A little snug, but I bought a 34 waist pair of jeans today.  I haven't worn those since high school.  I think.  Because I honestly can't remember.  Maybe junior year.  Eric may remember, since I'm sure he teased me mercilessly about having a larger waist than inseam.

Filmed the kids dancing to Santana (their favorite CD).  They keep asking for this music.  I'm so glad its this and not the wiggles.

Got back from vacation.  Didn't gain much weight, maybe five pounds on the outside.  Mom kept the food portions manageable, and I was able to work out regularly.  The vacation was good for the most part.  It was great being with the family, both in Milford and Huntington.  The 10th (!) anniversary was wonderful, especially without the kids .  Some bad news, though.  Lisa and Eric lost their second child (see their website for more).  Our thoughts and prayers are always with them.

 

It was a good thing we took the truck.  We had to leave a few toys behind, there was so little room left!  It was great to get home.  Until the computer died.  I had turned it off when we left.  It booted up fine the first time, then I rebooted it to re-establish the wireless network...and nothing.  Dead.  I eventually tracked it down to the controller card on the main harddrive (the platters spun fine, but bus I/O errors prevented it from communicating).  Short of replacing the controller, no way to revive it.  And rather than get a new hard drive and nurse the stupid thing for another few years, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new computer. 

 

So Sunday Anne and I looked through the ads, browsed online, etc.  Of course, the best deal was unavailable (too popular) but we ended up getting a Gateway bundle from Office Depot for $600.  Not bad.  Best deal from all the local stores, and comparable to most online deals.  Dual Core 1.6GHz (low end, but works well), 2 GB RAM, 19"widescreen LCD display.  Too bad the first one bricked on the second boot.  OK, back to the store.  Got an exchange.  Works great.  Windows Vista Premium.  I immediately repartitioned the hard drive to install Ubuntu Linux as a dual boot.  Not the best idea I've ever had.  I trashed both OS's.  Good thing Gateway ships with a recovery CD (not many do that anymore!).  So I've put off installing Ubuntu for awhile.  I may not do it at all.  I've started using Vista, and contrary to reports, its not that bad.  A lot like OSX, but its pretty slick once you get over all the nannying Microsoft likes to do.  Anyway.  Lesson learned: don't turn off the computer if its older than the hills.  It may not come back.