Does this Compute?

When I arrived at work this morning the computer on my side of the table was frozen. Solid. I did what any self-respecting geek would do. I rebooted. If it were a little softer, I would simply have booted, but I didn't want to injure myself. What did I get? Some arcane message about inserting a boot disk in drive A: for whatever that's worth. I was much more tempted to insert the whole computer someplace else, but there was nobody whom I felt truly deserving of the blame. And after all, it's a Windows world so I could really only feel sorry for the IT guys who are forced to work with such inferior equipment (do I reek of snob when I write that?). The unit in question is a Gateway box. They aren't buying those any longer, by the way. What I witnessed, or failed to witness, this morning is apparently one of just a few tricks the Gateways at our site know. I can't tell you the third, but the second is known as "the blue screen of Death" and was exhibited within the past few days by the same system. That's the sad news.

The glad news is that there are three other computers in my spacious office. I was able to use one of them and edit a document today. I still am deemed unworthy of a PIN that will allow me access to the network. Since the network belongs to the customer and the customer belongs to the U.S. government, these things take time. Two to ten weeks is the way I hear it. So I'm resorting to what was known as, in the golden days of personal computers, SneakerNet. Not to be confused with EtherNet, SneakerNet means that if I want to share a file I AM THE NETWORK! Yes indeedy, I get out of my comfy chair, leave my vast echo chamber of an office, trot up to the second floor, and beg for the file on a *gasp* diskette. You know Mac doesn't even put diskette drives on its computers anymore. I'd be so screwed if this were a Mac environment. Then I take my diskette back to the conference room on the first floor, shove it with all due ceremony into the drive, and do my work on diskette. How cool is that? I'd better not break my leg or the network will be down, you know?

So today it was in at 6 and out at 2. And speaking of networks being down, I got a bonus today. I took some CDs and a book back to the library. The book was due the 17th. But the computers were down today while they upgrade the system. They'll be down tomorrow too. I think I bought that book with the fines I owe, but it's like a MasterCard. The bill won't hit until long after the pleasure of the purchase has dissipated. Still, I feel as if my sentence has been postponed and I checked out LOTS of CDs and even got another book. I figure if I can get out of there without enduring the hairy eyeball for being so delinquent I should take advantage of it.

Katie's crashed upstairs. She has dance class tonight so I'll probably be sipping a Starbucks while she prances about the studio. It will be Starbucks because I'm too darn lazy to drive a couple of miles further to Barnes & Noble to pay just as much for the same coffee, but to do so surrounded by literature. Of course, if the alarm is going off at 4:50 a.m. I'd better get decaf, dontcha think?

Let's hear a little something from our neighbors to the north, our folks to the west, and our sis in the south. How about it?