The Week of Watching

For those of you who kindly and supportively followed the story of the demise of my computer on facebook, thanks and feel free to skip this post.

This week, I watched computer screens a lot. I watched as they didn't turn on, or as they turned the wrong color. I watched as nothing at all happened and felt my stomach fall into my feet. I've known that my Old One, a pre-iSight iMac circa 2005, was going to start living on borrowed time pretty soon. It is 4 years old, which in computer years is approximately 1,488 human years, give or take, but no matter how prepared you think you are for the death of a loved one, watching it suddenly happen is just plain upsetting. Then when reality set in and I knew it was gone, I watched as little boxes told me that byte by byte, the vast amounts of data stored in the Old One's brain were getting saved in a new place. It turns out that the hard drive on the old machine is actually fine. Nothing else is working however, so we had to move it. We still don't know what is wrong, but Eric will try to figure it out and see if we can salvage it as the kids' computer, as theirs is also reaching the age in computers years of slow, painful death.

Anyway, I have to say that I was pretty stressed and so now I'm pretty relieved. 98% was already backed up somewhere else, but losing that two percent from the last little while was giving me fits to think about. It was also giving me fits to think about how upsetting a simple computer crash was. It definitely brought up the thoughts I occasionally have of moving off the grid for a while and readjusting my whole paradigm. Off to the woods and mountains with me! To Walden we go!

Not really. My modern, suburban life is what it is, and I like it most of the time. I live off the grid every so often and remind myself that I can do it. Plus, my compost pile keeps me firmly connected to the earth and frankly I like that I can come in from my compost pile, wash my muddy hands and research all sorts of ways to make better compost on my super-cool computer! There, I feel better. I'm actually a model of balanced modern living. (HA HA) Thankfully, we're able to get another machine, and it will better serve for the things I use a computer for-photos at the semi-pro level, music and designing knitwear. I had in many ways, already outgrown the Old One. So, the saga of the computer lasted only about a week and had a happy ending. Naturally, it was a happy ending that was not in the plan for right now, so we are fans of 6 month/no interest financing, thank you very much. I was saving to buy a new computer in about 6 months anyway, so it all works out.

Now the whole family is watching for that box to come in the mail.