Marriage bliss begins with the ludicrous purchase of an overpriced rock from a fancy store that is every bit the opposite of the war torn country that forced slave labor to dig in the mud from whence said rock came. Of course this tradition dates all the way back to the 20th century when Dabeers decided it needed to suck blood out of every poor sucker in the western world (figurative blood) as well as every poor sucker in Africa (actual blood). In Utah where the couple is typically more or less right out of high school this purchase will help them to start their future off right by placing them in significant debt from the start of their marriage. Really what better way is there to say, "I love you" than 456 easy payments of just $120 each.

After the purchase a very pretty, very small hard chunk of carbon there is the next step - engagement. Preparing for the wedding involves figuring out how to spend a lot of money on dresses that will be worn once and mediocre food that costs more than the GDP of several developing nations. It is during this time that the groom should spend his time working 10 jobs to reduce the payments to just 345. Doing so will give him a good reason to stay out of the bride's way during the wedding planning phase. Under no circumstance should the groom give any input during the phase. Doing so will only result in life long memories of bad the groom is at making style related decisions. This one time shock is the reason married men can no longer pick out ties. Before marriage the man was able to dress himself with sufficient style to attract a mate. The wedding planning phase is meant to destroy any confidence he had for choosing anything:

Bride (with mother): "Should we do the eggshell cream or antique beige doilies under the center pieces?"
Groom (who was thinking about sex and doesn't actually care) : "Um.... how about the antique beige?":
Bride (sobbing to mother): "Jill had that at her wedding. How could he so insensitive?"
Groom: "Will you dress me from now on?"

The UN actually classifies preparation for a wedding on the list of known methods of torture right next to water boarding and tazers:
Captive: "I will never tell you the location of our secret rebel base"
Officer: "You leave me no other choice. You will be forced to make wedding preparations until you choose to cooperate."
Captive: "It's on Dantoine"

The average cost of a wedding here in Utah is $12,500. The average cost nationwide is $25,000. (Thanks to the Deseret News for the numbers). Has anyone considered skipping this part, flying to Hawaii and having a private but fun wedding? For the LDS faithful there is a temple there, and for every one else the beaches are great. Said event would cost $3,000-4,000 and would take care of the honeymoon which would still leave between $8,000 and $20,000 for something a little more useful like say a down payment on a house.

The actual wedding planning and debate about where all this money is to be wasted is probably the number one leading cause of mothers never talking to their daughters again. This planning is, I believe, why the mother in law gets such a bad rap. The mother in law becomes so sick of the planning and watching money go up in flames that she moves into a state that requires someone to 'never be forgiven'. That person cannot be the daughter. They may never speak again but she is blood so it becomes the groom who by virtue of wanting to take the daughter's virtue is the sole cause of this damned wedding.

Of course there remains the day of the wedding. This is the most joyful day in the Bride's life and the longest wait the groom will ever endure. Those of you who follow a strict moral code know exactly what I am talking about. The wait is exacerbated by the fact that you are forced (in Utah anyway) to stand in a line and socialize with people you know are only there because they want your parents to come to their kids wedding reception. They typically bring a gift of towels or something they received at their wedding back in the 1970s (anyone else end up with the hideous frog salt and pepper shakers?).

Of course the purpose of all of this is not to celebrate. It's not to provide an enjoyable experience for the bride and groom. So why spend all the cash?

The reason is a simple but well guarded secret. The enormous cash outlay is an investment in the marriage. After you have forced a young couple through all of this there is no way they will get divorced because who in their right mind would want to go through it all again?

One thing I will not do is fix your computer.

I know there are a lot of you out there that fall into the same 'known geek' category. You are the guy that gets introduced as 'knowing about computers'. The typical response from the party hearing this is, "great, now I know who to call when I have problems."

No you don't.

Asking a software engineer to fix your computer is like asking a GM automobile engineer to come over and look at your 1983 Volvo because it is leaking oil. Sure he understands the basics - cars have engines and oil pans and lots of tubes and stuff, and yes because he understands the general concept he can probably fix it. However, I am sure he would rather spend his time designing a more fuel efficient engine or a cool stereo system. Wait, I said GM, I meant a big freaking SUV that burns more gas than many small countries .

It might be that back in high school the geeks, nerds, the computer guys were always taken advantage of. We were the guys that got picked last in sports and the main source for lunch money for the jocks. We played in the band or hung out with the chess club. Some of us were on academic 'teams' that competed in Jeopardy like contests to prove which school had the smartest nerds. We were nerds and because of that people figured they could take advantage of us.

Guess what. Now we own you. All your data. Your precious pictures. Your Word Docs (bleh). Everything.....
Sorry. That was for a different article - world domination and all that. I still have a lot of pent up anger from losing some of those academic Jeopardy like 'competitions'.

Anyway, I am at lunch with friends the other day at this nice little pastry shop that also does sandwiches and salads. The owner is from Poland and everything in the store is authentic and absolutely amazing. I could gain a thousand pounds eating there every day. It is a place where we go to eat lunch, then indulge in some pastry and all the time engage in deep, academic conversation about the world and what is wrong in politics and the environment etc. It is a lunchtime escape where I get to hang out with very intelligent, very cool people. In the middle of chatting about a couple of upcoming funding opportunities I get a call from a guy that I haven't talked to in a year. Now, he is a great guy and a hard worker and etc. However, we aren't really close friends or anything. We don't do lunch. We don't get together with the spouses and shoot the bull. I know him from a professional setting - one in which he did work and I paid him for that work.

The call starts like this, "Hi Justin, I'm having problems with my computer and you're the person I thought to call." If you are one of the computer savvy elite, that is not a compliment that is the sound of your lunch money about to disappear. I give him a bit of advice - try running a virus scanner. In general that is a good tip. Write it down. Unless you are a geek capable of setting up a firewall, locking down your home network and running Linux i.e. if you are normal person then in all likelihood you have several viruses, your Windows box calls a guy named Dimitry "master" and your computers are serving Russian porn, viagra emails or are being used to attack network infrastructure in small countries.

Ergo, every request to "fix my computer" should begin with "run your virus scanner." That is usually a good out and a way to get them off the phone. Then you can ignore them when they call next time. If you are lucky they have a virus scanner. If you kicked a kitten on the way into work then darkness will overshadow you, they will not have a scanner and they will want to try to get you to second base with this line taken straight from my phone call:
"I was wondering if you would like to come over to my house and look at my computers and see if you can fix them."

Typically, I am a nice guy. If a widow down the road has computer problems or if a local charity needs to piece together a wireless network then I am a sucker and there is no way I will refuse. If my mother calls me because the #$%! printer won't work then no matter what I am doing she gets my time and I have to walk her through how to plug in a USB cable.

However, if you are someone who is:

1. To lazy to search Google for your problem and try to fix it yourself...
2. To cheap to pay a local shop to take a look at the virus you downloaded because you were surfing porn...
3. To cheap/not smart enough to have a virus scanner/malware scanner...
4. To lazy to call Dell tech support yourself (I don't love talking to people in India either)...
5. Have a computer from 1984 that you are trying to install Windows 95 on..

Then no, I will not fix your #$%@!#$ computer.

Currently, I spend my day with my brain engaged to a level that at times I have almost vomited. I am not kidding. When I have a computer problem at work I take my computer to Trent (IT superstar at COSL) - he is nice and he is paid to help me, well sort of. I am sure after he reads I will end up running virus scanners. Anyway, when I have a computer problem at home I ask myself why am I still running Windows and then I reformat the computer. My wife's computer barely works most of the time and I really have to have a reason to work on a computer anymore - like there is smoke coming out of a drive (happened to a floppy drive of mine once). When I get home I spend a bit of time with my kids. They go to bed. My wife bids me farewell and then disappear into my office downstairs and write more code until I pass out and the drool pooling around my chin wakes me up sometime between 1 and 4 am.

So ya, I want to come to your house and work on your computer really bad. Even if you paid me the $150 an hour I have charged as a consultant (for jobs I really don't want to do) I still have no interest in working on your computer. None. It isn't interesting. It is painful and I know that not only do you not want to pay me but you are going to make me try to figure out a way for you to store all your digital photos from your brand new camera with a 4GB flash card on a 10 year old 500 MB hard drive because you are to to cheap and stupid to get the hardware you need to get the job done right. (You will also call me in tears when that 10 year old hard drive crashes and you lose all your precious memories of fluffy and the kids at the beach). I have a different rant on the managing digital photos/I don't want to hear you bawl if you lose your pictures.

What do you do when you get a request, "to come over." Unless the request is coming from a member of the opposite sex who is really hot and who will spend ... wait my wife is going to read this ...
Do not enter the home of anyone who wants you to fix their computer. Not ever. You will still be there three days later. The favor will turn into, "this is taking a long time, I and the wife are going to go out for dinner. Since you are going to be hear anyway you won't mind watching the kids will you?"

Follow these tips and save yourself pain:

1. Fake stupidity, tell them that you have run into the problem before, couldn't fix it and so had to reformat the computer. DO NOT offer to reformat. I have reformatted computers for people. They always say, "there is nothing important on that computer. Just reformat." You explain that it will never come back, not ever. EVERYTHING will be lost. They say, "That's fine. Just do whatever you need to to fix it." A week later you will get a call from that same person. They will either be in tears or totally irate because their recipes, email, 'borrowed' video games and other applications, pirated music, pictures, links to favorite [porn, gambling, viagra] websites and church knitting lists are all gone. "I didn't mean that data, I meant it was OK to reformat all the bad stuff." Reformatting a computer for a friend means that you get paid nothing, but get the joy of taking all the liability for their data. Somehow they get the right to be pissed when it is all gone. Fake stupidity, fake a migraine, fake whatever you have to and do not offer to reformat.
2. You are very busy. You are a geek so you have a release deadline looming (with agile development everyday is a looming deadline so it isn't a lie). Tell them that you would love to help but you are working 100 hour weeks and just can't do it. There really isn't any risk of being found out because you are a geek so you don't go outside anyway.
3. Do not give them your real email or IM account. If you can get a new cell phone number. Give them the hotmail account you use when you are forced to register on annoying websites. Remember plausible deniability is a free gift from the spam filters.
4. I know you hate the Best Buy geek squad and/or the local computer shop because they are morons and you know way more than they do. However, THEY ARE YOUR FRIENDS. You might have to practice saying this without bursting out laughing, but try:
   "You know, these new computers are just so complex. They are totally beyond me. Whenever I have a problem I just take my computer down to Best Buy/local shop and they fix it right up." I know, I had a hard time typing it, but that line can save you hours of pain.

There you have it. My tips born of experience and anger.

I haven't always been like this. I was once a happy, naive, helpful computer guy. The anger comes from years of being suckered into being IT support for everyone who has breathed air within ten feet of me. In college I spent a Christmas break trying to fix a computer for a relative. Of course the printer wouldn't work with the computer because the computer was 10 years old and running some random form of DOS or Windows 3.1. No one ever wants to face the inevitable and realize that their computer is dead. No, they don't want to go spend a few bucks for a new machine, but they are more than happy to waste your entire day. I am sure someone will tell you that there is Karma in helping others. I came down with the flu almost as I was leaving from fixing that computer and spent a week puking my guts out.

In a previous area where I lived I had some neighbors ask me to help them out with a computer problem. Their computer was slow, took half an hour to boot, wouldn't run Microsoft Word, etc and they really wanted it to be able to play video games. I spent several hours working out the issues - problems caused because they didn't have virus software, they installed the wrong drivers, they run Windows etc. I hacked through each problems and removed a bunch of crap they had added. Then then asked about the video games. I told them they would need a new computer to run the kinds of games they wanted to play. "Can't you make it run faster so that I can run World of Warcraft [on my 386]?" Sure, I can just pull CPU cycles out of my ass. Upgrade the video card? No way that costs money. I spent about three hours tweaking on that stupid thing just to get it to a point where they could edit Word documents. Of course they wanted it fixed no matter how long it took and at any cost because well, it was my time and they weren't paying for it.

A few months later I was doing some electrical wiring. I was comfortable with most of it, but the wire was outside and I was unfamiliar with local codes. Plus I would have to wire into the big panel on the outside of the house and getting electrocuted is not an exciting prospect.

No worries, the guy I just helped with the computer is an electrician. This is great I think. Karma has smiled upon me. I call him up. He comes over. We get everything wired up. The sun is shining. It is a beautiful day. It takes about an hour and we are done.

"That'll be 75 bucks, I usually charge $150 an hour but since you are a friend I'll do half today." I start thinking about how I should have made his computer make farting noises every time he opened the CDROM drive and I am really trying to understand how "friend" translates into "sucker."

I pay him.

He had the nerve to call again because his computer was having problems. I told him to run a virus scanner.

This is the part that sucks. For all the money this is going to cost me I end up with a piece of crap technology, tape all over me, a partially shaved chest, and a constant burning sensation on my skin that makes me wish I could tear all the hair right off my body.

I go in today and am helped by a very nice young lady. She is a college student. I imagine they pay her 7 or 8 bucks an hour. When I get the bill I bet it will be 60 or more and hour. She tells me that she has to shave parts of my chest to stick on these stupid probes and that I have to wear the thing for 24 hours. She then takes a dry razor and runs it across my chest. Now if you are paying 60 bucks an hour or even 60 bucks to go to a barber to get your face shaved you will get a sweet deal. They will use an old world brush and very carefully remove the hair from your face. Go to the hospital pay more and you get some college kid running a cheap disposable razor across your body leaving a rash that makes 2nd degree burns look enjoyable. Now you'd think that with all that hair they would have you stand up, shake it off - remove it somehow. Nope they just tape it right on there. Ever had a hair cut and had some of the hair slip down your back? Ever have a barber tape all that hair onto you? You would never return to a place with service like this, but we accept this Soviet era world because hey its medicine and that's just how it is right? Lame.

Next she tapes 7 probes to my chest but only after running sand paper over my freshly shaved chest. (I'm sure that stuff costs 20 bucks and is no different then what you buy at Home Depot). This does not feel good. Then they stick probes on you that have salt in them. I know it helps conduct signals, bla bla, but I am pretty sure this method was originally devised as a torture device. She then attached a bunch of wires that look like something directly from my Electrical Engineering labs. They are thick and long and she has to then tape those all over my chest - shaven and unshaven parts this time which is stupid since the tape just sticks to the hair and pulls it right out then the tape isn't stuck to anything and is free to roam around inside your clothes like those little black beetle things in The Mummy. After that I am forced to carry a large ugly box bigger than my iPhone to which all these probes attach. In the rest of the world this is a prototype. This product is what the engineers come up with and run tests with, but the customer never sees because no one in their right mind would buy this big ugly, painful piece of sh@#$. In the medical industry this is a completed product that costs $2500. I have a Polar CS600. I use it all the time. You only need to wear a small chest strap - no shaving required. It is wireless and the computer is tiny and light. I'll bet it is as accurate as this stupid torture probe. If they added a function that monitors heart rhythm it would be superior in every way and my CS600 gives me watts . Oh and the CS600 costs $700.

The medical industry gets away with this crap - including the make the patient miserable part because they answer to no one. I have a choice when I buy my bike computer, but I don't when I need medical attention. I am sure GE builds this probe for cheap. The electronics required to monitor a heart signal are well known and don't require a genius engineer to design. They build it to the minimum required level and then stop - they could care less about user experience because they don't have to.

I know you will say that they have to deal with the potential for malpractice and yes they do. Which is another thing that is wrong but I'll save that for later.

The point is that I itch like crazy and I blame GE and a bad shave for it.