One of my greatest struggles in adapting in my new life is technology. For the last nearly 20 years I haven’t had to do anything technology-wise. When I sold our house, nearly everything was automated. If I had forgotten to shut the garage door at night, taken care of. If I wanted certain lights on in the house at certain times, done. I didn’t have to worry about catching Wi-Fi while I was in the camper in the driveway or in the beautiful tree house, while I painted the inside. I never had to deal with technology. Just because I haven’t done it doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.
I think back to the days that I stayed up until the wee-morning hours with Brad to “babysit data” as it was moved onto a server that he built. Or the countless hours I listened to him work through a script that he wanted to build and fully understanding the process that he took. Brad had built an entire home that was automated, had the latest technology and was incredibly efficient.
So, here we are. I am a lifetime away from the days that I never had to worry about technology or how to use it. A literal lifetime. There were a lot of things I’ve put off figuring out. The media library that Brad built hadn’t been accessed in over a year. Our family photos that weren’t printed were there also. I haven’t accessed them for a long time.
About a month ago, a computer that Brad previously built took a shit. Last year I had fixed it, but it was clear that it was on its last leg. I have had this computer since 2002 and it had just been built and rebuilt ever since. This computer was the only place I knew to figure out a mapped drive that had access to all of my photos and media. A very long and boring story short, I was forced to either fix it or lose everything.
I also knew that there wasn’t really a geek squad that could come out and help figure it out. I knew I had the answers but it just seemed too damn hard.
I started planning yesterday and asked Cole to please cut a French cleat for me. Bless his heart, he never asks questions. There was a little bit of math involved, but it was pretty easy to figure out. By math, I mean that I am applying math that I had previously been taught and justifying why we all had to suffer though it.
if you were curious about what a French cleat is, check it out here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+a+french+cleat&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
I grabbed one of Brad‘s old monitors and took off the base. Then mounted the French cleat (backwards the first time) to the wall and the monitor back. I had to account for the giant monitor plug-in I had to use since all of the items were a little bit old school. There were a couple of issues, such as: the wireless adapter wasn’t working, but found one of those in the pile of (organized) stuff I have kept.
I did it. I made a display for the kitchen that has our google calendar with all of the live feeds we follow so as not to bring the wrong child to the wrong arena and so-forth. . Shout out to all the moms at Sartell-Sauk Rapids that didn’t know where we were supposed to be. You. Are. My. People. Also to the two hockey moms that truly kept my calendar rolling when I couldn’t. I thing google has saved me.
Bethactually 