Day 140

My husband is pretty knowledgeable about computer stuff (that’s the technical term).   I’m not saying that’s the reason I married him, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

I am not.  In fact, I will admit, in order for me to write this blog he had to set the entire thing up and I just basically type into the form and hit publish. That is my explanation for why we currently have three computers at our house, but only one works.  And technically, the working one belongs to my employer.

The first one down was the less-than-one-year-old  Mac.  My husband insists (via Skype) that it works; I’m just not DOING something right.  He also offered me some long winded solution that sounds like this, blah, blah, blah bypass wireless network blah, blah, blah.  The only item I was able to glean from his explanation was that I was going to need one of those yellow cables long enough to stretch across the room.   I don’t have one of those.  I don’t mind waiting till he comes home in a couple of months. To some that may sound lazy, to me it sounds—Simple.

Then the game changer, the computer the kids typically use for school work and to play games stopped working.   I did everything I could.

I turned it off…

I turned it on… several times.

I figured it had a virus.  That’s happened before, but now our tech support is no longer stateside and I didn’t want to try to have him troubleshoot via Skype.

NOTE TO SELF

At the Repair Counter

When one is trying not to buy anything for a year, it is probably a good idea to stay out of giant retailers, like say–Best Buy.   I am going to spare you the details that unfolded over a couple of weeks, and sum it up by saying that it did not have a virus and somehow it cost $70 to not fix it.  That’s right; I got my computer back exactly the same way I gave it to them.  I just had less money. I technically didn’t buy anything.

Toward the end, the very nice technician told me that our ancient six-year old computer wasn’t really going to be cost effective to fix.  At which point, I threw my fists in the air, fell down on my knees and screamed in despair, “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGG.”

Well really, that was just in my mind.  What I actually did was explain to him The Simple Year project.  He was genuinely interested and almost a little giddy.  He even said, “That’s great; I’m anti-consumer, too.”

OK, do I need to point out the irony here given that he works in an establishment with BUY in the title? He did, however, become much more helpful in regards to figuring out a fix at this point.  He leaned forward to say in the hushed tones of a mob boss, “I know a guy who can solder.” “He’s a genius.”

So, at the moment, I am driving around with that computer belted into the back seat in anticipation of me, taking it to a guy… sometime next week for a motherboard work over.

Also, I realize this computer is something we probably don’t NEED.  But, it does offer us quite of bit of convenience.   If I can’t get it fixed, I won’t buy a refurbished one (my husband’s suggestion) we will just figure out how to do without.