Sunday Snap: Lost in the Woods

You know how in those old Grimm's fairy tales, the kids that get lost in the woods leave a trail of small stones or crumbs to follow? It doesn't work that way for me. If I lost my son in the woods, forget about the pebbles or the breadcrumbs, I would follow a trail of computer parts and accessories to track him down.

The good news is that the boy is an absolute genius with computer hardware. The bad news is that our upstairs hallway looks like the Island of Misfit Hard Drives. He gets these old computers and scavenges them for any usable pieces, then creates a Frankenstein hybrid computer with bits and pieces from all of them. He just built a computer for his sister last week, which of course totally made her day. Now she's got one in her room that she can use for homework or watch movies on. He even made sure it had all the software she needed installed. Of course, for a day or two he would roll his eyes when she would call out "Product Support, oh Product Support, I need help!" from the top of the stairs. But he would trudge on up and help her troubleshoot. What a guy.

And the really really good news is that he's going to be building me a computer starting this week, something to replace the ancient limping-along-on-its-last-legs Dell I'm using right now. I'm probably the last person on earth using Windows XP. No wait, I know my mom still uses it, so that makes two of us. But I've had this thing for almost 7 years, so it's definitely time to upgrade. And at least I won't lose anymore blog posts to the Blue Screen of Death when he's done.

Of course, he wanted to put my computer in this crazy Gamer computer case. Okay, I admit that the red LED lights are cool, and the fact that it has several fans to keep everything cool is probably a good feature. But c'mon folks, gamers are just a little nutty about stuff like this. A computer case called the "Scout" or the "Sniper"?? Get real! I mean, I don't even name my bikes silly stuff like that (okay, I did have one named "Hi Ho Silver", but my kids named that one when they were small). We settled on a less ostentatious case that still had the cooling fans, you'll be happy to know.

So now I have to get some sleep so I can get us all to karate in the morning, and I have to go peel my teenager away from his beloved hardware treasure trove. Happy weekend to all.