Media Day

Yesterday was "media day" around here.  Taking advantage of Tom's media expertise (it's what he does for a living) Walt agreed to get a new computer.  He's been struggling with a Windows Vista PC, which isn't compatible with anything, it seems, so they went out to do some laptop shopping, and Tom is here to help him get it up and running.

It's up but not running yet because they ran into problems, but I am certain that Tom will have it all set up by the time he leaves...and Walt certainly would not have been able to do this by himself.

In the meantime, Ned and Tom have convinced us to give up Davis Community Network, which we have had for literally decades, toss the router and go cable.  I'm hoping that will be done today.  But first I had to check on what I had stored on DCN.  I had forgotten about my Personal Home Page, a multi-page site with all sorts of things on it, including reports on our travels, memorial pages for Paul and David, and, most of all, diary excerpts from "How I Did It," the book I put together for the kids many years ago.  I would lose all of that if we dropped DCN, so I spent the day moving everything over to my hard drive and will decide which, if any, I will repost to Funny the World...but in the meantime they haven't been lost.

It was pretty much an all-day project but it was fun going back and reading some of that stuff.  I thought I would use some of that for these entries on dull days.  So, since this week would have been David's 47th birthday, here is something I put together about him:

Memories of David This week's diary entries have a slightly different twist. It is the one-year anniversary of David's death, and I've chosen a few entries to remember the young child he was.....it all went so fast..... February 17, 1972 David is smiling already! (he was born 2/4/72) Yesterday he was in a very smiley mood and smiled almost every time I talked to him. I couldn't believe he was actually smiling at one one week of age, but he was! As I said after Thomas was born, and as each baby has smiled progressively earlier, the next one will probably be born smiling.   November 18, 1972 David took two steps yesterday. He really likes to walk, though now the fink knows what I'm trying to do and crawls to me. He's been in such a good mood lately. Really, really cute and full of fire. Every time he sees me he issues a shriek and throws himself headlong into my amrs and buries his head in my chest. He's really neat! April 23, 1973 Why is it I spend most of my day saying, "Oh, David...!" Yesterday we spent a lot of time straightening up, prior to going to Easter dinner, with David following along behind messing up as fast as we could clean. When we were ready to go, where was David? Eating a chocolate easter egg and covered with chocolate. I changed him and cleaned him up and he went outside wit hthe kids while I got dressed. When I looked for him, where was he? In the neighbors' sprinkler, covered with mud. And I do mean covered! His brand new shoes were caked, there was mud in his hair, in his mouth. He was so filthy that he had to have a complete bath and headwash to look presentable. When he was cleaned I strapped him to the nearest carseat so he couldn't move until I was ready to leave....I just looked into the living room and there is David throwing a handful of ashes from the fireplace onto the rug. He grins and runs away..."   August 26, 1973 David was in rare form yesterday. As usual he was into things all day long, but the apex was reached when I found at the top of the stairs, a pile of puzzle pieces from three 1,000 piece puzzles which David had dumped out and mixed together! A couple of other "minor" things were uprooting my sansaveria plant and taking off 2 doors of the glass cabinet (which are virtually impossible to put back on again without taking the whole cabinet apart). He started out this morning by dumping out a bag of garbage in the first 5 minutes he was awake. January 24, 1974 David has been terrorizing everyone all week long. all I do these days is hold my head in my hands when I hear, "Mommeeeee...David...." What he did tonight, though, was more funny than bad. He had been playing with a frog puppet. He was also eating his dessert. He started saying something that sounded like "No want it" and he was pointing to the frog, which was now lying on its bac on the floor. When I looked at it closely, the frog had a blob of applesauce in its mouth! April 5, 1974 David was building with blocks yesterday. It was the first time I've ever seen him do anything like that. He really got into it. First he made a long road, putting them end-to-end halfway across the floor. Then he started standing them up and calling them "door" and when I went in later, he had a huge stack of them standing up. My baby is growing up. June 7, 1974 David took apart the telephone this afternoon and when I found him with it dangling from his hand, he looked at me very innocently and said, "I didn't--Daddy did it." He also jumped on Tom's stomach and when I yelled at him, this tiny fury-filled figure pointed at me and shouted, "I hate you!" and then ran to hit me.   October 2, 1974 Tom and David look so cute right now. They just got dressed--David came down wearing baggy jeans, a shirt which he put on upside down (and got very angry when I tried to tell him that the neck did NOT go around his waist!) and the polo hat we got at the fair. Tom is in jeans, a sweatshirt and his jacket and Ned's baseball cap. When we got David turned around, Tom turned to Dave and said, "C'mon, Dave, let's go play football," and they both swaggered outside. October 15, 1974 David was rather indignant the other day. I asked him if he was my baby and he said, "I not a baby! I all grown up!"...I really can't resign myself to releasing him from "babyhood," but he is becoming "one of the guys" now. This morning he yelled at Tom, "I not your best buddy. I Ned's best buddy." Later he, Ned and Paul were sitting at the table, armed wrapped around each other's necks, professing undying loyalty to each other."