A triumph over technology and corporate greed

As y'all know, I've been offline for a week and a half now because the USB port on my tablet bit the dust. Because it's 5 years old, the manufacturer no longer supports it (despite the fact that you can still find this model for sale online brand-new), and they said that my only real choices were to buy a refurbished tablet or a brand-new one and transfer my account over to it (which would mean losing everything that can't be backed up or transferred). I started hunting around, checking out computer & tablet repair places up here in the Lake Region of New Hampshire, and I checked at least 15 places, none of whom could do anything. I was about to give up when I did a search for 'electronics repair', and I found a place up in Meredith, NH run by Brad Tratzinski - GeekLender (http://www.geeklender.com). He still does all the old fashioned stuff, replacing parts on motherboards, soldering, etc., and he does everything (computers, tablets, phones, TVs, game consoles, etc... soldering seems to be a lost art, but he does it. Despite the fact that his shop is 20 minutes from here, he'll even pick up and deliver... and he had it fixed in 45 minutes for a grand total of $60, which is a heck of a lot better than $350 for a new tablet. So three cheers and major kudos to Brad! And yeah, I'm back.

 

Sounds great (no pun intended). Most everything these days is plug 'n play, and a lot of techs only know that - they don't know how to get their hands dirty soldering or replacing components, that kind of thing, but if you search hard enough, you can find somebody that can. So any reason to star out St. Lou like that? And just in interesting (to me, at least), the Coast Guard has Sector Upper Mississippi River (one of their administrative divisions) in the Robert A. Young federal building on Spruce Street, and a station (what they call a Base Detachment) down on the river, next to the rail yards.

 

Ooookay... I'm not sure that I want to know, but I'm guessing it was a person with that name?

 

Ah, okay, understandable... and this is why I never wanted to be a moderator, even though I did it for a few months back in the 90's during the Star Trek days - I tend to say what's on my mind, and I don't have much of a sense of diplomacy.

Just in cute, though, years ago I had a friend (one of my buddies in the Corps) named Lou, and what do you know about Donald Duck? His three nephews - if that's what they are - are called Huey, Dewey and Louie... when Lou showed up anywhere, we used to ask him where Huey and Dewey were... standard warped military humor.

And while we're at it, what's up with your avatar? A rooster standing on top of a dog in a car? Just curious.

 

You must be thinking of a different character. Back in 1937 Disney introduced 3 young ducks (ducklings?) to their lineup, Huey, Dewey and Louie. They always hung around Donald or Daisy, and sometimes Scrooge McDuck. Nobody knew who their parents were, but a lot of people assumed they were Donald's nephews.

 

I have no idea, but I think he likes trying his hand at any piece of electronics. His email is info@geeklender.com, and his phone is (603) 707-2735

 

Go for it.

 

Let me know how it all turns out.

 

Er, 'Delator'? Not me...

 

No problem... we all have brain farts every once in a while. And the name is Dave.