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Daily by krmb on Monday, 24 September, 2007
24 September 2007
“Surreal” is the best word I can come up with to describe today. I had hoped that this day would dawn with yesterday’s illness being nothing more than an unhappy memory. But, alas, that was not meant to be. I awoke with the world’s worst headache! And the belly wasn’t feeling all that good, either. But, at least I never got up in the middle of the night—which means the six crackers and the two glasses of cranberry juice stayed down! I tried to eat a breakfast bar midday, but that was unpleasant, so I quit after about three bites. A little while ago, a kid-size applesauce cup really hit the spot, so I’m currently microwaving a rice and broccoli one-dish meal. Hopefully that will taste as good to me as it smells.
It was while I was searching for food, that I spotted the candle, and decided it would make a good enough photo for yet another housebound day.
The headache and dizziness, and the not-quite queasy feeling in my belly all day kept me from doing most of what I wanted to do. I was able to do a little housecleaning, and organizing (still unpacking and moving back in), but very little activity really wore me out. I’d work for ten or twenty minutes and then sit for half an hour. Grrr. Not my style.
But, it did allow me a decent amount of time with my new laptop. I promised the story on that, so here goes:
Earlier this year, shortly before I left Texas for Wisconsin, Kyle and I had noticed a defect in my little laptop—the right-hand hinge was off-kilter. The plastic and metal around the hinge appeared to be warping. Soon after we noticed this, I started to get a popping sound every time I opened or closed the machine. And the warping was getting worse. Then, once or twice, we noticed the power wasn’t flowing to the machine, even though it was plugged in. We’d wiggle the cord and it would right itself. Okay, so far, nothing earth-shattering.
Then, in the middle of my summer away, it got really bad. The power connection had gotten more and more inconsistent, and the warping was getting worse and worse, until one day, it looked like I had an alien trying to push its way out through the plastic face around the top of the keys. The warping was extreme, and drove me to find a computer repair place in the Kenosha, Wisconsin area. I found one that seemed reputable, and where they said they could look at, assess and likely fix my problem pretty easily. And I wasn’t going to have to be without the machine. They’d diagnose it while I waited, and if a part needed to be ordered, they’d do that and then call me when it arrived. I trustingly took my beloved little laptop in for it’s doctor’s appointment.
The Daily KRuMB post that resulted that day shows some of the dozens of pieces they reduced my laptop to that day. It was one of the most emotionally draining days I’d had in a long time. It was first established that my hinge was bad; then, that it wasn’t a part that could be replaced without replacing the motherboard (not financially an option, even if it had been intelligent). Then, the machine was in so many pieces and wasn’t wanting to go back together at all, that I really thought I was going to buy a new laptop that night. In fact, when I finally left the bits and pieces of my laptop on their workbench, it was to go pick up a girlfriend who knew more about computers than I did, and go shopping. I was about to spend money I hadn’t even made, yet. I had just scooped up the friend, when I got the call that I should come back for my laptop—it was done—it was fine—it was working.
Turns out, the defective hinge had completely stopped swivelling. So, no amount of forcing it was allowing the computer to open and close properly. The innovative folks at this repair place, solved the problem by removing the hinge completely. That meant that the machine now opened and closed perfectly, it was just a little “loose” on one side. Great, no problem, really, right? Except that the side that was “loose” was the side where the power cord gets plugged in. So, the loose connection on the jack got even looser. I learned how to wiggle it, and ultimately, how to set the machine on top of its cord with the jack facing a certain way, and that worked for the rest of the summer, with minimal frustration. However, it did rather negate the convenience factor of having a laptop you can take anywhere.
My wiggly cord lasted until Thursday. As of Friday morning, it seems no amount of wiggling, jiggling, or cursing, will restore the flow of electricity to the laptop. So, top of my list of weekend activities: buying a new laptop. And buy one, we did! I made a bunch of calls related to potentially fixing the Gateway, and in the process was told more than once, I should just buy a new machine. One of the professionals I talked to highly recommended buying an HP, and Kyle concurred. So, we shopped the ads, found a good deal, and headed to Best Buy. We were going to look there, and then probably end up at Fry’s, but when we got to Best Buy, and discovered the better of the two machines we were looking at for the lower price . . . I could see no reason to drive all over town, and I just did it.
So, I have pretty blue lights, now, on my new laptop. I also have Windows Vista, which Kyle isn’t too happy about, but I think we’ve decided to keep, rather than try to wipe clean and replace with XP. I don’t really care—I’m trying to be laid back about having to learn so much new stuff. All I really care about is that since my lifestyle now seems to require it, I once again have a working laptop. I just hope this machine lasts longer than the first one did!
~MB
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