Or something very much like its soul, anyway. On Thursday morning when I got up my computer did not. I got a screen that basically said, “You are screwed, girly”. Windows had crashed, and it wanted a disk that I did not have. It was about midnight in Arizona, so I figured Mark would be up and he was. He told me I was going to have to find someone to re-load Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium and nothing but MWVHP or my data would be lost. But then he told me that my data might be lost anyway, depending on how deeply dead my computer was. He told me it would cost me at least $100 and probably more
We were on our way to Dublin that day at 1:00, so I went to the computer lab to see if I could Google up a solution. I found a couple of likely options, but I rejected the first because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the location. I called the second option, Tech Assist, and Jordan Clark answered the phone. When I explained my problem he said that he did, in fact, have MWVHP, and that he could help me. He said he would meet me in Dublin that afternoon and he asked where I was staying. I told him, “The Abbey Court Hostel on Bachelor’s Walk right by the O’Connell Street Bridge in the center of the city”. I asked him about his fees and he said 50 euro an hour, with a cap of 125 euro. He also told me that if he had to completely re-load MWVHP it would take at least four hours, so I’d better be prepared for the full fee. Before we hung-up, he quizzed me about how I found him. He wanted to know the exact words I’d put into Google and was pleased when I said, “Dublin computer repair”. I liked his voice.
I was in Dublin when Jordan texted me at 4:30 and asked me to meet him at a pub called Messrs Maguire across the bridge kitty-cornered from the hostel at 5:30. At 5:15 he called and said he was almost there, and that he would pull up in front of the pub in a dark grey BMW. I told him I was blonde and would be wearing a black coat with silver buckles.
And that is how I came to be standing in front of a pub on a very busy street clutching my computer to my bosom waiting for a stranger. The Beemer pulled up, Jordan beckoned, and the passenger window went down. He seemed nice, so I handed the computer through the window, exchanged a few logistics, took his card and left. As I was walking back across the O’Connell Street Bridge, Jordan called to ask if I needed my data. I could barely hear him but I got the gist of it and hollered back, “Yes, I do.”
I called Mark and told him I’d found someone who said he could fix my computer, and I told him what it was going to cost, but I didn’t tell him I’d handed it off on the street to a nice man in a BMW. But I really wasn’t worried about Jordan. He really did seem like a nice guy. And sure enough mid-day Friday he texted me that he’d got it running and it had only taken two hours and so I would only owe him 100 euro.
I met him on a side street just east of Messrs Maguire at 5:30. He turned the computer on, showed me that my data was there and that it was up and running again. He was impressed with the kit Mark built for it, and admired how complete and compact it was. I learned that he has a day job, but is trying to get his own business going on the side. I paid him, closed up my computer, hopped out, and said goodbye.
Suffice it to say, if you are ever in Dublin and your computer goes belly up, Jordan Clark of Tech-Assist is your man.
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