More "unavailability" issues

Right after I posted that last thing about being emotionally unavailable, our computer was taken over by my children. After a few hours of game playing, Aaron wanted to switch games and came to ask for help. The computer was pretty much non-responsive. I knew that it had been having some trouble overheating, so I suggested to Aaron that we shut it down and let it "rest" until dad got home. We shut it down, and the poor thing was DOA when Tim tried to turn it back on later that evening. SO - in addition to being "emotionally unavailable" - for the past 3 days I have been "technologically unavailable." (Truth be told - I think the second malady has been more troubling for me than the first)

It appeared that the hard drive totally crashed and burned. Tim tried his usual trick of switching in and out parts from the computer graveyard of parts downstairs, but to no avail. We were looking at having to buy a new computer - not a fun prospect since Tim is in the middle of purchasing yet another house for the "investment" portion of our life, and we need every penny (and then some) for the down payment. Tonight after fiddling with it for a while, he has apparently revived the poor beast (he has warned me that the machine is merely on life support though, and we should be prepared to say goodbye at any time. He has taken out basically every thing but the bare basics, so no game playing for the kids - just basically restoring Internet and email service to me so I don't go insane. I expect that for the next while Tim will be shopping the computer ads looking for "the deal" that is good enough to warrant spending the money. - until then - I will be as "available" as the computer will let me.