I am writing this on my wife's computer, for which I am most thankful, one reason being that I can continue my online classes with this machine.

A few nights ago I was trying to change over some antivirus and firewall software, since my Norton updates subscription had expired. Somehow I guess I messed up and forgot to reboot or something, and was trying to disable the Windows Firewall (seeing as I was replacing it's function with ZoneAlarm)... The machine was trying to reboot, the screen went black (not blue!), and when I tried to start it up again, all I got was the initial options of the BIOS setup and the choice of whether to boot from a diskette, CD, or the hard drive. The latter option resulted in the same black screen I had seen previously.

I took the machine to BestBuy's Geek Squad department for a brief free consultation, and they said something "drastic" had been done to my operating system. They could not tell me if my 70 or so gigs of data (hundreds of documents and chatlogs, thousands of photos and images, and a ton of other stuff) were still in there. They did say that some data recovery might be possible if I buy an external hard drive and then pay them to attempt an unlimited recovery with it. (Their basic data recover service only recovers up to 9 gigs.) I could also try purchasing their advanced diagnostic and repair services to try to get the thing working again (although it's tempting now to just save up a little more money and buy and upgraded rig).

And yes, I do feel the shame of knowing that I should have made backups of all my data all along. One bit of good news is that I do have one DVD of documents, saved about half a year ago.

"Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" e_e;

Actually, things other than my computer are going pretty well. God has been good to Karysha and me, and is seeing us through the stress of moving to our new apartment and the craziness of the holidays in retail. We're making good progress on unpacking our stuff and getting the apartment organized.

We've found a great church in our new town (actually, I hear there are several great churches around here), and attended their Christmas program, which was a great combination of music and drama.

Schoolwise, I scratched by with a C in my first online class... I could have done better, but I honestly think a C was generous, given my performance (especially on the final).

Workwise, I need to find a better job than Wal*Mart. I'm thankful that I have that job, but it's time to move on and find something to put my BA to use, that pays well (or better than what I'm making, at least), and will allow Karysha to step down from her management position. She's interested in starting a side business selling Partylight(TM) candles.

Anyway, I must wrap this post up and head to work. I'm wondering of God might have allowed me to crash my comp because it was becoming something of an idol to me... (Karysha pointed out that the first words out of my mouth were an uncharacteristic utterance of "Oh my god.") -__-

Please forgive me, Lord, both for taking Your Name in vain, and for giving that old computer the importance in my life that You deserve. Thank you for being my Saviour and my Lord, which the recent Christmas season reminds us to recognize and to celebrate. Amen.

God bless and Godspeed to all of you, and may He bring you the joy of His presence!

``` VR ^ .U. ^

Fight Spam! Click Here!