Wampum

I just got off the phone with Hewlett Packard (for the fourth time in a week) and they are just not going to get my broken, under warranty laptop picked up and back to me in time for voting to begin by the end of this week. I've been trying to get this machine fixed by HP for over two months now, and each and every time they fail to even send Fedex to fetch it, and won't give me an addy where I can send it and keep it insured for delivery.

So I'm going to have it fixed by a local HP repair shop here in Pittsburgh. The laptop on which I'm typing right now is borrowed and has started routinely overheating and suddenly shutting down, losing large files, including nominations posts (or the unsaved portion thereof.) But I'll have to pay out of pocket according to HP.

However, since I've been spending my time on Koufaxes and not taking freelance work, I can't justify to our family budget putting out $$$s when I'm already costing us a paycheck.

So the next 36 hours, as I try to finish up the Best Group, Best Series and Best Single Issue nominations (am 3/4th done with each), I'll be asking Koufax Awards supporters to please donate so I can have my own working, generally quiet and dependable machine (this one is also making nasty grinding noises - eek!) I don't know the exact cost, but the last time the same problem occured (failure of the power point on the motherboard,) the whole board had to be replaced, so I figure at least a couple hundred dollars. If by luck and generosity I raise extra, Eric and I will put it towards replacing the failing hard drives on the Koufax servers.

I feel particularly bad, as it is on that machine where I keep my email via Eudora, so I haven't been able to send out my usually prompt thank yous for recent contributions. But I promise, once it's fixed and nominations posts are complete, I'll get down to it.

Thanks to everyone in advance.