can you tell the difference?

My computer died a couple of weeks ago.  I know, I know.  It's sad.  But, mostly, it's pretty friggin' inconvenient.  And really kind of unexpected and sudden.  Here's what happened.  I did my normal late night surfing one night, then went to bed.  The next morning I sat down to see what was new, but what was new was that my computer wouldn't boot up.  It wouldn't do anything, really, except sit and spin.  I shut it down.  I turned it on.  Nothing. 

Fortunately, we have a laptop, so I was able to do pretty much everything I needed to do from there.  But all my bookmarks were gone.  And I couldn't access my é.doc, which I always keep right on my desktop.  The é.doc is where I keep all my frequently-used symbols that I hate to look up all the time.  Here is the entire content of that document, if you are interested:

"¡       ü      é    °  ©   ½  ⅓  ¼   ¾   ë

In knitting, "pm" stands for "place marker" and "sm" stands for "slip marker".  The markers are there to help you remember to do the seed stitch border. 

 Hope that helps!

Anne"

 

 

Yeah, that last part is what I mail to the dozens of people who email me about a section of a knitting pattern I wrote that they don't understand.  It is confusing, I guess, but hundreds of other people have successfully navigated the pattern.  But I digress.

 

As soon as Ben got home from work, he was on my computer problem.  He tried all the things I had already tried.  I know he has to do this, but it is maddening, all the same.  After doing many other things that I didn't do, he reported that my hard drive was dying.  Now, I know virtually nothing about computers, but I know that my hard drive is essentially my computer.  So that sounded bad. 

 

Ben went right to work, backing up everything on the dying hard drive as best he could.  He went online (on another computer, of course) and ordered me a new hard drive, which arrived in good time.  Then came the real work.  And I know it was a shit-ton of work even though I don't have the slightest idea what it all was.  If you are computer savvy, you understand all about re-formatting and installing and recovering.  If, like me, you aren't, you still probably know It takes a lot of time and effort.  Not to exaggerate, but hours of time and effort.

Day  by day, I got more and more of my computer back.  And I was delighted to have it back, as I was learning to hate the laptop, with its very touchy and surprising touch pad.  Instead of moving the cursor, it would suddenly enlarge the image I was looking at ten or twelve times.  It would abruptly shut down what I was reading and offer me something else.  I don't like that.

So here I am today, with my brand new computer.  Oh, it looks all the same from here.  Ben even found the image I have always used for my desktop - a photo of Julie reading on the glider on our patio in Kent, with Bobo and Lucie on either side of her.  I tell you, it brought tears to my eyes the day I logged on and noticed them all sitting there as they always have. 

So, yes, it looks the same, but it works so much better.  For example, I am using my normal browser to write this blog post, where I used to have to switch to Chrome to access it.  I lost all the photos that were on my desktop, it's true, but I chose to use that as an opportunity to clean off my desk, as it were.  All the documents I had scattered there were placed in folders named "recipes" or "patterns".  It just makes sense. 

I am very, very happy to have my computer back, needless to say.  But what does need to be said is THANK YOU, BEN.  I appreciate it more than you can know.  And now I have the opportunity to tell you so. 

change is good... I guess

I didn't used to be a morning person - getting up too early to shower and rush out the door to work and all - but I love my mornings now. And I love my daily morning routine. Here's what I do every morning:

1. Get up and let the dogs out.

2. Start some coffee brewing.

3. Feed the dogs, if they haven't been fed.

4. Bring the newspapers in. (Get a little irritated if they haven't both arrived.)

5. Give the dogs their little treats for eating all their breakfast.

6. Read the newspapers while eating breakfast - usually a bowl of lowfat granola with fresh blueberries and fat-free milk and a mug of coffee with Splenda.

7. Chase Rufus out from under Julie's bed, where he has run to hide with the kleenex he stole out of the bathroom waste basket.

8. Hop on line to check my email (usually just updates from some knitting sites) my blog for comments (usually none, as you all well know) the LibraryThing talk page (which is being taken over by spammers, unfortunately) and, most importantly, my Ravelry page for comments and inspiration.

9. Whatever I want to do - gosh!

My routine came to a screeching halt at #8 yesterday, however, when my computer was unable to connect to the internet. I made the trip to the basement once, twice, a half dozen times to toggle the router switch, but to no avail. No connection. No internet. Normally, this might be cause for panic, but as yesterday was my second day of work at my new job, it wasn't the problem it could have been.

And for more information on that, you will just have to tune in tomorrow.

experiencing... technical ... difficulties...

When I was a kid, back in the Dark Ages, our tv would occasionally go on the fritz. Some times it would be our set's fault, and the picture would "roll" or we would have excessive "snow". My dad would fiddle with some tiny knobs at the bottom of our big box of a television, or move the rabbit ears around a bit. Some times it helped, some times it didn't.

Every once in a while, the network or the local affiliate would have problems, and after a short period of time, a stationary picture would appear on the tv screen. The picture showed a man standing next to his television set, leaning over, and peering inside the front of it. Even before we knew how to read, we understood what that meant. The station knew something was wrong and they were working on it.

If I used images on this blog, I would be searching the internet for that picture, as I'm sure it is out there somewhere. Because, you see, I know something is wrong with my computer, and Ben is working on it. Until he figures it out, however, my posts will be brief to non-existent, as my computer tends to lock up on me somewhat unexpectedly.

So, please stand by. We'll be right back.