Time for an upgrade!!

After 2.5 years of abuse, my white Gen One MacBook will be getting a little rest.  Last week, I was in the middle of surfing the internet when my MacBook decided to give up on me.  It just shut down for no reason.  So, I pushed the power button and it tried and tried to start up again but just couldn’t boot up.  I thought it was because it ran out of battery power but nope, it was plugged in.  Boo….

So, I gave it a rest, turned it back on, and it started working again!  Sweet!  That following weekend I took it with me to Phoenix and as I was using it on the plane (not plugged in of course), it died within a matter of 7 minutes!!  What the heck?!

Last night, we went to the Apple Store to see what could be done and I guess the battery was just plain dead.  We purchased a new battery for $125 and I ended up taking home a brand new MacBook Pro too!!  Woohoo!!!  I had contemplated an upgrade a while back but decided that I could wait.  About 6 months later, I am now an owner of my second mac.  It’s bigger, brighter, faster, and oh so pretty.  Merry Christmas to me!

I was also surprised at how simple it was to migrate the entire contents of my old harddrive to the new one.  It only took an ethernet cable and a couple clicks of the mouse to get me up and running.  I didn’t need to reinstall applications.  I didn’t even need to reset my desktop image.  Amazing.

It’s like a puppy tree!

This evening on my way home, I picked Jes up from work and he suggested that we stop at the tree lot.  Yay!  So with only about 50 bucks in hand, we went on a search for this year’s tree.  In an effort to be frugal this year, I finally got to buy one of the smaller Charlie Brown trees.

You really gotta love a tree that you can throw in the trunk.  It was short, fat, costed 20 bucks, and perfect.  I had to choose my ornaments wisely this year and thankfully there was enough room for each of our annual ornaments and a few standard ones.

‘Tis the season!!

Friendliest Airport

I got to the airport really early this afternoon so I booted up the laptop and discovered that PHX offers free wireless internet!  Woohoo!  They call themselves the Friendliest Airport and this certainly has me agreeing with them.

I also must compliment Southwest Airlines’ new gates complete with workstations with plugs.  My macbook as a broken battery that doesn’t hold more than 5 minutes of charge so this is certainly a lifesaver.  I have a bunch of homework to grade and I’m hoping to get through them all before I board my plane in 2 hours.

Anyway, I learned some new things in my 2-day course this weekend but the best part was just hanging out and catching up with my old friend and co-worker Elaine.  Whenever I hang out with her I miss Irvine.

OK, back to grading papers!

First Friday

On Friday afternoon, I flew to Phoenix to meet up with some old friends and to take a 2-day workshop for work.  Once I checked in to my hotel (a brand-spankin’ new Sheraton), I got online and found out that there’s an art district nearby AND they’re all free from 6-10pm on the first friday of every month.  Yay!  So, I hopped on the bus nearby and went to the Phoenix Art Museum to check it out.

It was certainly a find.  They had a variety of exhibits from artifacts to photographs, to modern art sculptures and mobiles.  Afterwards, I had a little Tex-Mex across the street from the hotel and finally got to dig in to the book I started 2 weeks ago.  Phoenix isn’t exactly a wild and crazy town but had enough to entertain me for an evening on my own.

Missing the Rockstar and a Tob

On Sunday evening, two thirds of Roebling got together for an extra special Sunday Supper.  G and Dena traveled across the country to spend Thanksgiving on the west coast and they brought their little guy Andersen.

He’s only 6 weeks older than Jack so it was really fun to watch the two of them play side-by-side.

Ryan prepared a standing rib roast with yorkshire pudding and we brought over mashed potatoes and creamed corn.  In fact, I made Lawry’s creamed corn from a recipe I found on the interwebs!!  Yum yum!

We all sat around the table eating off of the Sokol-Juns’ bone china wishing that Joel and Tob were also there.  It was so nice to catch up with old friends over good food.  It definitely a pleasant way to end my Thanksgiving weekend.

Here are the rest of the photos.

Bag-o-licious

On Sunday, we took Muni across town to check out Eleen’s booth at Bazaar Bizarre.  Her booth was in the corner but she managed to get quite a bit of traffic.

Of course, her bags and accessories were oh so yummy and we were all very excited for her.

It was fun walking around and checking out all the other booths too.

There was a booth that featured plush pork products and another that sold plush human organs.

I came home with a couple Christmas gifts and picked up my very own Big Lug too.  Yay!  I love it!

Great job, Eleen!!  And congratulations on another successful event!  For a closer look at her products, go to eleen.com.

Here are photos from our afternoon of craft browsing and burger eating.