Computer Snafu

Yesterday started off so well.

I had an awesome walkies. Fog had settled in, so I waited a little before I started walking. As I walked the sun burned off the fog, leaving behind crystalline spiderwebs lining the chain-linked fence.

It was beautiful. Oh, and I walked for 58 minutes.

As I tried to tweet my comments about my observations and my walkies, my computer hosed up.

An aside about Twitter--98% of the time, okay, make that 99.9%--I forget to use a hashtag. I post mainly for myself, to keep accountable about my walking, but sometimes I post observations. If the post didn't go to my Facebook page, I doubt if anyone other than @MarilynPappano would actually see it!

Back to the hosing up issue. It was taking forever to load, so I decided to reboot it to get its panties out of the wad it was in.

It wouldn't reboot.

This was seriously odd. I waited then I decided to really piss the computer off and did a hard shutdown (non-comp literate people--this is where you push the button on the actual computer, not the monitor).

It wouldn't shut down.

I held the button down for 8-10 seconds, then it finally shut down.

While I waited to start it up, I rotated the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

I returned and turned my computer on. It started up like normal, but then went to a black screen.

Hard-Disk Drive Failure.
Press F1 to initiate restart, F2 to initiate utility program.
(I think this was the exact wording. You would think I would remember since I looked at it all day!)

Oh, crap!

I pressed F1. It went to a blank screen and then my computer shut off.

Double crap!

I turned off everything at the wall and started it up again.

Hard-Disk Drive Failure flashes on the screen again.

grumble, grumble

I text hubby message--I knew the poor thing would be in meetings all day and I try not to bother him. "Computer gave me hard drive failure. Just leave it alone?"

And then I took a shower.

He texts and then calls me back about thirty minutes later when he was on a break. He could have walked me through another start up, but I could survive without it for one day.

I tweeted my computer dead comment on my phone. Well then I  talked to my friend Cyndi to see if she got the crit I did of her short story. It was bleeding on the first two pages.

On an aside: When I crit, I don't pick apart grammatical issues. That's for people who know their grammar. I'll mark something if it doesn't sound right, but that's about it. I tend to look at the logistics of the thing. Plus Cyndi's hero skied in to rescue the captive damsel, and I had serious issues to many of the skiing parts of the equation. I'm a skier, and have skied for over 25 years. I've boarded once and was on my butt so much that it nearly froze off!

When we talked on the phone, we found a better and far cooler answer to the skiing problems.
  Dude became a snowboarder. The clothes are less constrictive and loud. The boots are easier to walk in than plastic ski boots. All around it was a better choice!

And then I made candy.

Pecan praline nuts (seriously addictive!) and peanut butter fudge (good, but it 'cooked' my vanilla. Still haven't figured THAT one out!).

I also did laundry, read more of The Hobbit and watched judge shows.

I lost the one day this week that I knew I could work on my non-fic book. Oh, well, there is always a reason for the way things happen.

Today I have numerous errands to run, Weight Watchers, visit my bro and his granddaughter who stopped in town for a short visit, eat lunch with my mom, bro and grandkid. Pick my girl up from school. Run some more errands before taking her to an intrasquad swim meet at 6:15.

Nope, I don't see any time to sit down and work on anything.

Oh, well.

Later, Peeps