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January 25 1998, Sunday

J

ust when I think I know lots about computers, or at least lots about computer basics, reality sneaks up and does something unexpected and I learn something I should have learned on day one. This phenomenon happened today. I spent the whole day watching teevee (never surfing through the Super Bowl even once, by the way) while downloading a flavour of LINUX from an anonymous FTP site. As I did so, I kept running out of space, throwing away old files and carrying on. This would have been natural on a Macintosh. But on a Windows 95 machine, this was a bad idea.

It seems that if the file structure is not in perfect form, emptying the "Recycling Bin" (talk about dodging a look and feel lawsuit...) results in the corruption of a fraction of the files within the bad part of the directory structure. The result was that I lost one in ten of the most actively modified files changed since the last time I scanned my drive for errors. Though scary and disheartening, it wasn't such a big deal, since there are several levels of backup and the latest and greatest version of my website is always actively online at Spies.com (far off in Palo Alto, California). But I did lose a few important JavaScript experiments.

I

n the evening, Peggy and the Baboose came over and hung out with Deya and me for awhile, watching the Comedy Channel. It was sort of an anti Super Bowl assemblage. While one of the usual effects of testosterone is an uncontrollable interest in sports, it has never affected me that way.

    But it bears mentioning that I have become extremely agile on Matthew Hart's wheelchair. I can do wheelies and spin around on the back wheels at high speeds. The greatest challenge of yet, maintaining a wheelie without holding the wheels with anything, is now within my grasp. I can maintain such a wheelie for as long as thirty seconds already.
      Perhaps my wheelchair gymnastics are the result of my body's natural inclination to exercise itself. Doing so while watching teevee might perhaps be the ultimate slacker/athlete compromise.

Peggy and I discussed the latest Clinton sex scandal and I was a little surprised by how much she knew about it. She sits alone with the baby and the cats up on Carter's Mountain listening to National Public Radio, so I suppose she's more clued in than almost any one else I know in the real world.

Meanwhile Angela was at work and Matthew Hart was at his mother's place in Staunton watching the Super Bowl. He came home during the midst of the game, dismayed that we were watching the Simpsons and continued on to the Haunted House in disgust.

one year ago
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