Distracted Weekend

Okay, it’s kind of sad when you have to count personal hygiene items as getting something done (I really hate shaving my legs, okay? So it counts).

The real problem was the computer. As in not running properly. By not running properly, I mean constantly going to ‘Not Responding’ while I’m trying to read on Firefox, type in Word, or look up info in Quicken. My computer is supposed to be able to handle all of this.

So I went in, deleted a bunch of programs I’m not using, turned off some automatic start-up shit I don’t need, cleaned off everything but my data files, ran Avast and Ad-ware, and wanted to run disk defrag before rebooting.

Only disk defrag said “yes, you need to; however I prefer to have 15% empty memory to work with. Only 4% is available.” Okay, time to clean out My Docs, My Music, My Pictures, and anything else that occurs to me.

I spent all day Sunday in My Pictures without getting a single archival CD burnt. Fair amount deleted because I ended up with multiples of many pictures. My organizing system also blows and hard. I can get started with an idea to organize around but it falls apart with the next folder. Some images I had forgotten about completely and I had snagged them because I thought they were cool. Worse would be finding artwork I snagged without grabbing the artist’s name. I can’t always identify by the style. And it makes me feel bad because if I color it, I can’t even ask permission to show it.

Anyways, I didn’t get anything else on my list done, I didn’t even get My Pictures done, and my computer is still acting like a slugtard. I wanted to get to work on the updates for the websites, but can’t do that until the computer stops spazzing. Some coding I can do over lunch break and some I would prefer to do at home and some has to be done at home because I don’t have the program I need at work. For this shit, I really miss the laptop.

How long do I think My Pictures will take? First, I need a reliable organizing principle that I won’t forget. Second, I need to organize the graphic files accordingly. Third, I need to decide what can be safely archived—i.e. don’t need for current or future projects. Fourth, burn and label CDs. Fifth, delete files from harddrive. So deceptively simple.

I’m also considering joining NaNo officially this year. I don’t have any other pressing projects taking up the month of November, and I get four days off from the paying job. It’s three weeks of shortened commute. Still being wishy-washy about it, but I need to make a decision by the end of the week.


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The BookWorm