That was the third time this week I have picked up the phone to call someone right at the very second someone was calling me. In a business, that happens sometimes. You pick up the phone, hear no dial tone, and hope you think to answer so they won’t think you have an IQ of sixty.

So yeah, it happens sometimes, but three times in one week is a lot. And I’ve been here for 2 1/2 hours, and that was the very first phone call of the day.

Tonight, I am going out to the Grill with some friends. I’m going to have some wings and some IPA and some good times.

I might even shoot a few games of pool.

Katie decided that I’d done so much lately for her while she’s been sick that she arranged the whole thing and told me about it in a “this is what you’re going to do” kind of way. And I love that. She told me that it’s hard to know how to thank me, but I told her “wait, you’re getting me wings and beer … which part is the hard part?” I’m very much looking forward to it, despite this rain.

It’s been a hard month for us. I’ve barely been able to do anything for the house, and I missed several days of work. And I haven’t been sleeping well. I talked to my dad/boss about my sleepiness, and said “I can’t imagine why I’m so tired!” My dad basically said “are you serious?” I guess you don’t get the best sleep at times like this.

It has been getting better, though. It has been very good the last few days to see Katie up and about, even if she is back down again way sooner than she’d like. I think it’s hard for her not being in control of her own body. When she told me she was going to do something for me for being so good to her, I wanted to say “I just want you to be well,” but I guess that’s understood.

But things are going to get better.

All C has talked about this week has been Halloween and costumes. I don’t think she really understands Halloween (nor do I), but she does get that this is a time when people dress up as funny things. She also loves all of the ghosts and pumpkins, which she calls “pumpkin patches.” Last night, C got go to Boo at the Zoo with some of my family. Luckily for all of us, my sister-in-law had an extra costume:

C made quite the fierce dragon

Sleepy dragon.

I guess her wings were too tired to fly to the zoo.

I hope.

As most of you should know from reading Katie’s blog, it’s been crazy at our house lately. It’s indicative of the problem, though, that Katie has been able to keep up the blogging while I’ve been too physically and mentally taxed.

Anyway, I’m digging this video from one of my favorites, Thao (with some strong language, btw), so I thought I’d share. Enjoy.

And the slightly more silly (and with uke):

Our office is small. We only have four employees. But all four of our computers are Dells, and we are looking to buy two new computers this fall. I had assumed that they would be Dells as well, but now I know they won’t. And I wish I could convince everyone I know also not to buy Dell, because this experience was so bad.

Back story: my last laptop was a Dell. It died two weeks after the two year service contract expired last fall. Dell was not sympathetic. But for some reason, I replaced it with a Dell. I’ve had nothing but trouble with this computer, but when the office needed a new laptop this past spring, I still decided to go for a Dell. Why? I don’t know.

I bought this new company laptop from Dell in May. On paper, it’s really nice: LED screen, good resolution, backlit keyboard, good processor speed and RAM, etc. It’s a Latitude, which used to mean no-nonsense, quality business components that would last. It doesn’t have frills like media buttons. It’s just a good, light, sturdy laptop for business use.

And it’s never worked.

We got it in May and sent it back to Dell in July. The touchpad – which had never worked quite right – had completely ceased to work, and the keyboard was acting wonky, too. As soon as we got it back, after two weeks, it was obvious that it still wasn’t “right,” but it is a business computer, and we needed it for business. I didn’t have time to deal with Dell and sending it back again.

But by September, the touchpad had again completely stopped working. Oh, and it crashed at startup. I did discover that the crash didn’t happen if you turned off bluetooth. Therefore I could use the six-month-old computer with an external mouse and after disabling bluetooth.

Nuh-uh.

So back to Dell it went. That was two weeks ago. The guy assured me that this time they would replace the motherboard in addition to the touchpad. And he said they would expedite the order, since this was the second time in six months with a brand-new computer. He would personally call me when he knew anything.

Did I mention that was two weeks ago?

So I called Dell this morning. I figured I’d get a polite “sorry, sir, this was a big mistake on our end. Won’t happen again. In fact, the computer is already fixed and should be arriving at your business any day.”

Nope. What I got was five minutes of talking to computers, repeating the same damn number over and over again (and for some reason, Dell thinks it’s easier if you talk to them instead of just typing it into the phone, but I digress, because even that would’ve been obnoxious). When I finally did reach a human being, the best he could offer was that they would look into it and someone would call me back “in four to eight hours.”

Pathetic.

So sometime today or tonight, I might find out what happened to the computer that by all rights should be in great shape for another two to three years. And that’s assuming Dell calls me back this time. I haven’t even finished paying off the computer, and it’s been in the shop for a month out of five, not to mention time lost because it was broken but still in use. And they didn’t even apologize for the delay or the problem.

It seems like Dell used to be a pretty good company. It seems like their computers used to be the ones to buy. I don’t know what I will buy this fall when it’s time for replacing the two old office computers, but Dell won’t be getting another cent out of me. And I’d love for you to pass the word, too, before Dell does this to you, too.

Update: When I called yesterday (October 12), they said they would call me back in four to eight hours. They did not. So I called them again this morning, and they said that FedEx had just delivered the package yesterday and that the techs are working on it right now. Uh-huh. I’m wondering how many more ways they can screw this up.

Update 2: I just found out from FedEx, through an extremely helpful employee, that the package was delivered to Dell on time and arrived last Monday. Dell then did nothing with it for a week – until I called and asked. It’s a smaller time frame than I thought, but considering that the computer has now been out of my hands for one month out of five, and considering that Dell promised to expedite it, well, it’s still pretty all-around pathetic. Also, I found out from FedEx that while Dell did promise to expedite the shipping, they only sped up the pickup from me. They made that overnight and kept everything else (from here to Dell, from Dell back to here) two day. Not exactly nice.

We all have our parenting things that we enjoy.

I love reading to C. I love taking her for walks. I love wrestling with her and tossing her in the air. I love being the tickle monster, and I love sitting and chatting with her and trading hugs. There are lots of things I love doing with and for C. I love her and enjoy the heck out of her.

But I do not like meals. I’m not that great at coming up with things I want to eat, other than wings or burgers or anything else that comes with french fries or a high ranking on the Scoville scale, and it’s even harder to come up with something healthy for her. And while we’re talking the truth here, I have a lot of trouble finding the patience to get food in her gut when it’s not something she can serve herself (she is still a bit weak on her flatware skills).

Sometimes I make her a baked potato with sour cream. Sometimes it’s eggs. Other times it’s whatever veggies I can find in the fridge or just some cheese and crackers. It’s easy to feed her what we’re eating when we eat at a decent time and it’s something she can eat, but rarely when I’m feeding her is either the case.

And that’s why tonight I fed her a huge quantity of cottage cheese and am now desperately trying to find something non-dairy to top it off. I’m not having a lot of luck so far.