The Agrinautica

So I woke up this morning bright and early planning to make an update about yesterday (nothing dramatic happened yesterday, just the usual observations), sat down at my usual place at the tables in front of the hotel, opened my laptop and...


"NO BOOTABLE DEVICE"

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

I employed all my technical know-how, which consisted of turning it off and on again, and when that didn't work doing it again but leaving it off longer, but still no boots, not even a sock.

This is the second time I've had a laptop fail in mid assignment. I don't think it actually experienced rougher handling than it should be capable of taking (just a lot of being carted around in my backpack) -- i think the real reason for the high electronics failure rate while on assignments is just Murphys Law.

My immediate concern over a computer crash is loss of critical documents and irreplaceable pictures -- fortunately after my phone was stolen love Nairobi in 2015 I set automatic backup to Google photos up (AFTER losing 40 days of irreplaceable photos from East Africa), and after my computer went through a period in 2020 as an amnesiac with no memory i got in the habit of writing all my documents directly at Google docs. Other than those two categories most important things probably came from an email and can be found there again.

BUT I never got in the habit of making PowerPoints on Google docs even though i suppose one can. I've spent many hours over the past month making new presentations and refining old ones, and most of that work is probably a complete loss. Though i think i had sent two PowerPoints (of about five I've been using) to the host organization of this project to translate into French, and that was pretty much at the end of the Ghana project so they're more or less complete ... though now they only exist in French. Jk I'm sure i can get the original back from them.

The substantially revised Guinea presentations and had hastily put together of course would be a loss as well.

And of course there's the sheer inconvenience of losing my laptop an hour before i was going to be once again presenting for hours.

As it happens, Ousman had already departed to assist another volunteer, which was unfortunate because he had the translated presentations on his computer. Ibro was still here so we were able, after unsuccessfully spending half an hour trying to transfer it to another laptop so he could still do work he needed to do, to use the presentations on his laptop.

We'll only have "practicals" at the beehives this afternoon and Saturday. Off Sunday, and Monday I'll do my honey harvesting and processing lecture without any visuals because that's one of the complete loss presentations.

I find this all rather frustrating. My computer savvy friends say the memory might still be recoverable though if hooked up to another device.


In other news, so this morning just after i discovered my computer had crashed, the hotel restaurant guy came by, and asks "cafe?"
But see, I said that to him yesterday and he brought me gosh darn tea.
When my translator came a bit later i grumbled about it to him and he rattled off something to the guy and he promptly came with nescafe.
i complained about it to my translator, saying "how does 'cafe' sound at all like "tea??" Like, maybe my pronunciation is bad but surely he could put it together, how unrecognizable can my pronunciation of cafe be (the word in French is definitely 'café')" and my translator said "oh maybe you should have said nescafe."
So today after he says "cafe" i say "nescafe," and he says "cafe?" and i say "_nescafe_" and then he nods and says "okay" and BRINGS ME FUCKING TEA. (for the record nescafe is a terrible substitute for real coffee)


Needless to say from here on out any updates i post will be from my phone, which I find much more tedious to write things on than my computer.

   Arriving home to my cute little house in my cute little village on the edge of the temperate rainforest in southern Australia, I naturally was eager to get the pictures off my DSLR as well as try to trouble-shoot the external hard drive. Recall that (A) I bought a new laptop right before the trip since the old one had finally become too tedious to feasibly use with several keys no longer working; and (B) that the external hard drive worked until literally the moment I was setting up for a presentation to a room full of people, and all my presentation materials were on the hard drive! Since the whole reason I lug a laptop around the world is to give presentations, this is the very definition of "you had ONE job!!"

   I'm not actually that technically adept. Trouble shooting the hard drive consisted of confirming that nope, it still doesn't work. Plugging it in makes a connect noise on the computer, and the light lights up on the hard drive, but it doesn't show up as a network locaiton. I tried all three USB ports with the same response. That was the extend of trouble shooting ideas I could come up with.

   Okay time to try the DSLR. I had neglected to bring the proper cord with me, the camera end connection being the wider trapezoid. The proper trapezoid-to-USB cord rigged up and... nothing.

   Okay two memory-through-USB devices aren't working. Try my phone to see if that works. Phone seems to work (though yesterday it was behaving a little odd itself, very slow to read the files). Still though, two devices not working and the third not quite 100%, seems to be a computer issue.

   So I dust off and turn on the old laptop, (which I've decided to rename from "Sparky III" to "Rocinante.") and... neither device works there either!! Though also that laptop had lost the ability to transfer pictures from the phone a few months ago (can read them fine but the file transfer of even just one image will often never finish).

   Electronics naming aside: I kind of feel like naming the new laptop after one of the "horses of loa" in William Gibson's Neuromancer series but can't remember their names and can't actually seem to google them up... which is kind of ironic. Anyone remember their names?

   Bottom line... it's kind of hard to trouble-shoot and isolate the problem when every electrnoic device I have is ancient and unreliable!!! My phone itself has a number of quirks (its from 2013 I think), old laptop is from 2010, DSLR I bought off my cousin in 2012 and it was old then, external hard drive is from 2013 and never had a problem before this. Problem could be in any one of the cords as well, I don't know how old they are, but have used a different cord for each of these devices, but don't have spare cords to try.

   My computer savvy friend Mick might come over this evening with some new fully functional equipment which will aid in trouble-shooting.

   Since this laptop is brand new and all my documents and everything is on the hard drive I'm currently unable to access any of my stuff.

   Anyway in the mean time if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.

   I bought a new laptop, a Dell Inspiron 6000, which should be here in "two to three" days. In the mean time I get to hang out in the apartment complex computer lab here d=

   Drive back to Davis on Tuesday was uneventful. School started again on Thursday. Apparently the ghost of Vicki Swett still haunts ASUCD -- Senate doesn't have a permanent meeting room because the room request form filed by Vicki Swett some 16 months ago was missing critical information.
   Incidently the new ASUCD advisor, Eric Sanchez has faked his own death and fled left for a better job. We currently don't have an ASUCD Advisor. The world will probably end.

   Finally saw the movie Wedding Crashers with Gabi. I thought John McCain had a cameo in it -- did I miss it or was that another movie?
   Serenity, the movie based on that awesome show Firefly that Fox cancelled with their immense banhammer, is out now. I haven't seen it yet. I must see it with asapness.
   Kristy and I saw Green Day & Jimmy Eat World at the Arco Arena on Friday night. After waiting in a long line to get in, the security guard told me I had to go put my wallet chain in the car. So I trekked back to the car, which we'd parked at the far end of the parking lot for easy escape, and jostle through the line again. New security guard tells me I need to go put my wrist-thing in the car because it has "raised spikes on it." This despite the fact that he let numerous girls with the same bracelet through, and my belt & Kristy's belt are the exact same material and apparently not objectionable -- even though belts are an established tool for whaling on people, and I'm even less likely to whallop someone with my wrist than I am with a gavel.
   So I asked him to make sure there was nothing else objectional on my person and trekked to the car and back again. Finally I was deemed fit to pass through the security checkpoint. The place was totally swarming with little 16 year old girls. Kristy and I ended up in literally the furthest row in the arena, but hey, who has $120 for floor space really? Also the 13 yr old girl next to us was wearing dominatrix pants and I found it quite disturbing. But yeah the show was great and I had a great view anyway -- of Kristy rocking out, which is better than watching the band anyway. Kristy has mad dancin skills.

   Last night, Saturday night, Kristy's old roommate Joe came back (he graduated) and had dinner with Kristy & Jadine. Then he had to leave because his shift at the Budweiser factory started at midnight (& he works 12 on, 2 days off, 12 days on...). Then her new roommate Eli brought back all these little liquor bottles from the country club he works at and so we bonded with her new roommates (Becca & Eli) over shots. I'd provide pictures, but I left my camera transfer thing in OC! )=>
   Then Kristy & I caught up with Sashie & company at this party off I street. Then Kristy's nemisis Chris Bunch stole Sashie from us. But it was a fun little shindig other than that.

   Kristy's new roommate Becca discovered Steel Reserve and loved it.

Picture of the Day

Kristy, a shark, & my reflection, Long Beach Aquarium

   Suddenly this weekend is just about over. Suddenly this QUARTER is almost over.
The latter hella caught me by suprise.

   I deleted kazaa and suddenly my computer is in a whole new world of betterness. Kazaa really is the root of all evil.

   A thorough discussion of "MUNcest" has developed here, in which I coined the words "cestuous," "uncestuous," "intradais / interdais," "daicest," and "chaircest."
   I also ended up defining "jock" in this conversation that for unkown reasons Diane has coded friends only. The definition as I put it: "jock, verb - to aspire to bond with. One jocks persons one has a crush on. Roughly synonymous with "like," (Ro jocks Russel vs Ro likes Russel), but unlike "like" it implies action. When one jocks someone they not only like them but aspire to do something about it (though it does not imply an actual plan, but the general asperation in an imperfect sense)."