Saturday

[susandennis]

Even though I've taken half my house to Goodwill more than once, I still have a crapton or two of computer cables and plugs and converters of all types and sizes. Seriously, it's embarrassing. And yet...

Yesterday, the monitor my brother sent to replace the one that died while he was here arrived. Instead of a DVI and VGA port like the one it replaced, it had VGA only. Since the dead one was connected DVI to HDMI and there is no such thing as VGA to HDMI, we had a problem.  My computer has available HDMI and Display Port for hooking up monitors (it also has two DVI's but those are taken). So, since HDMI was out, that left Display Port.  Did I have a Display Port plug in my crapton of stuff. No, of course not!!

Happily, there's a fabulous store of old and new computer parts about a mile from here so I hopped in the car and got what I needed, kind of. At least I was able to hook it up. I am not a fan of Display Ports. I've never had one that didn't do something funky. Of the two available, one made the computer crackle like someone was pulling it out and putting it back in over and over again. The other one makes no sound but the display goes black for 2 seconds about every 5 minutes. And the cable is too short and too white and too fat.

I think I'm going to swap out with one of the other monitors and run it DVI to HDMI and then run the new one  VGA to DVI. But yesterday I was so frustrated that I just got it hooked up and quit. Part of the frustration is my insistence on the absolute minimum of cable showing anywhere. My designer did a 60% good job of designing cable hiding in the desk she had built. The cables are hidden but getting to them and doing anything with them is a royal pain in the ass. So there was a lot of cursing at her involved.

Then, once I got everything plugged in there happened a couple of hilarious hours when I couldn't get the software to understand the monitor configuration. I have 3 monitors. The far left is 1, the middle is 2 and the right is 3. I use them as one. But I could not get them in order so the mouse pointer would flow from 1 to 2 to 3. I'd get 2 right and the 3rd one would be wrong. I'd fix it and other one would go out of order. It was such a cluster fuck even I thought it was funny.

Today is my brother's wedding anniversary (yeah, Valentine's Day - at least Halmark makes sure he remembers every year - it's a third marriage for both so there could be some calendar confusion). I think it's their 16th. Their big gift is a giant overhang off the side of their house that has electricity and sound built in so they can spend evenings outside, drinks in hand, watching the world go by. They are replacing an old tent like structure that finally gave up the ghost so this new one will be great.

But, while he was here he wanted to get her some kind of fancy, pretty neck scarf. We headed over to Ballard - a neighborhood that has a ton of crafty, boutique-ie, free range, pricey, overly-adorable little shops.  Parking is always a challenge but we found a spot and got out of the car and went into the first shop and found the perfect infinity scarf. It was quilted by women in a co-op somewhere eco friendly or something. It was nice. He'd never seen an infinity scarf before - I had to demonstrate - but we bought it and then had lunch.

Just now he sent me a picture of her wearing the scarf and a report that she was delighted. Nice. I always feel so guilty about his wife. She's a really good person who loves him and he loves her. And she took the most amazing and loving care of my mother in Mom's final years - I'll be forever grateful. But she and I could not be any different and I don't mean that in an opposites attract kind of way.  I feel guilty about wanting him to visit by himself and grateful that she is so gracious about it. I'm glad she liked her scarf.

Time now to get suited up for swim. I may go find brunch after and I might just come home and make it here. I'll decide in the water.

Comments

[rejectomorph]

I've had nightmares about cables— not just about the ones in my house but the ones in the recording and video studios I occasionally worked in. Since there's no place here I can hide most of them I just try to avoid looking at them, and dusting them is one of my most unpleasant tasks.

The infinity scarf is something I'd never heard of. I Googled pictures and my first thought was how much like a high fashion noose it is. But then I remembered how Isadora Duncan died and realized that if she'd been wearing an infinity scarf she wouldn't have suffered that consequence, so I guess infinity scarves are a good thing.

[susandennis]

1. if cables stayed in their originally assigned places, it would be one thing but... sure enough... a new one comes along and then another one and they get twisted and tangled and soon they are taking over the world and screaming 'LOOK!!! IT'S A MESS!'.

2. how much I love that your first impulse was to Google instead of leave a 'what is an infinity scarf?' comment. At least in in the first world, there can't be a human alive who hasn't heard of Google but my money says that only about 10% of those humans actually use it to look up answers!

3. omg, I never thought about how Isadora could have been saved with an infinity scarf! that cracks me up.

[rejectomorph]

I feel about cables the way I imagine Medusa probably felt about her hair.

Google came along right about the time I got my first PC, and since then I've spent so much time with it that they should probably give me a certificate of some sort— digital, of course. Two things I could not live without on the Internets: Google and my browser's text search.

[susandennis]

But, but, but, the fact that you actually use Google to look up stuff... that's the amazing and impressive thing to me!

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Please, what's an infinity scarf? Even Google isn't helping me: I see the pictures and that the scarf twists thickly, but I can't tell how... Unless it's a Möbius scarf? My sister made me one of those.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I bought some coat hooks and hung my cables up that way. It does limit how much they tangle up.
And, I've got lots of cables for every occasion...

[colestainedpage.livejournal.com]

The server room at my office sounds similar to your house with the crapton of computer cables. About 2 dozen monitor cables, 3 or 4 dozen cat5 cables, 3 dozen or so power supplies for all of the Polycom phones, cables for old firewalls and other long dead equipment... the list goes on.

When our firewall went down on Christmas Eve, we needed to plug a computer directly into it so we could re-configure it. The computer needed to have a 9-pin serial port - luckily, we had one that did. What we didn't have, in the piles and piles of cables, was the correct connector cable. Luckily, one of the other techs just happened to have one with him in his box full of tricks so we were able to do what needed to be done.

[susandennis]

I think there is a corollary to Murphy's Law that says the number of unused cables your have lying around is inversely proportional to the chances you will have the one you need in an emergency.

[colestainedpage.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Yes, I think you're right.