Saturday, January 10, 2009

BLESSINGS

I’m counting my blessings today – the way we should when we’re upset about something. Sometimes you just have to say: “For health, for food, for love and friends, for everything Thy Goodness sends, Father in Heaven we thank Thee” . . . because, of course, these are the important things in life. I have many blessings and I know it.

I’m telling you this because my laptop died Thursday night and I have been devastated. I knew it was coming. I noticed its tendency to be temperamental on October 23. Yes, I know the exact day because it was the day Spencer Hagen got married. Hallie tried to help at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas. She advised me there was indeed something wrong with it. ”How can I go through all that set-up stuff again?” I asked, hardly keeping the frustration out of my voice. “Oh, they won’t give you a new one,” said my savvy daughter. “They’ll fix this one – and be prepared for it to take a long time.” So, I said I would deal with it after Christmas. Meanwhile I added more photos, more family history documents, an iPod, iTunes and music and personal spoken recordings, etc., etc. . . . The potential loss of some or all of that – which, yes, I should have backed up – is not as devastating to me as the loss of the laptop itself. In just a few month’s time it had become the center of my life. Maybe God is telling me something. . . (It was useful, even with the “God” stuff.)

So, yesterday (Friday) morning Mike and I took the laptop to Staples where the tech performed diagnostics and ascertained that the laptop is indeed dead. Only one option is available, he said, and that is to call HP and they will send me a box so that I can ship it to them for repair. No one locally can help, he said. No one can touch it. It must go back to HP.

“That was quick and painful,” said Mike as we exited the store. I guess I should add “still under warranty” to my list of things for which I am grateful. And I can also add that at least we have this big old desk model from which I can carry on, if I promise to turn off the “cap lock” key and return the printer to “photo” from “scan.” KW

3 comments:

debdog42 said...

I was glad to hear your laptop was still under warranty. We had our hard drive die 1.5 year ago and while it was still under warranty, we lost 8 years of bookmarks photos, etc. I am in the process of buying an external hard drive.

murray.warnock said...

Kathy, best to you; hopefully they can recover the contents of the hard drive. If they can't, please try to get them to give it back to you, and maybe we could recover the contents here. I have some hardware guys who owe me some favors (that's how we get things done in Philadelphia ;-)).

Kathy said...

Hallie called yesterday and we discussed the laptop. She said I should ask that they back up my files if they can get into the hard drive. I'll put a note on it before I ship it and ask that they back it up or provide the hard drive. Thanks for the offer, Murray. KW