Tech Guy is demoted

A month or so before Christmas, one of my desktop monitors quit working. Or at least I thought it had. Before I alerted Tech Guy (a moniker I stole from an author instructor), I turned the monitor off and then on again in a sort of reset. If unplugging and replugging hadn't required a lot of crawling on the floor under my desk, I might have done that.

Hubby strode into the office, asking his usual aberrational questions, and the monitor worked with one touch of his finger. After several tit-for-tat and the beginnings of what might have turned into a huge argument, he admitted that the monitor was fairly old and probably on its last legs.

Him: "The problem is the video card might also be bad."

I heard that statement in bold capital letters like this:

THE PROBLEM IS CATASTROPHIC!

His explanation only increased the problem until I'd come to the conclusion that to replace the monitor with a new one would result in me losing everything on my computer, including my two and a half-written novels. (Even though they are on jump drives)

Because anytime Tom works on a computer, it is at least a day, usually several days, of ripping the innards, and when everything is up and running again, I'm left with searching for files and programs that are forever gone.

Now, I've concluded he makes these off-the-cuff remarks to deter me.

For Christmas, he gave me a new monitor. It has sat in its box in my dining room, and every time he sits down to eat, he asks if I want him to replace it with my old one...this weekend.

Then, the weekend comes and goes without monitor replacement. Oleg and I play the game of how many off-and-on flicks it takes to ready my monitor for use every day.

The answer? Anywhere between 3 and 11.

Finally, on one of those days where it was 11, Oleg decided he would attempt to replace the monitor, and if it didn't work as Tom kept threatening, we would pack it back up into the box and wait for Tech Guy to do his magic. After dinner, and long before Tom came home from work, Oleg moved out file cabinets, junk, chairs, etc., to crawl under my desk and unhook the old monitor. He removed the new one and hooked it up on the floor first to make sure it would work.

It did. BAM. No problem.

Like...no problem. It took maybe half an hour from start to finish, which included vacuuming the crap accumulated under my desk, Clorox wiping my desk, and rearranging everything back under the desk. Oh, and I did that part, not Oleg.

We put the old monitor on Tom's desk, and while he was a tad chagrined when he came into my office to see the new monitor, I don't think he minds that he is now Tech Guy #2.

NO! Not again.

Recently, during a discussion with my daughter and husband, I expressed my love for the now-defunct Picasa, Google's original photo organizer/editor. 

Me: "I only have it on my desktop, and if it ever disappears, I'll die because every picture I own is organized in there."

Tom: "You have it though in files on your computer, right?"

Me: "Yes, but I LOVE that program. I work on it daily. I couldn't live without it. I don't understand why Google had to replace it. I don't like Google photos. There is no organization, and it drives me crazy. Picasa makes me SO happy."

Yep, you know where this is going, don't you? 

My husband updated my computer a week ago. 

Tom: "It'll run faster, and I cleaned it up."

It's my own fault. I mentioned a few oddities I had discovered while searching for an old file. I wanted him to find the old file. He heard, "my computer needs updating, and it needs you to get rid of everything I hold dear."

It took me until Tuesday to notice my Picasa was gone.

Kaput.

Missing.

I had a mini-breakdown complete with tears, angry frustration, and a few choice words regarding helpful husbands.

Google Photos does not allow me to organize pictures. They do it their way by date taken, and their style is not helpful in any way, shape, or form. I do understand this replacement was so our photos could work across mobile devices and the worldwide web, but for me, organizing my photos by year and then into specific categories makes my life easier. 

That's why I love Picasa. My pictures are organized in such a way that when I need a photo, I can find it in a jiffy. That's how I discovered Picasa had been kidnapped off my computer. I wanted to tweet a picture for my brother's birthday...AND IT WASN'T THERE...IN MY PICASA...UNDER 1968 PA.

Once I got myself together, I began searching immediately for replacement programs. I found another person who agreed with me regarding the organizing side of Picasa vs. Google Photos. I spent the time I should've been working on finding a replacement. Finally, I texted my husband, who promised he would make it all better.

Luckily for him me, some sites still have the Picasa download. The husband downloaded it from a trusted site, and BAM, there were my pictures all nice and neat in their related files, and my world was back to normal.

Until the next upgrade.

Me: "How about next time you discuss with me before you sit at my computer to make improvements? How do you know what's important or not on my computer? Picasa isn't the only thing missing. And honestly, we just had this discussion about how important Picasa was to me. Out of everything, shouldn't you have made sure Picasa was still there? Never mind. Don't answer that. You weren't listening, were you? Or you heard the ocean? Or you forgot?"

Tom: "I'm thinking next time I'll check with you before updating."

Okay, so maybe he is learning...