Computer Down — Again!

Okay, my desktop machine is old — a 2004 Dell. I can expect glitches.

The timing of the breakdown could hardly have been worse, however. Last Sunday, I was about to update all the necessary medical expenses for the 2010 tax return when the machine began playing the fool and eventually (1) took forever to boot up, (2) would no longer let me back up data, and (3) refused to shut off properly or manually, thus requiring me to shut off the power source.

Of course, I made multiple calls to Warren, my primary guru. Nothing we tried did a bit of good.

I spent most of that Sunday afternoon printing out hard copies of all essential data: tax information (medical deductions and self-employment expenses already logged), students' grades, and various grading rubrics, even though I was sure that most of the data was backed up fairly. Better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to data for the tax man.

No lunch and no dinner for me last Sunday! Because of the stress, I didn't have any appetite, anyway.

The following day, Monday, I packed up the tower and all program and operating-system disks and sent them over to my local guru, the homeschool dad who revived my 2005 laptop by installing Ubuntu some months ago. As long as he can save the data — the saving thereof a precarious situation as the blue screen of death appeared shortly after successfully booting and then attempting to back up my files and folders — I won't whine much if I have to replace that old desktop in the near future. Of course, getting a new machine up and running with all the necessary archived files and folders is a time-consuming tedium. **sigh**

My desktop has been on borrowed time for quite a while now. Furthermore, I do have my laptop for blogging and checking email. The one glitch with my laptop: I can't use it to participate fully in the radio show.