I had problems with windows this week, both virtual (geeky) and actual (non-greeky).
On Tuesday I decided to install some firewall software. With the current Bugbear mayhem, and various other nasties out there, and given my computer frequently gets left on and connected to the Net, I thought it was probably prudent to have some kind of protection. I’ve usedZoneAlarm before with a reasonable amount of success, and installed it. It all worked fine. Except for the fact that neither my web browser or my web server (which I used for work.. you know, work, that activity which may not be your favourite way of passing the time, but which does bring in the bucks so you have the money to undertake other, more enjoyable activities) would function.
I wrestled with it for a while. Quite a while. I won’t go into the various methods of wrestling that I tried, suffice to say that none of them got me very far, and I ended up re-installing Windows on the computer. This wasn’t an entirely bad thing, as it gave me the chance to clear out a lot of the gunk that had accumulated. The computer certainly seems to run faster now. Just goes to show you, the best windows are clean windows.
On Sunday afternoon, a storm came over. Lots of wind, lots of rain. Good stuff, as long as you’re inside at the time. There’s a window in my place which has been cracked for years. It had little cracks when I moved in. Over time the cracks grew. I’d hassled my landlady about it, and she had stalled in getting it fixed, partly because she is of the opinion that it was broken after I moved in. I would love to dig out a condition report that proves it wasn’t, but I can’t find it.
Anyway, the storm passed over. And a little later, I happened to go into that room. Oh dear. Glass everywhere. Big scary shards of glass, little sharp deadly pointy smaller bits of glass. Glass on the curtains, glass on the bedside table, glass on the floor.
Unable to get hold of the landlady or any of her dodgy workmen, I let my fingers do the walking through the
Yellow Pages, and found a glazier who would come out and take a look. By this time it was getting dark and cold and wet again, but full credit to him, he spent about an hour and a half dangling from a ladder in these less than ideal conditions, getting the rest of the broken glass taken out, pulling apart the window frame, measuring and cutting new glass, and putting it together. It was a bit of an adventure for me too, as to expedite matters, I helped by handing him tools, holding the ladder so it didn’t blow over in the wind, and even holding onto him through the window while he dangled at angles which I’m sure theWorkCover authority would not be impressed at.
Anyway eventually it was all fixed. I paid him, and now face possibly a bigger battle: that of getting the money back off my landlady.
On the bright side, during the clean up I found $3!
PS. The events in Bali over the weekend have shocked everyone here. It seems now that, alas, Australia (and Indonesia) have their own September 11th.
