Yes, I missed Monday, or at least a good part of it.

I was pushing to get through things yesterday, and had not finished the e-mail when I was serving supper, knowing that I had a few errands still ahead plus the trip to take my mother-in-law shopping. Thus I ran out of here with Monday less than half finished. Still, with all the errands, I was pulling back into the neighborhood just in time to pick up the wife, so I went that direction. She was not too late, as I recall, and so I soon was home, pressing the button to restart the computer.

And pressing it again….

And pressing it again….

The computer would not start. I did the usual things, and the unusual things, checking power lines, verifying the pilot light in the rear, shutting off and restoring the power, and nothing made any difference. There were no lights, no fans, no motorcars, not a single luxury.

I caught up on Dr. Who, and although I did not get to sleep exactly early I did not get any more work done, either. I started to watch Primer yet again (it is not an easy movie to start watching, I think), but shut it off and slept a few hours before rousting the youngest for his bus, and then slept a few more hours.

I was then told, oops, that I had not been told the night before that I was needed to drive one of our houseguests to the hospital for an operation. I did that, and had another errand request phoned actually to his cell phone on the way, to which I attended. I talked to a couple of people about what might be wrong, and they generally agreed with me that it was most likely either the switch itself or the relay, and in either case I was probably replacing the tower. So I made my way out to Best Buys, which is the only place within fifty miles where computer parts and components can be purchased, as far as I know.

There I was staring at the towers, trying to decide what I needed, when a salesman offered to help. I explained my problem, and he suggested that I should bring the computer to the Geek Squad™–let them determine whether it actually is the tower. I decided not to tell him that I had rather foolishly made the half hour trip without bringing the computer, and instead made the half hour trip home to get it; while home, I also took the time to make and serve dinner, thinking that a half hour diagnostic plus an hour of driving time plus let me consider letting them do all the work of moving everything to the new box, and it’s too late to be making dinner then. Thus evening had established itself before I returned with the computer.

That’s when it turned good. The guy at the counter took the computer (the side was already open–apparently the last technician to work on it didn’t see the need to replace the cover on the side that was going to be against the wall) and sprayed out the interior with compressed air. This was not your typical canned compressed air; the Geek Squad™ has the sort of compressor your auto mechanic uses for his tools. He spent maybe five minutes with it, and then brought it back, hooked it up, and tested it. I won’t say everything ran fine, because it never runs fine on a cold boot; but it started five tries in sequence. He said in addition to knocking out the dust he also “reset the video card”. I did not ask whether that was a physical or an electronic task.

Further, he charged me nothing. I was so pleased, I bought a couple presents for my wife while I was there.

I have finished Monday’s e-mail and am tackling the forums; I expect to push Tuesday into Wednesday, and Wednesday into Thursday, but am hoping that by Friday I will have caught up on everything without cutting too many corners.

So for those who heard that I was gone: I’m back.

–M. J. Young