Going to HigherEd Web in Austin

My first conference since joining UB and my first professional conference in years. Roswell used to send me to work the booths for their conferences (not that I fit the classic definition of a booth babe by any stretch of the imagination) but I don't think I've traveled for learning in over seven years, maybe longer. I am truly looking forward to a chance to think outside of the box.

Let me know if you're going to be there too!

Be careful of word choices

Well, I had no idea how using the word crash to title my first blog for the month would come to signify the whole month of August for me.

My home computer is still getting repaired. They fixed the first issue I sent it in for, but broke the fan in the process. So, when we booted it up, it sounded like an airplane was landing. Back to the store and back to another two weeks of warranty repairs. So glad I had the extended warranty, but getting annoyed that we still don't have it back and school starts next week.

But in the rest of the month I've been affected by road crashes (one solid hour on thruway in middle of nowhere due to a major accident in front of us), emotional crashes (leaving my oldest at college) and bone "crashes" that sent my Mom to the hospital for surgery. It has been a roller coaster of a ride. I am glad to see September at the end of this week.

Crash!

So, two weeks ago my netbook started acting funny... needed some updates but all seemed OK. Until the day it wiped itself back to factory settings, all by itself. And then wouldn't accept any more updates and then it forgot it was a computer and became just a pretty shell of itself.
After a bit of swearing, cause my daughter had just finished a paper for her summer class on it, we launched the home computer and she dictated her paper while I typed. Got the whole thing recreated in about two hours, printed it and all seemed fine.

Until the next morning when the desktop started acting funny. And needed some updates and started losing the connection to the monitor etc. Tried a new video card but it's the motherboard. And so, the desktop is now dead.

Interestingly, both computers were purchased at the same time and set up on the same day. Makes me seriously wonder if I'm dealing with some planned obsolescence here. Just too weird that they both died within days of each other.

Since I believe the hard drive to still be OK on the desktop, I'm not freaking out as much as one might think. We do regular back-up of the data on it so even if it really did die, I have photos etc. Will have lost some video, but I have memories. We're just computerless at home right now. Which feels really weird.

The bright spot in this whole fiasco: well there are a few.

• First, because I bought extended warranties (over the objection of those who shall remain nameless) both computers are still covered. So they get fixed or I get new ones. Will just take a few weeks to sort that out.
• Second, my son is now willing to get a external hard drive to save his work at college. Might save him some of the pain his sister experienced.
• Finally, this happened before real school started, so we have time to get up and running again by September. And we're playing board games most nights now since we can't goof off online. Improved family time is the best ending of all.