Prodigy Progeny

A post by my husband

I had always wanted a precocious child. I dreamed not only of discussing complex subjects with my son, but learning from him as well. I just didn't expect to learn something complex from him so soon.

Aiven loves to stare at bright, shiny objects, steal them away, and put them in his mouth. Much like a crow. And like a crow from one of Aesop's Fables, the only way to get a bright, shiny object out of his mouth is to tempt him with another one. This weekend, Aiven fixated on my Macbook. I don't mind when he gets his grubby little fingers on my iPhone, Blackberry, or keys, but this is one bright, shiny object that is off limits. My lovely wife suggested that I play the old switcheroo with my work laptop, so while I cleverly distracted Aiven with farm animals sounds I swapped out my work laptop for the Macbook.

Seconds later, Aiven cleverly distracted me with his guileless smile and I heard a sickening thunk. He had pushed the laptop screen flat against the ground. My stomach did a back flip before twisting into a knot. I gingerly lifted the screen back up and realized it was undamaged. Haha! Apparently these Thinkpads are pretty indestructible. I felt reassured that I wouldn't have to remain hypervigilant about Aiven wrecking this sturdy combination of American marketing and Chinese capital. Since IT treats employees like cobras at the Bronx Zoo, it's impossible to delete or modify anything on company computers, so I was also certain that he couldn't harm the software or configuration. Thus I let him bang away at his keys while I happily banged away on mine.

Then, the impossible happened. "Cara...you need to see this!"

First thing this morning, I called my company's Help Desk to resolve this problem. Thankfully, no judgment, no prying questions. We finally figured out how to fix it. We just had to go to: Control Panel --> Display --> Settings --> Advanced --> Quadro NVS 140M --> NVIDIA Control Panel --> Rotate Display. WTF? How did a seven-month-old baby do this? The world may never know, and I am delighted by the mystery. My child continues to teach me things both simple and complex, yet always profound.