rocking the to-do list and other tidbits

So I know you can't read this list, cause it is all backwards and stuff, but this me in the coffeeshop today and the to-do list that I am currently rocking.

You would think with a week long break between student teaching assignments, I would be all over this here blog, writing posts and bumming around.  Unfortunately this week has also been the week of the giant to-do list, midterms and you know generally making sure I am not falling horribly behind with life in general.  Fortunately this week hasn’t been all work and no play, I got to go on a nerdy late night graphic novel comic book run, play rook and drink some beers (or in my case this horrible horrible stuff called wild berry jack that tasted like cough syrup mixed with a drop or two of whiskey – I highly recommend avoiding) with my small group – youth edition, hang out with the Becca, start watching a few episodes of Castle with the awesome Nathan Fillion, sleep in, continue the never-ending work of organizing my room and spend two good blocks of time working in my local coffeeshop.

The other big story in my life has been the saga of my computer, which I was gonna write up for you all in some very amusing way.  But now that it is almost two weeks since my poor laptop lay down and died on me, I will indulge in the short version.

Monday: Abby’s beloved 4 year old laptop develops extreme spinny balls of death and goes black.  It won’t restart despite Abby’s polite pleading and will only pathetically flash a file folder with a question mark on it (this is a very bad sign for you none mac folks).  Abby sheds tears (or would have if she hadn’t been student teaching at the time) and got herself to the Apple Store, where they declare that it is indeed dead and it is either couple of hundred bucks to repair or over a thousand to replace.

Tuesday – Friday: Abby hems and haws and asks lots of people for advice, she gets lots of good help.  Finally she decides that she isn’t ready to plop down the mega bucks and replace, so repair it is.  She heads off to the Apple Store and low and behold meets the best Apple Genius ever! He takes a look at her computer, does some mysterious checky things in the back and informs her a)don’t waste her money or trying to get info from her dead hard drive cause it is busted in a really final kind of way b)don’t bother sending it off for pricey Apple Repair shop instead c)do it yourself d)oh and here is a shopping list to take to Best Buy, some instructions and a free little wristband you should use when you replace your hard drive to avoid busting it with your amazing static electricity.

Saturday: Happy Abby goes to Best Buy and purchases new 320gb hard drive, which is a slight upgrade from her 60gb dead hard drive, and a $10 computer tool kit which makes her feel like a very proud little nerd.

Sunday: Abby clears off her desk, amasses all her little tools (namely two special screwdrivers), takes a deep breath and prepares to operate.  SUCCESS! Abby feels very proud, but pretty bummed when she discovers that she can’t find her old Mac OS X operating discs and that the ones she borrowed from Becca don’t work.

Monday: Abby meets up with Mac Genius friend who has lots of install discs, they sit around and watch Abby’s newly repaired laptop install Mac OS X 10.5 (an upgrade from Abby’s old operating system) and Abby does internal happy dance.  Abby then spends most of the rest of the day re-installing lots of things and generally full out nerding.

So there you go, I guess that was a little longer than I anticipated, but I have to say nothing beats fixing things yourself and managing to save money at the same time.  Somewhere my Menno ancestors are both bemused and probably a proud (except for that whole technology thing – so they are probably actually disappointed and confused, but I like to think that some of them would have loved computers if they had ever had the chance to use them).

Okay one last thing – I recently had this little email exchange with Meryl in which I replied to a random email she sent me almost 2 years ago.  I thought it was kind of funny, so here you go:

From: Meryl	Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:42 PM
To: Abby
Abby, Since you are the expert now on all things books, how many different books are there in the world?  Currently in print?  Out of print?  Never been printed?  We need numbers.  Provide them please if you have access to such classified information.I love you. Bookwarmly yours, Mer

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From: Abby	Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 10:49 AM
To: Meryl
Meryl, I just stumbled across this aged email in my inbox that I apparently never responded to, so let me take some time and get back to you about your important request. First off there are approximately 8 different books in the world.  While there are many different titles, all books can fall into these specific 8 categories.  These include: Published books, unpublished books, books that never got written and only lived in the authors’ head, books for children, books for children that are actually quite helpful for adults, books for everyone, books for no one and of course Science Fiction. There are currently 108,743.5 books in print including such classics as Gone with the Wind, the Bible and its related bestseller the LolCat bible (a popular translation among felines and internet nerds.  However there are an additional 409, 371.7 books out of print and that includes Anatomy of Plants by Nathaniel Grew and the early Clifford books.  As for never printed that is a harder number to quantify by the librarian from Dreamland assures me that it is much higher than both of those previous numbers combined. Anyways I hope this helps you in your research. love, Abby

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From: Meryl	Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 11:31 PM
To: Abby
Wow, this is awesome!  I don’t even remember writing this, or who I was with.But in response, I am curious what your favorite genre is?  Perhaps that’s the kind of library you should work in.  I think my favorite genre is the unwritten – such a huge library, the possibilities of what you could read are endless!