I want to thank everyone who came to Kristopher’s birthday party on Saturday. His room is a sea of toys and he spends most of his day swimming! He can’t seem to play with any one toy for more than a few minutes because he remembers that he has other cool toys to play with too and drags another out. :) I also appreciate the gifts for me as well, though I did not expect them at all seeing as it was Kristopher’s party. Still, I am humbled to know that I have such caring friends and such loving family.

I’m hoping that next year we’ll either have a bigger house or will hold the party some place where EVERYONE can come instead of just the few that we can fit in our tiny duplex. There was hardly any room to move or breathe and the parking situation was a nightmare!

Sadly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to post any photographs up from the party. Apparently Kristopher got his hands on the camera and got fingerprints on the lens, so nearly every picture we took came out with a smudge in the middle of it. :(

[Editor’s note: For purposes of contextual coherence, it may be useful to know that this post originally appeared on the self-coded, PHP-based version of the synthetik.org homepage before being folded into this blog. -KM]

Regrettably, it looks like I will not be taking classes this semester at Murray State. I was finally granted admission around noon Thursday – long after the classes I needed had closed. As opposed to spending my Friday scrambling around campus, begging professors for spots in classes that were already full beyond capacity, I have decided to take yet another semester off. I’ll once again be working full time in hopes that our combined income will be substantial enough for us to save up for a move to an actual house by summer and maybe get a new vehicle by fall. On the brighter side, with my admission processed, I won’t be pressed for time to schedule my fall classes.

Tabitha took her big test in Frankfort around 10:00am EST this morning. She was quite nervous the night before, regardless of how much I attempted to assure her that as brilliant as she is, there was nothing to worry about. I am still not certain that she got any sleep, but I do have full confidence that she passed with flying colors.

I’ve known about the Darwin Awards for quite awhile, but for some reason, I never thought to post a link to the website. To quote, “The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways.” You can’t help but chuckle at some of these and wonder, “What were they thinking?” If anything, these tales should serve as warnings to others and could even possibly save lives by helping others avoid the same mistakes.

“I knew a man who once said, ‘Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.’”

[Editor’s note: For purposes of contextual coherence, it may be useful to know that this post originally appeared on the self-coded, PHP-based version of the synthetik.org homepage before being folded into this blog. -KM]

Just when I was starting to get used to the fact that it’s 2003, the blasted year changes on me again. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea where the time has went.

BTW, Has anyone ever actually read the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne? I imagine it is a requirement to sing it drunk, seeing as I find it impossible to sing sober.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintaince be forgot
And auld lang syne.

chorus:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll be your pint stowp
And surely I’ll be mine,
And we’ll drink a richt guid willy waught
For auld lang syne.

[chorus]

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wandered monie a wearie fit’
Since auld lang syne.

[chorus]

We twa hae paidled in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine
But seas a’tween us braid hae roared
Since auld lang syne

[chorus]

And here’s a hand my trusty fere
And gie’s a hand o’ thine
And we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

[chorus]

Oh, and just a little note on the photographs Tabitha mentioned: I’ve changed an option in Gallery to allow you to view the full-size versions of images. What this means is that when you click on the thumbnail of an image, you will see a larger version, formatted to fit your screen. Usually, you will be able to click on this formatted image, which will allow you to see an EVEN LARGER, full-sized version. This full-size image is the best one to use if you wish to get the image printed at a digital photo printing service. I highly recommend Wal-Mart’s digital printing services, since you can get 4×6 prints for only 24¢ each and can pick them up in the store just like normally developed pictures.

[Editor’s note: For purposes of contextual coherence, it may be useful to know that this post originally appeared on the self-coded, PHP-based version of the synthetik.org homepage before being folded into this blog. -KM]

The day began innocently enough… Tabitha left for her first day of work at about seven o’clock this morning, leaving me and Kristopher here to enjoy a relaxing day off. Oh, how mistaken we were…

Not thirty minutes after Tabitha had pulled out of the driveway, I heard a loud crack, then screeching tires outside. I flew to the window and peeked outside half expecting to see a minor car collision, but what I found instead was our mailbox post broken in half. For those of you keeping count, this would be the fourth, yes FOURTH time our mailbox has been taken out. I went outside with the digital camera and snapped a few photographs of the damage, which included someone’s shattered side-view mirror, but no one ever came back to apologize and I did not get to the window quickly enough to see a vehicle drive off.

Anyway, like the last time this happened, I filed a hit-and-run police report. Our neighbors in the other half of our duplex called our landlord and by noon today the mailbox was once again standing defiantly in the face of certain peril. I’ll try to get some photographs of the repaired post so you can check out the battle scars.

So Tabitha came home for her lunch break this afternoon and decided to check her e-mail on our main computer, named Kunshin. Kunshin is running nearly all the time, except when a good night’s sleep for Tabitha demands absolute silence (this was once the source of an epic conflict since unlike Tabitha, my ears hear the gentle hum of computer cooling fans as a sweet lullaby). So last night Kunshin was powered down after nearly seven days of straight uptime (not bad for a WIndows box – gotta love Windows 2000) so that Tabitha would be running on all cylinders for her first day of work. Lo and behold, my dearest and most trusted machine blue-screened as soon as Windows cranked up. For you Windows 98 users, I realize that blue screens aren’t usually a major cause for concern – usually a reboot takes care of the problem. However Win2k is a whole other animal. This particular nasty BSOD is commonly referred to as Stop 0x7B, translated in English: “INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.”

My reaction: Panic. Utter panic. I haven’t backed up in nearly 2 months, not because I do not realize the dangers of failing to back up my important files on a regular basis, but because I am just too lazy or busy (depending on the time and day) to do it. I jumped on the computer in our living room, Netsurai, and started looking for answers. When I first began writing this entry, I had little to no hope of getting the system restored. Microsoft’s technical support knowledge base article on the error did very little to console me. In spite of my pessimism, I booted the machine with the Windows 2000 installation CD anyway and ran chkdsk /f as instructed in the “Resolving the Problem” section of a related article linked to by Stop 0x7B, knowing that my next command would inevitably be format c:.

After chkdsk completed its repairs, I rebooted the system, and nearly jumped through the ceiling when I saw the login prompt come up on the screen. I thank God that we didn’t lose two months of documents and photographs as well as the time it takes to re-install everything – and that was an optimistic damage estimate. I was so sure I would be forced into purchasing a new hard drive that I was already comparing prices. I still say Maxtor makes the best dang hard drives on the planet.

In spite of all this we are finishing the day relatively unscathed. Kunshin is running strong, our mailbox is standing proudly, my blood pressure is finally coming down where it belongs, and we all learned valuable lesson about backing up. Tabitha had a wonderful first day at work, and as always, Kristopher enjoyed his daily routine of tearing up the house.

Well, it is certainly turning into a busy week!

Tabitha put the Christmas tree up on Sunday, and I must say it looks as beautiful as ever! In addition, she got a call Monday evening from Westside Veterinary Clinic (where she did her internship) and was offered a job! We’re really excited that she won’t have a long commute to work, as we feared she would be forced to take a job out of town.

Our Christmas cards should be going out shortly, since we just got our photographs back from processing. We took a picture of Kristopher in front of the Christmas tree and took it to the digital printing station at Wal-Mart. I must say the quality of these prints is exceptional! At 24 cents a print, they were certainly worth the price. The only drawback is that we had to stand in line for about 30 minutes to use the processing station. I imagine that the lines will continue to get longer and longer as more people purchase digital cameras, so we may look into getting digital photo printer sometime.

We attended the annual Captain D’s Christmas party for the Kentucky division last night at Patti’s Restaurant in Grand Rivers, KY. If you have never been there around the holiday season, I strongly suggest you go check it out. We attempted to take a few photographs of the decorations, but most of them did not come out so well – must have been an incorrect camera setting somewhere.

I think I forgot to mention that our dryer has been down since Saturday, but today, after a couple days of telephone tag with the repair company, someone finally made it out and replaced a belt. We are very grateful that our landlord has been so great at taking care of problems quickly.