Following is an email I sent to a friend back in good 'ole Whitefish, Montana today.
"Real Life" follows you no matter where you roam!
Yikes! Things went from feelin' "in
control" to chaos on steroids! ;-)
Got up EARLY (3 AM) yesterday ready to get my internet job
crap off my daily schedule and my frickin' computer wouldn't boot up. The screen stayed totally blank, no message,
no blue screen of death or anything!! A
laptop usually only lasts me 2-3 years and I was due for a crash but gosh dang
almighty.....new place, new volunteer position, new people to figure out and my
source of income goes crap-o!
To top it off, I had written a ton of brochure copy for a
client over the weekend with the intent of sending it to him Monday and now I
couldn't get to it and if I couldn't figure out how to at least get my 'puter
to wake up, I'd have lost all of it and would have to start all over
again. Of course, who backs up every day? NOT me!
As I'm trying to keep from freaking out and aligning my
coping skills as best I can, I have Dave start up his laptop so I can get to my
email because I had emailed part of the brochure copy to my client and I'm
hoping it's still in my "sent" folder. It's there!
I copy it on a flash drive and breathe a small sigh of relief. While I'm on-line I do a search for the type
of issue my computer is having and dang if I didn't find a forum discussion
about others having the same issue.
Seems as though over time a solder point on a hard drive can
form a micro crack and prevent circuits from "talking" to each other
and hence the computer can't start properly.
AND...a guy describes how to perform a temporary "blanket fix"
to start the computer so you can at least make back ups of the things you want
to transfer before it rolls over and dies permanently. He says with the computer on (even though the
monitor is blank) literally wrap it in a
blanket (blanket fix...get it????!!!) leave it for an hour and then try to
re-boot. Theoretically it heats up the
hard drive, expands the micro crack so there is enough contact to complete the
start up sequence. What have I got to
lose right??? Note: As Dave watches me
do this I know he's looking up mental institutions in the Tucson area that may
have room for a looney going through computer withdrawals. Do you suppose there is a 12-step program for
THAT?
Any-hoo .... I go about gathering flash drives for doing
backups and other such positive tasks in anticipation of this bazaar method of
revival being successful. At this point
if chanting nursery rhymes over my blankie-wrapped-computer while standing on
one leg with my arms above my head spinning in circles would have fixed
it...I'd have been doing it! Desperation
is so unattractive and humiliating isn't it?
An hour ticks by....I slowly unwrap my wounded Samsung
warrior...open, push the start button.
Whiz-Bang the sucker starts up like a newborn! Hot dang and call me loopy but don't knock it
til you've tried it!!!!
OK...to make a very, very, very long story short. I fill multiple flash drives with pictures,
scripts, invoices, radio commercials, software copies, get 3 hours of
"paying work" done, push myself away from the keyboard, go to the
shopping center across the street on a new laptop search and seek mission.
Followed by wandering aimlessly around Tucson with Dave for a few hours and
finally late in the afternoon, with head held high and my big-girl iron clad
panties in place march back to Best Buy and make a purchase , using the 0%
interest til October 2014 Discover card offer I received in the mail last
week. Sometimes timing scares the living
shit out of me!
I then spend hours sifting through Windows 8 and with some
help from Dave who just bought a windows 8 tablet a few weeks back, begin transferring
info from old to new. My anti-virus
software will not transfer to windows 8, I call and get tech support, the tech
is awesome and after about an hour we get 'er done! With only 2 software downloads to figure out
(Office 2007 & my audio recording Cool Edit program) I call it quits about
11 PM. Both programs are old, outdated
and battles I'll fight another day.
Both Dave & Willy have been in slumber la-la land for
about an hour.
Being very stealth-like I quietly invade the freezer and
proceed to dig into a container of ultimate chocolate, chocolate and more
chocolate ice cream and treat myself to a dinner of compete delight!
A just reward for such a trial & error day don't you
think???
Today I've breezed through my desired hours of work, taken a
few walks with Mr. Willy and plan on going across the street and purchasing
more chocolate ice cream.
Thurs. we begin learning what our volunteer duties will
actually entail so in the meantime .... I'm goin with the flow and enjoying the
80+ degree days and 50 degree nights...
And that's all I have to say about that.... ;-)
B~
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