Near Catastrophy

My husband had a near disaster on his hands last weekend. He is currently in his last semester of grad school and is graduating in a few weeks. He is completely stressed out because he has to finish his thesis, do a big project, write some other papers, along with continuing his internship and working. He decided that last weekend was going to be devoted to finishing his thesis paper, after all, it was due Wednesday. He made it up to 15 out of 20 pages--he was almost done! Sunday night I was going out to hang out with a friend who was visiting from out of town and right before I walked out the door I wanted to check the internet to see when the happy hour was for the restaurant we were going to. I picked up the laptop and the screen was black. Nothing was happening. I immediately gave it to my husband and he couldn't get it to work either. I told him that it was probably suffering from overuse and that it should rest for the night and we can take another look Monday morning.

At this point I should tell you that my husband has no back up disk/file/data stick for his thesis paper. None. He also had all of his research saved only on his computer. He thought that his computer hasn't given him any problems in the last 5-6 years that he has owned it, so why would he need to back any of his papers up?

I come home Sunday evening and the computer is still not responding. My husband had gone to his parent's house to see if he had saved any of his paper on Google. He found 2 pages of it. At this point he was freaking out. He had less than 3 days to completely re-write his thesis and retrieve all of his research.

Monday morning we take the computer out to a repair shop, where they get it working for a slight minute before it turns off again. For a minute there we thought his paper was saved and all would be right with the world. Not so much. The guy looking at it was a PC guy, so he didn't know what he could do to fix the Mac. He told us that it didn't look good. He then called his Mac guy. Not only would we have had to pay a ton of money to fix his computer, but it would take longer than Wednesday to retrieve the data. So that was a dead end. We then proceeded to go to Best Buy. They just opened up a Mac department, so we thought that maybe they could help. Their prices were even more expensive, so we didn't even stay to see if they could retrieve the data. I then got on the phone with my mom, brother, and my brother's best friend's dad who specializes in hardware. The first question he asked was if my husband backed up his files. I laughed. He told me that it could be a monitor problem or more likely it was the harddrive and the only way to get the files off the harddrive was to take it out of our computer and put it into another computer that is exactly the same as our computer. That wasn't going to happen, so we pretty much gave up. My husband had decided that he would need to pull a few all-nighters writing the paper and see if he could get any sort of extension. He got so frusterated that he decided to beat the crap out of the computer to see if that did anything. Amazingly enough, it turned on after the beatting session and my husband was able to retrieve all his data, my data, our itunes, pictures, and pretty much everything stored on that computer. It turned off again about an hour later. It is now a pretty brick. But we got what we needed, my husband didn't have to pull any all-nighters, and he turned his thesis paper in on Wednesday. We have both learned two lessons: 1) ALWAYS back up your important files 2) Beating the crap out of your computer really CAN work in your favor.

10.5: Apocalypse

A few years ago there was this neat made-for-tv movie on called 10.5. In the opening scene a 7 point earthquake hits Seattle and the Space Needle comes crashing down. Who couldn't like a movie starting out like that?! It continues to have progressively worse earthquakes going south on the West coast until the final scene when a 10.5 earthquake hits LA, demolishes it, and makes Nevada a part of the West coastline. The last picture of the movie is AWESOME because it pans back on the Southwest US with a huge chunck out of southern CA.

I was flipping through the channels last Saturday night trying to find something decent to watch and lo and behold I find a sequel to 10.5. It starts immediately after the first movie left off. In fact the first scene is an edited version of the last scene of 10.5. This time they find weird seismological phenomena hitting in random places. First Mt. St. Helens erupts, then there is a strange earthquake/eruption in Idaho and Las Vegas falls into a giant sinkhole. In the end they discover a dormant fault line in the central US which eventually splits the United States in half. The end scene of this one pans back from central US with water from the Gulf of Mexico filling in the fault crack and spliting the country in two while the presidents talks about how even though we are on seperate land masses, we are still one country. Awwwe. It's cheezy as hell, but Dean Cain is in this one and you gotta love mass distruction of America! I wonder what natural disaster they will come up with next--maybe they can wipe out the East Coast!!!

The Crazies

Anyone who works in retail knows that there are many crazy people out there and they all want to buy something from your store. Yesterday we were dealing with an amazingly crazy person at my work. This lady is a serious nut job. A few months ago we weren't able to provide her with the exact service she was looking for. Instead of being flexible, reasonable, or figuring out another way to deal with the problem she yelled at multiple people at my work for hours at a time. We of course were very appoligetic that we wern't able to meet her needs, and did everything we could to try to meet her needs, but she was not having any of it. She would not bend. She wanted exactly what she paid for, nothing more, nothing less, nothing different and when balistic when we didn't have it. She wanted to report us (to where, I have no idea) and tell everyone she knew to never buy anything from us ever again. It was a very traumatic week dealing with her, to say the least. The people who spoke with her needed some serious counseling after their encounter. Anyways, yesterday we ran into another problem with her. She had purchased two items at the very beginning and the second item just came up this past week. Well she had the misfortune of getting back in a similar situation, so what could we do? I was appointed to make the phone call to give her the bad news and I fretted about it the entire night and morning before. I knew that she was going to yell at me for at least half an hour. So I went to work and asked my co-workers how I should deal with this customer. They gave me great advice and then the best thing happened. My assistant volunteered to make this call. I could not belive it. I can tell you that no one wanted to talk to this lady because she was literally crazy, so I was in shock when she said that she would do it. So she called and got her voice mail. After that everyone in the office was apprehensive, to say the least, to answer the phone. We decided that answering the phone was like playing Roulette. You never knew who was going to be on the other line. The crazy lady never did call back, but I can tell you that I did everything I could to not be near my phone when it rang. Does anyone out there have any great crazy customer stories? I love hearing about them!! Please post a comment and the crazier the customer, the more entertaining the story!

Sydney White

This was the movie I chose to rent this weekend when my husband chose I am Legend. I expected a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy and was delighted to find that it was different than I expected. First of all it stars Amanda Bynes, who in my opinion, is a funny, talented actor. It is a modern day Snow White story where she is a tomboy who goes off to college and wants to join her mother's sorority (mom died when she was 9). Because she is a tomboy she doesn't fit in and gets laughed out of the sorority and is homeless. This is where the 7 dorks take her into their house, The Vortex. The dorks are hilarious and the prince is very charming. They do an ingenious job at putting in details from the fairy tale, like the poison apple and the mirror. I give this movie an A- as well. Fun for all to watch, even guys who will have a fun time laughing at the dorks!

I am Legend

My husband and I rented movies this weekend and decided that he got to pick one and I got to pick one. He chose I am Legend with Will Smith. I was a little skeptical about this movie because I knew that a good chunk of it would be just Will Smith plus it might be really scary (I am not into scary movies). It was actually a very interesting story that Will Smith did an excellent job playing out. I loved his dog, Sam, and the fact that she was his only companion. I also thought it was interesting that he felt the weight of the human error that brought about this virus that killed everyone. Anyways, I give this movie an A- and would recommend anyone to watch it, if not for the great plot, then for Will Smith's amazing body!

Saturday Night Dinner

For the past few years I have felt the need to go out to a restaurant for Saturday night dinner. After all, I have just spent 40 hours this past week busting my butt at work, so I deserve a treat when I get off work on Saturdays. Unfortunately this takes a huge toll on my bank account. So I've come up with an even better idea: cook dinner at home! While this may not be a revelation to the average person, it definitely is in my life. My dinners usually consist of frozen pastas heated by the microwave while my husband eats whatever he can find in the cupboards. After trying this out tonight I have found that the food is just as good, the company just as marvelous, and the bill much less expensive. Plus we have an amazing view out our window which no restaurant can compare to. A tradition is made! Hopefully this will last for awhile!!

It's Snowing?!

I was driving home tonight and when I hit Federal Way I found snow. In late March. It's supposed to be Spring!!! What the hell?! I can't believe that it is snowing right now. In Seattle. I'm in shock.

The Poisonwood Bible

I just finished reading this book and it has made a fast rise up my favorite books list. It's a book about perception, stubbornness, and change. I picked it up because my younger brother had to read it for his high school English class last year and I needed a book to read. I was over at my parent's house and there it was--I no longer needed to risk my life visiting the downtown public library. I picked it up thinking that it was going to be this simple story of a conservative Christian family who stubbornly sticks to their own misguided views in the jungles of Africa. What I found out while reading the book that it was so much more than that. I admit that I don't know a lot about Africa. I thought that it was just that place where lions and giraffes roam and where some really poor people live. This book opened my eyes to the idea that it is much more complicated than that. The Poisonwood Bible is about a family changed by their experience in Africa. How Africa takes a hold of them and never lets go. I have a hard time imagining myself in a similar situation as those girls in that book. To be in a place where you have to fight to live and where there is so much political corruption all around. While I sit here on my cushy couch in one of the richest nations in the world I can't help but think about how fortunate I am and how blind we all are. The problem is that tomorrow I will go on with my life as if nothing has changed. And to tell you the truth, nothing has changed in my life. I can chalk it up to being a good story and nothing more, even though I know there was truth behind the fiction. So I guess the question is what can I do? How can I change the world? I don't have an answer right now, but the first step is admitting that there is a problem. The sign of a great book is when it makes you think about the world and life many days after you finish. This book gets an A+ from me!