Our Adventure in Europe

So, lesson #1 in Amsterdam was things here take time – develop patience or become a stress ball. Lesson #2: wine and laptops don’t mix. While I was living in our apartment sans TV and any decent radio stations I was using my laptop to play music. Curled up on the couch by the only bright light in our dark apartment (Dutch apartments have very limited lighting for some crazy reason) diligently reading for school, I turned to look up something on the internet and proceeded to knock my wine glass over onto my laptop. In case you were unaware, liquids and electronics do not go together very well! After standing there momentarily in shock, I ran to the kitchen for a towel and dried off my laptop. A frantic, ok hysterical, call to Jeff in Belgium concluded with me setting my computer on its side to dry out.

Now if you can picture me sitting in this dark apartment, without TV, without a computer (my access to the outside world), you might imagine the desperation I started to feel. The next night I returned home from school, started up the computer and a rebooting screen came on. A quick call to Jeff had me walking through the set-up menu and my computer started working. Working that is until I got off the phone with my husband, the computer locked up and then the worse thing of all……the blue screen of death and an error message, “No hard drive detected – sucker!” Ok, so that last part I added!

A shrill scream escaped from my mouth. At this point, I curled into a ball on the couch and cried, cried and cried. Now let me be the first to say that it is only a computer. I get that. No one had died. I had a roof over my head. But, when that computer crashed and EVERYTHING on it was gone (pictures, resumes, previous work portfolio, contacts, etc.) I felt so lost! Email and IM was my only connection to home at this point. It is amazing how we come to depend on these little pieces of technology. And yes, I realize I am the idiot for not having it backed up.

Anywho, several days later Jeff comes home and for some miraculous reason my computer turns on and we are able to download everything from it. Now how or why this happened given there were fry marks and wine on the hard drive when Jeff pulled it apart I can’t say. I am just immensely grateful to the computer gods that I got everything back. That was the last time that computer booted…when I tried again a few days later NOTHING. Alas, my Dell PC is gone.

But ya gotta love insurance, because we were able to order me a new computer and Jeff’s mom brought it when she came to visit in mid-September (thanks mom!). So, a few weeks later, I was back in action…with a MAC. Yes, my dear husband is thrilled he finally had the opportunity to switch me to a MAC. I am getting used to it. Needless to say beverages (adult and otherwise) are kept FAR from the new laptop. So, if I can offer any advice to those of you out there…keep liquids away from your computer and back up regularly! Then perhaps you can avoid the fetal position and buckets of tears.