i was told my laptop repair could take between three and ten days. my repair took exactly three days and i don’t even think apple prioritized my service due to the number of times i hit refresh on the repair status page.

this experience has taught me that i have way too much of my life wrapped up around a laptop…

i know its not coming for a few more weeks but ethan starts getting excited about the next holiday within seconds of the last one passing. the next holiday on his radar is valentines day – or love heart day as he calls it.

this came in the mail today with the note “we have one of these and thought you needed one too”.

totally right, i can’t believe i left wanganui without one. plus with all the attention the love heart holiday is getting around here, i’m sitting pretty with a valentine sent all the way from new zealand (never mind the letter was addressed to the whole family, i’m acting like it was solely for me).

and don’t worry, i’m going to clue ethan in to groundhog’s day since the rest of us are much bigger fans of the groundhog than cupid.

usually apple does a pretty good job on the customer satisfaction front, but they have to know this isn’t the level of detail i’m hoping for when i check the status of my macbook repair.

i want to know tom the technician gently unpacked my macbook; lovingly disassembled it; found out exactly what was wrong; has ordered the replacement part to arrive on the fastest coach available.

if thats not reasonable at least tell me when you think i’ll be getting it back, i’m dying here…

i would rather take a bone away from a pit pull than take a pink dress off my daughter…

on friday i spent most of the day working with microsoft windows vista. its the first time i’ve spent more than thirty minutes working on vista. all i got to say is, no wonder microsoft launched the aww shucks guys, its not that bad (mojave experiment) advertisting campaign.

then sunday, my macbook pro went black and no amount of coaxing would bring it up or even treat my ears to the glorious boot chime…

i’m not sure exactly how these two events are related but my gut tells me somehow its vista’s fault.

the koru or unfurling silver fern frond symbolizes new life, growth, strength and peace to the new zealand maori.

if you noticed the new feldt.com masthead, i’ve added a kiwi with a stylized koru body that was created by the folks at logo design nz.

the kiwi was added to my banner as an expression of homesickness for new zealand.

this explanation is a response to a friend’s query “what’s up with the new branding? what is it?”

i just went through the near ten thousand pictures i took in new zealand and picked out one hundred and sixty seven that i thought were good enough to print.

i had a couple of extra frames laying around the house and picked up a couple more this weekend so i only need about one hundred and sixty more to frame all these prints.

its safe to say that for the next five years or more an empty picture frame would be an excellent gift idea.

“…someone is reading you a story, its just the most essential part being human, to tell stories to one another…”

-levar burton
a.k.a geordi laforge, star trek next generation
a.k.a. kunta kinte, roots

its eight years too late but i’ll be listening to this on a continuous loop all day today…

during the half time show of the steelers ravens game they did a segment on the inauguration celebration that got started up in washington d.c. earlier in the day.

there was a shot of malia ann standing between her parents, holding a digital camera and taking photos of the performers and i realized how normal a family we’ve put in the white house.

malia ann doesn’t know she is an arms length away from the most famous person in the world and with one phone call any of the subjects of her photos could be performing at her next birthday party.

“i told my teacher everything she needed to know about my butt.”

i could tell you everything you needed to know about this quote but most importantly it was ethan’s response to my asking “how was school today?”