The Week from Hell

I haven't been around lately, after my "bad hair day". That's because it turned into something much worse.

My main hard drive somehow got fried. Bad enough in itself, but after the days-long hassle of buying and installing a new hard drive, reinstalling Windows XP Pro, reinstalling all of my software and hassling for hours with finding, downloading and installing new drivers for my peripherals, I discovered that my backup software had some kind of a glitch and hadn't made backups for more than two months.

Two months! And then I found that not all of the items that I'd identified as wanting to be backed up actually got backed up. Like my login and password text document, a ton of downloaded install files, the only draft of my new book, the electronic copy of my old book, etc etc etc.

I've finally cobbled things together enough that I am functional (barely). I've contacted many of the vendors to see about replacements for the software, but you can imagine how that is going.

In the meantime, I've decided to bite the bullet and see if I can get the local geek shop to try to recover the data from the fried hard drive. It's going to cost -- and cost a lot -- but I think it will be worth it.

Oh, and the icing on the cake? Today She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed went up to Seattle to visit with our friend Linda (I'm thinking she actually made up an excuse to get out of the house and out of town and not have to put up with all of my ranting and raving and pissing and moaning), and no sooner does she get there but ... the clutch goes out in her car.

I can't imagine what's going to happen next.

My posts may be a little sparse this week. I still have a lot to do to get my PC back into shape, plus I may have to drive to Seattle tomorrow to deal with the repair shop and bring her home. And then take her back up there later in the week, when the car is repaired.

Stay tuned.