A really rotten summer

[katsmom]

This summer my computer at work had problems. In the beginning it was great because I could work from home. Then they replaced the mother board and I had to go back in. OK, back to work. I can't remember when it acted up again, but suffice it to say they "fixed" something on that same computer 3 or 4 times. OK. Working computer! NOT!

I was putting the finishing touches on a huge document (around 200 pages or so) and the hard drive crashed! No worries, brain stick was in and I saved it. Wrong! There was some kind of a power surge and it wiped out my brain stick as well. To make matters worse, my litreview is now gone! I have to start that over again, but was smart enough to print off copies of all the works I had been using. More typing but I'll get through that if I ever get around to cutting my nails. Ok, they gave me a "new" computer-it's old-all of them were replaced 5 years ago and this is from the pre-replacement days. So it's really slow.

I got ticked off and bought a note book. That works great, but it was only a few days back when I was once again trying to get on the net when one of my students told me I need to register some card that is in the computer!?!?

So for the past month I have been retyping everything I lost. Yesterday I got a huge weight off my shoulders by putting a new brainstick into the repographics computer and sending that textbook off to print. Only a month late by the way. Luckily, my boss knew of the problems I was having and I didn't get fired for it. And yes, I have that thing saved to the University mainframe, 3 brainsticks, my hard drive at work and my portable brainbox. Lesson learned.

To make matters worse, the Bugs school was closed for a week because they had over 100 students test positive for swine flu in one day. Have you ever tried getting work done with a kid pestering you every 5 minutes to "play with me mommy"? Impossible!

In the meantime, I've had no time for puzzles or puzzlebrains or anything else that we would call a life. To make matters worse, I've lost my magazine I guess that means it's time to clean my desk and hope for the best. My apologies for not helping with SUMS, wishing people congratulations on birthdays and weddings, and anything else I've missed.

Here's hoping that life goes back to normal now and I can get back to the things that really matter, like solving puzzles!

On second thought, maybe this would be better under the winge thread.

EDIT--you all write a lot! I have so many posts to catch up on....do you realize they spread over 2 pages?

[clvrlad]

well its nice to have you back
im not the only one still up at this time

[eirian]

Oh you poor thing, that sounds just a nightmare.
If I was closer, I'd tell you to put the stuff to be typed in an envelope and post it to me and I'll retype it for you - I'm back at work today and have already been told by my colleagues that typing/admin work is a bit slow (you can bet the actual legal officers will be rushed off their feet as usual, but producing nothing that actually needs typing!), so I'd have plenty of time to do it for you (and doing something like that looks as if I'm working, so no-one would notice!). But given the vaguaries of the postal service between here and there, it's not worth the risk...

Anyway, Katsmom, I do hope things settle down and you manage to find sometime for yourself again.

[katsmom]

Oh Eirian, you don't know how sweet that offer is. I thank you for the thought.

I'm just whining as usual because I see so many posts and this is the first chance I've really had to get on in a while. Mind, if I stopped playing games on facebook at 12 in the morning and came here instead.....but then I would have to find my magazine first.

LOL I volunteered to help a friend this summer. Making a voice over for a video. Not a problem, I've done loads of these before and they don't take long. This one is all in Chinese so I have to translate first She thinks I'm much better than I am. All the little things add up to one massive backlog. One of these days I need to learn to say no.

And how can you bear to part with Thomas to go back to work? That first month back just about killed me. My body really ached for lack of holding the bug. I hope your time back goes better.

[giraffe]

Welcome back Katsmom. I hope things pick up soon.

[Scurra]

Great to see you back. And yeah, it sucks to lose everything. I now have all the Puzzlebrains files backups stored in several different ways to try and limit the damage when one of them goes wrong...

[MBH]

Poor Katsmom - you've had it rough.

I just had to check back, but you said you'd printed off the 'works' you were using, not the finished product. I was about to suggest scanning with Optical Character Recognition to reduce your typing, but I guess that's not relevant.

I'm not as quick as Eirian, but I could have knocked off a couple of dozen pages for you. Spread them out between those of us with a decent typing speed Since you like puzzles we won't tell you who did what and let you work out how to put them back together [OK - that's cruel.. Naughty MBH!]

I love your terminology - I've never heard of 'brainsticks' and such before, but the word makes perfect sense.

[SparkOut]

I was about to suggest scanning with Optical Character Recognition to reduce your typing

yerwot? OK, I'll admit I haven't even bothered trying for a couple of years, but unless the OCR systems have improved dramatically, I don't think that will reduce the effort required! More time spent on rereading and checking and correcting than ever is the case in just typing, I think

katsmom, adding to your list typhoons and violent sea crossings, you've not had it great at all, poor you.

[MBH]

I was putting the finishing touches on a huge document (around 200 pages or so) and the hard drive crashed!

That was the bit I picked up. It's a little while since I've used OCR, and know that it's far from accurate - but even if it was 50% accurate and 30% close enough for spell-checker to fix that's a LOT of typing saved.

If it's your shopping list - type the stupid thing out again

[katsmom]

reading your post I just groaned! I used some of that software ages ago for my first dissertation (1997) not the best of stuff at the time, so that's probably why I didn't think of it. I wish I would have.

The worst thing about all of this is that I should have known to back up my backups. When I was writing my Mphil, I had the same thing happen. We spent more recovering the data than it cost for the laptop I was using at the time. I guess I'm a slow learner

Now does anyone know where I put that magazine?

[MBH]

It's slipped down the back of your bed.





Say anything with enough confidence, and some people will take your word for it

[eirian]

Say anything with enough confidence, and some people will take your word for it

ooh, that reminds me of a friend of ours who lived on the Melling Road in Liverpool (that's the one that the Grand National races over). Her daughter told that one year she walked in the competitors' entrance with a look of complete confidence on her face and no-one dared challenge her!

[Bunnylump]

I was wondering where you'd got to Katsmom!! Good to have you back! You sound like you've been having a total nightmare!!

Cussenrussen computers...mutter mutter...
Our SLT have just decided it'd be a great plan to order lots of extra computers for the school WITHOUT first having asked the IT men if the system would cope with them. The poor bu**ars had to work RIGHT through the summer holidays to try to get it all as sorted as they could - and guess what? It doesn't cope with them. Now none of the computers work properly, and keep crashing and losing coursework etc. I was speaking to one of them ( I know him well, we used to work together for the government (which basically involved a lot of heavy drinking and bodging things ). He is so near the end of his tether he's seriously considering upping sticks and leaving. What a great plan that was.

[LAT]

That does sound like a rotten summer katsmom. I do hope things sort themselves out now. I also had been wondering where you were. It's good to see you back again.

[strep98]

Welcome back katsmom,

I too would offer to help out with the re-type as I was a bit slow at work this week, but they have decided to bump up our clinics over the next week or so to the equivilent of having an extra 3 clinics a week.

[katsmom]

thanks guys. I did find the magazine on my desk under a huge pile of papers that really felt good to throw in the recycle bin. Almost finished one, but then class got in the way.

Gill, I loved the message on the outside and completely forgot to tell you that it worked. I got this issue in record time! Please add that for the next one as well

[gill216]

I'll send him a thank you on the next one. Maybe he'll strat looking out for your mag to see what he gets next