techno HELL!!

I have entered a new ring Dante never had the misfortune to discover.

Today began beautifully, a continuation of the previous afternoon when I was unable to boot the hard drive that contains ALL of the files necessary for producing our yearbook. Yes, I know we should have a backup. The problem is, the damn drive has been crashing every time we try to do one. So, this morning, I come in full of hope, praying that a good night's rest will grant me one more day of life from the hard drive--just enough life so that I can copy all the files and give it a proper burial.

However, the drive opted for a prolonged and difficult stay in ICU instead. I'm still fighting with it at this very minute, trying to squeeze the last little file from its almost lifeless body. God bless the tech, who responded immediately today to my frantic email plea and performed mouth-to-mouth for over 3 hours. Unfortunately, the patient will not recover.

Besides this, I had also planned a lovely webquest in the lab today. My colleague and I were both going to be observed by baby dept. head while conducting this lesson, so it was important that it work properly. However, IE was absolutely not cooperating. Several pages of a critical site WOULD NOT load in IE in the lab (yes, I had tested it before and it worked fine). Panic for my friend, who was facilitating the lesson 1st period, and for me, since I was already having a techno meltdown.

So I do some quick research, download and install a version of Netscape that will function on our ancient Macs, and save the day--sort of. That takes my entire planning period.

Then the tech arrives and I spend lunch wringing my hands and nervously pleading for the resurrection of my yearbook drive. No such luck.

Next comes my observation, complete with obnoxious-today-but-otherwise-okay kid, who insists on dangling tissues from his snotty nostrils, among other things. I make the mistake of asking the class how they felt about the previous day's test, only to hear that Mrs. ____'s classes (my aforementioned friend) got to use notes, their books, etc., etc. (a patent lie). All of this in front of the one person who will decide what I will be teaching next year.

Now it's almost 6, and instead of heading out for a nice dinner with my hubby, I'm still hear trying like hell to get the last of the files off this gasping, creaking hard drive.

Great day. How was your Friday?