Support can be beautiful

I've been holding back on sharing some awesome news because there was a little glitch. But the glitch is fixed and now I can share: I am the proud owner of my very own, brand new laptop computer!

I've been wishing for a laptop ever since I started interviewing people for articles last year. I've relied on my digital voice recorder up until now, which means I've recorded interviews and then had to transcribe them -- an extra step that wasn't justified by the payout for the final product. So now, I can just bring my lovely pink computer with me, set it up and type away!

And pink it is. There's no doubt this is a woman's computer. It's nail-polish glittery metallic flamingo pink. I'm calling it -- her -- Adele. After the saucy little maid in Die Fledermaus. Her laughing song was the first aria I learned in college, which set me on a lyric-coloratura path for many years. This new Adele is making her debut fairly early in my writing career, and I hope I'll be laughing with her royal pinkness for many years to come.

Of course, nothing is perfect in this world, and soon after I unpacked Adele last week, I could tell something was amiss. The little workaholic wouldn't shut down. I contacted Dell on Friday, again last night and finally was on the phone and in an online chat session with a supervisor for over an hour today. I'm reasonably confident that the problem is solved. After a factory restore utility and manual windows and antivirus updates (done by that very patient supervisor off in Dell-land) Adele seems to be fine. She shuts down without protest or foot-dragging.

So here's to Dell technical support; it took them a while, but they figured it out. Now on with the show!