Join Me in Snarkville

Before I explain the title, a couple of random thoughts…

1. Who, other than me, instantly thought of Thelma and Louise when they read Alison’s comment about being hide in the Prius so I can fit in?  And for the record, there are few women in this world I’d drive off a cliff with, of which Alison (who is too amazing to ever commit armed robbery or drive off a cliff) is on my list.
2. Barb, yes — I shall bring you next time — it was truly awesome — though next time I’m bringing my PJs, I’m drinking with the girls, and I may be forced to steal more yarn — because apparently that’s what I do when I’m invited to other people’s houses.

Ok…so back to my story for the evening (which, seriously how exciting is my life that you get two posts today?)..

It dawned on me as I was running errands in prep for the trip, that I might be forced to carry two computers on the trip with me.  You see, I do all my work on a PC laptop and all my fun on my MAC.  You may say, oh, then if you are on vacation then leave the PC at home.  To which I say, great, if you want to explain to women with sharp pointy sticks why I’m not e-mailing them back with answers to their pressing questions (seriously, most of them are packing questions, and I might offer that if you are actually packing now, you may have too much underwear — just sayin’.) then sure.  However, in all seriousness, I do have somethings I need to do in the quiet and I have a few down days built in to do that.  Alas.  Then, I hear that other half of you say, well if you NEED the PC then leave the Mac at home.  My dear, my Mac syncs with the iPod and the iPhone — ’nuff said.  Plus I hold all the photos here and I’m going to try to build an iPhoto book while I’m on the road this year — I’ll let you know how that goes.

So, Prince was out all day while I was seriously thinking over this 2 computer problem.  The second he walks in, I pounce, because I’m totally not the wife who says “welcome home, honey, how was your day.  Come sit.  Here are your slippers and perhaps a drink?”  Oh, no.  I’m the wife who is all, “What are you doing home so early?  And I have a problem that I need you to solve right now — no you may not go to the bathroom first…”  (Yup, that Prince is a lucky, lucky man to have me, let me tell you.)

But this time, the Prince proved why I married him.  He LISTENED to my WHOLE problem and my CONCERNS. (Bonus points on all accounts to that — he only lost a few points because he chose to pee first, but still.)  Then he thought and said, “Long term we need to look into a VPN solution, but for this trip, have you thought about installing Windows on your Mac and transferring the key stuff to the Mac.  You can back-up a few things and then you can move it back when we get back.”  I looked at him with wonder. (First, I had to process through that I might have actually understood the need for a VPN, though I have no idea what a VPN stands for.  Next, I drolled a little over the thought of just needing my Mac. And the bonus to this was that the solution was probably free.)  Alrighty then, tonight I’ll do everything I need to and we can test this plan.

He wandered off and I installed BootCamp.  We had dinner, put Duke to bed, and I asked Prince, “where’s the XP disk?”  He started looking.  He dug through a metric ton of CDs (I even found a box of 3.5″disks –I don’t have a computer that uses them anymore — why do we have a box of blank ones?)  He dug and dug and dug.  I ask him where he saw it last, since it wasn’t in the well labeled pocket in his book of CDs.  “Well, it was on the table upstairs until your parents came to visit.”

SIDENOTE: (This has been one of those little marriage annoyances that we have not been able to sort out in 8 years.  I don’t like my kitchen table to be a dumping ground.  Oh, I am not saying I don’t put things there, but I set things down that tend to be moved within a day or two and I tend to try to sort through my pile regularly.  He, well, Prince tends to use the kitchen table as his filing system.  I offer to you, that if the ‘very important item you are looking for’ was filed on the kitchen table, you take a risk that someone might start throwing it away….just sayin’)

He finally comes up and says, “Here it is, when you start it up you will have to pull a bunch of updates, but it will be ok.”  I didn’t look closely at the fine print from Boot Camp or compare it to what he handed me.

From Prince:  The CD of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1

From the BootCamp Instructions: Use full install disk of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2.  Do not attempt to install an earlier version and upgrade.

Doh!

So, what I was going to do tonight and test tomorrow — will be done tomorrow night and tested oh, tomorrow night — because I have to pack….