Saturday, September 29, 2007

Hey Chicago, whaddya say...






You know the rest.

Well you can all thank me for moving to Switzerland, because the Cubs would not have made the playoffs otherwise. Seriously. It's quite simple.

In the year I live across the street from Wrigley, the Cubs lose 96 games.
In the year I move 5,000 miles away, to a different country, where I cannot even watch baseball unless it is on my computer and it is a day game...
the Cubs win the Central. Had I not moved, they would not have won the Central, and you all (except Justin) would be sad, and you would have a very boring October.

To thank me, you can all contribute towards the plane ticket I will buy IF the Cubs make it far enough! I might have a bit of a tough time convincing my work that I need to fly home in the middle of a week for a baseball game.

Anyway I am very very excited about the Cubs - I slept in a Cubs t shirt last night, wore another one today (clean one of course), read every article on chicagosports.com and espn.com. And I drank a beer. I feel powerless in my ability to celebrate this historic moment, but I am doing my best.

I am comforted somewhat by the fact that there is ivy growing on the fence I walk past on my way to work. I noticed it at the beginning of September and it reminded me of Wrigley, and how cool it is there when the ivy turns red in October. You don't get to see it very often (for the obvious reason). And today when I went by the office, this ivy had also started to turn red. So I feel comforted that a little part of Wrigley is here with me in Switzerland.

I'm sure all you White Sox fans are gagging reading this. Why don't you go play your 2005 world series dvd for the 100th time and figure out how to fix your bullpen for next season, and let me relish in this glorious day in Cubbie History!!!

Saturday, September 22, 2007

There's a little black spot on the sun today...

Sorry for the absence of posts, but after my excursion to NY for Jess' wedding, my laptop is still broken. I have to say the people I spoke to at HP were EXTREMELY NOT HELPFUL and although I love my computer, I am seriously going to think long and hard before I ever buy something from them again. The conversations went as follows:

1) guy at best buy in NYC told me I need to send to HP
2) call HP technician, explain problem, he will schedule the repair and after renewing my warranty, for which I paid 120 dollars, transfers me (will refer to this moment hereafter as "game changing performance")
3) instead of the other technician, I get some idiot who proceeds to ask me 10 times what is wrong with my laptop, do I have a little screwdriver so I can fix it myself (I am walking down Broadway at this point, so obviously not). Exasperated I explain to him that I have done all the troubleshooting already and it needs to be serviced, and someone was supposed to do that. He puts me on hold and comes back to inform me that my computer can't be serviced for another month because I just bought a new warranty, which invalidated my current warranty, and so I was out of warranty for a month. I mean what the hell. That makes absolutely NO SENSE!! Am I right?? Now furious at this point, I demand they cancel my new warranty, service my computer, put me on with a manager, etc etc. The moron is powerless to do any of the above (obviously due to the fact that he has the mental prowess of a jar of peanut butter) promises the manager will call me back (he doesn't).
4) Now back in Switzerland, Justin takes it to some random Swiss place to back up the data and try to fix it (fail) while I call HP 3 more times and FINALLY they agree to service my computer under the warranty. But they can't ship to or from Switzerland, and it can't be fixed here because it needs U.S. parts. So Justin, my family and Abby are all helping in transporting this from Geneva to East Bufu HP fixit world and back to Geneva, for which I am very grateful. Therefore, intermittent posting for about another month until Abby (yay!!) gets here.

So what else? Justin is leaving next week which sucks. I have been alternating between bouts of unreasonable tears and unreasonable begging him to stay or pack me in his suitcase. But we have had an amazing summer, which we never could have had otherwise. So I am thankful for that.

NY was awesome. Jess' wedding was incredibly beautiful and super fun. We also saw a ton of friends and family and the Bears opener (could have missed that...). Our flight back across the pond was fine except for the fact that they had only one movie playing for the whole plane and it was...Mr. Bean's Holdiay. I mean come on. Just because it's a new movie does not mean it should be shown on a plane! Or ever.

I've been working a lot and am going to Vienna next week for a client meeting which is pretty exciting. Then I get a slew of visitors! Rosey, Marie, and Abby are all coming to visit me in October.

Finally Justin and I saw the Police concert this past Sunday! It was so awesome. It was at a huge outdoor soccer stadium with apparently 30,000 people. It was just the 3 of them, which was cool because no one really does that anymore. They played all the good old stuff and totally rocked. And Sting is hot (and 55 years old which is pretty amazing). After the concert we went to the Pickwick pub and watched the Bears game until 2am (v. smart thing to do on a day before I have to work). Justin was yelling to the entire bar about how amazing Devin Hester was when he ran back the kickoff for the 2nd time (unfortunately that one was called back). I think everyone in the bar thought he was crazy (Crazy about the Bears, sucka!) And that's just one reason why I love him (not Devin Hester, Justin, although I love Devin Hester too, just in a slightly different way...)

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Techmology

Loyal readers, I have some bad news. My laptop is broken. I don't know how or most importantly WHY this happened, as it is less than 1 year old, but it did. The screen won't turn on and it makes these horrible BEEP BEEP BEEP noise when I turn on the power.

Fortunately I just happen to be comin to America...today! Because I am flying with Justin to NYC for my friend Jess' wedding. So lugging the piece of crap 5,000 miles with me, small detour at best buy, with fingers crossed, and hopefully it should be good as new on Monday when I get back.

I will keep you all posted. I always have my work laptop, but all pictures, etc, are on this other laptop. In the meantime please excuse my delay in blogging!