Guess Who's Back, Back Again

Huzzah and Hurrah and Hurray! We have a working computer at home once again! So, now that I have internet access all the time (instead of just a work), I'm going to try to do a post every single day of November. I've heard other bloggers blogging about this - blog all November long - there's a catchy phrase for it - NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). So, I'll give it a try.

Anyway, Husband's laptop from 2001 has been upgraded by his school's tech guy, so, here I am, blogging on a laptop. We went out last night to look at new desktop options, and we may, in fact, end up getting a second laptop instead of a desktop. This would enable us to clean up some space in our den, which is becoming quite cluttered.

Wow, what a dull post this has been so far.

Hmm...what to say, what to say?? I could relay a funny story about this laptop that I am now using, that has essentially sat dormant since I graduated from law school in 2003. Here goes:

The story of the day I caused a terror alert at a midwestern law school.

(Keep in mind that this was September of 2002, and, in general, we were still pretty freaked out by 9-11 and the anthrax letter scare.)

During first semester of 3L (that's the last year of law school), on a Thursday afternoon, I got out of my Ethics class, and I wanted to get a cup of coffee from the Starbucks cart in the law student lounge. I didn't want to drag my lap top and books all the way to the lounge, so, I left them in the "mock" courtroom (which looks like a courtroom, but is in the middle of the law school), which was empty, but, where my next class (Trial Practice), would start about 40 minutes later. I went and got some coffee, and then remembered that I needed to print something for law review, so, I went upstairs to the law review office. I came back about 25 minutes later, to find the Associate Dean of the Law School, my Ethics professor, my trial practice professor, two city police officers, a german shephard, and my friend Brian huddled around the door to the mock court room! I thought to myself, "What's going on?!?"
Turns out, the Associate Dean's secretary had needed something out of the mock courtroom, and when she came in the dark courtroom, she heard a distinct ticking noise, and saw that the only bags in the room were MINE. She got freaked out by the ticking noise and the unattended bags, and called campus security, who called the POLICE because they went into bomb scare mode. The german shephard was an incendiary sniffing dog, who, needless to say, found no bombs in my lap top or book bag, but, OH THE HUMILITY!! Word got law school in a flash (there are only about 300 students), and they called me "Gretchen Bin Laden" for several weeks afterward.
I apologized profusely to everyone - I think the police were more amused than anything else, and the dog seemed to enjoy having a reason to come out and do some work. (And as I sit here, typing on this 5 year old lap top, I count myself as very lucky that someone didn't steal my bookbag and this laptop!)

The ticking, by the way, was coming from a burnt out canister lamp in the ceiling of the mock courtroom...

That's all for now,
LM