Would you believe????
You'll just NEVER guess where WE went today! ARRRRRGH! If you guessed Corpus Christi, you'd be RIGHT. And if you guessed Best Buy, you'd be even MORE right! And ya know why? Can you guess?? If you guessed BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH, you'd earn a gold star!! Oh, yes. Last week, when it was suggested that I update Windows to Service Pack 2, and it blue screened upon restart, my dear hubby was good enough to recover me back to the last good boot info, and I was able to continue on. Only took a full evening and lots of patience. And, oh yeah, Service Pack 2 was NOT reinstalled. OK, so, I've been using my new software to create & transfer lots of designs, and I've been sewing up a storm during the past week. Remember, Diana had gathered some orders from her friends, and I'm trying to create an inventory for sale at the upcoming November Craft Sale. Sooooo, when I saw that new updates were available, I was obviously a bit leery of installation. So, I go looking to see what-all they were for, and find they're almost all (7) Microsoft security updates and 2 were for junk mail filters. It's not like I can leave 'em off, is it? So I decide to go ahead & download 'em while I'm picking out colors for the new design I'm getting ready to sew. While I'm still selecting colors & determining the sewing order, all the updates download completely, and the silly thing asks me if I'm ready to restart. NO, of course I'm not ready....so I postpone it for one hour. When I complete my color selection & ordering, I go ahead and close everything & tell it to restart. So I see the customary "2 of 3 complete...do NOT turn off your computer" message, and oops, I need another yellow, and when I turn BACK, what do I see but a $%^&* BSOD (blue screen of death). ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.
And did I mention that Dick is installing a new toilet during this time? Courtesy of Florida's hard well-water, all of our plumbing seals & fixtures have been ruined. We have already replaced the shower hose & head and the kitchen faucet (the faucet alone was over $100!!), and the toilet innards were next on the list. Of course, the whole inside setup would cost almost as much as a whole new pot, so, in the interest of ease of installation and getting rid of seal problem, as well as the iron-stainsin the bowl , he just ordered a brand new toilet. And when it arrived Wed, of course, it was smashed. The new one arrived all in one piece, and that's what he was working on when I got the beloved blue screen. Not wanting him to stop (as if he would have anyway, haha), I mentioned that when he got through, just so he knew, my computer was messed up again. Well, in poopy-job up to his elbows, what could he say but OK. So, he kept on working on his installation, and I finished up my sewing projects. Amazingly enough, even though he had to make THREE trips to the camper repair store for additional plumbing parts, we both ended around the same time & started cleaning up our respective messes. While I started on dinner, he started recovering my operating system. Again. And at 1 a.m. (yup, AM) he finally gave up the ship and left it to keep running by itself. He had gotten it back to where it would boot up ok, but it was still running diagnostics. So, early this morning, I hear music playing and him saying "Lucky" twice. What the heck???? He was talking to the computer! It had required him to speak, ostensibly to check the microphone & the music was a speaker test. OK then. By the time I finished my morning routine, he had it all restored & running a disk defrag. We talked about what to do about it and came to the conclusion that there's still something wrong, and since the error was first seen on May 9, THREE DAYS PRIOR to my original purchase, Best Buy should be responsible for remediation.
So, off we go. Remember, Corpus is 31 miles from our campsite, so it's not somewhere we go often or just because. Well, there was that time we went all the way into town tracking down some gold spray paint, but that's a whole 'nother story. We walk in, and of course they put those little pink stickers on our stuff, to show we brought it in....the original box, the computer, the power supply, and (how smart am I?) two thumb drives. Truck on thru the store & go stand in line at the Geek Squad counter. Eventually, it's our turn, and thankfully, we get Paul, the gent who's helped us on two of our three previous encounters. And he even remembers us!! He gave us the cheerful news that this is a very common situation with Dell computers and it's often a hardware issue, even tho it presents as a software problem. And, with a helpful smile, reminded us that they could run diagnostics in-house at no charge, if we had purchased the extended warranty. Heck no, we didn't purchase the warranty, you'd *think* we'd be ok with only the manufacturer's one-year warranty. Seemed like an unnecessary expense, at the time. He was helpful, tho, and did suggest that we reinstall Windows to try to eliminate any basic errors or issues. Of course, he recommended we back up any data we wanted to save prior to reinstalling.... Ya think?? That's what the sticks were for!! I was kinda hoping there'd be a permanent fix!! So, we go off to the surround-sound home-theater room (it's quiet when there's no one in there, and has a big round, cushy ottoman to sit upon) and get started on pulling out all my pictures & designs & address books. During the boot from CD, we find a Repair option, and yup, take it. Seems all ok, and it restarted fine! I can't believe how excited I get with a normal boot screen these days. Did you know that Best Buy has their own wireless, in-store network? Oh yeah. Well, at least *this* one does....
So, we hook up and go online to get the downloads again, thinking we'd repaired whatever issue was preventing normal boots. HAHA, God laughed. We installed the downloads, and at restart, what do you think we saw? %^*()*&^Blue Screen. Yup. We tried to go back and RE-repair, and this time, we somehow got it into a loop, where it was trying to repair the boot process but couldn't, and couldn't restart, and couldn't cancel. After 30 minutes of watching the little blue blip cross the screen, we took it back up to Paul to see if we could stop it with a power fail (read: battery pull, since we weren't plugged in to start with). He checked, and yup, go ahead and fail it. And whatdoyaknow? It restarted normally. And, it *appears* to have loaded all the recent updates properly. ARRRRRRRRGH. So, here we are, now, with the security updates loaded, and a suggestion that if it continues to blue-screen after new updates we should try to reload Windows, starting with wiping the hard drive. And if THAT doesn't work, well, then, we can bring it in-store, and they'll send it away under the one-year warranty, and if they don't find anything wrong with the hardware, they'll see what they can do (because the OS is *NOT* covered under the warranty). Oh, technology certainly has potential to make our lives easier and even more enjoyable, but on the other hand.....it can sure wreak havoc when it chooses not to cooperate.
Other than that, life here is GREAT. Hot, but great. Except if you're a fish or turtle. We have had no rain to speak of since we arrived at the end of May, and our ponds are drying up. The fish are mostly all dead, providing food for seagulls, egrets, herons, and now, vultures. The turtles are beginning to leave, either looking for places to lay eggs (so we've been told) or new homes with water. Dunno, but either way, it's sad to see them go.
Till next time, be safe, well & happy...love to all.
And did I mention that Dick is installing a new toilet during this time? Courtesy of Florida's hard well-water, all of our plumbing seals & fixtures have been ruined. We have already replaced the shower hose & head and the kitchen faucet (the faucet alone was over $100!!), and the toilet innards were next on the list. Of course, the whole inside setup would cost almost as much as a whole new pot, so, in the interest of ease of installation and getting rid of seal problem, as well as the iron-stainsin the bowl , he just ordered a brand new toilet. And when it arrived Wed, of course, it was smashed. The new one arrived all in one piece, and that's what he was working on when I got the beloved blue screen. Not wanting him to stop (as if he would have anyway, haha), I mentioned that when he got through, just so he knew, my computer was messed up again. Well, in poopy-job up to his elbows, what could he say but OK. So, he kept on working on his installation, and I finished up my sewing projects. Amazingly enough, even though he had to make THREE trips to the camper repair store for additional plumbing parts, we both ended around the same time & started cleaning up our respective messes. While I started on dinner, he started recovering my operating system. Again. And at 1 a.m. (yup, AM) he finally gave up the ship and left it to keep running by itself. He had gotten it back to where it would boot up ok, but it was still running diagnostics. So, early this morning, I hear music playing and him saying "Lucky" twice. What the heck???? He was talking to the computer! It had required him to speak, ostensibly to check the microphone & the music was a speaker test. OK then. By the time I finished my morning routine, he had it all restored & running a disk defrag. We talked about what to do about it and came to the conclusion that there's still something wrong, and since the error was first seen on May 9, THREE DAYS PRIOR to my original purchase, Best Buy should be responsible for remediation.
So, off we go. Remember, Corpus is 31 miles from our campsite, so it's not somewhere we go often or just because. Well, there was that time we went all the way into town tracking down some gold spray paint, but that's a whole 'nother story. We walk in, and of course they put those little pink stickers on our stuff, to show we brought it in....the original box, the computer, the power supply, and (how smart am I?) two thumb drives. Truck on thru the store & go stand in line at the Geek Squad counter. Eventually, it's our turn, and thankfully, we get Paul, the gent who's helped us on two of our three previous encounters. And he even remembers us!! He gave us the cheerful news that this is a very common situation with Dell computers and it's often a hardware issue, even tho it presents as a software problem. And, with a helpful smile, reminded us that they could run diagnostics in-house at no charge, if we had purchased the extended warranty. Heck no, we didn't purchase the warranty, you'd *think* we'd be ok with only the manufacturer's one-year warranty. Seemed like an unnecessary expense, at the time. He was helpful, tho, and did suggest that we reinstall Windows to try to eliminate any basic errors or issues. Of course, he recommended we back up any data we wanted to save prior to reinstalling.... Ya think?? That's what the sticks were for!! I was kinda hoping there'd be a permanent fix!! So, we go off to the surround-sound home-theater room (it's quiet when there's no one in there, and has a big round, cushy ottoman to sit upon) and get started on pulling out all my pictures & designs & address books. During the boot from CD, we find a Repair option, and yup, take it. Seems all ok, and it restarted fine! I can't believe how excited I get with a normal boot screen these days. Did you know that Best Buy has their own wireless, in-store network? Oh yeah. Well, at least *this* one does....
So, we hook up and go online to get the downloads again, thinking we'd repaired whatever issue was preventing normal boots. HAHA, God laughed. We installed the downloads, and at restart, what do you think we saw? %^*()*&^Blue Screen. Yup. We tried to go back and RE-repair, and this time, we somehow got it into a loop, where it was trying to repair the boot process but couldn't, and couldn't restart, and couldn't cancel. After 30 minutes of watching the little blue blip cross the screen, we took it back up to Paul to see if we could stop it with a power fail (read: battery pull, since we weren't plugged in to start with). He checked, and yup, go ahead and fail it. And whatdoyaknow? It restarted normally. And, it *appears* to have loaded all the recent updates properly. ARRRRRRRRGH. So, here we are, now, with the security updates loaded, and a suggestion that if it continues to blue-screen after new updates we should try to reload Windows, starting with wiping the hard drive. And if THAT doesn't work, well, then, we can bring it in-store, and they'll send it away under the one-year warranty, and if they don't find anything wrong with the hardware, they'll see what they can do (because the OS is *NOT* covered under the warranty). Oh, technology certainly has potential to make our lives easier and even more enjoyable, but on the other hand.....it can sure wreak havoc when it chooses not to cooperate.
Other than that, life here is GREAT. Hot, but great. Except if you're a fish or turtle. We have had no rain to speak of since we arrived at the end of May, and our ponds are drying up. The fish are mostly all dead, providing food for seagulls, egrets, herons, and now, vultures. The turtles are beginning to leave, either looking for places to lay eggs (so we've been told) or new homes with water. Dunno, but either way, it's sad to see them go.
Till next time, be safe, well & happy...love to all.
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