Home Again, Home Again

Yesterday I woke up at 3:30 AM and Kelly and I crawled hand over hand toward the front door and were whisked to the airport by Kelly's father, who is a real sport for driving us anywhere so early.

And then there was a plane.

And I was in Detroit's airport with an hour to kill. So I pulled out my laptop.

Let me explain to you. My laptop came with me to New Jersey and lived at Kelly's house. This was how I was able to keep track of the books I'd picked up, upload the pictures I'd taken, and how I was able to BLOG. It had been a kind and loving computer, never glitching out, never refusing to upload anything. The night before I left Kelly's house, I uploaded pictures from the shore, played Kelly some music from Band of Horses, then safely removed my external hard drive and camera memory card from the computer and shut it down.

Fast forward to Saturday. My computer went through security at Newark airport. Then it went into my carry-on and traveled to Detroit, and then I took it out of my carry-on, turned it on and--

Windows had crashed.

Not just a little crash, either. A catastrophic, bring-on-those-Windows-set-up-discs-cause-we're-starting-over kind of crash. Windows would not launch. It would not pretend to launch. It would not even explain that there was an error and suggest a solution. It was gone.

Needless to say, I was displeased. Imagine traveling across the country on a vacation only to find that you should have stayed home to use the vacation money to pay for a new laptop, because you are now computer-less. It was not a good feeling.

I found myself, sitting on the chair in Detroit, deciding, "That is what credit cards are for."

But because my computer is, in a word, psychotic, I decided not to write it off just yet. There was still something I had not tried.

So when I got home after my second flight (which was in an airplane slightly longer than my car, but otherwise the same in most respects), I sat down on the floor and plugged in my external hard drive, plugged in my camera's memory card, and started up my computer.

Windows launched.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. My laptop now believes that my external hard drive and SD card are a part of its permanent hardware. I was able to eject the external hard drive, but every time I try to take out the SD card, Windows Explorer crashes.

So now I can't take pictures...unless I get another SD card or find out what the heck happened with this one. Really. Windows. Why do you think you are stored on this SD card? You didn't think so on Friday.

It is nice to know life is back to normal, with my belongings exploded all over my bedroom and a barely-functional laptop.

Whatever. I'm making some cake.