... Retry

... So, ended up sleeping about 13 hours last night.  I certainly feel better, though still not 100%.  Tonight, I was going to go home, pack, and just relax before driving up tomorrow.

I say "was" because, as I'm driving into work this morning, I get a call from my mother.  "Dad's computer won't start."  From the description, it sounds like a bad power supply.  Her next statement?  "I hate to ask, but can you come by tonight...?"

1) I told her, yesterday, that I was feeling like total crap from doing too much recently.  She said she sympathized.
2) My step-brother - who graduated with an engineering degree from CalTech and currently works for a major software company - is, right now, sleeping in my old room down the hall from the broken computer.
3) There are, like, five computers in the house for the two of them - three notebooks and two desktops.  Seriously, they have more computers than I do.

This is mild compared to some of the shit she used to pull, but it gives you an idea of what I end up dealing with.

Anyway, I still have my old computer, and the power supply in it should be more than sufficient (assuming it'll fit).  So, if that's the actual problem, I can possibly get it fixed tonight.  If not, then when I get back, I'm going to get asked to spend a day or two copying Dad's files from the old hard drive onto the new one and getting shit installed, and I'd really rather not have to do that.  Even if it means spending a couple of hours elbow-deep in circuit boards tonight.

I think it's a nacho day.  I could really use some nachos.

5 comments:

A Wandering Pom said...

Hi there, Austin

Good luck for this evening. Is there any chance of persuading your mother that your step-brother could be the house IT support person?

I hope you got some nachos.

Take care

Mark

Austin said...

Since he lives 300 miles away, not really :)

So, I drive over there after work, walk up to the computer, hit the power button... and it boots up fine. Supposedly, all three of them tried it and it wouldn't work, but it worked first time, no hassles, for me.

Oh well, at least it was a short trip.

Mostly packed, ate, and now just relaxing.

A Wandering Pom said...

Hi there, Austin

Oops - I assumed from what you said that your step-brother lived with your mother (rather than staying for the holiday period, I presume). I can see 300 miles would be something of a hindrance!

I'm sure there must be a name for this phenomenon, where a computer misbehaves when its owner or regular user wants to do something with it, but behaves perfectly when a suitable technical person is summoned to fix it. I've experienced both sides of it at work.

How's Guerneville?

Mark

Austin said...

We usually call it "the geek field", but we stole that from a set of table-top role-playing games (one kind of character had a "penalty" where said class could fix anything, but the more xe fixed a specific thing, the more "dependent" it became on xir specifically and would start malfunctioning when anyone else tried to use it).

My best friend also used to piss people off by walking up a "broken" computer, raising his right hand, placing his left hand on the power button, saying, "I summon the vast power of certification!" and restarting the computer. It only worked about 80% of the time, but it was still impressive to people who only saw it when it worked :)

Guerneville is nice, but a bit chilly at the moment. I'm sitting on the porch in shorts, and I may have to duck inside in a few minutes.

A Wandering Pom said...

Hi there, Austin

"The geek field": I like it.

Guerneville sounds nicer than Cambridge at the moment: I'd be very surprised to see anyone wearing shorts. The temperature is fluctuating around 40F, and yet another low pressure system is blowing in off the Atlantic, with high winds and heavy rain.

Happy New Year!

Mark

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