I have owned computers for years, worked in offices on computers, and now rely on one to handle everything. And I do mean everything, wherein lies the problem. It won’t let me in.
Those of you old enough to remember Hal the Computer from the classic Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey will have an idea of how I feel right now. I have lost control. The computer is now in charge.
I do all my writing on my laptop. I do all my photo editing on my laptop. I keep all my recipes in development on that computer. I do backup my system to a separate hard drive in case something like this happens, but irony of ironies, it appears the backup software may be to blame. WAIT, WHAT?
Yes, my backup software started running something in the background that locked my whole system up. I discovered this with a little poking around in my system logs, but when I started up the uninstaller for the software, Hal’s little cousin Halle begin to torment me. She was not going to let it be shut down, returning control to me.
My computer had slowed to a crawl, but was somewhat operational. When Halle perceived the threat of me disabling that software, she froze me out. There would be no software deleted from her kingdom, her world. She was in control, just like her cousin controlled that space station. My life support was cut off, the meal replicator no more, adrift in the vast darkness that is known as a busted laptop.
So my Hello Kitty band aid, happy face sticker covered girl was going to the doctor. You know the place, The Apple Store Genius Bar. Halle must go.
So, once my girl finishes her treatments and Halle is banished to another universe, I will be able to edit my photos, finish my recipes, and publish them for you.
Patience. . . I hear its a virtue.
kirsten@FarmFreshFeasts says
Cheryl,
You’ve just articulated my fear for this year. My spouse (aka in-house Genius without the cool t-shirt) will be gone and it will be just me. I have a new laptop, so there’s something, but yeah. I can understand this.
I’m cool with the whole cooking/writing/photo taking part (and when I say cool I mean that I’m the one who does it, not that I do it well), and I’m learning the photo processing side of things before he goes, but after my words and photos go into the computer and before they come out on the blog? Yeah . . . that’s the scary beyond my control part.
I hope your computer is rested and refreshed and whole when she returns.
Heidi says
You had been asking for patience hadn’t you? Silly Girl. Hope all is well. Oh the torment we put ourselves through. Thinking about living off the grid in a cabin in the woods now…
Bern says
I Love your story it makes it all worth the wait, and I know your recipes will be Great!