Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Wednesday Reads and Computer Woes

This has not been a good week. On Saturday, Big Red (my laptop) was running so slow, I couldn’t get anything to work right. Hubby looked at it and said my disc was full. Except it wasn’t. Something was using up all the disc space, but we couldn’t see WHAT!

On Sunday, I was able to back up my files (thank GOD!!). It took several hours, but I got it done. Hubby took Big Red to work for them to look at (pays to work in the IT dept, huh?).

The bad news: my hard drive was bad. The worse news: he couldn’t copy anything over to the new (solid state) drive we bought, which meant I had to start all over again as if I had a new computer.

It was not easy being without a computer for so long. Hubby gave me another laptop to use, but I basically used it to read e-mails, which I got super far behind in reading (heck, I’m still trying to get caught up). Didn’t help any that I had signed up for two classes that started this week, either. It’s been a mess.

But I have Big Red back now (which should work faster with the solid state drive) and just in time for this week’s post!

Here’s what I finished reading this week:

Book #1

Dates read: December 28 – January 2
Title: Day Shift
Year of publication: 2015
Author: Charlaine Harris
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series:  Midnight, Texas #2
# of Pages: 362
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased
Blurb from book: Midnight, Texas: a tiny little town with one stoplight and a lot to hide. And those who live there will do whatever it takes to keep their secrets…
My thoughts: I really enjoyed the short-lived television series "Midnight, Texas," but it’s NOTHING like the books, besides the character NAMES. Not even the descriptions are all that similar. But I’m enjoying the books and since it appears there are only three in the series and I have them all… J This book is written sort of in the omniscient view. In fact, very similar to the Dean Koontz books I’ve been reading. So it’s no first person urban fantasy here, and I’m okay with that.

Book #2

Dates read: January 3-7
Title: Night Shift
Year of publication: 2016
Author: Charlaine Harris
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series:  Midnight, Texas #3
# of Pages: 385
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased
Blurb from book: Midnight, Texas, is a sleepy Southern town whose strange and secretive residents must unite to prevent all hell from breaking loose…
My thoughts: Okay, now I found some resemblance of the books to the television series. The events in books 1 and 3 were in season 1. I’m sorry this series has ended, though. I could have read some more about this town and the characters in it.

So… When was the last time you had to start a computer from scratch? You think you know how you had everything set up, but you don’t. You really don’t. I’ll probably be fixing things for the next month or so.

Happy Reading!

Stacy

7 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Glad you could at least save everything. You'll like your new drive.
Deep breath - the rest of the week will be better.

JeffO said...

I replaced my seven (!) year old computer last year--or maybe it was the year before? I almost can't wait for this one to die, because it's kind of a piece of junk. Buy cheap, get cheap. Sorry you've had such difficulties, but it sounds like you're back on track.

The Happy Whisk said...

I love my SSD, I save my videos on there and edit videos from there as well. Glad you got to save stuff ahead of time. Being behind on class stuff is a little less fun but hey, you'll get caught up. You got this.

Stacy McKitrick said...

Alex - This drive is a lot faster, so I'm liking it a lot!

Jeff - I've only had Big Red for a few years and went through three or four hard drives within the first few months before Dell decided it was the mother board causing the problems. Hopefully it's JUST the hard drive this time.

Ivy - Hey, nice to see you again! I'm slowly getting caught up. So glad to be able to get my printer to work this morning! Yay!!

The Happy Whisk said...

Woohoo!

Maria Zannini said...

Was this the same laptop you had all that trouble with when you first got it?

I hope that's it for fixes. I've never had a problem with my computer, but I remember a washing machine I couldn't wait to replace because the computer that ran it was so glitchy.

Stacy McKitrick said...

Maria - Yeah, Big Red is the trouble maker. It went through several hard drives before Dell said it was the motherboard. I wasn't getting the same error message as then, though. Just a slow computer since it kept filling the disc up with something. My new hard drive works really well now. Maybe Big Red will be happy with this one! :D As for washing machines, I hope I never have to replace mine. I don't like the way the new ones work.