re:

from: Jessica Murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
To: grandmother's email address

yeah, it's not bad here, really. well, compared to what i'm used to. those minus thirty lows last week were record setting, here. that was really only a few days, though, and it's back to being pleasant. but, the locals aren't used to even -10 weather. so, for me it's actually a fairly mild winter....highs are around -5 on average...and the big snow storm we got a few days ago will likely be gone in a few days.

there's no plows on the streets, though. four days after the storm, cars were still getting stuck on the main roads. that's how not used to winter this place is.

i'm definitely working on the music. what i'm doing right now is slowly working through my old material, going back to the late 90s. it's taking a little longer than i wanted, but it's something i've been wanting to do for a while. and i'm just about through it. it's up over here if you want to take a listen to some of it:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

i shouldn't have a problem cashing a check. i'm allowed to claim a certain amount as gifts. that's probably constructed mostly to allow christmas and birthday presents. it would be rather cruel to deny odsp people (many of whom are far more disabled than i, and far more attached to gift-giving than i) of the ability to receive gifts. i don't even think harper would be that cruel. it's income that they track.

...but don't feel obligated. i don't often celebrate holidays. i'd certainly appreciate anything you'd send, but don't feel like you need to.

besides that, things are actually fairly comfortable here. i'm actually pretty content. life is about reading and composing, like i feel it should be.

glad to hear leo's ok. and i hope willy is doing well, too.

j

mom
Hi J...Did you receive an email from Nanny? She wants to know if you got it around 7pm tonight? She is fretting about computer issues again....lol.

Jessica Amber Murray
i haven't checked my email in a few days. i don't know how i can help her from here. i'll check, though...

ok, no, it's not a computer help email. i got it though, responding...

mom
OK...Good...That's all she wanted to know. I am on the phone with her right now...

Jessica Amber Murray
she put the entire email in the subject line. i'm laughing my ass off.

mom
LOL....

LOL....I am explaining to her what she did...lol....Not sure she understands though...lol...She was wondering why it seemed to disappear....lol....She is laughing now too...she wants you to answer her back right now.

Jessica Amber Murray
yeah, well, it's going to take a few minutes to type it.

mom
K

installation file:
Firefox Setup 24.0.exe

the oldest aunt's wife
just to let you have know your aunt had a heart attack thursday or early friday they put 3 stents in today all went well she is resting comfortable in ottawa heart inst.

Jessica Amber Murray
i'm sorry to hear that. i have to ask, though: i've been under the impression for quite some time that her heart's health is tenuous. i think she has multiple pacemakers? are the doctors letting on anything about her more general condition after this recent heart attack?

the oldest aunt's wife
the multiple pacemaker was not for that problem all 3 stents are in seen artery have not seen dr he came in just for her or she would have had to wait untill monday

pressure and heart rate was high and worried about more damage

Jessica Amber Murray
ok. well, i wish her luck and send her best wishes! let me know if you hear more info, please.

the oldest aunt's wife
sure well

hi j; I haven't heard from you for ages! how are you doing?We are having the worst weather I can remember, I guess you are too.All is well here Leo is back to normal working 12 hour days again,but that is what he likes to do.Are you doing your music as you had hoped when you moved there?I think of you often & miss you even though we had our differences sometimes.Will you have trouble cashing a cheque as I would like to send you one for your birthday on the 13th, take care & let me know.luv nanny. .ahve

From: grandmother's email address
To: jessica murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

yeah. back on the modern laptop....

i may be on borrowed time. the bios hard drive test is still faulting. but the windows tools disagree. i dunno. i'm hesitant to take the bios tests completely seriously. i mean, here i am. i want to believe it was just the mbr that got corrupted and i fucked up the recovery through impatience. so, the bios is finding a few bad sectors. meh. i'm surprised it's not redirecting me to the company's website, because that's what it's probably about.

regardless, what i really wanted was to get some data off and it's on the way off. now, whatever happens happens.

...but why is windows so stupid? i should have just downloaded imgburn. instead, i'm stuck waiting for it to copy 200,000 files to a temporary directory or something. why does it need to copy to a temporary directory to burn a fucking dvd?

...and, while i'm at it, why won't it let me copy jpgs to my mp3 player? because it's an mp3 player? fucking derp. it's not even an ipod, it's a sansa. i was trying specifically to avoid stupid fucking apple bullshit.

xp forever, baby. if i ever actually buy another laptop, it's coming with xp on it. this windows-trying-to-be-osx shit is revolting to me. alas, the bios on this thing will not allow xp on it. *sigh*.

i didn't lose anything important in this process. i lost my hundreds of open tabs. reading i'd put aside. bands to check out. that's an annoyance and not a catastrophe. i don't like it, but i'll survive.

i have a lot of catching up to do, though. just an excuse to listen to some music...

it's just still not whirring or clicking or anything. it just doesn't add up.

yeah. no, it's cooked. i guess it got wiped with the file table. grargh. oh well..

it's back up, though. installing drivers, should be back online soon. oddly, though, i'm going to need to keep using this old laptop to upload files to bandcamp until i can get another usb key....which shouldn't be too long...early february....

well, the data drive is now mounting after a chkdsk. thankfully. the data is there and completely safe. i'm going to need to back a few things up more carefully. i should have done that some time ago, really. but windows 7 doesn't like my external hds (there's no reason for this, btw, it seems like a corporate side deal - the drive works perfectly fine in xp and even vista). so i'll have to wait until it gets back up.

the os drive got wiped in the attempted reinstall. i should have known that was going to happen. i did vista support. they taught us that. but note that xp wouldn't have wiped the drive like that, and i'm still in an xp world. i still have xp running on all my pcs and would honestly install it on the laptops if the bios would allow it (that's some fucking proprietary bullshit, but you take what you get with free laptops). there are reasons they switched to an image-based install, and some of them make good sense, but they should have retained the functionality of a straight-over reinstall. this is why windows users fucking hate macs. give me back my user control! let me install what i want! how i want! and, ultimately, the start-up utility failed, guys. you'll point to that as a reason to move to image-based installs without losing the benefit of a copy over reinstall, but it didn't work. i would have been nice to not lose the entire partition.

but i'll blame myself. i was being impatient, and impulsive. i should have known that was going to happen...

regardless, it wiped the partition table, so i had no option but to reformat it. and the chkdsk is running quickly through the "empty" drive. meaning my initial intuition of a fucked file system (rather than a fucked drive) seems to have been correct.

if i'm lucky, i might be able to salvage the open tabs by running restoration programs. formats don't delete data. it might still be accessible. and that's actually all i've lost. it's substantial, though: hundreds of tabs. articles. records. more than that, just flat out ordered tasks. everything else is on the data drive. now, how to get a fresh install of firefox to load that information is another question, and is going to be an experiment. i don't know the answer to this. i know the information is stored somewhere on the drive rather than solely in ram, but how to salvage it i don't know. let's hope i can get it at all to start off with....

overall, though, it's more of an annoyance than a catastrophe. lucky. i still don't know how it happened. i'm starting to suspect a power surge, though. i didn't think anything of it at the time, but i had just popped an sd card into the machine when it fizzed out on me. could the static have shorted it?

i was starting to suspect funny wiring in this room and may be right - when i switched outlets, the chkdsk completed very quickly on my data drive and it seems like it's actually ok. why it won't mount is another question, but i'm starting to think it might be a windows "security" thing. have to see if i can load it with a linux live disc....

this is the only outlet in the apartment that's not on a surge protector. i'm not giving up yet, though...

i'm getting the impression i may be able to do a sort of blind copy. i mean, i can't read the partition, but i can read that there's data on the partition. if i can read that there's data, there has to be a way to read the data.

that chkdsk ran for a really long time, failed and forced a reboot. weird.