The Blue Screen of Death

I’ve been slacking on this blogging thing. Sometimes it’s like days go by and I don’t even notice. Last week was pretty uneventful. Adam worked every night so I was left alone to my own devices most of the time. I went to the gym alone on Thursday, which was ok. It was kind of busy, but I did about 40 minutes on the treadmill, liking the incline feature. Adam had Saturday off so we went out to a bar for the first time in a long time. We slept in on Saturday morning, something else that hadn’t happened for quite some time. We took some time to go shopping, but didn’t really end up buying too much. He watched the Badger game (or at least as much of that as he could – apparently they got their butts kicked) and some Ultimate Fight thing later on in the evening while I took a nap and tried to alleviate my headache. He worked again on Sunday so that left me to watch the Vikings win and the Packers lose. All is right with the world. When he got home we went bowling (which had been the original intention on Friday.) I was able to prove that I do, indeed, really suck at the game. I bowled 60 or 70 something, 91, 47. Just pathetic. I did beat Adam on the second game though. Not quite sure how that happened. In any case, we stopped at Taco Bell on the way home and called it a night after watching (most of) Desperate Housewives.

Today has been a long day. And it’s not even over yet. I planned to take the trash down to the dumpsters this morning on my way to work. On the way down the stairs, the handle on the paper bag in which I had stashed the old newspapers and cardboard boxes decided to rip off and the whole thing went tumbling down the stairs, spewing newspaper et al all down the stairs. I should have taken that as a sign… When I got to work, I turned on my computer and surveyed the mess that is my desk. As soon as I logged in and the startup scripts started running, I got the “blue screen of death.” Now, this had also happened last Friday, at which point I called the IT helpdesk and someone came down and looked at it. Apparently they forgot the part where they’re supposed to FIX it. *sigh* So, right away at 7:30 I called the helpdesk again. Got a different person and told him the lowdown. He said he’d inform the person I’d worked with on Friday what was going on when she came in (around 8:30.) Ok. Fine. I putzed around for a bit trying to find something to do that didn’t involve a computer. Hard to do these days. I decided to finally get rid of a bunch of file folders from 2004 that have been sitting on my desk since…well…2004. That done, I sat and waited. And waited some more. As 9:00 rolled around, I gave the consultant from Friday a call to her direct line. I got her voicemail (shocking, I know) and left her a message. Time ticked by with no response. Around 9:30, I called the helpdesk again and got a third person. I told her what was going on and she said she’d ask the other two how things were going and they’d get back to me. Sure. As I grew more bored, I decided to go offer my assistance to anyone who might need some (non-computerized) help. The first person I asked was Sue, the receptionist. Rather than give me any work, she decided to call the head honcho up in the IT department and get to the bottom of this whole thing. HH tells Sue that first IT person (from Friday) will call me. So I head back to my desk and wait for the phone to ring. And wait some more. Finally my manager is just as frustrated as I am so SHE calls the helpdesk. Surprisingly (or perhaps coincidentally) she gets the person I had worked with on Friday. Said IT person claims she didn’t know that no one had come down yet. Uhm, yeah. Ok then. I think the helpdesk needs to work on their communication skills. So, at about 10:45 I finally get someone to come down and look at my computer. It progressed throughout the morning to bluescreening as the login scripts started to bluescreening before I even logged on, to bluescreening about a minute after startup. I actually got a read an email once! Anyway, when the IT person got down here, it let me log in and gave her no problems while she read error logs, did diagnosis crap, downloaded and installed drivers. Pfft, I don’t know. I’m no IT person. I regained possession of my computer a little after 11. It appears to be working for now, but I’m not holding my breath that I’ve seen the last of the evil blue screen. I’m just hoping it doesn’t take 3 ½ hours to get it working the next time. You’d think the fact that I wasted that much time waiting around would have made the day go faster. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to work that way.

Not quite sure what the plans are for tonight. Adam has off, so we’ll be going to the gym for awhile. After that things are pretty much up in the air.

The coming weeks don’t look too exciting either. Next week I have the IMA meeting up in Green Bay. It’s a joint meeting with another chapter so I’m hoping the meal collections aren’t too messed up. The meal choices leave a bit to be desired: shrimp scampi or filet mignon. I’m probably going to go with the filet mignon in the hopes that it comes with side dishes that are more appetizing than the shrimp. Adam tells me to eat at McDonalds on the way there and then bring the filet mignon home for him. We’ll see. I’ll be up in New London two or three times this month since I have to do a fixed asset inventory. I’m pretty sure 95% of the stuff on the current list is nonexistent, but I still have to wander the plant looking for it. *sigh* Other than that, not a lot is going on. It looks like Adam will be working both Thanksgiving and the day after. I’ll most likely be cooking a chicken on one of those days since I dislike turkey and I’ll have a lot of spare time.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got. I plan to start working on an “end of the year” letter at some point. That should be fun, given the reactions I got to the one I sent last year. Heh.