Steno Guts (Day 22)

This is part of the inside of my steno machine. Well, technically, it's my girlfriend Cheri's steno machine. She loaned it to me when my machine started acting all crazy last year and wouldn't "dump" jobs onto the computer. But now it's a little of my machine and a little of hers. My battery and one other small part are on Cheri's machine. Seeing my trusted machine taken apart and a bunch of little parts strewn on the table is not fun.

I'm lucky that Fred is so good at fixing things, especially electronics. But I get so nervous every time he takes my machine apart. I have a job tomorrow afternoon, and if my machine isn't working properly by then, I'm screwed.
My machine is a Stenoram II, and is from 1986. Yes, there are plenty of nice, new shiny models out there. Some don't even use paper. They just have three or four forms of backup. I love my old machine. It's a workhorse. When the battery is good, it'll hold a charge for two days. But using an old machine does hold me back a bit. I can't upgrade my software because the newer versions don't support a Stenoram II.
Lately, my battery hasn't been holding a charge. So I'm keeping it plugged in at jobs and plugging it in as soon as I get home. If I remember. I forgot to plug it in right away a couple weeks ago, and I lost the two jobs that were on it. Thankfully they weren't long jobs, but I'll still have to take extra time and rewrite them. (I have two forms of backup; audio and my paper notes) The job I took today was 200 pages. You better believe I got my machine plugged in as soon as I got home! So now it's plugged in and charging. With luck, it'll hold a charge longer than a couple hours.

I'm happy to say Fred got my machine back together. I can breathe easy again. Well, at least I'll be able to once I know it's charged.

This picture is on here mainly for the grandparents. (Dad, click on the picture to see it bigger) It was report card day today. Rachel is so hard on herself. Harder than we could ever be. I told her I'm proud she got all A's again, but I'd have been just as happy if she'd have gotten B's, as long as she tried her hardest. She said she wouldn't be happy, and that she'd punish herself by locking herself in a room with no TV, radio, etc. I'm a little worried about what'll happen if/when she gets a B. I'm expecting a huge meltdown at that point.