Now that I’ve caught up a little on sleep (6 hours last night … Yee-haw!), I’ve also gotten brave about facing some technical difficulties
The Everio DVD burner for my JVC hard disk camcorder died the day before I left home. When I bought it, the unit was hard-to-find, was released for sale many months after I bought the camera, and was a bit expensive. I tried all sorts of things to revive it (change power on order of camera and burner, clean the lenses, etc.), but once I smelled that burnt plastic smell from the unit, I knew the game was done.
Now, I’ve always had some good luck mixed in with the bad. One day, when I lived in Northern Virginia, I discovered my car had a flat tire; however, I was in the parking lot of a place that sold tires, the had my size tire, and it was even on sale. The mechanic even installed it in the parking lot (and then drove it inside, to balance and align the tire).
As it turns out, my failed DVD burner (a very proprietary direct-from-camcorder solution) is like the flat tire. I found the replacement unit at a Circuit City store 3 minutes from my house, it was on sale for $46 (a fraction of the price of the original unit), and I was able to buy it on my way to picking up Alex at O’Hare. My first attempt to offload video from the camcorder was fast and successful. Hopefully, I can clear a few hours of footage, to make room for video from today.
Now, if I can get my Acer laptop to behave, all will be right with the world again in chaser techno-land … OK, in my litle bit of territory within that realm. It is such a same that today’s computer manufacturer’s do not supply the installation media to rebuild a machine. Having the ability for the customer to burn a disk with their Windows installation is tolerable until your machine fails before you burn such a disk. Bad Acer! Naughty Acer!