Sunday, November 1, 2009

A Fried Computer, Anxious Dog and “The Pines Review”

Wow! This has been an unbelievable 72 hours. On Thursday we had a pretty serious rain and the accompanying wind blew aside some of the plastic sheeting I had protecting the exposed parts of the roof. The upshot of the evening weather was that when we returned from nearby Mayville I could see where the plastic had been blown aside and I hurried to change clothes and get on the roof to repair the plastic. Once that was done I went in my office only to discover that water had been leaking through the ceiling and onto my desk and my laptop. After trying to clean everything up I had to resign myself to the possibility that my laptop was fried.

On Friday morning I contacted my insurance agency and the agent thinks I might be covered, but in the meantime I had to scramble around to make sure I had the money to get a new computer. I checked the prices and finally opted to change my computer buying practices and purchase a new laptop from a small computer store that isn't part of a chain, primarily because they would transfer my data from the old computer to the new one. I was also able to get the new "Windows 7" operating system rather than having to pay extra for it in a chain or resigning myself to "Vista," which I really didn't want. Once problem was that I also had to buy Microsoft's "Office 2007" because my old office program disks have been lost. Again, I got a better deal on the software.

The upshot of the whole mess is that I am back online with a new computer and new software but I've had to spend the entire weekend uploading both the new and old software and try to train myself to use both the computer and software. It wouldn't be so bad if deer season wasn't less than a week away, pheasant season is open and there are still geese and ducks on many of the sloughs.

When I was in Korea (Second Infantry Division, Public Affairs Office, "Indianhead" newspaper), during my three years in the army between my years in the Marine Corps, I had a public affairs officer, Major Diehl, who used to call me Crisis Geer. Every day he'd stop by my desk ask me if I had a new crisis for the day. It's nice to have that warm fuzzy that things haven't changed!

I've been reading the work of Dr. Randall Eaton in preparation for writing a feature about Dr. Eaton for my small literary magazine The Pines Review. I am fascinated by what Dr. Eaton has to say about hunting and the human spirit. I don't want to give away my article before the journal is published but since I do send it for free as a PDF file that is attached to an email if any reader would like to be put on the mailing list just send me an email at ggeerauthor@yahoo.com and I'll be put you on the list. The journal is also available as a Print On Demand publication but that costs and the details will be on the website when it returns to the internet.

What I am "trying" to do is publish a small literary journal of and for the men and women of the outdoor media. It's a big project and it has worked in spurts and stops but I believe it is all back on track. If you care about the art and literature of the angling and hunting sports I truly believe you will enjoy The Pines Review. As the commercial said, "try it, you'll like it."

Tomorrow evening I am going grouse hunting, roof or no roof, new computer or not. The birds are calling, well, at least Cookie is, she pulled down my hunting vest and has been carrying it around. glg

3 comments:

Holly Heyser said...

Bummer about the computer! Computer problems always reveal how completely dependent we are on these things. Scary.

I definitely want to read your Eaton review.

Galen Geer said...

I miss the days of a typewriter but my daughter would be glad to tell the world about the time I was having trouble with something I was writing, got fed up and threw the typewriter out the window! Computers are too expensive for that.
I am really deep into Eaton's work and I'm very impressed.
Going deer hunting?
glg

Holly Heyser said...

Miraculously, we'll get one more deer hunt this fall, a special hunt on Catalina Island. But I'd be happy if I just hunted ducks all the time now.