A thoroughly frustrating day!

It has been a very very long and annoying day.

Can't find my power cord for my laptop - I always keep it in my knapsack with the computer, so no idea how they got separated... suppose it could be worse - could have cord but no laptop! But anyway, incredibly frustrating... have looked everywhere and then some, and so has Ross... but no joy.

Called Staples - where I bought the laptop and they would happily sell me one for the low low price of $120... I think not! Toshiba website was horribly annoying so finally gave up trying to order through there and called them instead - would it kill them to post the 1-800 number on the website? Apparently! Had to call Markham number and listen to stOOpid recording twice to get the number - couldn't get it first time through; wasn't expecting it so wasn't ready with a pen. Anyway, when I finally waded through oceans of ~press one for English, etc etc crap~ got to a real live person (WHY OH WHY did I have to tell them English more than once? makes no sense!) ... he was very helpful and is shipping one out to me tomorrow .... should only take "a day or two" ... I hope hope hope he was telling the truth.

So anyway ... laptop is useless until the cord gets here, so my very wonderful husband said that I could have my birthday present early "Go into Staples and buy your keyboard" .... thought being that once I have keyboard could use lifedrive for working on my stories etc when I'm not at my desk... great idea but!

Went to Staples and 2 keyboards to choose from - one made by Belkin, $20 less than the one made by Palm but doesn't say Lifedrive in the list of models supported... buddy who is supposedly to offer customer service shrugs and says that he dunno... but why not take it and if it doesn't work, bring it back within 30 days for full refund. No, see, I am teaching tonight, which means that I am going to Barrie, and I want to be able to go to East End and work for a bit before class... that's kind of the whole point to the whole go buy the keyboard 2 weeks early thing.

Besides, when you figure that it costs at least $12/hour to have D. covered off for me to run stupid trips to see stupid people - made sense to me to pay the extra money and get a Palm brand keyboard that says right on it that it works with the LifeDrive.

Ask me if it worked?


ANYWAY! So I go to Shopper's Drug Mart to pick up D.'s prescription for her nitro patch and again they're giving me only one month's worth. All of her other meds, they give me all of what the doc prescribed at once - so only pay the $6 and whatever cents the one time. But for some reason, these ones, they have decided, we should pay that $6+ for each month. Twit at the counter shrugs and says that's the way it is, so I ask to speak to someone else, who also says that's the way the prescription was entered in the computer; nothing they can do. GRRRRRRRRRRRR! We'll see about that - will call doc's office tomorrow and get a Rx for 4 months worth and stand there and demand they fill it.

So then I come back home to muck about with the LifeDrive and keyboard. No joy. It just plain old wont work. Instructions say to go to Apps, Keyboard - but not a flipping word about what to do when Keyboard does not appear under apps... and usually I can google a solution to whatever, but coming up with NOT A DAMN THING THAT HELPS and I'm running late and have to leave and - did I mention I have a nasty cold? Tamara's fault! - so finally I give up and head to Barrie.

I go to East End and they're out of newspapers and I have no computer and so I write the 'old fashioned way' - not a story...a journal entry about children who shoot themselves in the foot? feet? so that they don't graduate when they're supposed to and what the hell did I do that not just 1 but both seem determined to have holey feet - with a pen and paper for the very short time I have left before class. Head over to the college early and lo and behold, the doors are locked! Well, now! I feel welcome - wonder how the 10 people who are signed up for a very beginners computer course are going to feel?

I call security and nicely ask for someone to come and unlock the front door to the building and am told that there is no need; the back door is open and there are no classes this week anyway. I inform the man that there is in fact a class, and it is of new-to-the-college students and I would very much appreciate it if he would please come and unlock a door for us. He wants to argue ... silly silly man. Fortunately, he did not show up himself, but rather sent someone else ...who not only opened the door, but also asked if I needed the door to the classroom opened as well...I didn't, it was open ... but it was nice of him to check.

So then my students showed up and as happens quite often, were unable to log into the computers - someone had, once again, neglected to make sure that their accounts were activated...something I complain about regularly but oh well... it is a new semester, after all. No big deal ...I call the support desk and ask that he either fix the accounts or give me guest logins for them. How many do you need, he asks. I tell him, and he goes away for a bit and then comes back and says that he is unable to provide me with guest logins unless we all truck over to his desk with photo ids. Excuse me? I think NOT! I suggest that perhaps he is mistaken, as this is a frequent occurence and I have not once had an issue with getting training accounts (although I hate having my students in them as it causes all sorts of grief with saving files and so on but that is another rant!) He goes away for another 5 minutes or so and my class is getting restless and I am getting very CRANKY ...finally he comes back on the phone and insists again that there is nothing he can do and... I hang up!

I ended up logging them into my personal accounts - I have 2, one staff and one student.... but what a pain in the arse! By the time we got all that sorted out, it was 7:20 *SIGH* I am not putting up with this sort of crap all semester - have about had it with this game. From now on am going to request training accounts be set up prior to the start of each course.... enough already... it gets things off on a very negative footing... makes the college - and me - look bad and I am so very tired of it.

So ANYWAY... then I drove home and mucked about with LifeDrive some more... still haven't got it working... and to make me even more ~happy~ I did a hard refresh of the life drive ... and then realized that the disk to reinstall the software for the whole thing is - yup - in the laptop! Which I can not open because it has no power and there is likely a way to force the drive open but honestly, tonight I am so tired and so cranky that I think perhaps that forcing it right at the moment would be a bad idea!