<p>calmom-
Glad to hear of such a positive experience. I always feel like whichever line I choose is always the slowest- glad to hear things work out the other way from time to time…</p>
<p>Calmom–your daughter must be living right! And the luggage came with her–that’s truly amazing.</p>
<p>We are keeping our fingers crossed for good weather in the midwest as we drive two kids back to school tomorrow in two directions. Due to obligations today, it HAS to be tomorrow…the weather, of course, has been unseasonably warm but is threatening to change just as we get there…</p>
<p>SbMom,</p>
<p>Loved the parental hide and seek story. I have seen that look of fear in my own kids eyes, but, to be fair, both my kids have also told me I am the coolest parent among their friends’ peer group. And they weren’t even asking for anything…</p>
<p>Tech skills:</p>
<p>Hardware, including PC builds from scratch, but no overclocking or water-based system cooling</p>
<p>Designing, building and tuning muliti-terabyte databases</p>
<p>Most software, especially if I can find a free open source solution</p>
<p>Digital music. Have had an MP3 player over four years</p>
<p>Creating Miis on Wiis. </p>
<p>Anything home electronics related. I know the difference between: LCD and DLP, HDTV formats, PAL and NTSC. </p>
<p>I can also program a touch screen remote control to eliminate the need for 5 other remotes.</p>
<p>Don’t do:</p>
<p>Mainframe programming</p>
<p>Photoshop (no need yet)</p>
<p>core dumps</p>
<p>most of our home renovations</p>
<p>foundation brush</p>
<p>blogging. Just don’t have that much to say…</p>
<p>SA is sort of our communal blog.</p>
<p>mstee, you have been holding out on us! Another tech guru. To the max!</p>
<p>Which reminds me, what the h*** is a “core dump?” Or maybe I don’t want to know :eek:.</p>
<p>jmmom–you mean m&sdad, right? Only core dump I know about is my son and husband who leave apple cores lying around . . .</p>
<p>My kids’ friends think I’m cool because I misbehave in (low-end) restaurants. Can’t keep from testing the straws to see if they’re the flutey kind. If you bend them in the right places you can play tunes.</p>
<p>We also build structures out of sugar packets, paper napkin rings, & other stuff the owners are careless enough to leave lying around…</p>
<p>Wow, m&s. Impressive list. </p>
<p>I know my sons’ friend love me becuase they tell me so to my face and because they basically live underfoot. But my own boys do not appreciate this and would never, in one trillion years, help me believe that I was ‘cool’. Oh no. That is not to be encouraged. I overheard one friend ask: “Why can’t I talk to your Mom? I let you talk to MY mom!”</p>
<p>Not too long ago, we had an epic family battle regarding whether or not H and I would be “allowed” to dance at a Parent-Student black tie dinner dance. We said that if we couldn’t dance, we weren’t going. He said his friends would be laughing at us and he would die of humiliation. (He obviously hasn’t seen many 50-somethings dance. H and I are in the upper tier of that group).</p>
<p>He got over it and we went to the dance–where we were surrounded by 18 year olds wanting to have a dance with us. Including S. He had a ball.</p>
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<p>You had that mixed in a list of architectural stuff - how was I supposed to know?! I loathe make-up - I pretend that putting on lipstick makes me dressed up enough to meet with clients. This is sheer laziness - I’m sure I’d look better with than without.</p>
<p>Oh, mstee, you’re right. I credited you with m&sdad’s whole list. He was already on my tech guru list! Now you’re demoted down with the rest of us :p.</p>
<p>Shhh. DH and I are the only folks in the 92129 zip codes and south celebrating the Patriot win. Now I’ve got two horses in the race - Patriots and Saints. </p>
<p>That’s another tech skill I have - watching TV sports with the best of them. Bartender - Geary’s, Shipyard or Sam Adams all around. It’s the least I can do.</p>
<p>I have such tranquility about football; I never watch it and don’t care a whit who wins or loses. But I LOVE to nap on the sofa with the twangy drone of an announcer narrating a football game in the background… Incredibly soporific.</p>
<p>No, no. SBmom. Those are the golf commentators :), I mean “golf whisperers.”</p>
<p>Actually, with respect to my daughter’s flight: I kind of suspect that there must have been some problem going on with plane #1 early on – my d. was there very early, and it seemed odd to me that they were offering so much in terms of a coupon so far before the scheduled boarding time. So maybe there was pressure early for them to as many people as they could off that plane – either mechanical issues they were already aware of, or else some security concern that made them want to look for an excuse to pull baggage off the flight for reinspection. They may have ended up having to put most of the passengers on other flights, many with other airlines, in any case. There certainly are no shortage of daily flights between SFO & NY. </p>
<p>I’ll never know – I just thought $500 is quite a premium when round trip fare between SFO & NY usually runs around $375. (I’ve already checked online and $500 will pay for a RT fare between NY and Paris on the same airline if my d. books soon and would like a really delightful trip for spring break). So it seemed like a higher-than-typical premium for resolving an overbooking issue, especially at a time well before scheduled take off.</p>
<p>–
On another note entirely… you know things are really getting strange when a kid has to fly from California to New York in the dead of winter to get <em>away</em> from the cold weather. It is literally bitter-cold freezing here, and temps were in the mid-50s when my d. got into Manhattan sometime after 10 p.m.</p>
<p>Wild weather, calmom. But please send a little snow to the So. Cal. Mtns. in early March, so we can get some skiing in at Summit/Big Bear when we take younger s to see Pomona/CMC. Any recommendations for a place to stay at Big Bear Lake? </p>
<p>And get this! Thank heavens for airlines fighting to stay alive. Booked roundtrip Atl-Lax on Delta for $221 plus junk fees per person!! Mind you, junk fees are $37/person, but its still cheap! I am trying to send younger s to visit older s. in Tx over pres. weekend, and the round trip (if we do Fri-Mon) is more than to LAX!</p>
<p>Here’s a great story about giving up seats. Long story short, but when my late mom was ill, we had to fly back and forth to NY constantly. At one point I sent my h and sons home because there wan’t much they cound do in NY. Due to weather a flight was cancelled and theirs was overbooked (think overcrowded flight, not enough seats in LaGuardia. Not a pretty picture). They asked for volunteers and my hubby and sons gave up their seats. The flight attendant said that they’d each receive a ticket for this. My older s didn’t realize this meant round trip, so asked if they could get 2 tickets. The flight attendant was so thrilled that she was getting 3 seats, she gladly agreed. So, they each got vouchers for two round trip tickets (yup- that was 12 individual flight segments!) on Airtran! We used every last one of them! What a deal!! Then last year they did that deal with Wendy’s where you cut off cupons from their drink cups and could get credits for flights. We ended up with another free flight with that promo as well. We LOVE Airtran. They have been great to us!</p>
<p>Yo, peeps! Who needs a hot spiked cider? I make mine with rum & orange slices, cinnamon and cloves. Yummy and lethal.</p>
<p>This sounds weird, but it’s yummy – heat up Dr. Pepper and add a squeeze of lemon. And you could probably slip in some rum, as well.</p>
<p>Hot anything for us thin-blooded Northern Californians watching the temperatures drop below the thirties the past few nights…</p>
<p>If you heat Dr. Pepper does it explode? Yo, peeps. Love it.</p>
<p>I’ve got nice, crispy Peeps in the pantry, shall I bring them to the party? (I buy them at Easter, cut a little hole in the wrapper so they’ll start to crisp up (a.k.a. “go stale”) and then around Christmas (or January!) they’re just about edible.)</p>
<p>(If they can ever be said to be actually edible, that is…)</p>
<p>Alu I went for a walk this am and it was 37!! Hat & gloves time!!</p>
<p>Mootie, do you think if I feed TSFS stale dyed marshmallow products he will suddenly become capable of core dumps?!</p>