My Fourth of July...

Well, I survived another holiday... but Geez Louise was it hard!

During the summer, I'm a "Travelin' Man." I have been numerous times to Galveston on Memorial Days and on the Fourth. In previous years, I've been to Canada, Montana, and even Guatemala .

Unfortunately, traveling just isn't easy for me at this point. Stamina, pain, and other issues just make it much easier to stay close to home.

Therefore, I had to make the best of it. However, I REALLY wanted to be in Galveston. Want to know how much? I went to Galveston.com numerous times to check out the web cams throughout the weekend... sigh.

Knowing I'd be bummed, I decided to occupy my time. And what better way to do this than to offer up your services to your folks to "update their computer."

OK Geeks... I know you're out there... how many times do you roll your eyes when your parents ask you a "computer question?" Or, if you're a parent, how often do you wish you could explain to your kiddos that your computer is just "slow" and "not working" and "I don't know how to do __?"

Well, I've been getting a tad frustrated with my parents computer issues... let me explain:

"Did you get my email," I would ask.

"Yes... but I couldn't open it." replied Mom.

"What's the problem?"

"I don't know... it gave me a message."

"OK," my frustration mounting, "What was the message?"

"I don't know. It just said it wouldn't take."

Ahh... precisely. Microsoft writes error messages with "It wouldn't take." That's some good code...

So venturing to bridge that "great gap" that lies between son and mom (technology), I figured this was the perfect time to fix this "issue" that we have been sharing...

I picked it up on Friday, and for two full days I ran MS updates, uninstalled old software, reinstalled new software, and loaded as much freeware that I could find (Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Apple software, etc). The hard drive was also 19% fragmented! (That's not good!)

In the end, it was fixed and humming along... firing on all cylinders! I was happy... although I'll bet I rebooted that machine 30-50 times!

But you want to know what meant the most to my Mom? I moved a bunch of pictures of the family from my computer to hers, and linked it with her screensaver... so it would display those pics. THAT is what she liked... not the other improvements. HA! Talking with her afterwards, she hadn't even gotten into her email or web. She was too dang mesmerized with her new pictures! Oh well... I tried.

I also smoked a rack of ribs, caught up on a lot of TV shows (DVR), and watched some movies. It was a very quiet weekend, but overall not that bad. Plus, it was over 100 degrees so it was nice to stay inside.

Next year: BEACH!