2 posts from April 2007

I know, I know, I know...I've been bitching, pretty much non-stop about how cold and rainy and icky it's been.  And then today?  85 FLIPPIN' DEGREES...out of NOWHERE!!  I'm not complaining but...ok, I'm not now, but I was earlier today.  Why?  Because it's really too early to convince my husband that we should turn on the A.C.  I mean, it's only April.  And a few days ago I was all for cranking up the heat.  Damn Global Warming.  Damn you people who don't recycle and who drive around in your big SUV's and leave the water running when you brush your teeth!  (Ok, truth-be-told, I'd probably be driving around in one of those big SUV's too, if I could afford the gas...)  But seriously, I'm all for trying to do our part to save the planet and slow down the destruction.  And I did enjoy the past two days of warm weather...just not inside my house.  You see, I've become an air-conditioning junkie.  

I wasn't always this way.  Hell, I grew up in the same town I'm in now...(feel sorry for me...please) and we had absolutely no air conditioning in my house until I was around 15.  I can remember the summers well...going to bed with the window fan on, blowing hot air around the room, while I lay in my 'shortie pajama's' (remember those?) on top of my sheets, sweating like crazy.  I'd flip my pillow around and wallow in the thirty seconds of cool, non-sweaty cottonness of it before it would heat up just like the other side.  And I distinctly remember waking up in the middle of the night because I had rolled onto my side, only to find my legs sandwiched together and pooled in sweat.

And what about the car?!  My dad didn't buy cars that had air-conditioning until well after I had moved out.  (Nor a dishwasher, for that matter.)  I can remember driving along with the windows down, my naturally curly hair (from hell, especially during the Farrah Fawcett days) blowing and curling in the hot, humid wind.  When we'd stop somewhere, I'd look like a blonde version of Carrot Top. 

And then, sometime in my mid-teens, we actually got a couple of window AIR CONDITIONERS.  One for the dining room.  And one for my parents room.  Yeah.  The only time I actually benefited from the air conditioners was when I came down with a major case of strep throat on top of head-to-toe poison ivy (which was NOT contracted from being in the woods while making out with someone at the park during the fourth of July festivities...ahem...) at which time, since it was so UNGODLY hot, and I was so miserable that I was prescribed some major Codeine, my parents actually set up a temporary mattress for me in the air conditioned dining room.However, I was so doped up at the time that I wasn't actually able to enjoy my stint in the coolness of it all...

But then, sometime after my growing up and moving out, I experienced summer-long air conditioning...

Which eventually, when my husband and I put an addition onto the house a couple of years ago, resulted in us getting central air...need I say more?

Once you've had central air, well, why be hot?  Ever.

Which is why, today, being a freak of a hot day, I was more than uncomfortable.  But I did not even attempt to brooch the subject of turning on the A.C.  Because even for me, it's too early. 

But for my spoiled children?  Who've never experienced the window fans, or lack of, or the hot air blowing into the car, immediately upon walking into the house after school exclaimed:

"It's sooooo hot in here!!!!  Why isn't the air conditioning on???!!"

And my reply was, "Because it's hot-as-hell and it's only April.  And it costs a lot to run the A.C.  And wasn't yesterday 'Earth Day'?  And didn't you guys watch 'An Inconvenient Truth' at school and participate in the Global Warming Teach-In last Friday?  

To which they replied, "Yeah, so why don't you have the AC on?

They'll get it eventually, maybe not until they're the ones paying the bills...but yeah, they'll get it eventually.  Until then, we're all sleeping with our fans in the windows tonight, just for old times' sake.

Holy crap.  Yeah, it has really been six months since I've written anything on my very short-lived blog roll.  Holey ADD is all I can say.  I was busy with the holidays during November and December. 

 And then my computer crashed BAD for a couple of months.  And when I say BAD I mean like, I even brought it into Best Buy (which I'll NEVER EVER do again) and they told me that it was d.e.a.d, that my hard drive was caput and that basically the only thing I could do was scrap it and buy a new computer.  Let me back up a bit.  It didn't crash for a couple of months, as I stated it above.  It simply crashed once and I couldn't get into anything at all...no files, pictures, internet, email...nada.  It was just stuck in a continuous error message loop and every time I would look at it I would almost be reduced to tears.  Why?  Because I did not back up my important files and photos and everything extremely important to me.  Not because I couldn't have, oh no.  I most definitely could have because my husband had bought me an external flash drive months before this incident but I just "never got around" to doing it. 

So, I refused to call tech support for almost two weeks, because I was afraid of what they would say.  And then after calling them, and them telling me that there was nothing they could do for that problem for which I was describing, they suggested that I should take it somewhere like Best Buy to have them try to at least recover my data.  So, once again, being totally scared shitless that I would bring it there and they would say "sorry, nothing we could do!", I took the bull by the horns and did what I do best...I woke up every morning, looked at my blank computer and decided that today was NOT the day that I wanted to bring my computer, only to be told that my data couldn't be recovered, and fall into a deep pit of despair.  So, I didn't bring it in.  For weeks.  The procrastination worked for a little while.   If I don't bring it there, they can't tell me what I don't want to hear, a crazy voice in my head kept telling me. 

Until one day, I couldn't take it anymore.  I scooped up my processor and schlepped through the rain into the nearest Best Buy, told them my sob story, made sure they understood that it was very, very important that they somehow retrieve my data and gave hugs and kisses goodbye.  (To my processor, what'd you think?  Actually, you're right.  If I thought it would have helped, I would have had a little make-out session with the Geek Squad guy but, seeing as how the skinny little thing looked to be about sixteen, not only would he have been repulsed, but I would also have been arrested so...yeah.) 

I went home and waited and worried and then the next day, just as I was feeling pretty good about the fact that I hadn't heard from them (which to me meant that they were busy backing up all of my files), I ran out for an errand and when I came back, there was a message on my machine.  From them.  The Geek Squad.

"Hi.  This is (some name) from the Geek Squad?  Uh, yeah, I just wanted to let you know that we couldn retrieve your data, so you can pick up your computer at any time."

Huh??  "I just wanted to let you know that we couldn retrieve your data"??  Is that a COULD or a COULDN'T??? 

So, I listened to it again.  And again.  And again.  And yeah, I was 99% sure that it was a couldn't.  But, in my true procrastination form, I didn't call them back, and I didn't go get the processor either.  Until another call appeared on my machine a couple of days later.  With the same message, but this time there was no mistaking the couldn't.  I was devastated. 

And when a third person called a few days after that, I assured her that I would be in within the next couple of days to pick it up.  Which I did (about a week later). 

I'm not going to get into it anymore here but let's just say that after picking up my processor (because of things that were said and speaking to people who didn't really seem to know what they were talking about, and things that were written on my work order that didn't seem to make sense to me), I was still not convinced that my precious data was lost forever.  I brought her home and hooked her up and waited while she booted up.  And there, there was the same damn error screen that was stuck in a continuous loop and then suddenly, what is this?  A Geek Squad program pops up on the screen and again, not going to get into it, we discover that they left their diagnostic disk in the processor and, the little door to the drive is stuck shut.  Yeah, I have lots of faith that they did all they could....NOT!

So, my husband and I pretty much dismantle the processor before he discovers that the tiny little hole on the front near the jammed drive will open the door nicely if you stick a paper clip in (what can I say, that's why we don't work for the Geek Squad) and we remove their disk.

Of course, my computer still wasn't working but...I still had such a strong feeling that there must be SOME way to recover my data that I still refrained from sticking in my re-install Windows program which, as you know, would wipe out EVERYTHING in there and start out factory fresh.  (Even though the Geeks told me that I couldn't even do that because everything was d.e.a.d)

So, (sorry this is dragging on so...see what happens when I don't write for six months?) I leave it for a few days when I decide to call my mother one morning (I never call her in the morning...don't even remember why I did that day either) when I ask her what she's doing and she tells me that she's waiting for, get this, the computer guy to come over!!!  (Who knew that my mother even had a computer guy?)

Anyway...he took my processor home, called me later that night and told me...here's where it gets good..."THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR COMPUTER"!!!

WTF?????, I want to scream.  But instead, I say "huh?", because I can't quite believe my ears, because I know that it hadn't been working, and what's he saying?

"There were just a few minor viruses and glitches that I cleared up and it's working fine.", he says nonchalantly.

"You mean, I still have my stuff?  My files, my pictures, my porn???"  (Just kidding, I had deleted all of that already...)

"Yeah, I'm just going to finish cleaning it up a bit tonight and install some new virus protection on it and I can bring it by to you tomorrow around noon."

I was so estatic that when I hung up the phone, I started jumping up and down, pumping my hands up in the air and shouting "YES, YES, YES!!!!!"  (Yeah...just like when I'm with you, honey.)

So thanks to Mark A. (aka, 'Mom's Computer Guy'), I have backed up all of my important files and pictures and I'm sitting here today, typing away on my long lost blog...and I didn't even have to make out with him for it....you-the-man...!