Hammer-drills, screen doors, and cars that may or may not have had hood-latches. I’ve established, at great length, that I am not by nature a handy guy. I don’t know how to tune up my snow blower. I don’t know how to change the oil in my car. I wouldn’t know where to start if the light over my sink didn’t work…
Ok, the light over my sink doesn’t work.
But do you know what does work?
The computer I built. My work is computationally demanding. It’s always required the best gear I could find. This time, for this upgrade, I decided I couldn’t buy something off the shelf. This one needed to be bigger. This one needed to be built.
So I started my research. Here’s where I started: I have two main animation tools, supported by a handful of other software. One of the two relies heavily on a fast, multi-core CPU (the computer’s brain). The other performs best with multiple high-end GPUs (the graphics cards). So I picked the CPU I wanted. That was easy. I got exactly what I needed, no more, no less.
The graphics cards were THE problem. They needed to be big, really big. And Bitcoin miners have made them really hard to find, and really expensive when you do. But I know a guy, and he found me a couple really nice 1080ti’s.
Next was a motherboard, RAM, drives, and a power supply. It’s also critical that a CPU, which gets mounted on the motherboard, is sufficiently cooled. I chose to liquid cool the CPU as well as adding 6 other fans. I’d need a big case for it all.
So I ordered a Fractal Design Define R6 case. It’s great, and it’s designers really thought of everything. Everything fit, and the air flow is really good. Everything in the case was perfect, cables dressed and screws tightened. Next was a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Now the final step: turn it on and install Windows 10. But I couldn’t do it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I was frozen. This shit was expensive. What if I did it wrong? What if I push that button and the only thing that happens is sparks, the smell of ozone, and that dick Universe going “Wah-wah…”
I text The Guys. Not The Boys, The Guys. The Guys are my older son’s oldest friends. I’ve known them since they were in kindergarten. They’ve spent almost as much time in my house as I have.
After high school, they went to college and officially became Computer Guys. Now, in my head they’re still children. They may drink my beer when I’m out of town, but I’ll still tell them they can only have one pop before bedtime.
So I text them that I’ve finished The Build, and they should come over and check it out to make sure I did everything right.
I did not do everything right.
The fans weren’t hooked up exactly right, and one of the hard drives had confused me. But that was quickly solved, and after jumping through a couple more hoops, I had successfully built a computer. With help.
The best part about it was watching The Guys. For a couple hours I wasn’t a dad, and they weren’t the children. They were knowledgable, competent men with expertise. They were showing me things. They were giving me confidence. They know stuff. I was proud of them.
It felt good, letting go of a little concern. I’ve watched those two boys for years, thinking to myself “I hope these two meat-heads will turn out ok.” They did. They turned out great.
We worry about our kids. We worry about their friends. We want them to be happy, healthy, and able to support themselves. We want them to feel pride in their accomplishments.
Now if they could just fix that stupid light over my kitchen sink.
Leave a Reply