Kayleigh used to bang on my old laptop’s lid while it was open.  I don’t think it suffered any problems because of this, and of course, the screen works fine, but I’m always paranoid.  I was hoping she wouldn’t bang on this one, it didn’t have some pretty picture on it.  (The old one.)  But the mirror proved too much for her to resist.  When she was out playing, she was always over here, looking at it, touching it, rubbing it, pulling the power cord out (ugh), etc.  Already there’s a little tiny scratch.  So I figured, ok, suck it up and buy a skin.

Took me a long time to get it done, or at least a long time by my scrapping standards.  I had a different theme in mind but couldn’t find the right photos so I pushed Stacey to getting photos of the kids.  It’s really hard to get good pictures of Kayleigh where she’s looking and smiling – really, that’s a major feat.  I didn’t want to use the last good picture of them, mainly because it’s on canvas and I already see it several times a day.  So I finally got a picture of the two of them, didn’t even have to do any face swaps.  However, I did have to remove my arm and part of my foot from the photo!  My kids for ya.  Kayleigh was constantly on the move, as usual, you can’t keep her attention for more than a quarter of a second, I am not kidding.  And Elijah, bless his heart, was trying so hard… too hard.  He ends up trying to hold Kayleigh there then they end up looking so silly because he’s holding down her arms or legs or whatever and she’s screaming to be released.

Once I got the dimensions right of the file and figured out where they were going to cut the hole for the Dell logo, it was easy, it really all fell together.  I love it.  The only problem is that I got lots of bubbles in it this time.  Been a while since I looked at the old one, but I don’t remember having but maybe one small bubble.  This one has several and a few creases now where I tried to get the bubbles out but it would only go so far.  Not sure why this one should have been harder to apply.

And the best part?  Kayleigh hasn’t beat up my laptop at all since I got it.  She has pulled out the cord once or twice but I think at least once of those times was an accident.  Instead, she comes over, points at herself or lightly touches it, and does her little, “ah-ha-ha” talking thing.  Or “ah-who-who.”  Then she moves on her way…  Score.  This, however, does not solve the problem of if I leave it unattended while she’s out to play that she’ll pick up my mouse and throw it…

— We had a flat tire Saturday, just as we rolled in to the Land of the Beyond. Steve was with me, though, so he promptly changed it. He’s been saying for months though, “we need to get new tires, we need to get new tires.” So tomorrow, we’re getting some new tires. Nine-hundred-freaking-bucks. That caused me to faint, too. And I’ll probably faint again when I take the Jeep in for the new tires. Praise the Lord for overtime, huh? He worked Saturday before the tire event. Ten hours. He gets paid for twenty. That freaking rocks.

— We also saw 61+ deer on Saturday. In the wild, we weren’t at a park or anything. That was awesome, and those were only the ones we could see to count. First it was a spike buck (see left) followed by a button buck and two does then we saw a fawn, spots and everything. Then after Steve did some bow hunting and me some nature photographing, a young buck with two does. Then, a mama with some does in one field, another doe in the other field across the road. And then? A whole field of them. Of course, there were more to make up the count of 61, but you get the idea. :)

— Was invited to a friend’s house today, along with another friend, to scrapbook. Our kids played. We scrapbooked. Yup, them sitting there with their paper and stickers and scissors and tape and glue and buttons and photos and and and… me with my laptop. Ha. I did the layout at the left. I don’t understand how they did 3 to my 1 considering I did my 1 faster than any of their 1′s. I guess I really can’t talk and do computer stuff at the same time. Good thing I wasn’t chewing gum, too. I took the photo in the layout today, too. Though one of the boys wouldn’t cooperate, he decided he didn’t want any photos done.

– Picked up my new medicine today: Xyzal. I’m hoping it works for me but I guess we really have no way of knowing unless I can make it through the fall, winter, and next spring in better health than I have been (especially of the last year, ugh). Not that I think it will be a cure-all, of course, but hopefully it will help keep me from getting so very sick and infected so much. Plus, according to the doctor, maybe my sinus cavities are perpetually swollen and therefore imitating a blockage, so this might help with that. But anyway, after our insurance (which rocks so far with medications) and the discount card that the doctor gave me, the medicine was FREE. I know I can’t use the discount card all the time but it looks like if I get a new one when it expires, I can get the medicine free 5 months out of the year. Not bad.

– But apparently, even though I didn’t have to pay for it, I’m still required to wait in long lines and have it scanned and sign for it. I looked at it and was like, “I don’t have to pay? SWEET. Let’s go, Elijah.” Next thing I know, I’m halfway out of the parking spot and the checking girl comes running out and asks if I had a prescription. Instead of, “yeah” I should have said, “what, do you routinely chase after people who don’t stop at the check-out counter?” So I had to go back in and wait and wait until it was my turn. She scanned it and had me sign. They got a nice squiggly line for their troubles. I always thought before, when signing, that I was signing because of using my debit card, but apparently not. What am I signing? Selling my soul to the pharmacy??

– One of my Jr High teachers found me on Facebook. Some of you might freak, but he was one of my all-time favorites, his wife, too. I love them. :)

– Um… lots of other stuff, too, methinks but I’ve already bored you enough. :P

When I opened it, at first I didn’t like it. But I figured I might as well put it on and now, I really like it!

And it was so easy to apply, too. I pulled out the center hole first then peeled off the rest of it and lined up around the circle then started laying it all down. It was going to be slightly off at first but it came right back up and I put it in the right place. The instructions warned about air bubbles and such, and how to combat those, but I didn’t have a problem with those whatsoever. It all went very smoothly and only took a few minutes. ;-)

Almost made me consider getting one for the desktop, but I don’t need to haha

Yesterday, I had to make a service call to fix some wireless internet. Did that as quickly as possible and left, not only did I have my posse with me but my next stop was downtown St. Louis where I had to go to DHL to pickup my laptop. What Dell says is next business day delivery apparently means ground to DHL and so when I saw they were definitely not delivering it on Monday I knew I had to go get it since I would not be home on the day they said it would come, or the other day it might come. And I’ve heard enough horror stories about attempted deliveries and then packages getting lost, so I wasn’t about to take my chances.

However, though I had called first in the morning and they had about seven hours to get the package ready for me, I still had to wait for an hour because they couldn’t find it! I wasn’t the only one, either. Another woman was in there with me for about a third of my time. They had attempted delivery for her twice (she said, they claimed three times) and she arranged Saturday to pick up her package. They couldn’t find hers, either. She had to go home empty handed, too, with only promises that they would find it and deliver it that night. I hope they did – whatever it was, she said it was for a wedding this week.

She ended up calling out the manager and then he talked to me after her and when he found out I had been there an hour, his eyes bugged out of his head. He wasn’t about to send me away since I’d driven approximately 70 miles to get there. Of course, within five minutes of his discovery? I had my package. Smell fishy to you? Sure does to me.

Anyway, because this took much much longer than I expected, I had to get back south very quickly as I had a meeting halfway between here and St. Louis at 6. However, the guy who flew in from wherever who was leading the meeting and a few other key people didn’t get there until 6:45 so the whole evening was just made later. And somehow… I got myself a title for something I didn’t even realize I was taking part in and I’m now something called an INdeavor Director. Heh. :) So far so good, though, I guess – looks like in mid-August I’ll be extremely busy with this thing though.

Today I had to take the Jeep into the dealership. We are within a thousand miles of our warranty being up even though our lease is for another year. We’re already at over 29,000 miles, just since April 2006! We’ve been hearing this ringing sound and twice before the dealership guys have not been able to hear it – it is not a constant thing. Steve finally figured out where he thought it was coming from and so wanted us to get it in again. When I told them what he thought it was and went in, I was under the impression they’d fix it, I’d wait for it, then go home. They were under the impression that they were keeping it overnight and that I was going to walk the 30 miles home, or something. No rental for me.

Steve was pretty ticked off at this. I had no choice but to call my mother-in-law, where I’d left Elijah already, and beg her to come get me. Of course, she was happy to. But I felt so dumb. If I had known they were going to keep it so long, I would have left the carseat and a few other items that were in the vehicle at home or at my in-laws’ house. But instead, here I am with my purse, laptop case, the carseat, five DVDs, and my brunch. So I waited about an hour in all, ate my food, read some of my book, and installed a few more programs I need on the laptop; then my mother-in-law picked me up.

Back at their house, E was being watched by my sleeping father-in-law (he’s sick) and Sarah. I ended up staying there pretty much all day until Steve got back. And what did he do? Went by the dealership and showed them the noise and where it’s coming from and they ordered a new drive shaft. He then came home in the Jeep and got me and E at his parents’ then we all went back north, again and got his truck! (His truck is small and the carseat doesn’t fit well in it, let alone the three of us plus all our junk.) So I’ll get to take the Jeep back in sometime next week for the new part.

So now I sit. Still getting the laptop the way I want it and blogging. I really like the laptop so far. It’s quite a bit heavier than my last one, the body overall is heavier and it’s slightly bigger. I got laughed at last night at my meeting when we were talking about the laptop. One of the guys pulled his out and he has an Inspiron E1705. I said that I had just picked up my E1505 and was telling them that I had debated about getting the E1705 but decided that I didn’t need the 17″ inch screen because that would mean buying a new laptop case and I adore my case. For some reason they all thought that was hilarious. I do love my case!

I already turned over my old laptop to Sheila. When I knew I was going to pickup the new one yesterday, I went ahead and moved off my files and uninstalled the stuff she wouldn’t need. It was pretty quick, easy, and painless once I moved my files and especially after I created her a user account and deleted mine. I had already decided not to reformat it since I just did it not long ago. It’s also not like she’s a “stranger” or that I had sensitive information on it, because I really didn’t. She’s just having trouble getting the dialup to work. I walked her through setting it up but she says it’s not connecting. I was going to look at it today but she took it with her, so another time. When she moves in with her sister and their roommate and starts college this fall, however, they have a wireless connection set-up, so the home dialup won’t matter so much.

Anyway, I love my laptop so far overall. Besides the weight, the only thing I’m really having to get used to is the location of the home, end, delete, page up, and page down buttons. On my old Compaq they were in a column along the far right, now they’re in two rows of three at the top right.

I’m also really glad this thing has a built in five-in-one card reader. I had an add-on six-in-one card reader in the PCI slot of the other laptop and I kept it because I know Sheila’s not going to need it and I thought this one had a PCI slot, but apparently not. It’s called an “expansion slot” but apparently it’s just a remote holder (which I didn’t get, I don’t figure I need a remote for my laptop… my laptop is my remote)! Oh, well, as long as the other one works, it’s not like I really need it, but now I have a hardly used card reader I don’t know what I’m going to do with.

I also love that this has four USB ports, in non-inconvenient places! The other one had two, one of which was in the way if you are right handed and using a mouse! There’s also an IEEE 1394 connector though I don’t guess that I have a use for it…

I’m also now all Vista’d out. No more XP in my house. Not that it really matters one way or another, but that’s them facts baby. I like Vista better now, too, than I did at first. Especially since I don’t use Norton Antivirus anymore, I don’t have many problems with it at all. We still have XP up on the Avid though, Avid and Vista don’t play nice yet, I’m told.

And speaking of the Avid, I bought a book last week and it gave me a different method of laying off to tape and that seemed to have fixed our video/audio out-of-sync/drift problem. Sweet!!!!!

I have a feeling which one I’d go for if left to my own devices, but I want to see what y’all think. So click to view larger and comment to put in your vote! :)

I did try out some others to see what they might look like but the others I liked would have the Dell logo right in the wrong spot. It will fit okay with all of those images, including right in the center of that fireworks. There was one I really wanted to use but I’m sure the person who took it would end up suing me for copyright infringement even if the photo is of me, my kid, and husband, because they’re petty like that. :P Oh well, it didn’t fit anyway! So I’ll just use that as a background on my phone instead.

Anyway – help me out, and pick one of those four, or something else from my photos that you think might work! ;-)

So…

Val: “Hello?”
[silence... Val prepares to hang up]
Telemarketer: “…uh… hello???”
Val: “Hello?”
Telemarketer: “…uh, yes… this is Dell… is Mr. Stephen [pronounces last name wrong] there?”
Val: “No, he’s not here right now.”
Telemarketer from Dell: “Okay, well, do you know when would be a good time to get in touch with Mr. Stephen [prounounces last name wrong]?”
Val: “uhhhh….” thinking… never “…sometime in the evening, I guess.”
Telemarketer from Dell: “Okay thank you very much, we will try again in the evening. Have a good day.”
Val: “Uh, you, too.” Click.

I guess it never crosses their mind to talk to me. Afterall, who buys all the computer stuff around here? Me! Little do they know I could just swipe Steve’s information and buy me whatever I wanted. I just use him because his credit is better than mine… and, well, he has a real job.

Muhahahaha.

I know what they want, too, I’m 99% sure they want us to renew the extended warranty on this thing. When I bought this thing last June, I took down the warranty from 2 years to one because I figured the one for the Compaq through Best Buy never did me any good, so why not save $99? Turned out it did come in handy when my motherboard died last November, or whenever that was. Not long ago we got a notice from Dell trying to get us to buy three years for something like $280. Nope, sorry… if I had the money I’d go for it… but then again, if I had the money, I’d just upgrade my system every year. Don’t have the money, so they can forget it.

I was going to say that by talking to Steve, they’re talking to the wrong person about computers. But then again… maybe not. I have a hard time hanging up on people. I will listen to their whole speel and say “no” 5 times or so before they finally give up. He doesn’t feel bad if he just hangs up.

Of course, he’s not like his brother…

We’re over at their house one day and the phone rings. Brother #1 gets it and we hear, “yeah, just a minute, I’ll get him.” He then sets the phone down and walks back over to the dinner table and sits down and starts eating. “Well? Who is it?” His mom or dad asks. “AT&T.” “Who’d they want?” “Me.” :evil: