This weekend my parents celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary! Wow!! Four decades together, four children, eight grandchildren (so far), years of ministry and faithful service to the Lord. Many, many lives touched. And God chose to place me in this family. Grace. A gift. A rich Christian heritage. Undeserved. Treasured.
Sarah and Grandad snuggle after dinner.
What better way to celebrate 41 years together than with the purchase of a new computer. Being married to a computer geek myself (albeit a totally cool one) I know without a shadow of a doubt that a computer is the ultimate gift. It speaks care and love and thoughtfulness. It says I want you to have fun (movies, games, blogging, digital camera wizardry). I want you to be connected to friends and family (e-mail, Skype, more blogging). I want you to be able to work efficiently and easily (Excel spreadsheets, Publisher newsletters or brochures, Word documents, blogging – really for me it’s all about the blogging these days). I want you to have room for plenty of pictures and music.
Obviously a computer is the ideal gift for any occasion. So Tim and I were eager to help Dad pick out a new computer for Mom. Isn’t hardware the gift for the 41st year?? Tim did the research and put together a great package, even timing the delivery just perfectly. The only problem is that the UPS guy didn’t drop Tim off as well. As much as I love my computer(s) and can find my way around things proficiently enough, I am NOT a computer geek. That’s pretty much why I married Tim, so I would have a live in computer techie guy.
I won’t embarrass myself by revealing how many times I’ve called Tim in the past two days, trying to work out the details of the new computer and high speed internet. This morning, when I asked him how to put the new computer together (“Where do I start? What do I do??? Why are there so many cables?”) he blithely said, “Let Daniel do it. He’s done it lots of times.”
Um. Daniel is 10. Is this a sign of the times? I help my parents get a new computer but I need my child to help put it together? Look how the generations care for each other. Maybe while he’s at it Daniel can program the DVD player.
Daniel was wandering a bit aimlessly around the house at the time of Mom’s Great Computer Assembly of ’07. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit David WITH the ping pong ball or play ping pong WITH him. It’s a tough choice and both options offer tremendous entertainment possibilities. He abandoned both at my cry for computer assistance.
The next thing I knew he was opening up boxes, pulling out cables, making space on the bed and lining up everything neatly. He grabbed the basic instructions and started connecting cables before I could say, “Now is there a red and blue wire on computers?”
I guess Tim was right. Maybe I have more than one computer geek living in the house. That might be more than my fair share.
The computer worked beautifully. The high speed internet, however, was another story. When I made the arrangements with Comcast, I didn’t think to request a wireless modem. Tim (leave it to Computer Geek #1) suggested I go with that approach but not until AFTER I had already scheduled an installation date. Of course, the Comcast dude (dude seems to fit) didn’t have that kind of set up in his truck. Right, we wouldn’t want to make things easy. He was very helpful and patient with my dithering (should we reschedule? Should we go with the basic cable and have Tim figure out a wireless solution later? Where is the nearest Starbucks when you need it?). Tim, the rascal, was on a conference call (trying to get some work done of his own between my calls, the nerve) and couldn’t be reached. Mom and I made an executive decision to reschedule.
Wouldn’t you know it, they don’t have any more installation dates available until next week.
Tuesday. So much for having high speed internet this weekend. Yes, I’m blogging on dial-up here. Does that make me quaint or pathetic (please don’t answer that)? Hey, we have a tree house, creek and lots of mud, you can’t have everything.
Well, at least not until Tuesday.
This left me in a bit of a computer installation dilemma. I had a beautiful new computer with a gorgeous monitor, wireless keyboard and monitor ready to go but no internet. Since e-mail is very important to my mom (our family writes nearly every day, maybe more than that), this was not acceptable.
By this time Daniel had abandoned me. His technical services were obviously no longer in demand. I’m pretty sure he went to find David and some ping pong balls. In his absence, I came up with a great solution (I might have a little bit of computer geek in me after all). I decided to hook up the new accessories (monitor, keyboard and mouse) to the old computer. Now Mom can still connect with friends and family and play that occasional game of Solitaire (gotta do something while the dial-up connects and SLOWLY gathers mail), but she’ll do it all in the luxury of her settings.
Whew! Not quite the hero but close.
Kathy
Project 365 – Day 166
YEA for CIndy’s new computer, and wireless, to boot. WHEE.
Happy 41st wedding tomorrow, my Cindy. I was there!! I love you guys at the Moore household. Fun goings on!!
Aunt Kate
Wait a minute…you sounded like me calling Tim when I was trying to fix our computer…we ended up completely wiping the hard drive though. Our friend did discover that there is a window kinda thing in the hard drive though so it cleaned it off and restored all my stuff that I had on it..how tiresome is that explanation? Where is Tim when we need him???? Oh to be Tim and to listen to the females try to describe geek-talk…….ha! We love you Tim!
Oh, Kathy, I hope dial-up is quaint as I am still struggling with it…day after day after day!
I think it is so cool that your mom has a new computer and that Daniel was able to assemble it for her. Way to go!
My mom and dad just celebrated their 46th anniversary. I think anything over 20 is an accomplishment these days but over 40 years is amazing! God bless then and may they have many more years together!
Happy anniversary, beloved Mamie and Grandad! I’m awfully glad you decided to build a family together, and raised such a delightful daughter!
Missing you all. Try not to work too hard at meal preparation, sweet Mamie — put that Joshua and Rachel to work on meals!
HIGH speed and wireless network! Now *THAT* is the life! I have recently discovered that I can blog from my front yard! So.. I can sit and look at my flower beds AND chat with my blogging friends.
I think a new computer is the ideal 41st annivrsary present, good choice.
Good thing you had Daniel there to help!!
Posie – yes, Tim is kind to take phone calls from relatives with computer troubles. I am spoiled and don’t usually have to call. Ha! Is your computer working now that your friend helped? I wasn’t sure by your comment if things were better or worse now.
Debbie – okay, let’s stick with quaint. Old fashioned even. A throw back to gentler days. Does that make dial-up sound better??
We lived out in the country for years and they didn’t have anything faster than dial-up. Tim worked from home almost full time then and we had three phone lines coming into the house so he could have a line, I could have one and we could have one dedicated fully to internet. I was online all the time so at least I didn’t have to connect whenever I wanted to be on the computer.
After we moved to the city and go cable/dsl, I was so spoiled, it’s hard to go back. I hope my mom really enjoys having that faster speed connection.
Emily – congratulations to your parents! It seems like today, anything over 15 is amazing, much less 20 or even 40. Marriage is hard work but so worth it. Thanks for writing. I know you are busy!
Cindy – what luxury to blog from the front yard. I am so behind on everyone’s blogs. The laptop I’m using is an old one and it’s pretty slow. Add to that dial-up and needing a cord to plug in to the phone line and I’m not very mobile or fast. Ha!
I’m glad you can enjoy your gorgeous landscaping and be on the computer at the same time. Sounds so nice! Part of me wonders if we shouldn’t have gotten my mom a laptop instead of a desk machine. Hmmm. Maybe for their 45th anniversary.
Hilarious post! Congratulations to your parents, and God bless them for heritage they’ve left you, and through you, to your children.
I’ve given up trying to figure things out. The remote/s? Volume on the computer? Trevor can do it. One more surprise advantage to having children, lol.
Great gift.
I found the same as you about children and computers. Josiah is much better at getting them running than I….but I plan to take a class before Mike’s next deployment in May 08.