My Techies

August 20, 2020: Dylan breads chicken tenders for family dinner.

When it comes to issues of technology, my boys are my go-to guys. Jacob is helpful with cell phones and other problems, but since he lives three hours away, he can't just jump in the car and run to my aid when I'm frustrated and ready to throw the computer against the wall while sobbing hysterically. Therefore, Dylan and Jake get the honor of receiving those emotional phone calls at any odd hour of the day or night. 

Recently, they did a big job for me, so we decided to combine the tech stuff with a family dinner, and it worked out wonderfully.

Jake tends the tenders in the air fryer.

Dylan had asked for an air fryer for his birthday, almost two months ago, mainly because (he said) you can use it to reheat chicken McNuggets and they're as tasty as fresh-made by Ronald McDonald! Since his birthday, they've experimented with other dishes and really like it. They had offered a few weeks ago to bring over their air fryer and make chicken strips or nuggets for us sometime, and this seemed like the prefect opportunity.

The perfect chicken strips, especially dipped in a bit of ranch dressing!

They did all the work, letting me just relax and visit. They even used ground pork rinds for the breading so I wouldn't have to cheat on my healthy eating. The strips came out beautifully, tender on the inside and crispy on the outside. It was a delicious dinner, with green beans served on the side. 

I might buy an air fryer for myself, if only I had room for one in my little kitchen!

My new gaming computer...although that's not what I bought it for.

The computer I've been using is only three years old, but it recently started doing some glitchy things that spooked me. Plus it seemed to be less and less able to handle multiple functions at the same time, slowing way down despite attempting a variety of fixes. Dylan had been recommending that I get a gaming computer, due to their greater power. (He and Jake are huge gamers.) Still, I kept telling myself, "But it's only three years old!"

However, the last few glitches made me worry for the safety of thousands of photographs stored on my hard drive, and especially for the novel I'm writing. The idea of recreating the 55,000+ words I've written so far is a nightmarish scenario. And, yes, I have my photos and my novel backed up on external drives, but what happens if the computer somehow tweaks something when I'm moving files between the hard drive and external drive? I don't know if that's even possible, but I'm not going to wait to find out!

People who know what they're doing can open it up and add or upgrade components.

So I called Dylan and said, "Okay, let's do this." He recommended a gaming computer that had the features I'd want, and then he ordered it for me. The new computer, a new curved monitor (never had one of those before), and a pair of speakers arrived about a week before our family dinner.

The fun part is how everything lights up colorfully!

Dylan and Jake make a great team. Dylan is the set-up-the-hardware guy and Jake is the set-up-the-software-and-programs guy. After our family dinner, Dylan got to work removing my old computer, reassembling everything on the kitchen table so I could continue to use it until I moved all my files over to the new computer. Then he un-packaged all the new components and got them up and running and arranged nicely in my workspace. I hung around and asked a lot of questions, of course. He patiently explained everything and showed me how things worked.

The student has become the master.

All set up in my office and ready to go to work!

By the time he was finished, it was getting late. Dylan and Jake had a friend from out of town coming to visit, so we had to call it a night. They came back a few days later so Jake could make sure the programs I'd need were in place and everything was set up the way I like it. The timing was perfect. Since I couldn't use the new computer for those few days, I worked like crazy to reorganize my picture files so they'd be all neat and tidy when I transferred them over, a chore I'd been avoiding for years! It was so nice to have every photo in the correct file, at last, when I loaded up my new computer.

This is my view looking into the office from my bed at night.

So now I'm good to go, and I've been using the new computer for about a week. It's so fast, and I can listen to Spotify while working without bogging everything down! Best of all, I can work with peace of mind.

Thanks, guys! You're so good at what you do!

The new keyboard is pretty spectacular, like a glowing rainbow!