then, xmas happened! i got a box from the wonderous tech fairy (who is not a fairy) containing, among other wonderful things, a power cord and a mouse!! yay and thank you!
so i set to setting up computer2. i thought computer1 was set up to be networked with computer2 but soon learned otherwise. so i ran the network wizard on computer2 and made a network disk. then i ran into a problem, which leads not only to our story, but the belief that i should never touch a computer again.
i put the floppy i had just made in computer2 into computer1 and opened up "my computer" and learned the floppy drive was not hooked up. i have a USB floppy drive, but computer1 is the one where none of the USB ports work, heh. so i disconnect computer1 and open it up and hook up the floppy drive. this is where things went horribly wrong. i booted up, or went to boot up computer1 after i put it back together and it told me that i needed the CD ROM to boot the computer up because the hard drive had changed.
so not only am i no closer to having my data, i have a computer down. granted it was going down quick, but i had some more time if i hadn't done this. but it had to be done. i just didn't know what i was doing.
so i got the data off computer2 since it is up and working beautifully and may be kept as it is for a while.
so here's the bottom line, wastededucation, if you've gotten this far. i need an XP disk for the computer you sent me, which is an emachine. mike borrowed my disk and never gave it back. if you have anything like that, that would be beyond great.
in other news, the cats are running around like their on meth. jack is chasing freddie who is chasing felix. sai sai is sound asleep on my bed, keeping my blankets warm right in the place he lays under them. clever cat. maybe too clever. hmmm.
in love playing with computers. the laptop is nice, it's a fabulous piece of machinery and is worth every penny i paid for it. (it even has an SD card slot, how cool is that?) but i can't play with it. i can't change out cards or go in and fix hardware, it's just this beautiful machine of mine. no, computers 1&2 are where it's at. i love those machines. both gifts. one built custom for me. it's not very powerful and it has a small hard drive, but it's faithful and always does what i ask it.
computer2 baffles me. i'm afraid to touch anything on it or in it. but i needed that floppy drive to work. the network wizard on computer2 was not responding for some reason, that i chalk up to the computer gods laughing at me. none of this can ever be easy.
and i only have a few more days to finish up with this before i have to start working on the book if i'm going to make the deadline. but i'm not panicking this time. i'm confident everything will work out. and i have found some stuff on computer2 i thought i'd lost a long time ago. i haven't had it hooked up for almost two years. computer1 has been my go to machine when i haven't had the laptop. now it's just giving me a message i can't do anything about. it's so sad.
time to go through my poetry and organize the rough stuff into published and unpublished. i think i have enough for another full book. and i'm looking for someplace other than lulu.com to do it. i'm thinking about amazon, then i could do a kindle version and that would be really cool. there's no real rush on it. i'll work on it while i wait for an XP disk. and then put it on hold until the end of november when NaNoWriMo ends and so does my work on "hurt". got to think of a better title for that. coming up with titles for my CDs and books and poems is my favorite part of it.