There's nothing wrong with Vista and I think you should look a little deeper for your problem. I went with my girlfriend last week and she purchased a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Vista Home Basic Edition, 2GB RAM, 200GB Hard drive. First thing I did was remove Norton 360 through control panal/uninstall and then install AVG Anti-Virus. She wanted Photoshop installed, no problem. Next was Microsoft Office 2007, started installing and bam computer shuts down completely. I think heat, you know that they are always warm on the bottom, but no as long as there is a little clearance on the bottom for air, they'll run for hours and days on end. Decided to uninstall the trial of the preinstalled Student Microsoft Office thinking there was a conflict with the Pro version I was trying to install, went to control panel/uninstall and tried to remove the student version, bam again computer shuts down completely. Did a search on the internet for vista shuts down and the best info I could find was that it's programs running in the background causing conflicts. I remembered the Norton Removal Tool and downloaded, ran and removed all traces. Went to msconfig and took a look at the programs running at startup and thus running in the background, installed CCleaner ccsetup209_slim.exe, my preferred tool (Tools/Startup) for disabling startup and unnecessary programs from running in the background. After that Microsoft Office installed perfect and the machine has never shutdown again. Next time I have the laptop, all the bundled software is coming off, who needs it. So what I'm saying is that there is a conflict with a program that's running in the background and whatever you're doing at the time the machine shuts down. Duel boot is fine, you'll need an XP disk, $100 or less. Make a separate partition to install it on. Really very simple, less than an hour if you know what your doing. With a duel boot, you're given the choice or either booting into XP or Vista or set one as the default. I have both, doesn't matter which I use, both perform equally. First thing I'd do is remove all the bundled software that came with the machine that you don't need, especially Norton that comes preinstalled with the Toshiba Satellite and get a good Anti-Virus program. You should also have Vista Service Pack 1 installed by now.

purplepansies, of all the yellows in your recent mustard (?) kitchen the cab color is my favorite. I like it with the warm browns--good call. The other yellow items are hard to match using online photos, I know. What gave me the giggles is that you have chosen a fabric I really like, albeit in another colorway (mauvy gray leaves and red birds on natural linen--I think it's out of production now, sigh). I planned to use mine in a rather formal dining room, before the plan morphed out of control--long story. The birds make me smile. Obviously I like the playfulness of your design. I think your wicker chair is useful also--not only a color and texture but it appears to be comfortable in its back support. I often refer to chairs as 1-hr, 2-hr, and 3-hr dinner party chairs. This might be a 3-hr one. Like you, I chose cute yellow hardware. There are a number of these in yellow, aren't there? And they're hard to resist. Mine: Bloom by Anne at Home. Too small to really see in my olioboard...here they are big...

Last year DS said "I can't wait till I'm 21 and can go into a bar and order a White Russian", we thought that was kind of odd but then we saw The Big Lebowski. DS loves movies. He says he doesn't drink, and really, when we brought up taking him out, well, he wasn't interested. Too bad, because it would be easy. Maybe we'll get him a White Russian, anyway! DS is a theater major, so maybe pay for his headshots? But we'd probably pay for that anyway. (We paid for a couple of sessions with his old voice teacher to prepare for an upcoming audition) Or we'll make up a gift cert/couponp for the Second City Training Center; he's done classes and workshops there before, but they don't seem to have gift certs. I love the 21x21 idea! There's a lot of fun as well as serious gifts that can go into that. Our other DS turns 16 a week later, so maybe we'll reprise the idea for him, too.

Tibb said - What's heard is, You are so not a priority so it went right by me. Priorities. That’s just it, as horrible as this sounds it obviously wasn’t a priority with me and it isn’t for me to get together anytime soon. Life is hectic and emotionally charged right now and will be in the future for an undetermined amount of time so getting together would heavily depend on how and when things unfold over here as well as her schedule, of course. It’s more than adding a new baby and she’s aware of some of it. Add into the mix that we also live pretty far away. I can count my close friends on one hand. The list hasn’t changed since I was a kid. Everyone else falls into an outside category. I’m good with this btw. I realistically don’t have the time or desire to dedicate adding more people to that close knit group. I truly believe this person and I have each other in the same friend category so that helps a little, but it still doesn’t mean I wanted to forget a birthday hello. She's a sweet person and due to past conversations I know she really appreciates this type of thing; probably more than me. She normally sends me a card and a text. This year I got a quick text and that was fine. It was nice. I don’t use my phone or email for reminders. Not making an excuse I just never found the need before to use those features. I’ve always been pretty good at remembering birthdays. I will take the time to set it up now. May – I have a handheld calendar and failed to write it in even though I know the date. ACTUALLY I did give my Grammy a birthday gift about a week before (it made sense to do so in this case) and we talked about the day and if she had plans, etc. Still wanted to make a point to call on the actual day. Tibb – I have some friends who are single that have noted feeling ‘forgotten’ and some that don’t. Generally, my married friends invite me over for dinner and it usually begins with, "DH is out of town or has a late business meeting tonight. Want to come over for dinner, or go out for dinner?" That kind of thing. I can't have dinner with my friend and her husband, many of whom I am friendly with and know well as well?....I’m certainly old enough (and moral enough!) to not be a threat to any married woman friend! Interesting. I've never looked at it from this angle. I setup and say similar stuff not for pity but because my thought is why would you want to hang out with me and my husband, at least not every time. Especially if we were the ones originally friends which is usually the case for me. I'd much prefer to hang out with just the person I’m primarily friends with vs. the whole family. I also take this approach with getting a babysitter for my DS for the same reasons. I thought it inconsiderate not to do this. I've always looked at it like a good thing! At this point I think I’ll try and find a nice belated card and write a little something. I have no problem owning that I screwed up and I won’t lie about it. I just was trying to think of the best way to handle it without adding more insult. And I would like to get together just at a later date. Thanks for the feedback everyone!