back up and running!

well after a week of being without my laptop looks like we're finally back up and running. after a nightmare cycle of indian call center frustrations, i wrote a letter to the hp executive directors office telling them how dissatisfied i was - especially as we had paid for an extended 2 yr warranty! they contacted us back and gave us their "presidential" hotline and a quality case manager (i.e. - a yank!) and i spent 3.5 hours last night on the phone with him installing the new hard drive. still have some issues but nothing that can't be resolved after i've taken my boards. the pictures you're looking at are of beautiful snake river canyon in twin falls, idaho. this is the canyon that evel knieval tried to (unsuccesfully) jump over in 1974 after being banned from trying to jump over the grand canyon. twin falls is about 2 hrs east of boise on the way to burley where i did my presentation (see previous posts). needless to say, our trip to snake river canyon wasn't as thrilling as evel's... but we had fun anyway.
today Lochie and I went to a party at my friend Janna's house for her daughter McKenna. Janna's mother hired a velcro wall and Lochie had a lot of fun bouncing on it (without the velco suit of course - still too little). we had a taco feast and it was really fun though the weather is starting to get pretty cold now. right now it is 40 degrees farenheit (about 5 degrees celsius?).
This is Lochie with one of his birthday presents from Grammie Ginger. It is a bead chaser (name?) like what they have in doctor's offices etc. He just loves it. It also has an abacus on the side and a few other wooden puzzle games on each side of it. Thank you Grammie!

will be posting daily again now we are all systems go so check back to see what's new with us!