My Dad has been in the hospital. We have not been allowed to go see him. His recent diagnosis with cancer is sobering and we are anxious to be with him. I'm writing this as we are headed to Arlington because he finally got out of the hospital. During the middle of the week we were taking over FaceTime and being really thankful that we are living in a day when we can see each other over our phones.
My Dad had assigned himself a task in the hospital. He decided that he was going to create a TV watching guide for the hospital, since the one they gave him was not correct. A new TV vendor began servicing the hospital and had not yet provided an accurate guide. In addition, the time to change between channels was 3 or 4 seconds, which meant that channel surfing was torturous. So he was changing each channel, watching long enough to figure out what the station was then making note of it on a spreadsheet. Then his computer got dropped. His mouse stopped working and the process hit a brick wall. We talked about the problem and I realized that what he was using was a mouse that plugged into his USB drive.
We started to problem solve. He gave the serial number of the computer and I found the operators manual online. I read it and determined that his computer would support a true Bluetooth mouse which would skip around his broken USB port.
I looked at shipping it to him on Amazon, but that is no longer a fast option. I thought about driving to Arlington, but that would be at least 4 hours of driving and I would not get to see him. So I called an old dear friend, Mark Wade. He was my college roommate and has a servant’s heart.
I asked him to go to Best Buy and pick up a bluetooth mouse without a USB drive attachment. He was fairly sure of what I was talking about, but a little hesitant. I told him I would send him a picture of one. He headed to the store and I went online. I found the mouse and then realized I could purchase it and he could pick it up. After completing the purchase I called him.
The call was a jumble because he was actually already at the store and could not go in. A salesman came to the door and they were determining that the mouse I ordered was the right one. I told him of my order and he said he needed the order number. Right at that moment, the order number was texted to me and they grabbed it, delivered it to him and off he went.
He took it to Wanda, who took it to the hospital desk who delivered it to Mel. It did not work.
Later, in the evening, Logan and I gathered around my computer and called my Dad. We sent him an email which contained a program to help us diagnose his computer problem. He held his phone near his computer and we step by step talked him through the process of loading the program. Then we got to control his computer from Athens. We made quick work of connecting the mouse and it worked!
The technology was amazing, but it was the people that made it work. Thanks to Mark, to Logan, and to Wanda —what a great team.