Our Internet's back!
No explanation for why it didn't work automatically when I plugged my laptop in, but it turns out that I made matters worse on Tuesday when I put a period in the wrong place during my conversation with the help desk. I would feel really embarrassed about that misplaced little dot, but it took the two masters 45 minutes to figure it out, so I just feel a little bit embarrassed.
The cost of finding the misplaced period was $10, which we were supposed to pay at the bank. However, we didn't know we had to pay it within a day, so last night our Internet got shut off again. Thankfully, the bank was open today so we were able to pay up.
In other news: We had a lovely time celebrating Eric's 35th birthday on Thursday, and tonight the celebration continues with a Mexican food fiesta with two other couples. Off to cook!
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
I am not a luddite
A week ago today, my new laptop stopped turning on. I've been out of sorts ever since.
I was just days away from the deadline for two big projects that I work on several times a year for SEND, and I had to ask someone in the States to take them over, which made me feel like a big ol' slacker.
Thankfully, Mac opened several stores here in the past year, so they now have an authorized service center in Kyiv. The authorized service people replaced my keyboard. It's Russian now, which is actually rather convenient, since I don't need to see the letters to type in English, but I desperately need them to type in Russian.
I know this is a rather complainy post, but let me just say that I am SO IMMENSELY THRILLED that my computer works again, and I promise to soon make a backup of all the things I thought were lost forever.
Back to the complaints. Sadly, the authorized service people claimed that my warranty was only good for repairs done in the States. I'll be Skyping Apple about this matter ...
... just as soon as our Internet comes back on.
When my laptop came home, it no longer connected to the Internet. I spent 40 minutes on the phone with the Internet service guy this morning, but to no avail. He and I faced two language barriers: Russian/English and PC/Mac. The Russian/English one was way easier to overcome.
On Thursday, the Internet master (master is the word for a specialized repair person here) will be stopping by to take a look. Last time my Mac wouldn't connect to the Internet, it took three masters the better part of a day to figure it out.
I wish Thursday's master quick success. Dietrich watches Sesame Street via Internet. You try feeding him oatmeal with blueberries, but without Sesame Street!
I was just days away from the deadline for two big projects that I work on several times a year for SEND, and I had to ask someone in the States to take them over, which made me feel like a big ol' slacker.
Thankfully, Mac opened several stores here in the past year, so they now have an authorized service center in Kyiv. The authorized service people replaced my keyboard. It's Russian now, which is actually rather convenient, since I don't need to see the letters to type in English, but I desperately need them to type in Russian.
I know this is a rather complainy post, but let me just say that I am SO IMMENSELY THRILLED that my computer works again, and I promise to soon make a backup of all the things I thought were lost forever.
Back to the complaints. Sadly, the authorized service people claimed that my warranty was only good for repairs done in the States. I'll be Skyping Apple about this matter ...
... just as soon as our Internet comes back on.
When my laptop came home, it no longer connected to the Internet. I spent 40 minutes on the phone with the Internet service guy this morning, but to no avail. He and I faced two language barriers: Russian/English and PC/Mac. The Russian/English one was way easier to overcome.
On Thursday, the Internet master (master is the word for a specialized repair person here) will be stopping by to take a look. Last time my Mac wouldn't connect to the Internet, it took three masters the better part of a day to figure it out.
I wish Thursday's master quick success. Dietrich watches Sesame Street via Internet. You try feeding him oatmeal with blueberries, but without Sesame Street!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Milestones
In the past week, Dietrich:
a) Ate a whole Happy Meal for the first time.
b) Got run over by a little red bike. Now every time he sees a kid on a bike, he says, "Bike. Uh-oh!"
c) Sat still for his third haircut.
d) Licked his way to the center of his first Tootsie Roll Pop — a gift from the lady from whom we buy our water. Somehow, the water lady has a whole stash of American candy that I've never seen sold in Ukraine. Dietrich thinks she has the best job ever, because from her kiosk she can see every car, truck, bus, motorcycle and tram that goes by.
e) Grew to love a new babysitter, Anna. Anna really bailed us out when our regular sitter's daughter got sick in the village (where they have a little house and grow veggies), so they couldn't return.
f) Took several three-hour naps. That Anna tires him out. Thanks, Anna!
g) Had a little girl hold his hand. But she was just trying to woo him into giving her his crocodile toy.
h) Only wet one pair of underpants today, and managed to put almost all his poop in the potty. This isn't consistent enough behavior to be considered a trend, but it's a nice break from the days when we go through every pair of underpants before naptime.
a) Ate a whole Happy Meal for the first time.
b) Got run over by a little red bike. Now every time he sees a kid on a bike, he says, "Bike. Uh-oh!"
c) Sat still for his third haircut.
d) Licked his way to the center of his first Tootsie Roll Pop — a gift from the lady from whom we buy our water. Somehow, the water lady has a whole stash of American candy that I've never seen sold in Ukraine. Dietrich thinks she has the best job ever, because from her kiosk she can see every car, truck, bus, motorcycle and tram that goes by.
e) Grew to love a new babysitter, Anna. Anna really bailed us out when our regular sitter's daughter got sick in the village (where they have a little house and grow veggies), so they couldn't return.
f) Took several three-hour naps. That Anna tires him out. Thanks, Anna!
g) Had a little girl hold his hand. But she was just trying to woo him into giving her his crocodile toy.
h) Only wet one pair of underpants today, and managed to put almost all his poop in the potty. This isn't consistent enough behavior to be considered a trend, but it's a nice break from the days when we go through every pair of underpants before naptime.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Things we're into these days
It seems I took a little break from blogging. We had guests for much of June, and then I threw a baby shower (in Russian!) for a friend, and evidently it's taken me a while to recover from all the entertaining and excitement. So, just to get back in the saddle, I present the following list.
Things we're into these days
1) Classic Sesame Street via YouTube. I'm trying to wean Dietrich off his addiction to the not-very-educational Muppet Show. But, oh the nostalgia! I nearly teared up at "I'm an aardvark" yesterday.
2) Fruit. On Sunday we quickly consumed the season's first watermelon, and I've been using up stuff in the freezer to make room for frozen strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and peaches. Here's to smoothies in November!
3) Dietrich's liberties with the English language. You say potato? Dietrich says podada.
4) Work. So much to do.
5) Late bedtimes. After-dinner strolls to take advantage of the warm summer nights have pushed Dietrich's bedtime back to about 10 p.m. He's a night owl, like his momma.
6) Playground vocabulary. I'm meeting with one of my old Russian teachers a couple of times a week to make sure that I'm saying things correctly when I talk with Dietrich on the street. When we initially studied Russian, I didn't realize how important phrases like, "Don't touch the dog/glass/poop" would become.
Things we're into these days
1) Classic Sesame Street via YouTube. I'm trying to wean Dietrich off his addiction to the not-very-educational Muppet Show. But, oh the nostalgia! I nearly teared up at "I'm an aardvark" yesterday.
2) Fruit. On Sunday we quickly consumed the season's first watermelon, and I've been using up stuff in the freezer to make room for frozen strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and peaches. Here's to smoothies in November!
3) Dietrich's liberties with the English language. You say potato? Dietrich says podada.
4) Work. So much to do.
5) Late bedtimes. After-dinner strolls to take advantage of the warm summer nights have pushed Dietrich's bedtime back to about 10 p.m. He's a night owl, like his momma.
6) Playground vocabulary. I'm meeting with one of my old Russian teachers a couple of times a week to make sure that I'm saying things correctly when I talk with Dietrich on the street. When we initially studied Russian, I didn't realize how important phrases like, "Don't touch the dog/glass/poop" would become.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
A favorite pastime ...
... on a hot day. Sitting on a large storage crate on the balcony and making a clothespin open and close.
With his teeth.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Well, buy them some peanuts and Cracker Jack
We love baseball. Oh my it's a wonderful game. We're midway through the Ken Burns documentary about our national pastime, and we're enjoying it. The documentary gives the impression that baseball was an even greater source of national unity in the past than it it now, though I'm sure there were people in the early part of last century who also claimed it was a boring game.
Soccer's the big game here in Ukraine, so Dietrich's not likely to learn baseball through cultural osmosis. We'll have to teach him, and mlb.com will help.
But I see signs that baseball might someday be not so foreign here. Around Christmas, we made a special outing to what we'd heard was the best toy store in Kyiv. We weren't impressed by the store (it's long and skinny, hard to navigate and too easy for little hands to grab all that interests them). But we did get one special gift for Dietrich. "Oh, a baseball," we exclaimed when we spotted the white ball with red stiching. "Dietrich must have it, no matter the cost!" (Thankfully, it was cheap.)
But last week we got Dietrich another soft baseball, and this one we found in a very ordinary toy kiosk above the supermarket a five-minute walk from our house.
Plus, on our way to the market one evening, we saw two kids playing some odd game in the courtyard of our building. Never expecting that they could be playing the game we love, we asked ourselves, "What is that? Cricket?" Nope, it was baseball. The rudimentary, pitch-at-your-buddy, no-one-to-field-a-hit version of baseball. Keep it up, kids, and in a few years, Dietrich can play outfield.
Soccer's the big game here in Ukraine, so Dietrich's not likely to learn baseball through cultural osmosis. We'll have to teach him, and mlb.com will help.
But I see signs that baseball might someday be not so foreign here. Around Christmas, we made a special outing to what we'd heard was the best toy store in Kyiv. We weren't impressed by the store (it's long and skinny, hard to navigate and too easy for little hands to grab all that interests them). But we did get one special gift for Dietrich. "Oh, a baseball," we exclaimed when we spotted the white ball with red stiching. "Dietrich must have it, no matter the cost!" (Thankfully, it was cheap.)
But last week we got Dietrich another soft baseball, and this one we found in a very ordinary toy kiosk above the supermarket a five-minute walk from our house.
Plus, on our way to the market one evening, we saw two kids playing some odd game in the courtyard of our building. Never expecting that they could be playing the game we love, we asked ourselves, "What is that? Cricket?" Nope, it was baseball. The rudimentary, pitch-at-your-buddy, no-one-to-field-a-hit version of baseball. Keep it up, kids, and in a few years, Dietrich can play outfield.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Taking a dip
Our washing machine is a front-loader that fits neatly under our kitchen counter. In our old apartment, we had a tall, skinny top-loader, but it wouldn't fit here, so we swapped with our landlord.
Dietrich has long known how to open the washer, and he loves to fill it up with stuff. Most of the time I notice this before I start a load of wash, but the other day we looked over to see this panda magnet going for a swim.
When it was just the panda, it was funny. But upon unloading the clothes, I found the pig, the cat, the dog and several other creatures also had taken a dip and, like the panda, were no longer recognizable.
You'd think I'd have learned after I washed the remote control ...
Dietrich has long known how to open the washer, and he loves to fill it up with stuff. Most of the time I notice this before I start a load of wash, but the other day we looked over to see this panda magnet going for a swim.
When it was just the panda, it was funny. But upon unloading the clothes, I found the pig, the cat, the dog and several other creatures also had taken a dip and, like the panda, were no longer recognizable.
You'd think I'd have learned after I washed the remote control ...
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