Cleaning the computer

Spring Cleaning is all about opening the windows and shaking out the dust of musty winter.

Fall Cleaning is all about clumping out the eaves of their leaves and clearing out the garden while preparing for cold winter.

But Computer Cleaning could happen at any time, and usually means blasting out the cobwebs of dust that are clogging the guts of the thing.

I was preparing for the New Year when I noticed my personal computer turned itself off once a day. That changed to once an hour. When it turned itself off three times in five minutes I knew the unescapable truth. It was time to clean out the inside of my computer.

The problem is these fans that draw in air to cool the machine so it doesn’t melt down into a puddle of metal and plastic also suck in dust particles that coat everything.

Now from what I’ve read dust motes consist of two things. First, Stardust. Over billions of years stars are born and die, sometimes exploding spectacularly and seeding new stars and new planets with the elements of life.

Like Joni Mitchell once sang, “We are stardust. We are golden.” I really like that image.

But the other blunt fact is along the way stardust has been transmuted into more prosaic down-toearth crud. Like the flakes of skin you shed in the process of changing into a brand new person every seven years. That means it’s true when I say stardust is clinging to the components of my computer. But it’s also clogged with that your skin, my skin, the dog’s skin.

Yuck!

Whatever. First I took photos of where stuff in the back was plugged in, then unplugged everything. Then I found the one tool I own, a two-sided screwdriver featuring both a regular and Philips head. It’s inscribed with the name of a long-deceased computer company, a premium from back at the dawn of the personal computer revolution, given to me when I bought a computer from that defunct company in Elkhart back in the 90s.

Carefully I unscrewed the side panel, and with a handy dandy cannister of air spray (not hairspray, but something that sprays extremely cold air) I removed all the star dust, skin follicles, and dog hair from the inside of my computer.

I just as carefully screwed the panel back, and then plugged everything back in. I turned the computer on and everything worked perfectly.

Everything except the itunes. None of the digital music would play.

So I did what everyone my generation does when faced with an insoluble computer problem. I turned to a younger person, in this case my oldest son Francisco. I typed a laboriously detailed text outlining exactly what I’d done, including the original photograph as well as a more recent one showing where things were plugged in now.

Then I sent it.

After that a lightbulb went off. I compared the two photos, saw my mistake, replugged a connection from the speakers to the computer, and everything worked perfectly.

I was about to write another long, detailed text asking Francisco to forget about it and why when I got an automated message from my pharmacy saying that my earlier message made no sense.

That’s when I realized I’d hadn’t written to Francisco after all. I’d answered another automated text from the pharmacy asking when I’d pick up my prescription.

So for once a dumb mistake got me out of having to admit to my son that I’d just made another old guy computer mistake.

Kind of a win-win if you ask me.