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Monday, May 22, 2006 As I stood in a little room in a nearby health center on Friday morning, coughing on demand [see last entry], rain came down outside as it had for most of the last week. Two afternoons before, the clouds had suddenly given way, sunshine and blue sky shone through for a couple of lovely hours, long enough to dry out the lawn, making a hasty bout of mowing possible. (Kind of like trying to sweep sand off a beach, given the speed at which all the rain's got the greenery growing.) Until low banks of unfriendly dark clouds pushed their way in, torrential downpours starting up, thunder and lightning beginning not long after, producing celestial fireworks that lasted well into the night, the kind of house-shaking display that would scare the living bejesus out of most family dogs. And during all that, during most of the last four weeks, I continued slaving away, trying to impose some sort of sloppy order on the chaos produced by ongoing computer wackiness. Two mornings after arriving back from the U.K. -- more than four weeks ago now (aaaaiiiieeeee!!!!) -- I dragged my sorry (but adorable) hinder out from under the covers, shuffled blearily through the wake-up routine. Finally struggled close enough to consciousness to be able to attempt higher functions, powered up my beloved Compaq laptop. And discovered that hitting the ON button didn't seem to do much of anything. Dark screen. No pretty wallpaper, no icons, no cheerfully blinking cursor. My heart and respiration accelerated, I hit the button again. Same result, though I could hear that the machine actually did seem to be coming to life. Hooking the laptop up to my desktop computer's flatscreen display confirmed that the laptop was on, its screen apparently gone belly up. I packed it up, brought it to the local computer joint -- The Computer Barn (I am not making that up) -- where I showed the laptop to the guy behind the counter. He hooked it up to a flatscreen display, confirmed the laptop was on, its display light had joined the choir invisible. Told me replacing the entire display unit would be easier than disassembling it to pull the bulb and plug a new one in, with a total cost of anywhere between $250 and $350. Hmmm, said I. Given that the Compaq had put in 3+ years of service, enduring many thousands of hours of use, traveling many thousands of miles, a workhorse, superior in every way to my first laptop -- a leaden, slow-moving Dell -- this malfunction might be the first shot across the bow, the first indication that the Compaq was hankering for the peace and tranquility that comes with being decommissioned. The money to repair it would cover one-third of the cost of a new machine. I thought about that, counter dude showed me the laptops they sell, a low-profile brand with a reputation for quality and sturdiness that the company backs with a full three-year warranty. Checked one out, used it a little. Packed up my Compaq, went home to ponder. Pondered, then went back the next day and made the purchase, deciding to put the Compaq away for a while, thinking about maybe getting it repaired sometime in the future before giving it to a computerless friend. Counter guy had told me that they didn't have one of the new laptops in stock, but that the company usually made next-day delivery, offering to transfer my personal files from the old unit to the new one once delivery happened. Most excellent, said I. I handed over my plastic, the deal was done, the order put in well before the cutoff point for the day, and I went home to wait. Next day: no laptop. "We're waiting on it," said computer man. Didn't come in the late morning delivery, but might show in the late afternoon delivery. They had my phone number, I asked them to call if it arrived. Went home. No call. Next day, same routine. Might come in later, they said. It didn't. I stopped by the shop on the morning of the third day. Nothing doing. They said they'd call when it materialized. When I got home late in the day, a message on my machine said they had it. Not the next day. Three days after. But still, it was in. Picked it up the following morning, the machine shiny, virginal, promising all kinds of nerdy fun. [to be continued] España, te echo de menos. rws 8:02 PM [+]
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