mojosmom

It has been a fun day and a half!

Yesterday morning, I was futzing around on the internet, when my computer froze. I restarted it, and got the evil gray screen with the flashing ?. Yes, folks, my hard drive had bit the dust. Kaput, gone, dead, no more. I hauled it to the Apple Store, where they said, "Yep, your hard drive is nowhere to be found." On their recommendation, I did not have them replace the drive, but took it to an authorized reseller that a) was faster (less than 1 day as opposed to 5-7 days), b) had a better warranty (5 years as opposed to 90 days), and c) was only a few bucks more. I picked it up today and again went to the Apple Store because the person I spoke with yesterday said they would comp me an upgrade to Snow Leopard. That took all of 15 minutes.

After a short trip to the Brown Elephant thrift store to donate a bunch of stuff, I came home, plugged in the computer and started to re-set all my bookmarks, etc. After about an hour or so, the power went out! I dug out a flashlight and a bunch of candles, and spent the evening reading by a combination thereof. Also being glad that I have a gas stove, because I could make myself dinner! The lights went back on about 45 minutes ago. It was horribly windy today, and a transformer pole was blown down, so our entire bloc was without power. Com Ed had told my neighbor that it might not be back until tomorrow; I'm very glad they were wrong.

Thanksgiving was good. Stacey got in about 5:00, and I fixed a lasagna. We avoided all stores, except for Petsmart, on Friday, but hit a couple of local stores for Small Business Saturday. On Sunday, I had my annual open house, with some of the regulars and some new people as well. Stacey went home on Monday, and I went to the Siskel Film Center to see a film of Carmen, performed at the Opéra Comique. It was splendid.

I shall run around tomorrow and take a bunch of pictures to try to finish off NoNoNoNo. Unfortunately, the last photos I took were not uploaded yet to Flickr, and are off in the ether with everything else that was on my hard drive. ~sob~

that I actually have my Internet back. I took the computer to the Apple Store today, the guy fiddled with the settings, muttering about ISP tech support as he did so. I got home, plugged in the modem, it took me straight to set-up, and now things seem fine. I will not relax until I get through a couple of days with no problems, so when you all are not using them, keep your fingers crossed!

Well, I thought we had found a workaround for my Internet issues, but apparently not. More time on the phone with Earthlink last night, now a recommendation for yet another modem! I'm getting way frustrated.

So if you don't see me here for a while, and I don't comment, or respond to your comments, you'll know why.

I'm posting from a computer at my library. I hope I don't have to do this much longer, particularly as, due to cutbacks, it's only open late two evenings a week.

Yuck.

Here I am, typing away on my new keyboard, which didn't cost me one red cent and, no, I didn't have to upgrade my operating system. I took the whole system in to the Apple Store genius bar, and chatted with the guy. He said, "let me go check something" and came back in a few minutes with a slick new small keyboard, though wired, not wireless, and said, "you can have this". (Yes, "have", as in, "no charge".) I asked him if he thought it made sense to upgrade to Snow Leopard, he checked a few things on my computer and said, basically, "Nah, don't spend the money." I'm just getting used to the smaller size of this keyboard, so blame any typos on that. It's very cute!'


I spent the day at a seminar on immigration law as it applies to criminal cases. Due to a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, criminal defense lawyers must now advise their non-citizen clients on the immigration consequences of a plea. This threw the criminal defense bar into a tizzy, because immigration law is extremely complicated! The program was very well thought out, provided lots of resources and was very helpful and informative. One of the better seminars I've been to. There was a reception afterward at Preston Bradley Hall in the Cultural Center - I guess they wanted to impress the out-of-towners (and, judging by the out-of-towners I chatted with, succeeded).

Maybe my keyboard was just filthy. I don't know. All of a sudden, this afternoon, several keys stopped working. I called Apple support, and they suggested to first try new batteries. I did. No dice. So the guy said, it's four years old. You likely need a new keyboard. So I trotted down to the Apple store, and they basically said the same thing. The keyboard I have now, is, of course, not in stock because it's four years old. So I looked at the new one. Very nice indeed. Smaller, flatter, less room for cat hair. But I need Leopard (I have Tiger). So I make an appointment for tomorrow to bring in my computer so they can upgrade it. Come home. Plug stuff in. Clean out cat hair. Things work, if sporadically. Now all the keys seem to work. I don't know. I blame the cats. I suppose I should keep the appointment anyway.