In answer to several emails today about my doing less posting. I’m in the middle of a 9 month national tour that entails me driving all over the country. Most of the time I can get online a few times during the day and can post regularly. On Sept 23 my laptop was damaged so I bought a new one at Best Buy on the road. On Oct 12 someone broke into my car in Hamden, CT while I was having dinner with my 90 year old mother and stole my NEW laptop, my GPS, Bluetooth and my phone charger. I had to buy a new laptop after that and leave it to be set up with Microsoft Office and anti-virus protection.
Three days ago my NEW laptop — the one that replaced my NEW laptop that was stolen — warned me that I was about to have a hard disc failure and lose all information. I dropped off my NEW laptop that replaced my NEW laptop that was stolen at Best Buy, which said they would give me a new one. I was to pick it up today set with all the software I needed. I picked it up at the end of the day.
But my NEW HP laptop that replaced my NEW laptop that was defective that had replaced my NEW laptop that was stolen was also defective: it froze up from the moment I turned it on and the touchpad didn’t work.
So Best Buy told me to select another one and leave it with them.
Hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow I will have NEW laptop to replace my NEW laptop that was defective which replaced my NEW laptop that was stolen.
I will be posting a lot in coming months but this has been a trying month and a half. And it has meant I am offline a lot more than usual as I drive long distances and grapple with a laptop problem and the expenses incurred therein…
With some luck, I’ll be back to normal by Monday.
Posts over the past few weeks have been sporadic not just due to the travel but the time goggled up writing police reports, filling out insurance claims, transferring money from my online banking to pay for new laptops (and a new GPS and a new Bluetooth) and trips to Best Buy.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.