#40: He simply makes me smile when I see him.

[preden]

Shhhhh! I'm playing hooky from work today...

for keepingfaith and mom

Sorry about your iPod, luckiest.

Hope the week gets better for all of you, preden.

Denial and procrastination can be very valuable to one's mental and emotional health, don't you agree?

Some days, abso-freakin-lutely! Enjoy your day, muski. :14:

Hmmm... all this talk of Twinkies... I don't have any pics of Twinkies in my photobucket... will these do?

Love the pics, makes my day, lol, hope he does the stagedoor like last time, I didn't get to see him up close that night, that's the weekend he hurt himself and he didn't come out the door that night. maybe next time.

[muskifest]

luckiest...that soooo sucks about your iPod...a NEIGHBOR? Gonna visit that neighbor's house anytime soon?

Bella--ah, yes...the child returning home, albeit only temporarily....interesting...DO let me know how THAT goes...

Oh dear...I really MUST go....gotta get my massage appt, donchaknow....

[jmh123]

Luckiest, I'd report the theft, FWIW, and mention your kids' suspicions if you get the chance. Or go knock on the door and ask for your iPod back. LOL.

[luckiest1]

luckiest...that soooo sucks about your iPod...a NEIGHBOR? Gonna visit that neighbor's house anytime soon?

Hee....it's very tempting. But I can't prove anything.

[cha cha trusty]

We had the kids over all weekend, so I am just catching up. My daughter tried a little retrieval on the hard drive, but no luck. I guess I need some more professionals. She is an IT professional, but in web development, not techie stuff!!

Thanks everyone for the encouraging words on the hard drive. It was/is one of those Western Digital Passport, 160 G types. I should have recognized the warning signs earlier and taken action.

So, what are these retrieval programs y'all are talking about!?

Tried on the dress, definately need a slip; fortunately I already have one that will work...just need to go out and get a strapless bra. Slipped into the shoes and walked around a bit, they are pretty comfortable and I think I should be able to make it up and down the aisle without tripping (God willing!). The jacket to the dress comes with shoulder pads which I am thinking of taking out...never liked shoulder pads and I really don't want to go to my daughter's wedding looking like I should be playing quarterback for the Chicago Bears. Only problem is; I worry if I take them out if it will affect the fit of the jacket. All in all, I looked pretty darn good if I do say so...not as many bumps and bulges to cover up as I thought.

Times like these I really hate men...they have it so easy...just shower, shave, put on a suit and go!

I asked hubby if had a pair of black socks to wear with the Tux and he pulls a pair of brown socks out of the drawer...I say no, those are brown...he pulls out another pair...nope, navy blue. Guess I need to go out and buy him socks and give him a once over before we leave that day.

Lurved eyeliner Clay...kinda had a David Bowie thing going on there!

Kim

kim - I wanted to mention this earlier, have you ever tried "Static Guard"? It comes in a spray can about the size of a hairspray can, and you spray it on your clingy clothes and it takes away the static. Sometimes you can even get a trial size, which would be easier to pack up for the wedding.

wanda - the meal sounds delish! We had a vegetarian Indian Restaurant cater our last wedding reception. I have never taken a cooking class, but I learned how to make Aloo Gobi from the "Bend It Like Beckham" DVD! I did have a little help from a friend (Anubee), but mostly I just followed the techniques on the video. This isn't the one, but I found a cooking show on youtube showing how to make it.

(oooo this one lets you use the microwave!!)

more later, I'm only on page 9!

::waves to ausdon::

[kimiye]

luckiest...that soooo sucks about your iPod...a NEIGHBOR? Gonna visit that neighbor's house anytime soon?

Hee....it's very tempting. But I can't prove anything.

Don't iPods have serial numbers? And isn't that serial number associated with iTunes on your PC? I can't check since I don't have an iPod, but isn't that how Apple controls where your downloaded tunes will work-- so strictly that you can't load songs on more than one iPod unless you buy an extra copy?

I'd most certainly call the cops! And your car insurance might cover the cost if the property is not recovered.

*waves at all the travelers-- I've enjoyed all the travelogues!*

[wandacleo]

Luckiest, my neice's car was broken into last summer and a bunch of stuff stolen, and it was covered by her car insurance, except for a deductible. Have you called to see if you can get reimbursed? She had to file a police report and give that to the insurance company.

Good luck!

[Scarlett]

Hey,

DH and I were just watching the Hungry Detective on the food channel.

He was in Houston!

Now I wanna go to Bubba's Buffalo Burgers, The Breakfast Klub, and Mai Vietnamese Restaurant! He also did a strip mall restaurant that had Gumbo and Po Boy as the special and a BBQ place, neither of which I can remember the name of!

Yum!

From the website:

Bubba's Texas Burger Shack, Mai's, the oldest Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, the Breakfast Klub, Tony Mandola's Gulf Coast Kitchen and Goode Company BBQ.

Hi Cotton! I've been to Mai's, Tony Mandola's and Goode Company BBQ lots of times!

{{{keepingfaith and mom}}}

Ahem, Scarlett? Oh, Scarlett? There is a sporking I'm planning on diverting to you because of an insistance about a particular AIW performance...

I don't wanna work today...

I already uploaded both the 2006 AND 2007 Merrillville AIW's -- before we went to HK! Luckiest1 and ldj even commented on the 06 one because they were seated directly behind me and so that was their POV of the show.

{{{luckiest1}}} and {{{preden}}}

goldarngirl, I got the Set2 mp3 of Merrillville 07 up this morning -- let me know if you can't find it!

Thanks for the pretty pix tho I can't see a thing from photobucket over here. Can't wait to get home to view! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

*waves back madly at kimiye*

[luckiest1]

Don't iPods have serial numbers? And isn't that serial number associated with iTunes on your PC? I can't check since I don't have an iPod, but isn't that how Apple controls where your downloaded tunes will work-- so strictly that you can't load songs on more than one iPod unless you buy an extra copy?

I'd most certainly call the cops! And your car insurance might cover the cost if the property is not recovered.

I'm pretty sure my deductible is more than the value of the stolen property, but I'm going to check tonight. I also have a warranty on the iPod so I'm pretty sure I will have a record of the serial number. I guess there would be no harm in filing a police report.

When I got the new iPod & laptop last February, I had to transfer all my purchased music to it from my old laptop and 4 gb mini. I discovered that you can license up to 5 computers on your purchases, but I can't remember how it works for the iPods. Guess I'm going to have to remember how I did that last time if I get another one, and hope I have some licenses left! I doubt the thieves care about the music, they probably just wipe the iPod clean and sell it anyways. Looking on the bright side, at least my laptop is safe and sound with all my music files on it. And at least I was smart enough not to leave my wallet in the car (which I have also been known to do). That would have really sucked, not because I have any $$ in it, but just because I would have had to replace all my cards and I.D. Been there, done that a few years ago. Not fun.

cha cha, I think it would be worth your while to take the hard drive to a specialist. Sometimes they can retrieve your files even if you have deleted them. Good luck!

[saltwaterdog]

We had the kids over all weekend, so I am just catching up. My daughter tried a little retrieval onthe hard drive, but no luck. I guess I need some more professionals. She is an IT professional, but in web development, not techie stuff!!

Thanks everyone for the encouraging words on the hard drive. It was/is one of those Western Digital Passport, 160 G types. I should have recognized the warning signs earlier and taken action.

So, what are these retrieval programs y'all are talking about!?

Cha cha, I have a Mac and just googled "Mac lost data" or something similar until I came up with some software. It took about a week, came from India and was about $175. I was crossing my fingers that it was a real program, for one, and that it would work - and it did! I'm not sure about a hard drive, but it couldn't hurt to google the brand, or even hard drives in general, and see what comes up.

I've had 3 hard drives and had trouble with two - one a Maxtor and the other a Seagate - both made by the same company. I haven't tried very hard to get the info back because I backed up all on CDs as well.

With all the problems I've had I've started to back up my back ups. Such a pain.

Good luck! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

[cha cha trusty]

Happy Labor Day a little bit late!!

This is a cool graphic! I didn't get around to getting online yesterday. Too tired!!

My #1 & #3 chachadotters and I stayed up till 5 am (sat/sun) drinking wine and watching home videos. I got up around noon yesterday and a little later had to rest with some wet teabags on my eyes!!

(note: wet teabags do wonders for the puffy-eyed look from overindulgence)

While I "rested" chachadotter #1 read to me out of that silly Jane Green novel I've been reading. Listening to her read it in a British accent CMSU and made me homesick for Hannah and Spamalot! (not to mention the part she read was also quite humorous! )

luckiest1 -- I hope everyone gets their CITH recommendations done before Christmas!! Or better still, before SPAMALOT starts!! We will be very busy waiting for news and stage door photos when September 19th rolls around!

And since there is no Christmas tour this year, I'll want to have a nice CITH playlist on my ipod for regular listening!

HippoGA - Where'd the Sir Hippo in your avatar come from?

I remember that flat Clay back in 04 and 05 - could it be the same one? Did you have it in Cary last summer?

(still catching up...)

[goldarngirl]

goldarngirl, I got the Set2 mp3 of Merrillville 07 up this morning -- let me know if you can't find it!

Thank you, found it. I saw your list of requests. You didn't happen to attend Pala, did you? If you did, can you add that to your list?

Thank you so much for getting that Set 2 up for me.

[cha cha trusty]

luckiest...that soooo sucks about your iPod...a NEIGHBOR? Gonna visit that neighbor's house anytime soon?

Hee....it's very tempting. But I can't prove anything.

Just knock on the door and ask them if they saw anyone skulking around your car at night! Tell them that your kids saw someone and see how they react. Say there's a reward for info, or return of the ipod! Or say that you've reported it and the police might be around to ask them about it too!!

[cha cha trusty]

OK, I am going to admit it... I have heard "Twinkies" mentioned before but I had no idea what they were, so I Googled them and found a Wikipedia entry.

so now I know...

They must be something special to be so famous.

claytonic - send me your address and I'll send you a box of Twinkies!!

[Kareneh]

Oh, cha cha, that sucks, I hope they can get some stuff back for you. I've got me a Western Digital Passport 160GB. It's working fine (knock on wood) but what are the signs? I went to back up some files to another external the other day and my Dr. Watson error has spread to include the whole drive and as soon as I open it up, Windows Explorer freezes. The files are all there but I can't access anything on that drive at all. I have had this problem in some folders on other drives that have video files in them and when I researched it, I found that this is a known problem (that Microsoft hasn't bothered to fix in the few years it's been around) and got a few ideas for fixes, a couple of them I tried and they didn't work. Apparently I can go in to the registry and turn off the thumbnail making process, but I don't want to do that I NEED my thumbnails! Something else I read gave directions to turn of Dr. Watson....not sure if I am asking for trouble if I do that or not. I hate going into the registry and messing with things. I'm really afraid to do it here since I have to have this thing for school, and it's hard to get repairs done when you are communicating in two different languages. I'm happy it's working and I can live without those files for now.

Has anyone ever encountered this problem? I was thinking of trying it on another computer to see if it's the drive or the external that's the problem. So far no one has volunteered their machine for a trysie. What's funny is, I can access the files via a media player but not windows explorer. I used to be able to access photo files in these folders by browsing in Photoshop but that isn't working anymore. Now PS tells me it has a problem and has to close.

Not all of my folders with videos act this way. If the files are stored on the drive not in a folder, it's fine. I want to get the files off that drive and onto something so I can sort them and get rid of the videos on it. There are only about 10 gigs of data on it so it isn't that bad.

Does any of this sounds familiar?

Indian food is plentiful here, Twinkies not so much.

Welcome Home Scarlett & KAndre! I am almost too shy to post this considering and all.... BUT.....I booked my ticket to Houston this week. October 1st. Someone remind me to go to the airport that day, okay? Please cancel all hurricanes and related activities.

[cha cha trusty]

K'eh -- I've had several issues with external drives. One was that the PC wouldn't boot up if it was attached. That one was a Phantom.

This one started disconnecting itself, all of a sudden I'd hear that little bing-bong and then the chime in reverse when it would reconnect. One day a few weeks ago, I came back to the computer to find about a dozen of those windows that asks you what you want to do with whatever you just plugged in.

When I discovered the files were corrupted, they all had strange symbols in them. I googled that and found this, but it didn't give a complete answer. I ran teh chkdsk, but stopped it before it was done. Some of the files it didn't scan (that didn't appear in the DOS window) returned, but the ones where I answered the Y/N question with N have disappeared. Most of them were photos.

I just about "did a Sir Robin" awhile ago when I heard the same bing-bong sound and my new 1 T drive was the only one plugged in. ACK!!!! I unplugged it.

[Iseeme]

Chach said:

I just about "did a Sir Robin"

I was reading that and laughed out loud. It's amazing how many new phrases and words we've "discovered" because of Clay!!!

Luckiest - sorry to hear about the pilfering. I think the feeling of being robbed is so awful - so invasive and personal. My son's car was broken in to when he was in high school (and many more times when he was at San Diego State) and the guy that removed his speakers was smoking. The smell of that cigarette smoke stayed in the car for weeks - and was a reminder!

My travel buddy Clayanne had to evacuate her home on Friday and leave her kitties behind. Last I talked to her was on Saturday night and they were parked in some casino parking lot waiting to hear about the weather. I asked her how she could do this year after year after year with seasonal storms and she asked me how I could live in earthquake country! Well pish tosh! We only get a big one every 100 years or so! Anyway - good thoughts and best wishes to Anne and anyone else who has been impacted because of Gustav and his buddies that are following closely behind!!

Claytonic - you really had never heard of Twinkies before? There was a very high profile homicide in SF many years ago when a gay supervisor was shot down in cold blood. The "defense" said the killer was in a demented state from eating too much junk food (I think I remember that correctly) and the defense became known as the Twinkie Defense!!! I hear tell they fry Twinkies in the south and at fairs....hmmmm......Actually they're pretty good with a nice hot cup of rich coffee, too!

[Cotton]

Okay.

Now if you hear Holden Beach, NC in the Hanna reports - that's US!!!

I heard one report this morning that said they are now projecting landfall at Holden!

Holden Beach is the beach. We live on the Shallotte River (pronounced shuh-lowte, accent on 2nd syl) 13 miles inland from Holden.

I don't think they are expecting to be as bad as Gustav, but hurricanes have a history of walloping our coastline!

Sing to me, Clay!!!

[Iseeme]

Oh Cotton! Please find someone to call if you have to evacuate so they can let us know you're okay. That's what my friend Anne does and then I send out emails to the rest of the group. But be careful! If they tell you to go - GO!!!

[BettyJean]

Oh, my gosh, FRIED TWINKIES !!! I wonder how many more calories that woulld be, better stay awy from them since I need to loose too many lbs. already.

Thought I'd bring a blend over to keep things purdy. An older picture, but with CLAY you can't go wrong with ant picture of him.

Aloha, BJ

[aikim]

Stay safe Cotton!

It has been trying to rain here; a little thunder, a little wind, a little rain...but nothing major...we could really use a downpour here as it is so dry; my grass looks like straw.

Kim

[Scarlett]

Stay safe, Cotton! :thbighug-1: Remember that if you can't call out, text messages may still get through with a slight delay. That's how we kept in touch with people from the Borgata during Katrina.

*hopes the deer will be fine as well!

ETA:

Kareneh, looking forward to seeing you soon! October 1, is it? LOL! /jk Just backup the entire registry before you fiddle with it and you should be ok. It could be borderline power. Do you get fluctuations in the area? Some of my externals have 2 USB connections just so they can take in enough power.

[Cotton]

Thanks, y'all!

Right now, it's a very disorganized storm, so it may not be too bad.

We do have friends inland if we need to go, but right now I'm just anticipating lots of rain - and maybe wind - downed power lines. We do have well water, though, so no power means no water!! We have talked about a generator so if reports start to ramp up, Home Depot, here we come!

:F_05BL17blowkiss:

[Claygasm]

On my To Do list over the next few days if I get a chance is to call Direct TV and see just what it would cost. Their website confuses me! I already pay waaaaay too much for it as it is, so I think I just need to know or sure I can't afford it so I can stop dreaming!

What I did is drop all those premium channels with the same movies over and over and over. If you have Netflix or something that's taken care of anyway. Now if I can stop myself from paying for the NBA Sports pak next month I'll be in good shape.

Except I never had the premium channel! Just the basics and I am paying too much. Problem is out here in the boonies there is no cable, no FIOS. Just satellite or rabbit ears! Maybe I can cut down my phone service and say some money there....

I WANT A DVR!!!!!

Denial and procrastination can be very valuable to one's mental and emotional health, don't you agree?

Muski my dear! Thanks for my new motto!!! I might have to have that engraved on something!!

Nothing but nothing would make me leave my cat. NOTHING! Besides, shelters were allowing animals this time round after the catastrophe that was Katrina. As they should. No one should have to choose between beloved pets and their lives.

[FearofH2O]

Are we still talking about Twinkies? Or have we moved on to Ding Dongs?

Clay content, darned if I know. :chair:

Is it time to start talking about meeting up before or after the Gala?