The day begins�unhappily.

This will likely be the first of many updates today. I apologize in advance. This is more for my benefit than anyone else�s because I need to blow off steam. Right now I have a feeling in my stomach which I imagine would be similar to what I would experience if one of my loved ones had been in a serious accident, was in the hospital having an operation, and there was a very strong chance he or she would not survive.

Yesterday, after finishing the data recovery process, I shut everything down, had some lunch (around 3 p.m.!) and headed over to Vlad�s where I spent a delightful couple of hours at her swimming pool. It was so cool and refreshing and I felt like a new person when I left there. Supper was late, served after Little Princess returned from karate and Hubby got back from his various activities (he was playing in a tennis tournament and advanced to the next match�yay him!), a simple meal of penne with pesto and chopped tomato and a green salad. The boys watched Sideways which they raved about (I will watch it this afternoon when it is too hot to think and I can retreat to the cool basement before returning it to the video store), and I spent the evening chatting with friends in far-flung time zones (some farther flung than others). It was a very nice distraction. However, when I finally shut down the computer and went to bed around midnight, the anxiety started up in my gut and I consciously had to try to calm myself so I could fall asleep. Added to that, it was hot.

This morning, I awoke, feeling pretty good, then suddenly remembered what I had to do and I got all nervous again. Finally I got up the courage to go upstairs, turn on the Quadra, fire up Finale and open one of the files I retrieved yesterday. Error. I tried another. Error again. I tried defragmenting the files. I tried dragging one to the hard disk from the ZIP I had saved them onto with the same result. I cannot open these files.

I went to my husband who suggested a couple of things, first calling ITS at the university and taking advantage of their expertise since I am faculty and entitled to it for free. The guy I spoke to there was sympathetic but unhelpful. They don�t have the hardware or the software for that kind of thing, plus they are Macintosh retards, even though more and more professors have Macs in their offices and have to go off campus for technical assistance. He suggested I go to one of the stores in town which specializes in Macintosh. That�s likely my next move.

The other thing I have considered is upgrading Finale so I can use it on the G5. There is a feature in the latest version that allows the user to scan music and have it appear, more or less accurately, on screen. I also remembered that I had an earlier version of the symphony saved on the G5�s hard drive, so there is some relief there. But right now I�m concerned with the piece for the TSO. I have to finish making corrections to the score and extract the parts. Now I am looking at possibly having to recopy the score (or scan what I have already printed out with the new program and recopy the rest).

As a last resort, I can always slit my throat.

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