Some of you may know that we have had quite the process with Cub Scouts at our school. Well, it has been a long road, but we finally this weekend felt like we are making some big progress. Thanks to another local pack we were able to pull off our pack's first ever Pine Wood Derby Race. The day wouldn't be complete without the last minute adding of weight (supplied nicely from our collection of washers), but the kids had a great time and it seemed like all had fun. Brian had a great time of course, as his car came in first in our pack. The great thing is that I think he did the most work on it himself out of any of the kids...so I think it was well earned :) A couple will go on to compete at the council level next week. To celebrate the good time we ended with a trip to McDonald's for ice cream and some play place time.
Speaking of McDonald's Kelly had a funny comment today. We were going taking the Bible Club teachers out to lunch after church and she asked if we could go to McDonald's. We didn't think that it would be their first choice, so we told her no we were going to Groucho's Deli. She thought about this for a moment and then asked, "Is McDonald's closed?...for why else would we not want to go to such a wonderful place :)
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Quick Easter Update
Hi all,
Just wanted to try to get a quick update put out here. I'm still trying to be a little more regular about it. We had a nice Easter down here. Brian and Kelly are on break, so we did some good family time on Friday and Saturday. We found a Good Friday service at a cool old church downtime that I have wanted to visit for quite some time. The Pastor, Ferguson Sinclair, was excellent, living up to everything I had heard about him. Afterward, we just wandered around down town Columbia, which is always fun. We found a fun shop for ice cream and they amazingly had the best flavor of all, Black Cherry (I don't usually find much outside Michigan). I'm unsure if Kelly enjoyed the ice cream or the downtown fountain more. Saturday we mostly relaxed together. Allison attempted, in vain, to wash the pollen off the car. Actually she succeeded, but you wouldn't know that a short bit later (I have never seen as much pollen as they have down here). The bad news Saturday was that MSU lost (as well as Duke winning), but on a bright note they recently opened a BW3's down here, so that was an enjoyable find. Easter day was an interesting mix. Service was nice in the morning and we relaxed all afternoon and played some games as a family. Brian's game of choice was Rummikub, although Kelly's help was mostly going around and telling what each of us had in our hands. So lots of fun and Allison made some good food, however we do miss family on these days.
Speaking of family, there is again some hard stuff going on back in Michigan., so please keep my family in prayer.
Just wanted to try to get a quick update put out here. I'm still trying to be a little more regular about it. We had a nice Easter down here. Brian and Kelly are on break, so we did some good family time on Friday and Saturday. We found a Good Friday service at a cool old church downtime that I have wanted to visit for quite some time. The Pastor, Ferguson Sinclair, was excellent, living up to everything I had heard about him. Afterward, we just wandered around down town Columbia, which is always fun. We found a fun shop for ice cream and they amazingly had the best flavor of all, Black Cherry (I don't usually find much outside Michigan). I'm unsure if Kelly enjoyed the ice cream or the downtown fountain more. Saturday we mostly relaxed together. Allison attempted, in vain, to wash the pollen off the car. Actually she succeeded, but you wouldn't know that a short bit later (I have never seen as much pollen as they have down here). The bad news Saturday was that MSU lost (as well as Duke winning), but on a bright note they recently opened a BW3's down here, so that was an enjoyable find. Easter day was an interesting mix. Service was nice in the morning and we relaxed all afternoon and played some games as a family. Brian's game of choice was Rummikub, although Kelly's help was mostly going around and telling what each of us had in our hands. So lots of fun and Allison made some good food, however we do miss family on these days.
Speaking of family, there is again some hard stuff going on back in Michigan., so please keep my family in prayer.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Update Part II
So we're feeling pretty good down here after just watching MSU pull out a sweet win against Tennessee. It is great to have things even like sports that tie us back to home...especially when they are exciting things.
So what else is keeping us busy, and a little overwhelmed and confused down here? Well, it really is the same story for us since we've come down here. We've mentioned it before, but we have surprisingly found ourselves in the middle of a large group of young kids from the neighborhood who have picked our house as a spot to always want to come and play. In many ways this is great, but at the same time it can quickly become quite overwhelming at times.
The confused part comes in when you add to this that our church, seeing this opportunity, has decided to start Bible Clubs for the kids on Wednesday nights. Awesome, but we are gaining a new appreciation for the difficulty of this as we have been asked to coordinate it (man, give me 20 college students any day over this). How do you take this group of 20 kids and get them to settle down for a Bible lesson? What kind of lessons keep them interested and what do these young kids who are so tough in many ways, but so young in many others, need to hear? Add to that the teachers are students from CIU who are in their first teaching experiences. So, although they are doing well overall, we are helping them learn as well and trying to balance when to step in.
So, some pretty cool stuff...just a little (or a lot) stretching at times.
Speaking of overall (using it above reminded me), Kelly was quite humorous today as we prepared to go out to watch the basketball game. She, quite the little Spartan, wanted to wear her MSU cheerleader outfit, but she faced the dilemma that she also wanted to wear her overalls. No problem for a creative 3 year old. She decided to wear the cheerleader outfit along with the overalls...turned into underalls in this case. It was quite the unique choice and I'm sure caught some stares at the restaurant...but hey...she's three so it's all fun.
So what else is keeping us busy, and a little overwhelmed and confused down here? Well, it really is the same story for us since we've come down here. We've mentioned it before, but we have surprisingly found ourselves in the middle of a large group of young kids from the neighborhood who have picked our house as a spot to always want to come and play. In many ways this is great, but at the same time it can quickly become quite overwhelming at times.
The confused part comes in when you add to this that our church, seeing this opportunity, has decided to start Bible Clubs for the kids on Wednesday nights. Awesome, but we are gaining a new appreciation for the difficulty of this as we have been asked to coordinate it (man, give me 20 college students any day over this). How do you take this group of 20 kids and get them to settle down for a Bible lesson? What kind of lessons keep them interested and what do these young kids who are so tough in many ways, but so young in many others, need to hear? Add to that the teachers are students from CIU who are in their first teaching experiences. So, although they are doing well overall, we are helping them learn as well and trying to balance when to step in.
So, some pretty cool stuff...just a little (or a lot) stretching at times.
Speaking of overall (using it above reminded me), Kelly was quite humorous today as we prepared to go out to watch the basketball game. She, quite the little Spartan, wanted to wear her MSU cheerleader outfit, but she faced the dilemma that she also wanted to wear her overalls. No problem for a creative 3 year old. She decided to wear the cheerleader outfit along with the overalls...turned into underalls in this case. It was quite the unique choice and I'm sure caught some stares at the restaurant...but hey...she's three so it's all fun.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Still here
So I know it has been forever since we have posted anything on here and I apologize for that. But, we are still alive and doing well down here, just very busy. There is so much to tell that has happened since December 6th (wow, that is a really long gap since the last post). It's too much for one post, so I'll just share what is on our minds right now and I'll try in some future ones to go back and tell a little bit of the past couple months. That there has been so much is one of the things that has kept me from posting, so busy and so much to tell.
Alright, what is going on right now. I'm not sure what the right word is...overwhelmed, confused, searching...none seem to quite fully describe the situation. There are really two big fronts that this is coming on, but I think one will do for tonight. As many of you know we live in a poorer neighborhood and many of the people have been hit especially hard by the economy. In the midst of that God has seen fit to bless us, but that leaves us trying to figure out how and where to help out. My roommate from college is in a similar situation and we have recently talked about our struggles in learning how to deal with this. There are just so many questions that don't seem to have clear answers. Who do you try to help? How much do you step in and try to give support and how much do they need to work through the problems themselves? People are going through hard times, but sometimes they are making some choices that are making things harder on themselves. It is especially hard in the case of our one friend, a single parent, whose decisions also affect children. What is called for then? Should we simply help, showing mercy because we all make poor choices? Should we be there as an encouraging friend because they truly are struggling and it is such a sad situation? Is this one of those times that calls for some hard truth to be told?
Out of all of this a couple of things seem to be coming clear. I think we are coming to the realization that we will never get this perfect. There are always times that we will make the wrong choice about where to live in balance. Yet, that does not mean that we should stop trying and learning to do it better and better. Also, admitting that we don't have it all together may be one of the biggest keys, I recently read this in a book and it struck me. We like to think that there is a nice easy plan to life (do A, then B, then C and presto...situation solved). Or we like to think that whatever comes we are capable enough to figure out what to do and handle it. Both of these really are us trying to look to ourselves rather than admitting that we need help. We need the help of others and most importantly the help of God. Admitting that we cannot handle it should not drive us to quit or to believe that things won't work out, instead it should drive us to our knees to ask for help and guidance in the situation. To be given wisdom for how to proceed when we have no idea. To look to God for our encouragement that He is in control and that He can work things out when I cannot. It is exciting to see that He answers. The message this morning was exactly along those lines and was the encouragement that we needed. God has provided good friends who can offer us encouragement as well as some sound advice to make sure we are making wise decisions. And most of all we have prayer, both to ask for help and to be renewed.
Sorry if this is overwhelming for a first post in awhile, it just is what is on our hearts for now.
P.S. Maybe it's small, but it was a nice encouragement that MSU pulled out an awesome win today.
Alright, what is going on right now. I'm not sure what the right word is...overwhelmed, confused, searching...none seem to quite fully describe the situation. There are really two big fronts that this is coming on, but I think one will do for tonight. As many of you know we live in a poorer neighborhood and many of the people have been hit especially hard by the economy. In the midst of that God has seen fit to bless us, but that leaves us trying to figure out how and where to help out. My roommate from college is in a similar situation and we have recently talked about our struggles in learning how to deal with this. There are just so many questions that don't seem to have clear answers. Who do you try to help? How much do you step in and try to give support and how much do they need to work through the problems themselves? People are going through hard times, but sometimes they are making some choices that are making things harder on themselves. It is especially hard in the case of our one friend, a single parent, whose decisions also affect children. What is called for then? Should we simply help, showing mercy because we all make poor choices? Should we be there as an encouraging friend because they truly are struggling and it is such a sad situation? Is this one of those times that calls for some hard truth to be told?
Out of all of this a couple of things seem to be coming clear. I think we are coming to the realization that we will never get this perfect. There are always times that we will make the wrong choice about where to live in balance. Yet, that does not mean that we should stop trying and learning to do it better and better. Also, admitting that we don't have it all together may be one of the biggest keys, I recently read this in a book and it struck me. We like to think that there is a nice easy plan to life (do A, then B, then C and presto...situation solved). Or we like to think that whatever comes we are capable enough to figure out what to do and handle it. Both of these really are us trying to look to ourselves rather than admitting that we need help. We need the help of others and most importantly the help of God. Admitting that we cannot handle it should not drive us to quit or to believe that things won't work out, instead it should drive us to our knees to ask for help and guidance in the situation. To be given wisdom for how to proceed when we have no idea. To look to God for our encouragement that He is in control and that He can work things out when I cannot. It is exciting to see that He answers. The message this morning was exactly along those lines and was the encouragement that we needed. God has provided good friends who can offer us encouragement as well as some sound advice to make sure we are making wise decisions. And most of all we have prayer, both to ask for help and to be renewed.
Sorry if this is overwhelming for a first post in awhile, it just is what is on our hearts for now.
P.S. Maybe it's small, but it was a nice encouragement that MSU pulled out an awesome win today.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Thanksgiving and such
So, a little behind in posting this, but as always things just seem to get busy with classes and all.
Anyway, Thanksgiving was wonderful. I only hope that everyone had as wonderful a time as all of us. Since we are already in the South we figured we'd head a little further south for Thanksgiving. So we went to Florida to visit my grandparents for the weekend. We left Wednesday morning and arrived at their place, about an hour north of Orlando, just in time for dinner. The kids were amazing on the way down, but quite excited to get out of the car. Of course we were greeted with some outstanding cooking from my Grandma. I'm not sure what it was called, but it was some kind of egg casserole with sausage, hashbrowns, and of course...lots of cheese. The first dessert for the weekend was homemade apple pie...it looked so amazing you almost didn't want to eat it...almost :) And that was only Wednesday night :)
Thursday of course had us stuffing ourselves on turkey, mashed potatoes, pies (I had a three piece sampler for Thanksgiving), etc and watching the traditional loss for the Lions...a bad one this year :( Aside from that we spent time playing bocce ball, shuffle board, pickle ball, a little swimming in the pool and of course lots of cards with Grandma. Much to her delight, Brian learned her favorite game, "Dimes", and put in a couple good games. I was also excited for the chance to get to see one of my good friends from high school, Nick. It was great to catch up with him and play some Euchre Settlers.
It took a little while to get back to Columbia. We were supposed to get back around 7pm, according to Garmin, but taking 3 hours to go 10 miles due to traffic around Savannah had us getting home around 10pm. I called Laura in the middle of it to let her know that I blamed her...as she is a civil engineer...it was the best I could come up with. The funny note was that we planned to stop for dinner just before we hit the traffic jam and it was at a spot without any exits...so we ended up waiting until nearly 8pm for dinner instead of 6:30ish. By the time the traffic cleared up and we found a Burger King it seems that everyone else had found it first as Burger King was...sold out of burgers. The kids didn't seem to mind a dinner of chicken nuggets, french fries, and their cheesy tots (not very good in my opinion)...so all was well.
Back in Columbia we are (with the exception of Kelly) all just trying to finish up classes and looking toward Christmas break and traveling up to Michigan to see family and friends. Classes are outstanding down here and I am really happy that we made the decision to come, but it is still nice to have a break and especially to see all the friends and family whom we miss so much. Oh...Kelly for her part is still working on her language development. We did have our first Russian night, but that's not what I'm talking about. Amidst her discussions of the elephants that are in our living room she has added a nuance to "Oh snap" as she has made it a verb. She seems to have the correct use when she says "Oh snap", but now enjoys adding "I snapped it".
The last two days have been a mix. I got a lot of homework done yesterday and still managed a trip to a tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree. An hour later Brian had changed his mind about 15 times, but we finally decided on one...a little bigger than we had planned...but it'll fit, right? Kelly on the other hand was quite content to run around and try to determine which trees were taller than her. Although she rarely was the victor...she was quite diligent. She would run up to a tree and lean against it to try to see if the top was taller than her. She was consistent with this measuring method even when faced with the 30 foot trees, quite cute. Today we decorated the tree...a little trimming was required in the end to make it fit...things are a little cramped, but the kids had fun. However on the tough side, we received some difficult news from back home, so please keep my family in your prayers.
Anyway, Thanksgiving was wonderful. I only hope that everyone had as wonderful a time as all of us. Since we are already in the South we figured we'd head a little further south for Thanksgiving. So we went to Florida to visit my grandparents for the weekend. We left Wednesday morning and arrived at their place, about an hour north of Orlando, just in time for dinner. The kids were amazing on the way down, but quite excited to get out of the car. Of course we were greeted with some outstanding cooking from my Grandma. I'm not sure what it was called, but it was some kind of egg casserole with sausage, hashbrowns, and of course...lots of cheese. The first dessert for the weekend was homemade apple pie...it looked so amazing you almost didn't want to eat it...almost :) And that was only Wednesday night :)
Thursday of course had us stuffing ourselves on turkey, mashed potatoes, pies (I had a three piece sampler for Thanksgiving), etc and watching the traditional loss for the Lions...a bad one this year :( Aside from that we spent time playing bocce ball, shuffle board, pickle ball, a little swimming in the pool and of course lots of cards with Grandma. Much to her delight, Brian learned her favorite game, "Dimes", and put in a couple good games. I was also excited for the chance to get to see one of my good friends from high school, Nick. It was great to catch up with him and play some Euchre Settlers.
It took a little while to get back to Columbia. We were supposed to get back around 7pm, according to Garmin, but taking 3 hours to go 10 miles due to traffic around Savannah had us getting home around 10pm. I called Laura in the middle of it to let her know that I blamed her...as she is a civil engineer...it was the best I could come up with. The funny note was that we planned to stop for dinner just before we hit the traffic jam and it was at a spot without any exits...so we ended up waiting until nearly 8pm for dinner instead of 6:30ish. By the time the traffic cleared up and we found a Burger King it seems that everyone else had found it first as Burger King was...sold out of burgers. The kids didn't seem to mind a dinner of chicken nuggets, french fries, and their cheesy tots (not very good in my opinion)...so all was well.
Back in Columbia we are (with the exception of Kelly) all just trying to finish up classes and looking toward Christmas break and traveling up to Michigan to see family and friends. Classes are outstanding down here and I am really happy that we made the decision to come, but it is still nice to have a break and especially to see all the friends and family whom we miss so much. Oh...Kelly for her part is still working on her language development. We did have our first Russian night, but that's not what I'm talking about. Amidst her discussions of the elephants that are in our living room she has added a nuance to "Oh snap" as she has made it a verb. She seems to have the correct use when she says "Oh snap", but now enjoys adding "I snapped it".
The last two days have been a mix. I got a lot of homework done yesterday and still managed a trip to a tree farm to pick out a Christmas tree. An hour later Brian had changed his mind about 15 times, but we finally decided on one...a little bigger than we had planned...but it'll fit, right? Kelly on the other hand was quite content to run around and try to determine which trees were taller than her. Although she rarely was the victor...she was quite diligent. She would run up to a tree and lean against it to try to see if the top was taller than her. She was consistent with this measuring method even when faced with the 30 foot trees, quite cute. Today we decorated the tree...a little trimming was required in the end to make it fit...things are a little cramped, but the kids had fun. However on the tough side, we received some difficult news from back home, so please keep my family in your prayers.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Deer Season
Not one to stray too far from our Michigan roots Allison did her best to try to get herself a deer last Tuesday. Nope she hasn't taken up bow, rifle, or even black powder. Her preferred weapon of choice is a 3000 pound Honda Accord. We were driving down the road near coming back to our house when she sighted her target, a big doe coming out of the woods just in front of us. However, I don't know whether she decided that she's not much of a hunter or maybe she wanted a buck because she tried to brake, but she tried to brake. Braking was an excellent choice as swerving one way would have taken us into trees and the other would have been the oncoming car that barely missed the deer itself. Yet, she must not have wanted the deer to escape without a solid warning so a slight collision was made. The deer bounced off, seemed quite unaffected, and ran off into the woods. The car received a bent hood and everybody inside was quite safe...although Kelly's nap was disturbed. So in the end, some quick reflexes from Allison seemed to have saved all and insurance (thanks goes to Jason Atkinson for pointing out how little it costs to lower comp deductible) will cover the damage and we will have a rental car for our trip to my grandparents for Thanksgiving.
So that was our big excitement for the week...but no venison for us it seems. I also had a Hebrew exam this week that went pretty well, despite that we ended up with a never seen before vocab word (many apologies from the prof on that one). Yesterday was pretty busy as our church had a community day and we had a huge turnout from the kids, not as many parents, but everyone had a great time as they had a couple of the air bouncers, cotton candy, snow cones, and even a dare van complete with an x-box 360.
In other language learning news, it looks like we will be having a Russian night each week where we'll have a couple people over for dinner and try to all work on learning/practicing our Russian together. Kelly is actually doing quite well with her Russian as she understands most anything Allison tells her, although she much prefers to respond in English. She has also added to her English vocab. "Oh snap" is her new favorite phrase.
So that was our big excitement for the week...but no venison for us it seems. I also had a Hebrew exam this week that went pretty well, despite that we ended up with a never seen before vocab word (many apologies from the prof on that one). Yesterday was pretty busy as our church had a community day and we had a huge turnout from the kids, not as many parents, but everyone had a great time as they had a couple of the air bouncers, cotton candy, snow cones, and even a dare van complete with an x-box 360.
In other language learning news, it looks like we will be having a Russian night each week where we'll have a couple people over for dinner and try to all work on learning/practicing our Russian together. Kelly is actually doing quite well with her Russian as she understands most anything Allison tells her, although she much prefers to respond in English. She has also added to her English vocab. "Oh snap" is her new favorite phrase.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Windows 7...some first thoughts
(Allison's Warning: You must have a technical dictionary to read this blog, at least she did.)
So, I have spent the last week attempting to upgrade to Windows 7..."simple" right? Hmmm...well here is how it went. Both Allison and I got some student deals from Digital River for Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
So Wednesday the 22nd finally came and we downloaded the files...as one person put it "instead of looking at a nice, shiny ready-to-install ISO of Windows 7, Digital River sent you a handful of random files and no ISO!" They decided that we would only want an .exe file since we are upgrading. Well, what can we do...so Allison installed that on the desktop and it went fine. A little messy file structure since it wasn't a clean install...but it worked. It did have an "unknown device" still, but everything seemed to be working. Not too much of a new look, but some nice things. I really like the libraries and the homegroups look like they could be good. They give you many more options for User Account Control and their drivers seem to be good...after doing a Windows update. Quicken actually works better than it did on Vista. The changes to the taskbar seem nice and I really like that you can easily change the shutdown button to switch user (or whatever you want). Yes, I did also try the "snap feature"...eh.
But then I went to install it on the laptop. Clicked on the .exe and watched it take the 5 minutes to unpack everything...oops, it got an error for file permissions at the end...huh? Okay, try again running as administrator, nope same error. Maybe it was because I'm working on files from my side which are stored on Allison's desktop, change to Allison's side and rerun. Same problem. Okay, this is frustrating...one more try. Log on to Vista's secret "real" administrator account, this will work now...nope same error. Fall back on the thing that never fails...google the problem. Seems like lots of others are having the same issue, but others have no problems...hmm. After reading several forums I find that the problem is that Microsoft had the brilliant idea to send the upgrade to Windows 7 pro 64-bit as a 64-bit file. So, if you happen to be upgrading from...I dunno, Vista 32-bit (which most people are) you cannot run the file. Sent email to Digital River asking for "the fix" that they had.
Digital River sent a link to download the iso file b/c you have to do a clean install...yay! Download the file and burn to dvd and ready to go. Sadly by now it's Monday and we have classes for the next three days and I wanted the laptop working. So I wait until Wednesday...good choice as it turns out. I start the install and it gets 20% done and tells me that the file is corrupt...and since it is a clean install I've formatted my previous version. Call Digital River...closed. Check Microsoft support site...crashed (they must have upgraded to Windows 7 too). Call Microsoft help line...it takes me to the store...get number for tech support. Call them...find out Digital River sent product key for Home Premium not Pro and they will only help me install Home Premium... transferred to store to try to get new product key. The MS store cannot/will not give me a new product key because I bought it through Digital River and they don't have the records...but tech support does and should be able to handle this...transferred back. The store rep failed to give any details to tech support...so I tell my story again...they still cannot help me. Well...might as well see what help they can give me at least with Home Premium...transferred to the actual tech support person. After dealing with 10 minutes of repeating myself and having her repeat herself because of the foreign accent...told only Digital River can help with the tech support. Given the number for Digital River (complete with country code)...hang up and do a factory restore (didn't format that part of the hard drive) so my laptop actually works while I do some Greek homework.
Call Digital River the next day (nope the number didn't work...and they didn't have it listed...but thanks again goes to google...800-GOOG-411) to get a new iso and product key. Given the "all sales are final" line at first, but then they decide they should probably cancel the order and I can reorder. Cancel sent (will take a few days) and I go to reorder...oops...you can only order once per student email address...good thing we still have our MSU email addresses...new product key achieved. Redownload iso file and install...it works! Get everything installed and I'm having no problems. So Allison logs on and her side locks up every few minutes. Nothing in event logs. So I delete her account, defrag, run scandisk, and re-add her...still locking up. I tell her it's user error, but she insists on blaming the computer.
This seems to be a common complaint so the next day I call tech support...back to help from a foreign country. After giving the problem and 5 minutes on hold I was told to delete and re-add her :( So...I asked about the unknown devices...after another few sessions of 5 minute holds I was told that I should...reinstall. Put in a request for tier II help...which was surprisingly granted...but is through follow-up and hang-up. I'm supposed to have a call back in an hour.
Install on the laptop...take 4...figured I'd do this while I waited (good thing as they never called back). Everything works again...unidentified device still there :( Decided to ignore that and I get it all set-up and Allison seems to be able to use it without any trouble. I even managed to get some more Greek homework done during all of it and downloaded a trial of Everest (sweet program) and discovered the unidentified devices are my card reader on the laptop...no biggee (apparently Allison didn't even know we had one)...and AMD's "away mode" on the desktop (helps restore from hibernate faster)...annoying...but it won't hurt anything...can also be disabled in the bios. So all seems well.
This evening I log on to check my email while watching some football. A commercial comes on advertising Windows 7 and how it won't crash as much...and my side locks up :( Hold down the power button to turn off and restart...log on and make it in to check email this time. Low and behold I have an email from tier II support. Apparently they wanted to confirm that I needed help by email (a day later) before they returned the call. Well, at least I knew that things weren't quite working still :) So email sent back to them.
The saga continues...
So, I have spent the last week attempting to upgrade to Windows 7..."simple" right? Hmmm...well here is how it went. Both Allison and I got some student deals from Digital River for Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
So Wednesday the 22nd finally came and we downloaded the files...as one person put it "instead of looking at a nice, shiny ready-to-install ISO of Windows 7, Digital River sent you a handful of random files and no ISO!" They decided that we would only want an .exe file since we are upgrading. Well, what can we do...so Allison installed that on the desktop and it went fine. A little messy file structure since it wasn't a clean install...but it worked. It did have an "unknown device" still, but everything seemed to be working. Not too much of a new look, but some nice things. I really like the libraries and the homegroups look like they could be good. They give you many more options for User Account Control and their drivers seem to be good...after doing a Windows update. Quicken actually works better than it did on Vista. The changes to the taskbar seem nice and I really like that you can easily change the shutdown button to switch user (or whatever you want). Yes, I did also try the "snap feature"...eh.
But then I went to install it on the laptop. Clicked on the .exe and watched it take the 5 minutes to unpack everything...oops, it got an error for file permissions at the end...huh? Okay, try again running as administrator, nope same error. Maybe it was because I'm working on files from my side which are stored on Allison's desktop, change to Allison's side and rerun. Same problem. Okay, this is frustrating...one more try. Log on to Vista's secret "real" administrator account, this will work now...nope same error. Fall back on the thing that never fails...google the problem. Seems like lots of others are having the same issue, but others have no problems...hmm. After reading several forums I find that the problem is that Microsoft had the brilliant idea to send the upgrade to Windows 7 pro 64-bit as a 64-bit file. So, if you happen to be upgrading from...I dunno, Vista 32-bit (which most people are) you cannot run the file. Sent email to Digital River asking for "the fix" that they had.
Digital River sent a link to download the iso file b/c you have to do a clean install...yay! Download the file and burn to dvd and ready to go. Sadly by now it's Monday and we have classes for the next three days and I wanted the laptop working. So I wait until Wednesday...good choice as it turns out. I start the install and it gets 20% done and tells me that the file is corrupt...and since it is a clean install I've formatted my previous version. Call Digital River...closed. Check Microsoft support site...crashed (they must have upgraded to Windows 7 too). Call Microsoft help line...it takes me to the store...get number for tech support. Call them...find out Digital River sent product key for Home Premium not Pro and they will only help me install Home Premium... transferred to store to try to get new product key. The MS store cannot/will not give me a new product key because I bought it through Digital River and they don't have the records...but tech support does and should be able to handle this...transferred back. The store rep failed to give any details to tech support...so I tell my story again...they still cannot help me. Well...might as well see what help they can give me at least with Home Premium...transferred to the actual tech support person. After dealing with 10 minutes of repeating myself and having her repeat herself because of the foreign accent...told only Digital River can help with the tech support. Given the number for Digital River (complete with country code)...hang up and do a factory restore (didn't format that part of the hard drive) so my laptop actually works while I do some Greek homework.
Call Digital River the next day (nope the number didn't work...and they didn't have it listed...but thanks again goes to google...800-GOOG-411) to get a new iso and product key. Given the "all sales are final" line at first, but then they decide they should probably cancel the order and I can reorder. Cancel sent (will take a few days) and I go to reorder...oops...you can only order once per student email address...good thing we still have our MSU email addresses...new product key achieved. Redownload iso file and install...it works! Get everything installed and I'm having no problems. So Allison logs on and her side locks up every few minutes. Nothing in event logs. So I delete her account, defrag, run scandisk, and re-add her...still locking up. I tell her it's user error, but she insists on blaming the computer.
This seems to be a common complaint so the next day I call tech support...back to help from a foreign country. After giving the problem and 5 minutes on hold I was told to delete and re-add her :( So...I asked about the unknown devices...after another few sessions of 5 minute holds I was told that I should...reinstall. Put in a request for tier II help...which was surprisingly granted...but is through follow-up and hang-up. I'm supposed to have a call back in an hour.
Install on the laptop...take 4...figured I'd do this while I waited (good thing as they never called back). Everything works again...unidentified device still there :( Decided to ignore that and I get it all set-up and Allison seems to be able to use it without any trouble. I even managed to get some more Greek homework done during all of it and downloaded a trial of Everest (sweet program) and discovered the unidentified devices are my card reader on the laptop...no biggee (apparently Allison didn't even know we had one)...and AMD's "away mode" on the desktop (helps restore from hibernate faster)...annoying...but it won't hurt anything...can also be disabled in the bios. So all seems well.
This evening I log on to check my email while watching some football. A commercial comes on advertising Windows 7 and how it won't crash as much...and my side locks up :( Hold down the power button to turn off and restart...log on and make it in to check email this time. Low and behold I have an email from tier II support. Apparently they wanted to confirm that I needed help by email (a day later) before they returned the call. Well, at least I knew that things weren't quite working still :) So email sent back to them.
The saga continues...
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