I did a tech support call with Apple this afternoon. It looks like I'll have to bring the iMac into the local Apple store in the Salem Rockingham Park Mall. It's just when I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to edit. Michelle is currently out at the YMCA swimming with Claire and Abby. I think we'll head out to the store when they get back. I still can't help but think one of the kids stuck something in the drive, but who knows. Maybe the CD-RW legitimately is having a mechanical failure.
I finished our taxes last night. Luckily this year was pretty simple. If it weren't for itemizing I could almost use a 1040-EZ. We'll get a modest return, which surprised me somewhat. I did not change my withholdings when the twins were born so I thought there would be more of a return. As I mentioned earlier I used TurboTax on the Web. When I used Internet Explorer 5 (IE 5) under MacOS X, it (IE5, not the OS) crashed quite often. On a whim I rebooted and used IE 5 under MacOS 9 and was able to finish the taxes with only one crash. The TurboTax site must download some flakey software onto the systems. It's quite rare to see Explorer just crash like that.
Unless Apple diagnoses the problem in the store, near term postings will be from the POS laptop or from my work PC.
Michael, ever the climber, has a new level of adventure. We recently have been moving the computer desk chair away from the desk so that they don't climb on the desk. We've moved it behind the couch so that I can easily roll it back if needed. Michael has been climbing this chair and then scaling over the top of the back of the couch -- head first. No fear! He laughs with glee then climbs down from couch, runs around to the back and does it all over again. Daniel has been watching him and now he's even trying it. It's a bit scary but still fun to watch nonetheless.