IN THE VERY MIDST OF NOTHING

I live in rural Tennessee all alone.
Can't get a cell phone signal here.
No longer have television.
One of the very few radio stations I can get is a college station from Kentucky.
I live a few miles from Kentucky. 
Hello, Daniel Boone.

My every day life is one of isolation.  It's no sacrifice. It's my choice. I've gone the Big City Route many times in my past. It was fun when I was a reckless kid. Lately - in my petrified and introspective years - I prefer being Hermitized.
I think I made that word up.

I admittedly rely solely on the computer as my Gateway to the World. It's where I get news and weather, watch movies, listen to music, keep in touch with humanity, and a thousand other things.
Without it, I'm lost.

Cut to the chase, Jon. You're putting people to sleep with this unnecessary crap.

My crap is never unnecessary, Kemosabee.
The "chase" started last Thursday, when I suddenly and inexplicably couldn't get an Internet connection on my computer. It's happened several previous times, but always resolved itself within a couple hours.
This time there was no resolution.

I consulted with Windows Troubleshooter.

Problem:
Can't access the Internet.

The mysterious diagnostic process lasted twenty minutes. At least.

Result:
Your computer has no access point to the Internet.

With that helpful information under my belt, I delved further (farther??) into Troubleshooter and received more useless information. 
Eventually, they provided me with several bogus suggestions, such as

Consult a reliable friend for help
(I swear to God, this was one of the suggestions!).

Hell, I haven't  had a reliable friend since Howdy Doody was on television....but that's beside the point.

Consult your Internet provider technician.

On Friday night I consulted my Internet provider technician.
The phone call lasted well over an hour, while he and I exhausted every possibility to resolve the issue with no positive result.

He was extremely polite and did his very best to be helpful, but we got nowhere. 
Kinda like a first date.

The technician finally decided that a computer expert should be sent to my house on Monday.
Next came a barrage of personal health questions.

This initially startled me, until I remembered the grim threat of the Black Plague Coronavirus.

Was I feeling ill?
Have I been in contact with anyone who was ill?
Have I been exposed to any known virus or any possible carrier of a virus?

When I finally convinced him that me and my two cats were pure as the wind-driven snow and no threat to the world at large, I was told that I'd get a call on Monday.

I spent a long, miserable weekend severed from the Internet.......but I did manage to drive to town VERY early on Saturday to get some supplies (that's another story to soon be told).

Early Monday morning I got a call from another technician who spent another hour trying to resolve my computer issue...with no results.

Finally, an expert was dispatched to my house. He arrived just before noon - - a huge, heavy, burly guy arrayed in a surgical mask and blue plastic gloves. 

To make an extremely long story short (which, at this point, is a complete impossibility)....

.....he worked for over two hours - installing new wiring, changing the mysterious "fiber optic box", installing a new router......and other things I could never figure out or comprehend.

The result:
by late afternoon I was connected to the Internet again and finally in contact with the world.

It's a good feeling.


   

AFTERMATH

This is a followup of my previous post: 
the conversion of my phone/computer connection from old copper cables to new fiber optic cables.

The switch was supposedly not mandatory, but I was gently advised that everybody with my internet service provider would eventually be compelled to do it.

Rather than go through a future ugly ordeal with gunfire and bloodshed, I figured I'd convert early and be done with it.

The outside preparatory work was completed last Tuesday. The indoor installation would be done on Wednesday.

This post is starting to bore me - which isn't a good sign.

The two workers arrived early Wednesday afternoon. My first impression was that they looked like a couple of bewildered bookends. I attributed that to the fact that they had to scale a mountain and plow through an acre of 25-foot-high weeds to get to my front door.

The process took about an hour and a half. I didn't learn much, since the workers were about as friendly and talkative as corpses at a wake.
(one of the guys had to crawl under the house to install some wires, and he did mention that it was about 40 degrees below zero under there). 

I also learned that there's no insulation in the walls - - which I already assumed, since it's generally 150 degrees below zero in the house. Except in the summer - when it's hotter than the surface of the sun.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the workers finally left (I'm sure they did too), and then I inspected their handiwork:

They installed this contraption outside by the utility box....

....and this was installed inside - in the laundry area, right above the washing machine.

The inside contraption has a winking green light, which makes me feel like I'm under surveillance. I made sure the door was tightly shut when I went into the bathroom.

Cut to the chase, Jon. How has fiber optics changed your computer and phone experience?

My desktop computer was working fine after the conversion. However, surfing the Internet seemed only a fraction faster than usual - not much difference than before.

BUT

I couldn't get an Internet connection on my laptop - - no matter how hard I tried. So I decided to call the ISP for technical support.....

.......but my landline phone didn't work, either. I got a dial tone but wasn't able to dial numbers.

I messed around with the phone connection until I was finally able to dial numbers....

.......but then the number that I dialed wouldn't ring. All I got was an echo.

So I messed around some more and eventually got the phone to work.

To make a long story short (which at this point is a complete impossibility) I was on the phone with the computer technician for about an hour. He was polite and extremely helpful.

An aside:

at one point the technician asked for the serial number on my router. I had to run into the other room - and discovered that my cat Scruffy was sleeping on the router (Scruffy and Bosco like the router because it generates warmth). 

Anyway, I had to PRY a sleepy Scruffy off the router.

FINALLY, after an agony of trials and errors, the technician discovered that I could access the Internet with my network security key (which is the password that I used when I first signed up with my Internet service provider).

So, it's a happy ending, I suppose. My desktop computer works, the laptop works, the landline phone works.

And my cats still sleep on the router.

I honestly don't see a huge difference between the copper cable connection and the fiber optic one - - but I'm glad the ordeal is finally over. I hope.

BTW - I hardly ever use the landline phone, but I'm required to have one with my Internet service "plan". More money for them.

 

THOUGHTS ON A RAINY SATURDAY

 
Hi - my name is Jon....and I'm a jelly bean addict.

It's true. It happens every Easter. I don't know what I'll do when I run out of my stash. 

Did I ever mention that Tennessee is the rainiest place on earth? The rain never ever stops. It's like Vietnam in the monsoon season. It's like Venice, but with hills and dangerous curves and no canals.  

This place is called The Volunteer State. Hell, they should re-name it the H20 State.
Don't ponder that for too long. You might strain yourself.

Volunteer?
Heck, I never volunteered for anything in my entire life. Except for sex. 
But that's beside the point. 

It's pouring rain, as usual, and it's a cool day. The trees are lush and green, the grass grows taller by the hour. And the mega weeds have reached H.G.Wells proportions.

 I just snapped this pic a few minutes ago from the back porch. Green is in vogue.

 

Rainy days are cozy days. I remember rainy days when I was a kid. Eating Lipton soup with oyster crackers and watching monster movies on TV.

Do they still make oyster crackers? I haven't seen them in 20 years. 
Do they still make Lipton soup?
I'm hopelessly archaic. I'm from an era when June Cleaver was preparing dinner in high heels, faux pearls, and a crisp Betty Crocker apron.

All the letters on my computer keyboard have worn off, so consequently I keep making grievous errors.

Speaking of computers
notice my smooth transition of thought....

My old desktop computer went completely insane yesterday. Last night I spent nearly four hours with Windows "support" getting things repaired. So far it's working again. It's probably the only computer left on earth that's still running on Vista.

Today Firefox went insane on my laptop and it took me an hour to get that straightened out. I'm exhausted.

I was going to post more piano music today but - happily for you - I'm too lazy. And I'm sure you're still recovering from Lohengrin (see side bar).

After careful consideration, I've decided to write a book about the 1906 New Jersey murder (see previous post). I certainly have enough information.
I doubt if the book will be a home run, but heck - - I could just imagine a Broadway musical.....

And I should really think about finishing my memoirs. I've had one helluva interesting life. The only thing that's impeding my enthusiasm is the possible prospect of multitudinous lawsuits.

It's still pouring rain.
I sure hope my cats know how to swim.

That was a dumb ending to a boring post, but it was all I could come up with. 

 

 

BAD MOOD

All right, people, just back off and give me room to breathe! I'm in a very rotten mood today and I don't want anybody to get hurt.

Jon? In a rotten mood? Impossible! 
How could anybody as sweet, easy-going, charming, and utterly irresistible as you ever be in a rotten mood?

Hey, bucko, flattery will get you nowhere. How'd you like me to take that On the Good Ship Lollipop attitude and shove it up your - -

Whoa, Jon! Just calm down and keep away from my ass. What seems to be the problem?

ProbLEMS. With an "S". Plural. Multiple.

First of all I didn't get any sleep - not a damn wink - and when I don't sleep I can't function and can't think and have absolutely no motivation and I turn into a consummate bitch, and come to think of it, even when I DO sleep I usually can't think and can't function and have no motivation, so you can imagine how much worse it is when I DON'T sleep - -

not to mention that my back still hurts and I'm hobbling around like a spastic gremlin and my reading glasses broke so I had to use duck tape to hold them together and my lawn mower's broke so I can't mow the 6,000 frickin' mountain acres that I live on and now that I've finally eliminated the 20,000 carpenter bees that were nesting around my house 50,000 wasps have eagerly moved in and I was supposed to make the 600 mile trip to town yesterday but it rained so hard that I didn't go and as a result I didn't get groceries so I'm completely out of milk and bread, not to mention cat food and cat litter and the litter is the most important thing because without litter my cats are miserable and have been giving me dirty looks and plotting against me........

Wait a minute while I catch my breath. I'm just getting warmed up.

No need to elaborate, Jon. We get the general idea.

Well, I didn't even mention Windows yet. I'm not talking house windows. I'm talking computer Windows. I have major issues with Microsoft. Few entities on earth annoy me more than Windows, and if I could come in physical contact with the sadists in charge I'd punch them so damn hard that they'd all go down like a row of dominoes.

My old desktop computer is still on Windows 7 - - - or is it Windows 3? Hell, with all the problems it has, it might be running on Windows Minus 15.

Are those continuous, infuriatingly annoying never-ending updates really necessary? And if Microsoft is so frickin' great, how come they need to inflict our computers with updates every ten minutes?

So, Jon - updates really bother you, huh?

Don't interrupt. I'm on a roll.

So, it took me over six months to finally figure out the basic rudiments of Windows 8, and just as I was almost getting used to it, the grim announcement came that there's now an upgrade for Windows 10.
By the way - what the hell ever happened to Windows 9? Did I miss something?

Microsoft has more freakin' windows than New York City. Think about that for a moment. It might get funny.
Then again, it might not........ 

Did anybody happen to encounter Windows Movie Maker 8? It SUCKS big time. In order to make it "easier to use", they eliminated all of the good features that were on Windows Movie Maker 7. I tried to download Windows Movie Maker 7 to my Windows 8 laptop last night with no luck.

So now, in order to make a new video, I'll have to do it on my old computer - - and all the photos and graphics that I want to use are stored on my new laptop.

Note:
Okay, I was finally able to download MovieMaker 2.6 to my laptop and I'm happy. Or reasonably happy.
 
By the way - - did you ever try to use the new improved Windows Easy Transfer?  Trust me, it's about as easy as pulling teeth from a hen. Especially since the easy Network transfer no longer works.

A Hungarian pox on Windows and all it's vile components. 

Feeling better, Jon?

I will in a few weeks, when my blood pressure goes down.