Monday, February 27, 2012

Sunday's Outing

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During the school year, just about everyday is consumed with reading students' work, whether it be essays or drafts of their thesis. It is not unusual for me to forget to get out for some fresh air. Sunday, Ron's mandate was to make sure we get outdoors, so we went to Castle Hill. Having been there over 12,000 times, I didn't bother bringing my camera. I reasoned that I had photos of just about every view imaginable. But I was wrong. 

The scaffolding signs of renovations are almost completely absent from St. Matthias. It is so sparkling clean you almost need sunglasses to stare at it. It looks more like a sculpture created from sugar cubes.Oh, and they have the upper section of Fisherman's Bastion open without the toll they were demanding during last tourist season. It is a breathtaking view and as Ron shared, how spectacularly different the view is when you climb up a few feet higher. These photos were taken with my phone, so the quality is just shareable here.

St. Matthias Church, Castle Hill Budapest

St. Matthias Church, Castle Hill Budapest

View of Parliament from the upper deck of Fisherman's Bastion

St. Matthias Church, Castle Hill Budapest
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Landmark Project

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Years ago, I had come across the Landmark Project created by one educator. He created a tool called the Citation Maker, which was an excellent resource. This tool created MLA or APA style citations for both the works cited pages or in-text citations. Anyone who has been involved in academic writing knows how tedious the rules can be. I spent hours looking up information in the APA manual when writing my dissertation. This is a heaven sent tool.


With computer changes over the years, the site and the thought of Citation Maker became lost in RAM memory, hard drive memory, browser memory, and my own mental memory. This semester, I am teaching two thesis writing classes and happened to be browsing for resources when I found Son of Citation Maker, the next generation. It is better than ever with APA, MLA, Turabian, and Chicago Manual of Style; all editions are up-to-date, making it a trusted resource.


Curious to know what David Warlick is up to these days, I looked for his Landmark Project, where there are tons of information for anyone, not only teachers and students. I spotted this Words Without Borders and was particularly interested since some of our students go to Bard College on the Kellner Scholarship each year. There are a number of interesting books and articles to discover in this online journal. Check it out. Some of my favorite authors are from other countries, but whose works have been translated into English. One prime example is Jostein Gaarder, the Norwegian author of Sophie's World and many others.




Words Without Borders
Hosted at Bard College, with a dispersed staff composed of distinguished writers, translators, and publishing professionals, Words Without Borders (WWB) seeks to address the current "dangerous imbalance" in publishing (about 50% of all books in translation worldwide are translated from English, but only about 6% are translated into English). Browse the Web site by issue -- July/August, September, and October 2003 are available -- or select literature geographically. Readers will find both fiction and non- fiction in the form of essays, poems, and excerpts from longer works. There are also book reviews, brief biographical information about authors, and a link to sign up to receive the journal via email.

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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Just a Chuckle

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I notice so many people out in cafes and restaurants, but they are all on their phone communicating with someone else. This cartoon was so apropos. If they were like me and only had 5 people to communicate with, it would solve so many problems. On the other hand, Ron has not learned what "mobile" means in mobile phone. His mobile sits on the charger until it rings. Then it is some Hungarian telemarketer. 

 

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Friday, February 24, 2012

Ready for a Get-Away

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School has only been in session for two weeks and already I am exhausted. Teaching 10 classes is not easy, but the demands are what drain my energy. I have moved all of my testing to online. The E-Learning module of the university opens up my tests on the day I tell it to, for the hours I designate, shows the number of questions at a time that I want it display, and only allots the amount of time I choose.

Each semester I gain wisdom. Isn't that what university is supposed to be about? If only my students would show the same increase, I would be thrilled. This was the latest go around that caused me to fizzle. The film class has a quiz weekly. The course is online only, they only need to blog their reaction to the film, write a 2-3 page essay on 1 film of the 12 for the semester, and take 12 quizzes of 10 questions each. Not a great deal of work, but to be fair, they only get 2 credits for it. 

The last time I ran this course online, I overheard a student telling another that they could do the quiz in groups. At the end of the quiz, the correct and incorrect answers were displayed. All they needed was a king penguin to test the waters, take the quiz and then share the wealth with all of the answers. In my increasing wisdom, I turned off the part that shows the answers at the end of the quiz. Sorry, guys! You will have to share something else now if you want to bond. 

They took the first quiz and one of my journalism students complains that he cannot see what questions he had marked wrong, because he was certain he had 100%. Another youngster who thinks he knows it all. I was able to go into the module and copy the 2 questions he fumbled on and sent it to him. The quiz date was over, so I had nothing to loose. 

He wrote me with gratitude and asked if he could come to my office hours each week to retrieve this information because some of the answers were ambiguous? Well, no you cannot.  First of all, of course the answers are ambiguous. He should have heard of critical thinking; he had my course in it last semester. Has he forgotten all he knew already? More importantly, now with 10 classes, I am not going to be at your beck and call like I have been in the past. Sorry about that. 

Where is my old doctor that wanted to put me on disability for a headache? I sure do miss him.
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Did I Need a Study for This?

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I just read a new article in the Hungarian to English news that an increasing number of Hungarian businesses close within the first year. Can we all take a deep breathe in and go DUH!!! in unison, please? First of all, this is  and has been an international business fact for as many years as I can remember and for things like this I have a good memory. Why should Hungary be any different? I will share why I think there is a major difference here in two words. Poor planning. 


I have had successful businesses that have last from 3 to 16 years, so I do know something about business. Those that were at the lower end of the longevity scale were closed by my choosing, not because I went out of business for negative reasons. This is my primary observation of new businesses. They don't scope out the area well enough before investing in opening the business. 


For example and I have written this before, within 1 square block of our apartment, there were 7 florists and a few of them were large operations. Before you rent a retail space don't you think you should at least ask yourself "What is the competition here?", "Are these services needed?", and "How much can I afford to invest in remodeling while still saving something for marketing?" I was very sad to see one of my favorite florists close up shop. They had the most beautiful and original window decorations, it was a pleasure to walk by, but they also drew me in to buy.


One street over from us, in one small space in the last five years, there has been an empty store, a fruit/vegetable store, a bike rental, computer store, discount shoe store (no shoes over 1,000 Huf), then a regular shoe store, and currently a cafe. The fact that there is a Turkish restaurant right next door, another restaurant 2 doors away, a Burger King four doors down on the corner, a pub on the other corner, a cafe right around the corner, and three restaurants right around the corner within the block, didn't seem to deter them at all. 


What makes me groan WHHHHHHAAAATTTTT? is when they rip out everything that was left by the previous tenant, including perfectly good tile or painted walls and spend weeks remodeling. They open for 5-8 months if their luck holds and then one day you see any empty store front once again. What a waste of money.


Doesn't anyone know about demographics and marketing?

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Back in the Writing Saddle Again

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Yes, I have a memoir in the pipeline, but no one hanging over me to battle the computer to get it written. However, when my last Frommer's editor contacted me yesterday, things were different. There is a different editor for just about each book. She asked if I wanted to rewrite the Hungary chapter of the Frommer's Europe book. Of course I do! It is 34 pages, so not quite cumbersome, but having looked over the last time it was published, there are a number of things that need updating. I have until April 2nd to get it done. I do love seeing my name in print.   

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Monday, February 20, 2012

Patience is a Virtue

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Everything I needed to develop patience, I have learned from my computers. Ironically, computers are meant to speed up our lives, creating a sense of ease in performing some or a great number of life tasks, depending on your needs and aptitude. Contrary to this belief, my computers over time have taught me to slow down, take a breath and smell the flowers on the wallpaper.


Back in 2001, when we first arrived, we only had the option of a dial up modem connection. Not only did it take weeks to get it installed, but it then took hours to connect. It made the modem connection I had left behind in California seem like a Kentucky Derby winner.


Time after time, I would play around with some new software I had heard about and “play with it” for a while. This was the infamous line of the mother of a friend of mine that she would use each time we played cards as she picked up the exact card the rest of us were drooling over. It never came around to biting her in the butt for grabbing the card, but my butt was in a sling more times than I care to admit for living on the edge with software playfulness. It isn’t so bad when you are in a country where the majority of service technicians speak the same language you do, with or without regional differences, but in a foreign country, it is a disaster. My rationale is that I will never go zip lining or bungee jumping, so I have to live on the edge somehow. This is my how.


If you have read previous posts, you will know that the last computer technician has been here so often, he thinks we are related. I have given him so much money, he believes I am just making up for lost Christmas and birthday presents that I have missed over his last 26 years. When my problems presumably were getting worse rather than better, I had to sit him down for a heart to heart sharing the fact that he had been adopted by me, but I was returning him to the computer technician orphanage. It was a tearful, but not such a sweet sorrow good-bye.


Last Tuesday, on Valentine’s Day, I turned my computer on the way our real adopted nephew suggested. Turn off the switch on the back, leave it off for 5 seconds, turn it back on and then turn the computer on. I had been working so far, until that morning. That dreaded black screen appeared showing that Chkdsk.exe is about to start running. The screen informs me that there may have been some problems with volumes that need to be examined. Thinking like a librarian, I decode this into the following: there is a C, D, G, and M drive in this machine. Each is a terabyte in size, so I realize this may take some time and I will not be using that computer before I leave for the first day of school. I leave the computer on as the message warns against cancelling the process. 


When I came home from classes close to 5 pm, the process was still running. Apparently, the Chkdsk believed that each drive was not a volume unto itself, but that each file on each drive was a volume. It showed now checking volume 4089578 of 7906784 of Drive C.  Okay, I thought, this is going to take some time, but if I leave the computer on overnight, it will be done sooner. That was a partially correct deduction. By morning, the C drive had completed, but now it was working on Drive D. That took all of Wednesday and sometime into Thursday, before I realized it had now moved on to Drive G. I was beginning to realize that terabytes should be spelled as T-E-R-R-O-R-B-I-T-E-S. This whole process was terrifying and taking a real bite out of my productive schedule. Yet, it was draining my patience faster than a freshly plunged sink drain; I decided to let it continue to do its thing. After all, how much longer could this last?


Ron repeatedly told me how impressed he was that I have not harmed anyone yet, specifically him, but he knew that others could have been at risk also. At the end of each school day, he would ask me how many students showed up for class and how many left the classroom. He needed assurances of the head count of those coming and going. He kept suggesting I get a new computer. It was tempting, but there has been a great financial outlay in getting the new apartment furnished, I really wanted to hold off as long as possible. My limits were thus far as untested terrain as the moons of Venus. It was uncertain which was winning the battle: stubbornness or frugality. 


After all of the drives were finished being examined with more thorough tests than an astronaut has to complete, it moved on to the next phase. Checking for bad sectors and lost clusters. I was beginning to wonder if this was indeed my computer or did the computer guy mix it with some astronomer’s. Bad sectors and lost clusters? For the amount of time involved, it could have searched the heavens for lost clusters of star fragments in bad sectors of the universe. 


This was followed by a check of orphaned files. Well let me tell you that anything orphaned pulls at my heartstrings, so this was one part that I was grateful for, especially after it did indeed indentify a number of orphaned files and reunited them with their parent files. A few tears formed in my eyes. By now, we are into Saturday evening. The computer hasn’t been turned off since it was turned on Tuesday morning. The black screen is still there, but there are numbers continually moving providing some assurance that it has not frozen in time, but is plugging away. There were cross-linked files to be checked and directory errors to modify. It would make any AT&T operator proud to see the directory errors it resolved. 


What was fortunate is where the computer sits in its computer cabinet in the living room. The monitor reflects into the front windows. When it is dark out, I don’t even have to go into the living room to check on it. I can see its reflection in glass. I am still questioning whether or not I HAD to get up for the bathroom 5 times a night from Tuesday on or if it was just my subconscious mind needing to see something other than a black screen, like the sardonic Japanese calligraphy wallpaper that rotates its proclamations of “Peace”, “Joy”, “Happiness”, “Love”, and “Patience” which is what happens during normal operating procedures. It has been so long, I almost forgot was normal was.


Since Tuesday, I have been using my netbook for 99% of my work. The good news is that I can now type 150 words a minute on it with an error rate of 0.05%. The bad news is that the screen is so small; I have to do so much scrolling up and down that I am getting carpal tunnel syndrome and a callous on my touchpad finger. 


This brings me to today, Monday, February 20, 2012. After making my usual early morning trips, to witness the black screen, when I finally decided to get out of bed for the day at 6:50 am, and did my check in of the computer, the entire screen was black. This is a sign that the monitor has turned to hibernate. During the entire week of diagnostics, the monitor never shut off once. 


When I clicked the mouse button, holding my breath the entire time, a blue screen decorated with Japanese calligraphy appeared with one word “Patience”.


I may never turn it off again.


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Friday, February 17, 2012

Szia! My Caduceus is Moving Abroad

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English: This is the Caduceus used.
Image via Wikipedia
Last week, one of the attendees from the professional writing course that I taught, contacted me. He wanted to meet for a coffee. Being there were 35 in the morning class and an almost equal number in the 2nd session, I could not put a face to the name. We arranged to meet. He was probably the youngest person to attend this course; he is a freshman at another university. 

It only took a few minutes to confirm his intelligence. Now that I had a face, I remembered his highly intelligent comments and questions during the seminar classes. However, his first question to me over a steaming espresso drink was "How do I escape to America? Do you have any insider secrets?" If I had some insider secrets, I would be doing seminars called "Insider Secrets for Getting to America". Everyone thinks that all Americans have this bag of tricks on getting over the big pond and staying there in peace and harmony while they make the American Dream their reality.

This young man is not an isolated incident, but I did forward him some articles about the American economy, the cost of education in the US, and the Occupy Movements. Intelligence does not equal paying attention to current events.

While on the topic of fleeing, there was an article in Caboodle today that talks about medical doctors fleeing the country in droves. It states that 100 doctors leave the country each month to work abroad. I know that I have lost 2 doctors that I was seeing. Both spoke great English

According to Semmelweis University, the medical training facility where they teach in English, one third of the doctors who graduate don't ever start their career in Hungary. Fewer than 100 foreign doctors ask for their diploma to be validated in Hungary, meaning once they skedaddle, they are taking the welcome mat with them. Between 2006 and 2010, the number of doctors has dropped by 4,000. Get out those vitamins and stay healthy.
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School Days

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Tuesday was my first day of school for this semester. I have five classes on Tuesday and five again on Wednesday. This is the heaviest schedule I have had in my ten years I started teaching here. In addition, I still have MA students who I am advising for their thesis. 


Tuesdays my classes start at 8 am:
8:00 am to 9:30 The Methodology of Writing the BA Cultural Thesis - Only 2 of the students are my advisees.
9:30 to 11:00 Race and Ethnicity in US Journalism II
11:00 to 12:30 pm Religion: Born in the USA
12:30 to 2:00 Journalism as Portrayed in US Films 
2:00 to 3:30 Library Research Methods 


Wednesdays also start early.
8:00 am to 9:30 Websites and Blogging: 21st Century Journalism
9:30 to 11:00 The Methodology of MA Cultural Studies
11:00 to 12:30 pm Introduction to Creative Writing
12:30 to 2:00 Corp-ocracy - The Corporations of Destruction
2:00 to 3:30 The Mystery Novel


My main computer is still working through the same diagnostics that it started on Tuesday when I turned it on. I have this fear that if I turn it off, it will only start from the beginning again, so I thought it best to let it play itself out. All that and ten courses; I am arranging for my funeral by the end of May. Hopefully, I will last that long.

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Thursday, February 16, 2012

A Sign for Our Times

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I spotted this sign in front of a restaurant when I was walking down a street. Clever and true at the same time. 



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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Computer Karma

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I never have good luck with computers. I think my energy conflicts with anything electronic. This has been running for the last 36 hours. Because have four hard drives, each with a TB of storage, it is going to take another day or more, before I have to decide whether or not to go computer shopping.



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Monday, February 13, 2012

Don't Boar Me With Details

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Before I start getting e-mails from my teacher friends due to the title of this post, let me assure you, it was intentional. A number of years back, I had reported here and in my Frommer's guide, the dangers of wild boars in Budapest. Back then, a dog running off leash while out for a walk with its owner was attacked and killed by a wild boar in the Buda Hills.


Once again, the swine have come to public attention, not because they are trying to escape the big bad wolf. They are the cause for dismay. According to news reports, small herds of wild boar are not boring the residents of the upper echelons of district XII with their escapades. There have been so many of them prowling the streets and peoples' gardens, a special hotline has been set up for reporting sightings of the gangs of pigs. 


Remember that old advertisement tag line? "Pork, it's the other white meat." Well, guess who has come to dinner for what is in your yard?

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Friday, February 10, 2012

Misery, Thy Name is Computer

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I turned on the main computer at 6:40 am this morning. It is now 9:33 am. It has not finished booting yet. I am seriously considering handwriting this blog, but then none of you would be able to read my writing. Perhaps, I should switch to a typewriter. The computer repair guy has been here so often, we are being invited to his wedding. It makes sense, we have paid for it.
:  )
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Cutting the Ties That Bind Us

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Once again, in the airline news, Budapest gets hit again. American Airlines announced they are cancelling their one and only direct route from New York to Budapest. This was not a year round service, but it was due to start again in June. Delta Airlines, which once had direct service between the cities had long since dropped their route. 

American stated they would still service the route through their partners British Air via London and Finnish Air via Helsinki. If you choose the latter, I recommend a stopover in Helsinki; it is a delightfully small city.  

Since I was not thrilled with the equipment American Airlines used on our last flights, I am not sure this is such a bad thing after all. However, it is a barometer of the global economy for sure.

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Thursday, February 09, 2012

No More Flies

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This is late news, but heck, I had computer problems. If you have not heard the news yet, Hungarian state-owned Malev Hungarian Airlines (MA) ceased all operations early on Feb. 3 

Malév worked their way into insolvency and by Friday there was a cease and desist for all flights. Having been in operation for more than 60 years, they rewarded the last passengers, thousands of them in Budapest and other cities by stranding them. Passengers at the Budapest airport were informed that morning at 7:00 a.m. that all outbound flights were cancelled. Happy vacation to you! Talk about travel stress. 

Meanwhile, formerly budget airline Wizz Air announced an increase in flights. They will fly to Malaga, Cluj Napoca, Bucharest, Warsaw, Sofia, Larnaca, Heraklion, Zakynthos, Rhodes and Thessaloniki. Wizz has a habit of making many of these destinations summer only, so it is really nothing spectacular. 

Also on the airline front, my private student asked me to make a call for him after our lesson. This was a real switch. Usually it is I who asks him to make calls. He needed to call Expedia Travel Services in the US. He and his partner bought tickets to Ibiza for April, but bought the tickets back in November of last year. The routing is Lufthansa and Spanair. In January, Spanair quit flying after going bankrupt. According to Expredia, Spanair was paid directly, so the only recourse is to fight with the credit card company for a refund. He is hopeless that this will be effective, so they are preparing themselves for taking the loss.
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012

My Disappearance Explained, Kind of

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I have over a thousand times in this space without exaggeration, but yet as I approached today it was timidly. There was the shy embarrassment of a long lost lover returning from a sudden departure. Feelings similar to the protagonist in Stranger in from a Strange Land swirl in my thoughts. Similar to a Catholic entering the confessional, I need to expose the reasons for my loss of time, even if only for my own memories in the future.

When we returned from our sun filled holiday, there was still much work to be organized and completed before the new semester was upon us. Fortunately, I learned decades ago that procrastination was not my best friend, so we parted ways. This semester, I am teaching ten classes, all different, so I cannot rely on any duplicate of material to cut my preparation time into fractions. Bundles of potential papers were already set aside for distribution via Dropbox, but there were still four classes that needed tenderizing and then full cooking had to follow.
Feverishly, I worked on these once we returned home, but they were interrupted by getting my trip photos collated and uploaded. This was my priority knowing that once school commenced, my attention would be short-lived for anything but. As I labored on my projects, the computer started getting slower and slower without any apparent reason. One day after being home less than a week, it would not start at all.

Since living here, computer repair people have trained me to be self-flagellating. It all starts with phrases of dubious praise: "you are an adventurer with downloading programs"; "certainly someone that is a risk-taker such as you are..."; "you are such an experimenter with the computer that...". As the timeline continues, these turn derogatory. "If you hadn't screwed around so much..."'; "if you would only load the programs I tell you about..."; "you take stupid unnecessary risks...". Unlike most abusive relationships, I know when it is time to hit the road and move on. 
The expression "What does not kill us, makes us stronger." has been reframed for me. "What does not kill me, makes me smarter." I may have made dozens of errors in judgement with computing; however, I have gained another tool for my toolbox. 

When my newest computer repair person came to fix what I couldn't, the remedy was as short-lived as the life cycle of a butterfly. A beautiful thing to behold, but not for long. When he returned, he decided he needed to take my computer to his shop to test it; something he claimed was impossible here. Since I first brought it home, it had not been out of the house. A cat without claws has too many dangers to face out of doors, such too, my computer was stuffed with things that should not be exposed to an outsider's potential mishaps. Of primary concern was over 7,000 photos and ten years of financial data. Of course, they are backed up elsewhere, but paranoia dictates or rather whispers in my ear "What if the backup is corrupted when you need it?" Experience has taught that lesson. 
Before the computer passed the threshold, I had the three hard drives removed. He could leave with the C drive, but the other three were here to stay. They sat in my drawer safe and sound from prying eyes. I told the tech that I had backed up everything I needed off of the C drive. There was nothing that I needed as I had tried to reformat the drive myself, but it refused to format. I had promises of getting it back by Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week; he took it on a Friday. 

Tuesday evening, I had not heard a word. My computer child was in intensive care, but there were no visiting rights and no progress reports. I sent an SMS, but it went unanswered. Wednesday night, I received a response. "There is over 800 GB of data that needed to be backed up and it is taking time." What? How could there be anything to back up? I had attempted to reformat the drive; I had backed up all that I wanted. There should not have been a back-up at all. Good grief. I know from experience, it is not a language issue. It is an educational issue. It doesn't matter what logic or common sense may tell you, these are the steps you were taught to take and by gosh, you will follow them regardless of what reality dictates. I have experienced this dozens of times, many of which cost me money.

One full week without a real computer, though I had the netbook to fall back on, ten inches is not enough. Size does matter, though some can be satisfied with ten inches, I want and need more for the long term. My regular screen is so much larger. 

When the computer finally returned home the following Friday, I wanted to sponsor a parade or at least a "Welcome Home" party, but it did seem excessive in retrospect. All was well, except the drives that were put back. They used to be called Drive D, E and M. Now they were E, G, and N. Regardless a rose by any other name still has all of my data on it. But it didn't. The N drive had all sorts of strange things, none of which were recognizable. All of the data I had was now in Windows.ooo.old. Que pasa?

The computer worked fine for two days, when Windows had a major updating session. There were 24 critical updates. BAM, BAM, BAM, three gunshots to the hard drive. The computer stopped working once again. So it was not my 'adventurist attitude" into the world of software, it was Microsoft that ravaged my computer this time. Still, within the last three weeks, I have heard from 3 people that they need repairs to their Apple computers. There must be an epidemic in our midst.

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