My laptop runs Microsoft Vista. For some reason, today, all Microsoft Office Applications stopped working. If I try and launch them from a shortcut, I get “This action is only valid for products that are currently installed”. If I try to run it directly, I get the message “There is not enough memory or disk space to run Word.” Currently, there is over six gigabytes of available disk space and only 51% memory utilization.

In trying to debug this, I tried to start the Event Viewer and received the message “Event Log Service is unavailable.” When I tried to start the Event Log Service, I received the message “Error 4201 : The instance name passed was not recognized as valid by a WMI data provider”. In addition, the Blue Tooth Stack COM server is taking vast CPU cycles.

I spent a bit of time trying to address these various issues, but with no luck.

Then in the middle of the day, I picked up my middle daughter and took her to the Department of Motor Vehicles. We were there for approximately three and a half hours. Other than a couple minutes when my daughter handed in her forms and the ten minutes that it took for her to take the test, all of the time was spent waiting in one line or another. It was pathetically inefficient.

Nonetheless, my daughter did get her learner’s permit and afterwards, we went for a brief swim, and I then gave my daughter her first opportunity to drive. We did circles and figure eights in the parking lot of the local high school and then she drove home.

After a brief, light dinner, I am finally sitting down at my computer again. Before my day got all blown to pieces, I did spent a bit of time writing a blog post about application development that I really wanted to get up today at the latest. I also spent a bit of time working with the emerging CT Underhound Railroad group. This is a group dedicated to reducing the number of animals killed in shelters in Connecticut. The most immediate actions are making sure that dogs on death row in Hartford find a home before it is too late. Other longer term plans are also being explored.

So, I’ll try to catch up a little bit on what I can, go to bed early, because I’m heading into New York early tomorrow and if I wake up in the middle of the night, perhaps glance out side to see if I can see any shooting starts in the Perseid meteor shower.