Category Archives: Life

So, not much more than one week after I got back my fancy, expensive camera, I was sitting there, editing my photos on my powerbook, and *thunk* my chocolate milk is suddenly pouring all over the keyboard. My instant reaction was to lift up the computer, turn it upside down, and lay it on the floor to let the milk drain out. I wasn’t quite quick enough, though, and within seconds, the machine made a sad little beeping noise and shut down.

I spent the next half an hour, or so, soaking chocolate milk out of the keyboard with various towels, and then cleaning it up off the couch and the carpet. It may be a while before I ever drink chocolate milk again.

I decided to pull up directions on how to get under the keyboard on line, and I opened up this computer for the first time. I was a laptop repair technician for a couple years in college, so the idea of pulling the thing to pieces and cleaning it up wasn’t that scary. And it didn’t turn out to be difficult. Unfortunately, there was milk EVERYWHERE. A puddle in the middle of the logic board, under and above the RAM, under the harddrive and the DVD drive.

While I had my machine open, Mark was sitting on the couch in front of his laptop. At one point, he turned around on the couch and knocked over the TV tray that had his laptop sitting on it.

“Oh, it’s not turning back on.” He mumbled when he lifted it off the floor. He popped out the battery and plugged it back in to see if that was the problem. Suddenly, a plume of SMOKE came pouring out the side of his laptop, and BRIGHT ORANGE FLAMES shot out the side!! Mark grabbed the battery, yanked it out of his computer, and threw it across the room!

“So, that’s broken.” He said calmly.

We stood there silently, shocked and dumbfounded. Our living room smelled strongly of burnt solder and toasted chocolate milk. Liv wagged her tail.

The next day we spent doing triage. It turns out Mark’s laptop had the super extended warranty and was still covered for drops and spontaneous combustion. My laptop was over three years old, and replacing the logic board alone would cost over $800. I decided, rather than send it out and have somebody try to repair it, I would spend the first part of my money and energy trying to get my photos and music off the harddrive (if I still could) and then probably just replace the machine.

After having most of the computer shops in town turn me away as nobody can read the Mac File System, I learned that the drive was still working, and the guys at Run PC sold me a $20 enclosure that turned the laptop harddrive into an external drive. I was finally able to access all of my data on my work computer this afternoon.

I feel like some kind of weird necromancer right now. The hulking, sticky shell of my dead computer is still sitting in pieces on my dining room table. But I’ve managed to resurrect it’s spirit and soul temporarily inside my computer here at work. Hey there laptop! Not doing so well, are we?

Wow, quite the story this week!! On Sunday night, after an exhausting but really fun hike up to the summit of Greyrock and back, I sat down in the grass next to our car and started digging through my backpack looking for my car keys. I pulled the camera out (which was the biggest thing in the pack) and set it next to me on the ground. As I was digging around, Mark showed up. He had the car keys.

Mark said “Hey, let’s jump in the car and go pick your mom up in the parking lot! That way she doesn’t have to walk down the steps again!”

I grabbed my bag, hopped in the car, and we drove off to dinner. Yes, I left my extremely nice, very expensive, Nikon D70 sitting in the grass on the side of the highway in the Poudre Canyon. And I didn’t realise it was gone for another two hours!

When we got home that night, my heart just about exploded when I realized what had happened. Mark and I got back in the car and drove all the way up to the Greyrock trailhead at 10pm that night, in the pouring rain. When we got there, it was completely dark, and we spent a half hour wandering all over the trailhead looking for a camera that just wasn’t there. It was gone. Completely gone.

The next morning, I started about trying to put my contact information out so that if a nice hiker had happend to pick it up, they could find me. I called the Fort Collins police department, and left my name and a description of the camera with their Property and Evidence department. The very nice woman taking the notes candidly told me “You know, chances are slim-to-none that you’ll ever see this camera again.”

I filed a report with the Larimer County Sheriff, and gave him the serial numbers for the camera and lens to put in the computer. I left a description and my contact information with the local office for the Roosevelt and Arapaho National Forests. Then I left postings on Craig’s List, Summit Post and Mountain Project.

Needless to say, I was really upset. I kept randomly crying on Monday, every time I’d see a battery charger or UV filter and know that there was no camera to use them on. I talked to our insurance guy, and we could put in a claim on our home-owner’s. It would raise our rates by $77 a year for three years, and we had a $500 deductible, of course. I was looking at cameras to replace it with, and since Nikon stopped making the D70 a few years ago, I really wasn’t sure what to invest in, or even if there was any way we could afford a decent replacement. The $4000 in checks to the IRS just cleared last week, and our funds are low.

By Tuesday, I was pretty sure the camera was gone. I had picked out a Nikon D40x that I could use, and maybe afford, but I just didn’t think it would be as good as my D70. I posted this picture on Flickr and got a lot of sympathy, but no actual help.

Then, in the evening after yoga, I got two emails from a woman in Greeley who said that she saw my add on Craig’s List and that her husband had my camera!! Just like that! She gave me his phone number, and I called up Mr. Doug in a flurry of excitement.

It turns out, he had been with a group of boyscout leaders practicing their backpacking that had hiked out right behind us. He had seen the camera, and picked it up to keep it out of the rain, and took it home with him. On Monday, they were looking on the Coloradoan for my add, and didn’t want to put out their own for fear that every crazy in Colorado would be calling them to “claim” their “lost” camera. On Tuesday afternoon, Doug’s wife decided to check Craig’s List, and when she saw my article, she knew that was it!

Tuesday night we drove out to Greeley, and picked up the camera. Doug was really nice, he presented me first with a disposable camera and said “Is this it?” I almost passed out. Then he pulled out my Nikon and I just about burst into tears again. It was so nice knowing that a perfect stranger out there might go through the trouble of picking up after my silly mistake, and then spending the time to search for the owner inorder to return this very nice camera. What a happy ending!!

Thank you Doug and Adela!!

Dog watching last weekend was lots of fun. I found a doggie that will actually look the camera in the eye! Echo is an awesome Australian shepherd that had a ball hanging out with us and playing with Liv all last weekend.

So, it’s Easter and Mark and I are finishing up the taxes. OUCH!!!! This year is especially painful as Mark’s new job did not withhold enough money to cover the taxes on his income, let alone my taxes in a higher bracket than CSU expects for grad students, plus we evidently made a wad of cash on our investments last year that we were less aware of than we thought. So, the IRS is bleeding us for a couple thousand extra on this snowy Easter Sunday.

While Mark was grumbling and cussing and rifling through papers this afternoon, I decided to have a little kitchen adventure, and I put together an appropriate desert for the day. Enjoy!

Bleeding Strawberry Trifle

1 quart fresh strawberries, sliced
1/3 cup good balsamic vinegar

2 cups heavy cream
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 fresh pound cake
1/3 cup Amaretto liqueur

In a small shallow dish, coat the strawberries with the balsamic vinegar and marinade them in the fridge for at least 15 to 20 minutes (in my case, and hour or two until we get around to making dinner). After the strawberries have marinated, check for sweetness, adding sugar if desired.

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, whisk the cream to soft peaks. Add the vanilla and confectioners’ sugar. Whip until stiff peaks. Set aside.

Using a serrated knife, slice pound cake lengthwise into 1/2-inch thick slices. Carefully cut out a small circle for the bottom of each of the martini glasses. Place small circle in the bottom of the glass and brush cakes Amaretto liqueur. Take a sip of Amaretto liqueur. Add a layer of marinated strawberries. Sprinkle with more sugar if desired. Add a layer of whipped cream.

Add a second layer of cake, this one will be much larger than the first. If your pound cake is shaped like mine, you just put in a whole piece and then knock the corners off. Brush with lots of Amaretto liqueur. Take another sip of the Amaretto. Add another layer of marinated strawberries. Top with a very large dollop of whipped cream. I garnished with small corners of strawberries in the whipped cream. Some recipes recommend amaretto cookie crumbs or mint leaves to garnish.

You can stick these in the refrigerator until serving. Also, use the remaining cake, cream and strawberries to create a few extra, not-as-pretty trifle dishes. If you refrigerate for at least 2 hours, the flavors can marry and it makes everything especially tasty.

So, there has to be something wrong with me, right? Some kind of learning disability or old brain tumor or something. I just went back and read most of these posts. Ok, so my tenses are a little confused recently, and that’s mostly because the voices of authors I’m reading right now are unfortunately seeping in.

No, what I want to apologize for is my spelling. Most specifically this (which I just found out. Seriously. I didn’t realize this until just now):

Lead is the present tense of the verb. Pronounced with a long ‘e’. As in “Mark leads the climb.”

Led is the past tense. Pronounced with a short ‘e’. As in “I led the climb for the 18th time and I still fell at the third bolt.” For years now, I’ve been pronouncing it correctly but spelling it the same as above. Shoot. What was I thinking?

Ah ha! Yes, if you read all the way to the bottom of the dictionary entry, “Lead” can be pronounced with a short ‘e’ as in the metal. As in “I sucked on that paint brush until my teeth fell out from lead poisoning.” So, not crazy. Just didn’t quite have the connections right in that spelling part of the brain.

We had a great spring weekend again. Over an inch of rain on Saturday (and 4 inches of snow in Wyoming) causes us to change plans at the last minute and take the group out to climb in Eldorado Canyon. I got some cool shots, and I’ll be posting them in the next couple of days.

Also, we got the good news today that our trip to Devil’s Tower at the beginning of May is officially confirmed. Possible obstructions are not an issue, and I’m REALLY excited about it. We have reservations to climb with Frank Sanders for a day of Master Jammer crack-climbing school on Saturday, and a day of summiting the tower over and over again on Sunday! Frank is a legend in the climbing community, and I feel so lucky and excited that we are able to get a weekend in with him this spring. It should be a really incredible experience.

In the confirmation email, Frank suggested we check out this “What about me?” video on You-Tube. I enjoyed it so much, I thought I’d post it here to share with everybody. Enjoy!

Eight hours of flying, 6 hours in airports, five different security screenings and one long shuttle ride later; Mark and I collapsed inside of our front door. We’re home! Sorry about the lack of blogging, but it’s been an awesome week and I took over 700 photos. I don’t know where to start! :)

Ok, while we’re on the subject of recycling clothing, a friend sent me a link to Patagonia’s site, where they have begun a campaign to recycle old capilene garments. The movie … is pretty darn awesome. I had to post it here. Thanks Patagonia!!