentality). I enter the address and I'm about a mile maybe less from where I should be. So I do my turn around since I had overshot the thing and while returning I overshoot the other way. It is dark hard to see and I'm not sure where this UPS thing is. I suspect it is near the building with a self storage center. Turns out it is the same address but sort of next door. Anyway I go into a shopping complex area parking lot do some more turnings around. My misdirections included getting a little turned around and being on the wrong side of a street with an island divider in the middle. I am ticked at myself for doing that, again dark night hard to see and I thought the middle island was the side of the street with a side service area. Oops a few honking cars and then wait for traffic to go by to make a safe Ubie (U-turn that is).  Don't know why I started going in that direction anyway. I wait for a long time at a traffic light to turn left, behind a big tractor-trailer truck in the right most left turn lane, which can also go straight.

I then got on the proper road and GPS told me I was at my destination so I made the next available right turn into the parking where some Self Storage unit center that was part of some industrial park thing was, the one I thought was near my destination. It had the proper address but I didn't see the UPS thing. I make my way to the other side of the storage area building and get to an area where there is a gate for storage sheds and on the other side of a small fence I see the UPS Locker. I drive around the other side of the building and get to the UPS Locker and park.

Since it is about 7:30 PM on a dark rainy November evening the Locker is pretty dark. The website said it was open 24/7 didn't look like it. The building it is up against but not associated with was obviously closed and very dark, the only real lighting was the UPS Locker's User interface screen. No employees required total self service with a computer terminal.

The thing was actually very easy to figure out, a bit hard to see in the light of the terminal screen. So first step is to scan the bar-code on your pick-up notice, or enter in the tracking number or some source code on the dang thing, with no light scanning was the only way to do it. It took a few tries to get it to scan. Then you have to insert your valid Government or other valid form of ID (driver's license) into the card slot like a credit card and hope it doesn't eat your card like ATMs sometimes do. After it verified my ID to make sure I was me, it indicated and unlocked the locker my box was in. It asked for signature using finger on the touch screen. My onscreen signature is NEVER the same as my real "pen in hand" signature. It often looks like stick figure drawings. I think it asked for the signature before unlocking the specific unit my box was in. The graphic display shows which locker is "yours" in a diagram of the setup when it unlocks it. Then you open your locker, grab your package and make sure to close the locker. After signing and closing the locker, which I left open and it ordered me to close the locker, it indicates that the transaction is concluded.

I have since hooked up the modem and am using it in normal "wired" mode which due to my ancient Windows XP computer still seems slower than molasses most of the time. I haven't gotten the wi-fi service to start up correctly yet.

DVD Update: Leap February 2012

FEBRUARY 2012

NO new DVDs this month. Also I didn't watch any. At the beginning of the month I didn't watch anything because I watched other stuff or didn't watch at all, then when I wanted to watch something... First the DVD rental from Netflix I wanted to watch didn't work in my regular player, but it seems to work in the computer DVD drive. Then I discovered that my regular player just doesn't want to function properly at all. The red stand-by light stays on, none of the buttons work on the remote or the machine, yet sometimes my TV screen shows the start-up splash screen for the player. Sometimes the red light turns to orange but not green UGH. Sigh it needs repair or replacing. I have another player that isn't hooked up that I haven't used in almost 4 years since I've been in my apartment. The reason is the little player I had been using was a brand that could be made region free (I temporarily forget what they call that DVD tricking) the one that is not hooked up doesn't do that trick.

Maybe it is time to get a new player that can be wired to be region free.

DVD catchup (2011 DVDS)

Wow I thought I had mentioned something along these lines back in February or March but I haven't mentioned my recent DVDs from ANY of 2011. So here is what I have gotten up till April. I will try to update once a month unless I don't get any, then I occasionally slip up and forget the next month or two.

So here is the breakdown for February through April 2011.

FEBRUARY

 

Extreme Days

 

Evil Alien conquerors

 

Despicable Me

MARCH

 

Red

APRIL

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 

 

Primeval: Volume Two

 

Resident Evil: Afterlife

 

Salt (Deluxe Unrated Edition)

That is about it for that. I will have at least one title for the May Edition in a few weeks.

NCIS Episode 7.8 "Power Down"

NCIS EPISODE 7.8
"Power Down"

This Review may contain SPOILERS.

This episode was another very good one. It is an episode that reminds me why I watch the show. It didn't have a lot of action, in fact there was only a little bit at the beginning of the episode. Without giving too much of the plot away the basic gist of the story was that the power in the majority of the DC area was knocked out (there was a pretty cool scene of DC lights shutting down) due to the events of their case of course. The NCIS team had to solve their case without electric power. OK so they cheated a little bit and gave them a little backup power for necessities like the body freezers in autopsy and minimal power in the MTAC room, but for the most part they had to do things old school, actually a little more than old school since the phones were also out. They didn't like it and each character asked "How did people do [blank according to their specific job function] before [blank specific technology for their job]".


They even found an old mimeograph machine in storage that Gibbs had to give them a non-verbal demonstration on to show how to use it. That was truly just a site gag and a jab at Gibbs' age compared to the young ages of his team. They even found the time to make a reference to Doctor Who. McGee mentioned that the storage shed they were searching was like the TARDIS, Dinozzo asks him what he means. McGee says it's the time ship that Doctor Who travels in. Puzzled Dinozzo then asks "Dr. Who? Who watches Doctor Who?"


In recent years I have often wondered what people would do if modern technology was out of commission for an extended period of time. This episode shows that excellently. Most of us modern technologically dependents would be lost. I do fear that there will come a time when technology fails us and many things will be lost.


All in all a very good episode. 4.5/5

The NCIS: Los Angeles episode that followed it was also pretty good, not quite as good in my book as this NCIS episode, but for NCIS: LA it was one of the better ones.


NOTE: This review was updated to reflect the Doctor Who references that I had forgotten about. I also added the Spoilers warning in case people consider the Doctor Who references, or other parts of this review as spoilers. I may have even corrected some grammar and spelling errors, or not.

Umm OK

For some weird but good reason, my computer (the laptop I thought had died) is now working. Surprise, I was searching on porblems people had had with their computers not getting power, and found one way to tell if the problem is with the power source the battery or a dead mother board (which is really expensive, I can't afford, and am glad that was not the case), and that way is to try powering up the machine without the battery, just on the AC power. I thought I had tried that at one point, but I guess I didn't. Well I took the battery out and tried turning on the power and viola the machine started to start up. It still takes about 5 minutes for the silly thing to boot up but at least it is working. Then to see if the battery was truely dead I tried putting the thing back in (with the machine still powered on) and instead of the machine dying which I thought would happen, it stayed on and started recharging the battery which said it was at something like 55% charge, well now after about an hour and a half it is up to 91 or so?

OK so now I need to figure out how to backup the stuff I don't have backedup, get a spare battery for backup (could be expensive), get some sort of backup hard drive or some kind of separate storage thing that can hold tons of information. Also eventually I will need to do something about my anchient mini-tower desktop that I barely use anymore, but is hooked up to my skanner. Oh and I need to do something about the other laptop I have that is semi-dead.

I need to really find some sort of devise to act as a palm pilot/ electronic date book/ info device. Oh and a new digital camera, my current one has issues.

Ah now I feel much better. If only I can keep my car from getting messed up, ugh I need to get yet another tire, but that is another story for some other time and some other place.

Sometimes Technology SUCKS!

ARGH!
First my digital camera acts up a few months ago, and either needs repairs or replacing. Then my palm pilot up and dies. Now my laptop joins the land of the dead. [Sigh] I can't afford a new computer and I can't afford repairs on the laptop. Besides a few years worth of archived emails and various programs (some of which were downloaded for free like winzip and adobie reader) I have lost some digital photos that I never got around to backing up on a disc or anything. Plus tons of other stuff, that I may not have have used recently or often but are just glad they are available. It appears I may have to start from sratch yet again. This sort of thing always happens when I need to switch to a new computer. I need to refind applications I had gotten used to using that are not standard programs on factory fresh computers, not to mention all the various bookmarks I had. ARGH! I'm not sure but I think I am now locked out of my website access. I need to look into that to see if I can access my account from my mothers computer, I cant login from work, although I can check my bill balance there. UGH!

Dead Palm Pilots

Ack! I'm pretty sure my 5? year old Palm Pilot is now officially dead. It was a M130 or some such, I'd have to double check the exact number on it. It doesn't turn on and it doesn't recharge in it's cradle. The worst part is I don't have the info on it backed up, but I think nothing of great importance was on it. A few birthdays remembered for each year, a brief description of a dream I had about 3 or 4 years ago, a few to-do lists, some old phone numbers and addresses, and my schedule/calendar that I hadn't updated since sometime in mid-April. Oh and a few date reminders, and a sort of history of appointments. Other than that no problem. Sigh that makes my second dead palm pilot sitting around collecting dust, my first palm pilot that I had bought used for something like $50 when they were selling for $300-$500 was a Palm III, I think. It's only problem that I know of, is the wire that connects the battery case to the circut board. Well anyway I should replace my ancient cell-phone with one that would double as a palm pilot, but I don't want to loose my number so I'd have to go with whatever deals Verizon (my cell phone carrier) has. It will be several months before I do anything like that though. My financial situation really sucks right now.