Pre-crawl Son-day

Well, the drama of recovering data off my hard drive continues. If you ever fall into this situation and need Apple to replace your hard drive but give you the old one, here's some advice. They will tell you they can't do that. Ask to talk to the next person up the chain of command. They can do it, it just causes them some problems. Explain your situation and they will do the right thing.

We are corporate tech-support, not monsters. 

While the idea of losing about the first two months of photos of Jojo and a few other hard-to-replace or unable-to-replace files is absolutely killing me, I recognize it is just stuff. Stuff is not the end of the world. I still have faith and I can get the majority of it back. This really is the biggest stressor in my life right now and, honestly, that pretty much means I live a charmed life.

Jojo gave me a great "take some perspective moment" this afternoon. I put him down after he ate and look what he did.

Pretty cool right? Make a bunch of my "problems" seem a lot less important.

A Minimalism Plan

One of my goals for the year was to reduce my possessions. It was a vague goal and remains so. That's bothered me all year. More over, I've actually increased how much stuff is in the apartment due to Jojo's ever-changing needs.

I have a box of "stuff" I meant to get rid of, but have yet to do so for a few reasons. I put stuff I did not think I needed and then left it there. If I took it out of the box, then I'd keep it. If not, I'd get rid of it. At the moment, some of that stuff I had scanned into a computer I failed to back up so I am holding off to see if I can recover the data before getting rid of the original (and then backing up the data). When I know what I can recover from the old hard drive, grand. I'll do what I need to do with the box of stuff. 

The question is why I keep it. 

One thing I've learned about reducing possessions is that it will not happen without a plan. When Mo and I got married, our finances were horrid. We never had a budget, we barely knew when our bills were due or how we would pay them. We spent money when we had money, we both had credit cards, we both had huge debts, and we hadn't a clue how we were going to deal with any of it. Debt collectors called me every day. I was late on everything, when we could pay at all. We basically lived in financial stress. Eventually, we realized we didn't know what we were doing and blaming our lack of knowledge or our upbringing was pointless. We needed a plan. 

pictured: not the plan. 

So we made one. Now we have money, we have a budget, we have a plan. We actually have several, just in case. I don't remember what debt collection calls are like. I never lose sleep over our finances. If I am worried, I load up the budget, find out how we are doing and what the immediate plans are, then go back to bed. We are maintaining 4 different emergency funds (to cover our families) plus saving for a house and paying off the remainder of our debt - at the same time. Was it because it was such a good plan? Nope. Wasn't even a very good one. I'll happily tell you all about the various ways it wasn't as good as it should have been and how we had to change it over and over again. It was A plan, and that's all we needed.

Same thing with possessions. I own too much stuff and I want to get rid of it. I haven't made a plan and, oh look, I have even more stuff than when I started this year. Awesome. But how to make a plan to reduce things? My first instinct it to make a list or database of my possessions and then decide what needs to go. I tried that initially, didn't work. Cataloging everything I own is more of an undertaking than I think is reasonable or even productive. I'll spend more time cataloging than I will getting rid of stuff.

Being less specific is...kinda against my nature. But, in this case I think it is likely a better plan. One issue is I really haven't worked with Mo to discuss this reduction in possessions. I really have no idea why not, but I do know it's not going to happen without her support. In a marriage, getting anything done usually means working together.

"Okay, this time I will tank the boss and you spam heal."*

Once I know if, and how much, Mo is interested in reducing possessions, as well as getting a much clearer idea of what our end-goal will look like, making a real plan is likely to be easier.

*for those of you who get it, you're welcome. Those who don't...World of Warcraft is fun, you should try it some time.

it's like cocaine.

Recovery Son-day

Today is all about recovery in several ways. 

First, recovering from shock. We took Jojo to the doctor for a check up. He's fine. Sadly, we are losing our doctor. She got another job and won't be able to see us anymore. It's sad because she is just a wonderful doctor and her staff is great too. :(

But, Jojo is HUGE. He is in the 60th percentile for weight (18.17 lbs or so). Nothing special there really, average. But on length (when does it become height?) he is in the 99th percentile. Which I think means he is 99 times larger than other babies his age. 

Stormtrooper represents normal-sized baby

Seriously though, I'm glad he is doing well. I have no idea why he is getting so long/tall. We have a few people in our extended family who are tall (Mo and I are wee-folk). I think it is just a growth spurt. 

Second, my parents moved out of the apartment on Friday and we did more moving into the new apartment yesterday. For the most part we focused on the heavy stuff, in the hot July afternoon. As you can imagine, we were pretty exhausted by the end of it. That and sore. 

My folks new apartment is alright. It's near an apartment complex we used to live in. The area is not great, and neither is the apartment. They are old and in dire need of...well, rebuilding honestly. But, as a temporary place it will do. I think they wanted to get out of our place and get one of the storage units empty and work on getting into a nicer place near their schools. I'd like to see that happen, but next time, it's going to be a moving company. I'm too old for this. 

You own how many chairs? Why do you have a couch?

So I am resting and recovering today. I slept in, Jojo is being very nice to me and let me sleep a good bit. 

The next recovery is my hard drive. I normally do a fairly decent job of backing up data. At work, I always work of an external drive because I never trust work computers. I usually keep backups of just damn near everything on off-line or on-line backup. 

It's become so easy to backup data I really have no idea why lost data ever happens. It really shouldn't. Which is why I am so embarrassed that I simply never backed up my iMac. I know better, I failed to do better. 

Ah, crap. 

I'm in the process of trying to recover data. I bought an external backup drive, setting that up now. Got some software designed to recover data from crashed drives. Sadly, it's a bit more than the "quick start" can handle so I will be on the phone with support tomorrow. I chatted with them on Friday and they seemed hopeful. When I open disc utility, it recognizes a drive it there, but won't it won't mount. Apparently, that's better than many cases. So, hopeful. 

Funny stories: The "genius" (I hate that title) at the apple store told me he's been working there 2 years "helping" (I was there 2 hours and I didn't see one person 'helped' in the strictest sense - mostly they were told 'sorry') people with crashed hard drives and such. He made his first backup on his computer 2 weeks ago. 

One of my computer-literate buddies told me, after I told him about my crash, he checked his backup. It was a year old. 

The guy at Best Buy told me he consulted with one person who had over 100 GB in his trash can. He never emptied it. He just assumed it was gone when you put it in there. Another customer used his trash can as a desktop file. Just stored stuff in there. 

So, hilarious as it is, remember to set up your backup drives, don't be digital hoarders, and back up your data. 

Brave

Mo and I had a date last night. The last date we had was back in March when we went and saw John Carter (oy). This time we went to Joe's Crab Shack and then the Warren to see Brave.

Brave is a Disney/Pixar movie about a princess. So, yes, it is a princess movie. The good news is it's more like Mulan and less like Snow White. I enjoyed the movie completely. I don't think I've enjoyed a movie so much since How to Train your Dragon or Kung Fu Panda. Which makes me wonder if Pixar isn't taking a few notes from DreamWorks. (they should - just like DreamWorks takes notes from Pixar, and yes I would like to see DreamWorks and Pixar go Voltron and work on something together).

If you don't know what this is, you are sad.

I'm not going to get into the movie too deeply because I'd rather people go see it. But I do want to say a few things. The first is, the movie is gorgeous. I can't even tell you how visually stunning it is. The animation team deserves any and every award you can think of. I could have happily watched the movie on mute and been entertained.

The story is fine, it's nothing ground breaking. Honestly I don't ask movies to be groundbreaking. It's too easy to criticize "plot" since most people don't know what a plot really is. Plus they often say the plot is "used". Well of course it is familiar. If it was not we would not be able to identify with the story. I think they did a fine job with the story and I totally idenified. Yes, I teared up. Several times. Shut up.

The music was great, the comic relief was inspired, the voice acting was perfect. Seriously, loved this movie.

Sitting Son-day

Jojo is pretty amazing and it seems that everyday he figures some new little trick out. Sometimes he does something, and it's a total failure one day, then, the next day, boom! does it like a champ.

Sitting was one of those things. The other day Mo and I were letting him practice. He was flopping all over the place like LeBron James.

That's right, I make NBA references now too.

The next day, Mo practiced with him while I was at work. Apparently, there was an accident and Jojo fell back and hit his head on the floor. Mo was, of course, terrified. She's a neuro-trauma nurse and head injuries are kinda the thing they deal with.

An underwhelming injury.

He was quite fine. More over, the next day he was sitting by himself with little or no help for basically as long as he wanted to.



In other news, Mo and I are going to take advantage of my parents being in my apartment and go on a date. We're thinking just a normal dinner-and-movie date. Not sure where to eat or what movie to watch. I'm leaning toward Brave because it just looks awesome.

Jojo grew some hair!

I'm back.

After a hiatus of updating I am back. So much has been happening I just could not find the time to sit down and write it out.

First. My folks are in OK now. The move went well. WAY better than last time. Less stuff, better prepared, not as hot. U-haul was modestly less awful. Which puts them solidly back into "Yeah, I'll get my truck somewhere else"-Land and out of "If I have chance, I will crush your business"-Land. Getting the piano on the truck was hard. Thankfully some nice folks in CO helped out. Getting it off the truck was easy.

Since then, my folks have been living with us. It's been good. Free babysitting is nice, plus the help with feeding and diapers sure does not suck. We also got to watch the NBA finals together.

Go Thunder.

Yeah, I know, the Refs let the Heat win. Blah, blah, blah. Still a good season, still a good team. Still awesome.

Jojo has been awesome too. We got him a Thunder t-shirt.

I totally have Thunder-fever.

He started eating "solid" food (rice cereal) and got the hang of it like a boss. He's still messy, but he got the swallow and tongue action down pretty quick. He seems to enjoy it and it's cute.

Father's day was neat. We got my dad a light blue Thunder polo shirt (he can't wear T-shirts because he has a neck like a Sequoia). I was straight up jealous cause it was a cool shirt. I figured Mo would get Legos or something (the new Lord of the Rings series, for example). Nope, instead I got a shirt.

The most awesome shirt...EVER.

Going to CO

Next week I will head up to Colorado to help my folks move. It's about an 8 hour drive. Normally, me and Mo take turns driving and talk to each other to keep it interesting. However, Mo and Jojo are staying here while I go alone.

Oy.

That's going to make the trip a bit more boring, at least on the way there. On the way back it will be with my folks and one of my sisters.

I've never been this far away from Jojo for this long. I'm not looking forward to it. I always miss Mo on trips like this. Last time I moved my folks from CA to CO it was horrid. By the time I got home I was desperate to see her. I imagine it will be the same for Jojo.

"Hey!"

Yes Pooka, I will miss you too.

Thankfully, this will likely be the easiest move I've ever done with my folks. They've gotten rid of a lot of stuff and over the past month, brought a few loads down. Much of the heaviest and most awkward stuff is already in storage. That will make the loading easier. I think the only really scary part is the piano, and only because it is heavy. The rest is fairly easy. More over, last time my day was still recovering from a procedure and his preparation had two parts: the part he did well and the part he didn't do. Made for a rough multi-day load in scorching heat.

The weather will be whatever it will be, but there is less to move, my dad has done a great job of preparing, much of it is already done, and the trip is shorter by more than half. So I am hopeful. Not excited about being away from Jojo and Mo though.