Tech Troubles

or Back Up Your Stuff...I mean it!

Normally I'm pretty good to back up the data on my computer.  However when we moved from Illinois I didn't bring my external hard drive with me (with which I back up most of my stuff) because I thought we'd only be away from our stuff a couple months at most.  We weren't planning to build a house.  So I backed up just before we moved but haven't since.  I didn't want to buy a new external hard drive when I have one in storage.   Well, my trusty Mac's hard drive bit the dust hard this week.  I spent a painful four hours at the Apple Store trying to recover data yesterday.  We didn't get much.

Now my Mac is having the old hard drive swapped out for a new working one and my data is gone, most notably a huge photo library and music collection.  The good news is I have a year old back up that I will be able to access in a matter of weeks and I backed up most of my photos to shutter fly.  Also most of the photos I have taken in the past year are still on my devices.   Music is similarly not  so bleak.  I have a backup from a year ago and most new songs I have purchased are through my  apple account so I should be able to load the onto my computer again once it is repaired.  But I have lost videos (except for those I have posted to my blog or Vimeo account) and some photos and documents that I can't get back unless I pay a lot (over $1000) for clean room hard drive data recovery.  So, back up your data kids.  I wished I had a more recent back up, then this would all be a lot more painless.

So I'm going to remember this lesson and back up more frequently. My laptop was 4 1/2 years old and starting to show signs of age (death throes) so I should have known.  

My computer had been getting slower and slower until a few days ago it just froze up. I tried restarting it and it wouldn't boot up.  It never booted up again (gentle sobbing).  I'm very attached to my beloved MacBook in case you haven't guessed.

I tried booting up in some different diagnostic modes.  It appeared the hard drive was bad.  My worst fear.  

Finally I took it to the Apple Store.  I checked out some new MacBooks while waiting for my service appointment with the Genius Bar geniuses.  Matthew went with me and was able to find games on every device he encountered.  The geniuses determined that my hard drive was indeed bad.  They got me into a triage mode where it looked like we would be able to salvage all the data.  We could see the data and even navigate the folders.  However, after several hours attempting to transfer it unsuccessfully we had to mutually declare failure (more gentle sobbing).  The good news is they could replace my hard drive for only $150 (parts and labor) a significant savings over buying a whole new machine.  Matthew also played games on a tablet there at the Apple Store for the duration of our long visit, without batting an eye.  After we left Apple he asked if we could go in the Microsoft store.  :)  Uh, no.

 

Earlier in the year my iPad (which I've also had for quite some time) got a small crack in the screen when a certain 5 year old stood on it.  I took it to a local place to repair the screen.  They completely broke it during the repair.  It was totally inoperable after.  I wished I had either just used it with the screen cracked or taken it straight to Apple.  I was pretty upset about it and asked the company to pay me something for breaking my device, which they did.  But I'm never going there again.  I kept the broken device even though they wanted to farm it for parts (without giving me anything for it).   I let Matthew take it apart.  Inside, behind the touch screen its almost all battery.  The ICs are so small.  And yet it can do so much.  This was soon after Matthew took apart an older computer with a large motherboard.   Moore's Law in action.

So, be sure to back up your important stuff.  And please forgive all the mistakes in this blog post.  Blogging from my iPad or phone is not easy.

The Alpine Slide

We went to Park City this weekend to ride the alpine slide.   We were glad it wasn't rainy or windy and not too hot (or cold) or crowded.  Everything is very green in Utah these days and Park City was just beautiful.

Here we  are waiting to ride the lift to the top of the alpine slide.  Emma was too small to ride the lift and the alpine slide so she stayed at the bottom with Grandpa.   

Here are Anna and Grandma on the ski lift.  Anna was a little nervous.

Matthew, Grant and I on the ski lift.  Grant wiggled a lot and made me nervous on the lift.  I had an arm around him the whole time.  

John and Scott rode the lift behind us.

Here's part of the alpine slide we could see while going up

Once we got to the top we got our sleds and walked over to the top of the alpine slide.

Here we are waiting in line for our turn.

Almost there!

Anna was still nervous and wanted to ride with Scott.

Matthew was tall enough to go by himself.  Anna was right on the line (of being able to ride alone) but wanted to go with someone else this time.

Anna and Scott

Grant rode with my mom

John and I rode together.  

Right from the start John wanted to push the lever all the way forward.

Still waiting our turn but almost there.

Matthew raced John and I down.  He was ahead most of the time but John and I won in the end.  Here comes Scott and Anna.  She looked terrified but she said she loved it and wanted to go again.

Here comes Grandma and Grant.  Grant loved it too and said he wanted to go again.

Matthew, Anna, Scott and I also went on the Alpine Coaster.   That was a lot of fun.  You could control your speed and braking going down and I was glad to know I couldn't fall off the track there.

Here's a ski lift view of the alpine coaster.

We had a fun time at the alpine slide, the first time my kids had been on one!  We also drove through historic downtown Park City and then headed back down the mountain to go to our ward pool party.  It was a busy day!

The Splash Pad

Summer is in full swing and we've been swimming, playing outside a lot and having fun.  Last week I let each kid pick what we had for dinner one night of the week.  

On Monday Matthew picked chicken sandwiches. 

Anna picked homemade eggrolls and fruit salad on Tuesday.

Wednesday Grant chose spaghetti and watermelon and 

Thursday John picked hot dogs and potato chips.

And on Grant's day we also went to the splash pad 'cause he'd REALLY been wanting to go there instead of the pool.  When we got there they had just turned off the water for an hour.  There was a small sign telling about the new off times, but nothing online.  Soooo, to kill the time we went and got shaved ice.  I ordered the smallest size they had: kiddie size.  Still so huge.

Emma didn't want any.  And she was mad when we tried to give her some.  

She was probably just hot.

So we ate our shaved ice in the hot sun for a while until the splash pad water came back on...

When we got back the splash pad was already packed with kids.  Everyone but Emma had fun squirting each other with water guns.  I've been to this splash pad before and knew to bring the water guns.  Tons of kids had them and were squirting people indiscriminately.  I got squirted a lot.  My phone and my watch survived the trip though.  Hooray!

Emma was very nervous and cried when she got squirted or when things got too loud or other kids got too close.  She held a water gun just to look tough.  She didn't use it.

A very wet John...

...and Anna

Emma warmed up to the splash pad a little and climbed a favorite rock over and over.

They turned the water off for 10 minutes or so while we were there.

John was trying to preserve the water.

Everyone was sad (and or angry) when we had to leave.  Here are Grant and John running around.  It's all fun and games till I tell them we have to leave.  Then the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  But we still had fun while we were there.  Maybe we'll go again.  

And here are a few bonus photos from our week:

Trying to fit my three littles into one shopping cart while my two bigs were at sports camp.

It did not go well.

Matthew, still in spy mode, and his new fedora.

It's what all the spies are wearing these days.

Grant has been spending hours quietly playing in his room so far this summer.  It's great!

He's been drawing page after page of drawings (and illustrated a few books that he dictated to Anna to write for him) and, as always, building things with Legos.  He made the numbers 0 through 10 with Legos and wanted to show me.  He did it all on his own and was very proud of himself.

Can you spot the numbers here?  I like tiny number 5.

More summer adventures to come!

That Time Anna Washed the Car

We're doing the summer reading program at the local library and the kids got a bingo card of activities to fill out.  If they do all of them they get a prize (and also get intermediate prizes for bingo along the way).  One of the activities was "help wash the car."  Anna honed in on that one and really REALLY wanted to wash the car.   Scott and I usually take the car to a car wash place to wash it.  It's been a long time since we washed the car at our house.  Here was one time I remember washing the car at home in Okinawa.  And I think we only washed it at home because there was a bunch of weird dust everywhere and all the car washes were always full.   Anyway, Anna kept asking if she could wash the car and I kept telling her I'd think about it.  Finally today I let her wash the car.   She was very determined to do it all herself.  Here she is rinsing the car.

John helped scrub for a short time.

Anna hosing off the top of the car.

And squeegeeing.  That word looks weird.

She worked hard.

After the car was washed the kids wanted to have a "squirt each other with water" fight.

I moved the clean car back into the safety of the garage.

Unfortunately I didn't escape the water squirting.

At least they had the sprayer on "mist" instead of "soak" at the time.

At the end of it all Anna was gloriously soaked and very happy about it.

And the car was clean.  Mission accomplished.

And here are some bonus pictures of our new garage (attached to our new house)

The exterior of the house is nearly done.

Here it is from another angle.  This was late in the day so the front of the house is in shadow.  Like our Illinois house, this one faces east so we get full sun in the back yard in the afternoon.  I know that can make for some very hot evening BBQs.  But maybe the houses being so close together will cut down on that.    :)  We sign papers to close in about 2 weeks.