My issue started with my darling youngest one turning on the dome lights in the backseat and leaving them on overnight.  I leave for work the next morning, late as usual, only to find a dead battery on my beloved Pilot.  No worries though, hubby came to the rescue as he and my darling oldest one push the car out of the garage and jump start the car and we are off.  Frustrated and on edge, I furiously re-program the radio anti-theft code to stop the deafening silence. (the code is cleverly hidden on a sticker inside the glove box in case you need to know).

Later that day I stop by the bank and to add to my lingering irritation over the dead battery, my auto button on my power windows wouldn’t work.  *Gasp!* I had to actually hold my finger on the button to have the window go all the way down! It wouldn’t do it on its own!!  Oh my gosh, my blood is boiling now.  Despite my rage, I snap back to reality and then begin to wonder if I am really that lazy.  And to answer that question, yes, I am.

That brings me to today when I call the local dealership and ask how to solve this problem.  The service tech starts to tell me that I’m “in trouble big time” and proceeds to tell me that I am going to have to get a new motor for the window and take the whole door apart to fix the problem.  I start to panic big time about the costs to do this and I have the nerve to ask him how much it is going to cost, to which he chuckles and says “the laughter you gave me is payment enough for me!”  My jaw hit the floor.  I have now felt every range of emotion possible over this silly window button.  I am ready to call it a day.

Now, if you need to fix the auto-power window button on the driver’s side of your Honda Pilot, here is how you really do it:

*  Push the button down past the second click and hold it for 3 seconds.

*  Repeat the motion for pulling the window button up.

This re-sets the button after a dead battery issue and all works fine again.  It literally is a six second fix.  *deep sigh*  Now, if only I could re-set my day so easily.

So here I am adding to my to-do list.  I’ve got web site overhauls to do to avoid future situations of awkwardness with not only other REALTORS® but clients as well.  Any suggestions?

That is all.

When we met with you in your office back in August, I had forgotten to e-mail you a photo of the group when you so graciously posed outside in the stifling heat with all of us from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation here in the Ozarks. Please find the photo attached.

When we met on that grueling hot day, the Special Diabetes Program (SDP) hadn’t been introduced yet. But alas, it is upon us again as the legislation was introduced on September 29, 2009 to renew the SDP.

Although you are familiar with the bill H.R. 3668, I just want to bring to your attention that it currently has 75 co-sponsors and yet none of them are from our great state of Missouri.

You had told me last August, in your office, that you would vote to renew the SDP for five more years so that it will include $200 million per year in federal funding for type 1 diabetes research at the National Institutes of Health.

Congressman Blunt, I am counting on you to co-sponsor this bill and renew the Special Diabetes Program to help find a cure for juvenile diabetics like myself and that precious 3 year-old named Hayden that you held on your lap that day that we met in your office. You were there for me during my freshman year at Southwest Baptist University in 1995 when I was so sick with diabetes, and I’m hoping that you will be there for me again by co-sponsoring this bill.

Thank you for helping us find a cure.

Sincerely,

Jessica Hickok

I’ve been learning to code in Objective-C in order to get the Dizmang Properties GetPaul iPhone app launched. It will be a very minimal app but will have the ability to pull our available rentals if you’re in the market for one. However it’s more of a project goal for me as I love to learn new things.  It’s been a pretty interesting ride thus far.  I started this in late December and really thought that I could have it done by February 1st.  But considering that February 1st is tomorrow, I don’t think I’m going to hit my anticipated deadline.  I guess I didn’t take into account all the other stuff I have to do for work, such as 2009 year end reports for all of our Investors, closing out the year, taxes, and a whole load of other stuff.  I sorely misjudged my time commitment.  Oh well, it will be finished when it is finished.

Our app will be a free app.  The goal of it (besides my self satisfaction of accomplishing and completing a new project) will be to keep our available rental properties rented.  Three months ago we had 40 vacant rental properties (out of the 200+ that we manage) and that hurt us big time. Today we are down to only 9 vacancies, which puts us and our Investors in a much better position.  It feels good to finally get property rented.

Things you need to know about programming an iPhone app:

1)  You have to use the Apple SDK (software development kit) that uses Cocoa frameworks and the programming language is called Objective-C.

2) You must use a Mac to develop the iPhone application.  And yes, it looks pretty sweet on my new 27″ 1TB iMac.

3) It takes approximately two months to develop a good app.  Unless you are pressed for time because of other commitments (see mine above), then you just need to take your time and it’s done when it’s done.

4) The Apple SDK download is free, but you must pay $99 to Apple to submit your app to the App Store when it is ready. I’ll let you know once I get to this point.

5) There is a weird feeling of accomplishment when you finally see the app coming together in the simulator (see pic below).

Of course there is way more to it than what I’ve described here, but I felt that I needed to share with you what I was working on.  I’ll keep you posted along the way.  Maybe I should focus on just updating the Dizmang Properties web site.  That thing sucks.  I’m just saying.  (Yes, I am also the developer of that outdated piece).

It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about my struggles with type 1 diabetes on this blog.  No doubt if you’re part of the DOC (diabetes online community) that is part of my Twitter possee (Twosse?!) then you’re probably sick of hearing about real estate and wondering “are you ever gonna talk about your disease again?!”  Well, first let me say thank you for sticking it out with me. My career has been on a crazy, good ride and has kept me extremely busy lately. But as you know, my diabetes doesn’t quit and I’ve had my ups and downs.

First off in updating you, I’m kinda mad at my ‘pod right now. The Omnipod insulin pump has been great thus far with only a few minor kinks. (How there are kinks in a tubeless pump system, I don’t know, but there are.) However, most recently I’ve had some static issues with the pod and the personal diabetes manager a.k.a the PDM (the blood checker machine that runs the pod). Apparently static electricity build up causes the pump and PDM to quit working properly.  I can’t get any of it to stop the incessant beeping and it will not activate or deactivate any of the pods.

*deep sigh*

So I gave up and went back on shots for the time being.  Sure, I could solve the problem by calling customer service AGAIN, but I’m tired and don’t want to. *insert whining here*

Now I’m checking into a new pump as I really have my eye on that Solo insulin pump but it’s not out yet.  I will keep you posted.

And finally, I am sick of the lows.  I’m sick of eating.  I’m sick of crashing low at the most inconvenient times.  Skittles are the only thing that seem to save me.  And I’m pretty sure that the red skittles have more power than any of the other colors, but that’s just a theory brewing in my head.

Oh well, I press on. At least I have finally posted a long overdue d-blog.

Anyway, my husband and I live on six acres of land just along the James River in Springfield. It’s a pretty piece of land (in my opinion) and it’s also very private. Therefore we also get our fair share of trespassers looking to get to the river or just for a quiet place to make out. This doesn’t scare us as it is usually just kids.

But it is annoying.

We’ve posted “no trespassing” signs. We’ve pulled up behind them in the car and put our brights on until they drove off. We’ve called the county Sheriff. And we’ve clenched our teeth.

But we may have now come up with a solution to get the trespassers off our land. Considering most of them are kids and most kids have an iPhone these days, we just changed the name of our wi-fi network.

Because when you use your device, the wi-fi networks automatically pop up asking if you want to join the wi-fi network nearest to you.  Now when you’re on our land, and you go to check your e-mail on your iPhone (or laptop or other wi-fi device) then you’re yelled at wirelessly and thru clenched teeth obviously.

Take it seriously kids, us older folks aren’t messing around.

So now that I’m on the brink of turning 32 in three days, this oppressive thought of no more magical birthdays is really nagging at me.  I’m not so sure why it is so bothersome, considering my magical birthday happened when I turned 6 years old.  Maybe it’s because my youngest son just turned six a few days ago and he won’t have his birthday until he is 31 years old.  Or maybe, just maybe, I’m getting older and I’m reverting to mythical, magical birthday fantasies like a child would.  Nonetheless, I’m sure this post will make me sound utterly crazy.

You see a magical birthday is when you turn the same age as the date of your big day.  For example, I was born on January 6th, therefore my 6th birthday was my magical birthday.  My son’s birthday is on December 31st.  Therefore he won’t have his magical birthday until he turns 31.  (Hopefully you get it from here).  Obviously…there are only 31 days or less in a month, so you will only have your magical birthday before you turn 32.

Now that I’ve re-read this post before hitting publish, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. Oh my gosh, Jessica, snap out of it and grow up already!