I have to beg your pardon this week. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I like to feature videos. The drill goes something like this: I find a clip I like, something that needs to be written about and is appropriate for my audience, and then I put together some sort of commentary.
To do that, though, I need to be CONNECTED. I have to have ACCESS.
A couple of days ago, on Thursday morning to be precise, I lost my Internet at home. That morning I woke up to the unpleasant realization that my router was dead–that’s happened twice now in the past month–which leads me to believe that I’ve somehow gotten myself on the wrong side of the Internet Gods. Of course, I couldn’t do anything to remedy this situation at the moment of discovery because I had to get ready for work. (Yes, I’ll confess; I absolutely have to get online first thing in the morning, even before I break my fast, because I’m a junky, an e-freak, an addict with the worst sort of habit.)
To make a long story short, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the days when I normally put together this week’s blog, I’ve been OFFLINE (and very much upset about it). Here, I have to say that it’s not like I haven’t been taking action (or at least trying to) to get out of this fix. I’ve made two trips to my Internet Service Provided (hereafter ISP). Both trips, however, have ended in abject failure. During my second trip, the techno-nerd manning my ISP’s Office of Technical Support handed me an instruction sheet that was supposed to “walk me through” the steps involved in reconfiguring the new router I’d had to purchased. The sheet made the whole thing look so simple, too. As a matter of fact, there were drawings (the type of illustrations that would have worked nicely in a book entitled Reconfiguring Your New Router for Dummies). I counted the pictures and saw that there were five. Five steps. That was it.
“Are you sure this is going to be this easy?” I asked the techno-nerd.
“Oh, yes, it is very easy.”
“You’re absolutely certain about that?” I queried again skeptically.
“It is going to be so simple.”
The certainty in his voice finally put me at ease, and I left my ISP feeling confident and hopeful.
Word to the wise: WHEN A TECHNO-NERD SAYS SOMETHING COMPUTER-RELATED IS GOING TO BE EASY, NEVER (EVER!) BELIEVE HIM OR HER.
Bottom line: I’m not online yet, but I think tomorrow might be THE MAGIC DAY. Until that day finally arrives, I’m making do (but rather poorly) at a local cafe/Wi-Fi hotspot, a place called The Green Mill. As a matter of fact, I was at said Mill last night, trying to view a couple of videos, clips that might have worked for this blog, but I had to keep my ear about three inches away from the speaker to hear what was being said, which meant that I couldn’t see the screen. I wouldn’t have had to “watch” like this, but there was a big table of very loud people not far away. After a couple of minutes sitting with my ear pressed up against my computer, one or two fellow patrons began to take notice of my odd behavior. At the moment that I noticed them noticing me, I said (not out loud, of course) this week we’re going to have to go to Plan B with the blog.
And this, my friends, is PLAN B.
