Sturm und Drang…

For those of you who don’t speak German, literally “Storm and Urge”, although usually translated as “Storm and Stress”.  Friday was moving day, that is, my newly built computer, with Windows 7 was officially installed, and it of course didn’t go in effortlessly.  My husband, who is the most brilliant and indispensable techie on the planet (yeah, I know, that’s the same guy that sent me the anniversary flowers in Virginia…) spent part of the two weeks he has been home from Saudi building me a new system, fast, efficient, and with Windows 7.  He did a great job, but as with all things involving technology, nothing goes in smoothly.  We were able to load all the major software and have all my data files backed up to the network for as seamless a transition as possible.

And this is where I’m sure my husband’s patience with me runs thin.  See, because he can, I don’t try to see if I can.  That’s not completely true, I do try to see if I can get things to work, but the first sign of something I don’t know, I panic and call him.  Poor guy, all day Friday and much of Saturday morning I called him in about every 15 minutes.  “There’s a window I don’t understand…”  He got little else done.  Most of the data had been moved over and all was running as well as could be expected, then there was the literal Sturm und Drang, a powerful thunderstorm Saturday night that took out our router, and then all hell broke loose.  My poor guy worked on trying to hook up another unit he happened to have, and get all the IP addresses of the prolific amount of computer systems in the house back up and running along with all the network printers, etc. not a task for the faint of heart.  If he hadn’t have been here I’d have been completely sunk.  It is one of my fears with him traveling.  To hire someone, they’d have no idea how this house is wired let alone all the systems throughout the house that are networked together.  I shudder at the thought.

Once the router was back up, I thought I’d take a much needed break and catch up on Desperate Housewives ( I know, I’ve watched it since the beginning, it is my one weakness and I was a couple episodes behind from traveling).  It was with extreme trepidation that I went meekly in to find my husband to tell him about the latest dialogue box that popped up, apparently abc.com decided my computer was not in the United States and would only stream videos to locations in the United States.  I guess NJ must have seceded from the union and I hadn’t heard about it.  🙂

You can’t make this stuff up.  My husband looked at me like I had three heads, and did one of those private eye rolls, “she has got to be one of the stupidest females on the planet when it comes to electronics” and off he went.  I curled up in bed to watch the DVR version of the last couple episodes.  Later he came in to tell me that all of the computers had the same message that apparently it had something to do with the router he had installed.  He reprogrammed the geo-position of the computers, or something like that, and picked up a new state of the art router at Staples tonight.  It ain’t over and he leaves on Wednesday for another month in Saudi.  I’m trying to just stay calm and not panic until there is something to panic about.  I think the computer gods are just waiting for the right moment….

Meanwhile, I spent the day on my new computer, what a joy.  I love Windows 7, the sticky notes app allows me to clean all the little post-it reminders off my desk.  I love the interface, and so far, all of my data seems to be there and accessible.  We missed moving over my email contacts, we can go back into the old computer and retrieve them, but actually I am rather liking starting fresh, retrieving information for contacts from the 12,000 sent messages in my sent box, and knowing that what’s in there is current and accurate and tidy.

I had three goals this week, one was to get the new system up and running, and it looks like that has been accomplished.  She says with extreme wariness…  Another goal was to move through the Guild Exchange Dishtowels, due in a couple of weeks.  I’ve woven four so far, I think there is enough warp for a couple more, but I only needed four for the actual exchange, the rest is samples and more towels for me…

The other goal was to print more than 120 books for handouts for the ANWG conference in Oregon at the end of the month, and get them shipped out along with other materials, since there is no way I can get everything I need there in two 50 pound suitcases.  There are thirty something and forty something in two of my lectures alone.  I need to pick up another flat rate priority box from the post office tomorrow before I can pack the third box.  I’ve been printing and binding all week, wanting to get everything printed before I made the computer switch since all my printer shortcut settings would be lost.

So for the moment, all is good, and I love my new system.  I’m trying to be kind to the computer gods, I know they don’t really like me, but I’m determined to introduce them to the sewing machine gods, who really really like me and hopefully they will see I’m not at all as stupid as I appear when faced with technology…

Stay tuned…