Break is Over - New Computer

Break is over and it’s back to the grind stone, otherwise known as my classroom, and back to being with some 900 plus middle school kids running around everywhere. It’s like a small city, this school campus. When I was a kid, I went to a school where there was one class for each grade, you know one 1st grade class, one 2nd grade class, etc. Well this school has up to six classes of each grade, albeit the grades begin with Fifth Grade, and up to Eighth. That’s a lot of kids.

But I had a good break. Took the family to the snow, near Pinecrest Lake. The kids played in the snow, and because I’m no skier, I was pelted with snowballs non-stop.

When we got back, the most significant happening was Dave, the top man at Virtual Tales, had assigned me an editor, and as I’ve already talked about in last week’s posting, the editing has begun.

But there was one more happening, something that kept me occupied all of Friday, most of Saturday, and a little bit of Sunday. My computer malfunctioned. Now for a writer, that could be a crisis, even a tragedy, if his/her work is lost. But that didn’t happen. First let me say I will never buy an HP computer ever again. About two years ago, I grew weary of my old Dell being such a slow computer. So I went to Fry’s and told them I wanted their fastest computer. They sold me the HP m9650f desktop computer. And for the first six months, I loved it. I use my computer for writing books, of course, but also for researching everything I need to know about to write said books. That’s why I want fast action. Of course, I use Dictionary.com, and all the other online resources a writer needs at his/her disposal. And again, I want fast action. And the HP m9650f gave me that fast action.

But after that six month honeymoon, the HP started freezing up on me. Every single darn day. I would start it up, and sure enough, ten minutes later it would freeze, or it would crash right to blue screen. Now after restarting the thing, it was back to normal, and wouldn’t freeze or crash again for the rest of that day, but the next day, it happened all over again.

A computer-wise friend solved the problem for a while, but a few months later, it started happening again. So, I just dealt with restarting the computer ten minutes after working, being sure to have saved anything that needed to be saved. But last Friday, another problem started happening. The screen image distorted for seemingly no reason at all. Have you ever seen it? The image seems to stretch horizontally, and also gets all fuzzy or blurry.

A new video card my friend said I needed. You know what? Forget it. I’m not going to deal with this thing anymore. So off to Fry’s I go, and right now I have a brand new Sony Vaio J Series. Talk about superior. No more tower, no more wires, no more cables. It’s the way a writer is meant to work in this 21st Century.

So heed my advice. Never buy an HP computer, unless you are going to use it for parts. That’s all.