the continuing saga….

I called the computer company on Tuesday.  I still hadn’t heard (either by phone or email – both of which was promised to me!) if they had even recieved my computer.  So imagine my surprise when the customer service rep told me it was on it’s way back to me and should arrive on Thursday.

I was happy about that, but a bit puzzled by what she said after that.  She said that they hadn’t found anything wrong with it – they re-formatted the hard drive and it worked fine.  It was a power drain issue that they could have walked me through over the phone.  Actually, when I heard that last bit, I wasn’t puzzled…I was pissed.  So I had sent my computer out to Texas for no reason?  Been working off an external drive on an old desktop so my laptop could “vacation”  this summer?

But, I was happy enough that it was on it’s way back to me to overlook, or at least not dwell, on those little questions.

Thursday came… Fed Ex came… I opened the box, put the battery back in, plugged it in and everything was fine.  I loaded up about 15 programs and started to relax.  I hadn’t gotten to loading up any of my files, but I was ok with that.  I wanted to buy a hard drive dock and be able to get some files that had not been backed up onto my external drive.  I figured I’d do that over the long weekend and come Monday, it would be like everything always had been.

The Boy had The Girlfriend over for dinner.  He actually made dinner for her (and, by extension, us).  He decided on a chicken parm dish, so I pulled up the trusty website, A Year of Crockpotting, to come up with just the right approach to the meal.  He got up in the morning, made the chicken parm and got it into the crockpot.  When she got here around 5, it was ready, so he boiled the water for the pasta and made the garlic bread.

The Hubby and I ate in the bedroom and the kids got the dining room.  She was very impressed (I think, anyway!) with the thought that went behind the meal.  They were celebrating their six month anniversary, so it was very sweet of him to do this for her.

So after dinner, The Hubby and I hang out in the bedroom, both of on our laptops, happily putzing away the night.  It gets to be time to drive The Girlfriend home, so I put the computer into sleep mode and head out.

It’s about 11:30 when I get back, so clearly it’s time for bed… not computing.  I woke up around 7:45 this morning and went to turn it on to get the news and my email.  Hit the power button… start to hear the sound wave.. then it dies.  Hit the power button again.. absolutely nothing this time.  I decide not to waste any time and bring the computer upstairs to the office and call the computer company.

So I spend the next 20 or so minutes with my new best friend, Derrick.  He tells me that the notes on the account indicate they just reformatted the hard drive and turned it on to verify it worked.  And it did.  So they sent it back to me.  No where was there any note that the tech they sent out to me had put in a new hard drive, seen that it wasn’t a power issue, and recommended a new motherboard.  NO WHERE.   So, it being a Friday, he can send me a box with a prepaid label, but that wouldn’t even leave Texas until Monday, then take two days to get to me, and then a day to fix it, then two more days to get it back to me.  That puts it roughly around Christmas, I think.  So I ask if I can send it back myself (I do have a box for it now) just to get this party started quicker.  He says that will be fine and will cut down on the turnaround time for me.

So I hustle it over to the UPS Store in town and get it shipped out today, for delivery on Monday by 8:30 am.  So my sincere hope is that it will be a WORKING computer, back in my hands by Wednesday at 4:30.

The Bitch is Back, people.

…my… laptop.

I..Want..My..Laptop..

I.Want.My.Laptop.

IWantMyLaptopIWantMyLaptopIWantMyLaptopIWantMyLaptop.

Do I sound like a cranky, tired two year-old?  ‘Cause that’s how I feel.

I called Lenovo yesterday, and they said it was scheduled to arrive on Monday by 4:30.  Dang – I shipped it out Thursday, and it was just arriving on Monday?!?  I hope they have a quick turnaround.

It seems that just about every technological item in my possession is out to get me.  No laptop.  Using old desktop.  Have to remember passwords.  Have to go through hoops to get passwords/user names if forgotten.  Have work email issues for my email.  Have work email issues for half of my group.  Fax machine won’t fax more than one page at a time.

On the other hand, to cheer me up, the back up drive still works.   The printer works.  The cable tv works.  A margarita still works. (no drinking during working hours, you silly goose!)

(unless it is absolutely necessary!)

Ok, it’s not as good as the movie “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, but, hey, we don’t live in Roman times with Phil Silvers or Buster Keaton.

We were driving The Girlfriend (yes, The Boy has a steady girl) home last night.  Usually it is just me and The Boy on this trip, but The Hubby decided to join us.  We dropped off The Girlfriend at her house (about 30 minutes away from our house, by the way) and started our journey back home.

We started to talk about our plans for Sunday and general family chit-chat.  Up ahead, we saw some flashing lights from emergency vehicles near the stop light on the divided highway we were on.  We get to the stop light, and it is clear that something big is going on just past the curve, but we can’t see it.  Soon there are other off-duty emergency personnel showing up (you know, the “regular” cars with the nice blue lights – volunteers on the ambulance corp, etc.) and the best we can do is to stay in our lane and stay out of the way.

It becomes very clear we are not going straight onward… in fact, a police car pulls up and blocks our half of  the divided highway.  So, we have to decide whether to turn left or right.  Turning left, we are 95% sure there is no way home.  Turning right, we are 90% sure there is no way home.  So, considering the odds, we make the split second decision to turn right and go up the hill.

We follow some other cars up the hill who have made the same decision.  But it becomes clear no one knows where to go.  The car in front of us puts his blinker on for the first left, and we plan to follow.  But instead of turning, he keeps going up the hill.  We turn, just as The Boy points out the One Way road sign.  So now we are going the wrong way on a one way street, with no idea where we will end up.  Very quickly, we see the divided highway below us, with traffic coming up the one way road (in the right direction).  So we pull into a driveway and turn around.

Now we have to fight our way to take a left to go back up the hill.  Now there is a lot more traffic coming up the hill.  We manage to squeeze in, and go up the hill a bit more.

We see several cars put their blinkers on to turn left, and not ones to find our own way, we turned left with the crowd.  Quickly we saw traffic turning around in the dead end circle of that street.  So, back to the hill we head.

By this time, the GPS has finally found itself and I can plug in “Home” for a destination, careful to press the “avoid freeways” option.   We continue down the hill, and miraculously, we know where we are and are free to continue on our journey home.

Of course, that is not the end of the story, my friends.

As we are going down the road, we see the railroad crossing has the arms down and is making its’ merry little tune.  There are only a couple of cars ahead of us, so we assume that we got there just as the arms were going down and we would see the train pass us by, and then we could continue on.

Nope.

We sat for four minutes, listening to the ringing bells, warning us of the impending train, but train was to be had.  We saw someone in the oncoming lanes actually get out of his car to peer down the tracks.  Now we were in the mass exodus of cars turning around to get out of that traffic.  We ending up driving by the route we would have taken if our original path hadn’t been interrupted.  There was no traffic coming down that road… so clearly something major must have happened.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that whatever accident happened on that road should be taken lightly.  I suspect several lives were impacted with the events of the night.

But for our family, it was a night of adventure – full of little missteps and happenstance… a fond family memory.

The computer tech was just here.

Not a hard drive problem; not a power issue.

Her assessment: it’s the motherboard.

She placed a call to Lenovo, and they are sending me a box so I can send my laptop to them (a.k.a., “The Depot”).  Getting the box will be 1 to 2 days; then 7 days after that it should magically reappear, in full working order.

I am seriously bummed.  No laptop love for me for at least 7 to 9 days.

On the other hand, I now have my “old” hard drive in hand, so when I send my ‘puter off to The Depot, no one will have access to information on my hard drive.  If they “lose” it (I have read way too many articles on The Consumerist), I will at least only be losing a computer, not my information.  They can always replace a computer… it’s the information on it that is harder to come by!  Plus, if they can’t find the problem, they can just ship me a new computer, right? Right!

Yes, folks, my hard drive is dead.  This, just after I did a reinstall two weeks ago.

So now I am tethered to The Hubby’s old desktop.   No more can I watch TV on the couch and surf the wonderful web.  No more can I work from the comfort of my bedroom.  I have to sit at a desk and use a desktop.   Don’t you feel sorry for me?

No?? Not even a little?  Geez, what a tough crowd!

The bright side is, because I just did a re-install a few weeks ago, I know I have a fairly up to date back up of my emails; and since I back up daily at noontime I know I have most of my files available.  The computer is still under warranty, so the labor and cost of the new hard drive = $0.00.

The down side – I have to install a bunch of stuff on The Hubby’s computer so I can work this week while I wait for the replacement to happen.  Plus, you know, the whole working at the desk thing.  Which, I do all the time, but now that it isn’t optional, feels like a jail sentence.

I’ve always been a fan of country music – pretty much grew up on it.  And…

All I ever needed to know, I learned from a country song…

1) Don Williams – I Believe In You:

I don’t believe in superstars
organic food and foreign cars
I don’t believe the price of gold
the certainty of growing old
that right is right and left is wrong
that north and south can’t get along
that east is east and west is west
and being first is always best.

But I believe in love, I believe in babies
I believe in mom and dad, and I believe in you.

2) Gary Allan – Life Ain’t Always Beautiful

Life ain’t always beautiful
Sometimes it’s just plain hard
Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain’t always beautiful
You think you’re on your way
And it’s just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggle makes you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has it’s own way of takin’ it sweet time

3)Joe Nichols – The Impossible:

Unsinkable ships sink
Unbreakable walls break
Sometimes the things you think could never happen
Happen just like that
Unbendable steel bends
If the fury of the wind is unstoppable
I’ve learned to never underestimate the impossible

4) Tanya Tucker – Strong Enough to Bend

When you say something that you can’t take back
Big wind blows and you hear a little crack
When you say “Hey well I might be wrong”
You can sway with the wind till the storm is gone
Sway with the wind till the storm is gone

Like a tree out in the backyard
That never has been broken by the wind
Our love will last forever
If we’re strong enough to bend

5) Toby Keith – As Good As I Once Was

I ain’t as good as I once was
that’s just the cold hard truth
I still throw a few back, talk a little smack
when I’m feelin bullet proof
so dont double dog dare me now
’cause id have to call your bluff

I ain’t as good as I once was
but I’m as good once as I ever was
maybe not be good as I once was
but I’m as good once as I ever was

We hardly ever take pictures of the house at night.  Not sure why, since we apparently love our house (1200+ photos of construction, photos every spring, photos every home improvement project)…

But The Hubby recently took some, and it looks great at night!

Beautiful Sping Night

So, I have been dragging my feet on updating my WordPress… the instructions just seemed impossible.  Or maybe I am just one of those people who need to see something in process to make it work, not just the written instructions.  I was pretty sure that was my issue in getting pictures to post – that I didn’t have the most updated version of WordPress.

As The Boy has been wanting to earn some cash, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.  So I offered him $20 in “mom credit” to update me.  So he spent about 45 minutes to an hour trying to upload the new files to my server… then looked at me and said, “this server sucks!”.  I challenged him to find me another provider with easier uploading/updating and better service.  He found BlueHost and I signed up.

Let me tell you, what a breeze.  We got through the install pretty quickly and easily; it installed my old files super quick and before I knew it, all was wonderful.  I could upload pictures! Whoo-hoo!

I have thought about changing my theme, but it, again, seemed impossibly confusing.  So with the new WordPress update and new server, I decided to try it again.  I searched for a new theme I liked, found one, hit a button, and voilia!  A brand new look for my blog.

With the new look, I was able to do some housekeeping – cleaning up some pages and posts.

I guess I’ll keep The Boy for awhile (at least, until he leaves me for college!).

I was just reading on Mountain Momma’s Musings about her Son the Camel.  I can totally relate… to her son.  I was the fussy eater in my house when I was a kid.  Not only was I fussy, I was a serial (not cereal) eater…. I would eat the same thing over and over and over for a looooonnnngggggg stretch of time.

In high school, my mom found these frozen pizzas that she bought in bulk specifically for me.  They were rectangles, with two perforations so you could break off the frozen pieces and make three “slices” of pizza.  I must have gone through 3 boxes a week, at least.  Another favorite was spaghetti sauce.  I would heat up the sauce, put it in a bowl, sprinkle a little cheese on it and eat away.  And Jello – I swear there was a summer when all I ate – breakfast, lunch and dinner – was Jello.

When I was a little kid, I made toast for breakfast…. toast topped with mustard… yum!  And when I went to school, I expanded my consumables to a mayo and mustard sandwich (no meat!).  My teacher was so concerned about my health and home life, she called to talk to my mother.  When confronted with what I was eating at the lunch table, my mother was “thank god she’s eating something!”… totally blowing away my teacher!

Now, as a parent, I have suffered the parents’ curse – a kid exactly like myself to deal with!  The Boy has always been a fussy eater – much to my mother’s delight (except when she had to feed him!). But, then again, as an only child, I have been able to go with the flow abit easier than other moms may have it.  Although the “correct way” to present food to your kid is supposed to be at a dinner table, with the whole family together, eating the same meal… we almost never do that, except when we go out.  He is always hungry before 5, The Hubby comes home anytime between 5 and 7 (unless he’s travelling), and when you throw in after school sports (volleyball, karate) … well, sitting down together just isn’t going to happen much.

He doesn’t seem to have suffered much over it… he’s a polite, well mannered, honor student with tons of intellectual curiosity and a good sense of humor.  He talks to his parents, his grandparents, has a steady girlfriend and is liked by kids and teachers at school.  So – if you have a fussy eater … just remember… at least they’re eating something!