Problems with laptop

I have spent a big part of the day trying to get my laptop to work. I decided to turn it on just to make sure everything was working ok - I last used it when I went to South Dakota, and everything was fine and the air card worked perfectly. This morning first thing it gave me a message that updates were ready. While I usually ignore those kinds of messages until I have absolutely nothing else to do, I decided to get it out of the way. It took well over an hour to install! I tried turning the computer off, but when I turned it back on later it went directly to where it has left off in the install program, and nothing I did would disable it, so I just let it run its course.

When I finally got the normal desktop screen I tried to connect the air card, it told me I needed to install it, but the AT&T screen was showing that no device was detected. I tried it in all the USB ports but none of them recognized the air card. When I tried to do some checking on my system I noticed that it was running very slowly, and I decided to uninstall the updates. Since I am not familiar with Vista, it took me a while to find anything like a Restore function, but I finally was able to uninstall the updates. This took close to another hour, and then I found I had to restart the computer. You can imagine when I restarted and immediately the system began installing the updates! By this time I was ready to throw the laptop through the window! I let it install, and then uninstalled it again - this time it worked but the system is still running very slowly. And none of the USB ports recognize my air card, which works fine on my desktop. Why, oh why didn't I buy a Mac Book last summer when I purchased this horrible Dell laptop with Vista!

So this means that I will not be able to connect to the internet at all once I get to Lassen. I don't know where the nearest library is or if they have internet access. I am totally bummed out about this. It isn't that I can't do without the internet, but there will be no point in trying to keep up with posting blog entries even though I will continue to keep a journal of my experiences for my own satisfaction and to keep up the writing habit. But how in the world will I stop all the email.

On a happier note, Jeannie & Donald asked me over for dinner tonight, and also invited Joe & Sarah, and Amy; Steve & Megan are both traveling for their jobs, so weren't able to make it. Here are a couple of pictures - the first is Joe & Sarah.



The second is my sister Amy with Autumn and Alyssa.