I am so thankful that I have some wonderful friends who despite the problems with the economy are willing to be generous. I was able to help coordinate several of my friends taking children or elderly people (yes, it isn't just children any more) from the Salvation Army Angel Tree. I am skeptical in general about most charity organizations and the use of their money, but I really believe in this program. I also really like the fact that the program is that they will accept anyone regardless of faith.

My favorite thing about the program is that I really feel like it has an impact on people more than just giving a couple presents out.

Anyway, I have to say that when I was looking at all the wonderful things that my friends bought their angels, that I almost wanted to cry because I am always so proud of humanity when people give of themselves without asking anything in return.

It is so easy for people to become disassociated and disillusioned with our society in general. Programs like the Angel Tree help little children who still believe in Santa have something to believe in. For older children who do not believe in Santa any more, they can still have some faith in humanity that someone out there who they do not even know cares enough to give them something.

The elderly are a whole different story. For them, they become disenfranchised from society because, as a whole, we do not respect our elders or believe that they add value to our society as a whole. We move away and forget to call. There are so many elderly people who have family who are just too busy and I think that is likely a lot worse than being in a position that you cannot even afford to buy a new winter coat when you really need one. Programs like this do not allow you the personal contact that is needed to remain a part of society, but it at least allows the elderly to know they are not forgotten and dismissed as irrelevant.

Everyone needs something to believe in but most of us become jaded and cynical that we do not believe in much let alone believe in the goodness of the other people around us.

Now, more than ever, with everyone worried about the uncertainty of what our economy will bring, I think it will be important for people to continue giving in whatever capacity they can so that we continue to be attached to each other not just as a country, but as human beings.

If only we could remember to be kind and to help when it isn't the holidays...

So grandma will be going into the ground very soon.  Unfortunately, due to all the rain, the hole is filled with water, and while it doesn't really matter that much to her, it seems to matter to us living.  Funny how that works really.  I know mentally it doesn't matter, but still.  Ick.  One of these days, after my cousin sends me a disk of all the pics I took, I can post what it looks like.  (My camera battery was pretty much dead when I arrived.  Not only did I stupidly not charge it, but I didn't expect to take any photos really.  Mikka kindly let me usurp use of her camera yesterday and I took a lot of photos on our scenic tour of the back roads so we could see where a lot of our family used to live.)..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I have to say that everything other than not putting her in the ground went quite smoothly and it was nice getting to visit with people who knew my grandmother as well as meeting a cousin that I had never met before.  I also got to hear more of the family dirt that I was never privy to while my grandparents were alive and my dad just either doesn't know or doesn't talk about.

Oh, and a bit of digression, if are passing through Kansas and are near Cottonwood Falls, and if you need a bit to eat, I highly recommend stopping off at The Grand Central Hotel.  It really made the stay quite nice and Gus, the head chef, is a gem among men and his food is superb.  I think I gained 10 pounds from my three dinners during my stay and I am still full from my end piece of prime rib last night that was no chincy cut probably weighing in at a good two, you got that two, pounds of mouth watering able to cut with a butter knife bit of meat.

But back to the matter at hand.

I got up earlier than anyone else at the hotel.  In the evenings, all the staff goes home and you have a key to the front door to let yourself in and out.  I settled up my bill yesterday so that I could just be on my way.  The owner (at least I think she is the owner), Sue, allowed me to leave grandma in her office until the other Sue from the mortuary could pick her up to plant her.  I cleaned up my room, grabbed my leftovers (thank you very much Ross), and was on my way. 

6:30am is a time I rarely see the outside of the house let alone driving along a deserted highway with only a couple of sparse cars for company.  I needed to pay attention to the road because I was still tired, but in the same right, I was trying to take in everything because the next time I come to Kansas may be to be planted myself (which is hopefully a long long time from now).  And, for the first time, I really saw how beautiful that the countryside is. 

Sure, I still attest that there is something wrong with a place that has tornados, floods, droughts, blizzards and hail that can kill you, but the colors of the morning were so extraordinary that I don't think there were names for all of them.  I am hoping that the photos I took on my cousin's nice camera will do the artist's palate of colors some justice without having to fuss with the filters. 

Ron and I were watching CSI Miami recently and he remarked that they must enhance the colors that we see because they are all so vivid, the kind you don't see in nature.  But this morning on the way out of Cottonwood Falls on my trek back to the airport, I saw colors so vivid that I am not sure I will ever forget how they look.  I feel lucky to have seen them and think to myself that it must be the reason that some people love living here and don't want to leave.  I know the picture I am going to post won't even begin to do justice to what I saw this morning, but I had to share my photos as I was speeding down the highway at 70.  I just hope that other ones will be better so maybe I can share a little piece of the beauty.

Some how, sitting here waiting for my plane to whisk me away from the "heartland", I feel like I am leaving a piece of my heart here with my grandmother.  Will I ever come back here? 

So I always knew this day was coming, and yet I am as ill prepared to face it today as I was over a year and a half ago.  Of course, I always knew all the final decisions would come down to me, but still...

Earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to have lunch with a friend of mine.  I was a few minutes late for meeting her and was sitting in the left hand turn lane when Black Parade (by My Chemical Romance) came on the radio.  The wind picked up and my hair was whipping around me.  Then I heard police sirens in the distance.  And then I saw it.  One of the largest funeral processions that I had ever seen.  It lasted a full 5 cycles of the turn light.  And almost the whole time the Black Parade was playing on my radio. 

Isn't it interesting how you notice that songs on the radio and things around you seem to fit the mood you are in.  Or maybe it is just that you notice it all that much more. 

It is currently pouring rain here in 95 degree Kansas, and it is also very fitting of my mood.

I am so lucky that when it happened, that the people around me were so helpful.  I don't have them this time, so I am just doing the best I can.

I can't even say how much I miss my Grandmother.  I still, after all this time can't bear to remove her from my one touch on my mobile phone.  And I don't think that I will remove her any time in the near future.

But tomorrow is the day.  The day that I finally put her in the ground next to my grandfather.  Ron and the kids are at home.  It was just logically and monitarily the best decision, and yet even though my cousin, her daughter and her two grandkids are here, it isn't quite the same as having them here.  I don't want to burden them and cry on their shoulders, so I am putting up the best front that I can.  I really wish Ron and the kids were here. 

One of my friends said that I was lucky to have no mobile reception and next to no internet, and under any other circumstances, I think I would thank the heavens above to have this kind of a break.  But really, all I want right now is to be able to call my husband.  (Thank you Victoria for calling me when you got the message.)

da da da intermezzo while I am on the phone...

Grandma (in her lovely silk urn) has been on my dresser for all this time.  My poor husband didn't realize it until the fall when my best friend's dog had passed away.  My best friend couldn't bear to have her dog in her house yet, so I had brought her dog who I had cremated and put in a little doggie urn and brought her dog to my house.  I was cleaning up my downstairs and I decided that to bring the dog upstairs.  My husband avidly objected to this.  I told him my logic was that I was going to put the dog next to my Grandmother to keep her company.  His eyes got really wide as he realized that is where she had been all this time.  He did put his foot down and refused to let the dog come upstairs.  Grandma did get to keep her place of honor on my dresser.

Recently, I had mentioned this to Ron.  He said that he was glad that I was finally putting Grandma to rest.  Not just because she should really be next to my Grandfather, but because he felt like she was watching us every time we had sex.  I told this to my cousin who is here with me and she thought it was pretty funny and said that Grandma wasn't watching from her urn, but rather keeping an eye on him from heaven.  I don't think I will press the issue with him because I might not ever get any again if I do.

Oh the black humor of this all.  Some how I think I should be watching Sweeny Todd.  Oh yes, I brought it with me (thanks Skye for loaning it to me) to watch while I am here alone in my hotel room.

Anyway, sigh.  I am becoming more and more disjointed so I should nurse my glass of wine and go to bed. 

Should you feel so inclined, please send me messages and maybe I will respond while I am here in the lobby of my hotel because that is the only place I can get reception on my laptop.

So many people don’t take advantage of the things in their home towns that I really wanted to take my kids to the Easter egg roll on the lawn of the White House before they are too old to participate.  So I checked out the website to see what I needed to do to get tickets.  At 7:30am the Saturday before the Monday roll, they will be handing out tickets on a first come first serve basis, no different than going to a concert and waiting in line for the tickets.  18,000 tickets are given out for this event and, according to the White House website for the roll, "The majority of tickets will be available beginning at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday". 

I got up what I thought would be early enough, grabbed a pot of coffee in a thermos and a lawn chair and headed out.  Because the sun hadn’t even come up yet, there was little traffic and I even got a decent parking spot about a block and a half away from the line.  What I saw when I actually walked up shocked me.  It looked like an upscale version of a shanty town with a bunch of yuppies hanging out in tents with portable DVD players and comfy lawn chairs.  It was a somewhat disorganized looking line so I asked a woman where the end was, but I was told that all the vouchers for the tickets had been handed out so I couldn’t get tickets. 

Apparently, they handed out the vouchers some hours before to the first 1500 people in the line.  Each person with a voucher would be given 5 tickets, whether they needed all five or not.  Do the math.  This means that they were only handing giving out 7500 tickets on Saturday morning.  What happened to the "majority" handed out?  Are the rest of the tickets that make up the "majority" given to staffers and other people too privileged to stand in line like the rest of the people sitting out in the cold?  And, if that is who they are going to, why should they be treated any differently considering that each of us in this great land of ours are supposed to be equal.

What further just cheeses me is that even if someone only needed 3 tickets, they got 5 anyway so two go unused.  Or worse, they get posted on Craig’s List for free with purchase of some random item for ridiculous amounts of money.  So not only can you just get the tickets and not even have kids, but you get five of them!  Why don’t they give you your voucher and ask you how many that you need.  When you tell them "I need 3," they give you another voucher for the amount that you want.  That way more people can get them rather than wasting a bunch of tickets. 

The whole thing just makes me angry.  But now I know.  Next year, I am finding someone to come and sit with me about 24 hours early and that person is getting a set as well so that we can sell some random item on Craig’s List and give away the tickets with them.

I don't regret for a minute my choice to travel across the country where I had no family and go to college, but there are some things that I can really do without anymore that seem to abound in this area.  Specifically, the overly self important and pretentious people around here.  Of course, I did come from southern California where my boyfriend lived in Bel Air and his mom was part of the Beverly Hills crowd who read the society column on the weekends to see if what her friends were up to.  But that was nothing compared to hanging out with people who worked on the Hill or pretended to be connected to people who worked on the Hill. 

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Even now, you can go to so many clubs where these idiots have their pagers on beep not because they can't feel the vibrate but because they want to act like they are important when people turn to look to see what the offensive noise is.  As if!  As if the really important people want you to turn and look at them and wonder what they are up to or eavesdrop on their private business.  I could still go to clubs like that but I am so over being anywhere near people who have to make themselves feel good by inflating their egos in such manners. 

In this same regard, I am so over the pretentious attitudes that have invaded the coffee houses of America where the average people doesn't even have enough knowledge of their java to know that Starbucks isn't good coffee.  (Unfortunately, the Starbucks brand is pervasive enough to convince people otherwise.  Doesn't anyone remember the whole Starbucks fake Kona scandal?)  I understand the need for some types of special orders.  When I was pregnant and getting as fat as could be, I would order skim decaf lattes to avoid the caffeine going to the baby and excess fat going to my already tubby thighs.  On those extreme occasions where I needed a little boost, I would order a half caf skim latte.  But in general, the most complicated my order gets is having a large (or grande for you people who don't know anything but Starbuckese when speaking coffee) soy latte. 

Mind you, I spent my high school and college years when on vaca hanging in the coffee houses of the Pacific northwest when Starbucks was only in a handful of states.  Starbucks, in the eyes of the coffee savvy when I was just a novice to the world of fresh brewed bliss, was known as the place where you went to be seen and not to really enjoy a good cup of coffee.  In fact, there were t-shirts going around that had the slogan "Friends don't let friends drink Starbucks."  There were so many much better places to go to have coffee, why would one subject themselves to bitter, over roasted stale coffee grinds?

One of my favorite places to go was a hole in the wall with a watch repair shop in the front called Café Omega.  It has since become the Tugboat Brewery, but they still acknowledge their history from the time of a watch shop to becoming Café Omega.  My usual was a triple mocha.  One night, my stepbrother and I had five triples and the barista actually decided it was in our best interest to cut us off.  Even Coffee People, was better coffee than Starbucks even with either McDonald's like atmosphere.  And, unlike Starbucks would like to have you think, drive thru coffee is not something new.  Coffee People may be small potatoes now, but they were thriving through coffee expansion of the 80's.  My favorite was a black forest coffee.

Through out my long history of caffeine addiction, my orders have never been that complex that neophyte coffee maker couldn't understand what I wanted on the first go round of ordering.  So what I am soooooo very over are these people who go to the coffee houses, especially Starbucks, and have such complicated orders that they can't even get them right themselves when asked to repeat the order that they recklessly rattled off!

I had the unfortunate experience of breaking my coffee pot right before having guests over and was in dire need of a caffeine boost.  Since I had 10 minutes before my catering order was ready, I walked down the strip mall to the Starbucks (what cheesy strip mall would be complete with out a Starbucks?) where I had the further unfortunate circumstance of being behind this bimbo who was in a tank top, rolled up jeans and flip flops in 50 degree weather who had a bout of logorrhea, i.e., her coffee order, and she was asked to repeat it.  She tried twice unsuccessfully before her successful third attempt, not without help from the girl behind the counter.  All the while I wanted to strangle her and all of us in line had to avert our eyes to keep them from rolling so far that they would go back into our heads and never come out.  I really had to keep myself in check and not scream, "If you can't even repeat your order, what the hell are you ordering it for?!" 

I ask you, what is the purpose of having no foam if you are going to ask for whip on top?  Really?  I don't get it.  Someone please explain it to me.

But I tell you, if I am actually with someone who has such a stupid ass order and can't even get it right and I know the person, beware the bitch slap coming your way because there is no excuse for the pretentiousness of ordering something that you think is setting you apart some how when you probably don't even know what a good cup of coffee is.

Do you ever wonder if what we learn as we grow up is really the truth or whether we just become that jaded to believe what we knew as children? 

Grant would tell me from time to time that there were monsters in the house and I would do my best to chase them away.  It started out that he would tell me that there was a monster that lived in the corner of the pool room.  The monster was always in the same place and I had Grant show me where he was and I would call the monster out and step on him until Grant was satisfied.  Grant would call lobsters "monsters" and he knew that mommy at "monsters" so I told him that if any monsters were about that all he had to do was tell him that mommy would eat them if they didn't leave. 

All that worked for a while until the monsters were in his room at night.  He said that they were coming through the windows and I would humor him and tell them there were no monsters and that mommy would eat them if there was.  That didn't seem to satisfy him anymore.  So one night, Grant was complaining of the monsters at the same time that Ron was opening the garage door so I told him that daddy was putting up the special force field that kept monsters out.  And that worked for the night. 

Soon, however, the monsters were back and I finally found the solution: the monster in the closet.  It happened that I was pulling out some stuffed animals from a bag of dormant animals and found my James P. Sullivan, i.e., Sully, stuffed animals.  If you aren't familiar, he is one of the monsters from Monsters, Inc.  Since Grant knew that Sully was a good monster, once he started sleeping with Sully no more monster problems (knock on wood!).

Anyway, so what I wonder is if some how monsters aren't real.  When I was a kid, my sister and I insisted that our babysitter's car had a monster in it.  His name was Hoop.  I can still picture him clearly in my head.  He looked kind of like Cousin It, but was really scary with big teeth.  I don't think that he ever left the car, but we didn't like him.  The strange part was that he wasn't always there either.  But my sister and I both saw him.  My parents would humor us and ask us if Hoop was in the car when Kathy would show up and we would say yea or nay.   What we later found out was that Kathy's car had been in an accident and that the man who owned the car had died in it.  So you tell me... Is Hoop real?

My dad's house is really creepy and strange things had happened there that more than one of my step siblings and I had experienced both separately and together.  At one point when I was a teenager, or maybe it was college, my step sister's boyfriend, the major skeptic in the group, was making so much fun of us that we dared him to stay five minutes in the room where none of us would go anymore.  He wasn't in there five minutes when we heard a crash and he came running out of the room swearing that a ruler flew across the room and hit him.  He refused after that to ever go back in that room.  And no matter how hot the rest of the house was, that room was always cold.  So again, were we imagining these things? 

As a full grown adult, I still believe that what I saw and experienced growing up was real.  And yet I have the audacity to chide my child when he tells me that there are monsters in the house.  Some how it makes me wonder if I am not wrong.  Maybe I shouldn't just go on faith and believe him.  Or do I need him to learn that monsters aren't real so they can't get him as an adult? 

Despite the fact that I have my tattoo in a location that is usually hidden (yes, you guessed it, the lower back), I am still very happy about my choice to get it and what it is that I got.  Maybe that is because once I made the absolute decision to get a tattoo, it took me four years before I was able to get it.  Why so long?  Well, I was trying to decide what I wanted and where would be the best place in my area to get it done.  I came to the determination that the best place wasn't near me, but rather in Hawaii where they have some of the strictest standards for safety and cleanliness in the US.  Further, I wanted a tribal style design, but I didn't know what I wanted at the time.  I just wanted it to be meaningful to me and not just something off the wall.  ..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So, I finally get to Hawaii and was intent on getting it done, but time didn't allow for it and I wasn't sure where to go.  Shortly after returning from that trip, I found out that I was pregnant which precluded me from getting a tattoo until I was no longer knocked up.  To prolong it, I breastfed my son for almost a year so I couldn't get ink despite our trips to Hawaii.  Finally, the time was right again, we were in Hawaii, but we never found time to go.  This was about three months after I quit breastfeeding.  And wouldn't you know it, I got pregnant again.  (We joke that my kids are Pro Bowl souvenirs since it conception coincided with our trip to the Pro Bowl.)  Consequently, I had to wait almost another two years before I could get it done. 

The wait wasn't fruitless though.  I did, in that time, decide what I wanted.  I wanted a tribal shark on my lower back.  The shark is my family amakua and I felt that I could use all the help I could get.  Eventually, I realized I wanted two sharks; one for each of my boys.  This type of a tattoo would be very significant to me and something I would be very proud of. 

Ron wanted me to get something smaller because he was worried about the size of what I wanted.  Further, he wanted me to get something more girlie like turtles on my ankle.  And while I like turtles, I don't feel connected to them in anyway and I definitely wanted the tattoo on my lower back.  Not because of its trendiness to get them their, but rather the ability to hide it at work.  The legal field is still a boys club and very conservative and I felt walking around with a tattoo in that environment would make it even more difficult for me than it already is being a cute female who looks younger than I am.  (Sorry for sounding whiny there...)

Fortunately, I scored big by contacting a lifelong friend of mine, Rod, to ask for a recommendation for where to go for my tattoo.  Rod grew up mostly in Hawaii and is the kind of guy who knows everyone and everyone likes.  It just happens that one of his best friends, Josh, is a great tattoo artist in Honolulu.  Score!!  You can check out Josh and some of his work on A Tiki Tattoo's website. 

I went to see Josh and explained what I wanted, albeit, I didn't mention about the two sharks.  He asked that I give him a little time to come up with a drawing.  Ron and I went to a bar and grabbed a Foster's Oil Can.  Yum.  When we returned, Josh had a drawing of two sharks in tribal style exactly like I was picturing in my head but couldn't put on paper.  It was amazing!  Ron did make him shrink it a little bit so it wasn't quite so large.  But he agreed that we could shrink it any more because we would lose the details.  I was happy with the size either way.  Ironically enough, a guy who was getting more color added to his sleeve remarked that it was quite large for a first tattoo.  I said I didn't think so, but anyway...

After this long and drawing out story of how I got my tattoo, brings me to what spawned my need to write this.  I think that most people being of sound mind (i.e., not drunkenly going and getting a tattoo cuz it seems like the thing to do at the time) choose a tattoo based on something that is meaningful to themselves or artistically pleasing.  But what I don't get are people who get tattoos of their own names on themselves.  I understand getting your significant other's name (something I would never do) or your children's names, but I just don't understand getting your own.  Are you afraid that you are going to die in suspicious circumstances with no ID so it is like a dog tag to have your tattoo with your name?  Is it that you value yourself above all else?  What the heck?  I just don't get it.  If someone understands it, please explain it to me because I just don't get it at all!

I am sitting here watching Monday night football (while answering my email for work that I am so far behind on because of the so "insightful" new rules, but anyway) and listening to how the commentators are remarking how wonderful that Peyton Manning is so respectful of the people who came before him because so many professional atheletes today have no clue who came before them who paved the way to make them what they are today -- including the people who coached them who may have played professionally in the NBA or NFL.  

I think that Peyton has the benefit of having his dad be a good but unsuccessful QB in the NFL (but look who his dad played for) to help him remember that a good QB has to have a good team around him to make him great.  Without that support, he would just be good.  But that isn't my beef here.

The commentators this evening were talking about Johnny U (simply one of the best QBs of all time, but not measuring up to today's standards because his playing was before the era of the Superbowl Ring) and how Peyton remembered and benefitted from his greatness.  And I totally agree with that.  So many of today's atheletes think that it is just thier God given talent that make them great and do not take into account any of the support that they had along the way.  But I think that Peyton Manning has always been someone who was respectful and thankful for all those that came before him.  I don't think that anyone can really find anything that he has ever done that would contradict that. 

In that same regard, the commentators this evening made a comment on Johnny U's signature black high top shoes that, after Johnny U passed away, the NFL denied allowing Peyton Manning to don in honor of the great QB.  The NFL justified it that it wasn't part of the standing uniform.  But are these evil, ugly retro uniforms really part of today's NFL?  Only according to the sponsors of the NFL.  I, for one, would love for the old SD tacky powder blue uniform to stay where it should be -- the trash. 

But let Peyton honor one of the NFL's greats, who the NFL would never take resposibility for and help him with his post playing long-term injuries, by wearing his signature shoes?  Well, that would just go against the sponsors and their endorsements. 

But what do I know?  

I have always prided on myself on being fairly technologically saavy.  I am by no means and expert at computers, on the back end or the front end, but I can get by enough that I usually have a pretty good rapport with the tech people and computer support people that realize that they don't have to ask me if I have the computer plugged in and is it turned on after talking to me for a few minutes. 

However, sometimes I feel that the computer guy that supports my group at work doesn't recognize that.  Maybe I am wrong, but sometimes it feels that way.  Or maybe it is just that he has dealt with so many nimrods because of his line of work that it is hard for him not to be skeptical.  But in any, he was a little slow really getting to the heart of some of the computer issues that I have had over the past many months.  I won't even go into the email issues that I have had for over a year now, but will focus on the hardware problems.

My computer kept blacking out in the middle of my doing work which was extremely annoying.  After a new shell, a new mother board and finally a new hard drive being replaced, the computer still didn't work.  Fortunately, the many back-ups my company does saved me from losing the minimal, but essential work that I had on my hardrive.  As per company policy, my computer guy was supposed to have ordered me a new computer because mine was out of warranty, but from what I was told they changed the policy and because he waited I am out of luck.  But that is anothre issue.

So now I have been given a "new" refurbished computer which essentially boils down to me having another out of warranty computer that was someone else's problem before it was mine.  This thing, while "reimaged", is a peice of garbage like its predecessor.  I do have quite a few programs on it, but not 55 gigs worth of applications plus random data.  Because my hard drive totals about 63 gigs worth of space, and most of that is supposedly taken by only God knows what, my computer runs painfully slow no matter what it does.  MS Word is the worst of all and randomly opens documents that must be in its residual memory somewhere because the documents it opens aren't documents I have ever seen before.  I did find that my computer had offline files enabled which caused lots and lots of files to be stored on my computer.  I erased these but it doesn't seem to have made a dent in the amount of data I have on my hard drive.  I just can't figure it out so if anyone has a suggestion, let me know as I am at a loss and my computer guys are too.  But I digress.

Bearing all of these problems in mind, Friday my computer decided to blink out and turn itself off.  I was plugged into the wall, and no matter how long on Friday night I let it charge, it still wouldn't reboot.  I acted like it was trying to turn on, but no such luck.  If I could have gotten my computer on long enough to log into my VPN and shoot off an email, I would have sent one to my computer guys raging that I had gotten yet another peice of crap computer. 

I finally got fed up and went to bed.  When I got up in the morning, I tried booting up my computer to no avail.  I started becoming quite irritated with it when something dawned on me.  I keep my power cord plugged in behind my couch all the time so that when I am home and wanting to work on my computer, I can plug in without moving the sofa.  Well, I had moved the couch during some routine cleaning and I thought to myself, "Gee, I wonder if the connection in the power cord has some how come loose or unconnected."  So, I moved the end table and then the couch only to find that the connection had indeed become loose causing my computer to rely on the its completely inept battery rather than the ac power supply. 

In that instant, I was excessively glad that I wasn't able to shoot off an email about my pos computer because the computer guy would have had to ask me "Is your computer plugged in?"