Life Lessons from George

I've had George for about 4 years now. I remember the day I got him with 3 guy friends. It was quite memorable because I almost had to throw buckets of water on them to stop the mounting brawl that was sure to ensue had I not stepped in to clarify what I really wanted.

You see, George is my desktop PC and I brought 3 guy friends with me the day I bought him at PC Express.

Lesson #1 - Don't bring along 3 geeky guy friends to help you buy your PC. Why? They're going to end up besting each other over the specs for your PC. My 3 guy friends weren't speaking to each other on the way home.

It took about 6 months before George stabilized for use. I had almost given up on him, but eventually my PC doctor managed to shape him up for use. The place where I bought it wasn't very helpful at all, good thing I had my long-time PC doctor help me. I vowed then never to buy from that place again.

Lesson #2 - Buy only from trusted sources and places that have good customer care. I used that principle when I was scouting for a laptop.

I diligently backed-up my files (especially photos), but I always feared that one day George will go into a coma and not wake-up. He was acting up in the last quarter of 2007 and I backed-up my files every 2 weeks or whenever I felt that I had to.

Lesson #3 - Always back-up your files and follow your instincts when you feel that you have to do back-ups.

I unfortunately did not follow my instinct to do back-up before I left last week for CDO. I also forgot to change the passwords so that my son could not use it since I felt that George was on the brink of a collapse.

George went into a coma. His registry files were corrupted and deleted (I have no idea how) and good thing Sweetie taught me how to find remedies by searching on Google. We printed out a 5-page recover document, but I had to set it aside for a couple of days since I was quite busy with work.

Lesson #4 - Do not panic. There is always a remedy for everything.

And so I went through 5-pages of support, doing things that I never imagined myself doing. The last time that I dabbled with the command prompt was about 7-years ago when I had to provide technical support to myself since our family business consisted of me, my parents and 10 workers. I was the only one who knew how to turn on the computer. The companies I worked for always had tech support and all I had to do was dial their local and they came to the rescue. I became lax, good thing Sweetie brought me up to speed on how to resuscitate George. I had to stop at some point though for fear of accidentally deleting my files.

Lesson #5 - Do not allow your skills to go rusty. Keep it and improve on it, BUT get help when you need it.

At least I'm not emo or panicking over my files. I have back-ups on CD and on Happy (for photos). My only angst is on rebuilding my iTunes. Pffftt!