We still don’t have everything functional with the new computer, but we’re getting closer. I’ve determined, in connection with the CD-RW, that it sees no disks at all; I’ve also realized that in that technical information that flies across the screen during boot-up, which is gone before the monitor has warmed sufficiently to display it if it’s a cold boot, there’s a message to the effect that there is no channel 80 connection on the primary IDE, or something like that. I copied the message and delivered it to my primary computer guru, who is working on what it means in terms of what is actually wrong. I do not know whether the two items are connected, but since the CD drive is hooked on an IDE line, it seems reasonably likely that they might be. Some trouble-shooting guide somewhere suggested that the problem was probably that I have five IDE drives and most PCs only support four, but since I also have a second IDE driver card installed and three unused ports there, I’m thinking that’s probably incorrect–there wouldn’t be much market for IDE cards if they didn’t work, and I’m pretty sure that the non-functioning drive is not the one on the card.

I’ve also been dabbling at the Romans editing while running errands, including taking my sick son for medical testing Saturday morning instead of being in church. Also, since I’m dabbing at musical recordings and arrangements in my odd moments instead of playing computer games, I’ve finished more recordings from the Collision repertoire–recordings which remain on my hard drive, since I have not yet gotten the information to reconfigure my FTP program and my CD burner is still not working. I’m also locked out of the Valdron development forum because I don’t have my ID and password, and apparently I don’t know which mailbox was used to register me there. I’ve got to get someone to help me with that, I think.

There’s a rumor about that one of my sons is coming home tonight, and that I am driving him. I do not know whether either of those statements are facts, but probably will learn the truth shortly.

In the meantime, let me accomplish something.

–M. J. Young

I am still fighting with the new computer, but making progress. Here are some of the things I need to do, in no particular order:

• On the old computer, someone had told me how to set up my MicroSoft Excel in my Office 2000 so that all those Multiverser scores with “@” in the middle would not be converted to e-mail addresses. I had to reinstall the Office programs entirely, and am still reconfiguring everything, but that little annoyance needs my attention once again.
• The music program is ticking off the number of days for my free trial. It seems that when I copied the registration code onto the disk, I dropped a character, and so I’m going to have to figure out how to get the right code for it. The company has been helpful in the past when I had problems with the program, and they still send me their advertising, so if I don’t actually have the number somewhere else they’ll probably give me the missing digit. I just have to find time to ask.
• The biggest problem, really, is that the CDRW is not recognizing blank CDs. Of course, I don’t know for certain whether it is recognizing any CDs, because I ran the installs off the new functional DVD drive (which does not write). Thus I’m going to have to find a CD to use to test the other functions of the drive, and I just have not had time to do that. It is entirely possible that the problem is in the software–the computer won’t recognize my old CD burner program, so I’m working a problem in two variables, whether the CDRW works and whether the CD software works with it.
• I started setting up the FTP client and realized that I did not know any of the FTP information. I expect that the user name and password are the same ones I’ve got for the hosting service e-mail program, which does work, and that I can get the rest from the hosting company’s web site, but that’s going to take some digging.
• I also need to get my POP and SMTP information from my ISP; that is the only mailbox not yet working, thanks to some debugging of the others.
• There are probably still scores of programs on my computer I can’t access but simply have not yet tried; either I haven’t had occasion to attempt to use them, or I forgot I couldn’t. However, I’m getting there slowly.

Of course, today involved taking my mother-in-law shopping; I also took her out to dinner. It was her birthday last week, but on her birthday she refused to get dressed to go out to dinner, and over the weekend things were just too hectic for anyone down here to go up there, so it got pushed into today and fell back to me. I enjoyed it, at least for the food. She’s not a big eater, and will be feasting on her leftovers from the diner for a few days, I expect.

I’ve also made some progress on recording another song for the Collision practice CD. Of course, at the moment I can neither burn them to the CD nor upload them to the website, so my progress is sort of contained to my own benefit–but hopefully those problems will be solved, and we’ll be back in business.

–M. J. Young

I feel like I’m ahead of things today.

I probably have no practical basis for that feeling. After all, it is Tuesday, and I am supposed to be here pretty early on Tuesdays, as most of my Tuesday work is slated to follow. On the other hand, in recent weeks and in recent days I have been so far behind schedule that I have been going to bed after three, even after four, and pulling myself back into action at five, trying to stay awake until around seven (and last night was not different). However, I am awake, I am functioning, and I am progressing. I have even e-mailed one of our Collision songs to the drummer.

What will I do, being so far ahead of things? I will remember not to enumerate the total quantity of barnyard foul during their period of incubation, and focus on what I am actually doing instead of what I might do if somehow I wind up with time to do more.

–M. J. Young

This was a busier Monday than usual, as my afternoon was tapped for dealing with some important matters related to the son of a houseguest. I still had to take my mother-in-law to the store, but with the afternoon shot and supper to do it was nine at night before I reached her. Then on the way home I picked up my son from his brother–which is not really on the way, but completely the opposite direction, but still a lot less driving to pick him up while I’m there already than to make a separate trip for him.

I squeezed in the e-mail while making supper, which thanks to the premier of The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which I did not watch) had several letters concerning the Temporal Anomalies site, one of which was calling my attention to a special forum for it at the IMDB web site. I have begun the process of registering for that site so I can see that forum.

I ate supper while my computer was rebooting, which is a commentary both on how fast I wolf down my meals and on how slowly my computer functions, and now I’m trying to finish here and get some sleep before tomorrow arrives officially.

Oh, I’ve also sent a couple of music files to the drummer, so he can begin to get some idea of what I am hoping Collision will sound like. He did hear the one that is on the web, Holocaust, but I don’t know whether he got either of the ones I e-mailed him. Even so, I am going to attempt to e-mail another tomorrow, and am working on getting more of the music files converted to mp3 format (something I have not been able to accomplish on my computer, for reasons I have not been able to determine) so I can send him more.

–M. J. Young

I never did get the call to make another trip to the hospital last night; I do not know the circumstances.

I am finding it difficult to adjust to the shifts in schedules–being up late, getting up early, going back to bed. Looking at the clock, I’m not certain why it is so late as it is (after seven thirty) and I am only now arriving here. Of course, my e-mail has been completed, and there were a couple of notes requiring extended attention, but even so I feel like I’m being pushed later.

A friend has managed to strip the twelve songs off my first home-made CD, and has e-mailed them to me as MP3s; five arrived. Now I have to consider whether to resume posting these to the web site–if I can remember which songs have already been posted, now a couple years after that was disrupted. Even so, I’m glad to have the MP3 versions, as I’ve been unable to pull songs off the CDs myself, and people have wanted to hear some of these.

Now if I can remember who wanted what songs, I’ll be in good shape.

–M. J. Young

I got in late from my anniversary dinner to find a message from one of the ushers at our wedding. I’d like to say he remembered our anniversary, but the truth is he recently found my web pages (through the songs, I think–he was drummer in The Last Psalm back in the early seventies) and has called a couple times, and when he got someone else here he was told that we were out celebrating the wedding he attended thirty-one years ago. I returned his call, because he has emphasized that he is always up late, and indeed he was up and chatted with me for quite a while. Eventually he was asking about the books and the Multiverser game, and I have promised him that today I will set up the character generation thread for him, and he has promised that he will call me around ten tonight to walk him through it–he knows so little about role playing games that he thought Dungeons & Dragons™ was originally a card game. So I’ve a bit of extra work on my plate, but a new gamer on the way. I’m toying with running him in a world I’ve never even thought of running before, but it’s going to take me a bit of scrambling to put it together. Anyone know anything about the history of Bourbon Street Jazz?

Meanwhile, the car is back, brakes repaired; the truck will be another day, hopefully not more than that.

–M. J. Young