I Love Technology - Old Technology

My dad got the Clie for his first year teaching English in China. He didn't use it as much as he thought he might. When he got home the next summer, he was constantly asking me questions and I was every time answering with,"Got it right here in my Palm" which was a Handspring Visor Edge. Thanks for that, Dan. So anyway, a while later, my dad decided the Clie would have a better home with me.

I love this little machine. LOVE it. I have my Christmas Card list in here. I have lists of stuff I like and funny quotes. I have games, of course. I have my calendar for several months. I have phone numbers and email addresses. I have recipes. It is SO GREAT. This thing can take still pictures and cute little video clips. It has a voice recorder and mp3 player. It has the scriptures and hymnal on it (words only, thanks). So much stuff can fit on here. It is really awesome.

But I did something bad. When we moved here, two and a half years ago, I didn't have a computer hooked up for three weeks. The Clie battery, bless its little heart, tried valiantly to keep the device going. When I finally got my computer moved in and set up, the battery could only hold enough charge to run the device for 15 or 20 minutes. I got real worried about it and stopped using it, so I wouldn't lose it altogether. I kept it in the charging cradle. But of course, this caused something catastrophically ironic: I lost it altogether. I haven't used the device for two years. I have been wishing and yearning to be able to use it and rediscover my data. Sweet data, I love you!

I went to the battery store a couple months ago. Six months ago. They wanted me to prepay the 40 bucks so they could order the battery and have it in two weeks later. I waffled. Forty bucks! Maybe I can get it cheaper online. Meh, nothing doing. I looked one time and got discouraged.

So finally I remembered to bring it with me and went again into the battery store. It's up by Sam's Club. The guy was duly impressed by my little device and good news! they actually had the battery right there, in stock. One battery. I paid it with 32 dollars cash and walked out with my battery and the following piece of information: the back is not soldered on . The battery is not soldered on. The back is just screwed on and the battery clips in.

I came home. I unscrewed the back. I unclipped the old battery. I clipped in the new battery. I screwed the back on. IT WORKED. IT TURNED ON. I was so delighted. DELIGHTED. I had synched up one last time before taking out the old battery, so I just synched again with the new one and here were all my glorious data back! Hooray! A christmas miracle!!

I rediscovered some videos of Eric hitting Jules in the face with snow and Eric age 5 reading from the scriptures. There were some fun audio files of Eric age 4 reciting his address and phone number. My whole dang Christmas Card list was back. It was the greatest day of my life, during the month of June. I LOVE having my Clie back. My only regret is not having done it two years ago.

The Kimono

I'm a one-piece girl. I usually like the snap-in-the-crotch, full-body undie-suit. But we were given several of these Kimono-style baby undie-shirts when Eric was a baby and have been toting them around since then. My main issue with these was that they're the same as shirts, for babies. Where do you pick up babies? Under the arms. And when you hoist up a baby that way, boops! up comes the shirt, and out sticks the baby's fat old belly. And it's not a good look for me, the shirt-stuffed-up-under-the-armpits-gut-hanging-out look. Plus can that possibly be comfy at all?

So we've had these kimonos for nine years and since I put them on Eric a couple times as a baby, I've never used them. Until now. Until this last March, I should say. Scott had his little skull-surgery on his head. He had a lot of bone removed, and most of what was left was "morselized." So his head was (Doctors' word, not mine) Boggy, for a while afterwards. Real squishable and something you didn't want to touch that much. Also, you didn't want to stretch a shirt down over that. And here is where the Kimono really shone. I could dress my little boggy-head baby without ever touching his head. Side note: if he lay on his head in any one position for too long, that side would slump down flat. Ewwww. So he could lie there on the changing table and get dressed without me putting strain on his squish-head. Day after day, I would thank my lucky stars for dragging these kimonos around with me for so many years. They DO have a good use! They're worth something after all! Hooray!

Another side note: Scott's head is almost totally healed. A couple places in his cool, serpentine scar look almost totally unscathed. He still has a huge soft-spot from where the bone was removed, but he's pretty much a totally normal baby. Except for being super-ultra-cute and exceptionally sweet.