There I go Shaving the Yak Again!

It is very likely that you will not fully understand this post unless you have read my December 3, 2010 about Shaving The Yak.  As soon as you read it,  I am sure you will be able to relate all too well.

I had my Saturday pretty well planned out this past weekend.  In fact I even knew what time I was going start each task and end each one; and it was going to happen exactly as I had planned without fail because I had it written down and plotted out, right?

Oh, I see.  You’ve been there before too! 

After what actually happened I had to send a message to my friend who follows my blog quite closely to tell her, “There I go “Shaving the Yak” again.”  So just what does that mean?

You  may not believe it, but here’ show it happened, one bright summer day, a little bug sneezed…   Oh wait same concept, wrong story.  That line is from the first page of the Dr. Seuss Book “Because a Little Bug Went Kerchoo!”  Funny story about the chain reaction created by a little bug’s sneeze… an even more juvenile version of the house that Jack Built, I guess.   Having 7 children I ‘ve only read it a few hundred times.   I digress.  Back to the ranch… Here’s my story…

I had pretty much decided that I had bitten off more than I could chew and decided to put some stuff off (see my post on procrastination) until Monday and tackle one major job that I had been putting off since Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden (careful, now I’m showing my age).    I was going to get my bedroom in order.  The major and most important chore, of course… for those who know me, was to tackle the mess at the computer table!

Seeing the computer reminded me that if I was going to clean it up, this would be a GREAT opportunity to set up the dual monitor display that I have been wanting to do for almost a year now which would help me immensely with developing websites (oh boy!  Here we go!)

Of course,  in order for me to do that I needed to open the computer up to determine what slots I had available so that I could determine the type of graphics card I would need to purchase for the second monitor.  No sweat right?  WRONG!  First I had to go into my workroom and find the computer tools (I have three sets) but the workroom… well that’s another job waiting to be tackled.  Thankfully, I spotted a set of tools so I did not have to clean the whole workroom before I actually could find the tools to start the job in the bedroom that I wanted to completed before actually starting the job that needed to be done!  Praise the Lord!

Back in the bedroom now I got down on the floor and under the computer table and cracked open the CPU and took a look at to see what I would need.  I could see that in the mini case that I had there were two open slots.  I had to then go and get the laptop and bring it in so that I could pull up the specs on the manufacturer’s website see what these slots were.  I was able to quickly determine that I had a  PCI Express 2.0 x 16 and a PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot open.  Yeah, I know most of you understand what I just said as much I understand some guy who looks at my tires and asks me if those are 20’s that I have.  The only 20’s I ever have are in my wallet, and trust me, these days there usually aren’t too many of those either.    So… armed with this new  information  I now went to the Best Buy website to see if I could pre-order what I needed online and have it ready at the store when I got there.   EVERY SINGLE ITEM THAT I CHOSE was not available for immediate store pickup.  THAT I could not believe so I hopped in the car and went up to the store.  I found every single thing that I had looked at sitting on the shelf staring right back at me.  GRRRRRRRRR!

Now, the part I hate about going to these stores. 

In order to get help, I have act like I am helpless and don’t know a thing about computers.  Also helps to see if they’re going to try and rip me off.  They get really challenged when you demonstrate that you have more knowledge about their job than they do.  So I went over to a jolly looking guy with three products in hand only wanting to know  one simple answer.  Since the products were security sealed I could not open them up and I needed a half height card for my mini computer case.  I played my stupid act, showed them to the guy, finally formulated an intelligent sounding question (you should have seen the superior look on his face) and when I asked if these were half height cards, my tip off should have been the glazed look in his eyes, if not the hesitation before he answered while he tried to tap into his brain cells for information that obviously was not in his “database” to begin with.  Finally I got a “yeah, that’s right.  Those are half height.”  I also showed him the external USB adapter I had which cost $5 more but was worth it to me to not have to come back to the store.  He shook his head knowingly (another sign I missed.  Hindsight is 20-20).  So happy as a clam now (although I don’t know where that saying comes from or how to determine if a clam is happy) I paid for my purchase and went out to my car.   That little nagging voice said open the box.  Do NOT start the car until you know!  Do Not pass Go!  Do not collect $200.  You don’t want to get home and have to drive all the way back!  I love it when I actually do listen to myself AND turn out to be right?  The card was a full height card!  GRRRRRRRR!  

I went back inside.  The “security” associate at the front door said, “Back so soon?”  I said, yep, Wrong size.  He put a little pink sticker on my purchase (I was hoping it wasn’t some type of target marker) and I headed back to find Mr. Jolly, only to be intercepted by a member of my church wearing a Best Buy uniform and who actually knew what he was talking about!  How refreshing!   So… Now I got the external adapter and headed up to customer relations to make the exchange.   I hopped into the car and was on the way back home again, but happy (as a clam?) and deciding already that this was going to work.

Once I got back home I now had to  close up the desktop computer and get all of the wiring back together because I won’t need to install anything on the inside as I had planned.  Now I had to rearrange the computer table and move the wireless printer (Looks like I’ll need to get a small table for that now, but that’s not going to be part of this story or the job would have not gotten done until today!).   Then I was able to clean off the computer table. and connect the USB external video card.  Setup was straight forward and  now I have the dual monitor setup using the Windows 7 Extended desktop … which is (as the teens say these days) really way cool!  Now I can drag things from one monitor to the other!  SWEEEEET!  And if you haven’t already figured out, that took so much time and energy that I never even completed the original task which was to get the room cleaned up!  But that I can take care of one day this week, right?   <wink>