Aloha! Yes, I'm trying to be cheery. I live in Hawai'i, after all. Still, I'm finding that paradise is not exempt from the headaches of the modern world. We got our hard drive and recovered data back late last week. That's both good news and bad news. I put everything back together and booted up the machine. Yay! It works. Sort of. The hard drive has been returned to it's out-of-the-box state. That means that with the exception of Windows for some reason, all the software has to be set up anew. I found Microsoft Office asking me for a product key. Unfortunately, I no longer have it. Seems we lost our certificate of authenticity in the shuffle of moving. So I spent most of yesterday on the phone back and forth between Hewlett Packard, who built the machine and installed the software, and Microsoft, who made the software and issued the product key. Each insisted only the other could help. I learned that at HP, the sales/customer service folks are not connected to the tech folks. Customer service is in Rochester, NY. Tech support is in New Delhi, India. Tech support could only give me a temporary key, which would expire in 60 days, after which I would have to buy a copy of Office. That didn't fly for me, since I already bought it and replacing it would cost $400 bucks. They said only Microsoft could help me "replace my installation disk and product key." Of course, I spent three calls and about three hours trying to extract this little bit of information. Tech support asks everything, like make, model, serial number, name of children, where you were born, felony convictions, what color is your cat, regular or decaf..... Then they take a painfully long time clicking keys and searching for answers. "Hello?" I say into the phone periodically. "Is anyone still there?"
"Oh yes, Toni," they say. Of course they know my first name by now. They know my life story. "It takes some time to work with the server...." They all have anglified names they've chosen for themselves. I spoke with an Adam and a Jennifer, I think. They all speak excellent English and, to be fair, I don't speak Hindi so they're definitely one up on me. But some have less clearly understood accents than others. One kept insisting I needed the install disk so he could help me extract my product key. We turned the house upside down trying to find the disk, with no results. When I told the next tech guy I didn't have one, he admonished me, saying I should always save my install disks. Duh. He said I should have it, since HP only installs trial copies on computers before sending them out. Not so. Mine was installed at the factory. My bill of sale lists it as included in my custom built computer price. I never had a disk. So there, George or Biff or Nehru or Ghandi or whatever your name is. Actually, they were all syrupy nice, so I couldn't get too mad at them personally. So, I did what they insisted I must: call Microsoft. Ultimately, I was told that since I never had a disk in the first place and since my copy of Office was installed at the factory, I should get help from the computer manufacturer. They did give me a number at Microsoft that might have been able to help, had they been open. Apparently they were taking Friday and the rest of the weekend off. Argh!!!! We finally got a case service manager at HP who promised to either get us a product key or send us a new copy of Office by Monday. I say we because at this point Ron decided to try his luck and charm to get some help. He connected with the HP service guy from Rochester, talking about beer and Buffalo Bill. He, in turn, hooked us up with the case manager. Great! The helpful guy also suggested we download a trial copy of the software from Mircosoft to use until we get ours running. Good idea. I tried, but the download didn't go well, nor of course did the subsequent install. Oh well. We've waited this long. Guess we can wait 'til Monday.
On a positive note, we cooked our best turkey ever on Thursday after soaking it overnight in a brine/herb solution. The trick this time was gently separating the skin from the breast of the turkey so the solution could get to meat. I also, by accident, whipped up my best mashed taters ever. We discovered we had no potato masher and I also have no cake mixer. But we do have a hand held mixer, the kind you might use to make milk shakes. Beautiful! They were smooth and pasty and buttery.
Ron discovered a bottle of champagne at the back of the fridge which we figured must have been left by one of our renters before we arrived. It had a hotel label on it and was onolicious! After a plate full of turkey, stuffing and spuds washed down with the bubbly, Ron was ready for a nap. He crashed for nearly three hours. Ya gotta love Thanksgiving.
We're off to Costco this morning to stock up on essentials, like crab legs and macadamia nut carmel popcorn crunch. You know... staples. A hui hou. Aloha!
"Oh yes, Toni," they say. Of course they know my first name by now. They know my life story. "It takes some time to work with the server...." They all have anglified names they've chosen for themselves. I spoke with an Adam and a Jennifer, I think. They all speak excellent English and, to be fair, I don't speak Hindi so they're definitely one up on me. But some have less clearly understood accents than others. One kept insisting I needed the install disk so he could help me extract my product key. We turned the house upside down trying to find the disk, with no results. When I told the next tech guy I didn't have one, he admonished me, saying I should always save my install disks. Duh. He said I should have it, since HP only installs trial copies on computers before sending them out. Not so. Mine was installed at the factory. My bill of sale lists it as included in my custom built computer price. I never had a disk. So there, George or Biff or Nehru or Ghandi or whatever your name is. Actually, they were all syrupy nice, so I couldn't get too mad at them personally. So, I did what they insisted I must: call Microsoft. Ultimately, I was told that since I never had a disk in the first place and since my copy of Office was installed at the factory, I should get help from the computer manufacturer. They did give me a number at Microsoft that might have been able to help, had they been open. Apparently they were taking Friday and the rest of the weekend off. Argh!!!! We finally got a case service manager at HP who promised to either get us a product key or send us a new copy of Office by Monday. I say we because at this point Ron decided to try his luck and charm to get some help. He connected with the HP service guy from Rochester, talking about beer and Buffalo Bill. He, in turn, hooked us up with the case manager. Great! The helpful guy also suggested we download a trial copy of the software from Mircosoft to use until we get ours running. Good idea. I tried, but the download didn't go well, nor of course did the subsequent install. Oh well. We've waited this long. Guess we can wait 'til Monday.
On a positive note, we cooked our best turkey ever on Thursday after soaking it overnight in a brine/herb solution. The trick this time was gently separating the skin from the breast of the turkey so the solution could get to meat. I also, by accident, whipped up my best mashed taters ever. We discovered we had no potato masher and I also have no cake mixer. But we do have a hand held mixer, the kind you might use to make milk shakes. Beautiful! They were smooth and pasty and buttery.
Ron discovered a bottle of champagne at the back of the fridge which we figured must have been left by one of our renters before we arrived. It had a hotel label on it and was onolicious! After a plate full of turkey, stuffing and spuds washed down with the bubbly, Ron was ready for a nap. He crashed for nearly three hours. Ya gotta love Thanksgiving.
We're off to Costco this morning to stock up on essentials, like crab legs and macadamia nut carmel popcorn crunch. You know... staples. A hui hou. Aloha!
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