from the desk of the whipped dawg

sometimes you just gotta laugh
at the way things aren't going your way...
welcome back to texas Nourallahs!!!!

it started with a couple of photoshoots Jayme had
where her camera malfunctioned
she had the unfortunate task of having to call these poor people
after the fact
and tell them they had to come back
in all the years she's been taking photos professionally
this had never happened before
she felt terrible
i felt terrible for her
she handled it gracefully though
and her clients were very understanding and kind
she ended up having to put in twice the work but we made it through
the fiasco ok
1 down...
then
last wednesday a storm rolled in to town
we had plenty of sideways Forrest Gump rain
and my recording studio flooded
i spent 3 hours running around
soaking wet
frantically trying to move things to safety
i couldn't stop the water from coming in
i felt completely helpless
i thought later of the poor people in New Orleans
who suffered through the floods there
we can't even imagine the horror they went through
so many who drown in their own homes
i felt lucky
and sick for their pain and loss
so this was nothing, right?
just a minor inconvenience really
a hello kitty band aide and i'd be better
...it still sucked...
our power was out too
for 3 days
we kept waiting for it to come back on
"oh, it'll be any minute now..." as we sweat our asses off
in the 90 degree heat
we went to the mall
to kill some time and soak in some A.C.
we saw the terrible "Night at the Museum 2"
(at least Gav liked it)
we ate out
ate out some more
Buzzbrew's
Teppo
Scalini's
we went to the art fair Saturday morning
it was miserable
we spent as much time out of the house as we could
unbelievably hot and humid everywhere that had no A.C.
it made me think of how sweaty and smelly the people must've been back
in the old West days...whew...glad it's 2009 and not 1809
by day 3 we were beginning to come unravelled a bit
so we fled to Plano
to stay the night at Jayme's parents house
we were there for 3 hours when our neighbor called
"your front porch lights just turned on..."
time to celebrate!!
but on the way home i felt the crushing pressure of mounting home improvement bills
1) fix the studio flooding problem
2) buy a new water heater and convert a closet to try and make more room for baby stuff
3) build a carport so we don't have to keep taking Mini over to Naab's
i spent most of sunday getting the studio back in order
but was grateful to not have to endure another day of the no electricity monkey business
monday, tuesday, wednesday
i felt pretty good
got back to running
spent some quality time with Gavin
things were sort of back to normal
until this morning
around 10am
Jayme accidentally deleted a folder with the 1600 pictures she took
on our trip to Europe
no backup
no way to get them back
she felt sick
i felt sick
we downloaded some recovery software
it didn't work
we both knew things could be worse
but it still felt terrible
i tried to work in the studio
but i was distracted all afternoon
i felt really bad for her because i knew she blamed herself
and would continue to do so for a long time to come
around 4 i started calling data recovery places
it was a drag
$500 to $2000 were most of the quotes i got
i finally found someone more reasonable
and took our PC to them in bumper to bumper traffic
then i tried to get back to the studio in time to meet Bales
more bumper to bumper
(oh, the woeful "mendult" world!!)
where were those green and pleasant fields of Chalus?
while i was gone rip got an unannounced drop-by from an unwanted visitor
i can't really go into details but it was upsetting to me
just another thing to heap on the plate of today's suck
by the time i got home it was almost time to go to my gig at the All-Good

all in all
i felt like a whipped dog