Suntana's Blog Trek

On Friday, my friend Peppermint aka Linda (L2D2) wished me a Happy 4th of July and inquired as to whether I was doing anything special. I believe I replied something to the effect that unless something popped up at the last minute, I really didn't have anything special planned. Well, I mean, sure … I was originally going to go on my annual Mt. Everest climb, but that fell through the day before when I broke a shoelace on one of my Mountain-climbing Boots. As I told Peppermint, what I more likely had intentions of doing was to work on Agneta's Blog Theme if I got the Info from her on what she had in mind. That was going to be more like in the afternoon and the evening as I had plans for the morning.

I was planning to early in the morning, engage in one of the biggest and true American Fourth of July traditions. I mean, it ranks right up there with Barbecues and Fireworks in popularity. C'mon! Take a guess. What do y'all think I was planning on doing yesterday morning? Attend a parade? Go on a Hot Air Balloon ride? Water Skiing? Parachute Jump? Nah! Put all of those in a blender and you still wouldn't get the ocean of fun, which I was planning on having. No, you don't have to Google or Wikipedia it. I'll tell y'all. The cornucopia of fun in which I was, with great anticipation, itching to engage on Fourth of July morning was my Annual Fourth of July Windows Reinstall on my computer. I do other Windows Reinstalls on my computer throughout the year, but it has actually turned out that almost by tradition, I have performed one on the Fourth of July the past 3 years or so.

Hindsight being 20/20, if I had it all to do again, I wouldn't have engaged in that Windows Reinstall yesterday. As y'all no doubt noticed, I was pretty much missing in action on the OC the entire day yesterday. I had originally planned on starting the Reinstall early, like at 7:00AM. But, it wasn't to be. With having to make sure my Files were organized and updating my Backup CDs, I didn't get started until 9:30AM. With my latest Reinstall routine, if everything went all right, I could pull it off in 5 hours. Yesterday, I was going to try a new routine that could theoretically bring that down to 4 hours or so. I was going to move the AOL Install more towards the end of the routine. This is because AOL is a PITA. (Pain in the Ass) I have to manually verify / set the Settings on each of my 6 Screen Names. Then I have to engage in a series of Log Ons and Log Offs until all the AOL Updates are downloaded.

I was determined to Haul Ass Haul Shell and finish by 2:00PM or 2:30PM at the latest. Most of y'all are likely familiar with the old adage - If it ain't broke … Don't fix it! This Fourth of July would turn out to be a case where that was most certainly true. Granted to a certain extent I was performing the Windows Reinstall as a Maintenance measure since Windows 98SE is notorious for being unstable and needing periodic Reinstalls. But, I was also hoping that maybe it would neutralize the Opera navigation sluggishness problems that I've had for at least a week or more now. However, in the big scheme of things, there was NOT anything per se BROKE. Yet, I was going to, "Fix it."

My first problem of the day, yes, my FIRST of several to come, was encountered when the MS Office Suite install seemed to hang. WTF? Grrrrrrr! I HATE it when something doesn't go smoothly. I redid the MS Office reinstall, but it kept gnawing at me as to WHY did it happen and had anything been adversely affected. I was confident that I could still achieve my 4 hour target. I then got to the AOL install. It installed fine. Then I got to that PITA sequence of Log Ons & Log Offs to load the AOL Updates. That wasn't going smoothly. The Log Offs seemed to be hanging. Crap! On at least 2 occasions, I thought my computer was locked up, so I escaped out of there, which is NOT recommended because the Updates can get Fugged Up. Well, they must have indeed gotten Fugged Up because now none of the Updates were going smoothly. Nevertheless, I had supposedly finished the AOL Updates.

I went to my neighbors' place and downloaded the latest version of my avast Anti-Virus, GIMP and SUPERAnti-Spyware. I came back and installed avast. I decided to Log Off to make sure no more AOL Updates would download. As soon as I clicked on "Sign Off," I realized avast was in the process of downloading its Virus Signature Updates. Aww Shit! Son of the BEACH! I shouldn't have Logged Off. AOL Logged Off. I Logged back On. Now avast seemed to be locked up and AOL navigation was very slow. Crap! I uninstalled and reinstalled avast. Nope! Now there was still a problem with avast and AOL.

I was now in Pre-Panic mode. I decided, "Well, let me switch over to my HP Pavilion Windows XP computer and at least install GIMP in that one. I want to at least feel confident that THAT computer is still working properly." The GIMP install went without a hitch. Then avast on that computer started to download its Updates. I knew the avast Updates would take longer since I hadn't used the computer in 5 or 6 days. But, now I was really beginning to get concerned. The avast Updates download had already taken longer than it usually takes when I haven't used the computer in 5 or 6 days. I was trying to remain calm. I decided I'd just go eat and let it finish the avast Updates download. I came back and it still wasn't finished. WTF? This was NOT Good. Still trying to keep from going into Panic mode, I decided to go take a shower. I figured, "It MUST surely be finished downloading the avast Updates by then."

I came out of the shower. I went and checked on the avast Updates download status. Son of a Sewer Rat! The Fugger was still NOT finished. I concluded that it was official. Something was Fugged Up. I faced the undesired reality that I HAD to escape out of the avast Updates download. And that in doing so, I was now quite conceivably gonna wind up with TWO computers NOT working properly! But, what choice did I have? I took a deep breath and was getting ready to click on "Sign Off" when suddenly I went, "Hey, let me go check if my AOL friend Kathy replied to my E-mail already." She had replied. So, I spent a little bit of time reading her E-mail. That E-mail detour turned out to be the Lifesaver. It took just enough time so that suddenly, the Blue Box popped up, indicating that the download was complete … after 1 hour and 42 minutes. That was an aberration. It had never happened before. avast Updates are always quick and problem free. Had I not thought about checking for that E-mail Reply, I would have probably screwed up my 2nd computer also.

I then turned my attention to my main computer, my old Windows 98SE Gateway. I looked at the clock and decided, "Okay, this computer NEEDS to be working by the end of the day. I cannot afford to still be Fugging around with it on Sunday. I have other things to do … like write my weekly Blog Post. With my HP Pavilion now verified to be working and with the way my luck has gone the entire day, I'm NOT gonna waste anymore time troubleshooting and getting nowhere." So, I dove into a 2nd Windows Reinstall on my Gateway in the same day. It's NOT the 1st time I've had to go through that. I hate it with a passion when I've had to do that. Nevertheless, the 2nd Windows Reinstall went without a hitch and I did complete it at right around the 4 hours that I had predicted would happen with my Install new routine. Of course, it WAS like around 11:30PM when I finished. To think that I was supposed to have been long before that finished at 2:00PM!