Pre-Electrons

Ben read from a Spanish book tonight and slaughtered the pronunciation. Jacob realizing it wasn't what he was used to asked, "Is that a Kindle?"

Brian said, "No. This is from before electrons were invented."

Huh?

Earlier when Jacob was in my room relaxing I asked if he was tired. "Yeah. I am sooo tired from today. I watched the guys unload ALL the boxes from the Wooters shipment and it was tiring."Just imagine how tired the guys who actually lifted all those boxes and a 500 pound piano must feel if Jacob was that tired from just watching.

Ashlyn is Texting

Ashlyn sent her first text message today when I set my phone down and looked away.

" Zsxehnr tiujjjuumbbbvjanrrfxfddfrdhafggu" to Na Hyun our Korean friend. It's likely Ashlyn knows Korean and she totally understood what she wrote but the meaning was totally lost on me.

Is Your House as Wired as Mine?

Brian just sat down at the kids computer in the living room. He remote logged into the basement computer, because you know that's REALLY far away if he had to walk down there. He started using Pandora (online customized radio) to play some tunes on the basement computer...which is hooked up to the big stereo system in the basement...which is wired to the speakers upstairs on the main floor. So now we're jammin' to some sweet tunes from the upstairs to the basement and back again and he didn't have to move an inch. Is your house as wired as mine?

Shameless Plea for Email

I'm trying not to think of the day I lost my beloved hard drive and the life it held within it, but every time I try to send a darn email it slaps me in the face. So here is my request. If you read this blog, even occasionally, please, please, please send me an email so that I can put you back into my address book. Even if you think we don't really stay in touch much, you never know when it will benefit you to be in my little black book. Like just last weekend I saw a craigslist posting for a serious playground set in Purcelville for FREE if you were willing to remove it. Now I know the Packards, Bairds or Livseys all would love a deal like that, but did I have an email for anyone? No. It's probably long gone now. So, I'm just sayin' drop me an email today at azufelt@gmail.com. It can even be blank for all I care. Or leave a comment here and I'll type it in. Oh yeah. There will be no pictures until Brian has exhausted every software program and avenue for recovering said data. At least those aren't lost, but it'll screw up his mojo to have my camera downloading and me updating and just having things changing too much on all these hard drives while he works. I imagine it would be like trying to thread a needle while riding a bull in the rodeo. Can't keep track of where you are or what you're doing. Anyway, send me an email. Love you all!

Lost My Tunes

Well, I lasted a long time. Longer than usual. Record breaking I'd say. I love Christmas music and will listen to it almost year round. Brian has always teased me that it would be impossible for me to wait any longer than July to break it out and listen to it on a regular basis. Of course I always contended that I wasnt THAT bad. One summer three years ago I was driving to the church early one Friday morning and popped in a Christmas CD for the first time of the summer. I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face when I realized it was July 1. So I did make it to July, but only by about six hours.

I don't argue with him anymore. I freely admit I'm a Christmas music junkie. That's what makes this morning all the more depressing. I realized my laptop has ALL my Christmas music on it. I've got nothing now. I suppose I can go to the basement and dig out an old CD or cassette tape. Do you realize our kids certainly won't know what cassette tapes are, possibly not even CDs? Weird.

Now it's got me lamenting my loss. This is just what I have remembered so far that I lost:

• every email address I used in the last 11 years
• all of our finances for the last 10 years, (accounts, investments, budget history, plus the "finance date" data Brian made us do before he would ask to marry me so he knew he could afford me - ultimately putting my worth at $82 dollars in the red each month)
• well over 100 family home evening lessons that took countless hours of work to make
• passwords to all my accounts for EVERYTHING in the entire world
• journal of my life since I was 16 or 17 years old (including documents in Word and sent mail from my emails)
• thousands of preschool files for teaching Maddie's preschool
• my Christmas card list and every letter I've written since 2000
• address and phone numbers for anyone that matters in our lives
• every single real estate analysis tool, contract, spreadsheet and picture I've every taken

Dang. I'm depressed. I need a little Jingle Bells to cheer me up. It's off to the basement to rummage through old dusty CDs.

More on My Tragic Loss

Wanna know the worst part? Mr. Computer here always keeps a backup of the files. The computer does an autobackup when any changes are made. It's like magic. Then, as an added measure of security, he has the backup make a mirror image of itself. This magic process happens on the little wireless device that has been plugged in beneath the guest bed in the nursery for a year or more. We call it the toaster. Of course, the toaster got all screwed up two weeks ago and he had to delete and reformat everything on the toaster. Now ask, "Angie, did everything get backed up again before the laptop died?" NO. Of course, Brian says it's basically just all my files, emails and such. Nothing of his is lost. RRRRRrrrrrrgggggg. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he can recover my stuff. Please do the same. And maybe offer up a prayer for such frivilous things as my hard drive while I know your time with God could be much better spend asking for world peace and things like that.

Laptop Bites the Dust

Late this morning after Ben was off to school, Jacob was fed, played and ready for a morning nap and Maddie had asked to watch Snow White, I thought I could sneak away and check my email. I pushed the power button to boot up the laptop. Error. No problem. Restart. Error. Restart. Error. RESTART. ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. PANIC! How the heck am I supposed to survive without a laptop. I know. Frivilous. But it's my life. It's all on there. It was obvious that this was not one of those call Brian at work sort of problems for a quick answer, so I just turned it off. To be honest, it's probably good I spent the majority of the day visiting Stephanie so Ben could play with Margot. Otherwise I might have gone nuts. The laptop can go with me anywhere, anytime, give me any info. When I mentioned my loss to my cold and heartless brother, his first comment was, "Don't you have like five computers at your house?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what. That laptop and me were tight. So, if I don't get your emails for a week or two, call me. I probably haven't checked my inbox.

Text Message Blogging

Sweet! I just sent a text to my blog and it posted online! Worthless technology, I know, but cool just the same. Of course, it's limited to 160 characters. Not much I can say in that short space.

Caller ID

Last night about 9:30 at night we got a phone call and Brian answered. "Hello" "Hola" came the reply, followed by silence. Since the ONLY person in the world that does that to us is my brother Jason, Brian got a smile on his face and started a typical banter and silly conversation we might have with Jason on any given day. "Que pasa, calabaza?" said Brian. (Translated this means "What's up pumpkin?") The expected reply was SUPPOSED to be, "Nada, nada, limonada." Instead Brian just got silence and the poor guys on the other end of the line continues in spanish, "Why did you call me?" Total shock and confusion on Brian's face. "You called me," he says. Then the guy on the phone says he saw our number on his caller ID and wanted to know why we had called. We can't figure out who the guy is and he finally hangs up. We about died laughing. First that Brian had asked the poor guy, "What's up pumpkin?" Then we laughed about how stupid it is that someone would call us and without identifying themselves start asking what we wanted. How the heck would I know what I wanted. Who are you? I DON'T have caller ID. I'm too cheap. We have no idea who the heck it was and both agree that they dialed in the wrong number when they returned the call. Then the conversation changed to how old we were getting. Seems that in the current generation of people that if you call someone these days, you don't have to leave a message. They will see your name pop up on the caller ID and return your call. I don't operate that way. I have SERIOUSLY offended two people in the past because I don't ever "call them back." Sorry. I didn't know you called. Seriously. I didn't know. How was I supposed to know? I have an answering machine and if you EXPECT a return call, you darn well better leave a message. I guess that makes me old, but hey, it saves me $5 every month.