It’s not my only problem by any means, but it’s a big one.

I’m a perfectionist. I admit that. I’m also an engineer, the side effect of which means I’m always trying to make stuff better in some unquantifiable fashion.

I’ve blogged before about my media center setup and some of the issues I’ve run into. I’ve also wondered aloud at how non-geeks survive and all the fiddly shit that comes along with getting all of these devices and things to work together.

Recently I’ve moved my DVD library off my Windows Home Server onto a Synology DS1010+. In doing that, I think I figured out some of the reliability issues my home server was running into, so I almost have the system nice and stable.

In the back of my mind, there’s a voice. It’s asking me, “What can you do to make it better?”

I know, consciously, that I need to stop messing around with the damn thing because it’s working perfectly. Subconsciously, though, is the constant drive to enhance.

How can I make the network faster? This would involve getting gigabit adapters for devices that don’t have them, fiddling with jumbo frames, setting up dual-band wireless-N for the devices that need it… but the network, while it could be improved, is at least reasonably stable right now and doing some of those things is just going to upset equilibrium.

How can I improve the media center front end PC? I think it’s underpowered and some of the drivers are out of date because the devices don’t all have recent 64-bit drivers… but they do have 32-bit drivers, so do I step the OS down to 32-bit, get a different system, or…? But it does what it needs to just fine - play DVD images off the network.

How can I make the home theater easier to use? I have a reasonable remote control right now and it’s not that bad to switch on the various components, but it’d be nice to have something like a Harmony One to round out the functionality. Of course, that involves the setup and maintenance of an additional piece of equipment, plus training costs (if you know what I mean).

…and so on. Do any of these things really need to be dealt with? No. Does something inside me drive me to want to? Yes. And, of course, doing so will create work - work that, once I’m in the thick of it, I really wish I didn’t have to do. Like I’m punishing myself for something.

I really need to learn to just leave well enough alone.