The price of technology

I had this brilliant idea that I was gonna password protect my computer in order to limit Jason's use. I've been doing major head butting with Jason over the amount of time he spends playing this one game, Runescape. With password protection he would not be able to log on to the computer without me putting in the password for him... and then I could better police his use. What an awesome solution.. why didn't I think of this sooner!!

I mentioned it to David and he got the instructions up on the screen for me to read. So I proceeded to set up the password, verify the password, and type in a hint.... all the while a little voice was nagging at me in the back of my head... don't do it.

After I followed the instructions, I rebooted the computer. The password box popped up. It asked for "Name" and "Password." Name? Name?? The instructions didn't say anything about putting in a name. I don't what name it wants!!

Well the computer was originally set up under David's name so I entered "David Schuessler" and my password. Nothing. The little log in box shook from side to side to say nope that's not correct. I tried david schuessler, dschuessler, i tried my name, i tried no name... I tried EVERYTHING. David happened to over doing laundry so I screamed for him to come to me. He tried and tried and nothing would work. I couldn't get into my own computer!! Jason in the meantime lurked around snickering, "See mom, I knew you shouldn't have tried to do that!"

David said we could boot the computer with the system disks and asked where they were. "System disks? I don't have any system disks. They are at your house", I exclaimed. So I had to drive 20 miles round trip to get them.

When I got back, we booted using the system disks. It didn't just start up the computer and I had hoped it would. Instead we had to reinstall the operating system and in the process everything I had on my desktop was erased. All my iTunes were erased, all the photos in iPhoto were gone (hundreds)... everything.. my browser bookmarks were gone, my email addresses were gone. YEARS of my life had vanished.

I'm so bummed but at least I can get into my computer now... and no I don't have password protection set up and won't any time soon!