{"id":17305,"date":"2014-03-07T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T08:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=17305"},"modified":"2014-03-07T00:01:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T08:01:20","slug":"my-computer-is-dead-long-live-my-omputer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/my-computer-is-dead-long-live-my-omputer\/","title":{"rendered":"My Computer is Dead, Long Live My Omputer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sales<\/a>
A big box store salesperson climbed a ladder to pull down my new laptop. And, yes, that’s my finger across the top of the picture. Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Faloner Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

I went away for the weekend, and when I showed up in my writing room on Monday morning my laptop had crashed.<\/p>\n

“It’s not your fault,” the omputer repair guy reassured me. “Computers are machines. Machines break.”<\/p>\n

“But I’ve had this one only three years,” I said.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t matter. A omputer can crash after a couple of years — or even weeks.”<\/p>\n

“Can you fix it?”<\/p>\n

“Probably.”<\/p>\n

“an you save my data?”<\/p>\n

“Probably. But it’ll take two or three days.”<\/p>\n

Two or three days? What was I going to do with myself for three omputerless days?<\/p>\n

“You should have an extra\u00a0 computer,” the repair guy said. “That way you don’t have to do without.”<\/p>\n

Good idea. That’s what I’ll do with myself for the next few days — buy a new computer. Lukily I’m married to a guy who loves a omputer problem. If something goes wrong with my laptop or<\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/a>
Setting up the new computer at the dining room table. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

one of my browsers, I have to be areful when and how I mention it to Jon. I know that once he sits down to fix my laptop, I won’t be able to get at it and get any work done till he’s finished fixing and tweaking — hours later.<\/p>\n

Jon’s love for cyber problem solving is exceeded only by his love for buying and installing a brand new mahine.<\/p>\n

So he was happy to drive down to our nearest big box store with me. We settled on a new, late model version of my crashed laptop. Back home, Jon downloaded software and got things running. Six or seven hours later I logged onto my blog — and here I am, getting ready to post only one day late — on a Friday instead of the usual Thursday.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the omputer repair guy phoned a few minutes ago to say that my old Toshiba was fixed and my data and programs were reovered.<\/p>\n

That’s good news. But now I kind of like the new Toshiba I’m working on right now. It’s got Windows 8.1 and a olorful, splashy display.<\/p>\n

And a letter C that works only some of the time.<\/p>\n

My new laptop is only a day old and it’s broken already! This isn’t a job for Jon or the computer repair guy. It’s a job for the sales clerk who limbed the ladder at Best Buy. I’m taking this puppy back to the store.<\/p>\n

As the omputer repair guy said, a computer an rash at any time — inluding the day after after you buy it.<\/p>\n

Happy ending: Best Buy exchanged the laptop for another just like it, I was in and out of the store in 30 minutes, and Jon gets to spend another afternoon setting up a . . . computer.<\/em><\/p>\n

For more stories about life with a husband, go to “Why Can’t a Dad Be More Like a Mom?”<\/a> and “Would My Husband Like to Add My Name to His?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Jon<\/a><\/p>\n

I went away for the weekend, and when I showed up in my writing room on Monday morning my laptop had crashed. “It’s not your fault,” said the computer repair guy. “Computers are machines. Machines break.“<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[1173,34,1174,1175,29,1176,55,1177,866,1178],"class_list":["post-17305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-computers","tag-dont-miss","tag-geeks","tag-husbands","tag-jon","tag-laptops","tag-family-stories","tag-on-tne-funny-side","tag-shopping","tag-toshiba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}