forever your loving Son,
Vincent

[SKIP THIS PART IF TECHNOLOGY CONFUSES YOU]

See, I had done a lot of data recovery over the years on bad hard drives, CDs, DVDs, memory cards, flash/thumb drives, old pianos, circus midgets and the occasional dark elf so I was pretty confident I’d be able to recover all her images off the whacked-out/corrupted SD card.

The minute I received the card I tried it on all my computers and while they knew there was a memory card inserted, they could not read or see anything on it.

Which is a bad thing because it meant the card was severely corrupted and inaccessible to the computers. So no amount of software I had in my data recovery arsenal would probably work. What to do?

[KEEP ON SKIPPING NOTHING TO SEE HERE EXCEPT A PRETTY GRAPHIC I WORKED VERY HARD ON]

[OK THE CONFUSING PART’S OVER]

Still not stumped but a tad intrigued, I put my digital camera on PLAY MODE, with her corrupted card inside it and an amazing thing happened. The little green thinking light went crazy and after a few seconds an image appeared. IT WAS ONE OF HER LOST PICTURES! My digital camera was able to see the card and slowly started resurrecting her wiped, corrupted pics! My camera worked on this problem for about ten minutes and after it was done all of her pictures were there - all 217 of them. Fully freaking restored?! TA-DAAAA!

Who knew? I never saw that one before but hey, I go with anything that works. I quickly connected the camera to the computer and copied over all the restored pictures and thus, with the help of my trusty Canon Powershot A580 digital camera/new data recovery tool, my title of Miracle Worker was still in place.

My camera saved the day, I took credit for it, somewhere where it’s cold all the time a nice lady with six children got some of her precious memories back and the world is a better place, indeed. Boo-ya!

Anyone who knows me understands how practical I am, even though I am a die-hard übergeek. I love the shiny-new toys but unless I have a reason for it, I almost never buy it just because it’s shiny or cool, that’s for pretend ubergeeks or those people they put up those ridiculous impulse aisles in supermarkets. I buy shinies when they’re reasonably priced, suit a purpose I need them for and are well-worth the dough I have to shell out.

My previous cell phone was a nice Samsung Trance. It wasn’t a smartphone, it made calls (sadly not the most important feature in a phone for a ton of morons out there), played music had a camera and fit in the the coin pocket of my jeans. It was small, tiny even, super thin and had more than enough features to make me happy. Oh, and no stupid flip the phone open to answer a call (I HATE THAT!), all you had to do was slide it open. To end a call *gasp* you slid it shut. Loved it!

But alas, Mr. Trance was immediately shoved in a drawer somewhere the minute I opened up that nicely wrapped box to discover I had now been gifted a Droid X this Christmas. (I don’t even know where I shoved the Trance, poor thing.)

To say I love my X is an understatement. I haven’t been this shocked since a very special birthday when my sistas gave me an iPod. This X is my first smartphone and X-tremely special just like my iPod.

I’ve always loved the Droid X since it came out and after showing it to my brother when he was in need of a new phone, he got one. My love of the phone (and the Android platform) was known to everyone I know, but still, I wasn’t really looking for one yet because my old phone fit my needs just fine and I was waiting for a good deal on it or the next better alternative later on when the time came.

Well, it came early on December 25th!

I immediately did a lot of reading and investigating to trick out and hack my phone. It wasn’t an hour old when I started downloading free apps and tricking the sucker out to customize it and expand it’s functionality, as any true ubergeek will do.

I take my Droid X everywhere I go and if I forget it for a second in the house I go and get it. While I wouldn’t call it immediate separation anxiety, if it’s not on my person or right beside me, I have to find it. It’s legal to marry a smartphone, right? If not it should be! Who’s with me?!

Droid. It’s what most people use. We are many. We are Droid.

Nah, I’ll just comment high praise on the Seamonkey browser’s spell check knowing how to properly spell schizophrenic. Kudos, Seamonkey spell-check. Kudos.

The end.

Welcome home, 2011. Welcome home.

Anywhoo, thanks to American Airlines for providing me with a great deal, $227 for round-trip nonstop flights to Texas and back I booked my trip and informed my lucky host I was coming over for a few weeks. Surprisingly he didn’t leg it and was very happy I was traveling over 1,100 miles at 34,000 feet to stay for a few weeks. What can I say, all my friends are ing .

I usually don’t have any problems packing but life at the ole homestead was unusually hectic with minor and major disasters (not to me, the Universe as always luvs me) so instead of having 36 hours or so to pack and organize everything, I had about 27 minutes or so, give or take 27 minutes.

I had a lot to do and no time to do it. I needed to pack, I had to buy new sneakers, clean up a few hard drives and then there was my laptop to configure.

This would be my laptop’s first trip on a plane (first trip anywhere actually) and it was real excited to be loaded with a lot more software than usual. Since this was it’s first trip it was a little nervous but my iPod Nano told it all about it’s trip a few years back and lappy calmed down. Before I left I accidentally made sure that my laptop case was chock full of enough cables, wires and electronic doo-dads to look like a tick-tick-tick-BOOM thingy on X-ray. The case was bulging at the seams with all kinds of tech, it’s a wonder it didn’t explode! I still can’t believe when they scanned it no one tackled and body searched me.

Because something in my wallet is impervious to being scanned (it’s gotta be my Jersey Mike’s card, I just know it), I got to go through one of those body scanners you hear about that enable people to see your junk and make late-night Showtime flicks with. I think the person at the other end liked what they saw because they asked me to jump up and down and do a few pelvic thrusts to help “calibrate the machine.”

I even got a phone number. I wonder if it was from a man or woman.

In passing, one of the things I didn’t like was kicking off my brand new shoes that took hours to find that fit my feet perfectly. And when I took my belt off too, as I was looking around I couldn’t help but think thank The Maker that there was never an underwear bomber. Although there were a few ladies in line I’d love to see if there was, the view would have been spoiled by the other 257 hairy and plump Quasimodos aka “average Americans.” *shudder*

That’s it for now peeps, next time I’ll post some travel tips and highlights. Smell ya later…

Maybe it felt betrayed by my callous disregard for it’s loyal, care-free service. Perhaps it was angry because I pampered it, like I do all my computers and the new owner might not treat it so well? Could it be possible that it was going to join in on my plastic eject button’s plot to kill me?

Who’s to say? All I know is it’s gone and I got some nice cold hard cash and plopped my new backup rig ton’s o’spare parts laptop on my desk. *tee hee*

Did I feel any guilt? Remorse at flinging my old servant into the arms of a random stranger? Nope. The minute I laid my head on the pillow, I slept like a baby…

Until the next day my accidentally left on cellphone woke me up with a text-message barrage at 2:30 in the morning from the guy who bought the rig.

Seems he dropped the computer right after getting it home, which shorted out the brand new video card I put in it and then it wouldn’t boot after he botched putting Vista on and he was freaking out at 2:30am and wanted his money back.

Riiiighhht.

I called the guy back and gave him some options. He was done with the computer he broke and wanted all his money back but that wasn’t going to happen. He could replace the brand new video card he broke and if the computer tested out OK, I’d give him his money back minus a fair fee for my time getting it back in working condition. Or he could do what I was perfectly capable of telling him - take the computer he broke and have a nice day.

In the end after I tested the computer out he got some of his money back and I got the computer to resell to someone that would take care of it.

So I sent the card out for repair and relisted my poor, abused backup rig on Craigslist. This time around, I put XP on it, a ton of free software for viewing graphics, movies, DVDs and created a restore disc for it. Since it no longer had the good graphics card in it and I’m not greedy I sold it for a reduced price and someone snatched it up real quick. And I made some more money than I originally did selling it the first time around and someone who really needed a computer and knew how to take care of it got one so hey, it’s all good!

If I close my eyes I can still hear my previous backup rig’s screams… but that’s OK as my laptop’s silence covers it up quite nicely!

I wonder if my backup rig understood it’s time was up when I actually kept the last laptop I refurbished; a sweet little Intel dual-core beauty? This one was too good to let go, as it didn’t cost me anything and almost every part, including the screen I have drop-in replacements for. That’s a stroke of luck that just normally doesn’t come your way often let alone ever. I even have 2 good extended capacity batteries for it as well! SCORE!!

I’ve been using the laptop as my backup rig and over the last 2 years or so using a laptop as a desktop replacement has been not only possible but affordable.

When I was still in Las Vegas I accidentally stumbled upon refurbishing, repairing and re-selling laptops because they were so plentiful and cheap. I never paid more than $50 for a non-working/broken laptop and 90% of the time I was able to repair and resell them for a couple hundred dollars more than they cost me. If I didn’t manage to repair one, I cannibalized it for parts and resold them for twice what I paid for them so I always made some money.

Every once in a while, I’d come across a laptop I liked once I fixed it and contemplated keeping it. But I really didn’t have a need for a laptop and quickly sold it for $$$$ before I could get too attached to it.

But this one was the most powerful of the lot, with a non-crippled fast Intel dual core chip and the donor computer I was going to use to fix it was exactly the same except for the CPU in it; so I had plenty of duplicate parts if I could get it to work. And with a little help from a local genius here we were able to get it up and running again without having to take any parts from the donor unit.

Heck, we even swapped the cleaner keyboard, bottom less scratched shell and the trackpad with no paint worn off on the left button from the donor unit just so it looked nicer for fun while we had everything open.

So I now have a nice Acer 5570z laptop that works great and has spare parts for everything in it (save for the processor and mobo) and my poor previous backup rig is going to be sent to the highest bidder. Oh well that’s the circle of life when it comes to computing.

Did I mention the beauty of using a laptop instead of a desktop as a secondary machine is it’s a lot smaller and whisper quiet?

Ahhhh. Silence = golden. Well except for the whining from the backup rig headed out the door…

I’m currently listening to Boondocks by Little Big Town. Yeah, and it calls to me like a warm wind blowing…

I keep a pencil in the car so I can write down and try to find songs I heard on the radio. I used to have it there so I could write down ideas I thought of but all those accidents around me kept getting in the way of my jotting them down as I drove.

There’s an evil cat on my bed. I petted the kitty for a few minutes - no scratchies! Purr! Purr!

My laptop is busy downloading stuff to the left of me.

Somewhere above my head a ceiling fan churns to make it cooler in my room. Ok, well not somewhere, clearly it’s in my room and above my head. I know, I gave that one away.

Now I’m listening to Tim McGraw’s Live Like You’re Dying - I went skydiving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu…

I bought a nice 8 device learning remote specially geared for DirecTV/Dish/Cable that’s pretty light and has conveniently located buttons. I haven’t programmed it yet, so I can’t tell you if it works as advertised. $16 from Target. Boo-freaking-ya!

I could network my laptop and one of my 2 desktops together with ease but I prefer using a 4gb SanDisk Cruizer flash drive to transfer files. I could use USB extender cables from both computers so that they lie next to each other right next to my keyboard but instead I use a USB Switch Hub to share the drive with a flick of a button. Vewwy vewwy convenient!

Tim McGraw’s Southern Voice is now playing on my speakers. Hank Williams sang it, Number 3 drove it Chuck Berry twanged it…

I also picked up 2 packs of sugar crack ala Chewy Mini Sweet Tarts from Target as well that I’m debating running downstairs and eating. Maybe not the best idea to down sugar crack late at night. The dreams are sure cool though. Lots o’ colors!

The doggies need to go out soon. It’s almost 11pm. If I forget to give them a biscuit afterwards, no worries they remind me. The stitches come out tomorrow. Theirs.

The Daily Show and Colbert Report has been on repeats all freaking week long, which sucks! Modern Marvels was good tonight though, watched Steam Power and Muscle Cars. Even sat through the commercials. The guy that does the voice, good job man! Never boring, always holds my interest. Thanks Max Raphael! Hey Gabe Doran you put me to sleep all the time when I try to watch How Stuff Works…

Hey, this volume knob on my keyboard really comes in handy when listening to music. Thanks Dell Enhanced USB Multimedia Keyboard!!

Just gave the Satan-cat her Purina Cat Chow Indoor formula. It smells like the cardboard bag but hey she loves it, so feh.

I like to drink my coffee in a very-chipped Good Housekeeping weird mug. Dunno why, I just do.

Speaking of coffee. I leave the spoon in and use it like a handle with my thumb. Anyone else do this?

God, I hate those new Power Ranger Daleks! How can you be scared when brightly colored Tupperware comes around the corner and shouts “Ex-ter-mi-nate!"? Oooh, look at the cute little baby. Are you cranky little fella? Come here, let me pop your head turret and burp ya you little silly… *burp* There, that’s better. Here, let me pour my leftover soup in you before you go off again…

I have wildly eclectic taste in music, even though I’m only listening to country right now as I type. Jesu Joy of Man, Jagged Little Pill, Gaga (and Greyson Chance’s) Poker Face and hey while we’re at it let’s toss in Chris DeBarge’s Don’t Pay the Ferryman!

Should I type some more? Nah, time to go grab a snack. You schmucks are on your own again. Byes!

PS. Enjoy life! It’s a limited time offer.