Delighted. Excited. Giddy. That’s it. I think “giddy” perfectly describes my mood today. I don’t have an emoticon for that so you’ll just have to trust me. I’m just so excited; I’ve spent every spare moment I’ve had today playing with working on my new toy computer. “Dolly”
By the way I was acting, you’d think I’d have just gotten a new diamond ring or necklace or some other piece of expensive jewelry. But no, for me, something electronic raises my heart rate faster than any baubles or beads. Especially a new computer.
I could bore you with the technical specifications but you probably wouldn’t read it even if I did. So I’ll just say this: Dolly kicks some serious booty! 
Rewind two days.
It’s late Thursday evening and my back is aching from sitting at my computer for the last few hours - but I’m finally ready. I’ve backed everything up. I’ve checked and double checked all of my programs to make sure I’ll be able to reinstall them once I wipe out my hard drive. You read that correctly, I said “wipe out my hard drive”. I’m no Bill Gates or any other kind of developer or programmer or anything like that at all; yet from time to time I feel compelled to prove to those around me that I’m really not a techie.
I could go into all the reasons I needed wanted to do this, but again, you’d be bored. Unlike the sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat feeling you have right now. 
As I’m about to break my arm patting myself on the back for doing such a good job backing everything up and locating my system recovery disk, etc…. I put in the recovery disk and press the magic buttons - and wait.
WHAT? You can’t find my hard drive? What the heck? So I shut down and reboot and do the whole thing over again. And then I prove that I’m not only NOT technically inclined, but I’m also insane. Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I did this for about an hour and half and was completely perplexed as to why I couldn’t even figure out how to reformat my hard drive. Some people do that on accident.
insert epiphany.
I was using the HP recovery disks on my Gateway laptop. Whew! That’s good news, right? Now I know what I need to do in order to get this project moving….since it’s already eleven pm. I knew right where my Gateway recovery disk was because although I’m incredibly unorganized, I pride myself on throwing all my computer application disks in one drawer carefully filing my disks. So I just whip out the righ cd, hit a few buttons and WHAM! My hard drive is gone. All programs, all files, even the operating system. The only thing I can get to now is the black DOS screen.
So I reboot and prepare to reload Windows and then transfer the necessary files and reinstall applications so I can go to sleep. All in a suicidal attempt to make my computer go faster. but at least I’m almost done. Or am I?
WAIT! NO! WHAT DO YOU MEAN INSERT THE BLUE DISK? WHAT BLUE DISK? I DON’T HAVE A FREAKIN’ BLUE DISK.
It seems that there should have been two gateway cds and the one I was missing was the one with Windows on it. Oops. I was exhausted but I stayed up for another hour tearing my office apart looking for that $%##@ disk.
Let’s just say I didn’t sleep well that night and leave it at that.
You should really be glad I’m telling you the short version of this story. Seriously, you should hear the long one. The next day I tell daddy-o what I’ve done and, thankfully, we both laugh (a little uneasily) about it. I mention something about buying another copy of Windows and he has this idea that the operating system will cost seven to eight hundred dollars. Before I can tell him that it’s only about three hundred, he says, “we may as well buy a new computer.”
To make a long story longer, I did tell him how much Windows would be but he’d already said those eight magic words. I was already building my dream machine in my head and wondering how much it would cost. After talking with a tech at HP, I quickly realized that my dream machine would have to remain just that - a dream. However, we did find an incredible alternative and somehow convinced ourselves that we needed this.
Alright, just so you know…….the computer and 22″ flat screen monitor computer we bought does have a lot of “stuff” that will make my job much easier. Remember, I do all of my work from home now and I’m often multi-tasking - you know, teaching an online class while checking my email or chatting with a friend. So it wasn’t just for fun.
I’m almost finished - I promise. Back to today. I get the machine home and get it all set up and start loading my apps back on it. When I go to load my expensive photo/video/backup/tools/everything program, I realize I’m missing a little something called the KEY. That number that is REQUIRED in order to install the software. Evidently, it’s on the back of the little paper case the cd came in which is nowhere to be found. The good news is that while I’m looking for it I find infamous BLUE disk and start reloading Windows on the laptop. No, I’m not kidding. I looked EVERYWHERE for that disk and then suddenly it appears out of nowhere. It’s like I was destined to get a new computer.
I did end up finding the key code for the other program, just so you know.
Oh, and in the midst of all this, Princess took 2-3 steps. I’ll post more about that because I doubt many of you have made it all the way down here.
