PC Passion - but Never Saw It Coming

 

I bought my first PC computer in 1981 or 82 if I remember correctly and it was love at first sight.  It didn’t matter to me that it was already obsolete.  I owned a computer!  It was made by Radio Shack and was officially named the Tandy TRS-80 or unofficially the Trash-80.  My long time mentor Don Trumps was our church secretary and sold it to me when he upgraded the unit.  It came with a massive printer weighing close to fifty pounds and would print two foot-wide sheets of paper running both directions.  It was as amazing to watch as it was deafening and my bride was appalled when I set all of this up on the dining room table.

I am an outdoorsman to be sure, but also one of those nerdish people who are fascinated with computers.

When I say this, I do not mean that I am a gamer who needs 128 gigabytes of RAM memory on my video card to be happy, or an Angry Birds addict.  Holy hard drives, I’ve never played Pacman, Mario, Frogger, or Duke Nukem for more than a couple of seconds before I became bored.

I am however fascinated by how they work and the vast amount of applications and programs they can run at my command.  I am just as intrigued in 2014 as I was in 1981, so much so that I learned to take them apart and put them together.  I’ve built a bunch of them from scratch, tuning them to the machine I felt I needed at the time.  I can remember when RAM chips were $40 a megabyte and how amazed the guys at work were when they learned I was running an astounding 4 megs of RAM in my machine at home.

My home location is what I facetiously call the OCSC, or the Orbiting Command Ship Central and everyone who knows me, knows I call it this.  It’s where I make stuff happen.  At any given time I’ll have as many as 6 laptops, notebooks, and desktops in various states of maintenance stacked on the giant table with hard drives spinning.

My real passion like I said is not in gaming, but in utilities.  I love to root out virus’.  Recently I got my grubby computer-mitts on 3 dead lap-top’s that were stuck back in closets (because it is too expensive to get them repaired, so I just use my Smartphone).  This is a most common refrain, by the way.  I’ll just use my Smartphone, even though I’m still making payments on my computer.

All 3 lap-tops were dead in the water, so to speak.  They had the dreaded blue screen of death, or wouldn’t boot past the Windows screen.  Now I look at an infected or malfunctioning computer the same way other folks look at a blank crossword puzzle.  I am drawn to it like a fly to the hamburger you are fixing to bite into at a picnic.  I find it irresistible.  I’ll swoop in from work with an infected laptop owned by a coworker, tell my bride I’m going to take it to the OCSC before I shower, and an hour later I’m pecking away at it, while still in my Nomex uniform.

Over the years I’ve had about a 90+% success rate and I figure this is very high, based on the machines I’ve received and repaired after someone else deemed them dead.  I figured after I retired I would supplement my fixed income by doing what I love – cleaning virus’ and repairing computers… or so I thought.

I never saw the Smartphone displacing the personal computer as the default go-to device.

To clarify my statement, I am not ignorant of technology and understand that there will be countless iterations of Internet access devices on the horizon, but please explain to me how staring at a little 2 inch screen and pecking on it can possibly be more desirable than a full-sized monitor and equally full-sized QWERTY keyboard for home use?

Plasma TV power supply repair

I have an Android-based Smartphone with a large screen and use it often, but it is no substitute for the real thing, not even close.  I run two 24 inch and one 26 inch monitors to keep everything where I can see it when I’m writing, reading, building OurBaytown.com, running BaytownTalks.net, or streaming audio/video.  I can’t imagine doing it on a 2 inch screen – well, some of what I do would be impossible to do on my phone to put it bluntly.

I love computers and will always have one, but I can walk away from my PC and go off on an adventure totally unplugged, which I often do.  Smartphones make this almost impossible, unless a person simply shuts it off and disconnects.  After all, who is in charge, you, or your computer?  

Geeze, Bert, you’re mean!

Smartphones should come with a warning on the side in my opinion, which would read “Caution:  Frequent use of this phone when friends are around will make you appear disconnected and anti-social if they do not have their own phone.”

The bottom line is this.  Dig that PC or laptop out of the closet, get it repaired, and when you are out socializing with friends, shut your phone off and disconnect for an hour or two.  You will be amazed what they look like in person.

PC Repair Done Dirt Cheap Facebook page or call me at 832-414-7883
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Art League of Baytown - New PC!

A week or so ago, I got a phone call from the Art League of Baytown (I'm a member in dubious standing) to give them 911 emergency service on their dead PC.  I threw down my plate of bacon-wrapped jumbo shrimp and pork & beans, kicked over a 6-pack of tepid Bear Whiz Beer, and hopped like a rabbit out to my awesome Jeep Wrangler Cosmic Blue 4-door rig, aptly named "tha Choppa"

I remember flooring it, as I am also a technical adviser for the club and Susan Urban sounded near tears.

Nefarious Art League member Baytown Bert and the esteemed Artist Susan Urban

"BB, we just gots to have this thing up and running or we can't cipher our Quickens (or something, I can't remember my own emergencies, let alone someone elses)," she blurted in my ear as I drove over.

"Ma'am...ma'am... MA'AM!  SUSAN!  Settle down.  I will either fix it, or I will bluff my way through."  I distinctly remember vowing and I sounded pretty danged confidant too, even to myself.

Arriving on the scene, I can still remember looking at the machine.  It was a Tandy TRS-80, if I recall.  It was covered in little paint-covered fingerprints and I could tell the artists had been all over it.

Holding back a loud guffaw, I proclaimed they needed a new machine, seeing how this one was originally purchased something like 40 years ago.  It was Ben Franklin's last contribution.

"Well..."  Susan said, obviously impressed.  "If you say so."

"Dang tootin'"  I said.  I call em like I see em."  Then she told me Gary Erwin had tried to fix it and I just rolled my eyes.  "Oh geeze... Gary wasn't even born when this computer was introduced."

I scribbled the name of a new Dell model out that folks are having success with and tossed it smugly on the desk.  "Just give me a call Missy when the new machine comes in and I'll saunter over and fix it right, with the "Quickens and all", and I walked out feeling smarmy.

Bobby Sutphin teaching a water painting class today.

 Well, the call came in today, just as I was shoveling a thick slab of jalapeno boudain between the cheek and gums and I - being a connoisseur of French cuisine (and very hungry), swallowed it without chewing.  Gulping down a scalding hot very black cup of chicory-laced French Market coffee and donning a minimum of clothing (as you can see above, Jane Lee is there and she's always impressed by my tactless attempts of covering myself), I darted out the door.

Baytown Sun Reporter and artist Jane Lee

The beautiful Bobby Sutphin was teaching a class and I'll be darned if I didn't receive a standing ovation when I came in.  Even the veteran Baytown Sun normally unflappable reporter Jane Lee gave up a couple hoorays, as she was moved to a flood of tears.  I was seriously humbled and probably to top Jane and impress me,  Susan Urban literally ran around clapping her hands.

I was danged impressed, but tried not to show it, so I announced I had to "do my wizardry computer crap and all," and I shut the door behind me, threatening immolation (them, not me) if I was disturbed. 

Well, isn't that what all IT professionals do?  To be honest, I'm not an IT professional.  I am a computer savant.  That's what I had printed on my business card.

Anyway, I took about an hour nap, letting the boudain settle, then with 3 shakes of a mouse cord, I did the magic we PC gurus do.  Stepping out of the room, I feigned total exhaustion and Susan and Bobbie helped me out to my Jeep.  I heard Jane tell the others "He puts his heart into his work, like us artists, but with more feeling." As soon as I went around the corner in my Jeep, I got a very smug look on my face and cackled loudly and went to find a geocache, hidden over by Lee College (GC3F1K5).  Oh the life!
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