Patience

One week and six hours ago I turned on my computer to discover it hung at the Windows screen.

*I rummaged thru my geek experience and pulled up a bunch of tricks. Tried them. Nothing. I went online and looked for more tricks (I have a laptop too). Nothing.*

[Repeat several times from * to * while breathing deeply.]

I slept on it and tried more tricks the next day with the help of a techie pro. Nothing.

Thinking it was a bad drive I ordered a new highly recommended one from Newegg.com and tried to move on to other things for a few days. I took lots of yoga classes. Breathed deep. A gal in my yoga class shared about having to pull life-support from her severely damaged newborn. Another spoke of trying to make peace with her dying mother. And I’m hyperventilating over a hard drive?

Breathed some more.

Patience: 1. The quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

2. An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.

The new drive arrived yesterday afternoon and I transplanted it where the sickie had been. Partitioned it, loaded Windows. Or so I thought. When I turned the machine back on it hung in the very same spot.

[Repeat from * to * above while breathing deeply.]

No dice. So…

As I said earlier, “phuck that!” This morning I did what I should have done a week ago – I took it into the local computer shop. They’ve got the spare parts and they have the patience.

In prior incarnations I’d have been rending my clothes over such a disruption, but there’s still plenty room for improvement in the patience department.

PHUCK!!!

I know I said I’d only be using P-words on this blog that were of the voiceless bilabial plosive sort, and that I would eschew fake P-words that sounded like F, N, S, or T, but today I must break that rule.

My workhorse computer, “Big Mama,” came down with the phlu yesterday – totally phucked up - and I’ve spent most of the past two days trying to restore her health. Windows won’t come up, but tries in so many peculiar ways that I now think it’s the hard drive. I am tech savy enough that usually I can fix such glitches, but this one just got worse and worse. I went so far as to call in a mobile tech I called who was also baffled. And I’m $140 poorer. So far.

And OF COURSE I HAVEN’T BACKED UP my most important files in a couple of weeks… so I stand to lose a lot of data if I have to reformat (or get a new drive). Monday I’ll have to find a shop with a good bench to see if they can at least get those important files off. THEN I have to do the unbelievably noxious task of reinstalling programs on a new drive.

Pshit! (The P is silent.)