Friday, June 26, 2009

And the computer remains crashed

Yesterday was one mighty fine day on the Gator landscape. Beautiful sunshine, warm temperatures, pleasant air all combined to make it the way summer should be. It did start off with some fog but by mid-morning the blue skies were up there and for the first time in what seems like many weeks, we had a great day.

How great was it? you ask. It was great enough for the old Gator to ride around his yard and getting the grass to a respectable height. Because it was so long and was still damp in a few places, I took the bagging attachment off and just cut the lawn. I knew when I did it I’d have to take another ride with the bagger on to vacuum up the rows of mowed grass.

Since I don’t have mulching blades and the bagging device requires me to blow the grass from the deck out the side, I end up with the rows. Normally, I’d just go over it once again and pick up the rows after I had reattached the bagger, but yesterday I also lifted the deck a little for a longer cut. That’s because the lawn was so deep it would have jammed the mower.

So, weather permitting today, I plan to put the deck down to its normal cut and go over the whole lawn once again. Gator Wife won’t be home until noon when she can help me with emptying the bags. There’ll be several trips to our grass compost area. The weather Gal said this morning we could get some showers, possibly even some downpours, in the Greater Portland area this afternoon. Some places will get it and others won’t; and then a couple hours later another one will come through and the towns will be reversed.

That’s why I say “weather permitting” because if it does shower and the grass does get wet, there’ll be no collection.

Yesterday I told you I was reinstalling Windows XP on my computer. I patiently waited all day for the call from the support person to come and it finally did about seven last night. Through all the configuration process (I wanted to kill the “raid” drive configuration) he actually controlled my computer and did all the work. Once that was done and it was time to reboot the computer to begin the install, the network connection was lost.

He had told me what to do during the software install and said he’d call me by phone about a half hour later. He called and took control of the computer again and then his client (that would be me) screwed the whole process up. While he was in control, I was not supposed to touch the keyboard or mouse. He was installing new bios when a question popped up asking if the technician could reboot the computer. I was not supposed to answer that question. I did.

My computer hasn’t worked since. We fiddled and faddled for a couple of hours and at one AM, I had to call it quits. We’re going to resume this morning. I’m not blaming the Dell technician; I’m the one who didn’t follow directions. And now, it’s called paying for “being too smart.” The really good part of all this is part of the promotional deal when I bought the computer several years ago was the inclusion of a long term parts and support contract. It’s still in effect. I’d hate to see a bill for all this.

Oh, I’ll mention it, but I’m sure you’ve already figured it out. I do have more than one computer and this is being created, as it is daily, on my laptop. It’s times like these that I’m happy I have more than one computer. I actually have three working ones; but that third one could vote it were a human.

So that’s the story from here on this Friday and I hope you are having a productive day. Another good thing, I guess, is that the weekend is almost upon us.

GiM

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