Today Mommy and Daddy took me out to Daddy’s boss’ house. He was throwing a party and I got to meet a bunch of people Daddy works with. I liked to watch the two puppy dogs, one named Einstein and one named Sadie. Sadie was a retriever. She made people keep throwing a tennis ball into the river behind Daddy’s boss’ house so that she could jump in the water and get it again.

Later, people went out on a boat ride, but Mommy and Daddy took me home instead because I was getting cranky from not taking my nap.

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This weekend we went up to visit Grandma Lolo in New Jersey. I didn’t sleep well the first night we were there. Mommy had to come into my room and nurse me to get me to sleep, but I’d keep waking up and crying. The next morning, my diaper was really messy and I had a fever. Mommy said I had a stomach bug. I didn’t eat very much and instead took two naps instead of my usual one. But on Sunday I was feeling much better and was eating again.

This morning, I embarked on a new endeavor. You see, I have recently discovered that I have the ability to toss things over other things at will. For example, I can toss my taggie blankie out of my crib, or (and this is my favorite) I can toss toys over the baby gates that keep me from tumbling down the stairs.

So this morning, I decided it would be a good idea to take all of my peek-a-blocks and toss them over the baby gate in the living room. I picked two up (one in each hand, of course), walked over to the gate, and sent the blocks bouncing down the steps. Once that was done, I walked back over to my stash of peek-a-blocks, picked two up, and walked back to the gate and tossed them over. I kept doing this over and over. It was a lot of fun. By the time I was done I had blocks and a bunch of other toys all over the stairs. heh heh heh

Today Mommy took me to the zoo with Henry and Ben and their mommies. We saw the pandas, a lion, a tiger and other animals. It was a lot of fun, but I was fussy a lot and made Mommy carry me some of the time.

After the zoo, we all went to lunch, and then Mommy took me home. It was a busy day.

Henry came over to play today. We had a lot of fun. Henry is my best friend, and I gave him a hug and a kiss. I was having so much fun that I didn’t want to take a nap, but I did anyway.

Today was Little Gym day. During introductions, we all did forward rolls. Then when we did the warmups, I wanted to do another one. So I put my hands and head down on the mat and Mommy came over and helped me do another forward roll. It was a lot of fun.

After Little Gym, Mommy took me to see a friend of hers who just had a baby. The baby was so tiny! Mommy says she doesn’t remember when I was that small. After awhile, I started getting very cranky so Mommy took me home and I took a nice, long nap. Mommy says she took a nap too.

After we picked up Daddy at the metro in the afternoon, we all went for a walk at Brookside Gardens. I saw lots of pretty flowers, including azaleas, pansies, and tulips. They were very colorful! Mommy noticed a tiny baby turtle walking very slowly across the path. She picked him up and put him carefully by the edge of the pond so that no one would step on him.

Then we came home and had dinner. I make a big mess at dinner now, so Mommy usually has to give me a bath afterwards. I guess it’s very appropriate that she gave me a bib that says, “Dinner’s on me!”

So my husband and I order a new computer from Dell a month or so ago intending this to be our new webserver that we have colocated in Virginia. Life being what it is with a 1 year old in the house, we haven’t had the time to finish getting it ship shape that we’d like. One of the things we need to do is outfit it with a second hard drive so that we can mirror the drives.

Unlike our Dells of old, this new machine has a proprietary case in which one must use a proprietary drive bracket to mount the hard drive. Despite the fact that the manual hints that a second, spare bracket should be included in the case, apparently it’s a separate part that one must order. $10 for a piece of blue plastic. Well, seems a bit much but fine. $8 shipping and handling. That’s highway robbery. an 80% markup to drop something into an envelope and mail it off is just absurd. But what can you do? Dell is the only place you can get this plastic and you need it to mount the hard drive. Fine. Grumble, grumble.

A couple weeks later, my package from Dell arrives and enclosed is a nice, shiny metal bracket. Not at all what I had very carefully ordered. This piece does not fit the case I have and will not work to mount the hard drive. Well, I’m going off to Arkansas for a week and have no time to deal with it until I get back.

Once I do, I have to deal (again) with Dell’s call center people in India. This in itself is not fun. I am informed that since the part number on the invoice matches what I received, I’ll have to do a return and reorder the part. This is where I get very nervous. What if whoever takes my order screws up again? I am dubious but again have no other options. I make a stink about this and am informed I’ll get the refund but don’t have to return the bracket I received. “I don’t want to keep the bracket I received,” I inform them. “I just want the one I need.” But at this point the person on the other end has pretty much tuned me out.

After dealing with the return folks, I’m transferred to the spare part order folks (again, located in India). I explain to them I need a blue plastic hard drive bracket. Not pink, not green, not magenta. Not metal, wood, not glass. The person takes my order and then puts me on hold to check something. The part I want is not available, which is why I was sent the metal bracket (which, as mentioned before, doesn’t fit). I am informed that had I ordered the hard drive from Dell, I would have received instructions on how to mount it (there’s probably a secret handshake or something). Well hard drives are not proprietary to Dell, and I wasn’t going to pay the extra $20 they wanted for a drive. So I cancel the order.

The next day, on a whim, I call Dell spare parts again. I order the blue plastic hard drive bracket. The nice Indian woman puts me on hold to check. Turns out, it’s available!! (Or so they claim.) I place the order.

That was last Tuesday. I haven’t received it yet, but I’m hopeful. But after all this drama, I will not be ordering any more computers from Dell. I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with all this hassle.

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Today I was playing in the living room with Mommy and Daddy. At one point, I toddled over to my mommy with my arms open really wide, gave her a great big hug and said, “Dad!”