And then I heard the crash

I may have already titled another post with the same title as above. If I did, I apologize. So today for a quick lunch (as I was running a little late), I stopped at McDonald’s to grab a few cheap burgers. Two double cheeseburgers and a water. Soon after that, last night started catching up to me. I was up until about 3 in the morning. I was working along side Bobby at a customers rebuilding a server.

I had to use my MacGyver skills for the server. Soon after I got there, Bobby wanted to blow the dust out of the computer. So we take it downstairs to my truck, blow the dust bunnies out (they were horrible… they tried to eat us, they were huge). We get it back upstairs and realize that in the process of all of this, the clip that holds down the heatsink to the CPU has broken. It was a faulty piece of plastic with a minor crack in it, and the last bit of moving it around finally did it in. My first idea involved a zip tie and a pen cap. It did not hold it down enough. The pen cap was meant to make the clip stay down more. The computer did not accept it and would not boot.

On to plan B, involving a screw driver, a pair of scissors, and a foot to a computer case. The first part of this plan involved cutting the pencil to length. The scissors held it in place on the clip while I placed the case on. It still wasn’t enough pressure.

Plan C was Bobby’s idea. It included ethyl-cyanoacrylate… or otherwise known as “super glue”. It was the obvious solution: fix the small broken plastic piece. He held them on for about 5 minutes. He gave it a test run with a little tension on the newly bonded plastic. It appeared to be fine. So we get it into the computer. It appeared to be working… until we realized that it was crooked. We fixed the crooked, and off came the piece of plastic.

Plan D was surprising low-tech, but it worked. There was some packing foam on a server. I ripped off several pieces, grabbed my knife (thank you Trisha), and cut one in half. I placed both pieces on top of the heatsink, put on the cover, and turned it on. There was a moment of silence, and then… a boot screen! Hallelujah!!

I left there around 1:30am. I was in the middle of installing some new software on my laptop, and I wanted to get it done before morning, so at home, I installed the new software while doing a little bit of remote working playing with our new remote management software that we give to our managed services customers. I think I went to bed around 3:00am.

I woke up the next morning rather late. On a side note, I was surprised in the morning. While searching for clothing, I wanted a light shirt, but could not find one. So I grabbed a darker brown shirt and an overshirt. It felt rather heavy. I get it on the bed to open it, and inside is the a light shirt. It was a combo I wear all the time. Danielle had hung my clothes and put them together. She’s so sweet. I had to send her a text telling her how great she is. Anyway, back on track. This is where lunchtime today comes in. Soon after lunch, I started to not feel so well. I thought at first it was the crappy McDonald’s food, until I started to feel drained. I then realized that it was my late night. The rest of the afternoon I was whiny and dragging through the day.

I finally get to Danielle’s house at 5:00 or so. We lay down while she consoles me. She gives me a Vicondin (I thought I was getting Tylenol), and I go to sleep (with my phone) while she picks up the children and makes dinner. She wakes me up to let me know dinner is ready. She made soup and grilled cheese. Yum. She even added extra chicken in the soup :)

The night goes on a bit, and I go outside to move my truck (I had to park far away because all the parking was full) and to get my fish tape to attempt to unclog her bathtub (don’t ask, it didn’t work). As I am getting stuff out of my truck, I hear a screech and a loud crash. I run around the corner, and I see a guy wobbling getting up from his mangled bike and car crooked in the street. I run into the apartment, grab my phone, and run over to check on them. As I am going over there, people from all over are pulling in to check on things. I asked someone who actually saw it if everything was ok, and she said that the guy said he was fine, and that it’s been called in already. I couldn’t be of much use anymore, so I left, and I heard sirens in the distance. As I am walking away, you can see people talking, and all I could think of was “and that’s when I heard the crash”. When I get back inside, Danielle no longer believes that I am not feeling well if I am running across a parking lot in my socks. She didn’t see me wobbling back as I drained all my energy with the running. Now I sit here with Vicodin in my system (which I have never had) feeling a little woozy, but still with a headache. I will now hit Publish, and move on to my hobby… watching Danielle be the beautiful person she is.