Zeke is back...

and really liked Alaska. He loved the mountains, and the lack of hot. He even found a local coffee shop, even if he had to walk ten blocks in the cold to get there...He informs me that it was a happy complaining when he called me to tell me how cold it was (as opposed to here in Arizona, where he complains about how hot it is.).

And listen to AF ROTC cadets give him crap about having to wait to play HALO 3, which he has now finished. Unfortunately this doesn't mean he's done playing with it. No, instead he will be driving me crazy for months with his obsession with HALO3! I have played it just a little bit, and it is ridiculously fun, although I cannot play worth a dang.

The really fun part is the replays -- you can save a video of the game you just played, and Zach and I played a slayer level and then watched it. It was really fun when you can stop the action and rotate the camera and take screen shots. It was fun to watch myself blowing Zach up...

I loathe computers.

They are the work of Satan...

I used the computer one night, printed out some photos, used the internets, no problems.

(Well, other than the usual ridiculously slow and memory-impaired problems.)

The next morning I turned it on, and it would not connect to the internet, it would not connect to the printer, the calculator and spider solitaire are gone. Poof.

I got the internet working by unplugging the modem and the wireless router and plugging them back in...I wish I had not discovered that little helpful hint after a couple hours of struggling with the wireless router -- I unhooked stuff and hooked it up differently, I was on the phone with an automated troubleshooter, I unhooked the connections that I knew worked and connected different cables to make sure it was not the cable...and then I unplugged each of them and plugged them back in and they worked.

Then Marilyn suggested I google "print spooler not running" and see what I got. So I did, and the very first forum I clicked on told me exactly what to do:

Control panel to Admin tools to services and then I discovered that a whole bunch of things were disabled. No, I have no idea why those things were disabled. I put them all back to automatic, restarted the computer, and the print spooler was running again. And we can use the printer again. I think.

But spider solitaire and the calculator are just gone. Poof. Stupid stupid computers.

Dogs and Dead Birds

Last night, shortly before I went to bed, I was at the computer, glanced down and noticed Abe had brought a dead bird into my bedroom.

Yeah. There are times when being my dogs' god is not the greatest thing ever.

And boy am I glad we got rid of the white carpeting, since there was some blood involved.

And Mark gets to be in Alaska and miss all the fun stuff!

Monsoons!!!

It's gray and rainy! We might as well be living in the Pacific Northwest! Everything is lush and green.

It's been such a great monsoon season the ocatillo look weird -- they are full and lush and densely covered with green, plus they have new shoots coming out near the top of the branches.

We have been having drenching rains -- both the kind where it just pours down and floods the washes and roads, and the kind where it gently rains for an hour or more. I could do without all the gray weather, but I guess it's worth it for the great amounts of rain we are getting.

Abe the big dork...

Every day I drive through narrow streets with tree branches that are approximately the same height as Abe's face hanging out the Suburban window.

And every day I have to drive close to those trees when meeting someone driving the other way. Abe just can't seem to get the idea that he should maybe pull his head in to avoid getting walloped in the face by branches.

Tess said he snaps at the branches, so maybe he thinks they are flying by for his pleasure...

He still cannot be trusted off the leash outside. If we are going to pick up Tess from school -- that is, I have car keys in my hand and it is mid-afternoon, he will run out and wait to get into the Suburban. But when we get home, if he is not leashed, he will run away down the street trying to find dogs through their backyard gates. Pain in the butt dog...