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Trepidation

For all of you who are much more computer savvy than I, my slow pace and my indecision must seem quite humerous. I feel as if I am on the edge of a great canyon, hanging on using the last ounce of strength before I fall deep into the cavernous mouth of this canyon, never to be the same again.... If and when I let go and actually try to reformat my hard drive.... it will either be agony or ecstacy. Will I [you may wish to insert a coarse word for copulatory behavior here] it up or will it work? Have I gotten every precious file off the machine or will there be some gem that will be lost for all eternity?

Currently when I am at home, I sit in my office and keep searching the hard drive to see if there are any errant files I wish to keep, then I look at the machine, and light my pipe, then I shuffle around and read the WindowsXP upgrade documentation again (perhaps the 7th time now). Then I go back and gaze at the wiring on the back of the machine, then I take a deep draw from the stem of my pipe and inhale the rich smoke deeply. Slowly I exhale the stream of rich pipe smoke towards the box, and then decide to look through the hard drive some more. I recheck all the connections, inhale another plume of rich pipe smoke, then begin to sort files on the hard drive again.

The state I am can be thought of as being akin to a LP record on a turntable. If you have the right kind of scratch on the surface of the LP, then you can have a repeat of the same phrase of music again, and again and again. Well, for me, the scratch on the LP of my computer life is my fear of destroying something valuable in the hard drive or not being able to get the thing going again. My phrase of music that repeats over and over and over again (basically every evening for the past week) is to: light pipe, gaze at monitor, inhale pipe, type a bit on the keyboard, inhale pipe, look at files, inhale pipe, etc... on and on and on.

I am pretty damn indecisive. I know it, you know it, we all know it. How the hell do I go beyond this and take the damn plunge? Your guess is as good as mine.

I had better run, I have only about a half hour before my endocrinology lecture. I need to give an article to a workstudy student to make copies of for my class, and I need some time with my pipe prior to lecture.

PipeTobacco