(You know you have been away from Blogstream too long when you have to log in again). Our vacation was just wonderful, everything I wanted it to be. We began on Friday evening (the 22nd) with my DH just about throwing me in the car with everything packed to prevent me from having a nervous breakdown right there. You see Friday was, not to put too fine a point on it probably the most stressful day I have ever experienced in my time as a paralegal. I had to file a memorandum in opposition to a Motion for Summary Judgment and attached exhibits. I began I think at about 10.30 on Friday morning, I closed my door, told Elizabeth to hold my calls and logged into the system. To begin with you have to understand that you cannot file paper documents in Federal Court anymore if you are an attorney's office. You HAVE to file electronically. So while I was doing some other stuff Elizabeth had been scanning in our exhibits which were sworn statements of other people of varying size. When the boss finalized the memorandum I scanned that in and attempted to upload to Federal Court. To begin with the memorandum was too big, having been scanned from an original and not converted to Adobe direct. Anything above 2.5mb was rejected. After this initial glich I checked my exhibits, every single one of them was above 2.5mb. I called the Federal Court help desk and was told that I needed to reduce the size of the documents using Adobe or rescan the documents using a lower resolution. I tried the lower resolution, the result was an unreadable document. I started to panic. Okay I thought, no problem, I will reduce the size of the document using Adobe. Problem was the version of Adobe I was using did not have the option of resizing documents. Okay, panic rising now, I went ahead and purchased the professional version of Adobe. Got the download and everything. Then it asked me for a serial number. I typed in the serial number I was given and nothing, said it was an invalid serial number. I tried again, omitting the spaces and dashes etc. Nothing. I called technical support. Sat on hold for 30 minutes listening to hold music when a technician got on the line with me and told me that seeing as the version of Adobe was registered to my boss and not me he would need to speak to my boss to authorize any help. I tried to call my boss on the cell phone but got his voice mail. I hung up the phone, rested my head on my desk and cried for a while. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. One last try I entered the serial number again, no spaces, no dashes, no periods, nothing. It worked. So I resized my documents, only having to scan in some of them and at 4:30 pm (when my boss had told me to leave at noon) I finally managed to get the memorandum and exhibits uploaded. I waited a few minutes until I got the e-mail confirmation from Federal Court and then told my DH I was heading to the bank and then home. Like I said when I got home my husband had the car packed, the neighbor briefed, the car gassed up and just about threw me in the car. I sat in the passenger seat and cried for a while, just for the relief of it all being over for ten days and we headed for Statesville and the Carolina Raptor Center. To be continued....................

We are going on vacation tomorrow. To the mountains. I have meant to plan this thing for ages but have been procrastinating for months, now it is one day away and I am sort of scrambling to plan it. However, I am also of the opinion that setting off in the car and just seeing what happens is also a good thing, so which is right? I know that I want to go to Transylvania County to see the waterfalls, I want to go to the NC Raptor Center to see the birds of prey, I would really like to spend a night in a "jacuzzi under the stars" , we want to go where there is snow and stay in a cabin, but other than that it is going to be an off the cuff vacation. We are probably going to get so lost.

As you know I just bought a brand new flat screen 19inch monitor, it is wonderful, except it has a dead pixel, just one, right in the center of the screen. I am torn right now, it is of course still under warranty so do I want to send it back and be without a monitor for a while or do I live with it?

Just a random thought, how many kids who are home schooled are diagnosed with ADHD? I am curious as a percentage of government school kids and a percentage of home school kids how many are diagnosed with ADHD? My guess would be that home schooled kids are not diagnosed with ADHD, it is an invented disease which allows parents and teachers to drug normal children to keep them quiet... but then that is just me......

So today (thanks to Christmas bonuses) we bought a flat screen monitor for my computer and we bought the DH a flat screen HDTV. While it took me about a couple of hours to hook up my new monitor as we speak DH has been working on the new TV and surround sound system for about 5 hours. There are wires, and there are more wires, and then there are more wires. To begin with one has to understand that DH is a musician, which means that mechanical or technological things are alien to him. We are going to be here til midnight at which point DH will no doubt watch a very loud movie on his new surround sound.

I actually laughed out loud at this one.

Colin was bragging to his boss one day, "You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."

Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, "OK, Colin how about Tom Cruise?"

"Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it."

So Colin and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom

Cruise's door and sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts, "Colin! Great to see you! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!" Although impressed, Colin's boss is still sceptical. After they
leave Cruise's house, he tells Colin that he thinks Colin's
knowing Cruise was just lucky. "No, no, just name anyone else," Colin says.

"President Clinton," his boss quickly retorts.

Yes," Colin says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington ." And off they go. At the White House, Clinton spots Colin on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying, "Colin, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a cup of coffee first and catch up."

Well, the boss is very shaken by now but still not totally convinced.

After they leave the White House grounds he expresses his doubts
to Colin, who again implores him to name anyone else. "The Pope," his boss replies.

"Sure!" says Colin. "My folks are from Poland , and I've known the
Pope a long time." So off they fly to Rome . Colin and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Colin says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope."

And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican .
Sure enough, half an hour later Colin emerges with the Pope on the
balcony but by the time Colin returns, he finds that his boss has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics.
Working his way to his boss' side, Colin asks him, "What happened?"
His boss looks up and says, "I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said "Who the @%$@'s that on the balcony with Colin?"