I've talked about Tristan's computer prowess on several occasions but I don't think I've ever put it all down in one document. I figured that now was a good time.
Tristan is almost eight now but our story starts back when he was about six and a half...
Email Alert
I think I first realised that Tristan had an affinity with computers when he sent me an Email one morning when I was on the bus on the way to work. Shortly afterwards, he started popping up google chat windows when I was at work asking for the email addresses of his grandparents.
These days he emails me youtube videos, cheat codes for games and all sorts of stuff. Not bad for someone who is only just starting to spell.
Tech Support
Tristan is always wandering up to me and asking me what I'm doing or how something works. If he does that, I'll explain it but I'm not going out of my way to teach him. Just giving him answers. He's just very good at picking things up. Perhaps, too good.
Imagine my surprise when I get home to find that he's taught Joanne how to fix a computer problem. I'm even more surprised when she tells me that the computer had been "freezing" for her for about a year (and she'd been turning it off and on again).
She didn't think to mention the problem to me but during one of the issues she was obviously a little vocal about it and Tristan came over and fixed it ... instantly.
The Password
The next inkling that we had a special IT boy on our hands came when Tristan was being a bit naughty and spending time on his computer instead of getting changed for school. He was told that if he did it again, he'd have it taken away from him.
Of course, he did it again, so we changed his password.
Now with most people, that would be the end of it but Tristan had a "hand-me-down" computer with some experimental stuff on it. He decided to activate the linux partition, signed on, figured out which was the browser and hopped straight back on the web to play his games.
Angry Birds
Tristan saw me playing angry birds on my computer downstairs and decided that he wanted a copy on his. I explained that he couldn't have it because these things have security keys.
It didn't faze him.
A couple of hours later, he came down and told me that he was having a lot of fun with Angry Birds. He'd done an internet search and discovered that you could get it for free as a Google Chrome addon.
The Internet
Fast forward another month or so and Tristan's PC was having internet issues. He was frustrated and asked me to help him fix it. He was asking questions about TCP/IP and wireless networking which I answered (as you do).
In the end, I got called away and said that I'd have to sort it out later. When I asked him about it later, he said, "don't worry... I've fixed it now". So I let it go.
A couple of weeks later when I went up to his room, I discovered that he'd fixed it by hooking into the neighbours wireless network. I asked him why he'd chosen theirs when we had a perfectly good one of our own... his reply... "theirs is faster".
The Wedding
Following the wirless network fiasco, I moved him back to our internet connection. He asked me about something and I said, "I already told you, didn't you read your email?". I opened up his email to show him my previous answer and found this...
"Confirmation of your booking"
I figured I'd better read it. The booking was for him and a girl called Nicole to be married somewhere in Seattle. He'd booked a hotel, meals and a cars.
I panicked asking him about the credit card that he used for the numbers but he said that he just kept making them up until it accepted them.
Oops...
His "wedding" was supposed to be last weekend and we kept half-expecting an angry call from this "Nicole" person saying that he'd left her at the altar. Luckily it didn't happen.
Other Funny eMails
After last week's wedding fiasco, we decided to check Tristan's email to see if the wedding company was complaining about him not showing up. Fortunately, they hadn't.
We did find some very cute emails though;
Club Penguin
When his free club penguin game time expired, he sent club penguin an email which read;
"I lik club pengin. can I ha some mor time pls?"
They didn't respond, so after about a week, he sent them a bunch of links to other online game sites which were "better than theirs anyway".
Fat Chicken
This was bizarre. He sent an email labelled "fat chicken" to his brother but when we opened it up, the picture wasn't a chicken at all.
I think it was a hamster.
Needless to say, he's already earned his Information Technology Level 1 badge after only about three weeks in cubs.
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