After calling the “support line” for Dell (which happens to be mostly for software support, by the way), being transferred twice and explaining my story and troubleshooting steps 3 times, I have a new power supply on the way.
The Dell Gold Support guy said, “And we’ll send a new one out with a tech to install it, is that right?”, at least realising that I probably did not actually need help, even though we seem to have paid for the super-spectacular bells-and-whistles support plan.

Erm.  No.    You may send someone over with a nice latte, though.

The good news is that one of the workers brought in a kitten.  I love kittens.   They don’t drool too much.  :)

In the winter, we still go to the zoo. Even when it’s -20F outside, there are still some pretty amazing indoor exhibits to see: The Leid Jungle, the Desert Dome, The Aquarium, Butterfly House and Kingdoms of the Night.

We took loads of video in the gorilla enclosure. The gorillas were quite active, and chasing each other around. In one of the hallways, a mother was standing by a window getting ready to put her toddler in a stroller, and one of the gorillas slowly peered into the window from below. It was hilarious!

Here’s a video from the day:

The fun thing about the zoo is that, if you have a zoo pass, you don’t feel as obligated to see the whole zoo on one day.  The zoo is big.  It’s not fun for me to walk the whole zoo.

So we decide to see a few things and then leave in a few hours.   Today, we saw orangutans, various monkeys, lions, tigers and bears.   The funniest thing was the really large orangutan sitting in a box.   Only his mahoosive head was visible.  As we were about to leave the orangutan forest, I spotted him putting his arms out of the box, reaching above to a rope, and using it to position himself, box still surrounding him, to another spot.

Once he was situated, he bent his arms and shoved them back in the box.   It made me laugh… loudly.

I played a game with the orangutan in the box.  I leaned to one glass window and said, “Come ouuuut…” and then to another, saying the same thing.   I kept doing it because he appeared to be watching me.  I thought maybe he would get out of the box to at least come over and smack the window to tell me to knock it off, but no such luck.

There are always interesting things to see at the zoo.

This year, admission to the iMax theater comes with the zoo pass, which I think is a great deal.  :)

Photos

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