Emma and I went for an early walk (and by “early” I mean, “around 11″) in the perfect bright autumn morning, down by the Nature Center. Having breakfasted joyfully on some 2nd Birthday cake (not 2nd year birthday, obviously; my 53rd birthday 2.0) I was writing enthusiastically on DinoLords, and avid to get to the new Annja when I was done. I’m violating most of my rules, here: I’m rewriting Chapter 01, and the way I’m trying to teach myself to write means don’t backtrack.
But perhaps my cardinal rule is, never spurn Inspiration. When I was a kid in high school I remember we always used to say, “You can’t force creativity, man.” We had to say “man” because this was the 1960′s-early ’70′s, and it was, like, required, man. Anyway, about the first thing I learned when I started writing full-time professionally, at the advanced age of 20, was, if you can’t force creativity, you can kiss writing for a living good-bye. That said, when Inspiration does zap me, I go with it.
And I was really going, because I was filled with the perfect way to do Chapter 01. No point in hoping I’d still remember in a month or two or three when I’m finished with the whole draft. And I’m past the halfway point, on the downward slope, as it were; I’ve got momentum up. No harm.
I got up to go attend to something. When I got back the notebook PC had gone to sleep. And when I jostled the touchpad it refused to wake.
I wasn’t too concerned. I’d been running on battery power – Inspiration hit hard, and I was so caught up rollin’ with the punch I didn’t slow down to plug in. So I plugged in.
Nada. It did not awake.
I tried everything. Turning it off, then back on; didn’t come on. I noticed that the A/C input light on the front didn’t come on. So I confirmed I was plugging into a live socket – always, always try this if your PC won’t power up. It’s not always the problem, but you do not want to pay for an expensive fix only to learn your outlet was fried all along.
The outlet was fine.
My first reaction, after extreme dismay, was suspicion. I bought the notebook about a year ago. It had a one-year warranty. Was this a case, not of planned obsolescence, but precisely-metered obsolescence?
So I rooted around for my receipt before spotting in in more or less plain sight in my inbox – gotta clean that out, one of these days. I’d already found my warranty packet. And the purchase date was 10/13/06. And here I was on Thursday, 10/11/07.
Whew.
After some online research on my desktop PC I found that Circuitous City, where I’d bought the notebook, said that, for items under warranty, I should bring ‘em into the store. So I bundled up the machine, the paperwork, and the suspect power adapter, and off we went.
I got there about 6 PM. The store was relatively empty. Four bored geeks were hanging around the firedogs kiosk where one goes for such things – and wouldn’t you like to know what corporate kobold thought “firedogs” was a confidence-inspiring thing to name a tech-support unit? What, they keep burning logs from rolling out of your PC screen and setting fire to the carpet?
The lead guy, whose identity I’ll protect by calling “J*hn,” looked reassuringly geeky: tall and somewhat gawky. He proved pleasant, helpful, and acted as if he had a clue, anyway. I showed him my bona fides, receipt and warranty; and told him of the symptoms. He and the others bustled around – sometimes, boredom is a good thing – and confirmed my suspicion: the adapter was fracked.
The way they confirmed this was by hooking the machine to another adapter and seeing if it would boot. It did! Relief.
As it was going through its lengthy WinXP awakening rituals I told them, “I hope you’re all over eighteen. I’ve got a naked lady wallpaper, and God forbid the youth of America should behold an unclad human being.”
They all laughed. As if I weren’t morally certain the four of them had among them about a terabyte of amputee nun scat porn on their hard drives.
But here was the rub. “J*hn” acknowledged the problem should be covered by the warranty. But Circuitous City had no replacement power adapters to give me. I’d have to petition Toshiba to send me one. (Which I shall.)
But I wasn’t going to be without the PC for however many days it took for the replacement to arrive. I hadn’t backed up the copious writing I’d done today; as I explained, I back up frequently, but not every time I leave the blessed machine for five minutes. Moreover the flash drive I use for backup doesn’t work with my desktop, and it’d been a few days since I backed up to the removable hard drive I use to transfer files between ‘puters. Even if I could’ve gotten them to let me pop the notebook drive in a different shell so I could backup to the thumb drive, I still couldn’t get at the writing I’d done recently. And it’s been a most happily productive few days.
So clearly I had to buy a power adapter. Which set me back a mere hundred and six bucks. Owitch.
But needs must, the Devil drives. Or drains the old debit card. Whichever.
Anyway, I’m back rolling again, typing this on Toshi Jr., which seems good as new. And it only cost me the better part of a day’s writing. And $106. Joy, thou source of light immortal.
Plus, I’m still torqued about getting purged by MySpace.
Ah, well. I’m still rollin’ strong on both the next Rogue Angel and the dinosaurs. And that’s a good thing!
All right, all right, I know I said I’d do When Great Sky Demons Attack next. I lied. Or rather, events intruded. I’ll do it next time. Heck, they might actually attack again Friday. So I will get to it. Unless that old devil Life whips it out on me again…
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[...] something funky inside the box or the multi-tip Kensington power supply Circuitous City sold me last month when my existing power supply went Tango Uniform, doesn’t quite fit the [...]