A little background:  A computer that I’d purchased some time ago in order to participate in the Folding@Home project died roughly a month or so ago, and initially I figured I’d either burned out the PSU or motherboard, so I replaced those as only a computer-ignoramus could (that’s me).  My damn computer still wouldn’t turn on, and after fiddling with it, the motherboard didn’t even seem to be getting any power.  Then the thought occurred to me that my CPU might have burned out, so I upgraded the one I had in it—and still, nothing.

Well, my situation is like an auto mechanic trying to operate on himself for a gastric ulcer, and being the self-aware aforementioned computer-ignoramus that I am, I knew I needed some professional help.  Fortunately for me, there’s a computer repair shop (Computer Heads within a few miles of where I live, and I contacted them via e-mail about my situation.  Bear in mind that I had never taken a computer into a computer repair business before; I sort of expected the staff to be like auto mechanics—and suffice to say, I’ve never met one I didn’t like.  After explaining the issue I also mentioned that I’d like to pay in bitcoin—and I had no clue if they had ever accepted it before or if it was one of their standard payment options, but seeing as how this is a computer-based business I figured there’s no way in hell they wouldn’t have heard of bitcoin and might be amenable to the idea.  Also, I said if they would accept bitcoin in this case I’d write up a post on bitcointalk relating my experience.  You never know unless you try, right?  I got a reply from Dan, the boss-man:  “As for Bitcoin, I'll make sure our wallet is set up in our payment area if you can scan QR sometime later today.”  Awesome news.



Today I hauled the PC into their establishment around 11:30 am, where two of the employees (Hunter and Brian) asked me a bunch of questions about what was wrong with it, and I told them about the upgrades I’d tried and about my general ignorance of all things computer related.  No doubt they see people like me all the time and didn’t seem a bit surprised that I was all thumbs when it comes to computer tinkering.  Dan wasn’t in yet, so I left my baby with them, and we agreed that I would await a phone call back to let me know what needed to be done.

At 3:26pm, Brian called me back and informed me that they were able to start up my computer using another power supply and that the PSU I’d brought with me—the one I bought only a few months before and hardly used—was the problem.  That was disappointing, because I’d apparently bought a lemon of a PSU, but I was happy that Computer Heads was able to give me a definitive diagnosis as to what was causing the failure.  Brian said, “You’re the guy who wants to pay with bitcoin” and told me Dan wasn’t in yet but that he’d call me back when he arrived.  A few minutes later I got a call from Dan, who went over what Brian had told me and said he’d have his bitcoin wallet ready for payment when I came in.



Eager to get my presently useless PC back in my hands (and interested to see how the bitcoin payment would go over with Dan, who's shown in the above pic), I drove back to Computer Heads and was met by him at what constituted the front desk.  We chatted about my PSU for a bit and then he pulled out his phone on which he had his bitcoin wallet.  He told me what the price was for the diagnostics (roughly $50, which I thought was dirt cheap), and then I scanned his barcode using my phone.

Now, this might seem to all of you as just another boring encounter between a computer expert and….me.  But the real highlight of the visit was our ensuing discussion of crypto while we waited for the first confirmation.  He told me he’d dabbled in ETH before, had heard of it from a friend a few years ago, and wished he’d taken it seriously.  Surprisingly, he was aware of altcoins like RVN and Cardano, and said that as I might not be the last customer wanting to pay in bitcoin, he might look into a payment processor like BitPay.  We both took note that our transaction still had not confirmed, and he said he thought BitPay might make the confirmation times quicker—and to that, I relayed my experience as an occasional user of them that I’d had to wait hours, if not a whole day, for that first confirmation.

We chatted about the decentralized nature of bitcoin and why it’s different than other digital currencies of the past, how bitcoin is mined with ASICs nowadays, and the GPU shortage. 

And still, our transaction hadn’t confirmed. 

He said he trusted me that the payment would go through and even held the door for me as I lugged my PC and a separate box with the PSU and all the cords out to my car. 

I have to tell you, this was a much, much different experience than what I was expecting.  Dan was very friendly, and I’d even describe him as having a warm personality (though I only interacted with him for that short period of time).  However, I detected no false notes (e.g., that he was pretending to be nice to me), and in a region that’s wall-to-wall rude assholery, it was gratifying to be able to sit there and talk with a friendly person about a bunch of crypto-related topics—and of course he let me pay with bitcoin, too!
Don’t know how many of you live around Litchfield County in Connecticut, but man….if you need some service work on your computer and want to pay with BTC, I’d highly recommend giving them a try.