Thursday, November 14, 2019
Toby was a whiz with computers, so the last time they were here visiting Wendell I coaxed him over to my house to fix whatever was wrong with mine. Something is ALWAYS wrong with my computer and I don't know any third graders to help me out. Toby sat down and within seconds was doing stuff that made my head spin: opening multiple windows on the same screen to look at several programs at once, racing through files, programs, and "tools" I never knew were there. Within minutes (probably about five) he corrected the problem I'd had for months, rearranged the desktop,dumped countless junk files and had the thing working like crazy. He said we needed to reboot to make the "fix" permanent (or something) and asked for my password, which I confidently gave him - the same password I'd used hundreds of times since I brought the computer home. He turned it off, restarted, and keyed in the password. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing. And again, and again. Nothing. "Are you sure that is the right password?" Well, DUH, it's the same password I've ALWAYS used! We fooled with it well over an hour, even unplugged and re-plugged everything, I probably banged on the computer case too. Still nothing. Toby apologized for having apparently accidentally done something to lock up my computer. We were about to give up on the piece of junk when suddenly I sheepishly recalled: Oooh! When I upgraded to Window 10 it required at least one number and one grammatical symbol (like an exclamation mark) be included with the password. I gave him the number and symbol which he added to my now familiar password and it fired up like a charm. Toby took my stupidity in stride, just chuckled a bit. The computer worked great, fast, and everything, like new. Well, until they were back in Phoenix and I fouled it up again.
