Critter’s Krib

This is what I get when I boot up the MAC. This is not
reassuring and cannot be good

To be honest, I am not quite sure what caused it. Not like it really matters, because it happened plain and simple. My harddrive croaked
– Did you get that? It died. It ceased to function. It worketh no more.
The past few days have all been such a blur, I am not sure if it happened on Thursday or Friday. Although, I am leaning towards Friday.

My computer had done some “automatic updates’ and needed to reboot. After rebooting, and just after the bios post it just hung. Nothing happened.
The harddrive would make a random noise, but the computer just sat at the baby blue “Welcome” screen.

Don’t panic

Ok, this is no big deal. I can handle this. Really, I can. I have a spare 300 GB SATA drive. It’s brand new, but I have only used IDE drives in the
past. I was pretty sure they had to make some sort of adapter, so I gave Intrex call. The bloke on the phone confirmed
they had the adapter I needed.

After picking Talon up from school — green again with no tally marks! — we drove over to Intrex and purchased the
adapter. I was expecting it to cost about $50, but was pleasantly surprised at it’s $14.95 price tag. The adapter and harddrive installed quickly
and painlessly, and within a few minutes I was reinstalling Windows XP.

The install completed without any complications. A few odds and ends needed to have their drivers reinstalled. No sweat,
Google was my friend. I couldn’t read the numbers on my video controller so I shut down the computer
and pulled the card out so I could read the numbers clearly. I put the card back in and started the computer up and.. Wait a second.
Nothing is happening! The computer is not going past the boot screen. It is just sitting there, no noise, no sound, nothing.

I took everything out of the computer and tried just about every combination of peripherals I could think of, but nothing worked. It seems the drive –
the brand new, never been used 300 GB drive — was dead. That will probably be my only experience with a SATA drive. I ran out and
purchased a 320 GB IDE drive and started the process all over again. This time things went as they should and 2.5 days later, I am finally getting
back online.

Once I get a bit of free time (stop laughing), I am going to attempt throwing my original dead drive and my new dead SATA drive into another
computer to see if I can get anything off of them.

Oh well, what can you do, really? So much of our lives are kept on and revolve around computers. When something happens, it can definitely
be an “Oh shit!” moment. *shrug* Maybe it is just me getting older, or maybe even wiser, but this time I did not panic. Screw it.

Talon and I are sitting in the movie theater waiting for Over the
hedge to start. The popcorn tastes like shit. They must have burned
it or something. I’ll wait until after the movie to return it.

Check this out, we are sitting at the back of the theater, with over
30 seats available and I am pinned in. There is a family of a gazillion
to my left and a fiver on my right wtf!?

Wow, I can’t believe Tim Allen is doing a Santa Clause III

Movie is starting… Later

For those of you interested Microsoft has made Beta 2 of Office 12
available for the general public.

My installs went pretty smoothly except for the of OneNote. It threw an error. I sent in the report, I guess we’ll see what happens in
the next release. I might even try it again after a reboot. Those always seem to fix things. Wouldn’t that be funny? If the report
sent in just said “Error unknown. Suggestion - Reboot” ha! These versions of Office 12 are good until January of 2007, so you can play
for a while for free.

I was prompted to update my Windows Desktop Search for better searching in Outlook — I only use it for work, I am still a diehard
the Bat! fan — but after downloading the small desktop search install file. I kept getting an “Access
is Denied” error. After a bit of searching on the web I found this knowledge base article
on how to fix the problem. The article does state that if it doesn’t work the first time, keep doing it until it does. If you have to do it, you
will understand what they are talking about. It did take a while to complete, but eventually it installed with no problems.

Season finale of LOST just finished. All I can come up with to write is Holy shit!!

I will have to get my thoughts together, but it has definitely left me hungry for more! bah!

You heard me correctly, apparently we here in North Carolina, do not care if parents make decisions that lead to their childs death. I know, crazy right?
But have a read of this article and you will see what I mean.

Now, one can assume (possibly) that the mother was a single mother doing her best to support her child. The article states that she was working a double
shift and had noone to care for the child while she was at work. So she decided to leave him in the car.

“She told him to stay in the vehicle and use the diapers if he needed to go to the bathroom,” Wijewickrama said. “And he did. He died listening to his mom.”

Her 8 year old son died because of a decision she made. And while she may have thought leaving him in the car was the lesser of possible evils, it was
still a bad decision.

And sure you can use the argument that “losing a child is punishment enough” And in her mind I am sure that anything else would be adding insult to injury.
Hell, if I was responsible for my son’s death, you wouldn’t have to worry about me facing any charges or being convicted. I couldn’t live with myself. No way,
no how. But the bottom line is she caused the death of her son.

If a bartender over serves a person and they go out and kill someone or get killed themselves, that bartender can be held responsible, and they might
not even be directly responsible for the life lost. She was, she was directly responsible for the life and death of her child.

It is a truly sad story. It sucks that a child has lost his life. It sucks that a mother has lost her son. But how are we to teach our children that there
are consequences for their actions if we as adults are not held accountable for ours?

… he’s got a fever of a 103.. he’s hot blooded, hot blooded…

Talon came home yesterday from school with a slight fever. I had expected it
to ease up by morning, unfortunately that did not happen. He has been kicking
it at 101.7 ° this morning, then rollercoastering (new word?) up and down
most of the day.

I rang his doctor this afternoon to make a pre-emptive appointment for tomorrow
morning should his fever not break overnight. I was given the 9:45 am slot, and
told cancellations within 24 hours of the appointment and no-shows would be billed.
I explained to them, I wanted to ensure I had an appointment for Talon as early as
possible shuold he not be better by morning. They just said I would be billed if I
cancelled. What a crock of shit. I told them to stuff it. Idiots.

Oh well, I hope he feels better soon. I know he is definitely off when he doesn’t want
to play with the PSP. Poor guy. It breaks my heart to see him like this.

We’ve had a pretty busy and eventful week(end). Friday evening we had a TaeKwonDo picnic at Womble park in HollySprings. There were three schools in
attendance. We did a bit of bo (staff) training, then eats after that. Talon had a great time. He gets so excited when he does TaeKwonDo, I cannot
help but to smile all the time. Rather than eat at the picnic the lot of us — Myself,Talon, his sister and Kate and her husband, Ricky — decided
to grab a bite to eat at Chile’s, instead. I, in my infinite genius like wisdon, phoned ahead, so we did not have to wait long. It was fun, and I am sure
Talon enjoys us all doing things together.

Saturday morning we had another class and we are both loving it! It is funny how much how it all starts to flood back after all these years.
I think Talon also loves the fact that we are both dressed the same too

I took the beast to the vet’s this morning for her checkup. She’s a healthy horse and weighed in at 105 lbs. The visit cost a bit more than I had originally planned, but I had to pick up a 6 month supply of heatworm and flea stuff, so that added to the bill nicely.

It’s funny, I lose perspective of exactly how big Brandy is, due to seeing her on a daily basis. Everyone at the clinic kept commenting on her size. Their jaws dropped even more when they found out she is only a year and a half old. She kept standing up on the counter. She must stand about 6.5 feet tall when she’s propped herself up.

Above are a few recent pictures and a few old ones. She was so cute and goofy. Now she is just goofy, but at least she has a wiser look to her

PENSACOLA, Florida (AP) — A former gym teacher pleaded guilty to taking $1-a-day bribes from middle school students who didn’t want to change their clothes for class.
Under his plea deal, Terence Braxton, 28, was sentenced Wednesday to three years probation for felony bribery, ordered to pay back the students at Ernest Ward Middle School, and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.
His Florida teaching certificate was permanently revoked, though Circuit Judge Michael Allen’s ruling means Braxton could teach in another state.
“I’m ready to get on with my probation and get back to teaching,” said Braxton, of Atmore, Alabama. “It was a mistake, my first job. I regret doing it.”

Article Link

Wow, how sad is it that the kids are too bloody lazy to want to participate in P.E. That was the best class there was! And Am I the only one
bothered by his statement about getting back to teaching? I guess he’s moved on to teaching in Alabama, now.