2002 Story Set
| February 5, 2002 At 6AM I am facing a tow truck! My van, my work computer, the G3 laptop and my G4 minitower all "crashed" on me this week. The van lost something this week-end (leak? Thermostat?) so it has a radiator light on - and I will not take the truck to the hospital parking lot!!!! So I ride to work in the wrecker tomorrow early - so I can get to a meeting! (I missed the meeting.) The NT laptop at work blew its motherboard at high noon in the middle of an expensive FLASH training class - it is dead in the water. Note that I am the only student in said class. The instructor and I winged it - sharing his system yesterday. Last night I grabbed two dusty laptops out of the corner (they had not been used since the kid got out of the hospital). I put FLASH 5 on the G3 laptop because it was empty. I did not remember that it only has 128MB RAM (disgusting!) and was running Op Sys 8.5 (EGAD!) I could not load Freehand 10 because it wants at least 8.7. (The 3400 can't be upgraded - it is stuck at 8.3 and Apple has rebuilt it twice. No matter - it runs Eudora, Netscape and Office and that's sufficient for a portable.) The G3 laptop I grabbed off a shelf and loaded with FLASH was an emergency backup to take to the second day of the class. Just as class was starting, I put it to sleep to hot-swap a drive (CD for ZIP) not realizing that it does not recover from a sleep command with a dead battery. It was, after all, plugged in to the AC adapter. After a bit of hysteria, I called my older son and ---- he rescued me! (Thank GOD I taught that boy to program when he was 8!!!!) - I had forgotten how peculiar the G3 was. It has no boot switch - for a hard start. It hard starts by removing the battery, pulling the power plug, and cold-cocking it. THEN restart it. With all bays empty no less. I thanked my about-to-be-26-year-old son for walking me through this. He reminded me that his birthday is Friday. I asked if he wanted the CD ROM burner I have never taken out of the box. He said he wanted a guitar. I told him, "We need to talk," and hung up. I was able to do my FLASH class just fine. At home, the G4 minitower had had just about enough of multiple-software switches and wanted TechTools run on itself - as it occasionally demands. It hung royally. It HATES when I switch emails (I have two). It also does not like PowerPoint, Word, Netscape, DreamWeaver 4, Flash 5 and Eudora all up at once. I need 1 GIG RAM! TechTools was successful. It generally is. All the bits are now happy. But I need an asprin! I came home late for me, baked home-made corn-bread baking powder biscuits (I made that version up -- very good) and baked halibut (butter, pepper and lemon juice), serving large shrimp with cocktail sauce to start. My younger son said I was "neglecting my poor sick son" as he devoured his hand cooked dinner without pausing from killing things online! I never am allowed to win. Now he wants to know if it was clear. "What's clear?" "That you die and I get everything!" "What about your brother?" "I'm the one that warms up your bed!" My room is cold, and my younger son (20 years old), upset because I worked long hours outside the house, was snuggling with me in my room watching TV last night and steam-heating the place. When I am out of the house too much, I must submit to cuddling. For at least an hour. Body contact. I threw off all my covers off the bed the other day and only get in bed with a big fluffy down comforter. I wrap up in it. That and sweatshirt and sweat pants seem to be better than the sheets and blankets. Since California is running 12 degrees below normal I am still scraping ice off the car windows. I freeze in my room - which has two exterior walls that have no insulation. My son's room has one small exterior wall, the garage has a furnace and my room is on the other side. We protect him. I freeze. And then he arrives in my bed and grabs hold. Halfway through Crossing Jordan (TV show) I had to peel off the comforter! Why are men so bloody warm while we freeze to death? He does heat the sheets! The clown! |
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