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Bailey

Priceless

What a Ziggy week I've had.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong! A while ago, I hooked up a cable modem, changed virus and firewall protection, bought a new mouse and some new programs. Initially, I had a few problems but they were resolved and things were going along very well. Then about a week ago things started gradually to go haywire. It seems the additions and changes were all just catching up with each other, and they weren't getting along.

First my email was affected. Since I was working with new “internet security,“ I assumed the problem had to do with that program. I followed the instructions for “what to do if...“ and made the necessary adjustments. Now pages were coming up with missing links, certain sections of the page missing or totally distorted. The strange part was it didn’t happen all the time. It was about this time I found the email problem had nothing to do with the programs - it was a cable problem. The cable service had been unstable and then it went down for three days.

Later I would learn that the problems I had were actually a series of different problems that happened to occur at the same time. Every once in awhile things still go awry. I was zipping along the other day doing submits, it happened again. I wasn’t able to get to the submit pages. I decided to shut off the "internet security" for 5 minutes, finish and then address the problem. However, when I turned it back on I had been infected with a virus that "internet security" couldn’t delete or quarantine. I followed prompts for an hour before I was finally able to contain it!

Then my domain was set to expire and I have been trying to renew it. But, I was having trouble logging on to the registrar. I sent email and called my host, they weren’t able to help. And to complicate this even more, they never received my email address change, so there was no way to track anything. A few days later as I was reviewing my bank statement there was a $34.00 charge for the domain name. It had been renewed automatically, which was good, but It was twice as much as I had previously paid! And I still had to address the email situation, I figure I have a year to work that one out.

It was FINALLY Friday. As luck would have it, I would be able work this evening. My boys had early games on Sat. so by 9:00pm, I was already at my desk working. I figured I could work for about 3-4 hours. It wasn’t long before I heard my 3 teenage boys rooting around in the kitchen. It was snack time, AGAIN. They were a little rambunctious but I figured they'd get something to eat and settle down. I continued working and then suddenly there was a loud CRASH!

there was the sound of glass breaking and lots of yelling. As I jumped up I knocked the mouse and a bottle of water off the desk. Well, It seems my two older boys decided to wrestle to see who gets the last bowl of fruit loops, and knocked over our grandfather clock (which my father in law made for me)and it fell into the 150 gallon fish tank.

Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. The only thing broken was the face of the clock and a big gash in the frame of the fish tank. Angry, annoyed and upset I went back to my office to continue working. I had forgotten about the mouse and when I picked it up the tracking ball was missing. This mouse stays stationary and you move the cursor by rolling the tracking ball with your thumb. The tracking ball is a little smaller than a ping pong ball and is bright red. I couldn't find this ball anywhere! I tore my very small office apart, moved furniture and pulled out files from drawers. I COULD NOT FIND IT!

As I was crawling out from under the desk for the hundredth time, I came face to face with my 65 pound, 6 month old yellow lab puppy. He was in the office before, during and after this whole episode. I thought OH NO!! he could have easily picked it up and swallowed it. Labs are known for eating weird things. I was concerned 1. because if he did swallow it could cause a problem, and 2. he's not actually my puppy.

My "other job" is raising and training puppies to become guide dogs for the blind. I had to let my supervisor know there was a possibility he could have swallowed this ball. They opted to x-ray him, which involved sedating him and keeping him overnight in the animal hospital. It turns out he didn't swallow the ball after all...I found it a day later lodged in the toe of my sneaker. How it got there I'll never know.

Cable modem, email problems, firewall and virus troubles... 3 days work

New glass for clock, xray and hospital stay for the dog... $550.00

The joy of working from home... priceless

Just (what is now) my newbie one cent worth.

Bailey