Drip dry

If you follow me on Facebook - and really, haven't you had enough of me by now, I know I have - you may have noticed the post I did this past Thursday when I accidentally spilled water into my laptop.

Not my proudest moment. Besides having teenagers in the house, few things will make you feel as stupid.

It wasn't a complete submersion. I was opening the screen, and either a) forgot, b) didn't notice or c) didn't care about the plastic cup of water behind it. When the screen hit it, I heard the cup tip over and immediately shifted into that slow-motion feeling you go into when you're either in a really bad accident or have done something monumentally, inexcusably stupid (that one).

It felt like hours before I lifted the laptop up to prevent any more water from getting on the bottom of it, but in reality it was probably only a second or two. Fortunately, it wasn't a direct hit.

The water spilled on my desktop, and seeped under the laptop, which I'd just turned on a moment before. I immediately wiped the bottom of the laptop off, held it upside down to let any water that may have gotten in through the cooling vents run out, and then logged in.

It fired up (poor choice of words) just swell. Everything looked fine, and I figured I'd dodged a bullet. Right up until the screen started getting these static-y lines running through it. The second I saw them, I shut down. The good news is it didn't just crap out, it actually went through shut down and turned off. So I took that as a good sign. Then I went on an agency desktop, and started reading the interwebs about laptops that get water spilled on them and what to do.

The answers ranged from get it to Apple right away, let it dry out for three days, and start praying. The most optimistic were the ones that had let it dry out.

They said if you kept the computer upside down, somewhere air could circulate around it and let it dry for at least three days, often it would turn on fine and be like nothing had happened. So, as you can see by the picture, that's what I'm doing.

I won't turn it on until Sunday afternoon, but I'm hopeful. At the very least I'm hoping it'll come on long enough for me to back everything up to Time Machine, which, coincidentally, I was going to do Thursday morning before work but I was running late. Lesson learned.

I'll let you know how it works out.

In the mean time, I'm going to be careful not to spill any more drinks. Especially the one I'm going to have if I find out I have to buy a new computer.

UPDATE: This afternoon I fired up "'Ole Sparky" and I'm extremely happy to report it's working just fine. Nothing but grateful. Of course, I'll never get that hour I spent in the Apple store yesterday back, but it's a small trade-off.

On retainer

Like a few of my high school girlfriends, retainers are not pretty, but sometimes they are necessary. Especially if you've spent thousands fixing your teeth and intend to keep them that way.

When I was a kid, I somehow managed to escape wearing braces. First of all, my teeth were always fairly straight (operative word is fairly - more in a minute). And, back then, braces were a subtle yet sturdy blend of heavy metals combined with chain link and eighty-gage wire. Also, my parents were struggling to make ends meet as it was, and braces were way down on the list below things like food and paying the bills.

However I was reintroduced to the world of braces when my kids needed them. Apparently brace technology - a term you don't hear often - has made big strides over the years. Materials are lighter, they blend with the tooth color more easily and, in fact, some are even almost invisible.

Hence the name Invisalign.

When I took my son and daughter to get their braces, I asked the orthodontist what it would take to correct my one tooth in front on the bottom that was overlapping another one. No one else had ever noticed or commented on it, but I had focused on it for years. When I would smile - which was a lot of the time, because as anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a happy-go-lucky, easy goin' guy - it's the only thing I'd see. The good news was he said it was a simple correction and could be done with Invisalign, a plastic brace molded to the shape of your teeth that you change every two weeks to accommodate the teeth moving. Sounded good to me.

Besides, once you're in for a few thousand on the kids hardware, what's a few thousand more?

After a year, my teeth were straight, bleached and beautiful. And I thought that was the end of it and I was done. All I'd have to do from now on was smile. But apparently I didn't read the small print.

Seems teeth, like creative directors, have a memory of their own and always want to retreat back to their original position. To prevent that, I had to wear top and bottom retainers at nighttime. When I asked how long, my orthodontist kind of looked down at his very expensive shoes I'm sure I paid for and said one word: forever.

Since forever is a long time I opted for the traditional plastic and metal retainers shown here. I'd be wearing them at night so no one except my wife would see them, and she was stuck with that "better or worse" clause. Also, I was fine wearing plastic during the day, but for some reason sleeping with it on my teeth bothered me.

To keep the retainers clean, I have to soak them for fifteen minutes every night in a glass of Efferdent Denture Cleaner. Nothing makes you feel young again like using denture cleaner for anything.

But let's not forget the point of it all (yes there is one). My teeth are straight, I'm happy and having to wear retainers each night is a small price to pay to keep it that way.

And when I say small price to pay, I'm speaking figuratively.