Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A Lost Journey

I was on a very different adventure yesterday. This one was not nearly as fun as my usual journeys. It was full of pain and disappointment, but then finally a ray of hope in my darkest hour. I thought I might be lost for a long time, but then because of my long time experience and navigational skills, I have now found my way back to civilization!

What kind of fantastic journey was this, you say? It wasn't what you might expect at all. Have I been just a little misleading? Only slightly! All of this has happened, but not in quite the way you might think. I have been down a dark path, and I'm not completely free of it yet.

Okay, I'll finally tell you what happened. When I got home yesterday, I noticed that my computer had crashed. I figured it wasn't a big problem, computers crash all the time, and they usually only need a reboot. Not this time.

When I restarted the computer, it seemed fine at first. But then I decided to run one simple program. It was Freecell. That's all, just a stupid little card game! The video screen immediately went blank! What was going on here?

I tried everything I could do to recover while still in Windows, but it wasn't happening. So I had no choice but to hit the dreaded reset button on the front of the computer. Since I was stupid enough to upgrade to Vista awhile ago, it took forever to go through everything. I went through this a few more times before I finally thought I needed to try something else.

I restarted again, but before the computer could get all the way to Windows, I did a few different things this time. I finally got to a screen that asked if I wanted to go into Safe Mode. Well of course I did! Unsafe Mode wasn't working, so what choice did I have? After what seemed like an eternity, the computer finally settled into Safe Mode, and at least it wasn't crashing here.

I won't bore you with any more of the little details, but I had to shut off most of Windows' features. That seemed to do the trick, because when I restarted the computer, it wasn't crashing anymore. I have access to some things, but others are still far away down the path.

At least I'm now out of the woods. I can now see the end of this awful trip into oblivion, and I feel as free as a bird. After some more investigation I should have everything solved. I'm glad I spend half my time as a computer geek. Without that, I would have been lost in a dark scary place forever.

Tomorrow I'll be back with something a little more about nature, but right now my mind can't get off this lost journey. Even so, I hope you enjoyed the pictures from today. The bird in the last one has been a fun mystery to me, that I have yet to solve. See you next time.

8 comments:

  1. The computer seems to be working now. I hope it stays that way!

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  2. Kallen - It's working, but it's still a little crippled. I have the problem under control now, so I'll be running fine later today.

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  3. I had my own computer adventure yesterday that I never did get fully resolved. It rained here so I went on a 'Safari'. I had gotten reports from some Mac users that my blog wasn't viewable so I installed Safari and saw for myself. It took most of the day to get the blog to display even bass ackwards. That browser reads code in mysterious ways that I can't figure out. I'd love to give the blog theme and it's creator a good 'boot' about now. (my website displays fine)

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  4. Reminds me of how we sometimes are with people in our lives. We sometimes take things for granted. Then, something traumatic happens that threatens losing them. Sometimes we even do lose them, leaving us heavy hearted that we did not have closure. Other times, we do some rescue work and it repairs things and we remember to appreciate what we had in the first place. But there is always fear that something bad may happen again. But when?
    This makes us appreciate every single moment that we get with them, now, and here...

    The Retirement Chronicles

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  5. This is called modern age syndrome. We are addicted and too much depend on this little machine. We are in chaos once it is out of control.

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  6. WiseAcre - I love playing around with computer stuff, but when it becomes an emergency it's never a fun thing. So far, my only theme problem has been a few graphics not displaying in the same place for all browsers. I went into geek mode, and joyfully tinkered around with the code until I got it right though. My new problem seems to be an unruly program, but I have it turned off now.
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    The Retired One - It is very similar. The big difference for me though, is that computer problems are much easier for me to solve, and people problems just mystify me. I can logically narrow down any computer problem, but I almost never seem to get things right with people.
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    Rainfield - Yes, without our technology most of us would be lost. It would be a very bad thing if we all lost it one day. Hopefully all technology problems turn out to be solved at least as easily as mine was for me.

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  7. HA... not fun to have computer issues even though you can fix them. I used to feel the same as you (computers / people), now they all just seem to frustrate me! Glad you got it back pretty much to normal- I'm soon you'll be all well soon. (I've avoided Vista so far)

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  8. Sharkbytes - I'm pretty sure I've got the problem narrowed down, but I haven't had time to finish it up yet. The computer is stable though. I'd completely skip Vista if I were you. It has some nice features, but in the end they're not worth it because of the huge problems.

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