So where are the pictures?

After a nice Friday and Saturday out of town last weekend, which I posted about in my last entry, I was absolutely planning on writing a follow-up blog entry and sharing some photos from a snow-covered mountaintop and the view that comes with it. However the powers of the Universe had something else in mind for me.

I get back late Saturday night and didn't know what would await me the next day. Sunday morning I hear from my boss who says my computer at work was acting more crazy than usual. This old Windows 2000 system has been dying a slow death for months now and I knew it was only a matter of time before it bit the dust. Well, Friday, apparently, was that day. After losing 95% of my Outlook Express emails in a crash a few weeks ago I had managed to recover some of my more important files and load them into Thunderbird, thinking that the Mozilla e-mail client would keep me safe from corrupt MS crap. Turns out another crash wiped out those emails as well. Monday morning I get to work trying to see if I can revive the beast, but it was treating me like a snooze button and shutting down every few minutes. It was time for an upgrade.

I order a new system and have it overnighted, which then begins the daunting task of retrieving and backing up files from a system that gives me no more than about 10 minutes at a time, and freezes constantly. It took all day Monday and a good portion of Tuesday to finally get all of my most important files onto an external hard drive. The best part though, was all the crazy error messages I've never seen before; including my favorite which popped up when I was attempting to reboot the shitbox computer, that said "You do not have permission to restart or shut down this system"

Once the new system came in I realized that it didn't like the way the network runs and most of my equipment that is hooked up to it won't work. Here it is, Thursday night, and I'm still only 75% running. It's been one full week since I completed any real work, and the customers are starting to get antsy. I managed to get something done today, but tomorrow is going to be a nightmare and I'm actually considering going back to work late tonight to try and catch up a bit more. By the way, if anyone out there knows anything about networking an Intel based Mac (Mac Mini) with (another) Winblows 2000 Professional system, please...PLEASE drop me a line either in the comments or right to my email (you can find it on my homepage) Before you start suggesting I upgrade the 2000 box, just know that it's not an option. I am running very specific software to run a very specific machine from it, and upgrading is not an option.

On top of some new nature shots I also got the chance to check out HAIL! - The Heavy Metal super-group-cover-band featuring David Ellefson, Tim "Ripper" Owens, Andreas Kisser, and Mike Portnoy - in New York City on Tuesday night. I will have photos from that up soon as well. Ya know, once the dust settles and all my machines are working nicely together again.

Anyway, I just thought I'd let you all know why there hasn't been an update like I promised.

More soon, I promise
-Rob