aberrant | undulating | relative

I was startled to hear a plaintive wail (NOT from Ryan) coming from the dining room table Saturday morning. Bobby was anguished over his laptop installation. In trying to illicitly (Apple strictly prohibits owners (even as talented as Bob) messing with the innards of their laptops) change out his 40 Gb hard drive to a super duper 80 Gb one, he managed to mangle the keyboard, break off the connection point to the logic board, disconnect the power button and in a fit of tugging, scratch his LCD screen. Hence the wailing… Now many of our gentle readers know that next to Ryan and me, that laptop is Bobby’s lifeblood. It’s his workhorse, play toy, connection to the outside world, his universe to control, the baby that actually listens to him…

And God being good and merciful in all things great and small, my mum popped over for an unexpected visit and we were able to hop into the car and sit at the mac store for 45 minutes at the “genius bar” to talk to Scotty - Mac expert extraordinaire. As he looked at Bob as if he were a martian - “You did what? and then pulled what off?” I knew this was going to be a pricey experience. Dr. Scotty’s talking about a full keyboard replacement ($100-150), soldering to the logic board (labor charge), replacing the entire logic board ( at $700!!), all kinds of things that sound incredibly painful and expensive …. But at this point, both of us are glad that it can potentially be resuscitated. So we handed off the baby to the doctors and popped over to a scrapper store on the border of Palo Alto me as my treat for sitting interestedly at the bar and chatting up the techs, Bobby in hopes of getting his laptop back in the same trip.

$30 later, yes on stickers and crap, (note to Lu: better than the Fremont one, not as good as the San Bruno one) we get a call from the doc saying come and get it. Bobby is ecstatic, until he asks good old Scotty if he powered the laptop UP AND SAW IT START. Oh, he forgot. So we begin our trek home, Bob moping, and me trying to hide my ecstacy at purchasing a bunch of 50 cent metal letters for Ryan’s birthday scrapbook. As we were getting ready to cross the bridge over 101 back to our part of the world, on cue, Bobby’s phone rings and Scotty says, it really works, come and get it.

We charge back down the tree lined avenue to the mac mecca where the baby lives and breathes and the happy blue mac screen shines again. And the reason Scotty rocks, is he finagled the whole thing so it didn’t cost us one thin dime! Just more dough for me to spend on scrapbook stuff! Ahhhhh how our hobbies take control of our lives (well that little piece that’s still belongs to me at least) But it was a great Bobby and Ellen afternoon, capped off with a yummy and healthy dinner from Plutos (across the street from the mac store, of course!)

My favorite re-used blogging title - Snippets - is a compendium of small things I want to remember, the small things in life that make up the fun:
- Bob and his amazing first time recipe usage for parties: Broccoli/Cheese/RAMEN casserole yesterday; General Chau (sp!) chicken at Ryan’s birthday dinner, etc. Hooked up yumminess! BTW great dinner to everyone who attended our impromptu party on the boy’s real birthday!!

- Ryan and his many mishaps as he enters YEAR 1. On the Sunday after his birthday, as we all napped in various places in the house, he must have somehow conked his head on his little toybox leaving two scrapes just below the folds of his little almond shaped right eye. A milimeter or two and he would have bopped his actual eyeball! Ewwww …..

Then to keep it rolling, a few days later on Tuesday, his daddy changes him, dresses him warmly, packs up the bag and the stroller and puts Ryan in, ready for a walk in the brisk October sunshine. They get to the front door, and Bobby turns to pick his keys off the dining room table not 5 feet from the door. In the time it took him to turn around and get his keys, little Ryan had grabbed the front door and propelled himself and his stroller through the front door, bounces off the front step to land face down with his stroller toppled over onto him on the rough cement walkway.

Now Ryan’s bleeding non-stop from multiple cuts inside his mouth, and is bruised up near his nose. After a frantic round of calls, Bobby gets Auntie Edna in case they have to run to the hospital. But the nurse says, as long as he’s breathing and doesn’t pass out, he’s fine. He may have two black eyes though. So everyone waits for the next day, when Ryan escapes relatively unharmed with a scrape across the tip of his nose and a little scab on the center of his upper lip. Welcome to ONE!

Other snippets - a quick thank you to everyone who came and helped with Baby Ryan’s First Birthday. What a blessed day that was! After days of whatever weather, kinda cool, kinda windy, Sunday (8/26) turned into a perfect blue sky and warm breezy kinda day. The food was outstanding thanks to Edna and Rexie’s help, and especially Na’s friend Jing for helping to set up.
Ryan was a trooper, staying awake until the pinata, when a long nap with Nana was called for. And talk about a good sense of timing, waking up refreshed in time to cut the cake. We are so blessed to have great family and friends to celebrate our awesome little guy!

Bobby’s had some wonderful success for his family business with the awesome website he’s created for them: http://stampsandengraving.com. He’s got great talent and it’s being put to use in a really effective way for Tri City. I’m really proud of him!!

This weekend was fun, got to hang out with Chris, Lu, Dennis, his girl Jenny and her boy Brandon. Wow. Lots of loud. Lots of loud. But then plenty of broccoli ramen casserole to fortify you, along with a mess of sausages. And frozen banana cream pie. Whatever works for you you know. Thank goodness for Lu and her various paper products - some to eat off of, and some to scrap book from…… Sigh.

My biggest question of the day is whether, Nay got the new California King bed all put together. Enquiring minds want to know …..