Breaking my silence!

A soothing picture that has nothing to do with the blog other than the
euphoric state I'm in (having solved all our computer networking woes)!
Picture by Mrs. Dada

I've been fighting to save my online neck for the past five or six days. At Dada's we have three computers networked: our old PC (my fave); a cheap laptop used to blog when last we drove to Oregon the summer of '06; and the "new" iMac we bought last summer which we thought would replace the PC. (It hasn't yet!)

Keeping the PC made me decide to install the network almost a year ago. But inevitably, one computer fails on the network with almost predictable regularity. With each successive failure, I begin to sense a growing instability of the program resulting in more and increasingly blatant corruptions of the software and incompatibilities with the system as it was intended to work. One could compare it to, say, oh, our current government which is a clusterfuck of multiplying disasters.

So it was earlier this week my computer network became so erratic and messed up as to be frustratingly inoperable. I was left with one logical alternative. I would uninstall the corrupted software and begin all over again with a reinstallation, a fresh start. Maybe it would once more work as originally intended.

That's a place most Americans haven't yet reached with their government; when they get to the point where there is only one viable solution remaining to them, to save the system from more frequent crashes and, ultimately, total collapse -- a point of total uninstall of the old and fresh start with the new.

While no longer a whiz at things electronic as I may have been back in the early 90's, I am usually able to fix the problem or work around it.

At one time I enjoyed solving a bewitching computer quirk or glitch, but now I just expect stuff to work without having to participate, to "marry into the family" of tech manuals, online help and the patriarchal godfather of 'em all, the three hour tech support phone call with someone in northeast India who concludes it all with, "So sorry I was unable to solve your problem. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

One could probably extend the analogy of Americans and their government this far as well, i.e., rather than be bothered with fixing it, most just expect - or hope - it will work the way it was intended. But government doesn't fix itself. In fact, untended and unleashed, it eventually fuckin' runs away. In the face of such apathy, the system only corrupts faster and faster, making ever more frequent crashes all the more dramatic. But I've digressed, sorry.

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What we've just come through is the result of an iTunes gift card given as a high school graduation gift to a nice neighbor kid during a party for him on June 11th.

Several weeks later, he showed up with a thank you card and his new iMac laptop graduation computer. I tried very hard not to short circuit it by drooling on its keyboard as he demonstrated its amazing prowess. It made me realize I need to spend more time with our own iMac desktop.

But that's not what really blew me away and ultimately caused my network to crash leaving every computer we own offline, as well as our internet based phone. No, the culprit was what "Tom" brought along with his laptop to demonstrate. It was his new pocket sized iPod Touch. Basically an iPhone without the phone part.

Mrs. Dada, Sam and I decided we just had to have one. The selling point was its ability to surf the Web using a network. This stroked Mrs. Dada's interest in that sitting before a desktop computer is very uncomfortable for her. With the iPod Touch she could surf from the comfort of her favorite recliner if she wanted.

So last Friday, Mrs. Dada returned from Costco with our new "Touch" and hooking it up with the others is what ultimately dove our whole computer network into a total electronic "coma." For in trying to save it all, it died.

To spare all the details of a very frustrating last few days, we are now totally back online better than ever with the final member to rejoin, the iMac desktop, coming back online this morning. And we can now sit out on the patio in the late afternoons with the new iPod Touch and catch up on all the latest blogging. And believe me, having been distracted for a number of days now, that's going to take some time.

But it's so good to be back! And when tired of surfing, we can just stick our internet 'surf board' in a pocket, to access again next time, anywhere there's a wireless 'hot spot' or network somewhere that works like it's supposed to. Like the governments we have that we wish would too.