Adventures in computing. And furniture
Aug. 1st, 2004 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayLast weekend, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kestrell and I went to the housewarming party at my folks' new place. They were getting rid of a bunch of stuff that they either no longer wanted, or no longer had room for. One of these items was a really nice computer desk. Kes has been wanting a real computer station for a while now, so we put dibs on it. Just one problem -- had to get it back to Dorchester...
heroftheage agreed to help bring it back with his trailer this Firday evening. As with most plans, it did not survive first contact with the enemy. First off, the trailer had ben disused for long enough that the padlock on the door would no longer unlock. And no hacksaw to be found. We nearly rescheduled, but when I called dad, he pointed out that *he* had plenty of tools. So, off we went. We being Kes and I, as Vis was actually too tired to come with.
When we got to my folks' place, I turned the car around before getting out. A 3-point-turn with a trailer attached turns out to be more like a 57-point turn. But we made it, finally.
Dad and I rolled out the desk, only to discover that it wouldn't actually *fit* in the trailer. sigh... So, dad pulled out the instructions, and we began disasembling. About 2/3 of the way through the process, we had reduced the central mass to a size that would fit in the trailer. Yay!
Drove home. When unpacking the trailer, discovered that there were rather more pieces than there had ben when we'd left. Uh oh. Turns out that a half-disassembled desk is not structurally sound. Some screws had pulled out, and some of them had taken enough wood with them that they weren't ever going to hold weight again.
On the plus side, being in so many pieces made it much easier to bring upstairs. Which I did. Then came the task of reassembling it. I wanted to do it right away, so I'd know whether the damage was critical or not. Luckily, after about an hour's work, I had it back together. The parts that had failed were not, in the fully-assembled state, at all load-bearing. Phew. One of the rails holding the keyboard tray got rather bent out of shape, and is now sticky, but it's all functional and solid.
Saturday afternoon, I went to PCs For Everyone to pick up Kes' new computer (and to retrieve my old one from the repair department). The traffic near the Science Museum was a nightmare. I spent about half an hour on that bridge. Extra gridlock caused by those silly duck-boat things. Gah. But once I got to the store, the people there were efficient and helpful, so I got out quickly. Good thing I knew a route back that avoided that damn bridge.
Spent several hours today working on Kes' machine. It did function fine right out of the box, but I had to install a bunch of hardware drivers and software for her. Only had one real crisis; one of the installers got windows in a state where, as soon as it finished booting up, it would immediately reboot. That took over an hour to track down and fix. But, fixed it is, and now I know something more about windows troubleshooting than I did before. Not that I wanted to...
Finally, got my computer re-hooked up, and spent several blissful hours playing games, as my reward :-)
kestrell and I went to the housewarming party at my folks' new place. They were getting rid of a bunch of stuff that they either no longer wanted, or no longer had room for. One of these items was a really nice computer desk. Kes has been wanting a real computer station for a while now, so we put dibs on it. Just one problem -- had to get it back to Dorchester...heroftheage agreed to help bring it back with his trailer this Firday evening. As with most plans, it did not survive first contact with the enemy. First off, the trailer had ben disused for long enough that the padlock on the door would no longer unlock. And no hacksaw to be found. We nearly rescheduled, but when I called dad, he pointed out that *he* had plenty of tools. So, off we went. We being Kes and I, as Vis was actually too tired to come with.When we got to my folks' place, I turned the car around before getting out. A 3-point-turn with a trailer attached turns out to be more like a 57-point turn. But we made it, finally.
Dad and I rolled out the desk, only to discover that it wouldn't actually *fit* in the trailer. sigh... So, dad pulled out the instructions, and we began disasembling. About 2/3 of the way through the process, we had reduced the central mass to a size that would fit in the trailer. Yay!
Drove home. When unpacking the trailer, discovered that there were rather more pieces than there had ben when we'd left. Uh oh. Turns out that a half-disassembled desk is not structurally sound. Some screws had pulled out, and some of them had taken enough wood with them that they weren't ever going to hold weight again.
On the plus side, being in so many pieces made it much easier to bring upstairs. Which I did. Then came the task of reassembling it. I wanted to do it right away, so I'd know whether the damage was critical or not. Luckily, after about an hour's work, I had it back together. The parts that had failed were not, in the fully-assembled state, at all load-bearing. Phew. One of the rails holding the keyboard tray got rather bent out of shape, and is now sticky, but it's all functional and solid.
Saturday afternoon, I went to PCs For Everyone to pick up Kes' new computer (and to retrieve my old one from the repair department). The traffic near the Science Museum was a nightmare. I spent about half an hour on that bridge. Extra gridlock caused by those silly duck-boat things. Gah. But once I got to the store, the people there were efficient and helpful, so I got out quickly. Good thing I knew a route back that avoided that damn bridge.
Spent several hours today working on Kes' machine. It did function fine right out of the box, but I had to install a bunch of hardware drivers and software for her. Only had one real crisis; one of the installers got windows in a state where, as soon as it finished booting up, it would immediately reboot. That took over an hour to track down and fix. But, fixed it is, and now I know something more about windows troubleshooting than I did before. Not that I wanted to...
Finally, got my computer re-hooked up, and spent several blissful hours playing games, as my reward :-)