Pumpking Carving and Dead Computers

So, I'd like to open this post with some bad news. Remington, my beloved laptop, has died. He is suffering in the no-computer's-land of fried hard drives. He got me through college and dozens of papers, study notes and countless hours wasted on Facebook. I perfected my resume and cover letters, watched hours of TV and movies, and kept up to date on the news, Cake Wrecks and icanhazcheezburger? He housed my photos and music, and fought valiantly against the many viruses attacking Windows.

I'd appreciate if you would bow your head for a minute and then pat your desktop, laptop or netbook and be grateful for all it's done for you.

Okay, on to happier news. My friends and I had a pumpkin carving get together yesterday at the house, and it was a lot of fun. I love carving pumpkins, and though my carving skills are limited to large shapes, I love to check out all the really cool designs online every year.

I did a traditional cat, and the boys did a jack-o-lantern meets Pacman. Two of my close friends asked another if she would carve them Edward and Jacob pumpkins (yes, from Twilight). Enjoy!

My time in the spotlight

Or, I'm just overindulging. Betsy, one of the editors assigned Amy and me several small pieces to write for the December issue. Yay! I'm excited that I get to write even some small pieces. Now, if only I could come up with some brilliant pitch for next year...hmm....I'll get back to that sometime.

And, I passed off my super complicated story to our editor so he can look over my fact checking. I really hope I didn't miss anything. I've gone over the story so many times and I've had it for so long that it was hard to catch stuff towards the end. And, oh yeah, a third of it is unchecked because I can't get in touch with some sources. Because I'm me, it makes me feel as if I have done something wrong, when in fact, there's nothing I can do if people don't want to talk to me and/or turn their phones off.

I think my computer is really in trouble...I will have to ask Ben to take a look at it. Besides being my selectively mute brother, he is our resident tech support. I think I have everything backed up elsewhere, so he will have the green light to wipe the hard drive. (I think that's what he said he would recommend.) I'm so over it, and my laptop is so ready to be retired. We're done.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, despite it being my day off. Bleh. But hopefully it will be spent doing things that will further my career. And, maybe some personal reading. We'll see. I'm looking forward to this weekend...Dawgs vs. Arizona State!