Just How Did This Happen?

I'm not entirely sure I can comprehend how I now have 67437 File(s) in my MP3 folders. Just last month, I had 57391 so I've added nearly 10,000 music files between 8/15 and today? Really? I have a feeling that that number is artificially inflated by the consolidations of the MyCloud drive partitions and that the number for 9/1-9/15 will correct that. Regardless of the artificial inflation, there are 93 Days remaining until the end of the CD reconversion project. My progress continues to the extent that I will certainly be done prior to December 1, 2014. If things continue as they have been, it may be October 1, 2014, when I rip my last CD.

Mentioned Thousands

I have been working rather feverishly on the CD to MP3 conversion. I am in what I would call the final stretch. I have, roughly, 500 more CDs to go. I have also been consolidating the music and other files on the MyCloud drive. Bluntly, I created a mess and have so many duplicates that it is a terrible and time consuming mess. As I write this, I have 4 DOS windows open on the Toshiba laptop running RoboCopy from 4 different partitions on the MyCloud to an external hard drive. In the meantime, I have already copied some of the files from those directories into my 'master' music folder and the result is that when I ran my DOS batch file a little while ago, I had 93199 File(s). Lucky for me, I have a freeware called Search My Files and I can look for all files with (2) in the file name and delete them. It's not a big deal to also look for all files with @ in the file name and delete them. Yet, it's also kind of fun to say "I have 93,199 files in my music collection."

Over

Today is the day that we have been counting down to as we're leaving Elkader at the conclusion of vacation. We're going to Dubuque for the birthday party and then onward to North Liberty to get ready for tomorrow morning which is when we get back into the routine.

I didn't get a chance to work on the laptop yesterday so I hope that I can spend a little time tonight. I think my primary concern is to get the files I don't want to lose off the hard drive and onto my external hard drive. I think the primary file that I need is an Excel spreadsheet with the logon / password credentials for the different environments I use at work. I hope I can get into the C drive by using Hiren's utilities. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be 8 tonight before I can sit down in the den and try.

I think it's going to be a hectic week. There's something planned each day outside of work as the summer schedule turns into the kids' school schedule. Alex and Megan both have a week to cram in as much summer as they can. Alex has a week to prepare for golf tryout on Monday, August 11th. Megan has trips to Adventureland on Tuesday and to Lost Island on Thursday and works the other days in the week.

I think work will be busy for me. I also need to get the Yamaha electronic drums ready for the gig. I think I need to practice each day to be ready for rehearsal on August 11th. I want to get myself into gig shape in addition to figuring out how to program the sets so I can have a stick click on some songs and tambourine on others.

And if all of the things above were not enough, I need to get back to the conversion project and resume ripping CDs. I think I have under 2000 to go, but that may be overestimated. I simply cannot afford to not work on the project if I am going to meet my goal of being done by December 1, 2014.

The next project that I will start working on is not going to be the 1000 cassette tapes. I have to get started on scanning the volumes of photos. I can't remember how many albums we have in the basement, but I will ballpark the number at, oh, 5000 pictures. I have not counted. The cool thing is that I got a scanner from the Elkader library for free. I am anxious to get it down in the den and try it out. I bought a $36 cord at Radio Shack in LaCrosse, WI, but with the laptop issues, I couldn't even find out if it works. It's a leap of faith that it will work!

It's 8:33 so I ought to move along.

Missing Operating System

When I fix my work laptop so I don't see this error message, I will be very happy. I think it's such a waste of my efforts to be always trying to fix my technology devices. There's the Elkader PCs, the external hard drive crash that I dealt with that caused the reconversion project and others. I go from issue to issue and I can never really predict what will come up next. This laptop has been a challenge for me. A while back, I had the issue with not being able to connect to the network at work. I had the issue with not being able to connect to my network at home. Now this.

The worst part? I am, essentially, offline and trying to get it fixed. I have almost reached my data limit on my phone with 2 more days to go. I don't have any time to go to the campground office, which is where I can connect to WiFi, today. We're going to play miniature golf in Prairie Du Chien, WI, today. In fact, I think we are leaving Elkader in about one hour.

I'm not sure when I will be able to update the statistics for the conversion of my CDs. I think I will be up late Sunday night in an effort to get the work laptop to work.