Thursday, December 5, 2019

My Beast Is Back and PR Is Starting Again - So Happy!

It was a long day at Dale's yesterday. I got there shortly before 8:30 am and I didn't leave until shortly after 3:30 pm. But it was a good day. He put the desktop computer through its paces, cleaning up old files, streamlining applications, and troubleshooting what might have been causing my Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Of course the BSOD appeared immediately upon turn-on, but then it was absent for quite a long time. Finally, when we thought the general cleanup of files, etc might have done the trick, it came again, with a different code. 



The Blue Screen of Death came up several times as Dale was
working on the desktop. The codes changed, but eventually we
were able to isolate the problem and resolve it. It was a very long
day, but at least I'm back up and running once again. 



Finally the culprit was found - one set of the two sets of RAM chips that I have had developed a fault. This is rare, but it can totally mess up a machine. Replacing the bad set with a newer version of the same type/speed didn't work - the two sets weren't talking to each other. So we ended up replacing all four of the RAM chips - two good and two bad. The bad chips were trash, the good (old) chips were replaced, and suddenly the computer was happy. We set it to do a full system backup and settled down for more than two hours of catching up while the computer did its thing. Finally, he shut everything down, charged me for one set of new RAM and exchanged my one good set for the other replacement set (for a $0 charge), then agonized about what to charge for the repair, ending up with charging for two hours of work, when I had been there for seven hours. Yeah - he's a total treasure. 



When he built my computer years ago, we picked RAM that was almost
at the top performance level. It's been surpassed in subsequent years, but
it still serves me well. Fortunately he still had older chips of the type I
needed, so we ended up replacing my four blue ones with four red ones instead. 



On the way out, as he carried my desktop back to my car, he asked about progress on my holiday cards and I assured him I was working on them. Then I dove into my day - grocery shopping, making dinner, and I actually managed to get two loads of laundry done before bed. Unfortunately I had to text Aearwen and cancel our chat for the week. It made me sad, but time had simply evaporated. 



I'm looking forward to the new season of Project Runway. Although I
adore Tim Gunn, I think Christian Seriano is one of the best mentors
EVER. He knows the industry from all sides as a contestant, a winner,
a designer and a producer of fashion, he's got all of the bases covered. 



Tonight (and tomorrow morning) I'm going to be tired. Project Runway starts the new season tonight, and the time slot is late - 8:30 pm until 10:00 pm - an hour later than I usually go to sleep. I can catch the re-run next week before the next new episode, but I like to be current and up-to-date with this show, to share with all of you. I know it will start out with a bang - an immediate Team Challenge. I can hardly wait. I suppose sacrificing some sleep once a week for a while won't be horrific ... well, it will since I usually only get six hours of sleep average. But such are the sacrifices I must make for fashion - LOL. 

Have a wonderful Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with pics and a rundown on how the first episode of PR, Season 18 went. 



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