July 23, 2018

Step 3: See Step 1

The moment I expected, yet feared came Saturday.  In the afternoon I started my old computer, browsed around for a couple of hours, then watched Quals for the German Grand Prix, shutting it down as I did. I then took a nap.


Saturday night, I hit the power button on my computer and... nothing.  The hard drive just gave a rhythmic, constant, flashing light with no sign of life otherwise.  She had finally given up the ghost after doing her best for me.  Press F to pay respects.

So I spent the rest of Saturday night tearing down my computer setup, figuring out how to store the old computer until I can get around to beating the hard drive into a very small smear, the better to keep my info safe y'know?  Also accomplished was removing the old 19" 1440 x 900 monitor... over 12 years old would you believe... and putting the new 24" 1080p monitor in position.  And then I slept, ready to get the new computer in position and move up in the world.

This was duly accomplished around 4pm on Sunday.  Everything plugged in, everything ready, I hit the power button, and...

...nothing.  I tried another power cable.

...nothing.  My brand new computer was DOA out of the box.

A quick run to Best Buy got me an exchange for another, this time with free setup.  It only took an hour to accomplish this, an hour, two managers, two different salespeople, one customer service rep, and a sugar glider named Hugo.

I may be exaggerating part of that.

Monday rolls around, and after work I head back over to the BigBlueBox, getting there exactly on time for my appointment, and... I had to wait for a half-hour while two biddies who looked old enough to remember a time when the most complex computing device you could find was an abacus tried to understand what the tech was telling them... "power button is here on the side."

A quick demo of the new computer (it works!  it works!)  led to me loading it into the Duckmobile and driving home to Pond Central.  At which point, I was faced with some difficulty.  How do you get a 30 pound computer up a flight of stairs when you use a cane?  The answer is "slowly, step by step."  Carry the computer to the stairs, put it as many steps up as you can, go back to the car to get the cane, go up a couple of steps, lift the computer up another couple of steps, climb some more, repeat as many times as needed (five, in case you were wondering).

Just as an aside, at the time I returned to Pond Central, somewhere around 845pm or so, it was still in the mid-80s outside, with ridiculously high humidity, and no breeze whatsoever.  As a result, Your Hero was drenched in sweat when he got the computer inside.  Also exhausted: it had been a long day at work, and the whole "carrying things up stairs" gig was awkward.  And painful: a poorly placed foot as I was trying to maneuver the tower through the door to Pond Central resulted in rather a lot of ankle pain.  I'm hoping I didn't sprain it; we'll find that out tomorrow morning.

After taking a while to regenerate some action points, I found myself back where I had been Sunday evening: everything hooked up and just needing to hit the power button.  Filled with trepidation, this I did.

Everybody, say hello to Triela.  

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:38 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 595 words, total size 4 kb.

1 Hello, Triela!

Posted by: GreyDuck at July 24, 2018 07:40 AM (rKFiU)

2 Himawari says hi.

Posted by: Mauser at July 24, 2018 09:28 PM (Ix1l6)

3 Were you able to save all your stuff from the old drive before death and get it on the new machine?

Posted by: Mauser at July 24, 2018 09:29 PM (Ix1l6)

4 Everything important, yep.  Really, I've simply been procrastinating regarding this... I've had everything I've wanted moved to my external drive for some time.  It's just that it was going to be so much work, y'know?  And I am, at heart, a lazy duck.

Posted by: Wonderduck at July 24, 2018 11:07 PM (7eIzj)

5 Hello Triela!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at July 24, 2018 11:51 PM (PiXy!)

6 Is this a safe space where I can admit that I named my laptop Basroil? 

Looks great. I hope it runs smoothly for you. How are you liking the SSD? Fast startup? 

Posted by: Mrs. Will (Kathryn) at July 25, 2018 06:27 PM (JPRju)

7 The server this blog is running on is named Midori, from Midori no Hibi.  You bet it's a safe space!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at July 25, 2018 09:32 PM (PiXy!)

8 Not familiar with that one Pixy.

Posted by: Mauser at July 25, 2018 09:45 PM (Ix1l6)

9 It's the best thing ever!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at July 25, 2018 09:58 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Wonderduck at July 25, 2018 11:08 PM (0VFKi)

11 I'm actually kind of nostalgic for the era when "boy's right hand replaced by adoring teenage girl" was way out there for anime...

-j

Posted by: J Greely at July 25, 2018 11:16 PM (tgyIO)

12 Instead of a whole harem of them, each catering to a different fetish.  Including loli.

Posted by: ubu at July 31, 2018 12:53 PM (SlLGE)

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