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I just want things to work.....

Oh the DRAMA! So yesterday we had the service tec from cablemas here to swap out our old modem that had one Ethernet port to a modem/router combo that has four Ethernet ports. As you may recall from our previous post we lost wireless connectivity with our fancy ass new(ish) Toshiba computer. Ethernet connectivity was still working, but with one Ethernet port it was either internet or voip phone.


So yesterday after I got up I tried to access the internet and even the cabled Ethernet could not/would not connect. Seems the NIC (network interface card) is completely shot! Just frickin great. I just want things to work so I can scoot along fat, dumb, and happy! Is that too much to ask?

Well the cablemas guy gets here just after a long morning, which will be another post, if I ever get around to it, and just after I had gone to hammock for an afternoon rest. Anyway, I try explaining to him what’s going on. I’m not sure he was going to swap us out the hardware until I told him the wireless went out on the computer but the Ethernet cable still worked AND we needed a 2nd Ethernet for the phone.

Then of course I have to tell him that today even the Ethernet connection isn’t working; I tried to get him to see if he could check it/fix it to which he informed me he doesn’t work on personal hardware/equipo. Ah well, it was worth a try…

So then I pull over the ‘old’ Toshiba, the one where the ‘v’ key doesn’t work anymore, and the one that constantly tells us the hard drive is about ready to fail, and varying other dire warnings about kernels, and things I don’t understand.

Oh, and I whip out the netbook - so there he stands in front of the desk with these 3 computers set out before him. He starts doing his thing with the new equipment and the computers and I can see he’s having issues. Things aren’t connecting, things are blinking, he keeps going back over stuff, blah, blah, blah. I give him the key/clave that keeps my wireless secure and ask if he will change it - to which he replies no it will stay the same. He jumps from computer to computer and finally says he’s done and hands me a paper to sign.

I jump up and instead of signing start trying to access internet pages and check the networks, etc, I see we are connected to a network named ‘X%&#’, where we used to be ‘Kuhn’. He says oh he had to rename it! I laugh and he laughs and there is a sort of funny story that I can’t tell you cause I’d have to kill you cuz it sort of gives away the new network name, you know ‘X%&#’.

Things seem to be working, I can access the internet from both computers, he’s waving the paper in my face for a signature and talking very fast and I don’t get any of what he’s saying by this point, so of course I sign as he’s hustling towards the door.

So this morning I get up and can’t get on the internet, and I notice that my wireless connection is unsecured, which means any knucklehead can piggyback on my signal and diminish my bandwidth and have easier access to my computer and oh my gosh the sky is falling, the sky is falling. BTW, I am writing all this at the table on the netbook, in Word, so I can cut n paste if and when I do get online, whether here or at a park or at a friends…

And it was 19degrees Celsius this morning when I got up and the dogs are wearing t-shirts to keep warm, and I am wearing socks to sleep in and bemoaning that I no longer have either full shoes or sweaters. And when I started the washer this morning, instead of filling to the top with water as instructed it cut off with only a few inches of water and started agitating, which of course would be fine if that were its instructions and if there were only a few things in the tub; but the tub was full of towels and bedclothes, and other stuff, and it was instructed to fill, so fill damn it…


I just want things to work so I can scoot along fat, dumb, and happy!

Is that too much to ask?


Well at least the TV didn‘t go out.


So for now we have no internet, no vonage, no skype.  Gads, you may need to send us letters  and wait for responses, could be weeks between communications,  how, oh lord, how did they used to survive, you know, in the olden days!