Well, I just got smacked alongside my head by an I-T two-by-four. I was feeling pretty confident, smug and even cocky about how quickly I was assimilating myself, my laptop and my new phone into the "cloud". At a meeting this morning, I was the one who could find online information the fastest and I did not think I was audacious, cavalier, or conceited when I delivered my "found" information but God must have thought so because about two hours later, at home, my confidence and equipment came to a crashing halt. I was a ship without a captain, a canoe without a paddle, up a creek without a canoe and in the water without a life preserver. To make matters worse, my in-house expert, Capt. Cook, was gone for the day, having to do his civic duty in a jury pool. (He got selected. No big surprise there. Now let us hope that whatever the trial is......he cannot talk about it......does not turn out to be the Local Trial of the Century.)
I tried the first-line tried and true method to fix all things electronic. Turn it off, wait twenty to thirty seconds, and then turn it back on. For some reason, my laptop - and therefore my phone - could not connect to the internet. Not being able to access Capt. Cook and not wanting to bother my other favorite electronic "fixer", I was able to use Capt. Cook's phone to text another electronic expert who was able to steer me to another possible "fix-it" direction. He texted me and told me to unplug the "router", wait twenty to thirty seconds and then plug it back in. I went downstairs and found two pieces of equipment, both of which looked like they could be a "router". He said all of the lights would go out. Well, one had lots of lights and the other had no lights that I could see, but to be safe, I unplugged them both and waited. (My life's motto: If one is good, two must be better.) I do not know which one restored my service but restored, it was.
Electronic Crisis Number One solved.
I then proceeded to TRY to establish a group email list. After some putzing about, I was able to begin adding members to the group, only to have my laptop decide, about half way through my contact-selection process, that the process could no longer continue as I had been doing it. I did some more putzing about and discovered yet a new way to add contact-list members to the group and got the job done.
Electronic Crisis Number Two averted.
What this has, perhaps, taught me is that I am the most dangerous type of idiot there is: The kind that doesn't know what he/she doesn't know. I think I know more than I do. While this has all been most humbling (to me), there just may be a silver lining in my whining. I did learn two more techniques with which to bail myself out of the next crisis.......and I know it is not a matter of if but when.
I stand humbled.
Ancora imparo
