Yesterday Tim and I went to Holiday World with Russ, Jen, Mike, and Sara. You know, I’d forgotten how fun this place could be. As amusement parks go, it’s small and doesn’t have many “big” rides–but it’s definitely got its advantages. For one thing, although there are long lines, they’re not as long as they get at the big parks. Also, the price is fairly reasonable–$31.95 for a one-day adult pass, as opposed to $50 or more at other parks. Even the stuff inside isn’t pricey; I had lunch for under $5. Plus, they give you free unlimited drinks, so you don’t pay out the nose to stay hydrated. And the food’s actually pretty decent, too.

We spent probably half of the day in the water park. I use the term “we” loosely; mostly, Jen and I did a little bit of floating around on the Congo River ride, and some wading in the wave pool, and quite a bit of looking for the rest of our group. They had gone off to ride the waterslides that we didn’t want to. Neither of us is really a thrill-ride kind of girl. We did some walking around in the park while they went on roller coasters, too.

When we got home, I discovered that I hadn’t escaped sunburn quite as well as I’d thought. I’d just gotten it in some odd places. The part in my hair burned, of course, so here in a few days I’ll look like I’ve got an awful case of dandruff. The tops of my feet are a nice deep shade of pink/red. (“Don’t forget the tops of your feet!” Mike said. “Oh, I never burn there,” I said. Never, ever say never.) And because I put sunscreen on my arms before I took my watch off at the water park, I also have a nice band of pink right where my watch band usually is.

But I had lots of fun anyway!

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On a happier note…

Last night I had (and took) the opportunity to go up to Conseco Fieldhouse and see Simon & Garfunkle. Yay! Tim didn’t go; we’re tight on money, plus I don’t think he’s really as excited about the group anyway. But I grew up on these guys’ music, and as such it was great that we could scrape together enough for me to go, anyway. (I did miss Tim, though.)

The tickets said “with special guests the Everly Brothers”. Now, last time I was at a Conseco concert and the tickets contained phrasing like that, the “special guest” was the opening act. So it was a bit puzzling when the show started (almost half an hour late, but oh well) with a Simon & Garfunkle retrospective. Then two spotlights lit up two spots on the stage, and… There’s Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle. The Everly Brothers actually wound up coming out for a 4-song set (three on their own, plus a performance of “Bye Bye Love” with Simon & Garfunkle) in mid-concert. Which, really, makes a lot more sense with the “special guest” thing than them being the opening act would.

Overall, very nice concert. Everyone was obviously having fun up there on stage, which is always great. I knew most of the songs; my parents only ever played the Greatest Hits and Sounds of Silence albums for me, so that was all I knew. (They claim they had a copy of Bridge Over Troubled Water too, and I will grant that I remember seeing the sheet music, but I certainly don’t remember hearing most of the songs on that album.) I was singing along the whole time, just like anyone else there. There wasn’t a huge amount of energy just running wild, the way there was when we went to see U2, but that wouldn’t have been as appropriate for these guys. They had plenty of energy in their own way.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” was the finale. As the applause started up, I realized something. “Self,” I said, “they haven’t played ‘The Boxer’ yet.” Well, that was pretty much a guarenteed encore anyhow, wasn’t it? So the encore was when they played it, right after “Cecilia” (which I probably spelled wrong). Then they did a second encore, and then the show was over.

I got home just after midnight, didn’t get to sleep until nearly 1am, and had to get up at 5:15am to come to work. Was it worth it? Yeah, probably. I had a great time. (And I’m not that tired! Honest! I’ll be crashing tomorrow, though.)

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Right, so I got Win2K reinstalled. And just about every other program on the face of the planet. Well, not really, but it feels like it. I brought my laptop along Monday and played Zork all day while stuff installed. (Then Wednesday I had a lot of waiting to do for unrelated reasons, so I played through Zork II. Yes, it took me all day, for both of them. I kept forgetting crucial things and ruining the game for myself. Plus, my lamp ran out once and I got eaten by a grue.)

Today, only one issue remains. Joining the domain. I’m using the same computer name I was before and the same IP configuration. However, when I try to join the same domain I was just a part of last week, I get an error message saying that my user name or password is bad. (And they’re not; I can log on to other computers with them.)

Now, that in and of itself isn’t bad. I’m not above calling tech support to get some help with the situation. What’s bad is the tech support. On Monday I reached a nice lady at the help desk and explained the situation. She told me she couldn’t help, but she would pass it on to the official techs and they would call me back. OK. By Tuesday morning, no call, so I called the help desk back. This time I think I got a different lady, who said she’d send the techs an e-mail to poke them. Then she called back and wanted a better description of the problem (than the one-liner written down from Monday). But she must not have passed it on, because then the techs called and asked me what was going on.

This was when I found out that someone at the help desk had written down that I had “upgraded some software” and was having network problems. The hell? I probably upgraded something or other in there, but it sure as hell wasn’t Windows. Reinstall, not upgrade. Big difference. Especially, you know, with the OS.

So they actually sent someone over this time. This person first tried creating a local account on the computer for me. Gee, that didn’t work, I wonder why. Then he poked around a little bit, told me they’d gotten rid of my domain–the one I was just part of on Monday morning–and then realized I’d been contacting the wrong people all along. So he passed me off to the IT person for my department.

This morning I got a call from said IT person. This time the message that had been passed on was that my problem had something to do with a backup.

I don’t know where they find these people…

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Actually, that’s not fair. I shouldn’t blame Microsoft… too much. I haven’t even gotten to the installation yet. So what happened?

Yesterday, I got a new 40GB hard drive for my computer at work, as well as a new video card and some miscellaneous toys. The idea was for me to spend today putting those things in, copying my drive over to the new drive so that I’d have a backup, and then wipe the old drive so that I could start fresh.

I decided to put in the hard drive first, and get all that done, and then do the video card. Easy enough, right? …Right?

Well, maybe. First, I fell outta the stupid tree today, as Marcia so eloquently put it. Might I possibly need to format the drive in NTFS, since that’s what my old drive is using? Might that possibly help them communicate with one another? This took me a good hour and a half to figure out. Then… At 99% formatted, the computer locks up. Argh. But it gets better. Now the computer won’t even recognize the new drive. Eeep. So I start fiddling around with the drives, trying to figure out why. My theory is that since it was ALMOST done maybe that screwed something up. I finally break out the Win98 boot disk so I can fdisk the new disk, hopefully resetting the partition correctly and fixing my problem. Well… Actually… Not even fdisk recognizes it. I start messing with the IDE cables, figuring maybe I just need everything hooked up right. Right?

This is when it really gets good. The IDE cable… broke. The connector came apart. I had to use pliers to get it out of the drive.

Whee.

Mark found me a new IDE cable, though, and that seemed to fix my problems. Got the drive formatted. Went to copy everything over. Cussed a bit more when I realized that I couldn’t very well copy everything when I was running Windows (sharing violations, you know), and I couldn’t figure out if booting to a command prompt in Win2K was even possible. So now here I am running Windows Freaking Backup so that I can copy everything over. I have approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes left until quitting time. The backup says it has 5 hours and 2 minutes left to go–and somehow, the more it gets done, the more that time goes up.

I don’t think this is going to get done today. And, in fact, I think I might as well go home. All I’m doing here is watching a progress bar that won’t even be done before I have to leave…

The worst part is, I didn’t even think to bring my laptop or a book (or both) along. I borrowed Mark’s laptop so that I could surf the Web, but I still wish I had something to read.

5 hours 30 minutes, now. Oh joy.

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Oh, hey, look! I still exist! *cleans out the corners and chases the dustbunnies out the door*

Right. So. What have I been up to? Well, since I last left you, a lot. On the downside, I’ve lost a cousin and a second cousin once removed (I think–Dad’s cousin’s kid). Daniel and Dillon were 17 and 18, respectively, and died of leukemia and injuries sustained in a car wreck, also respectively. Daniel’s funeral was on my birthday, and we got the news about Dillon almost exactly a month later. It has not been a good year for young people in my family. However, Daniel’s family seems to be coping fairly well (except for his mother, who I’m quite worried about) and although Dillon’s death was tragic it’s had the effect of mending fences in the family by reminding us that sometimes fighting isn’t worth it. So… Life goes on, I suppose.

On the upside, Tim and I went to Disney World, and now we’re building a new house. The new place is in one of those developments where many of the houses look similar–but it’s a pretty nice development for being that kind of development, and we’re not going to be there forever. We figure we’ll probably stay about ten years–the planned future kids should just be ready to outgrow their rooms when we start looking again. The house is almost done–we’re up to the point where we have vinyl flooring in the appropriate places, and a carpet pad, and the walls have been painted. (Well, they’ve been painted white; we’re repainting some of them.) Actually, I imagine that by now we probably have carpet too. Now that things like that are going in, it’s really starting to feel like a real house. It’s exciting! And it will be our very own place!

The closer the move comes, the more anxious I am to get into the new place. We’ve been living without central air or heat (we use window AC and a woodstove), a dishwasher, our own washer and dryer… I forget what else. Also, the place we’re renting right now is, like, a hundred years old or something. The interior doors are tempermental (sometimes they close, sometimes they don’t), the floors are creaky and uneven, the kitchen is poorly laid-out, there’s not much closet space, and so forth. Our latest adventure is a leaky roof; it started in the bedroom closet (soaking half my good shirts) and has moved into the kitchen. The really neat thing about this is that some maintenance guys came by and sealed the roof on Tuesday. But it’s still leaking in the kitchen. Plus, they left sealant smudges on the doorknob, kitchen counter, faucet handle, and phone (which they used without permission, btw). And managed to spray some of it on the outside of the house, by which I mean the part that is not the roof. Oh, boy, did the landlady hear about that one.

Anyway, so it will be so great to be in a brand-new place, with even floors and doors that close and stay closed, and a brand-new roof, and a washer and dryer and dishwasher, and a new refrigerator, and central heat and air, and… Well, you get the point.

Final note–today is Tim and I’s fourth wedding anniversary! Yay!

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