iPad Son-day

I started my MBA program on Tuesday. The orientation was informative and useful. This year, tuition increased a good deal across the board, but the MBA program in particular. I figured it was just some random thing and I got to thank God I had an employee tuition discount.

So when we arrived at the orientation, all the students got a yellow envelop labelled "Do Not Open". This instruction was repeated throughout the orientation. Suspence was building, but I admit, I wasn't overly interested. I'm a bit jaded about such things.

"whatever"

Then, we were told there would be a drawing for an iPad 3. I raised an eyebrow at how generous that was and wondered who in this group would benefit so much from my tuition increase. We were told to open our envelops as the winning number was announced. I noted I had two slips in my envelop, each with the same number...and the same number as the person next to me. That's about when the guys in apple shirts walked in with boxes of iPads. Every student got one.

"haha, you should see your faces!"

This explains the tuition hike, but it's still a good deal. They included some basic accessories like a soft case and a discount at the campus apple store. They also bought an app called "notability" for us. With my tuition discount, it really is a great deal.

The iPad itself is fantastic. It's the wifi 16 gig version, but even with those limitations, remarkably useful. I wrote most of this blog on it. The iPad version of Blogger leaves much to be desired, especially in respect to pictures and video. 

Since then, the week has been pretty rough. Lots going on at work and school is more demanding (at least initially) than I suspected. It's not really hard, just very time consuming. For example, the readings due tomorrow are 305 pages, plus 3 assignments due later today (which are done already). Normally this work load would be very manageable, but with the increased load at the clinic, it is a challenge.

Jojo is doing great and very mobile. We had to get some baby-fencing to keep him at least modestly isolated. It slows him down more than stops him. Here's a video of him laughing.

It's exactly what I told you it would be.

Crawling Son-Day

Behold, the evolution of the crawl.

First, we have a sort of belly-pull. Turning is a belly spin. It's slow and inefficient, but forward movement rather than the rolling we've been doing.

At this point, he's mastered the belly-pull. It's faster and the turns are smoother, but it still requires a lot of energy.

Finally, we have an actual crawl. His belly is off the ground. Coordination and speed are still in the earliest stages, but mobility is definite.

For perspective, these videos range between 8/13/2 and 8/16/12.

3 days people.

3 friggin days.

Computer is back

I got my desk top back from apple this week. I also got the internal hard drive. I am going to get to take that to a data recovery services. Fortunately there are some in town. It will cost some money, but now that I have a working desktop computer, I'm not in much of a hurry. Whatever is still on there isn't going anywhere. I probably need to up my RAM. Not sure if that will actually ever happen.

Miss me?

Here are some observations I've made on the computer and data recovery issue.

1. This week I went to the funeral for the husband of one of my students. He was 32 and died from a heart attack. He was a great guy I didn't know well enough. He had a two year old and his wife is due with the second child in Sept. My data loss was instantly put in perspective, and it is effectively nothing. For those of you who do, prayer is appreciated.

2. While getting the machine set up again (installing dropbox, firefox, accessing websites and getting into my accounts, moving what data I have back onto the machine, etc.) I was reminded of all the stuff I have lost. It's a bunch.

3. There is something remarkably cathartic about having a completely empty machine. Much of what was on the old hard drive was junk I had collected over the years. I didn't delete it because I had no need to. I had a terabyte hard drive and I was only using about 250 gb. So much of it was pointless, meaningless junk I had no need (or even real desire) for. Much of it will not be missed. In many cases, I am glad it is gone.

4. I still want the photos and videos. There are numerous photos from Jojo's first month or two I don't have copies of other than on that hard drive. As useless and worthless so much of the information on that hard drive is, the only thing I really want is those photos, and I am willing to spent money and save useless crap to get them back.