Saturday, January 23, 2010

Lost in the storm?

Tornados were swirling all around and sirens were blowing Wednesday night. It was the sort of night that reminded me of when I was stationed at Altus AFB in the early 70s.We received telephone calls from one of our friends, Robert Swinney, and another from a long-time friend, Wayne Driver, inquiring as to how we were holding out in the storms. Robert is a local guy, but Wayne lives in Missouri. He had seen on television that a tornado had hit in Canton, TX. Being a truck-driver by trade, he knows Canton is not far from us. I told them thanks for checking on us, but we were fine. Wayne also told me he had a new email address and that he hadn’t heard from me in a while.

So when I came back to my computer to put his new email address in my address book, I discovered the computer was not working. I told the resident computer expert in our house, Cynthia, that nothing was happening on the computer. She tried it and said she guessed the storm had knocked it out. The next morning, I tired it again. Nothing. I immediately panicked, what was I to do now? I may miss an important email or something, I won’t be able to finish what I had started on the day before, I will miss my daily Publisher’s Clearing House “Win a million dollars” email. Oh, no! Mercy!

The next morning was a clear day, nice, bright and sunny. Temperatures rose to the 70s. Hardly nothing like the night before. Fact of the matter is, it was as if the night before had never happened ... but my computer wasn’t responding. Cynthia had already planned to go to lunch that day, so she took the computer by the repair shop. They told her they’d try to have it back the next day, but it would probably be Monday. Again, I thought, horrors! What will I do without a computer until Monday? Well, I called back late Friday to ask about my sick computer. I was told it was ready to pick up.

Hooray, the weather really had cleared up! I can get my computer back now. I went down immediately to pick it up, Cynthia was preparing dinner, but a meal can wait. I have to go retrieve my computer. I asked the man what happened. “Did the storms get it?” I figured I had done something wrong, but the man said, “Nope, fake computer virus.”
I told him I had just purchased a computer virus that week, something our resident computer said wasn’t really necessary.. He said, “Did something come across the internet?” I told him I had, for $79.99, or whatever. He said, “Oh, no, you’ve already paid for it? Never get anything you see on the internet, unless you know it’s a reputable brand, like Amazon or something.” I had paid $79.99 or whatever for something fake and now another $97 something to have it repaired. Real smart, John. But, at least, my computer is back and in working order. Now I can write a blog about it. Ta da!

4 Comments:

At January 26, 2010 at 3:31 PM , Blogger Glen Lazalier said...

Not unusual, John. Lots of people have been burned by scams from the net. I treat the web just like I treat the telephone solicitors--unless I know their organization is OK, I just hang up. Even for the ones I know to be OK I tell them to send me something in the mail because I don't respond to telephone solicitations.

Speaking of weather, we here in Tennessee just finished our coldest fourteen day streak since 1941. I never got above 32 deg F during that period. Then we had some 50-60 deg days but are headed back into the low teens in the next two days. Not so great weather to go flying in a light airplane.

 
At January 26, 2010 at 8:43 PM , Blogger Chuck said...

John, since you brought it up, I'll tell on myself. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but recently I ordered something I saw advertised on TV on one of those late night infomercials. The con-man said that it was only available "in this TV offer". I ordered two (so I would have a spare....it was a household tool, okay). I even upgraded to the "higher grade of metal". With shipping and handling, the $19.95 offer ended up costing me almost $30.00. So, about three weeks have gone by since I received the product and just yesterday I saw it in Walmart for $9.95...at their TV offers display near the checkout lanes!

 
At January 26, 2010 at 11:05 PM , Blogger colin said...

Well Chuck was the tool any good. Will it do what you thought it would?

 
At January 27, 2010 at 8:40 PM , Blogger Chuck said...

Yes, the tool works fine and I'm satisfied with it's performance. It worked exactly as advertised.

 

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