It’s official—my computer is dead! Delbert needs a new hard drive (on top of the virus issues which first sent him to the shop), and now that Windows 7 is out (Delbert had XP), My Liege and I decided it’s time I get a new tower. I don’t need a monitor, speakers, etc., so it shouldn’t be too much damage. The cost of replacing the hard drive is too high to seriously consider for a 5-year-old computer.
So now I’m researching new towers while continuing editing/polishing the requested full manuscript on M.L.’s or Youngest Son’s laptops. The computer dying lost me a good two days on the manu request, which was further complicated by the fact that I went to Mexico to celebrate a milestone birthday in the company of my parents. I had a wonderful time and just returned Friday night. Will post pictures once I have my new computer. I’ll probably get another Dell. This will make our second Dell desktop purchase and we’ve also made two Dell laptop purchases in the past. M.L.’s job offers a discount that is usually too good to pass up. The computer techs who looked at my hard drive told me they see the fewest hardware failures on Dell above all other brands (no, they don’t sell them), so that gives me good incentive to be a repeat customer.
In Mexico, I was able to check on my email using my father’s laptop, but somehow couldn’t find time to research Delbert replacements or work on the requested manu in nice, sunny weather. Instead, I read a ton of books, spent quality time with the ‘rents, and visited an out-of-the-way beach (IOW, not the beaches in front of the hotels). I haven’t gone somewhere in the winter for 13 years, so it was a nice change. Unfortunately, M.L. had to stay home for business considerations, and it was a good thing he did. The weather is wreaking havoc in my part of the continent, alternately freezing and melting. We had a huge melt while I was gone, and M.L. spent my birthday attempting to protect our basement from flooding. He did a great job, but the old detached garage that houses his motorcycle suffered some damage. Better that than our house!
If he had gone to Mexico with me, I can’t imagine what a mess the basement would have been in when we got home.
Anyway, this is my convoluted way of saying that I’ll be scarce on-line until I have my new computer all set up and files transferred, programs loaded, etc. I do have a guest blogger visiting next week, and luckily I scheduled her posts before I left. So that guest blog and book give-away will still go ahead. I won’t be visiting blogs, etc., myself until I’m on my own computer again, but I promise I’ll catch up with my blog and Twitter and Facebook (Scrabble!) friends when I can.