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Well, we’re about into the New Year. This year has been a busy one. Looking back, I wonder where all the time went. We’ve been in back in the Pacific Northwest now for a smidge over one year. We adopted Mario, who, when he isn’t being a jerk to the girl kitties, has turned into a pretty sweet cat. We were able to purchase my Saab. I had my one year anniversary with my company. I got the pleasure of hanging out with my Little Bean on his first birthday. Matt and I have chosen a wedding date (10/21/06, 1pm, y’all). My best friend for the last twenty years moved out here. My company layed off 39 people two days ago, due to changes in the real estate market. I feel lucky I still have my job. I’ve been able to maintain the best relationship with my sister this year, than I have our whole lives growing up together. Same with my mom, which I found to be true a couple of days ago. Lots of crap has gone on in the world this year, too - New Orleans, Pakistan, the Terri Schiavo bit; too much to name, really. It’s been a very busy, happy/sad, active year.

I’ve been giving some thought to some resolutions I’d like to make for myself going into the New Year. I’d like to learn how to stress and worry less. Stop chewing my nails. I need to follow my own advise I give my mother, when I say maximize the things I can do best, and minimize the things that may not be my strongest suit. I’d like to try not to get angry as quickly as I do, and more importantly, I’d like be better at choosing my battles. I think that could help the whole stress/worry resolution I first mentioned. Lose weight. I think this will come easier with cooking a lot more at home. I think we get lazy, and I’m not as busy as I’d like to be, which starts my brain thinking about one of my most favourite things in the world: Food. I find it’s easier to just grab something quick somewhere, than make something. Charity gave me Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats, which is perfect for us. Not only does it save time, but the recipes in here really do only take 30 minutes (I’ve got a couple of her other cookbooks) and they are wonderful. I also plan on making Curves an every other day event, with walking in between. It’s the only way I will achieve my weight loss resolution. I’m done talking about it and taking vacations from it; I’m just going to start doing it. I want to be better about keeping my apartment in order. I started the process a bit early. We managed to clean out our bedroom closet. After all the rearranging, going through clothes, deciding what fits/what doesn’t, we’ve managed to come up with six bags of clothing that will be given away to Goodwill. My closet now looks very organized and tidy. It should be in an issue of Real Simple. The kitchen is tomorrow - we’ve got so many dishes and bowls that we never use, it just clutters up our cabinets. Apartment living is all about being creative with your space, and we’re… not, at the moment. That will change tomorrow. Probably the last thing I can think of that I’d like to change, is being better at persuing hobbies. I’ve become lax on photography, and I really should get more creative with it. Cam got me a pretty cool book on photography, and I’m anxious to delve into it. I got picture frames for my birthday, and we’ve got a decent printer - I’m going to start printing off some of my better pictures and decorate my walls more with my own art. Got any ideas on which ones you really like that would be worth hanging on my wall? Let me know.

This New Years even will be a quiet one. I think we’ll grab a bite somewhere; probably Italian. I’ll likely have dessert, because tomorrow’s the big deal. Cooking lots, eating out much less, and definitely watching what I put in my mouth. Tonight’s it. I’d better enjoy it. We’ll come home, drink a little Pinot Noir, and pop into World of Warcraft with friends. They’re having a New Years event, and I think it sounds cool enough to check out. My hell, I am uber g33k. I love every minute of it. So, with all this, I bid you a very Happy New Year. Have fun and be safe! I look forward to many more ups and downs life heaves at me.

My best friend from grade three, Charity. It’s so good to be able to hang out with you once again, my friend.

P.S. - Please don’t kick my ass for posting this picture. I love it!

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room near Detroit. Oooo, how I love free wifi. Matt is flopped on the bed, pouring over CNN. We just got back from a little bar and grill joint from across the street, and I’ve only got one thing to say:

I’m convinced Michigan and Ohio have the most bland food I’ve ever put in my mouth. Ever. That is all.

We’re leaving for Ohio early tomorrow morning, so I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I planned on posting a really cute picture I took last weekend at my sister’s, but alas, no iBook that stores all my photos. I love you and God Bless! See you in the New Year!

Well, here’s the verdict on my poor wee G3: I’m not getting a new machine. For now.

I had called Customer Relations and spoke with Tony yesterday, and gave him my plight. He said he’d call me back today with an answer, which was negatory on getting a replacement machine. Go fig. Did I think it was going to be that easy? Eh, sort of. I felt it could go either way. I was reading Luke’s G3 logic board issues and he wound up getting a G4 after four replacements without a hassle.

The thing that got me, was Tony, my rep, acting as if Apple was doing me a favour in replacing my board free of charge, because my warranty ran out. I think that’s crap, to be pretty blunt about it. Apple knows it’s an issue, and has replaced people’s machines because of it. Why should I feel lucky they are doing the repairs for free again?

The long and the short of it is this: We’re trying to do the replacement of the board once more. Tony advised me they re-designed these boards two or three months ago, so I’m hoping the third time’s the charm. It’s the only reason I agreed to settling. I’ll give the new board a try, however, should we have a repeat of this, I will talk to whoever I need to, to get a replacement machine. Tony had said that perhaps they could provide me with a half off a new machine voucher. That isn’t good enough for me. What if I don’t want to fork out $800 of my own money for a new machine? That puts me out of luck, and that’s not fair. I was told that because of the age of my machine (2 years old), they couldn’t do anything for me on replacing it. That’s a piss poor excuse, considering we’ve got another Mac we’re letting our friend use that’s ten years old, and although slow, still very useable. Two years is nothing.

So we’ll see. I’m happy with giving my machine another go - I never went into this because I wanted a brand new shiny G4 (though it’d be nice). It just gets old having to take my machine back every six months to get a new board put in over and over again. Hopefully this logic board solves all of our problems.

Last night, Matt and I went and had sushi with Jeff and Nicole and had a Christmas gift exchange. We ate, had good convo, good food; the table was cleared, and we hoist our gift onto the table about the same time they did ours. All four of us kind of eyed one another’s gift: Oh god. They look almost the same. Except.. maybe ours is wider? I don’t know. I mean, really, what is the shot of that happening?

Matt shoots me this look, like “Uh oh.” I said, “Nah, no way could it happen.” But everyone starts to get a little giggly about whoah, look how similar the packages look. Nic says, “Okay, okay.. What’s the first initial of the store you guys bought your gift at?” Us: “C…” Her: “Oh God.” We all busted out laughing. Opening the gifts, everyone laughed even hardler - we’d each gotten eachother the exact same gift. I think the restaurant was wondering what was up at the table, because we were all in tears from laughter. Matt took pics with his camera phone.

We just got back from the Apple Store. Wouldn’t you know, the iBook worked pretty much perfectly there for the “Genius” at the “Genius Bar.” Ahem. He was actually a pretty nice guy, but I am familiar with the issues of the logic board going out, as this will be #3. I knew it was too good to be true. We tried downloading the latest version of the OS, rebooted a couple of times, and she came up grand. Go fig. The Genius behind the counter told us that it may have been a problem with the battery being so low on power when we brought it in, that the system couldn’t make out power whatsoever, since it appeared to be stuck in sleep mode. Fair assessment, though I knew our problems were far from over. After a lengthy car ride home in rush hour traffic in crappy weather conditions, I sat down on my couch with my iBook, kicked ‘er on, and nothing. Black. You could hear it start up, the chime came on to indicate the start up, but black screen. Matt tried, it came up for him. Just before I was about to curse Apple, the screen fritz’d out (Matt is my witness, by God!) and she went nini once again. Goodie. So it’s back to the Apple Store we go tomorrow, and this time, I’m all about seeing who I need to speak with about getting a new machine. I’m not settling with taking my machine in once every six months to replace a logic board. Financially, it would make more sense for them to give me a new machine, I would think. But then again, I’m no “Genius.” Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

Oh, the picture above was the insanity at our local Apple Store in the mall. When we first approached the store, I thought perhaps they had something special going on simply because of the amount of people. We could barely get into the front of the store. Turns out they had two lines going - one for purchasing different varieties of iPods, and the other to purchase anything else in the store. I took pictures of each line with my camera phone to give you an idea. And people used to think Apple wouldn’t make it. Pshaw.

Anyway, my poor girlie iBook is still broken. We shall find out the conclusion tomorrow. Hopefully.

This is getting pretty ridiculous. Once again, I am without access to my iBook, likely because of my failing logic board. Since it’s happened two times before, I’m pretty aware of the symptoms right before she dies, and last night, the symptoms were going on strong. Everything would freeze up, I could no longer move my cursor. I’d have to reboot about three times in the span of ten minutes, and then this morning at about 4a.m. when checking the weather, my screen started fritzing out, almost like static. That’s usually when it’s in its last throes of life. I tried rebooting, where I got nothing but black screen. So here we are, the third time this has happened in the span of one year. Apple ends up replacing the logic board for free, as it is something they recognized as being faulty, anyway. The trouble is, replacing the logic board over and over and over again obviously isn’t the answer. I’m tired of having to take my machine to Apple, having them hold onto it for three to four weeks, then finally getting back, only to do this again four months later. I wonder: Do you think I could get a new machine out of the deal?

Guess we’ll find out this afternoon.

I think this picture is hysterical. I was trying to take pictures of the little Christmas village my sister had set up. There wasn’t enough light, and the exposure was much too long. This was the end result. If you didn’t know better, it looks like someone’s gas line might have blown up their house in a real neighbourhood. I just invision, “Here comes santa claus, here comes santa claus, right down santa claus lane” playing in the background, an overhead shot of a cute picturesque neighbourhood, maybe a few birds chirping, then BOOM!

But I’m twisted like that.

I took this picture yesterday morning, from the sixth floor of the building I work in. The mountain is the distance, is Mt. Hood. Great view, eh? I’m pretty lucky.

I’ll be more than happy to e-mail anyone a high-res version of this photo. Just let me know.