Favorite Moment from the Holidays

Mine was watching Dad come full circle. On the night of the 25th there was no way he was going to play golf with the remaining male faction of the Roberts clan.

Watching the balls fly on the driving range on the morning of the 26th, he was feeling pretty good about his decision.

At around hole three later on in the morning, he was back-pedaling a bit.

By hole six he confirmed that had he known then what he now knew, he would be digging holes in the tee-box along with the rest of us.

By the time I was packing the van up to go home, he was poking around in the basement to see whether or not he had given his lefty clubs to the Goodwill.

My how things can change in a matter of a few days.

Pops, you'll have to post some pictures of the great event here on the blog...if you can figure out how to get negatives scanned into a computer...Maybe there's an "app" for that?

savings bonds

www.treasurydirect.com

This will show you the current value of your bonds, the interest rate, the accrual date and the final maturity. 4% seems pretty low but two of Leslie's appear to be locked in at that. 4% is really high right now for just about any investment. I would recommend hanging on to them until final maturity. Merry Christmas from your personal banker.

Baby-X wishes everyone a Merry Christmas!

We got to hear the heartbeat on Friday! Everything seems to be doing fine with the baby...except that to get this audio file onto this blog, I had to convert it from the M4A audio file I took with the iPhone, convert it to MP3, and then use Windows Movie Maker to make a "movie" file in order to post it on the blog. Silly, but the end result is cool nonetheless. The voice you hear is that of our doctor, Dr. Muasher. She's pretty freaking cool I must say.


Merry Christmas! Love,
Brooke, Heather, Geena and Baby-X

GENIU$ BAR

So, the other day Heather and I went to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. Without getting too far into the details, we’ll just say that Heather’s iPhone wasn’t working properly (which had nothing to do with Geena putting it in her mouth). So, the guy turns the phone on, sees the error message come up, and then shines his magnifying light thingy into the contacts. He then says that will be $199. Apparently the iPhone has a white strip that turns pink upon water damage (Genius!), so that they cannot be swindled out of replacing “malfunctioning phones” when some donkey drops his into a cup of Dr. Pepper while driving on the PA turnpike while talking to his mom on the phone (I don’t know anyone who’s ever done that…). Anyway, so I ask the guy for his magnifying light thingy so that I can see the metal contacts. They seem to mostly be intact except for a little surface corrosion. Geena obviously has the superpower of corroding tiny copper contacts. [If we could only market this amazing skill!?] Anyway, I ask the guy if they sell a cleaning kit, and he says “No” (Genius!- why sell a cleaning kit when they can just sell you a new phone?). He then says, well, if you can clean it with a little rubbing alcohol, but don’t use too much, then great. Otherwise, we can just get you a new phone (Genius! - they said that, but I think they meant I could pay them to get me a new phone.). Bottom line: I said ‘NO’, I’m not ready to drop $199 on a new phone. I then bought my own magnifying glass for $10.50 at Restoration Hardware, took the phone home, got an old toothbrush, and then went to town on brushing the contacts. I didn’t even use the rubbing alcohol. And Viola! Genuis! The phone worked like new!

And about this magnifying light thingy, it is basically the same thing doctors use to look into your ears. So, no doubt, these Apple Genius Bar peoples are in the back checking out each other’s ears and comparing brain sizes while charging people lots of money for unbroken phones- while at the same time appearing to be very smart, gracious and helping you out tremendously with excellent customer service. Geniu$ indeed. No wonder Apple’s making such a killing.

So, lesson of the day, beware of self-given titles, as they may be true, but they may not accurately reflect who they are truly meant for.