Computer Bytes

Coming into this weeking I was a little scared about what I was going to do for "entertainment." It was the big volleyball tournament for varsity in Cedar Rapids. Word on the street was after Tuesday night, Brooks was looking for a tenth to accompany him to Northeast Iowa. I had my hopes up because as we were getting on the bus to head out for Ottumwa on Tuesday, Brooks called three of us, myself included, into the office to get out varsity jerseys. He told us that he wanted us to dress. This was a little shocking as I was definitely not expecting it. At the end of the night, JV, my team!, was the only team to defeat the Bulldogs. VARSITY LOST! I am trying not trying to sound happy, but with all the crap that I have gone through this year, it was a little satifying to know that Brooks' "all-start" team, lost.

Anyway, Butter and Sara were going to CR and Ashley had to work. I have more than three friends, but over the course of the summer, they were the only ones I hung out with much. School is just starting so I haven't really found different/more people to do things with. Peter was haning out with the guys so I couldn't do anything with him either. So because I had nothing to do tonight, I went to Hy-Vee to get my paycheck. I spent about 45 minutes there conversing with other employees and finally returned home after a trip to the Super Targetto. I arrived home around 5 and decided to work on some CD's for volleyball. The computer was stupid and slow so I called comp-USA to ask how long they needed our computer for to fix it. I was told 3-7 days. I asked if there was anyway to get it back in a lesser amount of time and he said yeah, just make back-ups of what you need to keep, and put in the Operating Systems installation CD and follow the directions. So I did.

At first try, I did not succeed. So, like I am always told, "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Upon retrying, it worked so I entered the setup wizard and spend an hour and a half trying to install and overwrite existing Windows XP files. After I finally got done putting the Operating systems onto the computer, I needed to re-install everything that I took off the computer so I started with the internet. I went through the motions as instructed by the CD. The wizard asked me if I used an Ethernet of USB connection. I chose ethernet because that is what we have. It said that our computer didn't have an ethernet card. I tried to use different installation disks to get this card that I knew was in the computer to be read. I even talked to K Hydes father, the owner of his own telecommunications service, and he wasn't sure what was wrong. So finally, I read in-depth, the owners manual for our Dell Dimmension 4600. It talked all kinds of crazy and finally I put in the Resource CD and tried to find the ethernet driver. I found the driver and unzipped the files. I put the ActionTec installation CD back into the drive E:/ to re-install the internet. IT WORKED! Only 7 tries and 2 hours later!

Once I had established the connection I had to re-setup all the accounts so everyone would be able to access their name. I finnally finished installing the Operating system and the interned around 11:30. I have yet to install our CD burning program, the printer, our Word Processor, and a few other minor details. All I care about is that our computer runs faster than it did when we first bought it. So in answer to my wonderment, my "entertainment" was found in the computer. I spent my friday night, my free night to go out with my friends, at home, with an appliance.

Tommorow I coud be heading off to Cedar Rapids myself. Dad is just itching to get to the Washington High School Gym to watch the "all-star" dragons play. For the chicas it could mean a day of shopping or just hanging out with grandma. Either way, I have multips assignments to catch up on, my sleeping sort of overtook my homework this week, and I have to work on Sunday. But it is Labor Day weekend, no school on Monday and late practice for me! It looks like I have a date with my Calculus book!