Finally up and running again

I am beginning to really, really hate the time around my birthday. Two years ago, my favorite aunt went into a coma from which she never recovered. When did I get the email? On my birthday. Last year, a cousin went into the hospital. When did I find out? On my birthday. This year, three days before my birthday, my hard drive gave the evil vgaoem.fon error of death. I spent several hours on the phone Saturday with folks who claimed their names were Glen and Sandy, but their Hindustni accents gave them away. (g)
I dropped the laptop off at Ye Olde Repair Shoppe, and then got to spend most of Sunday at work, using my work computer to do the ad and nametags and such for ConMisterio, which of course started the next week. They finally got me my computer back on Friday. They couldn't get any information off the hard drive (so at least they didn't charge me for that). Then I took it home--and Windows couldn't find the hard drive. *sigh* I took it back the next day. It had a bad adapter. (And no one thought to spin it up and see if the BIOS could see the hard drive?) I finally got it back that night and started reinstalling everything. 
Luckily my iTunes and a lot of my art and photos were on an external drive, but I'm still taking the drive over to someone I know who can take the sucker apart and pull data off it--for a very fair price. I really need my TurboTax info, for instance. My icons would be nice and so would the photos I've taken to update my website. And my bookmarks. And...well, you know.