Something NOT About Football!

I've been meaning to do some non-football-related posts, and since I can't sleep right now, this seems like as good a time as any.

We're already at the end of September (wait, wasn't it JUST Labor Day?) and it's finally officially fall. Pat mourns the end of summer; I bask in the gloriousness that is fall.

The main reason I love fall is just because I hate summer. I want to like it, but my not being one who handles heat well sort of gets in the way of that. Even the 80s are too hot for my taste, so when we're dealing with multiple days of 90+, or even triple digits, I can't stand it. And then there are those annoying people who always say, "Oh, just wait until winter and you'll be wishing for days like this!" but no, trust me, I won't. The cold doesn't bother me. Cold is easy; just add another layer. But when you're hot, there's just nothing you can do except hide in the air conditioning until it's over.

So yes, bring on fall.


(Prompt courtesy of Ginger's Bring Back the Words)

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 3)

Tuesday Morning - 

I'm in 4th!

This week went much better than last, both in terms of points and my starters outplaying my bench. My benched WR Colston did outplay my starter Smith, 6.3pts to 5.2. And I should have left Lance Briggs in; he earned 9pts compared to Bobby Wagner's 4.5. Other than that, I made all the right calls on my roster (including the Ravens defense over the 49ers... that was probably my riskiest move so I'm glad it payed off).

Wednesday Morning - 

I broke one of my rules and signed two new players this morning. My backup tight end (Brandon Pettigrew) has been underperforming, and Peyton Manning seems to be making great use of Julius Thomas, so I picked him up. Of course, now that I got rid of him, Pettigrew will probably start having amazing games and Thomas will suddenly tank... which is why I didn't want to get into this roster switching stuff in the first place, but... we'll see I guess.

I also dropped my backup kicker (Kai Forbath, who's questionable anyway) to pick up Knowshon Moreno as another running back, since two of my four (Reggie Bush and Eddie Lacy) have injuries, and the third (David Wilson) hasn't been performing like he was supposed to. I didn't want to cut anyone, I just wanted more options in these next couple weeks. Barring injury, I should have until Week 9 to get another backup kicker... and decide who I have to cut to make room for him.

Friday Morning - 

Time to set up my roster, at least tentatively.

Quarterbacks: Cam Newton and Eli Manning; I'm not seeing anything that suggests that Joe Flacco is starter-worthy this week.

Running Backs: I know I'm starting Matt Forte, but my second choice is still iffy. Reggie Bush hurt his knee and hasn't been practicing this week, so I don't exactly have the highest confidence he'll have a great game, even if he does play. Eddie Lacy had (has?) a concussion, and even if he's cleared to play on Sunday, some analysts are saying it'd be smarter for the Packers to sit him out, giving him this week and their bye next week to fully recover. David Wilson hasn't had a great season so far, so I'm hesitant to put him in. This is why I picked up Knowshon Moreno, who's had a great season so far, as another option. For me, it comes down to Bush or Moreno, and that honestly might be a game day decision. If Bush doesn't play, that decision's made for me. If not... then I have to make the call. Who do I think is going to have the better game? The guy who's consistently ranked higher, or the guy who's not coming off an injury?

Wide Receivers: Again, I have one for sure starter -- Calvin Johnson -- but my other guys are just all so close. I think I'll stick with Pierre Garcon and Steve Smith again this week, if for no other reason than that Marques Colston has a foot injury. He's listed as probable, and maybe it won't make a difference to his game... but I have to make a decision somehow, and the experts' rankings hardly give me a definitive answer.

Tight End: I'm taking out Kyle Rudolph in favor of my latest acquisition, Julius Thomas. We'll see if it pays off.

Defense/Special Teams: Starting the 49ers over the Ravens.

Defensive Players: I have the same issue here as I do with my wide receivers... I don't have clear starters and a clear backup... they all have the potential to outdo each other. Going based off the "opponent has allowed nth most/fewest points to defensive players this season," I'm going to start NaVorro Bowman and Bobby Wagner, and leave Lance Briggs on the bench another week (sorry, Briggs).

And since I no longer have a backup, my kicker is obviously David Akers.

I'm questionable on a few of these picks, but the running back is really the only position I'm still anticipating changing at this point.

Chicago Bears: Week 2

Opponent: Minnesota Vikings
Location: Home
Outcome: Win
Record: 2-0 (1-0)

1-1 (0-0) Green Bay Packers
0-2 (0-2) Minnesota Vikings
1-1 (1-0) Detroit Lions

On a sloppy Sunday afternoon in September, the Bears pulled off a second win and in doing so, claimed an early hold on sole possession of 1st place in the division. It was an ugly win so I'm not pulling out the champagne glasses just yet. But factoring in the rainy weather and the overall lack of traction on the field, I'm not all that worried either. Going with that theme, every phase seemed to have that BUT going in their favor.

Offense
The offense turned the ball over 4 times. Blame seemed to be shared by all on this one. Cutler, Forte, Marshall, the line, and even the coaches all had their hands in some of the blame for the turnovers. When you turn the ball over four times, it's hard to win games.
BUT
When they needed to, the offense drove 76 yards on 10 plays to end up with a beautiful throw to Martellus Bennet in the end zone to pull ahead by 1 point with 10 seconds left in the game. Last year's offense couldn't do that.

Defense
For the second week in a row, the pass rush was nearly nonexistent. The Bears allowed Christian Ponder too much time to run around and make throws. They were pretty terrible on 3rd downs, allowing the Vikings to control the game way too much.
BUT
They held Adrian Peterson to 100 yards, no touchdowns, and caused him to fumble once. They got a pick six that erased one of our own fumbles, and in the second half, they managed to hold the Vikings to only 9 points and kept us in the game.

Special Teams
They allowed the Vikings to return the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
BUT
They allowed Devin Hester to be Devin Hester. He set a new career record of 249 kickoff return yards starting with a 75 yard return in response to the Vikings. This set us up to tie the game at 7 in the first 3 minutes of play. It also gave us great field position all day long.

Play of the game
With 3:15 left in the game and down by 6, the Bears got the ball back at their own 34 yard line. On the first play of the drive, Cutler threw a line drive ball towards Alshon Jeffery...only for it to be deflected by the referee who couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
BUT
The offense brushed it off, continued from 2nd and 10, and marched down the field for the win.

My overall impression after two games is simply that this is a team. No one group is pulling more weight than the others. They all shared responsibility both for allowing the game to be as close as it was and for working together to pull off a win. It's an odd thing after having a dominant defense with an incompetent offense for so many years. Up next is the first away game of the year against a struggling 0-2 Steelers team. If anything this makes them more dangerous as they will be desperate for a win.

BEAR DOWN!

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 2)

Tuesday Morning - 

So, after one week of play . . . I am dead last in my league.

In this league, there are no head-to-head games. Points are just a cumulative total. So, while a really bad week may be hard to recover from over time, there's no such thing as a close loss . . . or, on the other side, a blowout win. In a head-to-head league, it doesn't matter if you beat your opponent by one point or one hundred. Here, those extra hundred points will continue helping you (or hurting you).

Like I mentioned last time, Joe Flacco (my backup quarterback) way outperformed expectations. To help make up for that, so did Eli Manning. Cam Newton didn't perform as well as expected, but if I'd even considered starting Flacco (it honestly never entered my mind), there's a 50% chance I would have subbed him for the "wrong" guy. So, I'm okay with the way this one turned out.

The swap I made, and then unmade, on the other hand . . . I would have been much better off keeping that switch. Again, projected numbers between these two were very close from what I was seeing. However, Reggie Bush (my backup) ended up having an amazing game; David Wilson (my starter) had an abysmal one, and actually ended up losing me points. I don't mean the points I lost from not swapping him for someone else, I mean he had two fumbles -- and then got benched so he didn't have the opportunity to make up for those mistakes -- and ended the night with negative points. That's one I'll definitely be revisiting before next week.

The other thing that hurt me is that Calvin Johnson had a terrible week. My backup receiver didn't have a great game, so it doesn't hurt so much that I made a "bad decision." (And seriously, how can starting the number one receiver in the league be considered a bad decision?) It's just one more factor contributing to my ending up at the bottom of the scoreboard this week.

As it is, I'm only 5 points behind the next team, and I'm 27 points behind the #4 team. The top three all had amazing weeks, including Pat -- who jumped ahead after Thursday night thanks to Peyton Manning -- but the rest of us are all pretty close. And there's still the rest of the season to go.

Speaking of which . . .


Thursday Morning - 

Though I don't have anyone in the Thursday night game this week, it still seems like a good time to start getting my roster set up.

For my starting quarterbacks, I'm sticking with Cam Newton and Eli Manning again this week. Cam didn't have a great game last week but the experts still put him as the top of my three. And I'm hoping that Eli will have another amazing game going up against his brother this week . . . after all, it was spending all night trying to keep up with the Broncos that prompted Flacco to have the game he did last week.

For running backs, I'm going with Matt Forte and Reggie Bush. I don't know if Bush will have another game like he did last week, but I also don't know how much time Wilson will be spending on the bench after last week . . . and his coach seems hesitant to say much one way or another. Between the two, Bush seems like the safer bet. And while Eddie Lacy had a pretty good game last week, I'm still hesitant to put the rookie in as one of my two starter spots. My own prejudice, maybe, but I'll be the only one paying for my lack of faith if I'm wrong.

Of my four wide receivers, only one needs to go on the bench. Last week, my lowest scoring receiver was Calvin Johnson. I'm sincerely hoping that was a fluke. My other three all have similar projected points, and a mix of predictions from various analysts. I'm going to leave in Johnson and Pierre Garcon from last week, but I'm subbing Steve Smith in for Marques Colston based on the perceived strengths of the defenses they're matched up against.

Both of my tight ends -- Kyle Rudolph and Brandon Pettigrew -- seem to be middle-of-the-pack guys based on the analyst predictions, but Rudolph has the edge both in projections and based on last week's performance, so he's in.

Kickers: David Akers is in, Kai Forbath is out. Again, partially projections and partially last week's numbers. Again, not putting a ton of thought into this one.

I'm wavering on my choice of defense. The 49ers are my drafted starters, one of the top defenses in the league, and they seem like the obvious choice when compared to the rebuilding Ravens. BUT . . .

The 49ers are going up against a strong division rival in the Seahawks; these two teams are pretty much starting their battle for the division this week. The Ravens are going up against a . . . not-so-strong division rival. It seems quite possible (to my novice mind) that they'll end up having the better game. I'm going to let this decision simmer a little.

And my defensive players . . . again, letting it simmer. It doesn't help that most leagues don't play individual players on defense and so there's very little out there in the way of expert advice.


Friday Morning - 

After sleeping on it, I'm taking the chance on the Ravens this week for my defense and special teams slot. Also, while I hate to bench a Bear, I'm going with NaVarro Bowman and Bobby Wagner as my defensive players, leaving Lance Briggs out this week. These two have better numbers (based on the VERY little I could find). Plus, like I said earlier, the 49ers/Seahawks game is going to be intense, so I'm hoping these opposing players will be charged up enough to make some great plays (while not doing anything stupid).

Of course, I still have 48 hours to second guess myself on all of this . . .

Chicago Bears: Week 1

Opponent: Cincinnati Bengals
Location: Home
Outcome: Win
Record: 1-0 (0-0)

0-1 (0-0) Green Bay Packers
0-1 (0-1) Minnesota Vikings
1-0 (1-0) Detroit Lions

Ah, the return of football Sundays. Glorious, glorious football Sundays. So the Bears are one of 16 teams to start the season with a win. It's a good feeling. I imagine it's an even better feeling to Marc Trestman who is one of only four Bears coaches to win their first game as a new head coach. Anyway on to the game review. 

Offense

We had four out of five starters on the offensive line playing their first game in a Bears uniform. Two of those four were playing their first NFL game ever. With those two thoughts in mind, let me hit you with three other game stats: zero sacks, zero pre-snap penalties, and zero sacks! Ok, so that was only two stats, but come on! ZERO SACKS against a very good Bengals front line. Oh yeah, and our new tight end caught a touchdown pass, Brandon Marshall was Brandon Marshall, and Matt Forte ran for a touchdown up the middle. On top of that, Cutler was able to spread the ball around to five different receivers. Marshall of course had the most, but he is our number one receiver. The only real bad play I remember was the interception, and when I saw a clip of it later, it was obvious that a defender got a hand on Cutler as he was throwing which probably threw off his aim. I'm trying to keep my optimism in check since it was only one game, but if it's a sign of things to come, we're in for a great season on offense.

Defense

Charles Tillman was sick as a dog and dehydrated on Sunday and still managed to come up with two interceptions. Unfortunately, that was the primary bright spot for the day on defense. Overall, tackles were sloppy, the defensive line had no teeth whatsoever, and the Bengals had two scoring drives of over 90 yards in the first half alone. Julius Peppers was never even a blip on the radar. But I will say this: they came through at the end when they really needed to. After the Bengals got a touchdown early in the 3rd quarter, they never scored again. Hopefully there's just a bit of rust to knock off, because I'm not sure how to respond to a Chicago Bears defense that is only ok.

Special Teams

He didn't get a return for a touchdown, but Hester had some good returns. The Bears started with great field position all day long. On top of that, Robbie Gould raised the bar on his previous franchise record for a long field goal by hitting a 58 yarder (with room to spare) to end the first half. Special teams has not lost a step under the new coach, Joe DeCamillis.

Overall it was a great team win. The offense and the defense both came through in the end when we needed them, but play of the game in my book goes to rookie right tackle, Jordan Mills. The Bears were trying to run out the clock with under 2 minutes remaining and had just come up short on 3rd down. Defensive lineman, Rey Maualuga, apparently didn't like being beaten by a rookie and ended up throwing Mills to the ground well after the whistle. I love Mills's post-game quote. 

“When he came up, I locked on,” Mills said. “I was not letting him go no matter what. Till that whistle blew, I was not letting him go. He kind of got a little frustrated, pushed me. I wanted to retaliate, but that would have been selfish on my part, so I kept my composure and we got the first down.”

That's a team player! He kept his cool. He didn't retaliate, and the resulting personal foul against Maualuga ended the game. It gave the Bears an automatic first down and they were able to take a knee to run out the clock for the win. BEAR DOWN!!!

Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 1)

As I mentioned on Tuesday, this is my first year participating in fantasy football. I thought it would be fun to write about.

(Just a note . . . since Pat does his Bears recaps after the weekend, I thought it would be best to post these before the weekend, just to space them out. This also makes sense in that this is about my decision-making in setting up my team as much as it is the results. I may come back and edit the post later with my numbers, or I may include that in next week's post, or I may just ignore them altogether . . . really, I'm not expecting to do well.)


Tuesday Night - 

The draft! I really didn't know what I was doing. I made sure I had at least one backup for every position, and mostly tried to pick players I was familiar with, even if they weren't the top player on the board at the time. Beyond that, I didn't have much of a strategy.

Once it was over, I was looking at the stats on my roster, and it seemed like a couple of my "backups" were actually looking better than my "starters." I made one swap right off the bat, but after checking to make sure none of my potential starters were playing in Thursday night's opening game (I do have Joe Flacco as a backup quarterback and the Ravens as my backup defense/special teams, but I chose them as true backups, for bye weeks or sudden injuries), I decided I had plenty of time to tweak my starting roster.


Wednesday Morning - 

Looking at some NFL analysts' predictions, the swap I made last night was . . . well, not to say it was wrong, but definitely not as obvious a decision as the Yahoo! numbers indicated. So I switched back. And then, after more hemming and hawing and reading and trying to figure out which experts I should listen to, I decided that, at least for Week 1, I'm going to leave my starters as I drafted them. Smart or not, these are the choices I made, so let's see how they do for me.

Thinking along the same lines, I'm quickly realizing that it would be easy for me to get sucked into all the nitty gritty of running a fantasy team, listening to the chatter, trying to make trades and search the undrafted players each week, looking for hidden gems based on who has the most promising matchups . . . but, no.

This is my team. This is who I have to work with. Maybe later in the season, once some of the bye weeks are over, I'll look at who's available and maybe drop some of my backups to sign a couple new players, MAYBE! But for now . . . if I don't just limit myself to what I already have, I'll drive myself crazy.

(On another note, how did I end up with FOUR players from the Lions on my team?! I HATE the Lions! Now, I don't have an issue with any of the guys I drafted specifically, and two of them are new to the team this year anyway. But still, it just feels wrong.)


Thursday Night - 

Football is finally back! "Game's starting now..." *da-dum, da-dum*


(Best radio commercial ever.)


Friday Morning - 

And Joe Flacco completely blew away his projected points, and the projected points of both my starting quarterbacks . . . and he's not one of the players I was even considering when I was looking at the numbers earlier this week. Clearly my fantasy football career is off to a fantastic start.

Wait For It...

I know, I've been quiet for a while. I'm going to get better at that, I promise.

This last month was an interesting one. Last time I checked in, I was having a bit of a crisis, and Pat and I were getting ready to head out of town. I actually ended up staying in Lombard for three weeks. I may or may not go into more detail about that later (let's be honest, I probably won't . . . although a couple other things of note happened while I was there, so maybe I actually will . . .) but for now I'll just leave it at, my dad's recovering well. (And the last three weeks did nothing to help my weight-loss, so I guess my crisis is on hold for now.)

Anyway, today I signed up for my first ever fantasy football league. It's with some friends from back home (along with a few people I don't know). We had our draft tonight and it was a rather nerve-wracking experience. Not only had I never done this before, but I only decided two days ago to join (Pat bullied me into it), and I hadn't done any research, so I was making all my decisions on the fly through a mixture of the player rankings and my gut . . . which admittedly is pretty useless when it comes to players outside of the Bears and the NFC North, but hey, I don't want to play with a bunch of guys I don't know anything about. I may not have always picked the best player, but I'd rather have fun playing guys I've at least heard of before.

My final roster is as follows (bold names are my starters . . . for now):

Quarterbacks
Cam Newton (CAR)
Eli Manning (NYG)
Joe Flacco (BAL)

Running Backs
Matt Forte (CHI)
David Wilson (NYG)
Reggie Bush (DET)
Eddie Lacy (GB)

Wide Receivers
Calvin Johnson (DET)
Pierre Garcon (WAS)
Marques Colston (NO)
Steve Smith (CAR)

Tight Ends
Kyle Rudolph (MIN)
Brandon Pettigrew (DET)

Kickers
David Akers (DET)
Kai Forbath (WAS)

Defense/Special Teams
San Francisco
Baltimore

Defensive Players
Lance Briggs (CHI)
NaVorro Bowman (SF)
Bobby Wagner (SEA)

So, that's my team. I guess we'll see how they do for me.

In other news, the library will be open on Sundays again . . . starting the same week that football does. Well, I won't be spending all afternoon there the way I was during the spring, I guess. Still, it'll be nice to get back to the routine of going over there every week, instead of the sporadic visits I've been making all summer.

(Oh, and since you're probably still wondering on the title, the name of my fantasy team is "Wait For It...")

And We're Back!

I've been meaning to write this for a while now, but at least I got it in before the regular season started. :) Photo and tickets to the game last night, courtesy of my friend Nathan.

Now that the Bears have their 3rd 4th preseason game under their belt, I feel that I can actually make some educated observations about this relatively new team this year.

Defense
The defense seems like it's picking up right where it left off last year. Yes, we've lost Brian Urlacher, but we've got enough veteran leadership with Tillman, Briggs, Peppers, and others that the team will move on. Things will get very interesting around week 2 or 3 when middle linebacker D.J. Williams is recovered from his injury. Right now Jon Bostic is doing a great job, but the Bears didn't sign Williams to a (potentially) $1.75 million contract to be a back up, at least not at the beginning of the year. It should be interesting to see how that turns out in a few weeks.
Outlook for the year: Solid

Special Teams
We lost Dave Toub to the KC Chiefs, but we also lost Devin Hester as a wide receiver. Yes, that second part is a positive. Now that Lovie Smith is gone, the Devin Hester experiment is finally and officially over. He sounds excited to bring his focus back to the return game. I'm excited to watch it! He's had slumps before, and I'm eager to see if he can come back again. I think he can. In other news, dedicated specialists Patrick Mannelly, Adam Podlesh, and Robbie Gould will continue their excellent work.
Outlook for the year: Solid

Offense
This is going to be the hardest to nail down. I'm excited to see Jay Cutler play without (legitimate) excuses to hide behind. I think he has much higher potential than he has been able to achieve for the last 4 years with the Bears, and I'm eager to see him reach that potential this year. He's had unstable coaching, play calling, targets, and protection for most of his time here. This year, those handicaps should be gone and I'm looking forward to a Bears team that can let its offense do some of the talking. We look to have a strong offensive line this year (never thought I'd say that), we have plenty of great targets for our QB to throw to, and we have an offensive coordinator who will not only get the plays to the QB well ahead of the play clock, but will probably call some creative plays while doing it. All the pieces are there, I want to see them fall into place.
Outlook for the year: Excited, but cautiously optimistic

The Bears have looked good in the preseason both as a team and as individual players. But as Brad Biggs pointed out, their pre-season opponents had a combined record of 23-41 last season so it's not like they're the cream of the crop. In addition, the 2008 Detroit Lions proved beyond all doubt that a preseason record means absolutely nothing by going 4-0 in those games and then 0-16 in the regular season. But all in all, I like what I'm seeing so far. No matter what happens, it's going to be an exciting year for the Bears.

Bear Down!!!

...

The last couple days have been intense.

Naturally, I'm about to make it all about me.

On Wednesday, I learned that my brother's best friend's younger brother had been hit by a car. I don't know the details of what happened, but it was bad. He was on life support. He wasn't gone yet, but it was an inevitability. I just couldn't believe it. It seemed impossible that he could be there and then suddenly gone. I never knew him well, but he'd been on the periphery of my life for a long time. I was friends with his sister when we were in high school -- never super close and we haven't kept in touch, but I'd been to their house a few times -- and our brothers have been best friends for years. I couldn't imagine what his family was going through.

On Thursday morning, I got an email from Pat telling me to check Facebook and to call my mom. I haven't been on Facebook much recently; if I was, I would have seen the post as soon as I woke up.

Chris's family was donating his kidney to my dad.

My dad has had kidney disease for years. He had his first transplant in 2000, on New Year's Day in fact. But apparently, transplanted organs don't last forever, and he's needed a new one for some time. Last year, I was going through testing to see if I could be a donor, and it was looking good for a while, but my last couple tests had been less than conclusive, and the doctor wanted me to lose another 10 pounds anyway before he'd consider the surgery, so we were going to wait until I lost the weight and then run the tests again.

I never lost the weight.

In fact, I've been moving slowly in the opposite direction, to the point where I'm almost back where I was three years ago, before I made the decision to get healthy. Which would be frustrating regardless, but with this transplant situation hanging over my head, it makes me feel even worse about it.

And I've been trying... not hard enough, obviously, but TRYING... to get back to making healthy choices. And -- yesterday's stress eating aside -- I feel like I've been doing better recently. Earlier this year, I was at a pretty low point, where I really didn't give a crap about anything. And now, I feel like, mentally... I'm not back to where I was at the peak of my efforts, but I'm closer. I'm moving in the right direction again...

And then this happens, and it messes with my head. Because it was supposed to be me.

After my initial weight loss, I've slipped and started and slipped again so many times in the past couple years, and if this is the time that I finally don't slip... what does that say about me? That subconsciously I never wanted to go through with donating?

Well, eff that.

(Perhaps this would be a good time to start seeing a therapist.)

So anyway... that's where I am... all of my own crap mixed in with the already conflicted emotions of the situation. But back to the current events...

My dad had the surgery last night. He's doing well. Pat and I are driving out for the weekend once he gets off work. There's a service for Chris on Sunday.

The past 24 hours I've been alternating between a numb haze and ALL THE EMOTION, and I have a feeling this weekend is going to be more of the same.

IT'S FINALLY OVER!!!

If you somehow missed the drama that is our computer situation, here's a couple links to catch you up:

My Kingdom for a Trouble-Free Computer (April 3)
Blargh... (May 6)

Even if you don't feel like clicking the links, the dates alone will tell you that this has been going on for A WHILE (and my laptop had already been having issues for several weeks when I first wrote about it). So basically, I had an intermittent laptop through March and April... and then no laptop at all through May and June, as we finally had Staples send it away to a repair depot just after my May 6th post. These guys, we were assured, would fix the issue we were having, along with anything else they found wrong with it, and we'd essentially be getting it back in new condition, probably in a couple of weeks.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

But although it was frustrating and inconvenient not to have my own computer, between my smart phone for little things and Pat's desktop for big things, I got by. There were file incompatibility issues (the desktop used Office 2003, the laptop had used Office 2009) and just the general awkwardness of using a computer that wasn't my own, but it wasn't too bad... aside, of course, from the fact that we hadn't planned on this arrangement lasting more than a few weeks. We'd paid good money, we'd expected results, and as weeks turned into months, the frustration (if not the inconvenience) continued to grow.

AND THEN, we came back after the Fourth of July weekend to discover that the desktop monitor was dead for some reason. Thankfully it was only the monitor and not the computer itself, so we were able to hook up to our TV and use that for a monitor... only we don't have one of those nice new flat-screens, it's an old TV, and everything looks incredibly fuzzy and distorted, no matter what resolution we pick. I mean, it was nice to be able to get all our data off the computer, and to use it if there was something we absolutely couldn't use our phones for (I was doing a little bit of blurry blogging these last couple weeks), but for the most part we were computer-less.

MEANWHILE, either the computer depot that Staples uses is full of morons, or they had a string of incredibly bad luck. I'm not even going to recount all of the updates we got over the past couple months (and getting those updates was like pulling teeth). Suffice it to say that they tried one thing after another after another, went through faulty parts and needed to replace them multiple times... and in the end, they finally gave up and sent the laptop back to the store MORE BROKEN THAN IT WAS WHEN WE SENT IT TO THEM!!!

The good news in all of this is that Staples gave us a full refund, plus a compensatory coupon, and so last night we bought a brand new laptop -- my first one since 2001 (!!!) and a nice upgrade from the old one -- for about $60 more than what we would have paid for the repairs. Obviously it would have been better to get this resolved months ago, but I'm just glad it's finally over.