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Man, I get a full day of shuttling Junior to swimming and then to skiing. He is SO excited about the skiing. I know I would have been at his age too. Except for my fear of pain and death. I was always afraid to get hurt sliding – I figure adding me standing up to that would not be good. Anyway, I am so not looking forward to dealing with the ski area, getting his rentals, getting his pass for the class, and then standing in the snow watching for an hour. This, my friends, proves that I love him, because I can think of about 1000 things I’d rather do this afternoon.

Mr. Dump’s birthday is tomorrow, and I can’t figure out what to do. He’s going to have to take my step-son home in the afternoon, and then there’s the whole Superbowl thing. Do I invite people over? I can’t even tell if he wants me to. *sigh*. It’s been a couple of years since we watched the Superbowl with friends. I miss that, actually. It’s always more fun to watch with a bunch of people.

Okay, I guess I need to go make sure Junior doesn’t have his underwear on under his bathing suit. I’m making him put his bathing suit on under his pants because he’s too little to go in the men’s locker room by himself, so it’s easier to have him “ready to go” when we get there.

p.s. Happy Birthday Nat! I hope you had a great day, even though I know it’s tough with your honey away. Just think, when he gets back he’ll have a whole bunch of stuff to make up to you! Geeks bearing gifts!

I know my step-son reads here sometimes, so happy birthday! I’m thinking we need to take him to UNO’s so we can get a desert for him to share with us. Well, Mr. Dump’s birthday is Sunday, so if we go on Saturday, that would cover both of them. I didn’t get my birthday meal at Uno’s but it’s already been a week, so I’m not going to try. I think they’d start asking to see ID if we said three of us were the birthday boys and girl.

Let’s see, what else.

Oh, this one is big. Well, not so much to you, I’m sure, but it is to me, because it’s like the beginning of a new era in DumpTruckLand. Junior sent me an email today. He wrote everything in it himself. This is a HUGE thing to me. I mean, I have a kid who can write me notes that express his thoughts and feelings!

And his thoughts and feelings were:

How are you?

I am fine.

We can watch a movie.

And have popcorn.

Oh, you betcha!

It’s like a whole piece of me is missing. I have the shakes, for goodness’ sake. How am I supposed to get through the rest of the day? I’m only human, you know.

For part of the day yesterday, I got confused and thought it was Friday. I cannot tell you how much it stunk when I realized that not only was it not Friday, it wasn’t even Thursday. Goodness, that was a moment of torture.

The morning team on XLO was telling a “horror story” this morning about this woman who lost all the photos of every major event in her life because they were all on Ofoto and she hadn’t read the fine print in the agreement that said if you don’t buy something every 12 months, they reserve the right to remove your account. This woman had pictures from her wedding, birthdays, Christmas, etc. and it’s all gone.

I’m flabbergasted. Firstly, because I never thought of Ofoto as a free storage space. I always thought of it as a place to upload pictures so you can order prints. Or maybe to share with other people who might want to order prints. But as storage? No. It’s a side benefit, but no. Then I was also flabbergasted that this person would upload her photos and then not keep copies of the files on her hard drive as a backup. Or burn them to a CD. Sheer insanity. You don’t throw your valuable memories on a website you don’t control, and then delete all your personal copies. NEVER EVER! Did we not live through the dotcom bust when websites disappeared without a whisper? And it’s not like you can download the original files back from Ofoto once they have them. What if you wanted to do something else with the file?

Lastly, she changed email addresses and didn’t update the one on file with them, so they sent 5 warning emails and she never got them. I would say that at this point, she can only blame herself. I’m not saying “too bad” but I am saying that you have to use common sense. If all your child’s baby photos are only available on a photo printing website like Snapfish or Ofoto, you’d better order up prints of all of them in case something happens. Do not trust 3rd party companies to own and care for your files. I am telling you this as a customer service, because apparently this isn’t quite so obvious to everyone.

I picked up the Boston Herald today because of the picture on the front. You see, Junior is 7, prime viewing age for all the Nickelodeon shows. Late every afternoon is the time for U-Pick Live, a show that combines games, interviews and cartoons selected by the viewers. One of the hosts, Brent, is apparently a Chelmsford native, so we have often heard him passionately praise the Sox and the Pats.

I assume the picture on the Herald is less because of the Brent connection and more how goofy the photo looks, but there is Pick-Boy, one of the regulars on U-Pick, in his Pick-Boy costume, interviewing Patriot Kevin Kasper, who looks amused if nothing else.

I actually bought a copy because I thought Junior would get a kick out of it, but maybe I’m delusional. No less delusional than the editor who picked that photo to take up half the front page, though. (Link only valid on 2/2/05)

I’ve been in a good mood for two whole days now! Can you imagine? Me! A good mood! See what a successful birthday party will do for you? Gosh, I should go into party planning, don’t you think? Except I don’t want to have to deal with all the little teeny details. So I want to be the high-level planner. Come up with the theme, other ideas like that. That probably isn’t enough to hang up a shingle for, but hey, feel free to ask me to help you come up with a party idea.

Here’s a freebie for a summer party: arrange ahead of time to have an ice cream truck stop at the party, let everyone get something free from the truck. Sort of like an open bar. I mean, who doesn’t love an ice cream man?

Hang on, I forgot to change my calendar to February.

Okay, thanks.

Where was I? Oh, right. Being in a good mood. I’m hoping I can get that strung out until at least the weekend. We’ll see.