It could have been worse…
A long, busy, day out of the house and once home again I was more than ready to settle down at the keyboard with a fresh mug of tea, and get some words typed.
I turned the computer on.
It turned off.
I blamed a power glitch, not an uncommon occurrence here.
I turned it back on.
It booted up, loaded emails, and turned itself off again.
Hmm…. Check the fuse box and other appliances – no issues.
I turned it back on, again.
Booted up fine, loaded stuff. After about 5 mins, it turned off.
I turned it back on again.
Windows ended abnormally, please choose… OK, hit “Start windows normally” it does that after a power cut too, not a problem. It booted up. I loaded in emails, powered up firefox.
It turned off again.
Uh oh.
That’s my work, emails, websites, writing files, family pics… Before anyone yells, “BACK-UP” at me, I know. Some files were backed up, but not everything. Importantly, the one file not backed up and accessible from anywhere other than the desktop hard-drive was my current work-in-progress – the next generation of Portal stories. I’ve been working on it for a while, and recently got back into the habit of writing every day. The characters were back in my head, the words were flowing. Kate is grey, and a grandmother. Hazel is pregnant. Hiann is… well, the story was developing nicely.
Then the words, the characters, and the stories, were locked away in a box under my desk that wouldn’t open long enough for me to find them!
I swore at the thing, dug out my laptop and swore again at the lost passwords, missing software that needed to be installed, and the barrage of updates the thing needed. But I got online and could at least catch up with some of my work. But the words were locked away.
Tuesday morning… the desktop was still refusing to work, so I took it to a repair shop. They promised to take a look, it was probably the fan tripping a thermal cut out, but they’d let me know by the end of the day.
The moral of this? The fan is fine, just filthy and clogged with several generations of spiders, webs, dust, hair, and other detritus from 2 houses, several furniture rearrangements, multiple desks, at least 3 sets of major building works…
Umm, folks? Take the side/back off your computer regularly and clean the thing. When I pick it up tomorrow I’ll be asking how to do that…. Oops. The one I had before this was easy. Flip a toggle thing, wiggle a bit, and the side came off. Pull out the muck, clean it, pop the side back on. This one isn’t so easy.
Sliver linings though: The computer is fine, no parts needing replacing, a small bill, and all my files and pics are fine.
Kate, Susan, and Gentian, will be there waiting for me tomorrow. I expect I’ll be writing.
