Posts Tagged ‘siblings’

8
Jul

Sibling Parity, Final Take

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Today's Reality

I have related in several earlier postings the constant back-and-forth competition between my two sons and their computers. The latest round in the battle occurred around Memorial Day, when I was finally able to purchase the pieces I needed to make the older son’s machine as capable of playing games as the younger son’s. Both of the boys were thrilled to be able to play games equally well, and at long last I had achieved balance in the universe.

Little did I know it would be the last competition between them.

Two weeks later, on June 15th, my older son was hosting a party for his marching band section at a local lake. Without going through a lot of detail (I will do that in the future), there was an accident on the lake and he drowned. The funeral was held four days later, with many of his friends and classmates and their families attending.

It has been three weeks since my son’s death, and even though his younger brother is in the house all day long it still feels eerily quiet. He has been spending these hot summer days alternating between watching TV shows and spending time on his computer. He hasn’t been playing his games as much, opting instead to read online or listen to music…the same music my older son used to play on his computer and MP3 player. He doesn’t talk about his brother very much, mostly when my wife or I mention him in conversation. He reminds me a lot of how I used to be when I was younger…not letting on about how much I was hurting inside. I wish I could get him to talk about it more, but it’s difficult to do when you’re also trying to come to terms with the same loss.

Some of my older son’s friends and classmates have tried reaching out to him, both by phone and online through Facebook, and he seems to be responding to them; perhaps I can try getting them to spend more time with him and maybe it will help him open up more. I plan to contact a couple of their parents to see if they can help out as well.

Unfortunately, even with all of their help I will never be able to restore that delicate balance ever again.

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17
May

Sibling Parity, Take Three

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Today's Reality

In the great rush of things that usually comprises my Mondays, I further continued the saga of my sons’ computers, which started back in March. As you may recall, there has been spirited rounds of “one upmanship” between the two of them over who has the most capable computer. First it was a shared machine, then I built up a computer for the younger son, and finally I tried to upgrade the older son’s machine yet again but it didn’t work out. It seemed we had reached an impasse, and that perhaps everyone would be satisfied at least by all the work I had done to make things even between them.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t satisfied, and looked for a better solution. Without going through a lot of details, three weeks ago my wife and I worked out a way to purchase a newer machine that would give our older son more capabilities, and once again it appeared that the universe was in balance.

But it was not to be.

Both of my sons know their way around computers pretty well, but the younger one is more tech-savvy. He has been fascinated with the newer Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems; his machine has been running the older Windows XP, which is very solid and dependable. When the older son’s newer machine came in, it had Win 7 on it…and by now I’m sure you the reader can see where this story is going. The younger son checked his machine and found it was capable of running Vista, and petitioned me to upgrade it with a copy I had available after upgrading my own machine from Vista to Win 7 earlier this year (thanks to a gift from my daughter). After several requests, I relented on Sunday afternoon and agreed to upgrade it.

I wish I hadn’t been so easy to convince.

Upgrading from XP to Vista is not for the faint-hearted. My son understood the risks and still wanted to do it anyway. So, I made him back up all of his files, and when he was satisfied that he had everything he needed I began the upgrade process. Two hours later, it appeared to have finished successfully, but there were a lot of adjustments to be made and well over 100 updates to be added. I worked on those long into Sunday night, then took a break to sleep and started on them again early this morning.

Because today was also a work day for me, I spent a lot of time shuttling back and forth between my office work and his machine, making changes and downloading updates. By 2pm, it appeared to finally be ready for him to use. I decided to leave it running to “burn in” a little, and when he got home from school at 4:30 he jumped on it and start installing all of his software. By his bedtime, it appeared he had most of his programs reinstalled, with nary a whimper or complaint.

Have I finally achieved a balance between these two? Maybe.

I’m certainly not holding my breath for it.

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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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