No matter what I tried I just couldn't figure out why Jen's computer was draggin' butt. I checked every registry entry, ran checkdisk/defrag, verified all unsigned drivers, disabled all optional startup items, even searched for root kits after doing a full virus scan with the drive in slave mode on another computer. The only option left was that somehow a vital system file got corrupted and a total reinstallation would be needed.

That's not really something I have time to do right now, so I decided to try a "repair installation" which is something I heard about a few years ago but haven't had to try yet. Basically it's supposed to "reinstall" core windows files BUT....and this is the key part...not wipe out all the current settings and installed programs. Which should mean that Jen's email will continue to be configured and work, and all her other programs.

Following the directions it seems it worked just as advertised. It's been a few days now and aside from having to reinstall IE7 and a butt ton of patches everything stayed the same. You'd never even know I did it honestly. I was pretty darn nervous I was going to loose everything, but it worked very well.

Speaking of Jen she bought me a new shirt, but Connor managed to get ahold of it before I had a chance to wear it :)

He also managed to get ahold of a diaper wipe dispenser the other day...he has this bad habit of trying to set them all free:

And lastly, I think Jen had this idea, we decided that since he didn't like the pool very much that we would use it as an indoor ball pit. Seems they sell bags of 100 balls at Walmart for like 10 bucks. We ended up using three of them, any more would have probably been a mistake for the size of pool we have.