Oh, the exciting life of the babysitter. No, I didn't get to watch the kids enact any more scenes from horror flicks; however, I did star in a special flick I will be calling The Engineer's Daughter.
When I showed up at the family's house (my Tuesday job, so not the family that owns the Amazing Locker Boy), the father hadn't left yet. On his way out, he asked me if I knew anything about windows; I thought he was going to ask me to wash them, and contemplated the idea of running away before realizing he meant the computer platform.
Apparently his internet had been down for quite a while, and he'd been working over the last few days to get it fixed. He had the option to get someone from his office to come by, but he'd get charged about $150. I gamely agreed to take a look, so he gave me instructions to call if I made any progress and left.
The boys were at school and the girl was asleep, so my options were A) SIS reading or B) working on the internet connection. I chose B and started tinkering around. Within about a half an hour I had the computer online and called to tell him as much.
He called back a few minutes later with a proposal. The computer that had been hooked up belonged to his office; he'd been trying to use that one because his home computer ran Windows 98 and he could make no headway getting it set up. So, he told me, if I could fix the Windows 98 computer, I would receive monetary compensation.
I <3 fixing computers. I also <3 money. I hooked up the other computer. After about two hours (interspersed with, you know, actually watching the kids I was babysitting), I got it online. This was quite an accomplishment, because setting up a LAN on Windows 98 is a bit of a challenge and this computer was as old as a fine wine. So I did a little happy dance. In my head.
Today I made an extra $50 for doing something I love.
Da-da-da, can't touch this!
[/geek]
In conclusion, apparently my gothy "I only live in my computer..." stage was good for something. And so was growing up with an engineer daddy.
When I was about 13, my Dad installed NetTimer -- a program that gave each family member a username and password. Dad and Mom could be on the internet as long as they wanted, but when I was logged in, NetTimer would cut off the dial-up connection after two hours.
Now, I absolutely lived on MSN Messenger and fanfiction.net at this point in time, so this new policy didn't sit well with me. However, I was helpless before the awesome power of NetTimer, which could not be shut down without Dad's password.
After a day or so, I realized that Ctrl+Alt+Del would override this need for his password, and gleefully exploited my loophole for a couple days. This led to one of the most fantastic conversations of my childhood.
[MiniKat is surfing the web. EngineerDaddy enters.]
MiniKat: Oh, hey, Dad. You want the computer?
EngineerDaddy: Yep.
MiniKat: Kay. Hold on, just let me shut off NetTimer so it won't bug you.
EngineerDaddy: *smugly* You can't do that without the password.
[MiniKat, who is also a rather smug individual, Ctrl+Alt+Del's the program. It asks for the password.]
EngineerDaddy: See?
[A box pops up saying that NetTimer's not responding and asks if MiniKat would like to terminate it. She does so.]
EngineerDaddy: ...
[MiniKat grins.]
EngineerDaddy: ...
MiniKat: Muahaha!
EngineerDaddy: ...Give me that.
[MiniKat runs off full of glee.]
He uninstalled NetTimer shortly thereafter. Six years later, I'm STILL gloating.
11.29.2005
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