Home networks make me cry more than ANYTHING ELSE!


A fight with the boyfriend doesn't do it, but lose my network connection? I dissolve!

I am not having a good week with technology.

I know Chris won't appreciate this, but I believe our problems all started with a little upgrade to the Mac OS that he did on both our computers...Panther.

Doesn't that sound like the name of something that's going to come bite you in the ass?

First there are printer issues. The printer is upstairs connected to Chris' computer, so my access is via our network only. It used to work like clockwork. Now there's always some issue. Lately, I've had to go upstairs and make sure the power is on, whereas before it used to go to sleep when out of use and wake up automatically when I asked to print something. No more. Now, his highness the printer needs me to come up and wake him with a kiss (or a push of his power button as it were.)

Now these printer issues inevitably have only been discovered when I'm about to leave for a meeting and need to print something to bring along. So far I've committed the cardinal sin of not bring those extra "just-in-case" copies of my resume to at least two interviews. And I had to email a consulting project presentation to the person I was meeting. Looks real good.

Each time the printer had been pretending to be fixed, just so I would be complacent and wait to print until close to when I had to leave, then HAH!!! it would come up with some new problem. Each time...seriously EACH TIME.

See, it's not one experience that sends us over the edge...it's accumulated frustration that does it.

And let's not forget I have the techno-whiz S.O. who's supposed to eliminate all need for me to deal with this stuff. He may not remember it, but I'm pretty sure that was in his original match.com profile: "Single white male, 30's, will set up cool, complex home network that will run like clockwork, and you will never have to touch it."

So maybe he really talked about hanging out at coffee shops, people watching and going to cool cultural events, but I can read between the lines! I know he knows one can only have such a rich full life if one is standing secure in the knowledge that everything is humming smoothly along in one's little home network.

But me being an early bird, and he being a night owl...let's just say I'm having melt-downs of Greek proportions while he slumbers peacefully. (Until I wake him up with much heaving and sighing and throwing of inanimate objects. And not in any good way.)

So what brings this up now?

This morning, it was access to the internet, or as I like to call it, the outside world.

Yes, perhaps I am obsessed a teeny tiny bit with being 'always on' or 'connected'. There was a voice in the back of my head saying, "So you can't look at email, or IM someone or search for things on the web for a few hours...so what? Relax. They'll all still be there when it gets fixed. Wait for Chris to wake up on his own...I'm sure it's something he can fix in a heartbeat while you are spending hours tearing your hair out"

That voice just doesn't understand! That voice doesn't understand the great waves of existential angst that follow such an unexplainable and catastrophic tear in the fabric of my daily routine..."Why me? Why every day? Why always some new issue? What's the point? What's the meaning of it all?"

So there I was, like a rat in some cruel experiment, running back and forth between my computer downstairs and Chris' upstairs (which in an even crueler twist of fate HAD a network connection.)

I was even unconsoled by the thought that I might be able to count this up & down running as exercise.

But let's face it, I ran back and forth without really having much of a clue what I was looking for or should be doing. And that added to the hopelessness and despair until I was sitting at my desk sobbing. I do mean SOBBING.

(And secretly hoping my inconsolable wailing might wake my in-home IT Support person. No such luck.)

How does this sad tale end? The way so many technological tales end...with a dumb, clumsy power cycle.

Yes, I simply pulled the power on the wireless router, plugged it back in, and all was restored.

We will never know why. And therein lies the difference between techo-star Chris and me. He too would have fixed the problem, while running many console logs or debug threads to fully investigate and understand our problem, in the hopes of preventing its particular re-occurrence.

What Chris doesn't realize is that I understand technology at a deeper level: it embodies the Chaos Theory...there may never again be THAT particular problem...because there will be a new one.

When I write my horror movie in the Man vs. Machine genre, it will not be about machines taking on new physical or mental capabilities that allow them to take over the world by force.

No. Simply by behaving in their own random, frustrating way....they will slowly drive the human population mad. And when we are all comfortably ensconced in our rubber rooms where we are allowed no technology whatsoever? The Machine will have triumphed over Man.

And for what? Probably, so they can play Bejewelled in peace!



Posted: Tue - November 11, 2003 at 09:37 AM       EmailFeedback

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