Horror Story

July 8, 2014

Usually on the days that we drive home from Santa Barbara, there is little to say in a journal entry.  We got in the car, we  drove for a long time, we stopped for lunch, we drove some more, we got home.  Nothing exciting there.  Oh, I could mention that we finished David Baldacci's "The Hit" and that we stopped at the Burger Queen (because it was too far to go to Five Guys), but there is still not the stuff of riveting narrative, unless you count the B.S. that was printed on the bottle of water that I got at the Burger Queen.

(Knowing how boring this entry was likely to be, I actually took a photo of it.  Just read that crap.  Do you suppose anybody buys that particular bottle of water because of all the purple prose describing its contents?)

I also took a picture of this flag on a hill, because I need it for a project I'm doing this week.  But it wasn't particularly interesting.   Certainly not enough to fill out a whole journal entry.

We came home, read the mail, had dinner, settled in to watch 24 and then all hell broke loose.  I knew instantly I had my riveting story.  There was drama, there was blood, sweat and tears, there was moaning and hair pulling, angst, and the sense of all being lost.  And in the end, I had sound.  and it was wonderful.

The first clue that something was wrong was when Walt mentioned he plugged in his computer but couldn't get on the internet.  I thought I had been on the internet on my laptop, so I wasn't sure what his problem was.  We got involved in 24 and didn't think about it again.

When 24 ended. it was time to write this journal entry.   First I went to Facebook to download a selfie that my cousin Niecie had taken of her and my mother when she visited today.  When I tried to save it, I got a message that the computer couldn't find the external hard drive.  This is the terabyte drive on which I store EVERYTHING, leaving the C-drive free.

Now we come to the moaning, pulling of hair, and the revelation of the limits to my computer expertise.  Everyone thinks of me as a  computer geek and yes, to some respects that is true.  I know what I need to know. I do not know anything else.  I don't really like upgrading software, so my software was all installed in the 1990s.  I bought the terabyte drive about 5 years ago, plugged it in, moved everything from my C drive to the terabyte and haven't thought about it since.

I haven't thought about so much that I didn't remember what it looked like.  Those two boxes?  Was one the terabyte?  It didn't seem to be.   And was the other one the other external hard drive or a modem?  Had the dogs gotten entangled in the cords while we were away and unplugged something?  Had I lost the terabyte, which now didn't seem to be anywhere.  Oh my god...everything is on that drive!  Against my better judgement, and the begging of my body to stay put, I got on the floor to see if I could make any sense of the jumble of cords hanging down.   Would I find the missing hard drive there?  Would I find something unplugged.

Actually there was an unplugged cord, but it had been unplugged for weeks...maybe months...and the only reason I hadn't plugged it back in again was that I didn't want to get on the floor, not knowing if I could get back up again.

I finally asked Walt for help.  Not only is this a junk room with a desk piled high with treasures and junk, you can barely see behind the computer and what you can see is in the dark.  Walt arrived with his flashlight and started trying to help.  "where did you keep it?" he asked.  I had a major attack of Atria-itis and could remember neither where I kept it (except I knew it was to the left of my keyboard...somewhere.  Under the file folders?  Behind the photo of Fred and his family?  "What does it look like?" he asked.  I couldn't remember.  I thought it was the black box, but that didn't seem to be it because the computer wasn't seeing it.  The smaller external hard drive has always been the L drive and the terabyte the G drive.  But there was no G drive and that L drive contained stuff I had never seen before.

By now sweat was pouring down my face, I was feeling totally hopeless and helpless and afraid that everything I had on the drive was gone forever.  But where did it go?  

Well, we unplugged the black box and plugged it back in again and whaddya know, the computer started reading it.  So then I figured that the other box must be the modem.  But Walt remembered we had put the modem and router out of sight under the desk, where the dogs couldn't get to it.  Was the other box the other hard drive?  It was.  This is kind of a scary thing because I could look at those boxes that I have looked at every day for YEARS and didn't have a clue what they were, though I was the one who installed them in the first place.

Crisis averted, except now what was the G drive is now the J drive and there is no G drive.  

Only now we had no internet access. In order to get to the router and the cords and everything we needed to check, that meant the floor needed to be cleaned.   This was akin to doing an archeological dig.  I heaped everything on the kitchen table and now just have to get it all put back...somewhere...

It may be a while before I get to sleep...and it's already 1:30 a.m.

But there was a bright side.  While sitting here writing this, I suddenly got a beep notice of an incoming message.  My speakers have not worked on this computer for a couple of years.  Whenever I want to watch a video, I have to use ear phones.  But I guess that plug that has been lying unplugged between my feet for such a long time was connected to the speakers.  Who knew?

Day 8:  Happiness seeing my mother so happy, visiting with my cousin Niecie.