Kudos, Accolades and that $%&*! computer

Let's start with the kudos and accolades, shall we?

First off, I want to thank Loyal Follower/Reader Lo for giving me my first ever "Beautiful Blogger Award" nomination.  My little blog has never been nominated for anything, except perhaps a Debbie Downer award the way things have been going lately, so this is a delightful surprise for me.  And it took several days before I knew about it because I hadn't read my comments because I didn't know I had any comments until I went to edit a post and saw that I had comments!  I finally figured out how to be notified when someone leaves a comment so I can comment back to the comments left in the comments section.  Let's see, I used the word "comment(s)" 8 times! 

Next up is a couple of Atta Boys for Thing 1, my son Thing 1. Whose real name isn't Thing 1.  That's just the name I use when I refer to him on the World Wide Interweb.  His real name is Mr. Pinko.  Ok, it's not but that IS the name I use the most here at home.  And when I've used it in front of his cronies, much snickering ensued.  We're real big on nicknames in this family, lemme tell you. Mr. Pinko, Little Mama, Gypsy, Cuppers are just a few of the names we answer to around here.  Anyway, back to my First Born.


Behold!  The AMA District 37 Lightweight II Enduro and Best of the West Champion for 2009:

 

And his crutches.  He doesn't leave home without them. 

But wait!  There's more!  On Monday, an envelope arrived in the mail.  When I saw that it was from California State University Enrollment Services and that it was a rather thin envelope, my heart sank a bit.  This was the only college that Thing 1 had applied to and the sight of "The Skinny Envelope" wasn't looking good.  Back in the day, when you were accepted to a college, you got a big packet.  This was Not.  TheManTheMyth and I were holding it up to the light and trying to read what it said because we would NEVER open mail addressed to our children but we have no qualms about trying to squint through the address window.  Thing 1 gets home from school and I solemnly hand him the envelope and tell him, "I don't think you got in."  He gives me this "Oh, please" look, opens the envelope and I read, over his shoulder of course:  "Dear Thing 1, on behalf of the faculty, administration, etc. it is my privilege to extend to you an invitation to become part of the CSULB community for the Fall 2010 term.  Welcome to CSULB!..."

He got in!  For those who don't think this is all that big a deal, CSULong Beach had over 70,000 applicants.  That's SEVENTY THOUSAND.  I am so darn proud I could just plotz.  I squealed and grabbed him in a Mama Bear hug and he squirmed his way out of it and said, "What, you didn't think I'd get in?"  Well, I wasn't SURE.  Did I mention that there were 70,000 applicants?  Now, we just have to come up with tuition.

Ok, happy stuff over.  Let's get back to my computer woes, shall we?  Since I really don't know a helluva lot about computers except that Macs = Good, Windows machines = Bad, I really wish I had had someone with a clear head with me when I got the news that my old laptop was terminal.  They could have told me that instead of forking out $$$ on a new laptop that turns out to be pretty much useless for what I need it for, I could have either a) just replaced my corrupted hard drive with a new one and re-loaded all my programs into it and be on my way or 2) purchased a used laptop off of eBay for a lot less $$$.  Neither of those options even occurred to me and they were definitely not suggested to me by the "doctors" at the computer store repair desk.  And to make matters worse, I left my old laptop behind to be recycled because I didn't know any better.

It's going to be hard to sit down from all the bruises on my backside from kicking myself.

But hey!  My little boy is not only a Champion, he's going to College!