So Long, old friend

I am amazed at how quickly the past three weeks have flown by.  What amazes me even more is that in another three weeks, which will no doubt fly by just as quickly, Jason will have a second degree in animation and visual effects, Daniella will be done with her second grade school year, and we will likely be frantically getting things together for summer festivities and a rapidly approaching trip to Florida.  Whew!  I’m gonna need a whole lot of coffee!

I am very behind in computer work right now.  My laptop died the day we came home from Sea World.  It refused to turn on.  I thought (or was hoping) it was an easy fix, but after an initial review by a computer savvy friend and a trip to the Geek Squad it was clear that it was gone.  Thankfully I was able to put the hard drive into an external housing (thanks for the suggestion Greg!) and use it to extract all of my files.  I was upset to lose the computer but to lose the files would have had me in tears.  Yes I have a backup system, but my most recent work, my designs and work on my photography site were all trapped on that hard drive as they had not been backed up yet.  That computer is not beyond all repair.  It needs a new motherboard and and new hard drive (I know, what else is there) and that will be done at a later time.  We evaluated the cost of repair vs the cost of a newer laptop.  We found a laptop that was half the original price of my old one and twice the speed and size and that’s what we went with.  Its taken days to transfer files, install programs, and tweek this computer to make it more “me” and is finally there…or at least close!

 

What is left of my old laptop.                                       Its new “house”.                      

My last computer held several thousand pictures and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of words were written on it.  For most computers, I am their worst nightmare (figuratively speaking of course)!  A mom who is less than graceful (or agile) with three kids, an incessant inner monologue, and a camera always in hand.  A mom who has “big” software programs that I force to run all at the same time.  Its no wonder it didn’t last!   Hopefully this one can keep up…or maybe I’ll be a little nicer!

Jason’s computer is also “shutting down”.  That computer has worked even harder that the laptop over the past few years.  It has been re-formatted a few times and parts have been replaced a few times.  It might have finally (two weeks before the end of Jason’s school years) hit a wall and can go on no further.  The day this computer arrived, so did Jason’s replacement computer.  It is still in its box waiting to be put together.  Jason has a special license on his current computer for one program and it is being monitored very closely.  Translation, that program cannot be transferred to a new computer without a whole lot of permissions.  With only two weeks left we figured why go through that trouble.  Coincidentally, the day these computers arrived Jason’s old computer became unresponsive and has pretty much been that way ever since.   I have a feeling if computers could talk, his would be saying “My replacement is here.  End me!”.    Right now it is looking like we may have no other choice than to oblige.  

Hopefully it will be another five years (or more) when another post like this comes around again.