Drum roll please!!

And the winner is:

6

Random numbers generated Oct 31 2010 at 11:30:47 by www.psychicscience.org
Free educational resources for parapsychology, psychical research & mind magic.
 
That means Joanne - you are my winner!
 
Joanne Lendaro said...

New follower....thanks!
October 28, 2010 6:31 AM

I will send you an email today to get your mailing information.

And since Talin's blog post brought the most new people, I will be emailing you to get your mailing address as well for a special thank you present!

Happy Halloween everyone!Carolyn

Sewing machine disaster - Major pinwheel hold up!

My poor poor sewing machine is once again not working. I just had it cleaned and re calibrated before I went to my September Quilting Retreat. I leave for another one next weekend so at least it punked out now and not an hour out of the city!

I only managed two more of the short rows for my pinwheel quilt before it started to do this:

This is exactly what it was doing last time that made me take it in and they told me the computer was off and needed re-calibration. It was working like a dream after they fixed until now.

Does anyone else have this happen? My machine is a fairly new Phaff 2058.

Gateway and Mr. Hunter go head to head.

Oh boy! Mr. Hunter is going to blow a gasket! I had to post this for you all to read how ridiculous it has been to try and get help with my sad broken computer. This reads newest to oldest - sorry to make you read it backwards. I have not taken anything out, but changed the hubby's name to mister and altered his email. Its a little long too, but if you have time - let this be a warning to never purchase a Gateway computer!!

Today is also the deadline to enter my give away. You can do so here.

Only one word describes my frustration with you folks right now and that is Unbelievable.

Customer service is more about the PRODUCT I bought and NOT about where I bought it.
If you won't honor a paid warranty through the seller of your products then why do you let them do it?


You asked me to supply you with all this information. I got it all for you showing that I had purchased the warranty and now you won't help me with one stupid question. You won't even give me any information on cost of call to your support people.


Again I give you the example of the great people at HP. The warranty had COMPLETELY expired 5 years previously on my HP media center computer when I had a hard drive failure. They helped me identify what the problem was, they gave me the cost option on the recovery discs. Sent me to websites so I could research different offers on new hard drives and didn't ask me for a dime. They didn't make me give them a receipt or show more documentation. They helped me.


THEN I MET THE PEOPLE AT GATEWAY. Sound very nice in the email but no help unless I pull out my wallet or go see someone else.


So, I go to computer trends, drop off the computer and then they send to you under the same warranty arrangements except maybe they pay?


Customer support is about taking care of the customer. I bought a Gateway, so I am a Gateway customer. Seeing as you don't want me to be a Gateway customer anymore, I am going to toss my Gateway computer and go buy an HP. At least I know that when I ask for help, HP will be there to help me and won't tell me to go back to the store where I bought it.


I was never very happy with this computer from the very beginning but you folks have now iced the cake.


I hope that this gets forwarded to the people who manage Gateway. I know I am going to tell as many people as possible not to buy your products.

Check out below - this is customer service. Ask a question get an answer all from your competition at HP. I spent about 200 bucks to fix the computer and I didn't have to run halfway across town to take it back to the store where I got it and at least someone gave me an idea of what was going on........even though I had NO WARRANTY.


Dear Mr. Hunter,
Thank you for contacting HP Total care. My name is Vance. I am from E-mail support team.


I understand from your email that you have performed PC Doctor test and got an error HD521-2W. Also, you would like to know about upgrading the hard drive in your computer.

Yes, you are correct. The error code HD521-2W is related to hard drive. It indicates that the hard drive is defective or the hard drive is about to fail. Please take a backup of your personal data as soon as possible from the hard drive if the computer is booting. You can purchase the hard drive from any local computer hardware store. You can upgrade the hard drive up to 700GB. The new hard drive should be a SATA (3.0 Gb/sec) hard drive and should be of 7200 rpm.

If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you further.
For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our Web site at:
http://www.hp.com/go/totalcare


Sincerely,
Vance U
HP Total Care


----- Original Message -----
From: Gateway Support
Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 7:17 am

Subject: Hard drive was full. Windows attempted to do an update. Update reached stage 3 o... [Incident: 101021-000390]

To: Mr.Hunter @shaw.ca

Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response. If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 7 days.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

To access your question from our support site, click the following link or paste it into your web browser.

http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/account/questions/detail/i_id/1451719

Subject

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hard drive was full. Windows attempted to do an update. Update reached stage 3 o...
Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Sumesh Mathur) - 10/27/2010 06:17 AM

Dear Mr Hunter,

Thank you for contacting Gateway. I’ll be happy to assist you with this issue.
From your mail, I understand that you have a concern regarding updating system warranty.

I apologize for the inconvenience that you have experienced.

Mr. Hunter, we have received the fax 10/26/10 at 5:37pm, but it appears the extended warranty is through the reseller.You needs to contact reseller for assistance with the warranty.

Please make a note of the service request number: 1-748TQA

For further clarifications please feel free to visit our web site http://support.gateway.com/.

Thank you for contacting Gateway.

Have a great day!

Respectfully,
Gateway Online Technical Support

Response (Arun S K) - 10/25/2010 01:30 PM

Dear Mr. Hunter,

Thank you for contacting Gateway. I’ll be happy to assist you with this issue.

As per your serial number we verified that your product is out of warranty.

From what you have described, Mr. Hunter, I understand that you are experiencing issues related to Windows update and warranty.

I understand your concern. It can be quite frustrating when issues take longer to resolve. I will do my best to ensure that the problem is fixed.

Please be informed that the proof of purchase that you have provided has been exceeded the maximum attachment size. So please either resend the documents or please fax the document to the following number: 254-298-4231.
Also please include the following reference number while fax the document: 101021-000390

Please make a note of the SR(Service request) No mentioned below for further reference SR No: 1-748TQA

For further clarifications please feel free to visit our web site http://support.gateway.com/.

Thank you for contacting Gateway.

Have a great day!

Respectfully,
Gateway Online Technical Support

Customer (Mr. Hunter) - 10/25/2010 12:26 PM

Here is the POP and Proof of Warranty Purchase. Every computer comes with at least 1 year of warranty so this is the payment for my extended warranty.

 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Gateway Support
Date: Sunday, October 24, 2010 2:26 pm
To: jhunter**** @shaw.ca

==================== image File Attachment ====================

Computer Trends Notebook Warranty.jpg, 487436 bytes, discarded: maximum attachment size exceeded
==================== image File Attachment ====================

Computer Trends Receipt.jpg, 401664 bytes, discarded: maximum
attachment size exceeded

Response (Rohith Mohan) - 10/24/2010 01:26 PM

Dear Mr. Hunter,

Thank you for contacting Gateway. I'll be happy to assist you.

From your e-mail I understand that you are experiencing issues related to Windows update and warranty.

I understand your concern. It can be quite frustrating when issues take longer to resolve. I will do my best to ensure that the problem is fixed.

After verifying the serial number we see that the product is out of warranty.

Please be informed that after receiving the proof of purchase we will be in a better position to update the warranty. Also be informed that 2 year notebook warranty includes one year manufacturing warranty and one year extended warranty.

Please note the Service Request Id: 1-748TQA
For further clarifications please feel free to visit our web site: http://support.gateway.com/

Thank you for contacting Gateway.
Have a great day!

Respectfully,
Gateway Online Technical Support
Customer (Mr. Hunter) - 10/24/2010 11:55 AM

I have found the original receipt and it appears that we purchased a 2 year extended warranty from Computer Trends for this.

I will scan the documentation from my work for this. I appoligize as the original purchase was actually boxing day of 2008 but we paid $229 dollars for the what is called a 2 yr notebook warranty.

----- Original Message -----

From: Gateway Support
Date: Thursday, October 21, 2010 7:25 pm
To: MrHunter @shaw.ca
Response (Rakesh Ramachandran) - 10/21/2010 06:25 PM

Dear Mr. Hunter,

Thank you for contacting Gateway. I'll be happy to assist you.

Having reviewed your email, I understand that you are experiencing an issue with windows update.
 I apologize for the inconvenience.

In order to get the complete and full support for the product that you own, we recommend you to scan and attach the Proof of Purchase in order to validate the warranty.

You may scan any of these documents to validate your purchase:
- Original proof of purchase
- Email from the Reseller of order confirmation,
- Reprint of the receipt from the Retailer.
Please note that the scanned attachment should include the following.
- Name
- Phone number
- Address
- Serial number
- A short statement that the fax is for proof of purchase.
- All information should be typed or written in black or blue ink.

Mr. Hunter, please be informed that once you receive the call back from PFS, they will inform you the call rates and call plans.

Your service request number is: 1-748TQA
Please make a note of the Service Request number.
Please feel free to visit our web site http://support.gateway.com/
Thank you for contacting Gateway.
Have a great day.

Respectfully,
Gateway
Online Technical Support
Customer (Mr. Hunter) - 10/21/2010 05:40 PM

Hmm.....This must be the difference between Gateway and HP. HP for my other computer which is 5 years older than this one provided me free support for my hard drive problem.


Additionally this computer was purchased on Dec 26 of 2009. I can assume that the warranty is less than 1 year? Can you please provide me with the potential cost of your PAY for Service?

I would also like to ask what makes you believe this is a hard drive problem? It could also be a potential software issue with microsoft and it's update. The links you sent were not very helpful unless I plan on doing a hard drive swap for a computer I don't even own. Some more help would be greatly appreciated with some information about what this is going to cost?

----- Original Message -----

From: Gateway Support

Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 8:07 pm
To: Mr.Hunter @shaw.ca
Response (Remya R.) - 10/20/2010 07:07 PM

Dear Mr. Hunter,

Thank you for contacting Gateway. I apologize for the inconvenience that you have experienced.

I understand that you are experiencing an issue with hard drive.After verifying serial Number p247c61001038 we see that your product is out of warranty.

Please click on the below link and follow the troubleshooting steps:
http://support.gateway.com/s/Checklists/BPC/ck2007032859.shtml
If the issue not resolved, you may contact PFS:

I know at times it is easier to have someone actually walk you through it giving you a tutorial, along with actually doing the trouble shooting through a Remote Tool if possible, would you like to know more about that?

In order to assist you with the best possible solution we have a dedicated team called Pay for support who are specialists in providing resolution on this issue.

With your permission can I go ahead and setup a callback for you. The specialist from Pay for support team would contact you and give more details.

For Setting up a callback can I have the below details.
 - Telephone Number:
- Alternate telephone number:
- Best time to call with time zone:

Another option is you may contact a local technician.For further clarifications please feel free to visit our web site: http://www.support.gateway.com/

Thank you for contacting Gateway.
Have a great day!

Respectfully,
Gateway Online Technical Support

Auto-Response - 10/20/2010 05:58 PM

Title: Troubleshooting Bluetooth Detection & Connectivity in Windows XP
Link: http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3213

Title: How do I replace the hard drive on my Gateway M460 notebook?
Link: http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2344

Title: What is Bluetooth?
Link: http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2233

Title: How do I maintain and store my notebook battery?
Link: http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2384

Title: When replacing a hard drive is there anyway to keep the
 built-in eRecovery functions?

Link: http://gateway-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/369

Customer (Mr. Hunter) - 10/20/2010 05:58 PM


Hard drive was full. Windows attempted to do an update. Update reached stage 3 of 3 but won't complete update. Computer just keeps rebooting over and over again. There is no way to stop it. Shut it off, turn back on and goes back to 3 stage of update, runs for a minute and then shuts down and restarts. It has been doing this for over 24 hours now. Do you folks know what is going on? Is this because the hard drive is full and it can't save and support the update? How do I fix this? Am i going to need recovery discs for this?
Question Reference #101021-000390
---------------------------------------------------------------
Escalation Level: First Critical
Product Level 1: Notebook
Product Level 2: P Series
Product Level 3: P-68
Category Level 1: Malfunctioning
Category Level 2: At system start-up
Date Created: 10/20/2010 05:58 PM
Last Updated: 10/27/2010 06:17 AM
Status: Solved
Serial Number:
Operating System: Windows Vista
 Model Number
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Serial Number
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 p247c61001038
Model
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
[---001:008588:54207---]

Pinwheel progress

This project is starting to pick up steam now that I finally pieced all of my triangles. I was able to pull out the ones on the edge that were neutral - that was a royal pain in the you know what! They are not so perfect any more - but I am not going to stress about it.
Here is the progress in pictures:

The yellow and the burgundy flower print were added.

Here I added the two bright Kaffe Fassett prints.

Here are two strips I have completed so far. I think I will complete all these side ones until I am level with the original sample quilt, then stitch them on and carry on the whole length.

Good progress I think so far - only sewing for an hour or so last night. There is still so much to do!

I know its hard to tell in the picture, but do you think I should move that bold blue pinwheel in the upper centerish corner? Can you tell which one I mean? I think it stands out a bit too much maybe - oh I do not know, but its the dark blue with the Kaffe Fassett blue circles.
I would love to get your input on it!
Cheers,
Carolyn

PS, Don't forget to enter into my 100 post give away. Click here to enter!

The hubby's jersey update

My hubby is so darn proud of himself, I had to share his progess with you. You can see the original post for this project here. 
He got the side patches done and sewn on as well as the big one for the front.

And here is the back that he will cover with his own number which is 35.

If you have not already, please enter into my 100 post give away here.

Do any of your hubbies have creative hobbies?

Cheers,
Carolyn

Post 100 GIVE AWAY

You heard right! I am doing a give away. In celebration of my 100 post, I will be giving one lucky person a charm pack of Kate Spain's Fandango, and a sweet pair of October oven mitts made by me with lots of love!

To enter, I will give you lots of chances.
1. Follow me or tell me that you already are a follower and leave me a comment telling me so.
2. Post about my Give Away on your blog and then leave me a comment with the link.
3. Send me your friends! Ask your friends to follow me, and tell me that you sent them. I will give you an extra entry for every one of your friends that starts to follow my blog. (Make sure they tell me you sent them or I will not know to give you another entry!).
This can potentially give you lots of entries! I will close the comments for the draw on Friday October 29th 10pm MST
Good Luck!!

We got our butts handed to us.

The Riders came out and the fans were going crazy. It was freezing temperatures and there were people running around in boxer shorts (Eski fans of course - those of us from Saskatchewan happen to love our body parts). However we refused to put on our winter jackets, not wanting to cover our team jerseys - once again the fans were mostly Sask. Rider fans. The game had a great turn out considering how awful the temperature was.

From the first kick, Saskatchewan was doomed. Whether is was the cold, or that fact that we did not need to win this game to get into the play offs (unlike Edmonton which had to win this game), the Riders blew this game. After the first couple of minutes it looked like maybe we would shake off the terrible start - but no. They did put in a valiant effort in the last 2 minutes, but by this time almost every Saskatchewan Rough Rider fan was booed out of the stadium by gloating Edmonton Eskimo fans yelling at us to go home. We did not want to mention that we all live here and our taxes are paying for the stadium upgrades. Lots of people did bus in from home, but they left sad and did I on my short walk home.

Ah, but who cares about football? Lets talk about some quilting and knitting! I have decided to make my first pinwheel sampler quilt into a lap quilt. I love piecing, but it sure is time consuming. It took me all day to do this:

Kaffe Fasset, meet Kate Spain. I think they like each other.

Even though the Riders blew the game, I did get some pics of some great costumes:

Don't worry he is not pushing me away, he was actually patted my arm and I asked permission to take his pic.

This was this guys stag night - lovely dress, great lace details. ha ha

And finally, her is me and the hubby:

Cheers,
Carolyn

Free Football tickets!

My co-worker gave me two free tickets to the football game tonight. I do not think she has ever seen anyone so excited for a football game! Tonight is my Saskatchewan Rough Riders vs the poopie Edmonton Eskimos! Well, they are not poopie, I just want them to loose! If the Riders win tonight it puts us in a fantastic position!
Go Riders Go!! It is supposed to be cold and rain. Bummer - sounds like the last Riders game in Edmonton. Regardless, I will be there cheering on my team!
In exchange for these awesome tickets, I made my co-worker a coffee place matt and a cozy. She really liked the pebble technique I did on my other co-workers baby blanket, so I used that for the matt.
Here are the pics for your viewing pleasure:

The coffee matt is black on the back and grey on the top - or vise versa depending on what she prefers.

I guess I broke it.

Apparently I have filled my computer full of photos, music and whatever else I could stuff in there to the point where it no longer wants to turn on.

Shouldn't there have been some kind of warning I wonder. Like a little stick guy pops us and says, "Hey, you only have a gigabyte left - you might want to think about deleting something"!! But no, there was no warning. I was trying to transfer some more, yes more, pictures into my computer from the camera when it just stopped and told me there was no more room on the disk. No More Room?? I checked my C:drive properties and sure enough, I have filled a 220G computer full to the brim. Okay, I thought this is no problem, tomorrow I will plug in my external hard drive and copy stuff over. A Plan, I like plans sometimes.

So the next day, I followed my plan, turned on my computer and got my hard drive ready to connect. Not even thinking (which is my big problem most of the time), the icon popped up that there was an update, do I want to install it. Well of course I do, I clicked yes to get it off my screen.

My computer has no space to run this update, it has been trying to complete the update for over a day now. I cannot get it to stop trying to just turn on. At this rate, I might as well toss it in the garbage.

Computers hate me!

Anyone know how to make a computer stop trying to do an update and just come on?? I have tries starting it in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking as well as there was some option to run a Start Up Fix. None of these work.
Whoa is me.

At least I have my work computer! =P

Ready set - bake with new mitties!

I for some reason have really really really wanted to make my own oven mitts. So, I finally did.
I have been envisioning this design for a couple of weeks. In a perfect world (were I have endless amounts of time to sew) I would like to make a pair of mitties per season/special occasion.


Here are my Halloween Oven Mitts Extraordinaire (yeah - I am a geek)

I purchased batting specific for oven mitts and ironing boards. Its expensive, but I wanted to make them right.

This is the inside. I wanted to do witches teeth using Trapundo (did I spell that right?) technique and added another layer of the special batting to help protect my hands. Plus it looks and feels cool!!

What is this? Extra pieces ... hee hee, yeah, I made two pairs. 

TaDah!!

And the mitts in use.

Oh, my hands are sooo protected! And stylish.

Strike a pose... did I mention I am a geek??

  So what do you think??


Cheers,
Carolyn

Check out the give away at Green Fairy Quilts

Green Fairy Quilts is doing a give away right now which closes Monday. Better hurry scurry on over there and get your name into the pot!
You can get there by clicking here. 

What the hubby is up to

It is so nice when hockey starts up. The hubby suddenly wants to make jerseys so I get to go to Fabricland more often!
Here is what he is making so far this year:

He starts with inexpensive jerseys he gets online from Ebay.

This is the logo that came on the jersey which he will cover.

He gets twill fabric from the fabric store. The shape he has cut for this one is to go around a specific patch that he got off Ebay.

Here is the patch.

Pretty good huh! Next he is making his number and his name out of three layers of twill just like the pro jerseys. He has really cool shoulder patches that match this one too.


Here is the jersey he completed last year: (again sorry about this photo - its on my iPhone)

Sorry ladies, this one is taken! *yeah, he is reading over my shoulder - but he is mine too =)

Look, Look! I got a package x 2!!

I am one lucky girl today. Check it out, I got not only my knitted dish cloths, but I got my coffee cozy I won in that give away from Mary!

I used it already - it works awesome! Everyone was jealous of my fab coffee cozy.


Here are my new great knitted cloths - these I have not used yet. But alas -there are always dishes to wash so it is just a matter of time.

Aren't they lovely? Thank you Stacey!

Thinking about a give away

I even have some ideas as to what to give.. .. FYI my friends, my 100 post is coming up very very soon - and I am going to do a give away to celebrate.
Just thought I would let you know... .. and to get one post closer to 100!
Cheers,
Carolyn

Doggles?

Did you know they make goggles for dogs? Well they do, they are called - DOGGLES!!

Her is my Lucky Lu modeling them - just  for you!

Speaking of modeling, here is the doggy sweater from Avon (I sell it now, its a long story).

Its hard to get non-blurry pics of him, he moves so fast!

The jacket is reversible.

And look how cool it looks with his Doggles.

Cheers,

Carolyn

The truck is broken - but I got a new tire!

Luckily the hubby and I made it home from work before the truck broke. We were just heading back out to go to Fabricland and as we were backing out we heard a very loud bang. Got out, and the front drivers tire was sticking out at the wrong angle. I do not know which part broke - but it broke alright!

Can you tell the tire is angled outward?

Yikes!

Nice picture of the broken part and some lovely hockey patches.

This was not going to stop us on our mission to Fabricland! We hopped in the car that still had the donut tire.
After getting fabric:

Does anyone recognize this one? I got it as a fat eighth and I love the pattern. I do not recognize and would like to get more. Please leave me a comment if you know.

They had these solid color fat eighths on for 2 dollars - at the till - couldn't resist!

Since we were out, we ran over to Walmart and the gentleman in the tire department set us up with a new tire. He only had one mechanic on, but he was slow and did it himself.

Then it was late, so we went for supper (yes, I did not have to cook!)
This was a complete surprise - the restaurant we went to, I was skeptical - and completely surprised, it was really good. 

Sorry about the grainy photos my friends - iPhone.. .. .. and I am not very good with my expensive camera.
Cheers,
Carolyn