Odds and ends

Oh, where to start? So much to say, so few people to say it to! Renee had a big year. First a wedding, then graduation, then the baby... Here's some pics of graduation. That look of wonder and disbelief explains it all. It seems to say... now what? That's why I haven't graduated yet. There, I beat you all to it.


Steve's just glad he doesn't have to pay any more tuition!


Oh yeah, and I brought Betsy with me.


There have been a ton of events, few of which I've brought my camera too. Not that it matters. When it comes to grandkids, they are sufficiently documented by my family! I did go up to Nicole's for Jax's baptism and Kenzie's birthday. We stayed up 'til 3 am frosting the cakes, and no that's not just 'cause we started late. By we, I mean my sisters. I was dutifully employed to kill all the houseflies. Success (but no pics).

This first cake was the "easy" one. Grandpa engineered a base so that the barbie doll would fit. Not too shabby.



The real pride and joy, however, was the Cinderella carriage. This baby was frosted using individual stars. This is the one that took forever - one star at a time! If you enlarge the picture you can probably see them.


It looked great, but it sure didn't last long!



No post from me would be complete without a list of what I've tried to repair. I've only got pictures of one - my laptop. I love taking it completely apart and then putting it back together and having it still work. It's a cheap thrill. Too bad it didn't help! My laptop hasn't been recognizing the power supply, meaning no charging. A 6-year-old battery only lasts about 15 minutes unless you try to do something, and then it lasts even less. I tried replacing the power supply w/o any luck. As a last ditch option, I tried replacing the power jack on the mother board. I did it, but unfortunately that didn't fix it either. So sad :(

Here's an after picture since I forgot to take a before one.


Completely apart. Looks cool, huh?


The part I'm replacing. It sure is a pain to do this when you don't have the right tools!


A little while later I tried to do that same thing on Betsy's laptop. No luck again. Curse those Dells!

Final one for this post - repairing my window. We had a nice day so I left the windows open to air out the apartment. I came home to this:


Awesome - someone broke into my apartment. Oddly enough, nothing was missing. We still had the police come and, after talking to the guy for half an hour, on his way out he decided to ask our neighbor if he'd seen anything.

Should have thought of that. That day, a micro-burst had come out of nowhere. Apparently it had blown out our screen, breaking it, and had bent our venetian blinds as well. Oops. The fix, then, was repairing the screen (easy) and counter-bending each slat of the venetian blinds so they looked normal again (hard). It took forever, but now you can barely tell!