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| Home >> Index Pages >> Informational Pages >> Discount Computer Systems >> News >> Applicants of Scholarship 2008 >> |
The process of getting my first computerDirectron Scholarship 2008 Essay No. 81by Jennifer Marie Hammond Intended School: Harrington College of Design, in Chicago Intended Major: Photography with a minor in computer Design I sit in the middle of Nebraska, newly married (1997) and wondering what this new Computer craze was all about! My husband and I moved back to my hometown (Broken Bow, Nebraska), after only a few months living in the "City", called Kearney, Nebraska. He received a job at the local cattle feed lot, of which my whole family worked. Now, we could say he worked for the most technologically advanced feed lot in the whole world! To some this isn't exciting, but to small town Nebraska, this is a major accomplishment. My husband's job was to do the accounting, by running numbers as to how much a cow drank or ate, which cow weighed more, etc. (That is all I knew about, anyway.) He came home one day and said "Hey, we should get a computer." I was excited and scared all at the same time. I used computers in school, but how would I know how to use a computer with Windows 95 on it? He told me that we would get a discount, through his work, to get a brand new Gateway 2000. We discussed it, agreed to get this new computer, and he went to work and ordered it. Now that we have a new computer coming, we have to and buy a desk, chair, printer, ink, paper, and cables! Wow, this computer was pricey, but we just had to have one. We decided to go to Wal-Mart and buy all of the things we needed, before our new baby arrived. So, we got in the car on a Saturday for our hour and a half drive to the nearest Wal-Mart. Once we were there, we went to the furniture section. He chose a small desk and I chose the biggest one they had! So, we decided to think about it and go get the other items that we needed. (To give you perspective our house, the living room and dining room was in the shape of an L and I wanted to put up a "wall" with furniture. Our entertainment center was our current wall, but I figured we could hide all of the cords to the entertainment center if we got a desk, big enough, to push up against the back of it, in essence making the dining room, our computer room.) So, we proceed to the electronics department to look at all of the wonderful printers, cables, ink, and paper. Now, you would think we could decide on something together, right? Wrong! We stood in the electronics section for about two hours deciding on which printer to get, which paper to get, and how much the ink was going to cost us. We finally decided on an HP Deskjet 690 series printer and cheap paper. Now, we have to grab the cables and go back to the furniture department. Back at the furniture department, we argued about which desk to get for another hour and a half. The ones that he was choosing were too small or I didn't like the look and the ones that I was choosing, were too much money and too big, such a dilemma. After all of the grueling arguments we decided on one that matched our entertainment center, with a hutch as tall as the entertainment center, and had a space for everything. We asked an associate to bring it to the front so that we could pay for it. We had everything in hand, get everything loaded up, and start the hour and a half drive back home, when I gasped for air! My husband looked at me and said "What in the heck is wrong with you?" I said, "We forgot the stinking chair!" Well, he said we didn't need it right now, and that we would get one later. Ok, I thought to myself. I will just be mad at him and let it be known that we could have turned around and went back for the chair, which would have made me happy, but you chose to keep going, so I am not talking to you! After we get home, we checked the answering machine and our computer had arrived. I was so excited, that I told him to go to work and get it. He said no because we hadn't even put the desk together yet and he wanted everything together before he brought it home. So, as most eighteen year old girls would have done, I pouted. I said to myself fine, he wants the desk together, I will put it together. That is just what I did, I put that desk together (thinking it would only take an hour and about four hours later, I was finally done.). It was midnight and I went and told him that the desk was together, now please go and get the computer. He yelled that it was midnight and he wasn't going to get the computer until Sunday. I told him it was Sunday. Finally, reluctant to do so, he went to work and brought our new baby home. Now, for the set up of the computer, which came in two huge boxes and myself not knowing anything about computers, was following the pictures on the poster that came with the computer. He still hadn't pulled the computer or the monitor out of the box. I was looking at the two boxes, thinking wow, we have a 17" monitor with a 266MHz processor and 6.4mb of memory! I just couldn't wait to get it out of the box and hook it up. My husband finally talked me into waiting until later in the morning to set it up. I couldn't sleep. I wanted the computer hooked up so that I could play with it. Later in the morning rolled around, we finally got it hooked up after about two hours of messing with where to put it on the desk, hooking the printer up and getting the desk just right. I pulled up my bean bag, grabbed the keyboard and the mouse and waited for him to push the power button. When he pushed the power button, nothing happened. My face went from all smiles to almost crying in seconds! Why isn't it turning one? He sat back scratched his head and started looking at the connections. Everything was connected, what could be wrong with it? Did they send us a dud? Did we hook everything in where it was supposed to? So, he looked at the instructions again, looked at the connections to make sure that everything was tightly in its place and put everything back. He pushed the power button again, and nothing! I wanted to cry and then thought to myself, did he plug in the surge protector? So, I asked him. He went off on a little tirade about how he plugged in the surge protector before he started plugging everything in and how dare I think he wouldn't have done that, etc. So, out of curiosity, I looked. There wasn't anything plugged into the wall. So, I looked at another outlet, again, nothing. Without him knowing, I plugged in the surge protector to the wall, flipped the switch, sat back down and told him to try it again. WALAH! It worked! He was so excited. It was working! The main screen came on, "Windows 95" appeared, and then it was time to install all of the software. An hour later, it is all ready to go! So, I look at the screen, go to the start menu, but wait, I don't know what to do! What are we supposed to do with it? I thought, "Wait! I know. We need internet!" Yet another expense to this wonderful invention, we call the Computer! So, to draw the conclusion to this wonderful story, we got the internet hooked up a few days later. The computer consumed me. I wanted to be on it all of the time. I got hooked on the chat rooms, found out there was a whole new world outside of Nebraska and had to explore. My husband, however, didn't want to explore it, which is one of the ends to our marriage. References: | Directron.com College Scholarship | |
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