05.20.2004
No One Expects the...
Don't get used to it. There's no reason to think this is anything except a stab out of the blunk, right from up in the... out, there, where it comes from. It's a one-offer, unless of course (oh, it's not an offer at all. I thought you said "soul,") I continue to do things.
I have no cicadas. I'm very annoyed about it, because they have red eyes. I don't remember the red eyes from when I was a kid, but I do remember attacking them, and I certainly remember hearing them, constantly, unable to block them out. A whining hum, throbbing in the distance. The other day my dentist, or someone like him, said "they always sound like they're off in the distance. You don't hear them in your neighborhood, even though you can see them right there." Unless, of course, you're me, and then you can't see them at all.
I'm wireless now. In fact, actually, all truth being equal and all equals being betters, I'm wired, right now, wired right up. But my wife, upstairs, way, way upstairs, is wireless, and I have the router right here with me. I've got a PCI wireless card I could install on this too-old machine, but since the signal reaches from way down here to way up there, I can just stay plugged in and take the card back. I wanted a USB card, like fer what I got for her machine, but this thing's USB only goes to 1. Don't go to 2. So I had to get the card, and I'm pretty sure if I take a screw off this machine all the guts'll shoot everywhich way and never get put back together again. So for now I'll sit and be wired.
Actually had a surprising experience with the wireless router, a D-Link jobby. It wouldn't work, at all, is the thing. The "quick start" instructions got me to step 2 before something didn't do what it said. I was supposed to plug the router to my DSL modem and the "WAN" light was supposed to come on. The "WAN" light did not read those same instructions. So I tried fifteen times then went ahead with the rest and it would just never connect. Reconnected the old-fashioned way to read their stuff online, read the stuff on the CD that came with it, nothing. So against my better judgement I called their 24 support. I was sure I was gonna get someone in India, and I was assuming right from the start that whoever it was would step me through the troubleshooting stuff from the web that I'd already tried.
I did get a guy from India, or at least that's the accent he had. But he zipped me right through some stuff that's not mentioned anywhere in the stuff I read. He walked me right through the config stuff, which included some steps that just didn't make any damned sense, and then said, "okay, the WAN light should be on... NOW!" and boom, there it was. I was very impressed, and if this is what this exporting-jobs crap gets us then I'm all for it. One of the most efficient tech support sessions I've been on the receiving end of.
All of this is very nice. Still don't have the basement unpacked, but the rest of the place is pretty cool. Excellently cool. It's very nice having a whole house to run around in.
