Friday. And gads am I tired.

I spent the first two days of the week at home trying to get over a sinus infection. I'd feel ok, but whenever I did anything, I'd start running a fever again. And talk about not being able to sleep! Tuesday night, I never did go to sleep! BUMMER! Wednesday morning, I straggled to work like a lobotomized zombie. (Is that anything like a Republican?)

Mid-AM, the fever hits again, so off to the clinic I go. Turns out there was a 90-minute+ wait. Another waiting room of coughing sick people. Finally, I get called back. The doctor orders a white cell count blood test. Which shows zilch. He said I most likely had a virus on top of the infection. And that it was probably at the end of its cycle. After a late lunch, I actually began to feel better.

Wednesday night I slept so well that I didn't want to get up. But I managed another day at my little desk slaving over a hot keyboard. And today was more or less a repeat of yesterday. So here I sit BUT only after a quick nap once I got home.

I dialed the call center and got a nice man in California this time. He said there was a problem with the sectors on the hard drive.. So with his help, I created a start-up floppy using my work laptop. He then walked me through a process of trying to re-format the hard drive. Which, of course, didn't work, and lead him to say the hard drive was corrupted. Well, HOT DAMN! But he also said they could over-night me a new one. Thursday when I got home, there it was by the back door. (The cats thought the box contained some type of exotic kitty food and started clawing at it within seconds.) Once I opened it, I was amazed at how tiny the hard drive was. It's about 2.5 by 4 inches! 20 G! Incredible!

It took me a while to figure out how to detach the old drive from the base. Eventually, I concluded you had to unscrew it, mount the new one, screw it in, and re-insert. Directions would have been nice. I can easily see how you could damage the new one in the process if you were not careful. I finished, then inserted the recovery disc, and off I went again. This was about my tenth time to use the recovery system, so I knew exactly what to look for.

The recovery worked fine. But I then had to go through the process of re-establishing preferences, ISP options and e-mail set-ups. I've re-installed some of the software - ftp utility, Paint Shop Pro, Norton Security, but I've still got a couple of items to go.

As before, I realized I had not made a recent backup of my e-mail or bookmarks. IDIOT! As before I remembered I had an old bookmarks file on a floppy. I insert the floppy. And I hear a variety of noises. HOLY CRAP! The drive refuses to recognize the floppy. Nothing I could do would make it work. I gave up and said I'd wait to the weekend to make another call to the call center.

I was able to upload the bookmarks to my site using the work laptop. Then download. Now, I face the task of trying to remember some of the umpteeeeen places I've been. The journals I care about are listed on my web site, so that helps.

BTW I was reading Willa's Journal last night, and she told of losing thousands of e-mail messages!

Also semi-along this line, in the process of trying to recreated bookmarks, I came across The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Remarkable site. The mags and rags section is especially exciting.

PAX!