Excel

And so begins a foray into Excel.
Last night (Monday, April 30, 2007) was my first class, an evening adult-education class of only three two-hour sessions.
The class was reached amidst the usual crazy maelstrom of events. Registration for the class had to be wing-it; i.e. show up.
We had to wildly attempt to eat supper (super?) early so to attend this class. Walking the dog got tossed aside — as did 89 bazilyun other things: e.g. processing the mail, changing calendars, and responding to Jack’s blustering.
There also was the hairball of not knowing the exact location. I drove to Bloomfield Jr.-Sr. High School, where the class was supposed to be, went to the second-floor, and began looking for Room 217.
And like Finger Lakes Railway in Geneva, I found it in the nick of time.
The class was already starting, but there was only one other student, a technically-challenged housewife.
Room 217 looked like a ‘pyooter-lab: PC after PC — at least 40-50. All were networked to a projector so a ‘pyooter-screen could be projected onto a wall-screen.
“So introduce yourself, Mr. Hughes,” the instructor said. “Any experience with Excel?”
“Well, I keep two Excel spreadsheets,” I said. “Both are for taxes. The one for income I probably don’t need, since we get 1099s.
“But my one for expenses is aimed at Schedule A. I update it as time goes along.
“I have it sub-totaling every month, and giving me a grand-total year-to-date. I do this with functions written into the appropriate cells.
“I also have my sub-total text in italic, and my year-to-date in bold.
“And my sub-total rows are green; and my year-to-date blue. —That’s the cells; not the text.
“I also am compressing the months with the outline-function. Only the monthly sub-totals show. The daily entries are out-of-sight in the background.”
“Sounds like you’re already three levels ahead,” he said.
“Yeah, but there’s too much I don’t understand,” I said; “like pie-charts and bar-graphs; and things that are happening when I just fiddle.”
Most of what we don’t know is from lack of a manual.
We didn’t have a manual for Word either; but the ‘pyooter-lady, who hired me, did.
AppleWorks had no manual either. There are 89-bazilyun AW bells-and-whistles I don’t understand. Macros (AppleWorks Macros) came from experimentation — coupled with guile-and-cunning.
Quark and PhotoShop were the same way.
I’d drag over to Hockey-Dude and say “Hey Quark-Man.......”
“Now what?” he’d bellow, and then begin his Rodney Dangerfield imitation.
He’d take his Quark-manual out of his desk and I’d say “Get outta here with that manual. Real men don’t need manuals!
“Just shaddup and show me, or I’ll retune your boombox to Dubya-Hex-Hex-Heye.”
Another Quark-source at the mighty Mezz was Nano; the staff-artist.
I’d paddle up to her cubicle and say “Nancy; this thing looks horrible. I bet I could line up all them stock-values with Quark-tabs.”
They still use my stockbox.
-So I’m proficient enough in Excel to make it do what I want; but some of that is work-arounds; and not efficiently using all it will do......
“Incidentally,” I said; “you should know I’m driving a MAC.”
“Won’t make any difference,” he said. “In my experience the MAC-Excel is pretty much the same as the PC-Excel.”
“Mine is Excel-98, although not for long,” I said. “I just started using OS-X, and Excel-98 is ‘classic.’”
“That won’t make much difference either,” he said. “Most of what’s been added to any Excel updates since 98 are bells-and-whistles ya won’t need; like the gizmo Gates and I part company on. Zippity-dooo; what do I need Smart-tabs for?”
Well hooray; somebody I can pick the brains of. “So you say it will do this? Okay, I’ll try it.”
My machine lobbed a hairball he was lost on, and then after stabbing around some returned to known normality.
“Well I don’t know what that was all about,” he laughed.
“Great!” I thought. Someone on the same wave-length as all those that brought me along.
“Well I’ll be a son-of-a-gun. Wouldja look at that....... Try this, and look what happens?”
Every once-in-a-while my PC would lob a “Please wait” at me, but I didn’t say anything — just twiddled my thumbs.
The poor housewife was left drowning.

RE: “supper (super?)........” My brother-in-Boston loudly insists “Super” is spelled “Supper;” e.g. “Supper-Bowl.”

RE: “Jack’s blustering......” My macho brother-in-Boston (Jack) bad-mouths everything I do or say.

Years ago “Finger Lakes Railway in Geneva,” a shortline railroad that operates some old New York Central branches nearby, once held an excursion out of nearby Geneva, and we had no idea where to find the departure-point; but did just before it left. Finger-Lakes got the lines from Conrail, who succeeded Penn-Central, the merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central in 1968 that quickly went bankrupt. The old NYC mainline across New York State is now CSX.

Forms 1099 and Schedule A are of course Federal Income-Tax stuff.

“The mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper where I once worked.

“The ‘pyooter-lady” (Joy Daggett) is the one that hired me at the mighty Mezz.

“Hockey-Dude” is Matt Saxon, about 28; once an artist at the mighty Mezz, and switched jobs before I retired. “Hockey-Dude” because he liked ice-hockey.

RE: “I’ll retune your boombox to Dubya-Hex-Hex-Heye........” I’d retune Hockey-Dude’s boombox to WXXI, the local classical-music radio-station I listen to. Hockey-Dude preferred Rock. (“It’s putting me to sleep!”)

RE: MAC versus PC. I use a MAC; which my macho brother-in-Boston loudly excoriates as a “mere Tinker-Toy” which I should dump in Canandaigua Lake and get a PC like him: “a real computer.” (On PCs I often get the “Please wait” message: “Please wait while Windoze cogitates the value of pi. OHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMM..........” Yesterday, at the supermarket, the clerk asked me what kind of apples: “Macintosh,” I said. “Not PC-apples.”)