Technical Difficulties

WordPress reports technical difficulties and has given postaday2011 bloggers a pass for today.

Since I fell off that wagon several weeks ago, I wouldn’t feel right accepting it.

I’ve had technical difficulties, too.

The laptop periodically slips off the network–who knows why–and I have to reconnect it. Usually I can get by with turning off the wireless switch, finding a job that doesn’t require web access, and turning the switch back on.

Sometimes I have to reboot the router.

Today neither of those remedies worked, no matter how many times I tried them. Rebooting everything else didn’t work either. Before I was through, I had no Internet access at all.

Somewhere between router reboots 15 and 19, I realized the little On/Off switch on the surge protector the router was plugged into displayed the same color in the On position as in the Off.

I was ever so glad I hadn’t summoned tech support. I’ve heard they can be rather sharp with customers whose  malfunctions result from inadequate juice.

That’s where glad ended, however.

Loss of connectivity transported me mentally to the post-network days at the library. Every time we went offline, staff members deflated. We sat, arms at our sides, hands in our laps, eyes empty and glazed, and said, “The Internet is dooooowwwwwwwwwwwn. We can’t doooooooooooo anything without the Internet.”

Before we got back online, someone generally remembered that processing and shelving books, running overdue notices, reading reviews, and a host of other activities didn’t require web access, and we hauled ourselves up and got busy.

But the trauma lingers. Eight years later, flashbacks persist.

This afternoon, after diagnosing the problem, I made my way to Office Depot, purchased a new surge protector, brought it home, unplugged and replugged, and prepared to live happily ever after.

But I didn’t.

Half the problem had gone away, but the other half–my half–was still there. My network wasn’t even broadcasting.

So when David arrived home from work–after he had lugged the new box of paper from my car to the house–I apprised him of the situation. He reinstalled the router. I reconnected.

End of story.

Except for these addenda:

1. I haven’t always been a technology wimp. I once had charge of a covey of computers, and while my knowledge was horrendously incomplete, I fixed things now and then. I knew how to back up a server and run utilities and jiggle a lot of things to make them go. I even had a week of Microsoft training. It went in one ear and out the other, but I had it. Now, however, my best effort at tech work is hollering, Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-vid. Something must be done about that.

2. I feel no animosity toward WordPress. Things happen. They give me this lovely platform to exercise my freedom of speech and expect nothing in return. And when I have a problem, they fix it and send me a polite e-note. I wish them well and pray they have everything securely backed up.

Related Articles

• How to choose a good surge protector (today.msnbc.msn.com)

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Image of surge protector by Paranoid at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.