23:27h MST (-7:00) Tuesday, the 17th of September 2002CE
Well, the parental units’ computer had Win’98 crash Monday morning, most likely caused by a virus of some sort. While they’re sorting out how to get a hold of a CD burner to save what files they can before reformatting the drive, I’m stuck writing these journal entries on my own computer. I don’t recall whether or not I’ve described how the computers in this house work, so here goes: I have my own computer in my own room (the master bedroom). The parental units have their own computer in the living room which they use for both recreation and work. When this house was built, it was only afforded one phone hookup which is located in the kitchen near the hallway. When they bought their computer they kicked my computer out of the hallway and put in a line splitter. That way they could keep the phone in the kitchen and run a line out to the living room where they placed the computer. They wanted their own computer because they didn’t like having to share mine. Whatever. Anyway, by cutting me off from phone line access, they realised I would have to use their computer for all my Internet usage. Pretty much the only way I can use their computer and not be in the way is to use it late night. Late night doesn’t bother me much as I used to work graveyard shift anyway. My body prefers to sleep from 2am-10am when allowed to revert to its own sleep schedule, but with the training from my old work schedule I can keep my body up until dawn if I want on most occasions. Whenever they move out (mid-November is what it’s looking like), I’ll be able to hook up my own computer to the phone line. That, among many other things, will be nice.
The last couple of days have been rather frustrating. After only 2 hours of sleep early Monday morning, I was woken up shortly after 8am to determine what was wrong with their computer. After 8 hours of messing around with it (at their continued insistence that they needed to rescue a document that was saved to the hard drive–and only the hard drive–rescued for FAXing the next day) I suggested to them that it just be reformatted. I then had to catch a bus for Chaparral and Hayden in south Scottsdale as my bike’s rear derailer wouldn’t be in until Saturday at the earliest. My first connection was twenty-five minutes late, and of course we had to pick up and drop off a wheelchair so that we couldn’t catch up on our time either. Not that I blame the wheelchair bound person, they were probably just as hosed as the rest of us by the lateness of the bus. So I missed the connection that would have gotten me to the Program Team Meeting on time, and was going to have to catch the next one–which was also the last one going out to Scottsdale. I was twenty minutes early for that connection, but once an hour and a half had past I realized that I wasn’t going to catch it. So I called over to the Bishops’ place and obtained a ride over there for the meeting. I was only 105 minutes late. Luckily, I had only missed seventy-five minutes as they had started thirty minutes late. So yesterday was almost a complete wash.
The one good thing that happened to me Monday was that the Bishops’ had gotten Honey Bear’s Barbeque for everyone. The tins were still about half full when I showed up, so I got a very, very good meal. God bless them. I needed that after that day. I had been so busy that I hadn’t eaten at all that day. It was good tasting and very filling. After that I found I had a V-mail from Mom asking for Wayne’s phone number. Apparently, they had kept their only address book on the computer hard drive as well! I left them a return V-mail where I repeated his number three times, followed by a text message to Wayne’s Yahoo! account giving him a head’s up. Having had two full days and only two hours of sleep between them, I crashed for a full eight hours.
In the morning I had a nasty note demanding that I give them Wayne’s phone number. Annoyed with their inability to use their own V-mail, not seeing either of them in person, and running late from sleeping in; I chose to not leave them a second message. So I got a nasty V-mail demanding Wayne’s number again while on route to work. When I returned the call I left them a nasty message in return (being fully annoyed by this point) listing Wayne’s phone number five times and hoping it was enough. Then I called Wayne and told him to call them about their computer, just in case this second V-mail was as useful as the last. It turned out that they had E-mailed him and that he was working on the computer even as we spoke! He hadn’t received my text message to his E-mail, but was still up for dinner at Chuy’s. He still wanted Bill and Jay to be invited, so I invited them. Jay, Kim, and BJ came, but I never did hear back from Bill. His mother hadn’t heard from him after she had sent him on an errand, so who knows what happened to him. At dinner I found out that Wayne had spent fours hours today on their computer, managed to get Windows re-installed so that it worked in Safe Mode, and told them to reformat it once they rescued what they needed. So he commiserated with me on their infernal computer. Dinner was also filled with Kim and Jay’s disappointment in Bill’s choice to blackmail us into watching Doctor Who solely at his place. Now that his parents have cut his allowance down to one flat fee which has to cover his gasoline and smokes as well as incidentals, he no longer wants to drive anywhere or eat out. This rather than just get a bloody job. Go figure.
After dinner I found out that the parental units never got my original V-mail from last night, hence the confusion and bitterness. I’d have thought that they would know me better than that. Why would I deliberately want to prevent them from getting Wayne’s phone number? Anyway, my mother apologised for her part, and I apologised for mine. So I hope things are squared away now between the three of us. I still can’t wait until they’re moved out. Oh, that will be so nice.
Ah, just typing this all out has bled away my frustration. I love how just typing things out can release all that pent up energy. Thank you My Computer. Thank you indeed. Until next time...
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