Spring Cleaning or “Cleaning Springs”

Today was the first day in awhile where I have felt good all day (It is 5:37pm and I got up at 10:30am).  I did a sleep study Monday night (perhaps another post – we will see) and had to revamp my sleeping schedule in a week from bed at 4am to bed at 9pm.  That, in itself, was a task.  Then, the night of the test, I went to the hospital, test began at 10pm and she got me up at 5:30am and said it was time to go home!  Jeez!  So, I went to breakfast (quiet at 6:20am), home, bed at 10am-2pm, then went back to bed last night at 1:30am and got up at 10:30am.  I had just finished a sleeping cycle (dream finished and woke up), which is supposed to be the best time to get up and feel good no matter how much or little sleep you have had.  I have not been very tired at all and have had 3x the normal energy I have felt in quite awhile.  So, what grand thing did I do?  I CLEANED MY KEYBOARD!!!

That may not sound like much, but it took 1 and 1/2 hours to finish!  I would advise you all to do it at least 1 time a year.  It had been 1.5 for me and it was interesting…

Steps:

1. shut down your computer completely (not to sleep – shut it down, no electricity going to keyboard!)
2. get your alcohol (rubbing, not drinking!), q-tips (about 20-30), and a couple of gauze pads, and something thin and flat and small.  I had a throwing knife (don’t judge!), but a steel nail file would work.
3. put some alcohol in a small container (holds < 1/4 c.).
4. dip or pour some of the alcohol on the gauze pad and wipe all the top of the keyboard down pretty good.
5. use the knife (or whatever) and remove (pry carefully) up the space key (this will, probably, be the dirtiest).
6. using the knife, easy, scrape up all the hair (pet), and stuff into a small pile and then use a dipped q-tip to pull it out from the keyboard.
7. Be careful how many keys you take out at once (you have to remember the proper order to put them back in!!!).  I would suggest 4-6 at a time and lay them in order and face down nearby.
8. after cleaning the keys and their spaces thoroughly tip the keyboard upside down and shake or tap/shake so that the excess stuff falls out.
9. after the alcohol dries (minute or so – blowing on it helps) replace the keys.
10. repeat 6-9, taking out 4-6 keys, mainly the ones you use the most, until done.
11. for a gamer, like myself, I ended up removing the following keys:  spacebar, backspace, arrow keys(4), main enter key, both shift keys, cntl and alt both sides, a,w,s,d,e,r,z (control keys for games), special window keys, tab.
12. When done, make certain all is dry and clean mouse well (I have a roller ball mouse, so it was dirty and I clean it once a week or so).
13. turn computer on.
14. open up a blank word, work, or some type of writing document.
15. type in all the letters (small and caps) as well as numbers and test all the keys you removed and the mouse.
16. if all is working, you are done!!!! yeah – take this time to smell the keyboard – it won’t smell this clean for awhile.
17. if all is not working – well, sorry for your luck – lol.  I have been there and done that.

That has been a lot of my day so far.  I hope to get more done, but we will see.  I managed to do odds and ends along with this task.

Have a great day!

Namaste,

Scott