MY PRECIOUS!!!

There are many MANY ways to become frustrated.  I'm an expert at it.  It would help tremendously if the computer people would give you the once over upon purchase of their machines.  It seems now they just mail them to you and you're on your own.

At any rate HERE SHE IS!!!  My PRECIOUS, a beauty to be sure with her cute little apple on the front.  This is as far as I got before heading outside to confront my gutters.

 The first order of business was cleaning out that leaf stuffed gutter.  In my defense, the entire roof on the front of the house drains to one little gutter about 20 feet wide.  I drug the tall ladder from the garage and set up in three inches of water standing in the flower bed.  

I crawled up in anticipation of this being a quick pull-the-leaves-from-the-gutter hat trick.  I almost broke my finger as I jammed it into the leaves which turned out to be solid mud, filling the entire gutter to the brim.  There were maybe ten leaves.

Good grief ... how does that happen?  I threw plop after plop of goo onto the ground, which splashed goo and water everywhere.  Those gutter screens they make would keep the leaves out, but the dirt would just flow right through and I'd be taking the screens off to get the mud out.  What a mess!!

When I was done, I had to get a hose to wash the side of the house and the ladder.  I thought I was clean as a whistle, until I went inside to get the bleach to sanitize the water tank.  I changed into another old pair of jeans so I didn't get dirt everywhere.

 

 

 

This job involves bleach and a long hose.   It happens that my water hose has a tendency to leak if I take it on and off ... so I just leave it connected.  If you drain the water in the hose .... a daunting proposition .... you can just pour the bleach in the end and hook it up to the faucet.  Turn the water on and it pushes all the bleach into the tank.  Easy peasy.

Sadly for me, it never seems to work out QUITE that easy.  The water mostly refuses to leave the hose in spite of my contortions to make myself six feet tall.  I held it up, dumping out every drop I could.  Then I carefully poured the bleach into the hose end.  

It has worked once out of maybe ten times.  I try to raise it again to let the bleach run into the hose, but I always seem to end up with it below the correct level and bleach pours out the end of the hose all over my clothes and shoes.  

In no time I had bleach everywhere, but I hooked up the hose and turned on the water.  I then ran in the house and changed BACK into the dirty jeans so I could throw those in the wash before bleach holes magically appeared.

Dump fill dump fill and finally we were done with THAT job.  Honestly I don't know how sanitized the tank really is, but I don't drink or cook with it anyway.  Even the puppies get bottled water.

Back inside, I was ready for the unveiling of my Precious.  There are absolutely no instructions whatsoever.  I didn't even know what button to push to turn it on.  It's larger than my current computer but has fewer buttons.  Finally it came to life with this image.

I knew I probably should not do anything since my plan is to download programs from this computer to the new one.  Wouldn't you know, I can't do a backup because the only external hard drive I have that works with this computer is in Arizona.  

It didn't help that it was evening and I had no internet connection whatsoever.  I did notice you can talk to Precious ... record notes and write letters just by speaking.  Here's another one ... you cannot get in to the computer unless you have the correct fingerprint.  That is a truly bad idea.  My fingerprint degrades over time making it hard to open even my phone.  Pretty unsanitary sounding, but if you lick your finger, it will work.

 SO frustrating that I can't play with Precious.  There's no use messing with things until I download what I really need.  Besides, my internet connection in Arizona is excellent.  It will be interesting to see if my new upgraded browser works with Google or if I have to download Firefox.  What's a little more frustration!!

 And so Precious sits on the coffee table where I can admire her.  

I again had trouble getting into Google this morning.  Although this has never been a problem before, and I have not changed ANY settings, Google now thinks I have cookies turned off so it refused to log me in!!  I kept getting the we've-never-heard-of-you-or-your-email-address message.

After several attempts, it finally let me in.  Oh the joys of frustration!!!  The good news is that it gets my heart rate up without ever taking one little step!!