Steps and stutters- end of the mother machine

Well it happened. The computer, my life blood has run its course and after 1 month of patches and restarts and diagnostics it's been 2 weeks of shopping and ordering (or so we thought) and shopping and ordering again...

Truth be told My Travel Bug, Inc. is run on a very fragile laptop- let's call her 'Millie'. From the beginning Millie has had a storied career. Since December 2000 when Millie arrived at my NJ doorstep from the NYC store, Millie has been back and forth to Ho Chi Minh City 3 times. She's a frequent visitor to the Westerly Public Library Reference Section and has even been to see the ABCNews studios in NYC.

She caught a virus and was completely erased in June 2002- thus losing all of her memory. An early alzheimers...Millie was then given fresh black-market blood for 10 cents on the dollar and ran another 2 1/2 yrs fitfully but with the ability to write Vietnamese with all its marks and whizzes.

This year we knew Millie was getting old. The frequent coaxing to open Dreamweaver and Outlook. The often exasperated walks by her owner. Her refusal to defragment and finally in April the last indignity, an unintentional drop on the foot. She was once again taken to the doctor and this time the diagnosis was dire- a bad hard drive with almost 1 gig of bad sectors. She still has her data, accessible on occasion, but we know it's only a matter of time. And so a new machine has been called upon to take over the job that Millie started. My Travel Bug, Inc. will once again get on track and emails will be answered, Fellowship winners announced (tease tease, we already know who they are) and maybe, just maybe, this new Fella will pay for itself with fundraising software.

And so, dear readers, I ask for your patience as we put Millie into retirement and try out the new fella due next week. Besides the weather is hot and sunny. Go to the beach before the high schoolers get out... -Amanda