We're baaack . . . . .

Our 'puter got really, really sick almost immediately after my last post.

And I don't mean that just the closet was full of blue shirts, because when we bought this thing back in January, we purchased it with a virtual walk-in cedar closet of storage space. Besides, if there was simply no room left in the closet, then I know how to take out blue shirts, fold them very tightly, and add some red shirts so everything would be hunky dory. Oh NOOOOO, it wasn't that easy.

Our computer, for which we paid mucho dinero in January, came complete with 40 gigabyte hard drive, wide screen LCD monitor, DVD burner, special sound and video cards, capable of connecting directly to cable to record movies for viewing later, and with a whole house wireless network. A machine, that was, up until Tuesday, screaming fast, suddenly turned into a brick.



Just like what happened to Stephanie, when you turned it on you got the pretty wallpaper. And nothing else. No icons. No START button. No pretty harmonic music. Nothing. Hit CTRL + ALT + Delete. Nothing. No little Task Manager Window. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

So, who do you call? That's right; Ghostbusters! Same guys who came delivered this baby and attached it's little umbilical cords to the Internet, cable, and big screen television. Can they come fix it? Sure they can. On Thursday. That's right, two days of no Internet, no email, no resumes being sent out, no blogs, no pictures moving from camera to storage. Nothing.



Andy Rooney was completely bummed that he couldn't get to his Internet Texas Hold 'Em and chat with his favorite West Highland Terrier, Moxie.

I however, was very productive. It's amazing how much you can get done with no computer to distract you.



Yep, a SECOND skein of that navy heather roving from Woodland Woolworks. I did this on the Ashford Traveller borrowed from Chrispy.

While I was at OFFF last Saturday, ToolMan worked on the wheel that Barbara brought up from Arizona for me. She got a nice two day marination in mineral oil, some nice paste wax, a little massage with a rubber mallet to tighten up her joints, and a nice new drive string.



Isn't she pretty? It's a Country Craftsman double drive, and she spins like a dream for me. First thing we tried was some of that Dragon Waste from OFFF. Just look:



I used all I had of the purple, magenta, pink roving. I didn't buy much of it because those really aren't my favorite colors and just wanted them to get used to the new wheel. Now I wish I'd gotten more of all three colors. I did one single starting with the purple, then when it was used up I moved onto the magenta, then progressively lighter through all the pinks. And plied it with a white single.

Here's a closeup of my very first real yarns, with a penny for perspective:



Not great, but not bad. This could be very addictive. Especially when there's no computer to distract you.

Yesterday, the Ghostbuster guy came to fix our computer. He was only here for about 30 minutes. No, he didn't fix it; he said it was too far gone for him. Whereupon, I retired to my sick bed.

"But," he told ToolMan, "I do know someone who can."

Two hours later, I wake up and walk downstairs to find this in our family room:



A young, hunky guy who can fix computers. And, apparently, televisions. This is Nate Montierth. Nate is the owner of Tekology. Nate, however, has no website. If you're in the Portland Metro area and need a computer doctor, Nate's your man. You can get in touch with him at nate@tekology.biz.

Nate put on new, gold cables from the cable box to the television and tweaked up the settings for high def. Nate is a tech guy.



Then he went to work on the computer. Not only did he save all the pictures, resumes, knitting patterns, and ephemera from the hard drive, but he upgraded the wireless modem, took off a bunch of junk programs we don't use, and set up better virus and spy ware protection. Nate is a geek.

He also pretended to be interested in spinning wheels and knitting. Nate is a FREAKIN' GENIUS!