Best solution for silly error?

[GaryTaig]

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid

Initially I ran with one user, with admin privileges etc. Since I always 
had to enter the main admin password to authenticate some  activities I 
was of the belief that I was generally NOT operating as ROOT.

(Please, if someone writes, "yes, that was correct" I'll breathe a big 
sigh of relief.)

My Internet activities are mainly email, limited searching etc.

When I'm not specifically connecting to the Internet for mail etc I turn 
OFF my Netgear Switch, breaking the Ethernet connection between computer 
and modem. It doesn't mess up the modem, it's always connected for other 
activity and the computer itself is not continually exposed to the big 
bad world outside.

A week ago I created a new user, Boss, gave him admin privileges then 
removed admin privileges from the original user.  Now the original user 
was operating as a regular user with no special powers.  If and when I 
needed to do something my plan was to do it with the new 'Boss' user.
That might have been completely unnecessary but something spooked me and 
it culminated in that decision.

I rarely boot the machine.  Once a month maybe.

Anyway in the week since that happened I've tidied up my desk and 
destroyed the Boss password.  Slack yes, but it WAS written down and 
next time I booted the machine where passwords are stored it would have 
been recorded. I'm guilty only of having an unexpected visitor to my 
home office.

Yesterday I rebooted and was unable to start UFW. Suddenly I'm operating 
without an administrator. While this situation prevails I won't be able 
to update software, install, access some files etc.

I'm resigned to doing a complete backup, and then reinstalling T/bird, 
latest FFox browser and many other packages; a frustrating error prone, 
time consuming PIA that I can well do without.

Is there a way out?  Can I somehow avoid all that unnecessary work?
Is there a way to edit a file and restore the privileges I took away 
from myself last week, or recovering the new password, or something?

TIA
GaryT