Thrilling Computer Updates
I checked my US Postal Service tracking number again today, and got the same message I've been getting for the last 12 days ("...notified by the shipper on February 01, 2013 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date..."). I called USPS and demanded to know where the hell my computer was. And by "called", I mean danced in circles with the goddamned voice-activated-computer system until I was reduced to simply intoning "I want to speak to a human" through gritted teeth over and over again until it gave up and patched me through to a human.
The human told me that no, that package was never given to them, and that the shipper must still have it. This after the last two calls to them have resulted in "You should be receiving that package any day now, sir".
So I called the computer company and demanded to know where my computer was. The gal on the other end clacked some keys, and said "USPS has it. They picked it up from customs on February 10th... yesterday." Dumbfounded, I asked her how she knew that. She informed that she used my tracking number. Then she told me the tracking number that I had for my package was completely wrong, and gave me the correct tracking number. The two numbers aren't even close. I have no idea what the person who gave me the original number was smoking, but I have been apparently tracking a non-existent package for the past ten days, instead of keeping tabs on my extremely expensive computer.
Your Item's Status: Your item was received by the U.S. Postal Service from U.S. Customs on February 10, 2013.
So, okay, good. Thor appears to be slowly making his way home. I don't expect he'll be here in time for my vacation (Feb 14-19), but hey. He's working on it.
♣ ♣ ♣
In other computer news, the repair shop called back about my back-up computer, Mjolnar. The sad news is that the motherboard is shot; to get another one, I will have to call directly. Without the motherboard, all data on the hard drives is lost - they were in a RAID configuration to increase their performance/speed (which means both drives would write part of the file to their respective selves simultaneously), so without the RAID controller on the motherboard working, what I have is two drives full of data fragments.
It's not a total disaster -I backed up the documents and data on January 30th, so I really only lost about a week's worth of data- but there was some software on that system that is irreplaceable (current "upgraded" versions of that software does not work in ways I want it to).
I'll need to find out how much it would cost to get a replacement motherboard from Dell, figure out if I can install it myself or if I would need professional assistance, and then assess if it is worth the effort. I rather suspect that ol' Mjolnar will be riding the rainbow bridge to cannibalizationgaard.
Dang.
The human told me that no, that package was never given to them, and that the shipper must still have it. This after the last two calls to them have resulted in "You should be receiving that package any day now, sir".
So I called the computer company and demanded to know where my computer was. The gal on the other end clacked some keys, and said "USPS has it. They picked it up from customs on February 10th... yesterday." Dumbfounded, I asked her how she knew that. She informed that she used my tracking number. Then she told me the tracking number that I had for my package was completely wrong, and gave me the correct tracking number. The two numbers aren't even close. I have no idea what the person who gave me the original number was smoking, but I have been apparently tracking a non-existent package for the past ten days, instead of keeping tabs on my extremely expensive computer.
Your Item's Status: Your item was received by the U.S. Postal Service from U.S. Customs on February 10, 2013.
So, okay, good. Thor appears to be slowly making his way home. I don't expect he'll be here in time for my vacation (Feb 14-19), but hey. He's working on it.
♣ ♣ ♣
In other computer news, the repair shop called back about my back-up computer, Mjolnar. The sad news is that the motherboard is shot; to get another one, I will have to call directly. Without the motherboard, all data on the hard drives is lost - they were in a RAID configuration to increase their performance/speed (which means both drives would write part of the file to their respective selves simultaneously), so without the RAID controller on the motherboard working, what I have is two drives full of data fragments.
It's not a total disaster -I backed up the documents and data on January 30th, so I really only lost about a week's worth of data- but there was some software on that system that is irreplaceable (current "upgraded" versions of that software does not work in ways I want it to).
I'll need to find out how much it would cost to get a replacement motherboard from Dell, figure out if I can install it myself or if I would need professional assistance, and then assess if it is worth the effort. I rather suspect that ol' Mjolnar will be riding the rainbow bridge to cannibalizationgaard.
Dang.