FIBF
The Crash of 2018
18 . Oct . 2018
Monday, October 1st
It is the first working day after Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival. I get up, bathroom, brush teeth, make the coffee, sit in my comfy chair and open up my laptop. The screen comes up to a video I had just recorded with my six year old daughter the day before. I go to move the curser to save the video and close the project, but the curser didn’t move. Not the start I was looking for, just need to do a hard shut down, restart and wait for all the previous windows to open. We’ll get there, it’s just going to be the long way today. Sadly, I’m watching my early morning writing time collapse to this set back.
Well, the laptop doesn’t come back up. I get to the manufacturer logo and the screen is striped like a referee, just not black and white. Now I’m starting to worry. It goes no further than that. I try to do another hard shut down and restart with the same results. All I can think about is my daughter’s video sitting on the desktop unsaved. I pull out my tablet and I get to work… researching about my computer, its potential problem and schedule an appointment to get it fixed. My writing?
All my writing is saved to both external hard drives and a cloud, it just sits more actively in the cloud. Trying to remember the last time I did a backup to an external drive. It’s been a while because I rely on the cloud quite a bit. I do sometimes write on my tablet, just looks like I’ll be doing a lot more of that in the immediate future. But for the most part, my data is safe. It’s just the video.
About halfway through the day, after scouring many forums, I figure out my video card went bad, and being a particular laptop, it’s not repairable. I even talked with a component level repair guy who says it’s not repairable. Now, I’m a little sentimental about my laptop. I’ve had it for a long time and it really is a part of me. I have few ideas, but I need to sleep on it.
Tuesday, October 2nd
After doing some extensive eBay and Google searching, I found my make and model laptop for a decent price in working condition. It’ll be a while before I get my hands on it, but then so would repairing mine. So I jumped on the offer and patiently waited. Aaaand while I wait, why not do some writing.
Wednesday, October 3rd
Got my tracking info and jumped through the roof when it said I would see it on Friday! I was having it sent to my work so this was going to be great.
Already my mind started creating a priority list of things to do once I got it.
1) Turn it on, make sure it boots up and works.
2) Turn it off and swap hard drives and RAM.
That’s right, swapping hard drives. My hope here is that when my hard drive boots up, it’ll come up to my familiar desktop and the windows and projects I had open will come back.
3) Turn on and wait…
That’s as far as I got.
It’s just a whole lot of waiting and in this whole lot of waiting I stumbled across another component level repair guy who said he can fix the laptop. And I have decided to fix it and have two computers. Now that might sound insane, but my daughters have already started to go online to places like ABC Mouse. So a second one, but for them. That's my rationale anyway.
Thursday, October 4th
Waiting and writing. And sign up to be part of the Right to Repair movement.
Friday, October 5th
I can hardly contain myself. To be delivered by end of day, 8:00 pm… uh-oh. My work day ends at 5:00. Our company closes. I called the local office to inquire about this. I was told that more than likely it would be delivered on Saturday. But again, Our business is closed and I wasn’t anywhere near to fetch it from the shipping company. So Monday. Nope, the shipping company is closed in recognition of Columbus Day.
I can’t help but laugh at this point. The reality of it was, I really wasn’t expecting it until Tuesday or even Wednesday anyway. My spirits were only lifted when I saw Friday, way ahead of schedule. Well, let’s do some writing.
The Past Two Weeks
So what have I been doing? Well, The hard drive swap worked. Booted right to my desktop and my video program was still open. So I exported the video and saved it immediately. And then it was getting things back to the way I like them. Took some of my hand writings and put them in the manuscript, with a little editing. I kind of liked the pen on paper and then an edit when putting it in the computer.
And then I did a major re-organization of my files. I’m still in the midst of that, but Conversations with Death and Broken Road have new safe homes. And many things have been purged and backed up.
I’m still getting used to this computer. It’s kind of like wearing a different pair of shoes or driving a car you’re not familiar with. There is a ding in this model that bugs me. Not mine, but I bet there’s a story behind it. I may have just found a writing prompt. Now let’s go write something.
It is the first working day after Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival. I get up, bathroom, brush teeth, make the coffee, sit in my comfy chair and open up my laptop. The screen comes up to a video I had just recorded with my six year old daughter the day before. I go to move the curser to save the video and close the project, but the curser didn’t move. Not the start I was looking for, just need to do a hard shut down, restart and wait for all the previous windows to open. We’ll get there, it’s just going to be the long way today. Sadly, I’m watching my early morning writing time collapse to this set back.
Well, the laptop doesn’t come back up. I get to the manufacturer logo and the screen is striped like a referee, just not black and white. Now I’m starting to worry. It goes no further than that. I try to do another hard shut down and restart with the same results. All I can think about is my daughter’s video sitting on the desktop unsaved. I pull out my tablet and I get to work… researching about my computer, its potential problem and schedule an appointment to get it fixed. My writing?
All my writing is saved to both external hard drives and a cloud, it just sits more actively in the cloud. Trying to remember the last time I did a backup to an external drive. It’s been a while because I rely on the cloud quite a bit. I do sometimes write on my tablet, just looks like I’ll be doing a lot more of that in the immediate future. But for the most part, my data is safe. It’s just the video.
About halfway through the day, after scouring many forums, I figure out my video card went bad, and being a particular laptop, it’s not repairable. I even talked with a component level repair guy who says it’s not repairable. Now, I’m a little sentimental about my laptop. I’ve had it for a long time and it really is a part of me. I have few ideas, but I need to sleep on it.
Tuesday, October 2nd
After doing some extensive eBay and Google searching, I found my make and model laptop for a decent price in working condition. It’ll be a while before I get my hands on it, but then so would repairing mine. So I jumped on the offer and patiently waited. Aaaand while I wait, why not do some writing.
Wednesday, October 3rd
Got my tracking info and jumped through the roof when it said I would see it on Friday! I was having it sent to my work so this was going to be great.
Already my mind started creating a priority list of things to do once I got it.
1) Turn it on, make sure it boots up and works.
2) Turn it off and swap hard drives and RAM.
That’s right, swapping hard drives. My hope here is that when my hard drive boots up, it’ll come up to my familiar desktop and the windows and projects I had open will come back.
3) Turn on and wait…
That’s as far as I got.
It’s just a whole lot of waiting and in this whole lot of waiting I stumbled across another component level repair guy who said he can fix the laptop. And I have decided to fix it and have two computers. Now that might sound insane, but my daughters have already started to go online to places like ABC Mouse. So a second one, but for them. That's my rationale anyway.
Thursday, October 4th
Waiting and writing. And sign up to be part of the Right to Repair movement.
Friday, October 5th
I can hardly contain myself. To be delivered by end of day, 8:00 pm… uh-oh. My work day ends at 5:00. Our company closes. I called the local office to inquire about this. I was told that more than likely it would be delivered on Saturday. But again, Our business is closed and I wasn’t anywhere near to fetch it from the shipping company. So Monday. Nope, the shipping company is closed in recognition of Columbus Day.
I can’t help but laugh at this point. The reality of it was, I really wasn’t expecting it until Tuesday or even Wednesday anyway. My spirits were only lifted when I saw Friday, way ahead of schedule. Well, let’s do some writing.
The Past Two Weeks
So what have I been doing? Well, The hard drive swap worked. Booted right to my desktop and my video program was still open. So I exported the video and saved it immediately. And then it was getting things back to the way I like them. Took some of my hand writings and put them in the manuscript, with a little editing. I kind of liked the pen on paper and then an edit when putting it in the computer.
And then I did a major re-organization of my files. I’m still in the midst of that, but Conversations with Death and Broken Road have new safe homes. And many things have been purged and backed up.
I’m still getting used to this computer. It’s kind of like wearing a different pair of shoes or driving a car you’re not familiar with. There is a ding in this model that bugs me. Not mine, but I bet there’s a story behind it. I may have just found a writing prompt. Now let’s go write something.
Post Summer Update
27 . Sep . 2018
Here we are. A day away from Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival and I’m finally getting around to writing a blog post. If you are in the Fredericksburg, VA are tomorrow, stop in for a visit.
I still have print copies of Broken Road left. I will also be begging for email addresses looking for readers for Conversations with Death. Why don’t I do something here on the site? Because mostly I’m a writer and barely a blogger. If I can figure out how to imbed some stuff on the site, I may add a field to solicit proofreaders. But until then, I’ll mostly be taking email addresses at the festivals I attend.
Broken Road has also gone digital. You can pick up a copy at Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Noble/Nook, and Apple iBooks.
I will also try to be a bit more diligent about letting you know where I’ll be next before the day before an event. I don’t have anything upcoming other that FIBF. I do need to do some searching, but really, I’m more interested it getting the rough draft done of Conversations with Death. So a lot of my writing time is spent writing or researching characters or reading about writing.
I’d like to say I made it all the way through MasterClass, but I haven’t. I will get to this and talk about it.
And I know it’s another short blog entry, but I need to get back to the writing.
I still have print copies of Broken Road left. I will also be begging for email addresses looking for readers for Conversations with Death. Why don’t I do something here on the site? Because mostly I’m a writer and barely a blogger. If I can figure out how to imbed some stuff on the site, I may add a field to solicit proofreaders. But until then, I’ll mostly be taking email addresses at the festivals I attend.
Broken Road has also gone digital. You can pick up a copy at Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Noble/Nook, and Apple iBooks.
I will also try to be a bit more diligent about letting you know where I’ll be next before the day before an event. I don’t have anything upcoming other that FIBF. I do need to do some searching, but really, I’m more interested it getting the rough draft done of Conversations with Death. So a lot of my writing time is spent writing or researching characters or reading about writing.
I’d like to say I made it all the way through MasterClass, but I haven’t. I will get to this and talk about it.
And I know it’s another short blog entry, but I need to get back to the writing.