fFebruary 17, 2009. San Antonio, Tx. The Mall.

You never know what the day will bring you. Our plan was to putter around the Lake House, finish up the laundry, try to complete my book so I can leave it for Suzanne, and have my hair cut. While Ken was working on the computer trying to reserve our air tickets to Toronto in May, the computer stopped working, at least the information moved up the screen and would not work. Ken talked to the Help Desk at Apple and suggested that he make an appointment for the tec support at the Verizon store is San Antonio, so he did. Quickly we closed up the lake house, put together all our belongings and headed into town for our appointment at 8:20. We arrived in time to eat dinner at a Thai restaurant, then met the young man who could check our computer. We were not even aware when we bought this machine, but we did know that as we are not very often at the lake house, this machine has not been used much.

While we were waiting, I sat on a comfortable bench and watched the people walk by me. I must say, the dress is quite remarkable indeed. This North Star Mall is the only enclosed Mall in this city, as their growth came after enclosed Malls were popular. All the other large shopping areas are our doors, with the large stores free standing and where a customer can park right in front of the store, or at least drive around until you can see the store. These old enclosed Malls are difficult. We parked, went inside until we found the Verizon store, then went to move the car to be able to be near to the store we wanted. It is a nuisance. It was like old times though, walking around the Mall and looking at the people. I like the new concept.

The young man could not fix our computer, in fact, it would not act broken. But he told us what was the matter and that they do not service these old computers, which was a 2002 model. While we were looking at the computer and looking at the New York Times Web site, he mentioned that he was so impressed with Ford, so he bought $500. of Ford Stock and got his Father to do it too. He mentioned that it was a small amount of money, but felt that if every one did their part, Ford stock would begin to come back up. It was a very encouraging enthusiastic approach from him to say to total strangers. He told us that when he saw our Ford Escape. Ken and I had a nice evening, talking to a young American man. It was worth having a broken computer.