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It’s weird.

I was anti-Apple for years.  But I was anti-Microsoft for time too.

Right now, I’m on a MacBook Pro, using Open Live Writer, and posting on my Blog.  I’m running Parallels on a free Microsoft trial.

But here is why I am liking Apple.  Their stuff works and lasts a long time.

I have a Macbook, 12 inch in Rose gold.  I absolute love it.  I can tuck in a bag, prop it up on an exercise bike, and work anywhere. 

The keyboard went out on it a few weeks ago.  I dropped it off at an Apple store and it was back with a brand new keyboard two days later.  I haven’t gotten that from any other company, even the Microsoft Store.  It’ lighter and easier to carry than the Microsoft Surface.  Running JavaScript stuff is a breeze.  I’ve been taking a Mobile Web course on a Google scholarship, and doing all the development stuff has been so much easier.

It all started with a iPhone – I couldn’t stand any of the Android phones and I’ve had my hands on a lot of them.  Samsung, LG, all the major brands and some cheap ones.  I have loved my iPhones and I have the annual upgrade. 

I was expecting a FedEx delivery of a hard drive from Apple (cute drive, but haven't tried it yet).

I'm working at home, and I get an email saying it's delivered, so of course, I stop what I am doing to go get it.  It's not there!!!!!!

So I go look at the tracking, yep, it shows delivered.  Still not there.  So I look for the FedEx phone number, can't find it but get a virtual chat agent who eventually connects me with a human. I think.

Any way, while I'm waiting I fire up my security cameras, and nope, no truck has come by the house.

About the time I get through the playback, I hear a thud, and look out and a FedEx truck is driving by.  Yep, idiot driver marked he had delivered it 25 minutes before he did.  Didn't bother to ring the bell, and left the package where it couldn't be seen by the camera.

Argh!  We live by a park.  

Here's the chat transcript:

Fun fun, and the package was delivered a full 25 minutes later than the driver indicated.

New truck on January 31, a Tuesday.  On Wednesday I bought what I thought I needed to make my truck work with my ham radio and ended up going two places that couldn’t install it that day.  Well the first couldn’t.  The second could the next day but wanted way more than I wanted to pay.

So I ended up taking everything back.  Oh, on most Wednesdays I drive past Ham Radio Outlet.

This Wednesday I asked them for a recommendation.  Bummer the place was out of business but their tech was still working independently.  He came by and installed the power for me.  I might should have gone with a bumper mount antenna, but the glass mount has been working with my handi-talkie.

Now the glass mount doesn’t have the range that the bumper mount did, but I think I can live with it.

Best part, that is really making me happy?  The control unit fits exactly in the cubby in the console, so I can finally use the touch screen.

I have finally written an iPhone app. It's a fairly useless app, and based on one of the first Windows Phone Apps I wrote and actually published.

I learned how to write mobile apps by going to several workshops put on by Microsoft.  I have had a major writer's/programmer's block when it has come to writing iPhone apps.  

I am most comfortable programming in the Visual Studio environment because I learned it early in its life cycle teaching Visual Basic.  It was not a stretch to go to C#, C++, and then creating Zune/XBox games and Windows Phone apps.

I even taught Java in a Visual Studio look alike IDE.

I approached Swift in several ways — working with a college friend of mine, doing Swift Playground on the tablet, but I finally bit the bullet and found this set of tutorials: https://codewithchris.com

Now, I have never learned well watching others.  I would have done much better in college if we could have sat in a lab and programmed as we learned, but that wasn't possible in the day.  I have taken courses that way, and it works well, especially if the instructor is slow.

I do best with a book — these days I use Kindle, but I haven't found the correct book.  I might be bothering a friend of mine about that.  

Swift hasn't been that hard for me.  The CodeWithChris cheat sheets would help.  My problem is drawing the user interface, and right now, it is god awful.  I will be spending the next few days or weeks working on that.

Once I get there, I have some ideas for some truly useful apps.  

It's at https://github.com/kathweaver/Sets_Reps

I Sadly, I have always been attracted to activities that are male dominated, so I have been subject to harassment on an almost daily basis. 

From subtlities to out and out harassment. From the Civil Air Patrol adults who called me “honey” to the uniforms. They got better in college Air Force ROTC, but pencil skirts?  Really. 

I knew better than to be in the third class of women at West Point after reading stories on stories of how minority’s were treated there, but that meant a shut door. 

College Air Force ROTC was a positive experience on campus. The Arnold Air Society shielded me from most but camp at Elgin was another story. I lost complete respect for the camp leadership when they pointed out to us that someone was peeking in our windows.  We didn’t need to be told and they could have prevented it and not say anything. Probably didn’t know how to handle it, but still. We weren’t the first women in ROTC. 

Work in computer science wasn’t much better, each of my male bosses didn’t know how to deal with women.  My third was down and out harassing. We were hired independently by one boss who left the team. He was replaced by a female boss. My immediate supervisor had nothing good to say about her, primarily because she was female. He insisted the team go out to lunch on Friday and openly ogled attractive women and verbally described their attributes to the team. I frequently went home and threw up and not just on Fridays.

I attribute my eating disorders to these experiences.  Some how I have it in my head that if I am fat, men won't bother me.

One of the reasons I went into teaching was to set an example to both male and female students as a woman who is interested in technology.  I think my students grew up to respect others.  I certainly hope so.

I'm going through a Python course, and the designer of the course sees the need to spend an entire section on String manipulation.  Now, I've work professionally as a programmer and have never had to do string manipulation to this extend.  

I will be teaching a Python course soon. I'd probably do it as an appendix but it does sort of introduce arrays.  Sort of, since strings are not stored like arrays but there is some commonality to it.

I love my job.  This is my third year anniversary of teaching online. In theory we can have school based students but that has not happened yet. Well, once, but the student didn't finish the class.

I teach students from third grade to senior in high school.  Since most take the classes as enrichment I have the opposite schedule from most teachers.  I am busiest in the summers, weekends and evenings.

The biggest benefit is the biggest drawback. I can teach anywhere, anytime. At the same time, I don't know when I am going to be busy. Today is a good example. I woke up with 9 hours on my time sheet – our week for pay purposes starts on Monday. One day had 0.75 hours. 

Today, I woke up with an hours work and by the time I finished, it was 1 and half. It's almost 2:00 and I have put in another 0.75 hours and I have at least an hour waiting on me. I left the house afraid I wouldn't get to the gym and have gotten two emails while typing this. 

Not complaining but the day is getting full. I have had at least 3 days I got seriously concerned that I wouldn't get to everything and this one is starting to feel like it. 

My priority order is answer student questions, then parent questions.  Handle anything that is time sensitive like needing final project passwords .  Grading mid course assignments come last.  First assignments and assignments that students are having trouble with are higher priority.

This doesn't pay as well as a full time job, but it doesn't have the headaches. I have two out of town dog shows coming up. Haven't done that with this size student load.  It will be interesting. 

So I'm down to the following types of Mystery Shopping:

• Grocery stores in the very local area – got to go there
• Gas stations (but absolutely no audits) in the immediate area
• Shops that are fun and near somewhere I have to go anyway.  I did a jewelry store shop o the way to Jenny Craig this week.  That way I can expense the mileage.
• Food that pays and is stuff I really like.
• Web shops — I have one that has been going on once a month that pays $80.  I've done some others that pay $10 – $15.
• Phone shops — those vary.  I'm going an annoying one that pays $15.  You have to call daily.
• At home shops 
• Fun stuff that pays a bonus.  Even if a bit of a drive.

May I did $500.  I'm up to $350 this month.  Note: the last week of the month is the most heavily bonused.  

I'm also trying another type of IC job.  It's called InSite Inspections and I've done one.  What I like about this, is there is nothing to memorize and as of the second one, today, I can do it on my tablet and have all the data entry done almost as soon as I finish.  The first one I did on paper and it sucked.  I also made a mistake.

They pay okay, but you have to make a call to the site within 4 hours of accepting the assignment and do it in 48 hours.  So no advanced planning.

As for the technology bootcamp.  There is a Udemy course on Web Design I really like.  It's "The Complete Web Developer Course 2.0" and you can often find a good deal on it.  I'm not a big fan of video courses, but this one is good.  It has exercises so you can practice.

I've made it through his HTML and CSS sections and am working on JavaScript now.  I don't think that the CSS is sufficient, but it's a good start.  

I blogged about it at http://blogs.kweaver.org/blog/2017/04/mystery-shopping-update.html and probably meant to do it here.

Last month I did over $800 in Mystery Shops, most of them paid me less than $10.00  Yeah, that’s a lot of mystery shopping.

I had a bad week this week.  Just got back from my husband and I yearly vacation together.  Before I left, I booked a typical week like April.  Total fail. 

I missed important parts of shops, took really bad images, using a phone I bought for a mystery shop on the 26th.  I took it back, because it was horrible.

So I’m going to limit myself to phone and internet shops and a few high dollar shops from now on.

And I’m trying to get back to CSS again. 

It's an interesting way to earn some extra money. So far I have earned $10 in iTunes gift cards that I can use right away. They also have Starbucks and cash gift cards. 

I've been using Mobee to earn gift cards and cash at the stores and restaurants near me! Download for iPhone or Android using my referral code 2DCK and we'll both earn an extra $3 worth of points when you complete your first mission.2DCK

Sent from my iPhone