pleased precariously

Peyton and Mom
Originally uploaded by toshok.

We brought Ginger home last night, and after a quick run around the back yard smelling everything she could, she ran inside and got into her crate in the laundry room. I guess the 4 days she spent at the dog hospital while Peyton was here was enough to condition her in some way. The crate is now her default place, the safe place. She won’t even come out when called, with the crate door open. It’s amazing to me the sorts of environments you can grow to feel relaxed in. The cage can feel like home, even with the bars.

Had a rather tumultuous dream last night, in which I found out she was moving to Boston. We fought over the phone and in person, both of us saying really hurtful things just like we used to, and eventually, somehow, ended up back together again, on another coast. I totally blame it on the movie I watched before bed (I don’t want to hear it, it has Rachel Mcadams in it.)

So I wake up feeling mixed up. Hurt, sad, smiling (because it did end on a happy note). And much like the movie’s male lead, I’m left feeling that it’s not over. At least not for me.

I can almost make out the bars, if I squint and cross my eyes enough. Can you?

All things die, and laptops are no different. I came to Texas for a lengthy stay with the assumption that some of it would be spent working.

That lasted about a day.

Now my laptop sits over there, unusable, waiting patiently for the IBM tech to come fix it. That was supposed to happen today, but instead it might happen tomorrow.

After spending the better part of my Saturday on the phone with IBM tech support, and garnering not one, but two case numbers (31T3FLB and 31T3FL4, respectively), I was told the tech would be out to fix everything on Tuesday the 21st. I explicitly made a note that I was not at the address they most likely had for me (477 Duboce, San Francisco), and was in fact here in sunny, warm (actually rather hot) San Antonio. I gave them the address. I spent the morning today, Tuesday, waiting around for the tech to call me.

He did, about an hour ago. I pick up, and it’s the same tech that fixed my laptop the last time it died. The same french accent. The same 415 area code. “Are you in San Francisco?” I asked, the sinking feeling already hitting my stomach. “Yes,” he responded. I explained the situation to him, hung up, and called IBM again.

After having explained the situation twice more to two different tech support people (yes, it’s freezing. no, I can’t even run the diagnostics), after finding out that it’s the contact phone number, not the address of the individual, that dictates to which part of the country the case gets assigned (What a way to run tech support: Don’t listen to the customer.), and after being assigned two more case numbers, they assured me that the tech would indeed be here tomorrow to fix the thing.

At this point let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.

(sorry for all the parentheticals… no really.)

After my mom and I walked out of the theater, leaving what was perhaps the most disappointing Harry Potter film yet (if only because I thought the book was the strongest), I walked into the bathroom labeled “Cowboys”, and she headed into the one marked “Cowgirls.” Yay Texas.

The stewardess came back and interrupted our conversation to let the girl sitting next to me know there was an available aisle seat a few rows up (she was in the middle seat.) The girl turned to me and asked “Are you going to be this interesting for the entire flight?” I immediately said “Yes.” And she stayed.

A real ASP.Net 2.0 app to test our stuff with, here.

also, found a very cool use of debugger visualizers here. We seriously need to add support in Monodevelop for debugging webapps.