A Jen Too Many

I'm back!

A big Thank You to my baby brother (who is considerably taller than me, but who's measuring?) who suggested that I check the monitor. Yes! It was broken!

Unfortunately, that was not the only thing that was broken.

Another big Thank You to the geeky guy at Geek Squad! When I brought my computer in he told me to call the company that made my computer to order a new recovery disk. He saved me lots of money!

Gateway does not get a thank you. They make you order recovery disks online, a place that is hard to get to when your computer insists on rebooting every time it tries to run Windows. If you happen to be lucky enough to find a phone number for them, you will get sent to various places, told by everyone that they cannot help you because your computer is out of warranty, and then finally told that you have to go online to order the disk because ... your computer is out of warranty.

Thank You to my sister who patiently went through the Gateway website with me, reading to me, typing in as I directed, and who has faithfully promised she forgot my credit card number faster than I read it off to her.

Nothing was lost permanently, thanks to Mozy Backup. Seriously, if you don't have a backup in place, take care of it now! I would have been fine losing most of our stuff, but not the family photos. The very thought makes me hyperventilate.

I have also fixed the oven, just in time for Thanksgiving. It was scary! Very, very scary! I don't like working with wires, which is what you have to do when you replace your bake element. I unscrewed a panel at the back of the oven, pulled the wires forward and then spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to detach the blasted element from the wires. Then the new element was a little too lose and I had to try to clamp everything tighter. I am now living in terror that I did something wrong and will wake up to a fire fighter beating at my door some dark night.

Oh - when working with electricity, always remember to TURN IT OFF FIRST. I almost didn't. I was carefully placing the flashlight so the light would shine in the right place. I idly thought how it was a good thing the element was in several different pieces, so that it couldn't come on and melt the plastic flashlight. And then I thought, "Oh. Right. I should turn off the electricity." And then the magnitude of my goof really hit me, and I panicked and became obsessive about making sure the electricity was off. I flipped the breaker for the range off, then turned on all the burners and the broiler element and watched them carefully for 10 or 15 minutes to make sure nothing was heating up.

But I did it! And it worked! Watching the oven element heat up (after I turned the electricity back on) was quite the moment of triumph for me. It feel as competent as my mother.