Upon a private comment from a friend of mine, I’d like to say that I do realize that representatives from Dell do end up reading blogs out there in the blogosphere. It’s possible that Dell will look at my entry and end up saying, “Feh! You broke the terms of your warranty, so you don’t get no more help!” It’s not like I’m hiding my identity… and if that is their decision, I suppose it’s appropriate, technically speaking. But if they decide to wig on me and drop my warranty because I fixed something that their tech screwed up in the first place, I’m not sure that Dell would end up keeping me as a customer.

It’s not like I’ve opened it up, broken something, and am asking Dell to fix it as a warranty repair. I fixed it better than their tech left it (and their tech actually caused one of the tabs on the bezel to snap off, but as long as the hinge is still connected, I don’t really care).

So, I would say that my latest action, though technically against warranty terms (which I accept), was a follow-up to the tech’s work, and that any complaints I have about the tech’s work are nullified by the fact that I resolved the tech’s errors.

I don’t know if that would stand up in court, but it works for me. But like I said, if Dell wants to drop their warranty, it’s their right, but I don’t really see why they would risk losing a customer on a technicality when their tech was at fault initially.

I did a little repair-work on my Dell laptop… it would probably be considered a breach of the terms of my warranty (which extends until next year or possibly the year after), but allow me to tell my story, in a way.

I use this laptop every day of the week for work. Hence, I really need it to work pretty much all of the time. The last time I had a problem and called Dell for tech support, they had to replace my motherboard. Heck, I’d much rather prefer Dell take care of that as opposed to me having to do it myself… especially considering if they screw it up, I can ask them to fix it.

Well… the person who replaced the motherboard kind of… didn’t put my laptop back together correctly. The computer still worked–for the most part–but the screen was really loose and the left side of the keyboard was raised in comparison to the right.

So, it was workable, but there was also this weird problem where it would occasionally lock up if I moved it from A to B. Perhaps you’re not supposed to do it, I don’t know–you’re not supposed to have them on your lap, either (I have a little lap-desk thing that puts a good distance between the computer and my balls, so my sperm count is safe).

After a little personal craziness, I went to the local computer shop and… used their desk space to see if I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. As it turns out, the screw on the left side of the screen had been sheared off, so I removed the post and found a replacement screw, reattached, and the screen moves smoothly back and forth like it used to–very, very nice. This might not have been caused by the person who performed the warranty repair, but after the repair, the lower left corner of the front bezel was pushed forward, and the plastic tab that hooks them together simply broke off a week or two after the warranty repair had been completed.

Of other significant note was the keyboard. After removing the bottom screws, I discovered that there was a cable that was being compressed between the keyboard post and the bottom of the laptop case. A simple push-out-of-the-way, and voila! Keyboard is nice and even again.

I definitely appreciate that Dell replaced my motherboard, but I’m a little irked that it came back kind of shoddy. The sheared screw might not have been the tech’s fault, but putting it back together with it not fitting together properly just isn’t right, and having the keyboard not be level also just isn’t right.

But hey. It’s fixed, and I’m happy… as long as Dell doesn’t read this and consider this to be some huge breach of warranty. I didn’t change anything else and fixed up their tech’s minor screw-ups.

Well, the past two weeks have come and gone, and I have not heard from my father regarding work to be done for him. Since I asked him for something specific (a list of things to accomplish prior to me going full-time for this other company) and did not get any substantial response, I can only assume that he has everything fully in-hand. If he doesn’t, well, he has had two weeks and hasn’t bothered to inform me to my satisfaction why he wasn’t able to do this.

I am not asking for much, here. Really, in the end, I am asking for a little common courtesy, and a little mutual respect. You don’t get it if you don’t give it.

So now, time’s up. He didn’t bother to contact me in the window I gave him, and now that window has closed. Goodbye!

I’m still working on fine-tuning this blog, but I think I am going to start posting here from now on.

I’ve got nothing for now.

I think I might have finally gotten enough sleep last night.

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Sometimes the mind works in funny ways!

This morning, after dropping my girlfriend off at work, I was driving home, musing over this and that. I happened to start musing on my parents. I was thinking about this particular journal and how perhaps I haven’t heard from one parent or the other because they happen to be reading (or they have read) this… which is about as likely as any other eventuality, I suppose.

I didn’t have much to think about regarding that other than that if somebody had read something that I said that they felt hurt by, they never said a word of it to me. I would hate to think that others are afraid to talk to me about something but, in all honesty, I’m that way a lot of the time, too. It’s something I really need to work on.

In any case, as I continued driving, a song just started playing in my mind. It was portions of “All At Once” sung by the lovely Whitney Houston. As far as I can make out, I haven’t heard that song for years, but the portions of the lyrics that were running through my head were something like this:

All at once...
*singing*
...you'd come back to me.
And that's all that matters now...
All at once...
*singing*
And it hurts me more than you know
So much more than it shows
All at once.

The thing that struck me with this song is that the character in the song is essentially wishing for a love she doesn’t have. Perhaps she never really even had that love to begin with, which is the first thing that came to my mind. In either case, she’s pining when she ought to be mourning in order to get on with her life.

I think the parallels to the parent-child relationship are astounding. In this song, the child is pining for love she never received. Sure, she remembers the good times and how good she used to feel, but she’s probably trying to forget the bad times and how horrible she used to feel.

Especially poignant to me are the last lines, which make the tears begin to well up:

And it hurts me more than you know
So much more than it shows
All at once.

It does hurt more than they know, or at least more than they’re willing to admit if they ever did notice. And it doesn’t “show” because I do try to hide my pain, because that’s what my family almost always does–they try to hide pain, ignore it, laugh it off, say to not be so sensitive, what have you. They dance around the elephant in the room, which is almost always, “YOU TREATED ME LIKE SHIT AND I’M SUPPOSED TO LOVE YOU?” When it comes to me, there’s no curiosity about my feelings, my thoughts, my desires. It’s incredibly tempting to just start reciprocating and not care about them, but I’m not sure that’s entirely possible. We’ll just have to see.

A former classmate of mine who I’ve not seen for at least 11 or 12 years at this point has kicked it. The only information I have is that he died a week ago last Saturday.

I never really cared much for the kid… to tell the truth, he was a colossal asshole. I don’t have any feelings either way that he’s gone since it’s been years upon years since I last saw him.

It’s kind of funny, actually… earlier today or the day before, I was musing about death in general. It wasn’t morbid or anything, it was just a sense that the time we have on earth is both long and short. Even if it were a million years in duration, if my existence has an end, it is precious to me.

I have to admit that it was very surprising to read the comments on the obit for this guy. Now, this is a Christian community, so I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything. But I have to wonder… the comments that these people are leaving… they’re essentially without substance. They’re practically content-free (“I’ll always remember his smile.” Liar.). At first, I was thinking, “gee, did this guy change or something since I knew him last?” Upon reflection, my guess is that he probably didn’t, but there’s some sort of twisted death-worship that’s going on in which one is not supposed to speak ill of the dead.

Here’s the way I see it: the guy had absolutely no respect for me when we were in middle school and high school together. I am absolutely pleased to reciprocate insofar as he doesn’t deserve any of my respect, either. Furthermore, I’m not sure that I need to be guarding my words for the sake of those that might be grieving (not that any of those people will end up reading this). The reason for this is that this guy came out of a specific environment, one in which his acting out against me would have likely been infused in his personality from his parents and older siblings (if he had any). Am I supposed to have “respect” for the feelings of those people who turned out an individual so twisted that he predated on his peers? I tend to doubt that they’ll have any respect for my feelings regarding how he treated me.

This guy I know claims that working in customer service has numbed him to other people. This is his response to the statement that “you might have to shoot somebody if you become a cop.”

But the way he says it… I don’t think he really believes it. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable truth, and he’s got to attempt to numb nimself to the truth somehow, to try to forget it. He started to talk about some martial art, at which point I just took my leave of the conversation. What have I to say to this person anymore?

It’s sad, because I’ll occasionally think, hey, I’d like to talk to him, but… there’s that old chestnut of him signing up to be a state thug. We have this long history… but I can’t say that I ever saw this in him. He used to be interested in weather and was looking to go for a meteorology degree. Perhaps it was a long shot, but he just gave up along the way… and he kept giving up. All of the jobs he’s held… he’s almost 30 and he’s still living with his insane mother and impotent father. His application to the state police sounds like he’s continuing to just give up on life.

I don’t know how many more conversations we’ll have left. I really don’t want to discuss martial arts disciplines. I don’t want to hear about the guy he pulled over who cussed him out. I don’t want to hear about the politics, the mindgames, the… thuggery.

I can’t stop him. I know I can’t. But what I can do is withhold sanction regarding a relationship with him.

I guess that the bottom line is, keeping in touch with him will not make me happy.

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