Cairsten doesn't do ghost stories.

There are reasons for this.

First off, I get nightmares. Like any little kid, pulling the covers over my head and imagining sounds in the silence and seeing movements in the shadows. I wake up, not screaming, but petrified. Not pleasant, but an occasional nightmare would not be so much.

No, what really gets me is this strange little belief I can't shake that what I believe, what I think about and give over my energy to, I create or at least attract into my life. I've seen things I can't explain away. Ask me if I believe in them, have a little chat with me like rustedlemon has, and you'll probably come away with chills like she did, because I know evil exists: I've encountered it. Evil that makes human evil pale, it can't compare, because we never do more than tap into the bare edges of it. I've felt it. I believe in it as strongly as I believe in life and light and love, because I've felt them, too.

Now, if I bring into my life what I give over my mental and spiritual energies to, why would I want to spend much time deliberating on tales of ghosts and haunts and evil things that won't lie quiet? I can't say that, despite the adrenaline rush and the heightened awareness that comes with it, experiencing evil was anywhere near pleasant. I don't want to repeat it. So I lie quietly and think of good things, and hope for an ordinary life -- hope it overlooks me, except at the times when I hope it can't help but notice me because I'm burning brightly. I haven't reconciled those two yet.

I don't do ghost stories if I'm not sitting in the light, with good company, a long time before sleeping. Hell, at least part of why I'm nocturnal is because I like sleeping in daylight. Night's for creating, night's for wide-awake dreaming, being in control -- somebody ought to be. Night's a vulnerable time, when people let down their guard and trust that they'll open their eyes again in daylight. I figure I'd rather meet whatever walks in the darkness with my eyes wide open and my mind under my own control. As much as mine ever is, anyway. ;)

(no subject)

Question for those of you with any experience with networks and lab environments.

Is there a (simple?) way to fix it so that a machine or network of machines gets reset to a predetermined state upon boot? IE, wiping out all user changes during the session? If so, how, and would someone be willing to walk me through doing so?

Here's the problem: I've been hired part-time to care for Melrose Apartments' computer lab. The apartments' tenants are college students. The machines run Win98. There is no on-site tech for the lab -- which translates to the students doing whatever they want, and infecting the computers, among other things like removing vital bits of software (Novell Netware leaps immediately to mind.)

They have to have Internet access. They need to be able to download whatever they like.

I need to have the computers stay pretty much the way I left them, in running order, without being able to be there to babysit them.

I have no idea if it's even possible. Help?