I Have Looked Everywhere, But It Is Lost

By now, you have certainly guessed that I am talking about my mind. I think I lost it Wednesday night, but since it is not here, I cannot be sure. Well, then how do I know that it was Wednesday? That was the night that the laptop wouldn't boot. How bad is that, you ask? It holds my photos, my music, my tax returns. It hooks me up to the interweb. Yes, I should have backed up more frequently. Let's not dwell in the past, though. Let's look ahead. I took it to the Apple Store last night for a 6:30 appointment at the Genius Bar. Whoo to the Hoo, my favorite kind of bar. They diagnosed that the problem was related to the video card. The repair cost is $310 and it has to be sent to a third party. I pondered my options. While cogitating, they announced that this is a common problem with this computer, and even though warranty was over long ago, they are fixing these for free. As I said above, Whoo to the Hoo. They warned me there is a risk I could lose my data, but I cannot access it right now anyway. I said, "Let's do it."

No photos does make it a challenge to share pictures with you. I grabbed a couple on my phone last night. First is from a book I have about lighthouses. You know I enjoy them. Here is one of Portland Head Light in Portland, ME. Of course we have been there. Otherwise, I would not have shared it, silly.

And I noticed these plates sitting on our table as I was packing to leave home. Our daughter-in-love made them a couple of years ago and I often overlook them. This one features lyrics from "When I'm Sixty-Four" by The Beatles.

OK, so I am computerless. I am also carless since having that T-Bone accident a couple of weeks ago. If problems really do run in threes, I still have one to go. I will worry about that some other day.

Maybe the other problem is a sale I saw on Groupon this morning. Check it out below. Notice the pricing of the second deal. Not much of a savings, is it?

I found this story on Yahoo today about a 22-year-old in GA who blew through a $90K college fund in three years and cannot fund her Senior year now. She went on the radio there in Atlanta and shared her story. However, it has generated a lot of comments. Listen to a couple of things this lady says:

Years ago my grandparents set up a college fund for me, which was amazing, and I haven’t been very good with my budget for school. The first payment for my senior year just arrived and I don’t have the money basically. I’ve just been avoiding it. I knew the bill was coming.”

“I used it to budget for school clothes and college break money. I probably should have not done that. I took a trip to Europe. The Europe thing I thought was part of my education and that’s how I tried to justify that.”

“Maybe [my parents] should have taught me to budget or something. They never sat me down and had a real serious talk about it.”

“[My parents] said there was nothing they could do for me. They’re not being honest with me saying they don't have [money] because my dad has worked for like a million years and they have a retirement account.”

“Then my parents suggested I go take out a loan at a credit union and I’m, like, how am I supposed to do that?"

Yes, all of the above is real. You might want to read the whole article, which I linked above.

Do you have any NFL-branded merchandise in your home? I imagine most of us do. Which franchise do you think has had the most logo changes? The Boston Braves/Boston Redskins/Washington Redskins franchise has seemingly had the most, using 10 different primary logos over the years. And the Least? Dallas has had only two, with the last (adding a white band around the edge of the star) occurring in 1964.

Do you have any spaghetti-branded merchandise in your home? No, I suppose not. Still, there is a story on Yahoo that will be of interest to anyone who makes their own spaghetti. Use a frying pan to cook the noodles. It saves time and money. There is an article and a video (with oh-so-snazzy music) here.

Do you have any Star Trek-branded merchandise in your home? Maybe. What if you could have something like the ship's computer in your home? According to David Pogue, Echo from Amazon is as close to it as there as anything right now. He makes a case that it is a great deal at $180. Check it out. She can even tell jokes. “Why don’t bicycles wake up early? They’re two-tired” “How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.”She also has some witty responses programmed in. “How much is that doggie in the window?” (”That one’s not for sale. But the one with the fluffy tail is really nice, too.”) “I want the truth.” (“You can’t handle the truth!”) “Inconceivable!” (”You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.”) “Open the pod bay doors.” (“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m not Hal, and you’re not in space.”) “What do you want to be when you grow up?” (”I want to be the computer from Star Trek!”)

I also saw an article about how weird the English language can be. We all know that is true, but some sentences are more challenging than others. How about this one?
Read rhymes with lead, and read rhymes with lead, but read and lead don’t rhyme, and neither do read and lead.

And another oddity of our language is this next sentence. My boss' boss' boss just came by, so I need to get on a task he assigned. Let me first share a CoV with you.

OK, I found one more item to share today. We all know about the various pronunciations of the "-ough" ending on words.
A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.

No, I really am done now. Have a great weekend.