cardiomachine: 20 mins bike, 15 mins elliptical
(read Felicity Heal's REFORMATION IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND)
stretching: yes
pushups: 20
crunches: 30
breakfast: leftover pot pie, vitamins
lunch: the remains of the pot pie; it is now all gone
apartment clean: yes, I even mopped the floor
Today was my first really productive day in a little while. Of course, it was productive only in the sense that I learned that the major editors' commentary on a key passage of the Chester plays (the dice game), around which my second chapter is supposed to orbit, is, well... completely wrong. Their grasp of medieval dicing terminology is not as tight as they made it sound. It's a minor point to the editors, surely, but to me... well. Then again, this whole hard drive thing has shaken up my dissertation brain in some good ways, potentially really productive ways, and the upheaval about the dice game is probably going to turn out to reveal something more complex and interesting than I had planned.
In other words, I AM ONLY EVEN CONSIDERING OPTIMISM ON ALL FRONTS UNTIL MY HARD DRIVE IS RETURNED TO ME.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Day 3: I'm a PC
cardiomachine: 20 mins bike, 15 mins elliptical
(read James Simpson's OXFORD ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY)
stretching: yes
pushups: 20
crunches: 30
breakfast: a pear, baguette, carrot juice, vitamins
lunch: chicken pot pie (see below)
apartment clean: yes
Excuses, excuses. Okay, maybe I'm using the computer failure thing as an excuse to procrastinate on my dissertation work and the whole thing is pretty flagrant. But I am very particular, and have always been, about my work environment: everything must be just so. Working on my wife's Mac is not just so; it is just so frustrating. There doesn't seem to be any organizing logic behind all of these pretty bubbles, bells and whistles. Even the keyboard is different. And I swear that the space bar is sticking, ever so slightly, since I uh, spilled a little bit (only a little bit!) of carrot juice on the keyboard (on a PC, I could easily pry off the space bar, wipe it off, and reattach). Plus, it takes time to be on the phone with Dell Technical Support, to get to FedEx or the computer store (with no car), and so forth -- about half of my work day for the past few days, actually.
None of this really explains why I spent a good hour and a half today making a chicken pot pie. But who knew that it would be as easy as making chicken in a pot, and putting it in a pie crust, and then baking? It came out exactly as I'd hoped, the chicken slighly overdone (better to err on the side of dry than of salmonella), but the black eyed peas, parsnip, carrots, onions, white wine/cheese sauce, and crust were all right where I wanted them. I've been doing an Eric Cartman voice since then.
And I made it to FedEx, which was farther away than I remembered, and the laptop is now sent. I've resigned myself to the probability that no data will be saved. But I have hope.
(read James Simpson's OXFORD ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY)
stretching: yes
pushups: 20
crunches: 30
breakfast: a pear, baguette, carrot juice, vitamins
lunch: chicken pot pie (see below)
apartment clean: yes
Excuses, excuses. Okay, maybe I'm using the computer failure thing as an excuse to procrastinate on my dissertation work and the whole thing is pretty flagrant. But I am very particular, and have always been, about my work environment: everything must be just so. Working on my wife's Mac is not just so; it is just so frustrating. There doesn't seem to be any organizing logic behind all of these pretty bubbles, bells and whistles. Even the keyboard is different. And I swear that the space bar is sticking, ever so slightly, since I uh, spilled a little bit (only a little bit!) of carrot juice on the keyboard (on a PC, I could easily pry off the space bar, wipe it off, and reattach). Plus, it takes time to be on the phone with Dell Technical Support, to get to FedEx or the computer store (with no car), and so forth -- about half of my work day for the past few days, actually.
None of this really explains why I spent a good hour and a half today making a chicken pot pie. But who knew that it would be as easy as making chicken in a pot, and putting it in a pie crust, and then baking? It came out exactly as I'd hoped, the chicken slighly overdone (better to err on the side of dry than of salmonella), but the black eyed peas, parsnip, carrots, onions, white wine/cheese sauce, and crust were all right where I wanted them. I've been doing an Eric Cartman voice since then.
And I made it to FedEx, which was farther away than I remembered, and the laptop is now sent. I've resigned myself to the probability that no data will be saved. But I have hope.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Day 2: Screw This
cardiomachine: 20 mins bike, 15 mins elliptical
(read Felicity Heal's REFORMATION IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND)
stretching: yes
pushups: 20
crunches: 30
breakfast: one egg, baguette, carrot juice, grapes, vitamins
lunch: leftover chinese from that good place on college near ashby
apartment clean: yes
The computer situation has worsened. I finally succeeded in getting the Dell Customer Care rep to understand that not only was my hard drive suddenly not working, but the tops of the screws were becoming stripped, so that I was worried that each time he had me remove and replace the hard drive would be my last. And lo and behold, after I hung up and tried to remove the hard drive one last time -- bam. One of the screws simply will not budge, is no longer a screw by any definition. I tried. Ara tried. The hardware store tried -- actually, various members of the family-owned business emerged one by one, trying an array of different gadgets. The used computer store guys tried. We tried everything, every home remedy, every online suggestion, there are none left, don't bother, and you know what? It's Dell's problem now. I called Customer Care back and now I'm sending the whole damn thing in, and they will either extract my hard drive or they won't and if they don't then it's on them to replace everything, because everything is under bloody warranty.
Except, as the Customer Care rep pointed out, my data. Let's be honest: the chances that I will retrieve anything off of my hard drive... are low. The next person to say, "Well, I guess that's why they say you should back up every week" gets a kick to the face. I don't know why anyone (my wife, my mother) has had even the slightest impulse to say that to me. Honestly. Thanks for the life lesson.
But anyway: the last backup -- only a partial backup, really -- was in late July, it seems. Beyond that, my dissertation is relatively safe because I have been emailing various drafts of everything to various readers. Some notes have been lost, but a lot of it was deadendage anyway. My teaching files are intact as far as the middle of the summer: the second half of summer teaching is gone forever. Files I kept for fellowship apps are gone; tax forms are still there. All our music is safe. All our photographs, I'm pretty sure, are safe (except possibly for unmemorable recent ones -- not sure).
And then there is the creative stuff. I wrote a ten-minute play over the past few weeks, and as I sent it out to a contest, I kept a hard copy for myself. It is now the only copy left. I made quite a few changes, some of them very good, to my full length play GLORY FOR YOU. All of those changes are gone, and the play is reset back to the state it was in when we held a private reading of it some weeks ago. Also lost are the massive notes and drafting that went into GFY, which has taken a fuckload of research. The only other creative pursuit that has received my attention since the July backup is my NaNoWriMo project, THE PHANTOM TUTORIAL, which I only began a couple of days ago anyway (and which, miraculously, I partially emailed to myself on the first day). Still, it will be tragic to watch the NaNoWriMo progress meter drop, rather than rise, when I confirm that 3500 words of progress are indeed gone forever.
In the meantime, there are some brightsides to this. It will force me to upgrade to Windows 7 (when I get my fixed computer back), and it will give me a sense of "new beginnings" in all of these pursuits, a good few of which (the play, the chapter) had grown a bit stale in recent weeks. I just wish my new beginning didn't have to happen on my wife's Mac.
(read Felicity Heal's REFORMATION IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND)
stretching: yes
pushups: 20
crunches: 30
breakfast: one egg, baguette, carrot juice, grapes, vitamins
lunch: leftover chinese from that good place on college near ashby
apartment clean: yes
The computer situation has worsened. I finally succeeded in getting the Dell Customer Care rep to understand that not only was my hard drive suddenly not working, but the tops of the screws were becoming stripped, so that I was worried that each time he had me remove and replace the hard drive would be my last. And lo and behold, after I hung up and tried to remove the hard drive one last time -- bam. One of the screws simply will not budge, is no longer a screw by any definition. I tried. Ara tried. The hardware store tried -- actually, various members of the family-owned business emerged one by one, trying an array of different gadgets. The used computer store guys tried. We tried everything, every home remedy, every online suggestion, there are none left, don't bother, and you know what? It's Dell's problem now. I called Customer Care back and now I'm sending the whole damn thing in, and they will either extract my hard drive or they won't and if they don't then it's on them to replace everything, because everything is under bloody warranty.
Except, as the Customer Care rep pointed out, my data. Let's be honest: the chances that I will retrieve anything off of my hard drive... are low. The next person to say, "Well, I guess that's why they say you should back up every week" gets a kick to the face. I don't know why anyone (my wife, my mother) has had even the slightest impulse to say that to me. Honestly. Thanks for the life lesson.
But anyway: the last backup -- only a partial backup, really -- was in late July, it seems. Beyond that, my dissertation is relatively safe because I have been emailing various drafts of everything to various readers. Some notes have been lost, but a lot of it was deadendage anyway. My teaching files are intact as far as the middle of the summer: the second half of summer teaching is gone forever. Files I kept for fellowship apps are gone; tax forms are still there. All our music is safe. All our photographs, I'm pretty sure, are safe (except possibly for unmemorable recent ones -- not sure).
And then there is the creative stuff. I wrote a ten-minute play over the past few weeks, and as I sent it out to a contest, I kept a hard copy for myself. It is now the only copy left. I made quite a few changes, some of them very good, to my full length play GLORY FOR YOU. All of those changes are gone, and the play is reset back to the state it was in when we held a private reading of it some weeks ago. Also lost are the massive notes and drafting that went into GFY, which has taken a fuckload of research. The only other creative pursuit that has received my attention since the July backup is my NaNoWriMo project, THE PHANTOM TUTORIAL, which I only began a couple of days ago anyway (and which, miraculously, I partially emailed to myself on the first day). Still, it will be tragic to watch the NaNoWriMo progress meter drop, rather than rise, when I confirm that 3500 words of progress are indeed gone forever.
In the meantime, there are some brightsides to this. It will force me to upgrade to Windows 7 (when I get my fixed computer back), and it will give me a sense of "new beginnings" in all of these pursuits, a good few of which (the play, the chapter) had grown a bit stale in recent weeks. I just wish my new beginning didn't have to happen on my wife's Mac.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Day 1: Just Not There
cardiomachine: 20 mins bike, 15 mins elliptical
(read Leah S. Marcus's THE POLITICS OF MIRTH)
stretching: yes
pushups: 14
crunches: 30
breakfast: one egg, baguette, pear, vitamins
lunch: breaded cod filets, malt vinegar, brie and crackers
apartment clean: yes
Today is not a fitting beginning for yet another new health resolution to begin. I just spent the last four hours on the phone with, and recovering from, Dell Customer Service. The service was nice enough, it's just that the product sucks: suddenly, for no reason, it's not detecting my harddrive. It's just not there.
And the data may never be recovered. Things I lost: my ten-minute play FOUND (spent most of last week writing it, though it survives in hard copy); my first three days' work for National Novel Writing Month (5100 words); some really massive changes to GLORY FOR YOU, my full-length play; and thankfully only useless bits of my second dissertation chapter (I've been dragging my feet... and I'm glad I did).
Give me one good reason why I shouldn't switch to a Mac this Christmas. Fuck Windows. I'm serious. I'm maybe serious.
(read Leah S. Marcus's THE POLITICS OF MIRTH)
stretching: yes
pushups: 14
crunches: 30
breakfast: one egg, baguette, pear, vitamins
lunch: breaded cod filets, malt vinegar, brie and crackers
apartment clean: yes
Today is not a fitting beginning for yet another new health resolution to begin. I just spent the last four hours on the phone with, and recovering from, Dell Customer Service. The service was nice enough, it's just that the product sucks: suddenly, for no reason, it's not detecting my harddrive. It's just not there.
And the data may never be recovered. Things I lost: my ten-minute play FOUND (spent most of last week writing it, though it survives in hard copy); my first three days' work for National Novel Writing Month (5100 words); some really massive changes to GLORY FOR YOU, my full-length play; and thankfully only useless bits of my second dissertation chapter (I've been dragging my feet... and I'm glad I did).
Give me one good reason why I shouldn't switch to a Mac this Christmas. Fuck Windows. I'm serious. I'm maybe serious.
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