The story of a ridiculous day...
I know, two posts in a row - I'm giddy with the freedom of being on holiday, and being on a boat where I have time (and the ability!) to go online... *g* This is my second experimental post actually, because I'm again posting from another new device - and it's all tied up with why I didn't drive from MK to west Wales yesterday at a relaxed pace, didn't stay the night comfortably nearby and then have a wander before catching the boat, and why I had to drive for almost four hours straight to get here this morning. The best laid plans of mice and Jen and all that struck again!
The trouble was, I could not fix that problem I was having with my laptop and Windows updates and IE11 - and I have to be able to access my Job 2 website in time to do some extra work that will begin to kick in on Wednesday (yeah, while I'm on holiday... *headdesk*) What with work, too, I didn't have a chance to try and find anywhere local to help me (bad disadvantage of my new job - I'm reminding myself that the people I saw back in Somerset last weekend all told me that I looked so much healthier, and that I'd lost tons of weight, which is always nice to hear when you're a Big Girl, and is an excellent advantage of my new job *g*). Anyway - late Friday night I finally found a company online that said they could come out and fix problems in emergencies, and they replied to me first thing on Saturday, the same yesterday on which I was supposed to leave, and said they could perhaps get someone to me by 11am, which was pushing it time-wise, and gave me their hourly rate, at which I gulped and thought about how any updates etc. might take ages to sort out, given that I'd been having half of this problem for ages, and about how I could pretty much buy a new laptop for that, and how I might end up paying it even if they couldn't fix the issues. And then I thought about the age of my laptop, and how I'd found out that Vaio had gone out of business three years ago, and... I made the rather strange decision to buy a new laptop...
I know, I know - a holiday and a new phone and a new laptop all at once is rather stretching things (just as well I'll have my second job at the end of this month), but... well, apparently 2017 is the year of the nuclear option, for me - new job/house/area and all-new technology. All at once. Eep!
I'd actually been doing a bit of new-laptop research, and I finally went for a Lenovo, because it was in my price range (such as it was!) and had a i5 Kaby Lake processor, which are supposed to be good. My Vaio was an i5 (all those years ago), and it's done a good job, I reckon. So... here I am. The keyboard is comfortable for typing on my lap, but it all feels very sharp-edged (and the edge where my wrists rest really is quite sharp!) - otherwise so far so good. Windows 10 is throwing me, and I need to work out how to turn off various annoying app things, but... well. And I managed to get onto my work site yesterday.
But - what I forgot was that when you buy a new laptop it's been sitting in its box for ages, and needs lots of new updates... and updates installing, and configuring, and... gargh! And it turned out that this took not even the three hours I'd seen someone complain about online, but about six hours - aaaaaargh! The YHA chap kindly offered to stay up late to let me in, but eventually it became clear that this would be midnight or so, and I'd be driving madly in the dark through two countries in order to disturb everyone in the room when I got there, and probably not sleep very well. So it made more sense to stay at home and finish all the finicky things I needed to do in comfort, watch Doctor Who, get a (reasonably!) decent night's sleep and get up early for the drive today. So I did.
It feels weird not to have my lovely Vaio with me for the trip, with everything that's on it - my new Lenovo is naked and empty right now. I don't even have my Pros files! (Come to that, where the hell do I find My Documents etc. on this thing?!) And it's odd to have a different phone too - but I must admit it's working so much better than my lovely old slidey-keyboard phone, and although typing does feel a bit fumbly on the not-real keyboards, I'm managing it mostly... So hopefully it will all work out - and look at me, up to date in the 2010s at last!
Now that I have all this snazzy new tech though, I'm hoping to be able to keep up better with everyone. If I can actually use my phone to read/reply/post in snatched moments during the day, then it would make so much more possible! On the other hand, it may also mean that I'm bugging you more with posts - I have this shiny idea that I can post a photo from the places I visit as I'm visiting them, for instance...! We'll see, I guess, but crossing fingers. *g*
And finally - my but this boat is going up and down! I'm sitting at the stern, almost right in the middle above the wake, and the sky is blue and the sea is blue, but it isn't half busy with wee horses heads! And every now and then there's a big rumble down below, which I presume is the stabilisers kicking in extra hard, and we're crashed up and down a bit - and when I say a bit, it was enough to wake me right up when I tried to have a wee nap a while ago! Only half an hour or so to go now though - odd that it's a quicker trip to Ireland than it is to the Isle of Man, which is in between England and Ireland!
The trouble was, I could not fix that problem I was having with my laptop and Windows updates and IE11 - and I have to be able to access my Job 2 website in time to do some extra work that will begin to kick in on Wednesday (yeah, while I'm on holiday... *headdesk*) What with work, too, I didn't have a chance to try and find anywhere local to help me (bad disadvantage of my new job - I'm reminding myself that the people I saw back in Somerset last weekend all told me that I looked so much healthier, and that I'd lost tons of weight, which is always nice to hear when you're a Big Girl, and is an excellent advantage of my new job *g*). Anyway - late Friday night I finally found a company online that said they could come out and fix problems in emergencies, and they replied to me first thing on Saturday, the same yesterday on which I was supposed to leave, and said they could perhaps get someone to me by 11am, which was pushing it time-wise, and gave me their hourly rate, at which I gulped and thought about how any updates etc. might take ages to sort out, given that I'd been having half of this problem for ages, and about how I could pretty much buy a new laptop for that, and how I might end up paying it even if they couldn't fix the issues. And then I thought about the age of my laptop, and how I'd found out that Vaio had gone out of business three years ago, and... I made the rather strange decision to buy a new laptop...
I know, I know - a holiday and a new phone and a new laptop all at once is rather stretching things (just as well I'll have my second job at the end of this month), but... well, apparently 2017 is the year of the nuclear option, for me - new job/house/area and all-new technology. All at once. Eep!
I'd actually been doing a bit of new-laptop research, and I finally went for a Lenovo, because it was in my price range (such as it was!) and had a i5 Kaby Lake processor, which are supposed to be good. My Vaio was an i5 (all those years ago), and it's done a good job, I reckon. So... here I am. The keyboard is comfortable for typing on my lap, but it all feels very sharp-edged (and the edge where my wrists rest really is quite sharp!) - otherwise so far so good. Windows 10 is throwing me, and I need to work out how to turn off various annoying app things, but... well. And I managed to get onto my work site yesterday.
But - what I forgot was that when you buy a new laptop it's been sitting in its box for ages, and needs lots of new updates... and updates installing, and configuring, and... gargh! And it turned out that this took not even the three hours I'd seen someone complain about online, but about six hours - aaaaaargh! The YHA chap kindly offered to stay up late to let me in, but eventually it became clear that this would be midnight or so, and I'd be driving madly in the dark through two countries in order to disturb everyone in the room when I got there, and probably not sleep very well. So it made more sense to stay at home and finish all the finicky things I needed to do in comfort, watch Doctor Who, get a (reasonably!) decent night's sleep and get up early for the drive today. So I did.
It feels weird not to have my lovely Vaio with me for the trip, with everything that's on it - my new Lenovo is naked and empty right now. I don't even have my Pros files! (Come to that, where the hell do I find My Documents etc. on this thing?!) And it's odd to have a different phone too - but I must admit it's working so much better than my lovely old slidey-keyboard phone, and although typing does feel a bit fumbly on the not-real keyboards, I'm managing it mostly... So hopefully it will all work out - and look at me, up to date in the 2010s at last!
Now that I have all this snazzy new tech though, I'm hoping to be able to keep up better with everyone. If I can actually use my phone to read/reply/post in snatched moments during the day, then it would make so much more possible! On the other hand, it may also mean that I'm bugging you more with posts - I have this shiny idea that I can post a photo from the places I visit as I'm visiting them, for instance...! We'll see, I guess, but crossing fingers. *g*
And finally - my but this boat is going up and down! I'm sitting at the stern, almost right in the middle above the wake, and the sky is blue and the sea is blue, but it isn't half busy with wee horses heads! And every now and then there's a big rumble down below, which I presume is the stabilisers kicking in extra hard, and we're crashed up and down a bit - and when I say a bit, it was enough to wake me right up when I tried to have a wee nap a while ago! Only half an hour or so to go now though - odd that it's a quicker trip to Ireland than it is to the Isle of Man, which is in between England and Ireland!