Members Danny Carlton Posted January 24, 2008 Members Posted January 24, 2008 Woke up to find our main computer crashed. Has happened before, but this time it kept crashing. The disk is fried. This is the computer where the bulk of our stuff is stored. While I have backups, it will take time I don't have to replace what was lost. Then discovered we've got a negative balance at the bank. They cover up to $400 in overdrafts, but will charge $25 for every check written in the red. Seems my wife hasn't gotten the idea that we're tight on money and has been writing a flurry of checks for "little things" this past week, between $10 and $20 each. No money coming in until I finish this freelance project, which is taking forever because of computer and network problems. Our router is overworked and we can't afford a new one that will handle the load, so our network/internet shuts down every few hours. So I got busy trying to finish the freelance work and the main software I'd been using, one I have on our main computer and my laptop, that's been working fine for over a year now on the main computer, decided to pick today to stop working on the laptop. I'm trying to download a replacement, but it will takes hours. Hours of missed work while we're overdrawn at the bank, a pile of bills waiting to be paid, and equipment slowly falling apart. You have to keep in mind that our computers are how I work, as well as a large part of our homeschool curriculum. We have one old car, no land-line phone (just cell phones), so we depend on our computers for a lot. It may be a luxury in some households, but it's as essential as a work truck to me. My wife calling on the cell phone to find work subbing has used up our cell phone minutes, so we're now even limited on the phone calls we can make. It's been a really bad morning. Please pray for us. Quote
Administrators HappyChristian Posted January 24, 2008 Administrators Posted January 24, 2008 Have prayed. Quote
Members joyfulpraise93 Posted January 24, 2008 Members Posted January 24, 2008 Praying for you... Quote
Members speerjp1 Posted January 24, 2008 Members Posted January 24, 2008 Fervently... :pray :pray :pray Quote
Members IM4given Posted January 25, 2008 Members Posted January 25, 2008 Brother you have my prayers and my heart felt sympathy! :pray :pray :pray Quote
Members Danny Carlton Posted January 25, 2008 Author Members Posted January 25, 2008 Well, after letting the computer run through some disk repairs, while it rebooted several times, but finally finished, it's working again. It looks as if the errors were in some sensitive areas that required checking the disk, marking a location, rebooting, checking again, marking a location, rebooting, etc. My wife finally deposited her borthday check from her mother (her birthday's in July) which after the overdraft penalty left us with $8 in the bank. The freelance client emailed, and apologized for the delays. He agreed to send another payment to cover the delays, and we should get that check tomorrow, but won't be able to put it in the bank until Monday, which means it won't clear until Tuesday or Wednesday. So we'll have to stretch our grocereis until then. I made mush for breakfast (corn meal cooked in water like oatmeal) The flavor was okay but the texture leaves a lot to be desired. My son is now cooking beans and rice for dinner, but the next few days will tax our creativity as we figure out how to plan meals with what little we have in the house. The other client I currently am doing work for also emailed me and has a new project for me to look at and get started on right away. This one pays $50 an hour, but I'm to invoice them monthly at the end of the month, so that money I won't see for several weeks. I suppose these are the kind of times that one can look back on in the distant future and talk about with interest. They aren't fun going through, but I can tell will be the source of many amusing stories for all of us. Thanks for the prayers, we really appreciate it. Quote
Members John81 Posted January 25, 2008 Members Posted January 25, 2008 Praise God for the good news in the midst of this dark time! You are right, such times are terrible while we are in them, but later they become much to talk about, we find humor in them and we can see the work of the Lord. I'll continue to pray :pray Quote
Members Danny Carlton Posted January 27, 2008 Author Members Posted January 27, 2008 While I got our main computer to work some, enough to backup many of the more important files, it won't stay on for very long. It's will freeze up after ten to twenty minutes, so I'm going to have to just leave it off until we can get the money to fix it. The trouble is, it's the computer I did all our email on, so now I have to figure out how to transfer all the email to a different computer, and begin using it there. Email is the main method I use to communicate to clients, so it's important I have it in one place and organized. I had been using the local mirror on it for my morning Bible reading, but I found that I had uploaded that to the web (http://bythefireplace.com/thebible/_daily_reading.php) years ago and forgotten it, so I now can just use it. Of course the divisions are not all that clean (it'll end a verse before the end of the chapter on some days), but it works. I've never had enough time to work out the bugs in it to make it where all the plans work smoothly. Quote
Members Danny Carlton Posted January 28, 2008 Author Members Posted January 28, 2008 Well, the main computer is definitely down. I can't keep it running more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Quote
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