Mar 27, 2007 | General, Life |
Once again, I've fallen into the morass and failed to write a new blog post for 19 20 days. I hate this! I've been busy, naturally. Found a house, bought it, waiting for it to finish being built, waiting to close, waiting to get my household goods, etc. Keeping up with my husband, who now wears suits and ties to work everyday instead of a uniform. Now you wouldn't think that would be such a biggie, but the utility uniform of the military, aka the BDU (battle dress uniform), doesn't need much attention. Wash, dry, run an iron over it, wear. Easy.
Now, however, shirts must be washed. Slacks must be pressed. Jackets must be coordinated. Ties are a whole new challenge. The hubby used to iron the uniform himself. Now, however, I seem to have taken over the suit and tie thing, mostly because I'm the color-coordinated one I suspect. Oh, and because I don't have to get up and drive 20 miles to work every day. 🙂 *sigh*
I haven't written a word in more than a month. I missed my last RWA meeting because I was too busy, too exhausted, and had more house paperwork to sign. I somehow stupidly decided to pursue a graduate certificate (don't ask) which is currently demanding up to 25 tasks per week and 100+ pages of reading. It's over this week, thank goodness, and I'm not sure if I'll take the next class in sequence or just say forget it for now.
Found out that one of the entries I judged for the GH is a finalist. Yay! Never managed to get off my butt and get my own entry into the GH, though maybe this year I'll finally have it together. Did I ever mention that I'm going to Dallas for National this year? I've registered and bought the plane ticket, and been taken in by the wonderful Writing Playground group as a roomie. And, dammit, I'm getting myself in gear and writing again NEXT WEEK. As soon as this stupid class is over, I'm writing. My wonderful critique partner probably thinks I've abandoned her. 🙁 I'm almost afraid to email her to find out.
Hey, so now that it's Spring, what's your favorite thing about it? I'd forgotten how much I love the new colors when everything is so fresh and tender. The trees and flowers here are just gorgeous. Alabama is turning even prettier than I'd thought it would be. We're pretty pleased with our decision to move here, even if we miss our Hawai'i ohana.
Aloha y'all. 🙂
Mar 6, 2007 | General |
Geez, I know I've been sporadic lately! Blame it on house hunting and all the stresses associated with that. 🙂 I'm really trying to get back to normal. We'll see.
In the meantime, what about those Geico cavemen huh? They're getting their own sitcom on ABC.
I hate the Geico gecko with his smarmy Cockney accent, but man, those cavemen just tickle my funny bone. I love them. Apparently I'm not the only one. Author Ron Rosenbaum performs a bit of literary criticism on the commercials here. I love his analysis of the mango salsa remark, and agree about the therapist commercial (though did you know that the actress is Talia Shire of Rocky fame? I didn't).
Which commerical is your favorite? I love the mango salsa commercial, but I think the airport is the best. I love the yuppie caveman, the racket instead of a club, the song, and the way the commercial works without a word being spoken.
Feb 24, 2007 | Uncategorized |
According to the New York Times, pole-dancing parties are a big thing these days. Say goodbye to Tupperware, hello pole. The mind boggles.
This intimate Friday-night soiree, where spinach dip and crudités were served and Ms. Cottam sent guests home with homemade banana muffins for their families, was for no particular occasion. She did not charge for the lesson, but had poles — spring-loaded and adjustable from 8 to 10 feet — for sale ($450), as well as a variety of feathered or rhinestone platform shoes ($19.99 and up).
Though Ms. Cottam operates independently, more than 350 pole-dance instructors in 34 states and Canada have signed up since August 2006 with an international company, EPM EmpowerNet, to run their own businesses in the model of Tupperware or Avon sales. The company provides DVDs that teach the instructors dance moves, pole safety and party etiquette, and sells them the equipment; they keep the fees they charge each participant — $25 to $30 in this area — plus any margin on the poles.
Okay, so I'm speechless. 🙂 You stick a spring-loaded pole in your living room and pretend to be a stripper. Wow. I guess it could spice up the ol' relationship a bit. All I can think of are the inevitable mishaps that could spring, ahem, from spring-loaded poles wedged against ceiling and floor. Thoughts?
Feb 22, 2007 | Life |
Well hell, has it really been more than 20 days since I posted? Life has been hectic! First, the hubby rejoined the work force. Second, all the things we'd put off, like getting license plates for our cars, changing our cell phones, going to Florida to visit the inlaws, etc, had to be accomplished now that we know we're staying here. And we won't even talk about the house hunting (still doing that, in fact).
I haven't had a chance to work on my WIP in weeks now. Isn't it amazing how when you put the WIP aside it can take forever to get back to it? The trouble all began with the computer crash (which, I can happily report, is working just fine so far). That threw me off stride, naturally. And then things just started to happen that week that pushed me farther and farther from being able to have the quiet time to work.
This week is still hectic, but I'm hoping next week will be better. Hope you are all writing and getting lots done. 🙂 Aloha, y'all.
Feb 1, 2007 | Computer |
Yesterday, I was minding my own business, visiting a blog and typing a response when it happened. The dreaded blue screen of death. My computer, which has always behaved itself before, went blue. I've had the blue screen one or two times in the two years I've had my laptop and it always restarts.
Not this time.
This time, it refused. It insists that a very important system file is missing or corrupt. And, as the computer manufacturers know quite well when they preload these things at the factory, if something goes wrong with the operating system you need the disk.
But there is no disk. Toshiba thoughtfully preloaded XP onto my laptop and didn't give me a disk for that. Oh, they gave me a recovery disk. One that wipes my hard drive and returns it to its factory specs.
Uh, I don't think so.
What's a panicked writer to do? I back up, but the last back up of my WIP was two weeks ago. I've written a couple of scenes since then, scenes I could recreate if I had to, but who wants to do that? And then there are all those picture files that I can't remember if I saved onto the desktop hard drive (it's in a box because there's no room to set it up at my parents's house).
So I find a computer repair place in the local area and race down there. The guys at Valley Computers have my eternal gratitude for saving all my files. Within an hour, I had a disk with everything on it. Whew. But I still don't know about the laptop. The guys were a bit surprised to see a Toshiba. They said they don't get many of them for repair. Far more HPs and Dells.
But they still haven't been able to bring the computer up. It's stubbornly insisting on that XP setup disk. They have several, but there are always tweaks to the OS, so they keep trying to find the disk that corresponds.
In the meantime, I may have to buy a new laptop. I'm using my mother's Sony Vaio right now and I'm finding I don't like it much. It has some weird keyboard things, and for a 2G processor (1G memory) it's pretty damn slow. My 1.6 512mb is faster.
My husband is excited about the prospect of buying a new Vista-loaded laptop. It does look pretty cool, and I suppose I could get used to it. Mac is not an option for me, those cute (and somewhat misleading) commericals aside. Too expensive and too proprietary. And I've known at least one person with a similar Mac problem like what just happened to me. It was a far more expensive crash for her since the computer cost double what mine did.
Hopefully, this is all speculation and I'll have my laptop back soon. It's only two years old, and for what I need it to do, it has plenty of life left in it. I'm not a graphics intensive, game-playing person.
So the lesson here, and why I began this post in the first place, is that you should be sure you back up frequently. Make sure you've got all those picture files somewhere, too. They are even more irreplaceable than documents. I can make up new scenes, but I can never replace pics of my cruise vacation.
I'm going to research portable storage options later. I have a flash drive, but I want something with more memory, something I can get everything on quickly and easily.
I'll survive my first-ever computer crash, but I'll definitely be more diligent about backups in the future. 🙂
