17,450!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello, you precious 3 or 4 blogger friends who faithfully check in to see what’s going on in Lollipopandpearls land! You might be sorry you visited today! And, if you are visiting here for the first time, please don’t judge me by THIS post! Please read past posts to see I really am a nice person. However, for the last couple of days I would have made a fabulous character on Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”!

OK, so let’s play a little game first! May I offer this clue: I detest the number 17,450! There! I offered it! Now, let’s guess why I detest that number! Don’t you go down the page to find the answer! I’m watching you with humongous eyes, claws positioned, and feathers ruffled (ha! That’s a good one, Lolli!)...and daring you to look down the page and cheat! So, that being said….READY! SET!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Whoa! Let’s do this on my time! OK, here we go! READYSET………..stop that! What’s your hurry? OK, 3rd time’s a charm, so here we go, really! ON YOUR MARK……….GET SET……….GO!!!!!! Wake me up when you think you know the answer! ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz!!!! Figured it out yet? What’s taking you so long? At this rate, I’ll have visions of sugar plums dancin’ in my head by the time you get it figured out!!!!! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!

(Singing the “Jeopardy” song in my head while I wait for you to guess! And, BTW, in case I forgot to remind you-----I detest the # 17,450! OK, OK, OK, OK….settle down! Don’t make me come over there and meet you outside! OK….

Hey, don’t ya’ll just love the Fall weather, with the gorgeous turning of the leaves…..WHAT? Oh, sorry, I took off on a rabbit trail….where was I? (Stupid 17,450! I cannot stand that number, can you?) No, I know you can’t….at least not if you’re a nice, generous, loving, sincere, faithful friend! You can’t like that number! WHY can’t you, you ask? Because you can probably sense a little disdain in my tone about that number, and because you love me and you ARE my friend, and you hurt when I hurt and you don’t want me to walk this journey alone, then I KNOWthat you also D.E.T.E.S.T. the number 17,450!

Ok, so welcome to my Pity Party! I so appreciate your being faithful to stop by! Make yourself at home! Free food, free entertainment, come as you are….and you might wanna bring your ear plugs! If you see anyone else walking around aimlessly and bored in blogland, please give them an open invite from me to attend my party. I probably should do a Mr. Linky thingy so others can link up!

WHEW! I’m feeling a little better (hehehehe)! (At first I accidentally typed “bitter”—as in, “Whew! I’m feeling a little bitter!---rather than “better”) Well, I’m that too, but I won’t bore you with the details….

So…..you ready? OK, sit back, relax, and hold on for the ride!

My wonderful laptop has been such a steady source of joy for me, and has served me well for the last couple of years. Of course, I bought her used off of Craigslist, but she has purred when she was s’posed to, gone to sleep when I told her to…and woke up when I needed her to! I mean, she has truly been my friend. However, I believe she is beginning to age a little bit, not unlike me. She can’t help it, I understand that. And, I have yet to find any hormonal supplement—natural or synthetic—that will help her perk back up. She and I are alike in many ways: we’re slowing down, we take our time more often than we used to, and when we tire out, we just go to sleep whenever and wherever we darn well please, thank-you very much!

Well, ole Gertie (short for Gertrude)---no, wait…..that’s what I call my GPS! Ok, ya’ll need to help me name this precious little darling! Suggestions welcome! (Oh, and have I mentioned that I wish the number 17,450 had never been created?..........Just askin’!......... Don’t go gettin’ all sassy!)….

I made mention of this slowing down sitch-i-a-shun to my husband on Saturday and asked for suggestions. Of course, always the practical, honest man, he reminded me that I had way too many photos saved to my hard drive, not to mention the myriad of audio and video files also taking up space on the little precious one! He further quietly and politely suggested that I “might” want to burn them to a CD/DVD and get them off my hard drive, freeing up space, thereby causing my 'puter to run more smoothly and faster! UGH! I did not want to take the time; but, always the submissive, obedient, eager-to-please my husband wife that I am, I took his suggestion and jumped right in with both feet! I mean, I got drenched! I was immersed in computer .*@&#^&^@*#&$^$^, I tell ya’! Oh, I could not wait to see just how fast ________ would run when I was through. (Now we must think of a name for her quickly, or there’s no tellin’ what she’ll do to me next!)

SO, I burned 2 full CD’s of photos from my computer. Everything was going very well! Being the organization freak that I am, all my photos arein fo lders. The “Family” folder has several subfolders; my recent trip to Ghost Ranch, NM also has multiple. Each of those need their own CD space! Now, grab a remote and put me on “pause” for a moment, (I DID NOT say put me on “mute”; I said “pause”) ‘cuz I have some more ‘splainin’ to do. Apparently the previous owner of this computer was set up with an administrator name of ROX, whatever that means, or whoever that is. I know not of!!! When I purchased the computer, I set myself as the Administrator! Unbeknownst to me some of my files were in the ROX group of files. After I had burned most of the photos to discs, Rodney and I discussed that perhaps I should just get rid of ROX. I mean, he/she was taking up space on MY computuh! So, I gently and with tears in my eyes, bade ROX fare-the-well, into the Recycle Bin, and then, as any good computer guru does, I “dumped” my Recycle Bin! Are you impressed yet? I mean, look at all the computer lingo I know! I even know LOL, ROFL, BFF, BTW, BRB….and ASAP, R2D2, and so much more!

So we had a little service for ROX, and I got back to business. Rarin' to go burn my last 2 CD’s of Family and Ghost Ranch, I set the computer up, grabbed a couple of blank DVD’s, tried to open the files with those photos, and….yep…you FINALLY guessed it (took you long enough!) No photo or video files to be found! Zip, natta, zero, empty set! I searched, Rodney searched, and we searched together, left no stones unturned…GONE! Bye bye! 2 of the most important files of photos for me, and no hard copies printed yet! Oh, no, far be it from me to have done that! Why should I? I have them saved on my computer where they are safe, right?! Uh-huh!

After calmly and rationally sitting down with a cup of coffee in hand, a good book (some valium)---did I say that? No, I didn’t. Someone else must have uttered that….AND….after whining about what I could do, I got online and purchased, for a mere $39.95, a recovery program. After downloading the program, I told it to scan for ONLY .jpeg, .bmp, .avi, and .wmv files (i.e. photos and videos). I started the search around 7 pm Saturday; at 9 AM Sunday morning it was STILL scanning!!! That is 14 hours by my calculations! When all was said and done, guess just how many of those darling little files it found? VERY GOOD! You are ssooo smart! 17,450 photos and video clips!

After picking myself up off the floor, I determined to go through them all and find only the ones I not previously burned to CD. The results showed, “17,450 photos found; 0 restored”! I searched for a “restore” button, to no avail! Not one to ask for assistance quickly or easily, I continued trying to figure it out. I caved, got online and into a “Live chat”! Woo-hoo! After conversing back and forth with a techie, I was told to hit “restore”. “Uh, sir, there IS no “restore”! “Yes, ma’am it is right there under the purchase button, blah, blah, blah!” “Uh, no sir….here is everything written on my screen”….and I proceeded to write it all out. His final answer was “Oh, well, I guess you cannot restore them, ma’am!” To which I sweetly replied, “Excuse me, but is your program not called a “PC Photo Recovery Program? I seem to remember a few hours ago authorizing a $39.95 charge to PayPal, and that money was transferred from my account quickly. I would like a refund, please!” He agreed to refund the money, and would send me an email to that effect! (BTW—he DID send the email, but I have yet to see the refund posted!). I then paid another $39.90 to another company and downloaded their program AFTER removing the previous one. Guess how many files the new program found? 17,450! (Have I mentioned that I break out in hives when I see, hear or think that number?) I have the option of saving to a CD/DVD or another drive. So after formatting several discs I told the program to save to CD/DVD and would you believe---I KNOW this will shock you! It would not do it! Once again, my husband to the rescue! He brought me his trusty little zip drive, and I have been able to save about 1000 photos at a time on that drive, THEN burn a DVD from the zip drive, then delete all the files off his zip drive to start all over again. And as of this very moment, Tuesday evening at 8:55 PM CST, I think I am within about 200 files of being through! When all that is complete, I get to put them back onmy computer, delete duplicates and those already burned…and my computer may be running so smoothly and so fast that I may have to chase it out the door! What will I do with all my time after this is done? Any suggestions? NO?!?!?!?!

Well, I have a suggestion for you…with regularity move your photo/video/wave files from your computer to some other type of drive, so your computer won’t get bogged down and you won’t have to spend 3 days going around the world and back to “recover” your deleted files!

And, just so you know….It is with joy and thanksgiving that I now bury the #17,450! Thanks to you dear friends for allowing me to vent, I now feel certain I will survive!