I plan to make youtube unboxing videos. Motherboard, new power supply, 32GB of 3200 RAM, and 12-core 3900x remain in the plain cardboard set on the the living room floor. Window 10 installer awaits ready on a USB stick. My workstation files are backed up. By dawn, I will deactivate my invaluable Adobe perpetual products.
Daily, I have felt my resolve not to rip open the packages–weaken. Visions of plastic-wrap and packaging cast asunder must be forced from my mind.
Through the plastic window on the box, the processor stares at me. It’s diminutive size belittles the performance and financial debt it offers.
The nagging questions remains: will all that heat-sink and fan fit under the lid of a 4-space rack-mount case? Will it boot? Will Microsoft fight me tooth-and-nail for activation for the motherboard replacement I dare? Can the RGB lighting be brought under anyone’s control. And lastly, why I have I let the Austrians convince me that brown-and-fleshtone are acceptable colors to make a computer fan?
The shop was not ready. Things were on on other things that also needed to be moved. A cart yearned to be assembled to hold–the things that were on other things. Even the ceiling light fixture seemed to taunt us, with it’s petty rewiring problems.
With a flick of a switch, electrons shed photons. A new cellphone video app was trained to catch them like the summer’s fireflies in a jar.
Nothing seemed fit in frame. I mislaid what speaking skills I had. The cavernous echos returned many sounds for one, making us move the camera closer, so once again, nothing would fit. Through all of my stumbling, I marched ahead with all the unboxing video, until they were done.
I emptied the computer case of parts that served me so well, but from there, the new ones would take over. The power supply was fitted. Soon, the rest would come: oh, ye board of black and gold, the half thousand printed trinket, and the keepers of ones and zeros. Soon they would all be kept in the case.
“Are you about ready to go?” my friend asked.
“What?!” I replied.
The shop was almost ready. Box after box, manual after manual, shot take after take, the unboxing videos were made.
As I filled the case with parts, one stand-off too many threatened to short the board. My best laid cabling plans turned to so much cat’s-cradle. Velcro laced cables of braided-black wove the story of my computer build. Two whole hands set the video card home. The rest was battened down, so it trembled not under a short case drop.
All seemed to be done, the USB drive waited out back. I reached for the power switch–nothing!
Looking it over, I found the power supply switch, and flipped it for its once use. The computer woke to live. I breathed once again, only to be greeted by a DMT colored Rorschach mess that someone calls a user interface.
Run the computer during the first night, and well into the morning when it saw its first light. Cores of twelve, buckets of twenty-four–oh, the labors for you–I have in store!
Go ahead, shut it off, and turn it on again in a few weeks. Don’t be afraid. That’s it. It’s just a little button. The IEC cord slides right out the the power supply. Set it down. That’s it. There’s no reason to waste stand-by power. Cover it over so the dust doesn’t get on it. It’s okay; you don’t really need to see it.
You computer will still be there. You can turn it on again, as soon as you realize that that all along, I was right.
