SO, I received my much-anticipated new, ‘sweet, sweet laptop’ (quote from my daughter, Dru) about a week after my hand-me-up (from son, Sean) PC got all virused-up due to my stupid (and getting stupider) opening of the wrong thing on Hotmail (It said it was from the USPS). Right now I’m on Trisha’s computer, waiting another fifteen minutes for the arranged (yesterday) phone call from Dell’s support team. It’s a Windows 8.1 driven laptop sitting on top of my disconnected printer/scanner in the adjacent office; plugged-in to the router and ready to be fixed. Again.

Evidently the last fix, an hour on the phone day before yesterday with a support guy who was about to lose it several times, and the eventual re-setting of the entire computer (supposedly) didn’t fix the problem.

I could stop writing at any moment to take the call.

Okay, eleven minutes more. The problem is this: The keyboard doesn’t work. But, the good news, if there is any, is that, before it decided I couldn’t surf the worldwide web by punching in new addresses or prompts, I did go to Bing, and typed in ASP. I got to watch semi-final heats from Margaret River before deciding it was just too damn late to watch the final. Besides, it couldn’t have been better than the Slater/Bourez heat.

That “ASP” on Bing is one of the tabs I can’t seem to close, or change, but I can scroll down and, if there’s something new, I can click on it, maybe get the first day video from Bell’s Beach. Okay, some time after 6am (6am-8am, supposed tech support call back), I did watch a video of the first round. Evidently Kelly beat Kalohe, the younger competitor using some Slater-esq moves, in the first round.

Okay, three minutes left. I could talk about the swell supposedly coming in tomorrow for Easter, or I could revisit the last surf session, roll-throughs at the usually user-friendly reef break, or, maybe how Stephen Davis, working in my stead while I surfed, responded when I called to tell him how great it was, his line the most negative he’s ever said (at least to me)

“Whatever, Dude; I know it was shitty.”

I could, but, whoa; now it’s 8 am, time’s up. I have to make a phone call.