nerd alert

To say that Josh and I are very excited about the last Harry Potter book would be an understatement. We made our own wands.

I am now sealing myself off from the world so I don’t inadvertently hear something about the leaked book.

Last week Josh and I were talking about my little Pocket PC. I keep my schedule and contacts’ information on there. I also track what bills I pay and when. I was trying to remember when I first got that and realized it had already been a few years. I asked Josh what the life expectancy of is for one of those things but he didn’t know.

On Tuesday my PDA completely locked up. I ended up having to pull the battery out which completely restores it to factory settings. I panicked a little but was able to get most of the files (like my schedule and contacts) off the computer I sync it to. Still…it just was a good reminder to back everything up. On my “To Do List” for the weekend, make backup cds of all Knight Light pictures and work.

This is my mii. Isn’t she cute? During our party on Saturday night I decided to make my very own Wii character. With each feature, everyone got more excited about it. When I was done, they all were saying how much it actually looked like me.

Yesterday we found out that you can connect to your friend’s Wii. My good friend Sondra recently got a Wii so she sent me their console number yesterday. I had no idea what to do with it so I clicked around and finally just added it to our address book. In the process I did figure out our console number so I sent that to her in case she needed it. Next time we turned the Wii back on (okay, who am I kidding…it was never off), we saw that we had a new message. It was from Sondra!!! Josh and I got so excited. Then when we went to our Mii plaza (where our mii characters hang out) and in dropped a bunch of new ones from Sondra! She sent us a bunch like Einstein, Jesus, Magnum PI, Weird Al…so flippin’ cool. I can’t wait to box with Jesus as my character.

I had been looking for a Nintendo Wii for Josh for quite awhile. A month or so ago I randomly stopped into a video game store in the mall. I wanted to just to ask how often they got in a shipment of Wii’s. The salesman told me that I was in luck, they got in a shipment that day. I snatched one up! It was so hard not to tell Josh that I had one for him. Seeing his face when he opened it at his graduation party was well worth the wait.

We’ve been playing Wii Sports together, A LOT. We get especially into the boxing. Yep, Josh and I box each other. It is so incredibly fun. Surprisingly though it is a pretty good workout. Sunday night we tried boxing for the first time. After just a half an hour, my arms were burning and I was breathing hard.

We decided this summer, instead of sitting on our butts watching TV, we’ll play some Wii. There was that guy that lost 9 pounds in 6 weeks. I’m just hoping to work on my arms a little bit. And considering how sore I am still today, I think there’s a good chance I might see some improvement.

Josh and I have been using Windows Vista for a week now. I think the first thing I always say I like about it is that it’s pretty. The Windows Flip for example, is one of those unnecessary things but it’s just so cool. The sidebar is full of fun gadgets.

Not only is it pretty but it’s a lot safer. There is Windows Defender, the Firewall and the security features (like the Mac commercial is making fun of). I really don’t mind the security questions. It’s not like it’s constant questioning and it does remember what you say.

One thing I don’t really care for is the Fast Sleep and Resume. A quick way to hibernate your computer and then wake it back up. It seems like every time we put it to sleep it does something a little goofy. Sometimes the blue power light will flash all night, sometimes it won’t. This morning the computer wouldn’t start back up! I killed the power strip and then everything came back up. I guess it’s for when you need to quickly start your computer back up. I don’t really mind waiting so I think I’ll go back to the regular shutdown.

Overall I’m glad that we were able to upgrade right away. The more I use it the more I like it.

Josh and I had a goal for the weekend. Watch a movie on our new computer while laying in bed. Sounds silly, I know, but we were really excited about it. We’ve never had a TV in our room but now that our monitor is just slightly smaller than our TV…we figured it would be perfect. Saturday night about midnight we put in Little Miss Sunshine. We laughed because we were so excited to get situated in bed for the movie! About halfway through the movie Josh pauses it (because our computer came with a remote) and said he was hungry. I thought about it for a minute and said that we had never eaten in bed before so we ran out to the kitchen for a snack. As we climbed back in bed with our cookies and started the movie I told Josh that we had a whole new world opened up to us. Lucky for us, we get excited about the little things.

The tower for our new computer arrived yesterday! Josh and I were so excited to get it. Of course neither of us could unpack it right then…Josh had to work and I had a meeting with a prospective client. We lucked out though because we arrived home at almost the exact same time.

So far I’m liking Vista although I won’t know for awhile. One thing I already don’t like is “Windows Mail” which is the successor to Outlook Express. Not impressed… For one, you now can’t check your Hotmail email through it. I loved being able to check all of my emails in one place. The other thing it won’t do is have separate identities. Josh and I used this so he could just switch to his identity and keep his emails separate and organized. Now we would have to set up a whole new Windows account for him which I think junks up the computer and then you have to switch back and forth. Blah, blah, blah… (After some research, apparently they have released a Windows Live Mail desktop program in Beta that is intended to replace Outlook Express.)

One thing that was really easy was the Windows Easy Transfer. You simply download a little program for your old computer, connect the two computers over your network and it’ll transfer files, settings, whatever you want… I knew that I had a lot of stuff to transfer. Music alone is an insane amount but my pictures…whew. It took all night but was done this morning.

My least favorite thing about a new computer is trying to get everything the way you like it. It’s a little different this time because we upgraded our operating system. Hopefully I’ll really like Vista and so far it looks promising. I will tell you that our monitor is AMAZING. I am dying to install Photoshop and work on some pictures.

Back in November Josh and I got the Abode Suite but unfortunately couldn’t load it on my four-year-old computer. I have pushed my little computer about as hard as anyone could. It’s been acting up a little but who wouldn’t when you’re doing more work that you can handle.

Last Friday while we were out for Josh’s birthday, we went into Best Buy. Now usually I don’t like going into Best Buy because it means me following Josh around for 45 minutes looking at all of the things we can’t afford…but it was his birthday so he chose. Josh had it in his head that we should spend our yet-to-arrive tax returns on a new computer. I wasn’t so sure.

We came home with this…

The tower wasn’t in stock so that should come on Thursday by UPS. I freaked out a bit afterwards about spending so much money (especially money we technically don’t have yet). But I’m so excited to get the Adobe Suite installed and be able to really work on my computer.

This weekend I picked out a book at Borders called “The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers“. I’ve started pouring over it already and I’m so excited to learn some new things. I have my page markers out so I can bookmark things I want to remember. I have a feeling I will be bookmarking a lot.

This lovely box came on Friday. It’s true, I stare at it often. Josh was able to get the educational discount which allowed us to afford the Adobe Creative Suite 2. The only problem is that we don’t have a computer to run it. My trusty ‘ol computer is reaching it’s final days and doesn’t have the memory to even think about running the Creative Suite. It’s sad really to just have the box there on my computer desk. The box patiently waits…it’s too bad I’m not quite as patient.

So we’re without power… There was a huge storm last night and I ended up in my bathroom hugging my dog. Hail, rain…everything. Now my town has no power. I showered in the dark and made it to work. Work has a generator but my cubicle doesn’t have power. I borrowed this computer so I could check my email!

I guess I’m going to go home for the day because not much I can do without power. At least it’s a good excuse to take some time off, right?

Edited (10:40 a.m.): Well, our power came back on. I had already left home so I’m just using some vacation time. I had just talked to my mom about trying to get some of our food over to my in-laws because we had heard it could be 12 hours until we had power. Not five minutes later the power switched back on. As soon as it did I heard a popping sound outside so Josh and I went out to look. Our air conditioning unit was smoking and shooting sparks! Josh got the fire extenguisher but we didn’t need it. It burnt itself right up. Nice, huh?

Man, last night was nuts. I got hardly any sleep. Our bedroom window had rain coming in through the top and I was sure it was going to get blown out. Definitely scary! Luckily it doesn’t look like there was too much damage here in town.

Now I’m home for the day so that’s exciting. I made some 7 layer dip and cleaned. I’m putting my time to good use!