How Backing Up Can Backfire

So, the holidays. For anyone who’s been living under a rock…or possibly took a temporary “opt-out” into (insert your name here)-ville for the last month or so, we’re right smack dab in the middle of the two biggest holidays of the year.

I unexpectedly had a four-day weekend this past Christmas, as Menopausal Mother Nature drop-kicked our sorry New York asses in the form of massive amounts of snow. And yes, I realize that to those of you in say, Minnesota (Hey, Jen!), our 18-26 inches of snow sounds like a dusting. But HEY. No-one said you had to move there. Everyone knows that if you move to Minnesota, you’re kinda asking for it, snow-wise…you know what I’m saying??

I digress. My point is that I had three days off…to be home…with my family…which was hell great but my home computer is getting a little wonky. Actually, it’s getting a lot wonky….but don’t tell it I said that or I’m ska-rued, if you get my drift. So, I spent two full days running anti-everything (one of my anti-spyware programs took 12 ¾ HOURS to complete…that is not a typo…and I thought I was going to DIE) and deleting files and emptying recycling bins and just to keep me from completely losing my freakin’ mind, I cleaned out my closet, my refrigerator and my sock drawer whilst everything installed/ran/updated. Then, I backed up. Noooo…I did not back up into something…I backed up my computer. (Kathryn rolls eyes…causing Dragon, Ric Dragon to involuntarily shiver somewhere without ever understanding why.)

Then my computer informed me that its anti-virus software had died croaked expired. WTF?
Question: Who the hell buys a one-year anti-virus subscription that expires on Christmas?
Answer: Me…that’s who, dammit.
I didn’t want to renew it online ‘cause I wanted to be sure that the activation would be good for three computers, so I wanted the hard disk. That meant I needed to get my butt over to BestBuy, which is just. not. happening. So, now I’m downloading it online…as we speak I type. It’s already made me reboot three times. I figure this 300 words has taken me about three hours to type.

I digress. Again. So, it snows Sunday…into Monday…and I log in and work from home….’cause life is good that way. This morning, I drive in…and my car is fro-zen. I don’t mean ice-cream-sandwich-frozen…we’re talking bite-into-a-3”-thick-ice-cube-frozen. We’re talking the snow on the floor from where I’d opened my car door and stood on the sill to clean off the roof of my car the day before was perfectly preserved…I could still see the imprint from my boot.

The ride into work was infinitely messy and my windshield wipers were frozen. After several attempts at pounding on the lever, they sluggishly...with a loud *POP!* came loose and lazily made a half-hearted slide in the general direction of my windshield. (Suh-nap to me.) My heater was on high and I had a four-inch piece of ice stuck to the wiper on MY SIDE of the window, so that it perfectly smeared my exact line of vision. I had the fan on high and the wipers in motion...even when I was standing still...much to the confusion of the motorists around me…hoping the combination of movement and what little heat actually hit the windshield might melt that damned, stupid, f#*%-ing piece of ice. This went on for, I wanna say, 20 minutes? At one point, I actually considered opening my sunroof and pouring my thermos of black coffee down the freakin windshield…and I might have done just that it if I didn’t think I’d total my car in the process. And if you’re wondering why I didn't simply pull over in rush-hour traffic to stand in a spray of ice and wind to manually remove said ice from said wiper, then you really don’t know me at all…and this conversation is so over.

So, we’ve survived (?) the first major storm of the most-dreaded of seasons here in Kathrynville. My new anti-virus is loading as we speak I type and I’m gonna try to jump online just long enough to post this without being summarily attacked by some ice-wielding, snowshoe-wearing hacker.

To say I miss you guys is an understatement. For some ludicrous reason, my boss won’t let me spend seven or eight hours during my workday to get caught up in Blogville. He’s so evil. This is probably the longest I’ve ever gone without responding to comments/visiting others…and it feels similar to when you wind up talking to a friend on the phone and are acutely aware that you’ve done all the freakin’ talking. I’m going to make this right, daggnabbit.

I’ll leave you with this teaser: Ric feels so bad that he’s monopolizing all my time (my bitching and moaning about how much I miss you guys may play a factor here as well) that he’s hooked me up with some serious stuff that I’ll be giving away in January. And not just any crap, either…we’re talking Google stuff.

Example of one piece of some of the awesome Google stuff

This will hopefully cause a short-circuit in all my reader's memories so that no-one will remember that I temporarily, albeit through absolutely no fault of my own, faux- neglected you.

Which honestly and totally never, ever happened.

xo