Lol !
Of course there is an interesting story to this.
My mother is very adventurous, but we did not notice this as children, as my father was fairly strict, and he would not try anything adventurous and he made certain that she did NOT either. There was no adventure allowed in our family in his household.
My mother was 55 years old when my father passed away, and my mother then astounded the children in her family (who were all grown up by then) by doing all sorts of adventurous things. She purchased stocks in the stock market for the 1st time (being very careful in her fundamental research of company’s and she did amazingly well in her investments). She went white water rafting, went on some adventurous tours, and she took motorcycle lessons and bought herself a motorbike.
When she was 72 years old, I invited her to join me at a ski resort (thinking she would say no) and she surprised me, and said yes. She had not skied since she had tried it a couple of times 60 years previous , so she took 3 days of skiing lessons (at age 72 ! ) . Of course she was stiff for 2 weeks after, but the very fact that she would try this at age 72 amazed me !
In year 2001 (when she was 74 years old) one of my older brothers moved in with her, and since he was there to help her with computers I decided to buy her a desktop computer as a Dec-2001 (or was it Dec 2000 ? ) Christmas present (with the idea he would teach her). So I bought her a a Dell Dimension 2100 (which she kept until earlier this year). The computer came with winME and my brother taught her how to use that (plus she took a computer course offered at the local community center). But her computer kept getting virus every year (and stop working) and my brother’s computer knowledge of MS-Windows was not strong enough to solve the problem. He installed all sorts of commercial anti-virus software, some of which worked, and some did not, but they generally interferred with each other and did not work well. Typically in December every year when I left Europe to visit her in Canada, my wife and I would spend a few days over the Christmas holiday period to clean out the virus to make the computer work again (re-installing winME).
In 2002 my brother purchased winXP and had my wife and I install that on her Dell Dimensions 2100 computer in Dec-2002 during our Christmas visit. My mother did NOT want winXP so we set up a dual boot (my brother purchased an old version of Partition Magic for the dual boot). But winME then was inflicted with a new virus and stopped working, so my mother was forced to use winXP (which she did not like at the time) and then within a month winXP caught a virus and it no longer functioned.
Of course my wife and I repaired both the winXP and winME partitions (clearing out the virus) during our annual December Christmas visit, and again her PC would function.
Then my brother caught cancer and I realized he would not be able to help her any longer after he died. So in December 2004 when we visited (and her PC did not function in either WinXP nor winME due to the virus, and my brother on his deathbed and not able to assist at all) we installed openSUSE on her desktop PC, setting up a tri-boot: winME, winXP and openSUSE (and we cleaned out the virus in winME, winXP). The installation was barely in time as my brother succumbed to cancer in January-2005. I set up her openSUSE Linux so that I could access her PC remotely from Europe, and maintain it remotely from there. (one of the openSUSE board members (yaloki) taught me how to do this remote PC control, spending about 45 minutes with me on IRC chat, explaining the ins and outs of this).
Again in year 2005 her winME and winXP both caught virus, and my mother was forced to use openSUSE Linux for her browsing and email (hotmail) pickup. Again, Dec2005 we visited and fixed her winME/winXP.
Again in year 2006 and subsequent years both her winME and winXP caught virus, they would stop working, and my mother would be forced to use openSUSE Linux for her browsing and email (hotmail) pickup when those Microsoft OS did not work. This was the case every year (with us repairing her MS-Windows partitions at Christmas), although eventually we could no longer repair her winME as Microsoft support for that OS had long since dropped. So I removed it from grub as a selection and she could only boot to winXP and openSUSE Linux.
Because winXP was superior to openSUSE for opening locked Power Point slide presentations that had music, my mother preferred winXP over openSUSE. Many friends would send her these music presentations in the power point format, and while I could get 75% of them to play with music in openSUSE, the remaining 25% or so would not play in Linux well, and hence she would boot to winXP most of the time so as to be able to easily play these presentations (in the proprietary Microsoft ppt format).
But typically her winXP would only run for about 6 to 10 months of the year (before it succumbed to a virus) after which she was forced to use openSUSE, which always worked for her (in part because I could help her remotely from Europe). She would not be too happy at that time, because she could not then play (with openSUSE) every ppt file that was sent her way as a file attachment. She could play most, but not all.
Finally this year (2010) my wife and I bought her a new PC (which is a story in itself) and this new PC only boots to openSUSE (I could not get win7 to work the way I wanted) and she still has her winXP available as a virtual box session, where she clicks one ‘winXP’ icon on her openSUSE desktop and that launches winXP, and she can get thus still get winXP to run anytime she wants.
So its an interesting story. She really likes her computer, as email keeps in her touch with her children, nephews, nieces, and various friends. She uses the computer for her stock quotes, online banking, store her photos (from her digital camera that I bought her) and some other things.
In November this year, I finally caved in and installed Skype on her new computer, and at least twice/week, we have a Skype conversation (with us both using webcams) such that we have a video chat for 30 to 45 minutes each session. It makes the distance from Europe to Canada seem so much smaller.
She is an inspiration! … I only hope that I can stay open to new ideas just like her, as I grow older.
