Month: September 2025

I’ve been doing IT support for a third of a century. In that time I’ve seen a lot of strange things, but this week I’ve had two first that have left me exasperated.

I had a client that wanted to purchase a new laptop. They had a Lenovo, and were quite happy with it and wanted to purchase another one, but not spend a lot of money. I suggested getting a refurbished ThinkPad from Lenovo directly, which includes a year warranty, and they agreed. We selected a model, I found a coupon code that saved 35%, the client was quite happy. We ordered on August 29, and when it arrived they scheduled a time for me to set it up, which was this past Tuesday. Since both old and new machines had Windows 11, I thought it would be safe to use the Microsoft migration tool, which I had tested a few weeks ago to good effect. However, things seemed to have gone awry when everything came back online with the new machine and it showed that Windows had not been activated yet. When I tried to activate it, it kept failing saying it was an invalid key. My guess was that the migration tool had brought over the key from the other device and caused the error. Unfortunately, I had run out of time, so I promised the client I would address it today. My plan was to just factory restore the machine, and bring over everything manually that didn’t come over already via OneDrive and then install Office and QuickBooks. But I wanted to give Lenovo a chance to see if they might be able to provide us with the correct key. I called their support line, and after an interminable time on hold, finally spoke to a rep, and I explained that we were having an issue with activating Windows on this machine that we just purchased from them. After giving the rep the order number, the name on the order, the email address on the order, the serial number, and a callback number, the rep assured us that she could get us to the correct department to fix.

After several more minutes on hold, we heard a series of beeps, and then got transferred to…an automated assistant (grrr). We annoyingly tried to navigate the menus (without success) before finally getting to speak to a person. After explaining the situation to this rep, he had us jump through a whole ‘nother series of hoops, and finally told us that the key had reached the maximum number of activations and that we would have to purchase a new key. At this point I became incensed, saying that there was no reason for my client to have to purchase another key when they had provided us with a bogus key to begin with. He said there was no record of us purchasing the key, and I shot back saying we didn’t purchase a key, it was included with the machine we bought from them. After several more backs and forths, I said, “You are Lenovo, right?” he said, “No, this is Microsoft.”

So, apparently Lenovo sent out a machine that (presumably) had had a part replaced on it, and therefore deactivated the Windows license on it, and then when I called into Lenovo, they transferred us to Microsoft for activation…but they didn’t tell us they were transferring us to Microsoft!

Of course, by the time we got done with the call, the Lenovo support line was closed for the night, so I get to call again in the morning.

In May of 1962, my father Jerry White purchased a 1956 Mercedes Benz 300SL sports coupe, colloquially known as the Gullwing due to the manner in which the doors opened, being hinged at the top and opening up.

Dad was a certified car guy all his life. He started working in the family business, a tire shop in Beaumont, when he was only eleven years old (which he inflicted upon my brother David and me as well). He was a member of NASCAR in his twenties. He worked in the pits at the Inidianapolis 500 as an alignment technician for Bear Automotive. He drove a Corvette. But he loved Mercedes Benz.

The DuPont Company had purchased a Gullwing specifically to study the engine (the ’55 Gullwing was the first car to have fuel injection). They removed the engine, did extensive testing, and when they were done put it back…so the body was pracitcally new. A buddy of my dad’s was an engineer with DuPont, and the spring of 1962 he let him know they were going to be selling the Gullwing as surplus. My dad put in a bid of $4,105.05 (I’ve forgotten the significance of that amount, but it comes to $43,605.28 today, according the CPI calculator at BLS), and ended up winning the auction.

Bill of Sale form Du Pont to my dad for his Gull Wing
Bill of Sale form Du Pont to my dad for his Gull Wing
Page from Bax’s Scrapbook: “Jerry White + Bride: Mercedes 300SL”

That car became his pride and joy. Another friend of his, the radio personality and author Gordon Baxter, took pictures of Dad with it and saved it in his scrapbook at “Jerry White + Bride”. But the next year Dad had an actual bride, our mother Norma. Dad said he knew she was the one because she was the only one who could enter and exit the Gullwing elegantly.

In 1968, I was a year old, and David was on the way, and a two-seater sports coupe with no A/C was not very practical for a family of four in Southeast Texas, so Dad sold his beloved 300 SL to an oil man in Oklahoma for $5,000, thinking he had done pretty well to have made a profit on the vehicle after having it for six years. Fast forward to 1983, and Dad saw ‘his’ Gullwing in an auction catalog (he knew it was his becuase he remembered the serial number). The minimum bid: $250,000 (with inflation, $806,017.59). But trying to find one today for under a million is a fool’s errand: Sotheby’s just sold a 1956 for $2 million.

When I win the lottery, one of the extravagant purchases I’m going to make is to buy Dad’s Gullwing.

UPDATE: I just made the acquaintance of Rudi Koniczek, probably the foremost expert on Gullwings. He was graciously able to provide the following information for me:

  • Chassis: 198.040.6500153
  • Engine: 198.980.6500155
  • Body: 198.040.6500149
  • Color: DB190 Graphite Gray
  • Upholstery: Natural Leather
  • Mfg. Date: 21 June 1956
  • Originally sold to: E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, Delaware
  • Owner 2: Jerry C White, Beaumont, Texas
  • Owner 3: William Howell, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma