Limited Geek

I’m enjoying the heck out of my time off from work, although I did have to go in today despite being on vacation because a client was scheduled for court. Ahhh, the joys of working in the juvenile court system. But, the appearance was only a short one, barely taking 10 minutes, so it wasn’t a total pain. I did a little fun shopping afterward. I absolutely abhor shopping for food and clothes – but I ADORE shopping for “fun stuff,” like fabric, crafty-stuff, and power tools. Then, met the daughter for lunch at an Indian buffet – dal, naan, curry beef, mint chutney -Yum! Then back home for a nap, because I enjoyed the Yum way too much.

And, now, I’m busy being a geek. A friend delivered his laptop to me the other day, begging for help because, “I think it might have a virus or something.”

Turns out it was the “something” that was gunking up his system rather than an actual virus. Nine little somethings, to be exact. Smart little worms and Trojans, each with at least five related files, all doing their level best to hide themselves – morphing, changing their names, migrating to different locations. I’m surprised his machine was even working at all. It was fun tracking down and offing the sneaky buggies. Fifty-six insidious files, total. Each time one was eradicated, I felt a thrill of elation – take that, Sucker! And THAT! Wham! It took a while. But the Geek Warrioress prevailed. His system is now squeaky clean and churning through bits and bytes at a fast, smooth clip. I only had one thing to say when he called for the official diagnosis and a prediction of the laptop’s chances of survival....

GET A DAMN FIREWALL!

We chatted a bit and agreed on an upgrade of his OS and, nice person that I am, I’m installing a firewall for him, too. Totally not what I expected to be doing with my vacation time, but I’m having wonderful fun giving my internal geek free rein for a while. Give me a virus or a worm to track down and kill, a registry to repair, and system internals to mess around with and I’m happy as a clam.

Unfortunately, there is a limit to my geekiness. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to work the damn blogroll thingie. Help? Hints? Detailed instructions in language a kindergartner could understand? Anyone?