Whew!

 Not a great weekend for me! Saturday morning I went to open my computer and I had an alert, supposedly from Microsoft, saying they had detected a virus and I needed to call the number flashing on my screen. Nothing worked on my computer. I suspected it was a scam of some sort, so I shut down manually and waited a few minutes, but when I started it up again, the alert was still there and everything was frozen. I hauled out my laptop to see if it was affected (actually thinking "infected," and rightly so) but it was ok. I sent an email to Jamie and he got back to me saying it was a virus he was familiar with. He doesn't work on Dell PCs much, he has mostly Apple products in his office, so he suggested calling brother Bill. Bill said he, too, knew about that particular virus and had dealt with it a while back but wasn't sure he remembered what he had to do, but would research and come today. He did, and when he started up the computer, it was gone! The whole thing looked normal. Apparently, that, too is a characteristic of that particular virus, but it doesn't always go away, and if it does, it sometimes comes back, depending on what program makes your system vulnerable. I don't remember what I was doing last time I was on the computer, but Bill installed additional virus protection and updates some other stuff, so we're hoping it will be ok now.

While I was without my usual computer, I couldn't access the photos I'd spent the last several days scanning and gathering for Jamie to use in the slide show for the JPA 100th year marker. I had literally hundreds in a file ready to put on a thumb drive. I was pretty concerned because the deadline to get them to him was Saturday. I was waiting to see if someone else had any to share - by the way, thanks to those of you who brought photos and albums for me to select from, and also all of you who have sent me photos over the years for the blog. I picked through all of my files and found some gems; it is my understanding the photos in the slide show will not be identified, nor will the people who shared them be acknowledged, but that could change if/when it is posted on the JPA website. I'm not sure how that will work, or if it can be done with so many individual photos involved. We'll see.

So, after several hours of struggling with what I could and should do about my computer being down, I took a few minutes late in the afternoon to sit down with the intention of watching a bit of television before supper. When I turned on the TV, I got audio on whatever channel I selected, but the screen had a picture from a promo for a Hallmark movie frozen on it that sometimes stayed still and sometimes flickered. I tried turning it off and on, pressed all the buttons on two controls, but every time I went back to view a channel, the same thing was there. Bill happened to call while I was still struggling with it and I told him about it. He told me to unplug something or other and wait a few minutes - it didn't make much sense, so I called Jamie. He came down and did the unplugging and got it going. He later did some research and found out my Vizio TV is near being obsolete in the world of throw-away devices, and wasn't taking updates that it should. But it's working now and I'm not about to toss out a perfectly good TV if I don't absolutely have to. We'll see how it goes.

The good news is, my porch is nearing completion. No serious glitches there - and this is a photo of Day 20's work. It was boiling hot out there Friday and they quit early. I was happy for them and for me. Lyle came and got all the electric outlets in place and now my heat pump/air conditioner is operating again, so as soon as everyone left, I closed the house and turned on the AC. Within about 10 minutes, the house was nice and cool, and what a relief! Tonight I may need to switch it back to heat mode. Lloyd Rowell hasn't come back to hitch up the heating element in the living room yet - no rush on that, but in the meantime, the system is shut down except for the household hot water supply. 

All of these things get so complicated, don't they? Gone are the days when we depended on spring water by the bucket or a hand pump in the kitchen sink (yes, I remember those!) and a wood stove that was either fired up so you had heat (whether you needed it or not) and hot water from the pipes lining the fire box, or stone cold because you cooked during the early morning on hot days or late at night for the next day. You stored cold stuff in the cool water of a spring or in a lead-lined box with a block of ice keeping it cool. And here I am with a device that can heat my house or cool it with a flick of a switch. So my tough day was being without my computer and television for a few hours. Sad, isn't it?

So Monday they will be putting back some of the vinyl siding, doing trim on the door, inside and out, and then there will be only the steps and screens. I can't wait. I spent some time

out there this weekend, but of course the weather changed considerably and it was actually a bit too cool today to enjoy it out there except in the direct sun, which I took advantage of for a little while. The furniture is temporary - I'll have to move it tomorrow before the workers get here. But I may just switch it to the front area so it will be out of their way but still available if they want to take their breaks there.