Road Trip Day 5 - 2007-07-24

Here's a map of my journey on Day 5:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=Asheville,+NC&daddr=Memphis,+TN&sll=37.30364,-79.970215&sspn=5.408469,10.327148&ie=UTF8&ll=35.675147,-86.297607&spn=5.522979,10.327148&z=7&om=1

Check out pictures of today's trip here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10306971@N03/sets/72157600992361078/

Today I made the drive from Asheville, NC to Memphis to meet up with Jacob. I woke up around 8:30, ate some breakfast with my grandmother, and then hit the road. The drive went ok, though it sprinkled now and then. It was quite a long drive, and I was eager for it to be over. I started an audio book version of The World is Flat, which kept me busy for most of the trip. It is a book about how globalization is changing everything. I'm not quite sure how they can stretch it out for 25 hours, but we'll see!

When I got to Memphis, it was about 5:40, so I decided to go by Hobby Lobby to pick up some buttons for the sweater I'm knitting, since Jacob wasn't out of work yet. I ended up driving about 20 minutes out of my way only to find out the store had gone out of business! That was delightful, I'll have to track some down later this week so I can finish up.

After I got to Jacob's I decided that I needed to fix my computer. When my computer isn't working, it leaves me in a state of distress. I had fiddled with it for about an hour and a half last night, running diagnostics and rebooting in a number of different ways. For some reason, it was booting successfully into safe mode, but if I tried to boot into safe mode with networking or normal mode, it would start to load windows but then only show the wallpaper. No icons, no toolbar, so I couldn't do anything!

I called Dell tech support from Jacob's house, but they were pretty useless. They had me run some diagnostics and then they decided that I needed to reinstall windows. Fat chance! I got to thinking that if I could track down an XP CD, I would be able to use the Repair option to fix the problem. Jacob said that we might be able to find one at his office, so we drove over there. No luck! Then he remembered that there was one at the Young Avenue Sound Studio, where he also works, so we went over there too. Jackpot! It took a little searching, but Jacob found it.

When I looked at the CD, I realized that I had XP Pro, and this CD was for XP Home. Either way, we decided to give it a shot. On our way back, we grabbed some burgers at Backyard Burger, which were quite tasty. That is definitely my favorite burger joint around (yes, even above In-and-Out Burger). I tried to use the CD, but unfortunately it didn't work. I figured as a last ditch effort, I would try disabling all the network devices in the Device Manager, because I knew the issue was network-related. Lo-and-behold, that did the trick! That was sure a relief.

I helped Jacob pack up some stuff for his CD release party tomorrow, and we played some Wii Sports. I have further confirmed that I kick ass at Wii Tennis, though my Bowling could use a little work.