My PC and Me

I have a personal relationship with my personal computer. It all started back in 1999 or so when I was working for an Internet based grocery shopping service. I already had one personal computer at home but felt the urge to upgrade upon receiving the payout for my 401 K plan from a previous company by which I had been employed for nine years.

Trying to play catch-up with all the Internet savvy people at my job, I thought that the more sophisticated computer system would help me in my endeavor. I was very excited to get my new toy. It was an "opened box" return from Best Buy that I got at a reduced price, and it had 128 MB of RAM, a speed of 866 MHz, a CD-ROM, a CD-RW, and a 40 GB hard drive. Luckily, I kept my old computer running, and didn't transfer all of my data over to my new computer because the new one crashed in a month or so.

Not to be discouraged, I wrapped my computer up in plastic, tied it down to the luggage rack on my red mountain bike, and took off for the Best Buy repair department in Vernon Hills, a journey of about 15 or 20 miles from my apartment in Evanston. I was pretty tired by the time I got there, and it took longer than I had anticipated. Unfortunately, the repair department was closed, and the retail store was in the process of closing and would not accept the computer for repair.

I lugged it back to Evanston, and started out again earlier the next time I made the trip to the repair store. This time I made it in time to turn it into the repair department, and get a repair ticket on it. I also went out about a week later and picked it up, and again packed it on the back of my bike for the long trek home. At home, I was very happy that the hard drive turned on, and the monitor showed a picture.

My computer and I spent a lot of time together. Right before the landlord evicted me, I took it over to my best friend's house and hooked it up there. When the eviction came through, my landlord waited about a month, and then changed the locks on the door of my apartment rather than having the sheriff put all my belongings outside the house. So, I lost my computer disks to several programs that I had put on the computer. I also lost two other computers that were older than the one I took over to my friend's.

Things have settled down a bit since I got evicted, and I have an apartment now and a part time job. My computer is back with me now. I am trying to get another job over the Internet that requires me to have IE 6.0, service pack 1 on my computer, and I tried to load it several times. Not being able to do so, I took the computer into my part-time job, and the tech guy also tried to load it. He said something like "We can always blow out the hard drive and reload everything" - evoking painful fears of loosing everything on my computer without the requisite backups to my programs from the lost disks being available.

I was really glad to bring the computer back home sans IE 6.0, service pack 1 update. I think I am going to get a refurbished computer from where I work now to use for the Internet job and keep my computer with all its programs that I have been using over the years for my own personal use. My computer has been through about as much with me as any "real" person.