A computer virus ruins my day

I am a morning person who usually gets 70% of my work done by 1100A or so. Not so yesterday. Like a puff adder waiting to be trodden on along a pathway in the African bush, there was something equally sinister coiled up in the innards of my usually trusty Dell XPS computer. So when I tried to launch my Stamps.com program, an absolutely vital component of my daily workday, nothing happened. The icon just sat there on the start menu, about as useful as a glass eye on a blind person. With my heart rate and blood pressure increasing rapidly, I tried again, and again. Nothing. The alarmist in me was already thinking dire thoughts of losing thousands of addresses, an unlikely event as I use an automated off-site backup system. But such is panic, unreasonable and irrational.

With a little bit of sage advice from my son, who is a computer science graduate, I calmed down and called Stamps.com. Surprisingly, I was on the line to a friendly and competent technician in less than a minute. I won’t bore you with the details, but he couldn’t fix the problem, telling me that my computer was likely infected with a virus. And so, I spent much of what remained of my productive day, on the 'phone with Balasubramanian, my newest best friend who works for McAfee. "Just call me Bala, for short..." Bala sits in a cubicle somewhere in Asia - I thought it would be impolite to ask. I hope his cricket team wins all their matches this year because he succeeded in extracting the virus from my Dell. Good job Bala! Killed my day, though. Might be time to consider a Mac. If it works anything as well as my iPod, why not?

I was hoping that my day would improve with a late afternoon race, stage 2 of HARRA’s Tour de Bayou, at Spotts Park near the intersection of Memorial Dr and Heights Blvd. It didn’t. This free race was worth what I paid for it. A little over three miles of huffing and puffing around (two out and back circuits) in what must be Houston's hilliest pocket park. It seemed like all steep up or downhill with almost no nice flat stretches to recover. Makes you wonder why so many of the city's elite runners (it was great to see them zoom by) would voluntarily show up. Must be the bragging rights. I did enjoy chatting with a few other Striders before and after the race though.

Kathleen and I will be departing for Boston a week from today. It is starting to feel real. Judging by yesterday’s race, my hopes are not very high for a fast race, but I won’t worry about it. Anything around 4 hours will be fine by me. It is likely to be a one and only experience, so I will be taking it all in and trying to enjoy the experience, rather than running myself into a state of total exhaustion. Perhaps one day soon I can help Kath to also qualify and return as a spectator.