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Those of us with kids in and out of hospitals for one reason or another or who have had friends and family in the hospital know that your goal is to GET OUT (I have to remind myself that my kids are a bit unusual — I forget sometimes ).  Things seems to cascade into craziness if you stay in the hospital too long.  Another diagnosis and another diagnosis.

The home computer had a similar situation.  The router started to go.  It’d been acting funky, not handing out IP addresses on the wired connection.  So, I’d fished out my USB wireless connector, tipped the computer forward to reach back and find a free USB port and stuck it in.  The router then finally died and just stopped seeing the internet and handing out even wireless IP addresses.  The Verizon folks came out to replace the router last night (note that it was not between 8 am and noon as promised — but they did make it out the day the had stated).

Well, Nicky and Noelle tried to play computer games today and I found out this evening that they really couldn’t because the computer kept freezing.  I installed a bunch of updates today and installed the latest Flash player (as needed by all their online games).  I didn’t think that was going to solve it and it did not.  When it freezes, about half the time it gives a high pitched whine that sounds very physical.

So, tonight after getting the little kids to bed, Nicky and I took the computer apart.  It took me a little bit to figure out the little trick to getting the case off.  It is much easier than it used to be.  It was pretty dusty in there.  I don’t know if it was the right thing or not, but  I blew off a bunch of dust, wiped away some dust off of the big pieces with a cloth, and used some q-tips for some of the other smaller bits.  The q-tips got pretty nasty looking.   I also reseated both memory cards.  Of course, I didn’t reseat them tight enough the first go round and had to open the case up and try again.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to end up with the status quo, a fixed computer or a destroyed computer but we seem to have settled on fixed.  And, Nicky got to see the inside of a computer.

I’m pretty sure that some of that dust must have jostled off and into a bad spot when I tipped the computer forward to install the USB wireless gizmo when the router started dying and stopped handing out IP addresses to wired connections.  Or maybe the tipping wriggled one of the memory cards a little bit.

We had a good day today.  We went to the local FCC New Year’s Party with Kathy and the kids.  A good time was had by everyone.  As when we go anywhere, we drew stares.  Its the six kids.  Our area is full of a lot of highly educated, professional families … there are not too many singles with three or doubles with six in the area.   One fellow came over to check in and see if maybe our significant others where elsewhere.  He went on to say that his one daughter was the best thing his wife and he had ever done.   I have three times that best thing.

Carlo is doing great.  He’s been giving me a hard time and not sleeping well, but I think that’s related to my subjecting him to the trauma of surgery and then left him with the sitter and Mom the last 3 days of the week.  Hopefully he’ll get comfortable again after a week or two of our normal life.  He is breathing *so* much better at night, though.  He’s still got some snoring action going on, but its the normal kind due to congestion, not that horrible, wet, slurpy, can’t get enough air kind of snoring.

Noelle looked like quite the princess today in her beautiful dress provided by Kathy and the boys were quite handsome in their Chinese jackets.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Family, My Valley Of Love and Delight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.