Oh no, OH NO!!!

I came home to work to this screen a couple of days ago.   I had never had this happen to any of my previous computers and I did have a virus protector... but, I just knew that this didn't look good!

I called my landlord's son (call didn't work) because he speaks English and his job just happens to be: IT for a company here in Italy.   So, then I called his dad (my landlord) so that he could see if Luca could help me out.   My landlord speaks pretty good English-- but, on the phone it is very difficult.   He did understand that I needed help with my computer.   Luca was finally able to come by last night (Friday) and it took him almost 3 hours to fix everything-- (including adding a new virus protecting program that he uses- my computer was running very slow so the download took quite a bit of time.)

Everything seems OK now... however, I can't find all of my photos-- I click on the 'photo' file... which should immediately give me the options to select by year and by month within each year that the photos were taken/downloaded... but, they are all blank.   :(

Luca also told me that in the past 2-3 days he has either helped fix this problem or he knew about 60 different computers having this happen to them here.   I am glad that I have never had this happen to one of my computers ever before. 

I'm so happy that he was able to fix things-- because, I already have the broken 'digital camera' that has the battery that falls out when you pick it up and it only takes fuzzy photos.  This photo was taken w/ my Kindle Fire and then emailed to myself and then downloaded.   Then I have the printer... that just refused to start working... (says it can't clean the screen) of course, this happened AFTER it told me that 2 or 3 of the inks were low and I had changed them.   I think I'll try to see if the next printer that I purchase uses the same size/brand of ink refills.

Has anyone had this happen to their computer?

I have a new computer

It was time. Past time.

My Sony Vaio laptop was almost 7 years old. Which is quite elderly for a computer. It was beginning to show its old age too. There were difficulties in downloading photos, going very slow, taking a lot more time than usual to download webpages. It was almost like needing the computer version of a cane to stand.

Since, the old Vaio worked so wonderfuly without ANY PROBLEMS for over 6 years... I simply bought another one. It wasn't a laptop model this time- I got a big flat screen model. I haven't had time to explore on it very much- but, I was dismayed to discover that you have to BUY YOUR OWN WORD PROGRAM now!?What is up with that? Computers certainly cost enough.

I did try to send a photo attachment in an email to a friend a couple of days ago- and it never would 'stop' attaching and actually attach the photo so that I could send it. I'm not sure what caused that problem? I'd like to get it working so that I can attach photos to my blog entries.

We have 2 more weeks of school. I am C O U N T I N G the days!

It's the busy time of the year now- on one hand you want it to go FAST so you can GET IT ALL OVER WITH. BUT, then again... there's too much to get covered, reports to write, assignments to grade, grades to record, and the bane of my existance... art assignments turned in without a name!

Yes, I remind them, yes, I wait for them to write their names down 'before' I give the directions for the new lesson... the biggest problem is... rarely do the number of papers w/out a name equal to the number of students without a grade for that particular project. Almost 700 students per week. Now you know why I am ready for school to be OUT!

ALSO, students 'often' don't recognize their own artwork. Yes, seriously.
Either that... or they are in the land of 'denial' that they even had a no name paper? ha ha

Nothing new and exciting to report. I live in the boonies, I look out onto fields and houses. Nothing much goes on. I don't think that you want to read about the 'traffic wrecks' or near wrecks that I see on my way to work. Seriously, I sometimes wish that I had a helicopter... ok, enough $ to ride on a helicopter... I'm not going to mention the bigger problem of 'no helicopters' in the area anyway.

However, I know that if I had enough $$ to fly in a helicopter to work- that I wouldn't be working. KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

I do have a nice sunset view out my office window (which I've shared on my blog before) and now that the winter season has passed- we once again... get to experience sunsets.

I bought some flowers to plant in the big flowerpot on my front steps... last weekend. Maybe, I can actually find time and/or remember to plant them this weekend?