Fubar and tenacity

I promised pictures of my trip, and I am going to stick a few in here from the desert museum. I have 105 pictures, one isn't very good - but I don't want to bore you with too many pictures of mountains. They are a novelty to me; some of you live with views of them every day.

Why the lost time between my last entry and this one? I had a mild case of ennui, I was busy, I was enjoying my rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I read five books one weekend. I was boxing with the child. I helped my friend Cindy locate a new home much closer to [me, I mean to] her current job, I spent a day with a former co-worker who is not feeling at her cheeriest and we had a great time.

And, then, there was the fubar. Wednesday I had a wonderful lunch with a friend of mine. We spent the time discussing normal lunch time topics such as mathematical optimization (charts drawn on the paper napkin), garage storage systems, standard deviations, dog poop, ceiling fans, and the efficient frontier system (for investments). I know now why lawns should only be watered once a week and why ceiling fans should only be used on the lowest setting.

In a good mood, I returned home and went online. I was in the process of answering an email to my niece when - BAM. My computer was fubar.

I first noticed that I could not move the cursor back with the mouse to correct an error. I found I could open some things with the mouse, but could not close them. Knowing I was losing the email, I rebooted. Repeatedly.

Other things began to go wrong, and the computer froze up a few times. Not happy, I decided to do a restore, figuring early the same morning would be a good time to return to.

I rebooted again, and did not see the "recovery" screen during the reboot. I managed to get there anyway, and did not see "restore." By this time, i was in distress along with the computer, and I clicked on "recovery." I couldn't get the computer to do anything else - I had no choice.

I lost everything. All my personal documents and pictures for the last ten years that I had on the computer - gone. Some cannot be replaced. I felt violated.So, soldiering on, I tried to recover use of my computer. No dice. Could not get online no matter what I did.

My VOIP phone rang, so I knew I had cable service and my router was working. While I was on the phone, a cable company guy was in my back yard, ripping wires out of my cable box outside. He growled at me when I asked questions. I stuck my head back inside.

I believe at some point he caused a surge that damaged my computer, but I can't prove it. The cable guy who came out the next day diagnosed me with a fried ethernet card and router. I told him my router was still working when he got there. He said it wasn't.

He did some of the same things I did, then called tech support. (So who was HE?) Tech support told him I had a fried ethernet card, and he agreed. I didn't. He said it happened from our electric company, that they caused a power surge. I bit my tongue.

Both he and I got the same message when we tried to put in the cable disk in my computer to get service back on - it said my ethernet cable wasn't connected. It certainly was! That is why they decided it was the ethernet card.

My computer was 2.5 years old, the keyboard was shot (I had to work hard to get a J, I, or K), and they told me I needed an ethernet card. Not happy, I went shopping.

I packed up my 37-day old router and asked the store if they would give me a new one in exchange, even though their policy is 30 days. I said I would buy a new computer if they did. I walked out with a new router and a new computer, still not happy to have to buy one now. I wanted to go another year, if possible.

I came home, set up the new laptop, and then went to set up the modem and router. Guess what the message was when I tried to hook up to the modem? I know those cables were hooked up, once again! Same message. I turned everything off, left the room, and read a book for a while, then went to bed. It was late.

Day three, I got up and called the cable company. I was loaded for bear but trying my best to be polite, since the tech on the phone didn't blow up my computer or give me a misdiagnosis. Her job was to help me. She was all happy and cheerful and positive, so I let her live. She got me online by resetting my modem. It took her 2 seconds.I thanked her kindly.

This is a long story, isn't it? I got the router going after a few rocky spots and took my wireless laptop to the sofa, put up the recliner for my feet, and got to work.

Luckily I had left my pictures on my media card, otherwise my vacation pictures would be gone. As it is, all I lost of them was my favorite bug picture that I had edited. None of my other pictures are edited yet. So, without another 4000 words, here are a few of my favorites from the Desert Museum. I will also try to pick up the travelogue where I left off, maybe tomorrow.

If anyone still has a copy of that bug picture, please send me a copy back? I would like to post it :-)

 

Yes, that is a tarantula. Cute, yes? He was not in a display for tarantulas. He was hanging out in the rocks with the birds.