#17 - Saying Goodbye to the Old HP

The old HP Pavilion desktop computer we've had for years had become obsolete in our home. We've trimmed our computer needs to a laptop for portability around the house and on trips, and a more powerful desktop computer for heavy data storage (pictures, music, video, etc), powerful applications, and general family use. The HP had served my wife and I for years before Alex was born. He took over my old study when Aaron was born, but we left the HP in there to be an educational tool for him. He took to it like a duck to water. As he's gotten older, we've realized the need to take appropriate safety precautions about the computer to keep him from exploring parts of the Internet that we feel he's not ready for (and won't be for a long time). One of the main keys to that is to supervise his use by putting it in a central location. Now the new family PC (a Gateway) sits in the living room and the HP needs to go. The local Goodwill isn't equipped to take it, so we turned to the National Christina Foundation. They provide computers to people and organizations that need them. They connected us to a Senior Center here in Ohio that needed a computer. We shipped it today after digitally scrambling (not just deleting) the hard drive. It's nice to get the first thing done on my list. 100 more to go!