18 November 2002

What a day.

I usually write these journal entries in the morning, first thing after I get to work, while the office is still quiet.

This morning began no differently than several hundred preceding mornings. I got up, took a shower, got dressed, took my daily medicine, checked my e-mail, kissed Matt, and headed off to work.

I got to work around 7:30. Parked in my usual space, noted Ted's truck already in its space, fumbled for the building key, and walked the dark and quiet corridors to my office. Put down my briefcase bag, my lunch bag, my purse. Dropped my keys on the filing cabinet. Took off my jacket and dropped it on top of my briefcase bag. I opened my purse and pulled out the floppy disk that I use to transport these files between home and work, then turned around to sit in my chair.

There was a sticky note on my monitor. It read: LIZ: PC HOSED. SEE TED.

Hosed? Hosed? I waslked around the corner to Ted's office.

He looked up with a faintly guilty grin. "Tried to log in, did you?"

"No, but I saw the note. What gives?"

Over the weekend, Ted had needed a file from my computer. Since I hadn't left it logged in or given him the password, he tried to hack into it. Specifically, he used a Linux boot disk to log into the machine and changed the Administrator password.

The machine did not reboot.

Then it did reboot, but it had lost any record of there being an Administrator, or at least, no password Ted could try would work. It also refused to work for Ted's own network password. He tried to run a repair utility.

The computer locked up when it tried to access the network during boot. Running out of time to fuck with it, Ted rebooted again with his Linux disk, located the file he wanted by brute force, and put it on a floppy.

"I ran the repair utility, though," he said. "You should be able to get in with your own password."

I showed him where I kept my administrator password, and he laughed. I tried to log in. No dice.

Not with any combination of username, password, and domain that I possessed. There was nothing else to do but wait for Sylvia, the network admin, to come in and fix it.

Sylvia started working on my computer at 8:30. I sat off to one side jotting notes on a legal pad for the novel and sending Matt phone messages. At 10:30, she decided there was nothing left to do but to ghost the partition and set up my network again.

Only her ghost image (if you're unfamiliar with ghost, let's just say it's a very fast way of making an exact copy of a computer's files - including the system files. We keep an assortment of ghosts on CD.) ... Her ghost image had the unfortunate effect of wiping out not only my corrupted OS and Applications drive, but also my data drive, where had been three years' worth of code and work.

So the rest of my morning and a significant chunk of my afternoon was devoted to re-installing applications and trying to locate old copies of my code.

The good news: This computer was given to me about three months ago, at the beginning of August. Before I got it, I moved my entire working directory to the server, en masse. It was still there, so all I had to do was move it back onto this machine. So instead of losing three years' worth of work, I only lost the last three months.

And the project that I was on most recently had server space where I had dumped the code for Ted. (Next time, I will make sure he really does have all the files before I go home.) So that was recoverable.

I actually lost about two months' worth of work on a project that's complete, so I won't need it again; two weeks' worth of work on a project I hope to the high heavens I'll never need again; and a whole mess of assorted documents and graphics and such, most of which weren't actually very important.

Oh, and let's not forget today. I lost most of today in the recovery and re-installation of a lot of things. And there are a lot more things that I'm not actually likely to need anytime soon that I won't re-install until I do need them. The Windows CE development kits. Specific hardware drivers. Oracle Developer.

Yup, it's a Monday.

The weekend? Oh, the weekend was lovely. Rained the whole time, but that was all right. We got to visit with Rachel a bit, and we did the whole birthday-presents-opening thing. And K.T. made a turkey dinner and we ate while we watched the extended version of Lord of the Rings, which turned out to be quite good, in my opinion.

(No, I'm not buying it. I probably wouldn't cry if someone decided to give it to me for Christmas, but I'm not asking for it. I'm going to wait until all three movies have been released, at which point they will release all three movies in one monster eight- or 10-disc boxed set. That's what I'm going to buy.)

Matt and I stayed home Sunday. Slept in late, lounged around being lazy, did the laundry. Ate all the caramel popcorn Rachel had given us. Made characters for the game K.T.'s going to start running on Tuesday evenings. I munched alternately on peppermints (which Rachel had given me for my birthday) and dates (which K.T. had given me for my birthday) and read my book. I tried to do some writing, but I'd get one sentence about half-written, be distracted by something, and forget completely what I was going to say.

It was nice, really, despite the rain and chill. Matt made up a new thing for us for dinner which very much surprised me - he used to be very particular about sticking to a recipe, but this was an experiment. It didn't turn out quite the way he'd planned it - the chicken could have used a little more flavor, and the sauce didn't thicken enough - but they weren't disastrous departures from the plan, and they were things that he can easily fix the next time around. And it was (slightly bland chicken and watery sauce notwithstanding) very tasty. Yay, Matt!

I'm excited about the new game. I hope it gets off the ground and that Matt and Kevin like their characters, too. Because my character concept bit me hard. I wrote almost a page of history for her, explaining her early life, and how she became a priestess, and how it is that she came to be an adventurer.

I'm not entirely certain what her personality is like, but I do know that she's almost frighteningly devout. (Of course, she's had two visions sent to her by her god, and witnessed several miracles - including one which saved her life. It would be enough to inspire a certain level of devotion.)

In any case, I like the concept very much, and I think she'll be fantastic fun to play. (Can you be Lawful Good and condone human sacrifice? Sure you can!)

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. And not just because I expect my computer to be working all day.

--Liz