Sunday, November 11, 2007

For Cuckoo and ...

Some of the pictures recovered from old computer



4/23/07
First time I saw Hudson






9/21/07
First time I saw baby tigers (they were not named at this time) less than a week later the male had died and the female was in the hospital wing.






9/21/07
What Hudson looks like as of my last trip to Brookfield






9/1/07
Our trip to Mexico the pictures my old computer lost

Saturday, November 3, 2007

It's a Miracle

I don't know how he does it, but my husband continues to amaze me with his brains and his ability to make me happy. You'll remember from my last post the crashed hard-drive of my old computer and lost documents and pictures. My husband surprised me yet again by coming home last night with a disc that he and the other geniuses he works with put together for me. It seems he took my crashed hard-drive to work with him and he and the guys worked on it. They extracted all my plans and budgets for our road trip out west next year and some very important lost pictures. I know this doesn't seem like a big idea to everyone but here is the significance to me. I had spent several of my last trips to Brookfield Zoo trying to get pictures of Hudson, the baby polar bear, with his mother. My next big quest was to get pictures of the two new baby tiger cubs. A few days after my last visit I heard the sad news that the male tiger cub had died and the female cub was in the medical ward. I had been lucky enough on that last visit of mine to the zoo to get some great shots of the two cubs together. I even got a few of them with their mother which I immediately downloaded to my computer. These were some of the pictures I thought I had lost in "the crash." Imagine my surprise when last night on my new computer I saw two little baby tiger cubs on my monitor. Did I mention my husband is a genius? Thanks Dandl, you're the best.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Stream of consiousness

Ok, so it seems everyone I know is either reading blogs or writing their own, so I thought I might throw my hat in the ring. You see, in early October, my husband started his own blog, and I made the mistake of thinking it was OUR BLOG, not HIS BLOG. When I asked if I could post on it, he said if I had things to write about, he would create a blog for me of my very own. So now here we are. I don't have any mind bending, earth shattering, thoughts in my head that just have to get out or I'll explode, but there are the occasional things I might want to share. For instance, why is it people in the computer field or with family in that field have the worst computers. Case in point: My husband, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law's husband are all in the computer industry. So why is it about a year ago my hard-drive crashed and I lost all kinds of important things including pictures from a trip to Mexico. Then a few days ago I had another hard-drive crash. Even though less things were lost this time, because I had a backup drive, I still lost... you guessed it, more pictures. Including, get this... pictures we took on our second trip to Mexico, that we were hoping would replace some of the pictures we lost the first time.Thankfully, this time we had downloaded our trip pictures on my in-law's computer. We made a disk and copied them back onto our Brand New Computer. Maybe our old computer just had something against Mexican beach images. Doesn't it only make sense that if you are in a certain field, you would have the best equipment available?

I guess that's why they say, Doctors make the worst patients.

I live a pretty normal, typically uneventful life. There are a few new changes that have my patience at an all time low. My normally dull job at the photo counter in an Osco was recently turned upside down when the girl in charge of the department quit and I was temporarily thrust into her roll with a lot of extra responsibility. That is just a little mind boggling right now. Then to make matters worse, we got all new equipment that only myself and two other people are trained on. Because I only live three minutes from work I get all the problem calls and get to go in at night and on my days off to help fix all the problems. Again, I don't mind, just a lot of pressure. This week, I get to train my boss and all the people who work nights, so maybe my phone will stop ringing every night.

Final rant, I promise. About a week or two ago, I had the misfortune not to just be in, but cause, my first accident in almost six years. Thankfully, no one was hurt because I actually hit an unoccupied parked car. I did the smart thing and called my husband crying right away. He told me to call the police. While I was on the phone with the police giving dispatch my location, the other person came out from wherever they were, and before I realized it, they drove away. So while I waited for the police, I called my husband back to tell him the other person left and now I was going to have to worry about when they found the damage to their car, if they would report it as a hit and run. My husband reassured me the police would handle it as long as I didn't leave until I explained everything to them. The police showed up fifteen minutes later, took all my information, and said because I was on private property (a retail parking lot) no tickets would be issued. If and when the other driver contacted them, the police would pass on my information. A few days later, the police called me back and said the other driver called and said there was only paint transfer on their car so they weren't filing any claims. Thank goodness.

So what do I do when I'm stressed or just because I love it? I take pictures. Not only is it a hobby, but a mild passion. People say I am much too critical of my own pictures. I never let anyone see any rough images, only those that have passed the initial inspection and have then been rotated, cropped, and enhanced any way they can be to make them worthy of my own approval. This then leads to my other hobby, passion, obsession... travel. If I could afford it I would take a trip somewhere every month. Finances unfortunately allow just one big trip every few years or smaller trips once or twice a year. Our next trip is set for late August or early September 2008. Out west. Road Trip. Two and a half weeks in a Prius. My husband, me, and our Eighty-three pound German Shepherd. Am I nuts?