If I don't return, please send a search party.

On Monday I spent the day with 'Joseph' the Dell Tech support guy. I am not going to make any comments about the fact that we all know his name is really not 'Joseph' and that he resides in India. He was a very nice man and I really did understand 90% of what he said. Hey, he speaks 2 languages, I only speak one so who am I to complain?

What I did not like, however, was what 'Joseph' had to tell me. He said the reason my DVD/CD Rom drive keeps dying is because of a software problem. It is not a hardware problem. This was the 4th time I have had to call Dell and have them work some sort of computer telepathy magic to make my DVD/CD Rom drive work again. I tried to watch what they were doing when they took over my computer but they are too fast.

Finally, I asked 'Joseph' how we make sure this does not happen again. It is very inconvenient as my daughter does her math, via Teaching Textbooks on my computer daily. He said -and it pains me to repeat it- my computer will need to be re formatted, or have it's operating system re installed, or it's flux capacitor re aligned or something. All I know is that I will have to spend an entire day backing up EVERYTHING on my computer because once 'Joseph' does whatever he is going to do, all the important stuff on my computer will no longer be on my computer.

I am telling you all this because I think it might be possible that if this whole thing goes badly, I may fall into a rip in the space/time continuum, never to be heard from again.

If that is the case, it was a good ride and I'll see you all on the other side. If all goes well, I'll be back in a few days with a new and improved operating system, or flux capacitor or something...