Happy Mother's Day

Everybody keeps asking me if I feel sad to be in South America during Mother's Day, with a look of pity or concern on their faces like I'm going to break down and cry at any moment. I can survive without my mother or family. This isn't to say that I'm a cruel and heartless person, I do miss her of course. The two years I spent in Venezuela as a missionary prepared me for this. It is official Church policy that missionaries are to never see their families for the duration of the mission and are to call on only two occasions- Mother's Day and Christmas. This may seem harsh but it is actually designed to keep one's mind focused on the task at hand and not call crying home to mommy every few days. I will call my mother today, and now that I'm not a missionary I won't have a time limit. She has been a wonderful mother, raising six children (all boys) through some very tough times. I only wish I could do more for her besides a phone call.

As I hate blogs with a large amount of emo content let's move on. My computer situation has been partially resolved, at least the most important part. Due to the miracle that is reinstalling the operating system my laptop is back up and running and faster than before. My HP laptop, I love her so much. Yes, she is a girl. She told me so. What?...

Anyways, while that situation is resolved my wireless situation has gone from bad to worse. The wireless router is now completely useless. Not only can I not connect to the wireless from .5 feet away, it is no longer possible to connect a computer directly to it and use the modem. It's a worthless piece of crap now. I will try and return it tomorrow, but knowing Ecuador, this will be no easy task.

Pray For Me

Computers are not my friend at the moment, I am not even sure I can publish this entry but I am typing it anyways, it has been too long since the last time I posted. My first troubles with computers and their newfangled devices started with the wireless router I just bought for 100 dollars. Electronics are expensive in Ecuador because they do not make any, it is all imported. This router is supposed to have an indoor signal strength that reaches up to 100 meters. All I need is 20 because I would like to use my laptop in my room where it is nice and quiet. It did not seem like too much to ask for but the router thinks I am a selfish jerk. We are currently locked in an epic battle that has lasted for days. The farthest I can get a good signal with this 100 dollar box of plastic frustration is about ten feet. Seriously. Make that five feet if a wall is in the way.

If this were all, I would consider myself fortunate and electronics my good friends. However, something very, very bad has happened to my laptop. This is unfortunate because my laptop is my life. Countless hours have been spent downloading movies, anime, and other random files to this beautiful machine. I cannot survive the harsh conditions here in Ecuador without it!

While I consider myself a fairly computer-savy person this is beyond my experience. I have spent hours trying to fix it and I seem to be making the problem actually worse. This started out as a corrupt profile message and the / in my c drive files (i.e. C:/Program Files/Crap) being replaced with some weird antena symbol that I have never seen before. Now I am unable to log onto my computer at all. This is due to the very applications that are supposed to help fix my computer, made by my new enemy Microsoft. Screw you, System Restore.