29
Mar

Sibling Parity

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Today's Reality

I have two sons aged 15 and 13. They’re both bright and talented (I’m not bragging – they get straight A’s in school and both play in the school band), and they are both really big into PC-based video gaming, especially sports like baseball or football, and role-playing games involving a lot of shooting and blowing things up.

Up until a few months ago the boys shared one computer, which seemed to take care of their needs. I’ve had to upgrade it a couple of times so it could run the more complex games they keep getting, but it’s done pretty much everything they’ve asked of it. They would argue over who would play what, and sometimes things would get pretty ugly, but they have always worked out their differences and no bones have ever been broken in the process. The conflict finally came to a head when both of them claimed the need to use it more for schoolwork, and between that and the constant bickering over games it finally reached the point where another machine was needed to restore peace in the house.

I’ve built most of the home computers I’ve ever used. As late as two years ago, I was still using a machine I had built from scratch, while everyone else in the house had a “store-bought” PC. Then, in a very sudden and dramatic fashion my homebuilt machine died, and I needed to repair it very quickly. When I found out it would cost as much for new parts as it would to buy a fully-loaded computer ready to run, I bought a new one; but, forever and always an electronic packrat, I held on to that old box, figuring I could use some of its parts one day to repair another machine.

Two years later and faced with the prospect of buying another computer, I looked at that old box and thought, “maybe I could find some cheap surplus parts and rebuild it.” After some complicated negotiations, my youngest son decided he’d be brave and take on the challenge of working with one of Dad’s electronic creations.

It took some time to find parts, but once I had them I was in my element, my hands deep inside the metal casing hooking up cables to components that would bring it back to life. A few last connections, and voila! The old computer was running again! After some testing, I turned the resurrected PC over to my son so he could begin installing and playing games.

He learned what worked and what didn’t, and fortunately the “didn’t” list was fairly short. But, he started clamoring for upgrades to be able to play those games. With Christmas around the corner, I decided to give him some of the parts he needed as presents. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t work. The new parts would fit, but the older pieces were unable to support them.

By this point, I was committed to getting the PC working. So, I ran to the nearest computer parts store (about 60 miles away) to get the pieces I had tried to avoid buying in the first place. After several more round-trips to the store over the next three months, and some strategic purchases off eBay, over this past weekend I was able to FINALLY get it running the way I originally intended.

But, now that I’ve got little brother’s computer running smoothly, big brother starts to complain that his machine’s graphics aren’t as good, and wants to upgrade his to match.

So, the arguments start all over again. This time, at least, the boys aren’t complaining to each other.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Today's Reality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One comment

 1 

You lucky man, you! I’ll bet it would be hard for me to get you to believe that you will one day dearly miss the noise of those arguing voices, but, Brave Soldier, that day SHALL come to pass!

March 29th, 2010 at 11:46 pm

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