Christopher's Birthday

Last Saturday was Christopher's first birthday. Man I can't believe that he is a year old. I called him the baby the other day, but he is a year old now. The party was just a small gathering of friend and family. We kept the party as simple as possible with just hot dogs, chips, and snacks. It seems like with all of the kids birthday's that there is usually a weather issue. Without fail it snowed a couple of inches overnight. Our driveway basicly sucks during winter because it is so steep and gets real slick when the snow gets packed down. More than one parked car has slid down our driveway and out into the street. I knew that I was going to have a driveway full of cars and didn't want any of them ending up in the street so I made it a point to make sure the driveway was as clean as possible. Also, my mom was comming to the party, and she just had sugury so I wanted to make sure the drive was cear. So I snow blowed the drive Saturday night, then Sunday morning, and also bought a bag of ice melt that works fantastic so by the time the party started the drive was just wet and not a bit of snow.

I didn't have a huge supply of coney sauce frozen, and I didn't have the time to put together a huge pot of it, so I decided to try out a mix that I bought that was supposed to be just like downtown, in only half the time and with half the meat needed. The instructions for the mix were a little confusing, but I thought that I put together everything correctly. Obviously I didn't because the sauce tasted like crap. It was spicy water with boiled bland meat. There was no way to save it so I dumped it down the sink. I ended up putting the sauce on that I had frozen and added some more water to it to make it stretch a little longer.

We had a pretty good turn out for Christopher's birthday and got a chance to visit with some friends that we don't see enough of. I am hoping that this summer we can get together a little more often. So after some visiting, eating and present opening, we broke out the cake. It was a very tasty Pooh cake then Jen decorated. She also put together a little cake for Christopher as well. When we put the cake in front of him he just kind of gently touched it. Unlike the other two boys who tore into the cake, Chrstoher didn't. After some help he finally got the point of the cake and tore into it a little bit, but finally just ended up hitting it. I remember Andrew's first birthday we had to take hime right up to a bath to clean him up (man what a mess). After that and a little more visiting everyone left to take advantage of the rest of the day.

ahhh I feel reconnected

Well I finally got the laptop up and working again. In case you forgot, it pop and fried on New Year's eve when I tried to power it up. Well I took into a computer repair place and they confirmed that the power pack was fried, but wanted to check out the computer to make sure that the laptop wasn't the cause of the power fry. I was told that it would be $60 to replace the cord, so I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't fry again. I was told that the computer would be done the following week. OK I figure that would be alright since I still had my old CPU upstairs. Then I remembered why I hardly used the CPU upstairs. One it's not as convenient to get to as the laptop, two, it's alot slower, and three, I don't have any protection running on that one so it gets ALOT of pop up ads so I always feel rushed when I am typing. So I was told that the computer would be done on Tuesday... and waited and waited. During my waiting I decided to do a little poking around on the net. This repair place is the same place that my brother bought his new laptop from when his blew up. I really like his computer so I was wondering how much it was. I found his computer online for around $750, but when I was wandering around the computer repair store I saw that it was a little over $1000. Then I found the same computer at Best Buy for around $750 again. So I don't know if they are the exact same thing or not, but my brother got screwed by that place. I called them to find out what was holding up my computer and was informed that it would be at least another week before I got it back. So some more searching and I found my power pack for $20. hmmmmm. So I ordered it and picked up the laptop on the same day. The cord came a few more days later and after a very slow (and worrisome) power up it finally came to life. So now I am back to surfing in the kitchen and the front room. It just feels more comfortable for some reason. I am not sure if I would ever go back to that computer repair place for a repair, but I know that I will never buy anything from them. Hopefully I can get caught up on my blogging now.....

Happy New Year

New years eve was real similar to last year. After getting home we packed up the kids and headed over to Jeff and Paula's for their get together. We hung out there for a couple of hours, but decided to head home around 9:30 or so for that half hour ride home. Jen and I are still into the mode of trying to get the kids to bed at a decent time. They don't really care if they see midnight so why keep them up for it. I am sure that we will start letting them stay up for new years some day, but for now we just appreciate a good night's sleep for them. Anyway, they get their late nights when the Q's come to visit. So we put the boys to bed and Jen and I have a little snack and watch Dick Clark till just after midnight. I decide to power up the laptop and see if my dad and brother are possibly on-line. As soon as I hit the power button I hear "pop" and smell the familiar smell of electronics burning. Son of a Bit**!!! I had to make sure it wasn't a freakin' Friday. After that we just put in a DVD and fell asleep a little after 2:00. The boys being ever punctual actually slept in until 7:45am. The rest of the day was kind of laid back. I took down my outside Christmas stuff. Side note to that: I was leaving on my lights until after new years, but noticed that my lights were off earlier in the week. Yep, I fried the outdoor outlet as well. End sidenote: After the lights were taken care of the rest of the day was watching TV and playing with the boys, thinking all day that it was Sunday and not Thursday. Man that will mess you up.

I took the laptop into a computer repair place and they confirmed that I fried the cord (also the power supply), so $60 to replace that. They are also going to test the laptop to make sure that it doesn't fry anything else. I started looking around at new laptops. Not saying that we have to replace it or can afford to replace it, I just like to look. I really like the new laptop that my brother got and found it a whole lot cheaper on-line. Needless to say I won't be buying anything from this computer repair place (where he purchased the laptop) unless it's something used like a monitor or DVD burner. I fired up the old CPU in William's room and it works pretty good for now. It's a little slower than the laptop and not as portable, but it's good to have a backup.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

My effed up Friday II

Let's see if I can catch up on my blogging. So you might recall my effed up Friday three weeks ago (see two post below). Well the day after Christmas last week ended up being another effed up Friday, but to a bit of a lesser degree. The weather had definitely been a factor around here around Christmas, but by Christmas day it had gotten warm and melted most of the ice in the area. The day after Christmas there was rain and freezing rain predicted for overnight, but when I got up in the morning it was mostly just rain. It kind of sucks to go into work the day after Christmas, but hey I am just thankful to have a job. So I am heading to work on 69. The road conditions look a little icy, but I don't feel any kind of slipping in the Saturn so I figure that it's just on the ragged edge of being ice. So I am heading north around 60 miles an hour and keeping with the flow of traffic around me. All of a sudden one of the cars that I was following slows down a whole lot. Then I notice that the traffic going Southbound on 69 is going real slow and has hazard lights on. I figure it might be a good idea to start slowing myself down as well. Good news for me is that I am only a mile or so from my exit so I will soon be out of the mess. As I am getting near my exit I notice alot of break lights ahead of me. This is where I have to make a quick decision. I can make a quick exit on an earlier off ramp or keep going another half mile. I see break lights, but they look like they are moving so I decide to just go to my off ramp. Well as soon as a pass the early ramp the traffic goes from slow to stop probably a couple thousand feet before my exit right on top of a hill. Crap I made the wrong decision. I figure there is someone in the median or in a ditch so they will start routing the two lanes around it. Nope I just sit there. After the FIRST HOUR I am thinking that it might be worse than I thought and that I am glad that I didn't drink down the huge bottle of water in my car. People around me are getting out of their cars, but the road is a sheet of ice so they are slipping and sliding all over the place. I figure it best just to stay in my car since I doubt that getting out of my car will do any good. So I just sit there listening to the radio. I have a huge container of animal crackers in the back seat so I won't have to revert to cannibalism, which is good since I don't think I would taste that good. I also have that huge water bottle in the car, but I am thinking probably not a good idea to break into that since I have no idea how long I will be here and there is absolutely no place to go in this traffic jam. Even though I don't have to pee, thinking of it kind of makes me think I have to... So HOUR TWO. Still just sitting there, listening to the radio and trying not to think about peeing. I can't see to the other side of the hill to know whats going on and I can't get out of my car, but I finally see a state trouper go through the traffic jam to whatever the problem is. The southbound lane has some traffic flow, but they stop that as well to salt the living crap out of the road and this hill. I start thinking of a plan, in case I have to go to the bathroom. That full water bottle will do in an emergency, but I could never use it again. Finally HOUR THREE arrives and there is some activity around the jam. The guy behind me opens both of his driver side doors and just pees out the side of the car, more power to him. They clear the one lane of traffic on the hill and a salt truck backs up spreading salt everywhere. They then let us go into that lane and down the hill. All I can see is a truck in the ditch, but I can't imagine they wouldn't let traffic around that, it wasn't on fire or anything. So I get to work three hours late, but thankfully the rest of the (now short) day goes alright and everything else is melted by the time I headed home. I thought twice about taking out that container of animal crackers the other day and lucky for me I can safely use my water bottle again without it being tainted....