8/2/2011 workbook

RATS!!!  During these computer crashes and file transfers, I’ve somehow lost my super-secret file of “eyes only” telephone numbers!!!  They are gone...gone, I tell you...lost in that vast emptiness that is cyber-space, never to be retrieved again.

You know—the private numbers of U. S. Senators, Congressmen, Federal judges, City Council members, and other movers and shakers around Middletown that I call in the middle of the night to get me out of trouble or to get the inside info on the goings-on around town.

Woe is me!  Whatever will I do now???  Give up???  Nah!!! 

Well, I just got back from Best Buy, and they were willing to replace my week-old computer with another brand new one, or even a comparable one of a different brand.  I was reticent, since I had spent untold hours transferring data and trying to get things structured the way I wanted them on this one and the identical one that crashed prior to this one.

The techie guy said that he could try replacing the CPU fan, and I replied that that would be fine with me, as long as it solves the problem.  So, he opened up my tower, peered inside, hooked up some wires and ran some sort of diagnostic tests, and excused himself.

A few seconds later, he came out of the back room with this HUGE rotary vane blower contraption—all shiny and chromed—with tubing akin to exhaust headers on a hot rod, and began removing the old blade-type fan—unplugging wires and removing tiny screws like a crazed race car mechanic during a pit stop.  Two other techies even came over to watch what he was doing!!!

The young kid having his laptop debugged at the next repair station stared with his eyes bugged out and in a reverent voice whispered “Cool!!!”

My techie got all the wires re-connected and everything secured (with very few parts left over) and fired the computer up again.  First there was a “whirrrr” followed by a satisfying “whooooosh”.  The Windows 7 logo appeared on the screen, with no “WARNING” in sight, and the techie just stood there with a smug grin for a brief second before pronouncing “I think you’re ready to go.”

I smiled, said thanks, and quipped “I’m gonna be the only kid on my block with one of those!!!  Can you leave the hood up, so I can show it off???”

Everyone within earshot, customers and techies alike, laughed.

You folks may recall that I told you that my computer took a dump (again) and I’ve been limping by on an old, slow, crippled unit with no sound, and that is plagued with the “This-program-must-close syndrome”.  (Hmm…”old, slow, and crippled”…that sounds like ME!!!  LOL!!!)

Well, I finally got my computer back from the shop earlier this (Saturday) evening after the Geek Squad had it for nearly two weeks.  Once again (for the third time since I bought it in July), all of the data is gone, as usual, but this time even the software that originally came with the thing seems to have been replaced with stuff that is almost, but not quite, the same. Of course the software that I had bought and loaded has vanished into some nether world.

I’ve been working for the last ten hours trying to reload the programs and data that I’ve lost, and I’ve been fairly successful in doing so, at least up to August 4, 2011, the point of my last back-up to an external hard drive.  (Yes, I know.  Shame on me—but I’d just gotten a brand new super-cooling fan installed just after that date in my brand new replacement computer for the brand new computer that I’d just bought a couple of weeks earlier!!!  And I’d also just decided to run for City Council at that point.)

So anyway, if anyone has sent me a phone number, address, email address, etc. since August 4, I no longer have it.

Anyway, now my computer is all fixed and they have assured me that nothing more can possibly go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..go wrong..