Invisible Hitches and Glitches

Last weekend's Pennwriters Conference went off without a hitch. Mostly.

Having been a conference coordinator once a long, long time ago, I know there are lots of hitches and glitches behind the scenes. The trick is how you handle them. This year's coordinators handled them beautifully. I'd guess 99.9% of the attendees were unaware and were too busy having fun to notice. Smiling faces abounded.

I had a glitch of my own to contend with. After teaching two workshops on Friday, I had one more to go on Saturday afternoon, and it was the one that totally depended on a PowerPoint slide show. 

Friday night in my hotel room, I reached into my computer bag to pull out my laptop and was startled to feel how hot it was. Not scorching hot, but warmer than usual. Let me add that my beloved laptop is five years old, which seems to be their life expectancy. The battery no longer holds a charge, so I need to keep in plugged in when using it. 

Anyway, I decided to err on the side of caution and powered down the laptop to avoid unpleasant and smokey surprises in the middle of the night. 

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon. Prior to my third and final workshop of the conference, I went upstairs to boot up my laptop and load my PowerPoint presentation so that all I needed to do was plug it into the projector. 

I plugged it in and hit the power button. The lock screen popped up. I typed in my password...

...and the screen went black. I waited. Nothing. I rebooted. The same thing happened again. And again after the third start. I may have said some nasty words. 

The good thing is I was prepared. I had saved the PowerPoint to a flash drive. Even better, I remembered to stick it in my computer case! I shut down the laptop and headed downstairs, clutching my flash drive. 

My travel buddy, Liz Milliron, came to my rescue by lending me her MacBook. With a bit of help from our Pennwriters President/IT expert, I was up and running. And only a few people were aware of the momentary panic I'd suffered minutes earlier.

Lesson learned: ALWAYS have your workshop saved to a flash drive and ALWAYS keep said flash drive in your computer bag.

Epilogue: Sunday morning, my computer came back to life after being left plugged in a while. Apparently, the battery had been so dead, there wasn't enough juice to start it up, even when plugged in. 

My new laptop arrives tomorrow.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A New Face

Image
I've been hearing over and over lately that I need to get new headshots done. People who only know me from my online presence complain when they meet me that I don't look anything like my picture. Hmmm. Is that good or bad? I'm still not sure. However, the fact that I now wear my hair a lot longer than I used to is a fact I can't deny. The problem with new photos is...well, I'm older than I was when I had those last ones done. If I could get away with posting a picture of me when I was 25, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Seriously, inside my head, that's still what I look like. Outside? Not so much. But I caved in this weekend. After shooting over 60 frames, I came up with four that I like. So I'm posting them here and asking for a vote. Which ONE photo should be my new "face" for my online persona? Choice #1 Choice #2 Choice #3 Choice #4 Leave a comment with your favorite. Okay, I get to make the final decision, so this...
Read more

Where Have You Been?

Image
It’s been a week since my mom passed quietly from this earth. The last few months have been awful. Those last few weeks had been agonizing. Those last three days, nothing short of torture. For me, at least. Mom was surrounded by some of the most compassionate caregivers I could have wished for. I cannot say enough wonderful things about the staff of Evergreen Personal Care Home and Bethany Hospice. I watched you treat my mom with dignity and respect, love and honor in her final days. And you held me together too. My mom was tough. She was also chronically late. In the last few weeks and days, we wondered how she managed to hang on. There couldn’t be much keeping her alive. A couple of times, she seemed to be looking at something/someone over in the corner of the room. My dad, I’m sure. Once while I was sitting alone with her, I had a little talk with Dad, pleading with him to take her and end her suffering here. Then I remembered something. I flashed back to ...
Read more

Blog Hop!

Image
Some day I’ll learn to ask questions before saying, “Sure, I’ll do it!” Back in November, I’d participated in The Next Big Thing . But when my cowboy pal, Reavis Wortham , recently asked me if I’d be interested in doing a Blog Hop, I answered YES before I had a chance to discover the “Blog Hop” was another name for “The Next Big Thing.” Oh, well, no problem. The first time, I wrote about CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE, which I’m currently pitching to agents. This time I’m writing about SINS OF THE FATHERS, the next in that series. 1: What is the working title of your book? Sins of the Fathers   2: Where did the idea come from for the book? Years and years ago, a co-worker’s brother was killed in a devastating motorcycle accident. The casket remained closed for the viewing and the funeral service and the sister was never allowed to see her brother’s body because everyone felt it would haunt her. But she later said to me, “How do I know he’s really dead?” She had a lot of problems wit...
Read more