Feeling like a bonehead...

Our computers are aged. We've been limping them along for a while. A couple of weeks ago, the time/date battery started to die so the computer clock would reset when I'd cut power to it. Then it started freezing up so I uninstalled our web browser, ran registry cleaner and installed the browser again. Since then, everything seemed to be running smoothly.

Then I walked downstairs a couple of days ago and saw a weired box floating on the screen. It said something like, "Dell monitor check, digital input 2." and then had 4 colors green, red, blue and white. The computer seemed to be on and running but it wouldn't respond or wake up when I touched the mouse. So I started thinking, "Has the video card gone out? or worse, the motherboard?"

So I did what I usually do and just turned it off and left it alone for a day. When I turned it back on, same deal. So I left it alone for a few more days, hoping it would feel guilty and cure itself. I came downstairs today and started poking around, looking for some obvious glitch, i.e. kids pulled the cord out of the back or something. No dice. Then I started thinking, "The input to the monitor shouldn't be digital input 2. It's analog input 1." So then I just started pushing all the buttons on the front of the monitor (the ones so tempting to little children's fingers.) I found one that resets the input to the monitor and voila! I should've poked around sooner instead of ignoring the problem for days. :) It's my way.

Update on water line to the backyard:

Completed digging 120 feet of trench!

Glued 120 feet of pipe!

Only had to run to Home Depot and Ace 4 times to get all the stuff I needed!

Only soaked Merril and the kids once with 1 faulty junction!

System is now holding water pressure with no leaks!!

As soon as the weather gets a little nicer, I'll go cover up all the pipe. The inclement weather has given me an excuse to stay inside and clean my house, which has been neglected for weeks from the said project.

Have a great day!