Everyone, meet Paul and Soda 

Ack Thpt

Ha-rumph. Right when you think you're so smart, an inanimate object rears up its ugly head and wins, leaving you with high blood pressure and a headache.

Take a simple digital camera for instance. And a simple CD-rom that comes in the package. Simply plug in the USB, pop the cd in and follow directions and voila, a tidy little link to dig-world.

But NNNNNOOOOOOO, it CAN't be THAT easy. Must there ALWAYS be a hiccup in the system? Did I smack myself with a blonde stick? Could it be that I got the one and only exceptional one in 100,000 that was accidentally mailed out as an unusable bit of software? Probably not, it's probably an easy fix, it's just that I am so disgusted and frustrated that I can't work on it anymore.
And has anybody noticed how the tech support is no longer available by phone? AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHhhhh. Phbbbbt.

Stormy

Oh my gosh I've never seen so much rain. I heard a while back that this year SoCal had matched Seattle's rainfall, and since then we've had more, the mother of all storms blew through this weekend (and continuing today) and I'm sure we're WAY ahead in the race. Horse trails have become muddy rivers, local roads are all rivers. The river is, well, a river. My yard is a lake except for where the excess water runs out toward the street, and that's a river. So I dressed all in a yellow plastic rainsuit, rubber galoshes, and a tooque under my hood under my poncho and sloshed out to work in it this weekend. Yes, people are insane enough to show up to be taught to ride motorcycles in this stuff, so we're insane enough to accommodate them. There comes a point in the curriculum however where traction becomes a factor, so day two was cancelled. I swam home to bail out the garage. Sheesh. Can it get any more crazy out here? Oh yeah. In the middle of all this let's throw in an earthquake just for good measure. When I met the man of my dreams and he said he'd move heaven and earth for me, I never dreamed he had such connections.

Good luck on your side of the world! We're holding on for dear life here!