Back Online

It's been a long time since my last entry, but that's because I've been disconnected. And I'm not talking about being disconnected from reality like our governor, Martin O'Malley.

The fact is that I went on vacation to Ocean City, Maryland for a week. Before we left, I unplugged all of our major appliances. I powered-down my computer and unplugged it and all of the peripherals. When we returned home, I plugged everything back in, but was unable to restart the computer.

The toggle switch on teh back of the computer would flip, and a dim green light would flash for less than a second, but nothing happened. I contacted my sister who is some kind of Help Desk / Install technician. I described the problem to her and she said that it sounds like the power supply went up. She recommended that I swap the power supply from the old computer I have in the basement collecting dust.

I brought up the old Compaq, took it apart, did the same for the newer computer, and realized that the power supplies are totally different sizes. The air shafts to the heat sinks point in different directions. No good. Plus the box itself from the old Compaq was almost 50% larger.

Now I'm in a pickle, and I'm talking the flacid garlic kind, not the refrigerated crispy Vlassic Kosher dills. I need the Internet to shop for a new power supply. Plus I've gone crazy not being connected for a week. I have no idea how well my fantasy baseball team has done. I haven't posted to my blog or added content to Wikipedia in what feels like an eternity (which is equal to the amount of time the liberals have been in charge of the Maryland General Assembly).

I decide to plug in my old Compaq and use it for a while. I boot it up and the Windows 95 splash screen hits the monitor. Oh, my goodness. Windows 95?!!! The computer is that old??? I finally get booted, and the wallpaper has a picture of my infant daughter. The problem is that she's almost 8 years old now.

I open IE. Not sure of the version yet. I go to Yahoo! and it shuts down because "IE has performed an illegal operations". Oh, crap. I remember those. I think that was why we got a new computer. I can hardly access any websites without it crashing. I go to Firefox to download that browser. Yeah, whatever. I think I got a message like, "You have attempted to download a program that is not a Microsoft product. All systems are shutting down and an urgent alert is being sent to the Microsoft Police in Redmond, Washington." Honest, I think that's what it said.

At this point, I decide that it's time to buy a new computer. I tell my wife that's what I'm going to do. She has this look of fear in her eyes. "A new computer? Why can't we just get by on the old one?" I smile and walk out the door.

I arrive at the new Best Buy in Owings Mills, Maryland. Yes, this is the Owings Mills that is leading Baltimore County in shootings and violent crime. Anyway, I browse through the computer section. Plenty of computer systems from $950 to $1500. I don't want a whole new system. I just want the box. I finally find a Compaq with 1024MB RAM, 200GB harddrive, it's all black and shiny and has my name written on it. They spelled my name "$440". I ask to buy it, but none are in stock. I have to order it. This is on a Sunday. They said that they can deliver it to my house for free. Free? How did they know my middle name? I'm starting to get nervous.

Wednesday comes and I arrive home to see my new computer sitting on my porch. I'm so excited. I spend the next several hours getting everything setup. I call my sister. She said that when she sees me next time, she'll rip the harddrive from my old computer and install it in the new one so that I have 2 harddrives and I don't lose my old data. Sounds good to me.

Several days go by and I eject the CD-ROM tray to install a home designing program. Behold, young Arthur! We have a DVD-RW!!!! I've never had one before. I'm so excited. Now I can make those home movies of the kids (and other deviant media ).

So now I'm back online. Hoo-rah.