Computers:
When Brian and I met, I had my Gateway computer with a fragmented hard drive (which is why the drive has since died completely). He came in and rescued it and saved me from myself and thrashing the entire computer. Now MY baby is being referred to as an "L-Cow" . . . what a horrible thing to call a computer, even one with spots on the box! A couple of the engineers at my office mentioned that Gateways make the best Linux boxes . . . who knew? Its funny . . . the whole time that I was working at Sun, I never knew Brian had such a fascination with Linux . . . go figure!
Before it became a Linux Cow (I will always shudder when I read/hear/see that!), however, it was still OUR computer-- well, that is, until we got the DSL installed. Then, it became mostly his computer (he was taking classes and occupying most of our time online). That was a valid reason . . . for his constant occupation of the computer . . . or so it seemed at the time. One night in April, I suggested we go shopping for another computer and I believe his response was something like "Oh, no, honey, I'm going to fix this one by putting Linux on it and then it will run fine." I just looked at him and said "When will I be able to download my email?" Brian's response? "Oh." I believe, you could say, he got the hint.
That Saturday, we went computer shopping and I got my HP 4445 Pavilion PC. Its not a big deal and frankly, I don't care how many gig of hard drive its got or if it roars down the superhighway or not. I just want something that I can get me to my email, my Quicken updates and my writing. Which is why, when it crashes three times in under thirty minutes, I tend to lose my patience with the "Wonders of Silicon Valley".
My needs in life are quite simple: The love of a good man (Brian) and a computer that will run, without interruption, at any given point during the evening!
Okay, so I think that Brian got lucky with the people at the HP Customer Service phone lines. They were probably new employees that hadn't been told about the "If the phone rings, don't answer it" philosophy of life yet. Or then again, maybe we did pick the right computer? Sure, it could happen! Whenever I'd called for service on the L-Cow (he's got me saying it NOW!), I'd get recording after recording which was followed by my making a recording of the problem to be responded by another recording calling back to confirm receipt of my recording and, eventually, they'll get a response back to me. Did I mention the fragmented drive that I had when Brian came over? Yeah, well, there's a reason that it was STILL fragmented!
First Email:
I just received the first email generated from my half of the website!! I'm really excited . . . okay, so its a correspondent of my husband's that's enlightening me with the fact that Brian is a little . . . eccentric. BUT, the important thing is that I've received my first email! Now I feel like one of the crowd!!
Camping:
Brian's mentioned on his site a couple of times over the past weeks that we're going camping for our upcoming vacation. I'm so excited by the prospect of sleeping on the ground, its bizarre. Who knew that I really enjoyed this stuff? I don't know why I enjoy camping so much but I really do! If I could, I'd go camping at least one weekend per month. Of course, there'd be the other half of the sleeping bag that's pretty empty . . . I've got a feeling Brian wouldn't feel the need to go nearly that often!
He likes civilization . . . which is a good thing but, I do think you can get too much of a good thing some times, too. I like camping and civilization so I think three weekends spent in civilization and the fourth in the wild would be a good thing.
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