Everything that could go wrong did go wrong:
- Laptop would not recognize the USB connected printer
- Laptop power cord is fickle and does not like to charge the battery unless the laptop is on it's side, sitting on the cord and the cord is at just the right angle.... which means I can NOT use the laptop while it's charging.
- Couldn't print out or access my lesson plan from last night
- Reinstalled printer software, tried to print lesson plan, crashed document software 100% of the times attempted, unable to print.
- Laptop now does not recognize ANY USB connected device - was going to do a full recovery on it but couldn't move data to the hard drive.
- Backed up data to 6 CD's. Attempted to recover laptop. Discovered this can ONLY be done with the discs that came with the laptop... and they're ummmmmm someplace safe.
- Weather was not as sunny as I had planned on it being, made our science experiment not quite perform like it should - you really need hot sun to be able to demonstrate the differences in evaporation between sun and shade.
- Winged it through our lessons, but later found not exactly what I had planned.
1. Winging it is ok.
2. LD will tell me what he can and can't do - no lesson plan can account for that
3. Fewer than 3 meltdowns per day is a win!
4. We still have 179 more days to go.
I did take a picture... one that made me feel SOOOOO much better about all of this. But now, Murphy is showing me that he's more powerful than I am.... I can't access the memory card to get it.
Thanks for reminding me that technology is NOT all that and a bag of chips.
****************UPDATE*********************
Now for strange of all strangeness...... I pulled the memory card from my Nikon.... put it in my Cannon. connected the Cannon to the heathen laptop with a USB cable and was able to retrieve my precious picture. Perhaps the laptop realized that I was "this close" to tossing it out on the highway? At any rate - here's LD's "first day of school" photo:
