This and That 'Round the World

COMPUTER TRAVAILS

I didn't quite know where to put this tale, which was published in the Edmonds Beacon newspaper in June 2009, so I stuck it in here.

My computer was really showing signs of old age, and even dementia. It would freeze up, go to sleep at odd times, refuse to wake up, and on occasion, get very cranky.So it’s off to the University Book store, and guess what? They have a GREAT deal on a Mac with a giant 24’’ screen. So, it’s out with the credit card, and I’m the proud owner of the new computer, even though it took two men and a boy to get it out to the car.

Getting it home I lug it into the office and set it up. I then plug in all the wires, approximately like the instructions say, push the ON button, and hot damn, the screen lights up. Next I hook up the printer and run a test copy, but the thing spits out twenty pages before I can yank the plug out of the wall. I guess I should have read the instructions and installed the printer set up software.

Now for the e mail program. What good is a computer without e mail, ya know? So, this time I read the instructions, push the proper buttons, and fill out all the pop up forms, and Viola, I can receive e mail. But try as I might, I just can’t get the machine to send. Even by following the installation instructions word for word, four more times. So, in desperation, I call my Internet service provider’s help line. I eventually get a guy in Bangladesh who can’t speak English, and then a guy in India, who says that they don’t support my particular operating system, and that I need to call Apple. So I call Apple, and they tell me that they have no idea how my Internet service works, so they can’t help me. But they did e mail me a list of questions to ask my Internet guy. So I call the Internet folks again, and this time I get a guy in Russia, the Ukraine, or someplace, who is reasonably proficient in English, but seems to have a little less technical acumen than my neighbor’s Russian Wolfhound. Anyhow, he can only answer about half the questions, so I give up on him and call Apple back.

This time I get a nice lady in Canada, who seems to know what she is doing. But after a couple of hours of trying everything, her shift is over and I am still nowhere. But “Never fear.” she says, and transfers me to a guy who allegedly knows all about e mail. So we go through everything again, and still nothing works. But then the guy gets a brainstorm. Everyone knows that authentication requires a password. And the instructions are really clear on this. But the guy says, lets type in “NONE”, and guess what, the thing starts sending like mad.Next step is to transfer the files from the old to the new computer. Apple sells what is called a “Firewire Cable” which they say will do that job effortlessly. But guess what, nobody has the cable I need in stock. No problem, I say, I’ll just use my auxiliary drive to transfer the files. But as soon as my drive saw the new computer, it wanted nothing to do with the old one, and steadfastly refused to cooperate. But hey, I had a backup. I’ll use my flash drive. It will take a little longer, but will do the job. And I was right, almost, except the flash drive didn’t seem to like the old computer either, refusing to transfer any file containing an asterisk, and making gibberish out of half the MS Word files. So, off to Costco for a new auxiliary drive.Now everything is going great, and I am happily working away, till at 10 PM, the machine crashes.

So I do the standard fix, which is jerk the plug and then plug it back in. But when I plug in, the device groans and wheezes, and presents me with a blank white screen. And nothing I can do, including all the alternate boot up techniques, and every cuss word I can think of, will budge it. By this time I am thinking that maybe I have bought an expensive boat anchor, and spend a sleepless night, waiting for Apple Help to come on line at 8:00AM.

And I am on the line at 8:01, getting an American, no less, who seems reasonably proficient. So we go thru everything he can think of, and, you guessed it, nothing works. He then says he needs to look some stuff up, but his computer won’t boot up either. The computers must have been talking to each other, I guess.

But now I get a brainstorm. As you computer nerds know, PCs are notoriously fussy about what peripherals are plugged in, while Macs don’t really care. But maybe his PC cousins corrupted this guy. So I pull all the connections except the mouse, and guess what, the machine happily boots up. So now it is just a matter of trial and error till I locate the auxiliary device causing the problem. And I finally figured out, mostly by brute force and awkwardness, that the culprit was the digital camera dock. When the camera was in the dock, the computer crashed and wouldn't restart, but with the camera out of the dock, the computer ran fine. And guess what, I had taken the camera off the kitchen table and put it in the dock, just before the machine crashed. So after a couple of software changes, and fiddling around till 2:00 AM again, with no effective help from Casio or Apple, I might add, the computer now doesn't care whether the camera is in the dock or not, and runs happily either way, If cars were as cranky as this, we would still be driving horses and buggies.

Anyhow, stay tuned for the next episode, which I’m sure will happen soon.

PS. When I was printing the draft of this tale, my printer ate the first two pages. Some days you just can’t win.

WHAT I (DON'T) LIKE ABOUT GOLF

It’s an Edmonds kind of day and the golfers are out in force, particularly the Country Club crowd. But let me give you my take on that scene.

A typical afternoon at the links for one of these guys goes something like this.

Showing up at the clubhouse he is greeted effusively by a club functionary, who expecting a generous tip, treats the guy like Tiger Woods himself. Of course our golfer is wearing his uniform, consisting of logo shirt advertising the club, Bermuda shorts, and those fancy brown and white shoes, complete with tassels.

Then, on to the first tee, where he joins his foursome, and they all hit the little white ball a couple of hundred yards (hopefully) out onto the fairway.

Golf, incidentally, seems basically about hitting a ball with a club, but it’s the only such game where the ball isn’t moving, so how hard is that.

Anyway, it’s hit the ball, drive up in the cart, strike the ball again, and so on, till the ball finally ends up in the hole, after perhaps six swings.

The protocol then is to sing out “five” and write down “four” on the scorecard. (Which was par for the hole). Small wonder it is rumored that a pencil is the best wood in a golfers bag.

This charade is continued a mind numbing 18 times till a final escape to the club bar, commonly called the 19th hole, where drinks are sipped, elaborate lies about improbable golf rounds are swapped, score cards are compared, and bets settled.

As for myself, If I am going to play the game at all, it will be “Workingman’s Golf”. This is basically a group of guys with mismatched clubs, and sometimes more enthusiasm than skill, hacking their way around the municipal course, maybe even forgetting to keep score, and then swilling beer in the bar afterward.

HOA's AND LITTLE GREEN MEN

Here is a Home Owners Association yarn, that is really hard to top.

Seems like while I was president of our Association, they hired a golf course superintendent, who in his previous life had been a CIA mercenary.

Well this guy had evidently stuck with that business too long, and was really a basket case mentally. And I mean really far out. The head pro was terrified of him, but he was a good superintendent so we kept him on.

Then, one dark night, he and our guard captain had a misunderstanding behind the clubhouse, when our guard, a pretty hard case himself, mistook him for a burglar, and tried to collar him. A big mistake on the guard’s part, and he (the guard) narrowly averted a trip to the hospital.

After that incident, everyone was all for firing the guy. But having been in that business myself, I explained that it was only a knee jerk reaction on the guys part, so it really wasn’t his fault, and the guard showed extremely poor judgment in trying to sneak up on anyone.

Well, the guy was happy that I saved his job, and when he learned that I had been a kind of fellow comrade at arms, he bonded to me instantly. This was OK, except the guy and I often communicated in a kind of proprietary code, and no one else had any idea what we were discussing.

But things kind of came to a head one day, when I asked the maintenance foreman to dig up an irrigation main to prove to the guy that weird stuff was not coming through the pipes. Like little green men, or something to that effect. This proved to be the last straw, and the board, finally having had enough, fired my new friend.

THE REAL STORY ON RUDOLPH

Now that Rudolph is again front and center on the holiday stage, perhaps it is a good time to correct some common misconceptions.

First off. Rudolph was a Caribou, not a Reindeer, and was born into a herd on Alaska’s North Slope. But he was ostracized from an early age, due mostly to his unusual schnozzle.

Anyway, finally having had enough, he left the herd and wandered off in the direction of the North Pole. And, almost by chance, be happened into Santa’s complex and found Santa’s deer.

But what a neurotic bunch they turned out to be. Being gainfully employed only one night a year left them with precious little job satisfaction and low self esteem, particularly since all the fat man ever said to them was “On, On” and “Now, Now”. And when Rudolph showed up, red nose glowing, trying to pass himself off as a Reindeer, they were having none of that, at all. Dasher, the alpha male, was first to ostracize the newcomer, closely followed by taunts from Dancer. Donder, the dimwitted one, would prance around grunting Laplandish insults, while Prancer, Cupid. Comet and the others, continued to bully Rudolph about his red nose.All these hurled invectives and lack of social acceptance only served to exacerbate Rudolph’s nasal condition, until he finally came to the attention of the jolly old man, himself.

And as luck would have it, just before the annual trip, a dangerous fog enveloped most of the world, and even threatened to cancel Christmas.

But you all know the story, Santa drafted Rudolph as the lead deer and Rudolph pretty much saved the day. Just as recorded in the well known Christmas song.

But what you may not know is the tragic aftermath.

The next Christmas Eve was clear and bright, and Rudolph was not needed. In fact, the addition of a ninth deer had spoiled the sleigh’s aerodynamics and made Santa terribly late to part of South America, another reason for leaving Rudolph behind.

This sudden rejection, after all the fame and adulation, was too much for Rudolph. His fragile psyche finally snapped, and he wandered off to an ice floe, where he was eaten by a Polar Bear.

But his legend, thankfully, lives on. And with that happy thought, Merry Christmas, or Happy holidays, or whatever, to all.