Redundant is not enough

Well...I am still in computer hell at work. My backup solutions were almost useless except for some heroics by Mikey my computer hero. It seems my little firewire backup drive decided to die just when it was needed for the first time. It seemed to be running a little hot. We took the little backup appliance apart to take the hard drive out, detached the firmware and hooked it up to a computer. Then magic Mikey took an air can and blew it on the overheating drive and it decided to cooperate. When I left he was dumping all of the data on another drive so that I can work with it. Now all I have to do is get another computer.

I am not buying that desktop brand again. This is the 3rd box that just sorta crapped out on me to one degree or another. It was not viruses, spyware or malware. I am too careful and prepared for that. This is flat out hardware failure. My love affair with computers is being severely tested this week.

Don't ever get a cortisone shot in your finger. It felt like it was going to blow up. Aging is the only alternative but I wish it were a bit more subtle at times. I have something called trigger finger
Oh boy! The finger feels a bit better today but who knows if the shot will do the trick.

I will get back to my music posts soon. I need to get through the holidays and the computer demons and get refocused...soon.

We have a new Christmas tree...chunky Charley...its a long story...which I will share when I get a picture of this chunker.

My computer at work croaked yesterday. It was a very bad start to my day. I hope all the backup precautions I took allow me to recover some of the things I would hate to lose. I am still not fully operational but I'll get there. Crashing computers are one of my least favorite things in the world. I guess that goes to how important they have become in my life. That's a pretty nice picture of me over there...

I saw this on my daughter K's blog and thought it would be a good excuse to change the subject. So here goes the holiday meme...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. Egg Nog is wrong. Thick rich icky. I get a little queasy thinking about it.
   
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped. I figure Santa has stock in a paper company somewhere.
   
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I like color.
   
4. Do you hang mistletoe? We don't have any but I did mention to M that we should do it prior to our party. We never did.
   
5. When do you put your decorations up? We put them up before Thanksgiving this year because of our schedule. The outdoor decorations went up quickly during a little spell of nice weather.
   
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Turkey. I don't eat turkey as often as I would like.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Spending Christmas Eves at my grandparents. The food was always good and my grandpa always got a drunken Santa to show up.
   
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I'm not sure but this was almost as devastating as finding out that Superman didn't exist.
   
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? If I get the opportunity, yes.
   
10. What kind of cookies does Santa get set out for him? Santa needs to lay off the cookies.
    
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? It's beautiful but I really hate it.I did a short but not sweet post on this subject a short while ago.
    
12. Can you ice skate? Yes. I used to love to skate. One of my high school jobs was working for the park district at one of the outdoor ice rinks. I played a lot of hockey while working that job. I had the kids trained to keep an eye out for the park district van. When it was coming I would drop my hockey gloves and stick and skate over to the non hockey rink.
    
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? The best was a new bike I got when I was about 10.
    
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Helping the less fortunate. I'm trying to be better at this every year. I also love the chance to spend time with the kids.
    
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Really good pumpkin pie.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Playing cash station
    
17. What tops your tree? A star
18. Which do you prefer Giving or Receiving? Gifts are fun to get but giving is much more rewarding
    
19. What is your favorite Christmas Carol? When I was a kid it was Angels We Have Heard On High. I liked singing it. Now its anything from A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum! Yum.

Thanks Mick

The holidays are approaching and it seems everyone is in a shopping frenzy. I can help relieve the shopping frenzy blues. There is no greater gift at the holidays than giving to those in need. And I'm not talking in need of that new iPod or 3 wood. I'm talking about those in the community that truly need help.

This website is really useful in finding effective charities. Find someone or something that you want to help and give whatever you can. I'll also donate to the first 5 four star charities that any of you out there donate to. I don't want to know how much you gave I just want you to recognize that giving is a really good thing to do.

Talk about something that feels right...

Special thanks go out to Mick Jagger who was in one of my crazy dreams last night talking to me about the importance of giving. Why Mick Jagger? Who knows? I said it was a crazy dream.

The Second and Maybe Last Annual Christmas Open House

Even before our party Saturday, we were debating over whether to take next year off. We are taking next year off! It is a lot of work, quite expensive and now it has become frustrating.

This year we had approximately 115 people show up. That's not the frustrating part. The frustration comes from the 62 people that were no shows. No regrets, nothing. We paid at least $1500 for these mannerless people to not come.

Here's frustration part II. Last year we had tons of food left over. We use the same "caterer" and this year there were no desserts at all, 12 shrimp, 10, chicken satays and a few other odds and ends. The point is...with that many no shows we should have had an incredible amount of left overs. The chef had to take the leftovers...it kind of sucks. Either that or had the no shows actually showed we would have had some incredible struggles for the last bits of food. No way... they took it. We paid for it and at least we could have helped soothe our minor hangovers and bad feelings for our inconsiderate associates with all kinds of good food.

I do think we will scale the party down and invite our family and some close friends and have our own fun little party. Not that I don't appreciate seeing everyone, but two years of hard work and mega expense and more than a dash of frustration is enough to change the thing from fun to funk.

Too Much

I need to backtrack on my Rock N Roll alphabet a bit to take care of some obvious omissions.

I don't know how I could forget Dave Matthews in the M category. I've been to three DMB concerts and actually saw the band twice. My favorite concert was the one time I didn't see him cuz it was my first and my lovely daughters planned the outing. It was an experience. We got to see lots of puking punks and punkettes. I saw a young punkette pee right in the row behind me and then almost roll around in it. I'm sure she doesn't remember much of the show. It was the first time I was at a concert where there were as many women in the mens bathroom as there were men. Different world. Dave concerts attract more than their share of young morons that are looking for an excuse to get inebriated and act like idiots. All concerts have these morons, unfortunately there seem to be a higher concentration of them at Dave shows. The real shame is that the DMB is excellent in concert and these dopes miss that and if you are not careful they can interfere with your enjoyment quotient.

More backtracking in the coming days.

Snow Sucks

I was just outside shoveling this "beautiful" shit call snow. You can keep it. It's heavy, cold and wet and an all around pain in the ass. I'm tired of shoveling and I want my summer back.