Austin, TEXAS, January 14, 2006 — So, those of you who follow along really closely may remember that I have had an issue with my NIC connecting when I boot my main machine. (Although, actually, I think the connection is on the motherboard.) And the recent Microsoft security fix reminded me that I don't automatically update my computer because I still haven't gone to SP2. And I have another machine runnig XP that isn't at SP2 either so same problem. Although Microsoft has been issuing security fixes for those of us who lag. Well, these aren't the kind of issues I like to address all by myself. I need help and moral support. I'm a wimp.

Lucky for me, I have 'my computer guy.' Only he's a college kid (not a kid really, he's

thirty). And he's been off in Bratislava visiting his mother who is a screenwriter and who lives there for a reason I've forgotten. Anyway. He's back because school starts next week. And I have an appointment at 10 this morning for him to come over.

I foolishly think that I will get up and go work out and shower before Shane can arrive. But, of course, I get into making every backup I can think of in order to be ready to have problems with the process. I also set up my laptop to substitute for my main machine temporarily.

Shane is a few minutes early. Things go well for a while. He starts the process on the bookkeeper's machine and he works on my connectivity problem. He finds this Mac Bridge Miniport device thingy and disables it and voila, no problem. Ain't that cool?

The snag comes when we try to upgrade to SP2. First we have to download a zillion preliminary things. So far, so good. Then after downloading SP2, it runs a long time and fails with an 'Access Denied.' Shane says mea culpa, I should have stopped a bunch of stuff in the system tray. (I'm betting on McAfee, how about you?). We do that and it does finally work and we don't have to download again but it takes forever. I figure my C: drive (partition) is such a mess that it is thrashing getting things cleaned up.

So, I spend six hours on the computer stuff. Actually I'm drinking coffee and solving my thirty-year-old ex-ballet-dancer college-student IT expert's problems with money and talking about all kinds of philosophical things with him while he figures out my computers. And we have to discuss his classes, travel, and his other clients. A lot of them, he says, don't really know what they are using the computer for and it makes it harder for him to make sure he is doing the right things for them. I know I want to do e-mail and write WORD documents and do EXCEL and use a WEB browser and use my old version of DREAMWEAVER and FIREWORKS and read The Complete New Yorker and occasionally download stuff like Google Earth or a programming language and run them until I'm bored. I want my printer and scanner to work, to be able to burn the occasional CD or DVD. I need local connectivity to my other machines. On the bookkeeper's machine I have a short list: Quick Books, WEB, local connectivity for backups, EXCEL. I'm always preaching to other people that they should know why they want a computer before picking one. For me, it sort of changes every day. But I have a long list.

Actually it was eight hours I spent on the computers if you count the two hours of running all the backups I could think of. Then I spend another couple getting some space on C: and defragging it. Even though I was wandering around doing other things and checking on it.

So the day was mostly wasted. Or very productive depending on how you look at it. I did finish cleaning out the one stack of drawers in the kitchen. I washed all the 'everyday' silverware in one drawer. (I'd carefully cleaned up the 'utility' drawer earlier (see below). There are three old sets of knives and forks and serving pieces in our cutlery collection, two of which are cheap and ugly. There are one off pieces that came from who knows where. The cheap ones FFP brought into the marriage aren't too bad. We have a nice set of stainless (for twelve) and some various silver stuff stored elsewhere. In other words, we probably need to downsize in the cutlery department. I did throw a few things away in this process. I'm inspired to continue through all the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and pantry, of which there are many. But I probably won't do it.

As I run everything in these drawers through soapy water and a rinse, I think how easy it would be if cleaning up a hard drive was just a matter of soap and water. But...I'm on Service Pack 2 even if I'm the last one in America! Ha.

Entertainment notes: I have been lazy about watching Netflix lately, but I caught part of Clay Pigeons and we watched the entirey of Lantana and I like both of these movies on cable.