Friday, September 30, 2011

We’re Internet-less. Send. Help. Now.

We've been having problems with our computers at home in that we can't keep the Internet connected. Every time we shut the computer down and then restart it the next time, it doesn’t automatically connect.

Earlier in the week we tried turning everything off and back on and it would reconnect again. But I got really tired of running up and down stairs shutting things off and on – only to find we were still not connected. So I haven’t even tried for the past few nights.

Vince hasn't had a lot of spare time lately to identify the actual problem and figure out a solution. As for me, well, other than jiggling wires and shutting things off and back on, I'm pretty stumped.

So I figure the best way to fix this problem is to just move. When we get to a new place, professionals will have to get us reconnected to the Internet and I bet it would work. If it doesn’t, they will tell us which specific pieces/part is on the fritz and then we can go out and replace that specific pieces/part. Problem solved.

However, the mere thought of all the effort involved in packing and moving and unpacking and resettling causes me to dismiss that solution right quick.

Thus, we remain “Internet-less.”

Sigh. I am so NOT technologically savvy. Heck, half the time I forget to jiggle the wires or turn things off and on before yelling for help.

The problem is that our computers have too many pieces/parts, so it’s not easy to determine the problem. Like we have a cable wire connected to a little cable box (belonging to the cable company) in our bedroom. And, attached to that is a black box thingie that may or may not be a router. (I am not sure about the technical terms – or about what they do. Extrapolate.) And we have two wireless pieces of plastic that plug into the backs of our computers that allow my computer to work in the spare bedroom and Vince’s computer to work in the living room downstairs without having wires and cables and really L-O-N-G extension cords running up and down the stairs and all over the place.

Now I’m not completely lacking in brain cells, so I figure the culprit is most likely one of the two black boxes in the bedroom because they have little green lights on them – and some of them are flashing. One or two of them might not even be lit, for all I know.

Probably I should have paid attention to those two little black boxes back when everything was working because maybe then I’d know if all the little green lights were supposed to remain lit or if some were allowed to flash. . Hmmmm. Maybe I am missing a brain cell or two. Specifically the ones that deal with technology. Oh, and also the ones needed for following roadmaps. But that’s another subject.

I love computers. Until they don’t work – and then I hate them.

Thank goodness I have a smart phone, which is currently working because I can access my email and Facebook and such. I don’t like when emails start piling up and my phone tells me I have more than 25 new emails to wade through. What can I say? I’m a Virgo.

Vince, on the other hand, is definitely not a Virgo. Right now he has something like 7,000+ emails he hasn’t even read. If I had 7,000+ emails I hadn’t read, my head would explode.

Now, true, most of them are jokes, junk and sales fliers with long-expired discounts, but still. Those are the first emails I delete. Well, except for the jokes. I read those first. Right after the personal emails that people send me to give me the latest scoop on their lives. Which is really another joke – because I hardly ever get personal emails from people anymore.

I think I’m supposed to guess that when someone forwards a joke to me they’re thinking about me.

Wow…It’s a darn good thing it’s Friday. I sound grumpy even to myself. Probably it’s because I’m tired. My eyes don’t seem to want to focus. And I bit my tongue last night and it hurts. (Don’t ask me how I did that – apparently I couldn’t tell the difference between a crouton and my own body part…)

Oh, and if I hadn’t stressed this enough: OUR INTERNET AT HOME ISN’T WORKING!

Maybe I should casually mention to Vince that we’re paying something like thirty bucks a month for an Internet connection – and we’ve wasted about $7.50 this week. Vince does not like wasting money. Bet that would spur him on to figure out the problem, since clearly I haven’t managed to.

Oh well. Being Internet-less has been rather like flashing back to the days before we had computers. I actually cooked dinner the other night instead of grabbing something easy and then doing the Peeping Thomasina thing on Facebook to see what everyone is up to (seein’ as how nobody sends me personal email updates anymore).

And I spent last evening reading an actual real book with pages instead of trolling online for celebrity gossip or searching for the latest bestseller to download onto my iPad. Sure, I tried “swiping” to the next page, but I only did that a couple times before I got the hang of turning actual pages again.

So maybe it’s not so bad being Internet-less for a little while.

On the other hand, it has been a whole week. Time’s up.

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