I have ranted about the divorce process before, and that process is nice enough to give me reasons to complain again.  My basic viewpoint is that the whole thing is stoopid.

In the state of Colorado, all one has to do to be married is pretty much say so.  Two strangers (of opposite sexes only, currently) could meet, introduce themselves as Mr. and Mrs. whatever and, as far as the law is concerned, consider themselves married.  It helps if they share a bill together and go get a marriage license, but even without doing that they can file their taxes as a married couple and the state and the U.S. government won’t object.  It’s called a common law marriage, and while the rules for it vary from one state to another, it’s relatively easy to make happen in most places.

Divorce, on the other hand, is trickier.  You can’t just be separated for a period of time and declare yourselves divorced.  Even if one is ordered by the court to pay child support to the other, you’re still married.  An eternity could pass, as the law has it, and you would still be married.

Okay, I have said the above before.  I have been going through the legal Colorado process of divorce for the last few months, and it’s quite annoying.  First, you have to file several forms and pay a fee.  With children, the fee is $280.  Without, it’s about $200.  Then you have to go to what amounts to a counseling session where the process is described to you in excruciating detail.  Even if you’ve read the details and know what you have to do, you have to sit in a little room and have somebody tell you all about it.

Ninety days after your initial filing, you’re allowed to ask for a court date.  You can ask for a Decree Without Appearance–meaning you don’t have an actual court date; the courts just make it happen for you–but that is only workable if there’s no children.  Colorado considers a child to be a child if they’re under nineteen.  That’s right:  As far as divorce is concerned, a child isn’t a minor at eighteen.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve paid child support for the last fifteen years or that we’ve been separated for seventeen years or anything else.  We have to go through the process of a court appearance (physically or by phone) in order for this stoopid process to be done with.

Anyway, I will be filing the piece of paperwork requesting a court date today.  I’ll keep you posted on it, but I still retain some hope the process will be done by the end of the month.  I will add that I am an optimist and that hope is probably optimistic.

On a brighter front, I have high hopes of completing my computer upgrade today or tomorrow.  The last pieces I need–a power supply for me and a new hard drive for Sam–will arrive by 3 p.m. today according to FedEx.  I will then do my utmost to follow this plan:

  1. Move my current motherboard with CPU & RAM to Sam’s old case.  I will add my old video card and current power supply.
  2. Install the new hard drive.
  3. Install Windows XP on the new hard drive.
  4. While that’s installing, I will empty Sam’s current case, which is my old case, and install my new motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply and video card.
  5. I will then add my hard drives, etc.  In theory, this is all I need to do and I’ll boot up and the world will be a happier place.  In theory.
  6. Once Sam’s new (ish) system has XP on it, I will put one of her current hard drives into it and copy data from that drive to the new drive.
  7. When that finishes, I’ll swap her current drive number one for current drive number two and copy more data over.  In the process, things get more organized.  By the time it’s done, she will, in theory, be booted up and the world will once again be a happier place.  In theory.

That’s my plan.  I hope to make it happen today, but we’ll see.  Later this month, I will get new cases for both of us and a little more RAM for me.  These are, in theory, minor changes and should not cause any issues.  In theory.

See you tomorrow.