Retirement is a week filled with Saturdays and Sundays interrupted only occasionally by a holiday.

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Friday, November 2, 2007

Frantic Friday Fun

Today my friend and I were scheduled to visit the semi-annual Contemporary Crafts Market in Santa Monica. I'd attended years ago and was amazed at the number of wonderful artisans displaying their textiles, jewelry and other creations. I was soooo looking forward to spending a nice relaxing day with my friend shopping for gifts.

Anyway, this morning I woke up and turned on my computer thinking I would just write a quick post to keep with the post-a-day commitment before getting dressed. I had the timing all worked out in my head. That's when the "fun" began. I've been having intermittent problems logging onto the Internet and this morning was one of those times. I have no idea if it's my Internet connection, a failing modem or router, a corrupted Internet Explorer or (worst of all) a dying hard drive. After fiddling with all the wires (unplugging and plugging), I finally decided to give up and took out my laptop. Big mistake!!!

Now my relatively new laptop has hardly seen the light of day. I've used it only a handful of times in the past several months and, each time I boot it up, I have to do all the Windows and virus protection updating. This I've learned to expect and I assumed I had enough time... wrong! I turned it on and waited for Windows Vista to load. Instead, I got the black screen of death telling me Windows could not load and did I want to run Windows Repair. Duh...of course. So I let it run and then got the screen asking me if I wanted to do a System Restore. Duh...OK. I waited several more minutes and finally I saw the familiar Vista desktop. Whew!!! Of course, then I still had all the virus and Windows updating to do. By then I was running really late so I turned off everything, took the world's quickest shower, managed to throw on my clothes and headed out the door to my friend's house.

"Yes"...we made it to the Crafts Market, "yes" we wandered around looking at all the wonderful items, "yes" I bought a few things (all for myself) and "yes" we left and had a nice relaxing lunch before returning home. What valuable lesson did I learn today??? If your desire is to have a nice relaxing day, never ever turn on your computer until the day is almost over.

Oh...and in case you're wondering...I'm using my desktop now. It seems to have fixed itself (at least for the moment) and I'm afraid to turn on my laptop. Maybe later...

9 comments:

rosemary said...

I have been to that craft fair with my daughter...we had a great time. my computer is a pain every morning too.

Linda said...

I do this very same thing sometimes in the morning before leaving for work ... just a quick check of my email which ends up chewing up minutes faster than you can say "Bob's your uncle"!

ms chica said...

Computers. Can't live with them, can't use drop them from a twelve story building.

Renee Nefe said...

words to live by. I usually have my best days when I don't turn on my computer. LOL!

Lynn said...

I find that the more rushed I feel, the more my computer decides to lag.

Anonymous said...

I just had a miserable day with my computer. It would start OK, then freeze. After doing it about a gazillion times, I finally called Dell. It took about an hour and a half to get it working right again. Had to do a system restore which I knew how to do, but couldn't because I couldn't get past a certain screen. So I learned how to get to a way to start in safe mode. All this happened when I had 3 days left on the warranty! Planned obsolescence.

Glad you had a fun day at the Craft Market after all!

Mary said...

Joan,

Technology is wonderful when it works. LOL I've been having a bit of trouble with my computer lately as well. My daughter just had to have a trojan removed from hers.

Glad the craft sale was a treat. I went to the church's annual bazaar today and came home empty handed. I was there just after opening and it sure was a disappointment. I'm hoping some other churches in the area have craft sales before Christmas. This bazaar used to be fabulous.

Patti said...

Glad it worked out at the crafts market.
Technology is great when it doesn't fail us..

Susie said...

My computer and I are barely on speaking term these days. Everything is new and a bit of a struggle. I try not to sit down unless I'm pretty sure I can work uninterrupted.
xo