{"id":9394,"date":"2015-04-23T16:19:38","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T20:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=9394"},"modified":"2015-04-23T16:25:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T20:25:04","slug":"the-lawnmower-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/the-lawnmower-incident\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lawnmower Incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lawnmower Incident<\/h1>\n

Every day we fix computers. And when we’re not fixing computers, we’re working on tips \"\"and tricks for computers. Almost every day is spent working on or with computers. So, \u00a0to us computers are pretty simple devices, which can get annoying -but \u00a0we don’t look at them as complicated, frustrating, mysterious devices. However we know that some of you do and we try not to forget that. That’s why we try to make our newsletters and articles simple and easy to understand. We know that many of the computer tech sites seem more bent on impressing other geeks than on giving the typical computer user information they can use.<\/p>\n

Sometimes though, as we go through our day, we sometimes forget how mysterious and complicated computers seem to many of you.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I had a great reminder though. For a few days I’ve been trying to find out how to drain the old oil from my OLD riding lawnmower. After doing some research on my COMPUTER, I found out which bolt – or is it a nut – I had t to loosen to drain the old oil from my riding lawnmower.<\/p>\n

Now keep in mind that I have never changed the oil in this lawnmower and it’s about 9 years old. A week ago I started it up and saw billows of blue-black smoke shooting out from everywhere. I turned the engine off right away as I didn’t want to take a chance of ruining the darn thing.<\/p>\n

I figured that the nine- ear-old oil had pretty much been used as much as it could be – it was blacker than tar \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0and that if I did not put new oil in the thing this year, the engine would seize and possibly the piston (pistons?) would fly out and conk me on the head killing me and ending my vacation here on Earth.<\/p>\n

I know nothing about riding lawnmowers or gasoline engines. I don’t know if they blow up if they run out of oil, or just top working. I don’t know if my lawnmower has one or two or three or four pistons. All I know is I sit on it, turn the key and put it in gear. Then, when i get to the grass I lower the blade and it chops the tops of the blades of \u00a0grass off making it look like the grass is mowed and someone really cares about his lawn.<\/p>\n

But I knew the oil was too old because, heck, nine-year-old oil has got to be too old. But you think I could get that nut or bolt off to drain the oil? Nope. I tried every socket wrench in the garage. (People used to by me tools for Christmas and stuff because I was a man and all men need tools?) I have about 5 or 6 socket wrenches and 50 or so sockets – is that what you call those steel thingies you stick on a socket wrench? That nut or bolt would not budge.<\/p>\n

I called someone to come over and do it. Took him less than 2 minutes. I felt like a fool but I stood there oohing and ahhhhing at his impressing skills. I was awestruck. Cost me $20, but now I have new oil and I’m not afraid of the piston (pistons?) shooting out and blowing off my head. I figure at my age, I may never have to change the oil again \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

And it dawned on me that my lack of even basic knowledge of riding lawnmowers does not stop me from using one or in my case abusing one. And this reminded me that many people don’t understand how computers work, but that does not stop them from using them and enjoying them and it shouldn’t.<\/p>\n

And just because I know a lot about computers and you don’t doesn’t make you stupid, just like me not knowing anything about cars or riding lawnmowers does not make me stupid.<\/p>\n

The lawnmower incident reminded me again to empathize with all of you who come to Darcy and I for help – I was humbled by my experience enough that I will remember that not everyone can be experts in all things. So don’t feel badly if you think computers are complicated and mysterious and frustrating – after the lawnmower incident…<\/p>\n

We feel your pain!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lawnmower Incident Every day we fix computers. And when we’re not fixing computers, we’re working on tips and tricks for computers. Almost every day is spent working on or with computers. So, \u00a0to us computers are pretty simple devices, which can get annoying -but \u00a0we don’t look at them as complicated, frustrating, mysterious devices. However we know\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1674],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9397,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9394\/revisions\/9397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}