August 02, 2004 - 10:26 am
I asked Stacey to start making a lot of noise in the morning so I'd want to wake up and hang out before she left for class (giving me a reason to be out of bed in time to go to work at a reasonable hour). She came through.
About ten minutes before she left she put on some songs from the Willy Wonka soundtrack and turned it up as loud as she could. She even came in and did a dance.
A pleasant way to wake up? Yes.
Was I ready to wake up? No.
You see, last night while thinking about working (and luckily not yet doing so), ol' Babycakes started making spooky sounds and running quite slowly. After an attempted reboot, all I got was an error screen and a dirty look.
And just like that, Babycakes was in danger. So close to death I could almost see the magic escaping from her. I turned her off and caressed her, trying to give her peace in these trying hours. But this was all I could do. It was a job for a hero.
And this is why I called Jeff Slutter.
He arrived like a doctor with his little black bag (though by "black bag," I mean "cd folder and toolkit") and grim determination. He pulled things out, put them back in, all the while keeping me posted on her chance of survival. All I could do was sit at his side and watch in horror as my beautiful baby choked and coughed, sputtered into windows again and again only to crash.
Nonetheless, we remained vigilant. After about two hours, we were finally able to run into the burning mess that was windows and grab the files that were worth saving before the whole thing crashed down on us.
It was a sad time. Hard drives aren't cheap when you're Megan and have no money. We did some window shopping online to find that even if we were real tricky, it'd still cost me more than I could afford. I poured myself a drink, threw down my wallet, closed my eyes and hoped it would be over soon.
But in a last ditch effort to avoid such a purchase, Jeff suggested we tear down the lego castle that was my hard drive and put it back together again, to see if some reformatting was all it needed.
And THIS is why Jeff Slutter is a hero. By 2am not only was Babycakes running like a trooper once more, but she had regained a hearty percent of her old programs and is ready for my loving care to bring her back to 100%.
It was a close call, and I was scared...But it's times like these that help us to appreciate the things that are really important-like a slim little laptop that faithfully carries your work in your backpack to any place with wireless access. Or a friend that will spend the remaining hours of his birthday holding vigil over the aforementioned laptop.
Thank you, Slutter. Thlutter.
