I helped out my mother-in-law, [Anne Brown](http://keckeley.wordpress.com) with a computer overhaul. It took me the better part of two weeks, working on nights and weekends only, to strip the computer down to the hard drive and build it back from scratch.

Burl and Anne were great about the whole thing. We cleared off plenty of old software, moved pictures and other files around to make things easier and even got some bonus tasks mixed in. Their ink jet printer had stopped printing black some time ago, so a good cleaning of the print head with rubbing alcohol made all of the difference. I also put their laptop in the same “workgroup” as the desktop and shared the newly-cleaned printer. That will allow Anne to sit in the family room and print patterns for [pretty dresses for nieces](http://keckeley.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/sushi-anyone/) while surfing the web.

I get a lot of good-natured teasing about my “geek brain” but it sure feels good to give back to some of the people who’ve supported me throughout the years. Anne and Burl have really been there in some tight spots, so computer work is some of the least I can do to say “thanks”.