Storming

Last few days the rains finally arrived.  In this neck of the woods they arrive in fine style with crashing of clouds and crackling of lightning.  The lights flicker and at times the island is without power.  And naturally that means no Internet.  I had to bail off a Piker meeting two weeks ago and that was the beginning of ickyness with my laptop.  Microstupid took that log off to download 14 urgent updates so while I was frantically trying to monitor the lightning hitting near me and trying to figure out if I should yank the power strip from the wall should it get too close or just the plug from the laptop - against all the warnings not to turn off the computer while downloads were running.  It took an hour and ten minutes.  After that my computer started exhibiting really bad behavior.  I would give it 'time outs' to little effect.  It wanted to phone home at times and say it had been bad but I know Microstupid doesn't giving a rat's furry hindquarter about any of its product once your check or credit card clears. 

Like all bad puters it went to black and gave me fits until I had to scrub its brain out.  Nathan and I 'recovered' the system and last night spent 3 hours further 'recovering'.  I still have to load my Office program so Sand's survives the next 4 eps of "The Building" without cursing Microsoft 7 I use at work (automatically configures my old Word to 7 when I load it at my desk).  So crossing fingers and toes there won't be more lightning tonight and I make the meeting.  On the plus side saw Nick and his son over the weekend and snapped more pictures.  Too bad I can't download them from my camera (yet).  Needless to say I haven't been doing much writing but much cursing. *deep sigh*

Brackish water along canal....dark and deep with gators