I AM a Computer Goddess

Bow before me, I have conquered my computer's guts.

Since I only have one computer and it's a few years old, and I can't afford to just pop out and get a new one, I sometimes have to face my fear of opening up my hard drive and fiddling with something in there. I live in fear of blowing it all up and then I'd be screwed.

Several months ago my CD-ROM drive went wonky and began opening and closing all by itself over and over and over again until it drove me to duct tape it shut. As you can imagine, that's not good. Eventually the drive got tired of whacking itself against the tape and I think the motor burned out which means I've been CD burner-less for quite a while now.

Recently on my grandad's 80th birthday we were over visiting him and he got to talking about his old war stories when he was aboard the USS Daly during WWII and the Korean War. I love listening to him tell these. The idea came up somehow that I could record him and burn his recollections onto disc for the whole family. GREAT idea! Except my burner is fried.

So after a few attempts to buy one at Wal-mart and Radio Shack (but chickening out because it would mean cracking open my hard drive) I had a talk with one of my coworkers who's a bit of a geek himself and he a) told me I could get a burner mucho cheaper at a place like Staples rather than Wally World and b) seemed fairly certain I couldn't fuck up my computer by installing it.

So I held my breath, sauntered into Staples and bought one. I anticipated a long evening spent cursing and crying while trying to fit the drive into place or download some obscure driver needed to run the burner that the manufacturer neglected to include.

But I'm happy to say that after a few false starts while trying to remove the old burner I managed to get it all done in about 45 minutes and it works a treat! I burned a new CD just for kicks and I'm just so damn pleased with the whole process. Now I won't be so scared when the next thing craps out on me.