Helping_Hand_and_Email

Helping Hand and Email Power

Monday, October 16, 2000

* Please be assured that I will never sell or share your email addresses with anyone else! I respect your privacy.

Hello to all!

Hope your month was a happy, productive one! Putting out this newsletter is always a challenge, but a joy as well. I must share a recent experience with all of you that I had with my business last week. A local office supply store recommended me to a customer of theirs who needed "a little help" with her computer. I was so impressed with this woman, and her attitude that I haven't been able to get her out of my mind. Here's the story...

I stopped by a local office supply store that I visit a couple times a month, and that morning they received a request from a lady for some computer help. Amazing that the day I drop by, quite by accident, someone needs some help. This woman left her card that morning just in case I happened to show up; by the way, I'm very thankful for these little miracles :). I thanked everyone at the store, went home, and called her. She had a very caring, upbeat message on her answering machine, and asked that "any caller please leave their name and number, but please speak slowly". Of course, I did as I was told and spoke slowly. An hour later, "Kathy" returned my call.

Kathy told me that she was trying to restart her Mary Kay business, and needed to set up a customer base on her computer, and maybe had a couple of problems with her computer. She also mentioned that she might need to wait to set up an appointment because she had to watch her finances until she got on her feet. We eventually agreed to meet in a couple days, and I was privileged to meet Kathy on Friday the 13th. By the way, that was a lucky day for me.

Kathy is 53 years old and the happiest person I have met in a long time. Life hasn't always been kind to her, but she's making lemonade from her lemons. At age 50, she was at work one day, and dropped her pencil, and bent down to pick it up and couldn't pick it up. She says "that's when the lights went out in Georgia!" (she says this with a big smile). Kathy had a massive stroke that day. She has been fighting back to relearn to walk, talk, hear, comprehend, you name it for the last four and a half years. She's been relearning all these things that we all take for granted! And of all things, her computer has helped her mental, emotional, and physical capabilities. She has been reclaiming a great deal of her language and communication skills with the utilization of a program recommended by Texas Tech University, designed to help adolescents and adults learn to read and write. She says that in just two weeks, this program has made a great deal of difference in her comprehension of other's conversations. I am so glad to have experienced the positive attitude of this courageous woman! I bet you all didn't appreciate how really lucky you are, until right now! This woman runs 3 miles a day, and smiles about 25 hours a day! I hope that each of you has an opportunity to meet someone like this sometime in your life, because it is a great gift!

Anyway, Kathy loves her computer and it is helping her to recover. I will be working with Kathy once in a while, and I'm very excited about it. She makes ME feel like I make a difference. I think the sky is the limit for this unstoppable woman; I'm the lucky one for having this incredible opportunity to work with such a positive person. I just haven't read a more satisfying computer story in a long time. I knew that a computer could definitely improve brain function for many of us that would be idle without email and internet activity, but this is the best! So if any of you have a similar experience, or have a friend or loved one with a similar infirmity, please encourage computer use, it IS making a difference. Just playing a game can improve dexterity and maybe improve much more than that.

And so, on that upbeat note, let's switch gears for a minute, and let me give you an internet address to check out the "strange emails" that come your way from time to time. You know those "hard to believe" or "could this really be true?" kind of emails.

The general website address is:
http://www.snopes.com (Urban Legends Reference Pages)
You can even subscribe to Snopes.com to have updated links to the latest email legends going around sent directly to your emailbox.

For example, this link was just sent to me and it's very interesting:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/fourway.htm

Claim: A United States Postal Service mail truck has the right of way over emergency vehicles.
Status: False.

Here's a question for you. Although hypothetical, it could happen. If a fire truck, police car, postal truck and ambulance -- all with sirens blaring and lights flashing (except the mail truck, of course) -- arrived simultaneously at four corners of an intersection, who would have the right of way?

Who should be allowed to cross the intersection first?

I am glad that it was established that the mail truck would not even be in the running, but I am disappointed that it was not pointed out that Section 21806 of the California Vehicle Code makes that clear.

Section 21800 answers the question of which of the remaining three vehicles has the right of way. To make it short, the vehicle to the left of the mail truck has the right of way. Since everybody has to yield to the vehicle on his right, whoever sees the mail truck on his right gets to go first.

Easy, huh?

This is a great website, that you can have fun with, and be the "informed email guru". They have some Great Halloween stories. Just click on the hyperlink:

http://www.snopes.com

and then click on the icons for a subject that you might be interested in. There is also a "Database Search" feature at the top on the left, as well, and you can type in the subject of the email you are already wondering about , or "currently circulating" covers a lot of the most recent facts or myths. This company seems to do a thorough job of documenting their information,

so it can be relied upon with a fair amount of confidence. I just enjoy checking it out.

One more thing, next week I'm exploring and teaching a new program called ViaVoice by IBM. This is a voice activated program that just does almost everything, and so far I am quite impressed. You can even walk up to your computer and say "Surf the internet" and it automatically connects you to your browser (Internet Explorer). Or "Check Email" and it checks your email and connects you if you're not already connected. I'll be giving you a review and/or recommendation next month. This could be a great find. Stay tuned for next month's edition!

Hope you have enjoyed this edition of the Rocky Report! I enjoy talking to all of you. If there is a particular subject that you would like me to explore for you in the newsletter or via email, please send me a request email with the details:
rocky1@rockyreport.com (power archives on the left)

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