I want to offer an apology to anyone who was waiting on me for challenges. Polar was made aware of my unplanned and indefinite leave of absence, and I want to begin this post by announcing that MY RETURN IS IMMINENT.
On October 2, my laptop was struck by a sudden seizure; the screen froze, I gave up on it unfreezing, and I rebooted. I was met by a "no boot device" problem. After trying different tests, my system finally booted again, but...very...slowly...and...impossible...to...do...stuff. I already had another warranty repair to deal with, so I took the computer to the place of purchase (and under extended warranty, almost been three years now) and made sure my guess was right. Sure enough, my hard drive was near death.
By the following Monday, I had a device to try to extract data off the hard drive and was using a loaner computer, but I tried to minimize my activities to watching streams on Twitch or videos on Youtube, and stopped all trading and such activities completely due to my cloning software not being available (I was not planning to install that software). All Pokémon activities minimized. (More recently, I picked up Friend Safari activities as I had been planning to complete a Safari Dex - I'm 19 away! - but that's another topic.) By Wednesday evening, pretty much the majority of stuff to transfer was transferred to the loaner and by Friday (the 10th), the laptop was at Best Buy for shipping to Mississauga, the Canadian repair facility for the chain.
By the 15th, the needed part had been ordered. It took forever for them to receive it, and it went beyond the two week marker as the piece took a week and a half to be mailed. By the day after mailing - that is, yesterday - the laptop was back at the Best Buy, but I indicated I'd be there on Friday - that is, tomorrow - to pick it up.
Now that my recovering my laptop is about to happen, I am putting out plans for my return here. And this is where is gets interesting. I will likely not be using the laptop at all until Friday night, more likely Saturday morning or afternoon. And I still have to install a bunch of stuff, but plan to get basic activities (Internet, e-mail, etc.) back to normal before Saturday evening and will start to install other software I regularly use by that time. Starting on Sunday, I'll be attending a hockey tournament through next Saturday (with an off day on Wednesday and only one game to attend on Tuesday, possibly two depending on whether I can actually attend). Therefore, I will not be back to regular everyday activity until November 9, but I am going to start taking tabs on challenges again on Saturday night. I will be making plans to either have challenges done after tournament events or at times when there is no event (like Wednesday). The main thing, however, is that I'm back and I'm still not going anywhere, so the Solitary Badge will be back in my control again. I will finally be able to offer cloning services, too. :)
I will post further when I am back on my own laptop. Until then, I bid you all good evening and continue to look forward to taking on challengers again soon. I am starting to make plans for team additions now that my Safari Dex and regular Pokédex are both almost complete. For now, to any challengers, please skip me until the end; I will get to you. :)
EDIT: The best laid plans can turn to pot sometimes. My appointment today (Friday as I edit) was canceled. I have a time on Monday, which is also the second day of tournament games for the tournament I am attending. So I am heavily debating whether to get the laptop before Monday or not. There's no point in making a special trip right now as I can't technically use it online today anyway (though I can transfer the stuff to install from here, obviously). If my family is in London tomorrow, it can be retrieved by them tomorrow and I'll start online activities immediately. If they are not, I have to seriously consider today or tomorrow whether to get it or wait until Monday. In the latter case, my activity here will likely not start again until Wednesday, though I'll keep tabs on this thread for now (Tuesday is planned for setting up everything on the computer in that scenario).
So it gets more and more interesting.
