I helped my grandfather with his computer

Today, I visited my grandfather in Bavaria. He is turning to be 99 years old soon.

As always, when I am about to visit him, he did have a list of computer problems to go through with me. Sometimes, he (or my uncle or a Microsoft Windows 11 Update) did change something which makes him not find the things in the place he is used to. I then try to change things back to how they were and answer questions about it.

Today, he asked me some things about the folder structure. Firefox did update to have a new starting page showing random stories, which he did not like, so I removed that for him. My uncle, who was also there, asked about how to tile windows correctly on the screen (that little popup which shows when hovering above the maximize button in the upper right). My grandpa said, that he knows how to do this and he is doing this all the time to have different word documents open side by side.

Indeed, he does know much more about computer work than my uncles do.

Printer

A problem he had though, is with his new laser printer he got 8 months ago. It does not print very well anymore in black. So presumably the black cartridge is empty.

This happened quite often with the former ink printer (which had also different other problems). I always assumed, that he barely prints things and then does a printer self-clean, which does consume 5-10% of toner capacity typically and runs out of ink from this. But the laser printer does have printing statistics. It shows: 619 pages printed.

Damn, grandpa, what are you printing 3 pages per day on average..?

Replacement

He wanted to have a replacement right while I am available so we went to the next store which had the matching laser cartridge at stock. I just looked at the exact model number written on the former cartridge to double-check and therefore took it out of the printer and back again. My grandpa did not have been to the city for quite a while, so I really liked him going with me.

Getting into the car on its own only with the walking stick (he left his walker at home), we managed to get there.

In the store, he even did not have problems using the escalator. Of course, I watched out for him when getting of the escalator, but he was fine without help.

Trip back home

During the trip home, he told me about the traffic sign situations he managed to improve during his time working at the police and also told about the former times before that. We shared some of the cheap LIDL version of M&M’s together and had a good time together. There was redirection which my navigation system did not new about. He checked his mobile phone and Google Maps and said, that Google Maps does also send him quite the wrong way.

We found home eventually and as we were going to his room in the retirement home, he said that he could do the replacement himself if I have to go now. He watched how I removed the old cartridge exactly and thinks he could do this as well. Impressed by that, I still thought it is better for me to do this, as he is a little bit numb in the fingertips.

The printer did work very fine after the replacement.

He is turning to be 99 years old soon.

I am quite proud that he still participates in life so well and hope that he does not lose his joy before passing away.

Alles Schöne vergänglich, doch nicht alles Vergangene schön ~ NMZS

It was a great time with him that day.