Tuesday, December 19, 2006

I am in Maryland today. And boy do I love that navigation unit!

I plugged in my friend's address and away I went. The trip I thought would take two and a half hours took only 90 minutes. There was only one confusing turn: the voice directions seemed a bit different from the map screen. I arrived safely and in an expeditious manner!

My friend D has a new baby and operates a day care business out of her home. So there are plenty of children here for me to photograph and to keep Kashi busy. Right now, he has retreated to the back corner by the garage out of exhaustion. I had D's amazing brown sugar, garlic glazed chicken for dinner. And I have already had plenty of holding-the-baby-time. Her husband is out of town for a few day, so my menagerie and I arrived to help hold down the fort. The fact that I am being stuffed with food, have offers of all left overs, and other groceries to boot has nothing to with why I am here (wink, wink)!

D's daughter is a cherub of a child, rosebud lips, round cheeks, and brilliant blue eyes (perhaps she will give Paul Newman a run for his money). I haven't yet seen my friend B's new baby boy, but at least I will have plenty of baby time this week!

I did receive an email from the American Diabetes Association to request a phone interview this week and samples of my writing. I promptly emailed back when I read the message this evening. [She has a wireless environment, which I always highly appreciate.] I truly do not like phone interviews because I feel so incredibly awkward and strange trying to get to know someone over the phone. However, it appears that the interview will be with the VP of internal communications. The position is: Community and Volunteer Communications Manager. I answered six essay questions the first week of August as a part of this interview process. I was actually surprised to just now be receiving a response from them.

On the computer front, I have just the software, batteries, and two cables to go. I received part of the power cord, the floppy drive, and a new case yesterday. The case is larger since the computer is larger and, consequently, heavier. However, I need to keep reminding myself to be thankful that I had the maintenance plan that makes an exchange possible when my other laptop decided that it was an oven.

I am most proud of myself for finally figuring out how to reformat the hard drive and then re-install Windows. For security purposes, I wanted to wipe my information before I returned the computer, even though it will not be sent out again since Dell considered it a physical risk. However, for the sake of honesty, I will admit that it took me approximately one and a half hours to get to the point to where I could start the reformatting process. To do so, I had to get the computer to boot from the CD-rom drive. To do that, I had to push the F12 button at just the right time as the computer restarted. After successfully getting the timing down, I had to wait for Windows to scan the system, and then put in the administrator password. Well, I had changed the password so that my password wouldn't be going back to Dell. I put in the new password, and it did not work. I kept trying, so after the third invalid attempt, it kicked me back out to a normal start. I had to wait for it to finish starting up, restart the computer, push F12 at just the right time, and then try again on the password. It was three rounds, with interminably long waits for the system parameters scan, before I figured out it wanted the old password. Finally, I could reformat the drive.

So, you see, can't you? You see why I am proud of being able to wipe my personal information?

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