A week or so ago, a nasty power surge hit our neighborhood and unfortunately, despite the fact that our server (yes, we’re nerds, we know, we have badges) was plugged into a surge protector, it was irreparably damaged. Boo. Aside from the fact that we didn’t want to pay to rebuild it, we didn’t want to take the time either. But we need our server, so we really didn’t have much choice but to rebuild.
To make it easier on Matt, who is the primary computer builder at our house these days (once upon a time I was a pretty good computer builder myself, but I have not kept up on my hardware knowledge, and these days it falls to Matt), we setup the build in the dining room.
This way he could check on the progress of things and keep tabs on the build while still being available for our normal weekend family life.
And of course, use my favorite salad bowl to hold cables.
And of course, like so many other things, we viewed it as a good opportunity to introduce the kids to a part of the geekdom over which we reign. They got to see the insides of the computer and had a brief explanation of what the parts do and a fairly stern lecture about touching anything, particularly the attached keyboard lest they accidentally escape out of a long process. Overall, it was fairly successful – Ben had a bit more trouble keeping his mitts off the whole fascinating scene, but he only killed one incredibly long process, so not too bad.
Of course having the dining room occupied meant we ate ALL of our family meals at the coffee table, including the messiest breakfast in the world, Berry French toast. OY. So glad I spent an hour on Friday cleaning the floor. Grand idea. Not.
Unfortunately, the server build did not go entirely smoothly and it is still on the dining room table but it must be moved tomorrow in anticipation of the cleaning faeries that will visit us on Tuesday morning. Hopefully the alternative parts will arrive quickly.