An Anniversary, a Birthday, and a New Computer

Jack Russell working on a notebook

It was a very busy, exciting weekend here at the Miller home. First, we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. Typically we celebrate by doing our normal day-to-day activity: working, softball, etc., even the mundane covered dish (lamb chops) for my husband’s dinner as he will still work his normal hours. We have a cake at the end of the day with candles.

Then we got to work preparing the house and yard (in between thunderstorms) for my three-year-old’s birthday party. When she woke up Sunday morning, I told her it was her birthday and her response was “CAKE!” She was happy when some little girls joined her in the pool, and I was happy to get the adults out of the air conditioning and two of them into the pool. It was a lovely day.

In between all this, I finally got to PC Richard to buy myself my anniversary present, a new laptop, my first new computer since 2001. I purchased it Saturday night after softball practice, put the box away, and kept up with my food preparations.

So I finally opened up the box after midnight on Sunday (technically, Monday). With a small school scissor, I gingerly sliced upon the sealing tape. I peeled back the protective clear plastic to reveal the shiny black casing of the computer. With great excitement, I popped open the laptop to reveal the 17-inch screen. I turned on the power and listened to the background music as the machine powered up. It asked me to create a name and password.

With finality, I typed in “Elizabeth-PC”. Yes, this one is all mine. No kids will use it as a CD or DVD player or for school work. This machine will contain my whole life: family, softball, home business, writing career, finances, educational. With “Phantom of the Opera” playing in my bedroom, I started up the recovery disk program. I had an old bath of DVDs and put in the first one. As it loaded up the backup files I paged through the manual.

A warning popped out at me just in time. Apparently you are not supposed to leave a laptop or the adaptor on a soft surface such as a bed. My sheets were red-hot. I propped up the machine and adaptor on some books and turned on The Honeymooners. Ralph Cramden decided to purchase a summer cottage, a great deal that went sour. Around 2 a.m. I was informed that there was an error verifying the files on the disk. I closed down to start again in the morning.

Monday morning I got a fresh start, with a new disk. We went to get my tires for my husband’s vehicle and came back to the same error message. I put a call into two friends who were more expert than me in computers; they were perplexed. Three times was a charm though, and after several more hours my disks were completed. (Later when I told our friend how old the disks were he said that probably explained it.)

So I’m up and running with the laptop, but still working on the old desktop while waiting for my wireless connection to be installed. Now back to Mavis Tire to get the tires on my minivan.