INTERNET FUN AND GAMES

July 23, 2008
INTERNET FUN AND GAMES


Face it, the home computer/ethernet tech world is too complicated for us. A typewriter, file cabinet, plain old push button phone (remember those?) gives one far less headaches. So do paper, envelopes and stamps - in my book.

I’ve been having a great deal of difficulty getting on the internet lately and I’ve been on the phone a LOT with Bombay. First it was with the Dell people, now with the Windstream folk. One great thing about the latter is that they speak English VERY WELL. Unlike the former. And the Streamers really listen to you. Unlike the Dellies.

So I can’t get connected and I call the Streamers. I already know how to do a diagnostic test on their modem (the BLACK BOX). You don’t need an internet connection to do so. As long as you can bring up the browser window you can put in their ISP address. It takes you to their - I don’t know what it’s called...router page? It has a System Summary. There are two main Connection Summaries. They should be green. RED mean BAD. So if you see BADNESS you click on Tools and then Reboot. And you have to put in the code and then your modem lights up like a Christmas Tree with pretty flashing lights. You are re-setting the modem to factory defaults. (This is known as a soft re-set.) Why they would become un-set is not a question I’ve asked. (Of course there’s also a hard reset with a sophisticated pointed implement [pen tip] poked into the little hole in the rear. No comments please.)

After you’ve done that you click on Diagnostics and put in the appropriate Connection to Test parameters and it gives you the results. There’s the Connections in the Home; Connections at the Carrier; Internet Service Provider; and Internet Connectivity. Within those sections are a minimum of two and a maximum of four results. You want to see them PASS in pretty green. You don’t want to see the red (BAD) FAIL.

Since I would rather NOT have to talk to Bombay on a regular basis, I have written all these instructions down so I can do them myself. But it doesn’t really matter. There’s always something new wrong, or something new to learn to do.

So last week I can’t get connected and I run the tests and it says FAIL and I call. And it turns out that my Firewall (Zone Alarm) was suddenly blocking the internet . Why? Because they put in a new update, but the rest of the tech world hadn’t been informed and the update was not compatible with something else - Microsoft? I think. I’m told that a patch will be due out shortly. Swell. Meanwhile I’ve now learned if my service is down to first shut down my firewall, then my virus sweep and finally my spy protection. Which of course leaves me TOTALLY VULNERABLE TO ALL THE BAD PEOPLE OUT THERE.

That problem eventually gets solved. I think. Then once again I can’t get on the Net. I’m getting to know these guys real well by now. They use fake American names because they think we’re all too stupid to be able to understand, let alone pronounce their real names. I’ve talked to Kevin and George and Thomas. Whose real names were probably something like Kailash and Gobardhan and Jhareshwar. (The reason I know they’re made up names is because I asked and actually got an honest answer). Now before I call I first disengage all protective programs. If that doesn’t work I do a diagnostic test. One guy actually told me I knew more than he did! Fortunately most of them seem to believe and trust me when I say I’ve already done the test and give them the results. Perhaps they have notes on my file that say ATD (meaning this one Ain’t Too Dumb)

Well then I was told to go to Start and select Run and type in “cmd” and then ping Google. (I guess if you ping a known site and IT comes up, things should be working fine.) If this all makes absolutely no sense to you - WHY SHOULD IT? That’s my point. Why do we have to know all this STUFF??? It’s too complicated!

BUT, I now know it. And so I try to troubleshoot my own internet connection. Yeah. Everything starts to work fine again. Then it’s down. I run the test. FAIL. I call Bombay. I get a PASS. Great. Then it’s down again. Then it up. I feel like a boxer in a ring and I’m getting trounced. I begin to think I’m losing my mind. What is happening here? When I CAN get on it’s like molasses. So they tell me to do a speed check. Great. I learn a new bit. Got my very own internet Radar Gun, oh boy! Radar Gun says the speed is great. REALLY????? I put in one trouble ticket, then when they fix it, they close the ticket, only to have me open another one.

Meanwhile this is costing me HOURS AND HOURS of my time. And for what? So I can get some sappy “You’re my friend for life and if you don’t pass this on to 150 people in the next 45 minutes you’ll DIE!” forward???!!!! Or those reeeeeeaaallly cute Youtube rocking the puppy to sleep videos. AAAAaaaargh!

Finally we get a call from a local God bless America Southern drawling Streamer. He says “they’ve” been having some kind of trouble between Charlotte and Arkansas. He wishes he could get his hands on it to fix it, but it ain’t in his territory. But he THINKS it’s fixed now.

And you wonder why I’m afraid to leave my computer illiterate husband home alone with the computer when I go on a trip? He can’t even grasp the concept of a document being on the screen and still inside the computer at the same time, let alone what software vs hardware means. The fact that he can search for houses for sale on the Internet and compose and send a missives is a miracle.

These machines are miracles. When they work. But when they don’t.......

A Small Miracle & a New Friend

A couple of nights ago I was in my office and I heard a squawking. How odd, I thought. What creature would be squawking at 11 pm?

I opened the door to find Harlie, our black and white killer, under my office window and I figured I'd then find the squawker, which I assumed was a mouse. Wrong. It was a bird. Oh swell. Don't know what kind. Not a baby, I think, though small, maybe a Sparrow? Wren? But it had no tail feathers at all. Which could mean that they were all plucked off by the Killer. (What is it with me and birds this year? Is there a Chinese Year of the Bird?)

It was standing upright when I picked it up. It got out of my hand, briefly, Harlie went after it, I grabbed it again and brought it inside to examine. It lay in the cupped palm of my hand on it's back. It's chest was heaving and there was what looked like a pretty good hole right in the middle of it. Swell. Just swell. If you've ever had the misfortune to watch a cat with it's prey, they usually give it one nice chomp. Not enough to kill it outright, just enough to slow it down so that it can be "played with." God. Well, I thought, I'll just sit here with it, and hold it tenderly 'til it breathes it's last. I really didn't think its "last" would take too long. The breathing got shallower and shallower, the chest no longer heaving in spasming gulps of air. I've held wee creatures in my hand that were dying before. If you own cats, it's bound to happen. And always it's heart wrenching. The little eyes were closed, it's little feet motionless. But it continued to breathe.



Sometimes, when I'm emotionally strong enough, and I think the animal is going to experience a long, slow, painful death, I will put it out of it's misery myself. Don't ask the various means I've used, they're all hideous but mercifully quick. But I haven't been too chipper of late and was not up to that task on this night. Rand suggested putting the creature in Pam's head, and I thought what better place to put it then in the little nest that had recently been vacated by a family of baby birds (see blog below). I considered taking a picture of it when it was in my palm, but it was all too depressing and I considered it rather dishonorable to do such a thing to the poor creature. That much of a ghoul I am not.

I got the step ladder out and climbed up to peer inside Pam's head, and the nest had a HUGE spider web in it. One of those really messy funnel webs made by one of those really LARGE funnel spiders? - wolf spiders I think they are. Husband handed me a stick and I gathered up the web like a wand of cotton candy and then gently laid the bird in the nest. It opened it's eyes and looked at me. Did it understand I was trying to be kind?

I prayed for the little creature but didn't hold out much hope. Had visions of climbing the ladder the next morning and finding it all limp necked, probably with some hideous eight-legged monster gnawing on the hole in it's middle. Very depressed I went to bed.

The next morning came and I couldn't face the consequences, because the images I had conjured in my brain were just to awful to confront first thing. So I asked Rand to look at the remains. He stepped up on the ladder and looked inside the head. Said he couldn't see it very well, to please get him the flashlight. I did so. He said he still couldn't see it. WHAT?!!! I practically thew him off the ladder and bound up there. Peered in and... NOTHING. Blessedly NOTHING was there! Just the empty nest. I cannot tell you how grateful I was. How it could have survived the night, I don't know. It was surely a little miracle.

Now my only fear is that I'll find it somewhere nearby on the ground under a bush. That maybe it had managed to fly just a bit but landed under my Mums or something. And maybe Harlie will catch it again. But then maybe God wanted this little fellow to live for a while longer yet.

One must keep the faith, eh?

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On another note: another visitor stopped by the other day.

More Gifts

July 1, 2008 More Gifts


The birds were squawking outside the front porch. Why? Well, the cats were around. Or one cat in particular - our black and white, named Harlie (short for Harlequin.)
She’s a killer. Skinny as a rail - she looks half starved (though gets as much to eat as she wishes), and is faster than a speeding bullet. Has brought down many a bird, and THAT takes skill.

Something about this particular bird squawking caught my attention. It seemed more urgent than normal. Very insistent. Then my mind latched onto a happy possibility. A nest full of babies in my sister’s head.

This needs a brief explanation. My half sister, Pam, was a sculptress. Not as a professional, she didn’t try to make a living at it, though I think she could have. But she was married to an artist and just enjoyed drawing and sculpting. Constantly took classes in both. (We shared the same father, but she was 40 years? older than I. Another story - another time.) Anyway, she did a sculpture of herself which had hung on a tree outside their kitchen for many a year. And when she passed away, I asked to have it and was granted the privilege. It currently sits against our front porch wall. The top of the head is hollowed out. Last year there was a nest in it and so I was hoping that that might be the case again this year. (I had cleaned it all out at the end of last season.)


So I get the step ladder and climb up and look inside the top of the head. And sure enough there are four wee baby birds. They looked like they had just hatched. Have never seen babies this small.

I got to watch the growth process for two weeks before leaving on a trip North. Harlie practically lay up-side-down under the head with her mouth open just waiting for that first flight and the potential of a fluttering failure.

I figured they’d be gone by the time I got back. And they were. But these are the shots I managed to capture beforehand.