contagious

in the past two weeks i have managed to get two different viruses on two different employer-issued laptops. (and my co-workers have already made every related pornography downloading joke, so save your breath.)

these have not been happy calls to make to the IT department. thankfully, the ladies in said department can be plied with baby ruth bars. also thankfully, my current work laptop is cured.

this all got me to thinking about how i wish we still used carrier pigeons instead of e-mail (though i guess pigeons catch nasty viruses as well). and it also got me to thinking about my trusty home laptop, delilah, and how devastated i would be if she were to fall ill, especially since i don't have a built-in, baby ruth-loving home IT department.

and then, last night when i lifted delilah off my lap to put her to bed, there was a bug on my leg. (there are way too many bugs in tropical d.c. way.too.many). and i thought to myself, "the only place that could have come from is the bottom of my computer." and then i remembered this terrible story i once heard from a data back-up expert about a couple whose CPU was infiltrated by bugs and chewed to bits. and then i got really paranoid.

so, i decided to start backing up all my pictures. (remember when we had film and we didn't have to back up pictures? those were good times. just like the pigeons.)

the good news is, i love looking at pictures of myself!

the better news is, now you get to look at pictures of me, too!

tonight i relived my several-years-ago trip to argentina to visit berto and mary.

{the pink palace in buenos aires. i think it has a more official name, but i cannot remember it.}

{real life argentine soccer with berto and gordon. the cheerleaders at argentine soccer games wear a uniform of bras and candy-colored wigs, basically, and flounce around the field when the ball is not in play, some of them with pom-poms and none of them with choreography. they are, as berto put it, exactly what cheerleaders should be.}

{this one deserves the full story. there berto and i were, eating a nice breakfast at a charming outdoor cafe when we noticed something of a ruckus in the nearby town square. protests are pretty common to argentina so we suspected it was something of that sort, but we decided to ask our waitress just to make sure. her reply? "oh, they're moving juan peron's body today." hello! we threw our money down on the table, ran to the square and watched the whole thing. we didn't get to see the actual body, but there was plenty of spectacle as it passed by and someone did accidentally catch a roof on fire, which was pretty awesome.}

{eva peron's grave. two dead perons in one trip! so lucky!}

{colonia, uruguay}

{with poojah. and a lot of meat.}

{dancing with a real gaucho.}

{colors in el caminito.}

so, that's one set of pictures safe from bugs and other pestilence, at least.

in other computer-related news, someone told me today they were suprised i didn't use a mac at home. this is like the third or fourth person who has told me this. what does it mean?