|
|
Family Photo Album
Jesse's Birthday 2003
Sixteen Years Old |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What a difference a year makes! Jesse's sixteenth birthday arrived
just as Dave was rolling onto long term disability, and the house was
up for sale. A very low period in our life. Thomas had visited from
New Jersey at Easter. But with no high school friends, and no home
school friends and no college friends, (cyber-friends can't come over
and play), there was no real party or celebration. On top of that
"Silver" our best game playing computer crashed for two
weeks with some kind of very strange problem that consumed hours of
investigation while we spent a couple hours every day packing the
dreaded 'clutter' into boxes and hauling it to the self-store and
having the ritual of stepping out of the house (usually up to
Blimpies) two or three times EVERY DAY for walk-throughs. All of this
was going on during Jesse's birthday week.
On top of all that, when Dave signed up for a college class for
summer semester (May-July), Jesse signed up for one that met at the
same time, so the two of them could drive over and back together.
When was the first class for summer session? Exactly on Jesse's birthday. |
|
|
 |
 |
Cyber Jesse with his MP3 shoulder mount |
Summer semester started exactly on his birthday |
|
|
|
|
After their first summer class, Dave and Jesse headed out for lunch
and the smallest birthday celebration ever. Out of divine fairness,
Dave ended up with homework while the birthday boy got off scot-free.
After lunch, it was home for a small cheese-cake and song for just
the three of us. We had enjoyed some movies during the various real
estate showings, and planned on seeing another over the weekend, but
the birthday day was a very quiet one. Jesse wasn't sure what to 'ask
for', except to get that dead PC working again and his official
drivers license in September. We planned a formal dinner to Sam
Seltzers, but it got lost in all the confusion. |
 |
|
Jesse enjoying his birthday lunch |
|
 |
 |
Cheesecake and "Happy Birthday" |
Just the three of us for a simple celebration of 16 |
|
|
|
Jesse's birthday fell in the middle of a FOUR WEEK ordeal where
"Silver" (our main video game system) failed intermittently
to boot up. After swapping memory and power supplies with
"Gold" (our main home business system) and purchasing a new
hard drive, we deduced the problem to be more complex. |
|
|
 |
 |
Always look for a simple solution first |
Swapping simple components |
|
|
After two days of research, we finally ordered a new motherboard and
had it sent "next day". It took a full day for Jesse to
swap the components, only to find that the main power connector was a
different configuration and pin count. We took a trip to Radio Shack
to buy a new connector, only to learn that it would be easier to
rewire the current one. After finishing the wiring, it took another
day to get the NIC board configured (yipee! e-mail) and another day
to get ICS working. |
|
|
 |
 |
Everything connects to the motherboard |
Finally back online, 378 e-mails to delete |
|
|
ICS failed for two days without warning but troubleshooting webpages
showed us how to edit our registry file which gets corrupted if you
reinstall a NIC board without uninstalling the old one first (silver
was crashed, we had no time to uninstall). We had ICS working for
over a week with no home network access, and read dozens of pages to
figure out the problem, when Jesse remembered that we had installed a
firewall on Gold when it was directly connected to the net. Sure
enough, one checkbox to disable the firewall and everything finally
worked. Over 100 hours work and research spread over four weeks, but
no more power cutouts or failed boot-ups on silver. Oh, and by the
way, our "broken" CD reader came back to life. And so it goes. |
|
|
|
Meg and Molly wanted to celebrate with Jesse so we all went to Rio
Bravo for a fun dinner and some funny gifts. Jesse still hasn't
learned not to have is picture taken in a funny hat. |
|
|
 |
 |
Feliz Cumpleaños Senor Jesse |
Jesse and Meg: A fun evening |
|
|
|
|
 |
After we saw X-Men 2, we went to see "A Mighty Wind", the
amusing mockumentary lampooning folk music. We spent the week-end
humming and singing the hilarious songs. Afterwards, Jesse took in
"Cowboy Bebop", an anime movie showing at a speciality
theatre quite a distance from home, and we viewed a dozen classic
videos during this time. (See our Home School Cinema
page). Finally, Jesse and Boomer saw "Matrix Reloaded" and
had a sleepover. |
|
|
On the day after Jesse's birthday, an offer came in to buy the house.
Suddenly we weren't worried about finding a buyer, now it was finding
a new place to live! Of course, instead of making life easier, we
were suddenly under the gun to find a place to live, organize a
"moving sale" and get moved. All the while going to school
two days per week. |
|
|
|
|
 |
Click to view a different holiday or year |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Original Web Upload November, 2002
Last Update: June 6, 2003 |
|
|
