I am afraid I'm becoming a technoblogger. Never have I aspired to such a thing, but as one who is making my living at the mercy of technology, I'm finding it to be a fertile topic for blog posts. (Actually, that's pretty appropriate since blogging is an inherently technological phenomenon!)
My goal for tonight was to get to bed before 11:00pm. Preferably before 10pm, but I figured that might be tough. Surely 11 was doable. My kids were exhausted, so they went to bed at 6:40pm. (Who wants to lay bets that my son will be up at 5am??)
I had only two work-related tasks: one article to write on Ann Stamp, Monsanto's 2016 Farm Mom of the Northeast, and this blog. Not too tough. Three and a half hours tops.
Right.
I started writing my article and wanted to fact check something. No big deal. Google will solve that for me in 5 seconds. Except, Google didn't like me anymore. When I clicked open my trusty Firefox, nothing happened. No home page. Just a disturbing little blue line running round and round in circles in my browser. Oh no.
I'd had problems with my wireless router not working with my laptop this weekend, so I turned to my trusty Samsung smartphone. Dumb phone. No internet action there, either. This is not good. This article needs to be in by tomorrow to make the next issue. (My life is carefully scheduled these days . . . there is no room for error . . . or temperamental internet service!)
So I unplugged my router and my modem. I waited 30 seconds. I plugged them back in. I waited for them to reboot, or cycle, or whatever you call it when they try to decide to work again. Still nothing.
I almost called the internet company then and there, but I didn't have time. I figured I'd write the article and hope the internet magically resolved itself so I could fact check later. So I did. Only it didn't. This also is a problem, as I could not email a proof to the subject as I'd been asked to do. I also could not email my editor letting her know the story was in the mail, so to speak.
So I began to do something very strange. I searched online for a solution.
What??
Oh yes, I could do that. The internet would call up the search engine results, it just wouldn't load most of the pages. It would load my country radio station, but not the Monsanto award site. (Please don't ask me why. Again, if I knew these things, I'd be making a million dollars fixing other people's technological nightmares.)
I was able to find a page (and load it!) that informed me I was experiencing a DNS error. The URL I entered in the browser was apparently not getting converted to an identifiable IP address. In short, my computer was putting a request for a website, but the internet was unable to translate the request properly. (At least, I think that's what it means. Close enough for an English major, anyway!)
So I did the recommendations and got . . . nowhere. Blah.
That's okay. I still had to select photos from my camera, download them to a disk (because I save them all for posterity and have a zillion rewritable disks in my house), and write captions. I can do that.
No I can't. My computer and my camera don't want to talk, either. I could see the photos, but they wouldn't copy. (And I lost two in the process, which made me very unhappy because one I really liked! At least it wasn't the cover shot I liked . . . !)
Then I get them to copy, only my disk didn't have enough space for the photos. Grrrrr. I get a new disk, wait for it to format, and try again. Eventually I have success.
I select photos. I write captions. I check the internet once more out of plain old desperate stubbornness . . . and it worked! Phone, laptop, all have access! The test email I tried to send my sister 4 hours ago goes through. My phone starts be-bopping as backed-up emails flow in.
I am amazed. I am too tired to rejoice. I work fast, fearing the miracle will be like Cinderella's night at the ball, over at quickly-approaching midnight. (I, for one, can keep track of the time!) I send Ann an email, not expecting to hear back until tomorrow.
Ahh, but this was also not as easy as one would expect. My Dell has a miserable little pop-up telling me it is updated. I can't get it to go away. It is perched over my email. I can't move the email around. I can't see what I'm typing. I think I got the message right . . . !
(I don't understand why Dell thinks I need to have constant awareness of the fact that my system is up to date, the last scan was on 5/8/16 and the next scan is scheduled for 5/11/16. Who cares? The bloody internet hasn't worked for nearly 4 hours . . . what good is your little update doing me, anyway?!? Fortunately, "Aziz" had the same issue and wrote a very detailed fix. I did that. However, it needs a restart to activate the changes, and let me tell you I am NOT turning this beast off until I am finished for the night! Knowing my luck, it will never start again!)
I write an email to my editor explaining that the article will arrive tomorrow when . . . ding!
It's Ann! (Are there any mothers out there who actually sleep??? How are we ruling the world on fewer hours of sleep than I have fingers on one hand?)
I delete my unsent email to my editor, thank Ann for being so prompt, send a new email to my editor telling her everything's in Dropbox, and sigh with relief.
Another job completed, both with and in spite of this mysterious, cursed-gift of technology.
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