Today I was doing the whole “positive reinforcement” thing you know, like when you have a voice in your head that says “I am so ugly and such a total loser I can’t believe people don’t go running and screaming when they see me coming in the street” and then you look at yourself in the mirror and say “actually, I think I’m pretty damn hot and baby, I’m still totally rockin’!” and then, of course, you just have to keep saying positive crap like that to youself until you start believing your own hype and hopefully feel better about yourself right? So today I was making myself feel better about the fact that even though I consider myself to be a total failure in life and a techno dweeb to boot, for the first time in my life I’ve managed to get myself fully equipped with cutting edge computer equipment fully paid for and installed by no one but me and that, without so much as a tiny glitch. Which is a big deal when you consider that I’m usually completely hopeless when it comes to installing cables or creating networks or telling an ethernet connection from a stick for that matter.
AND THEN...
Yes. Well then I had this really cool device delivered to me today called a Time Capsule which is basically a super router (which enables you to have a wireless connection to the internet) and a high-capacity hard drive rolled into one. The “time capsule” aspect of it is that they have a program on the Leopard OS (operating system) called Time Machine which backs up your entire computer automatically every day, so that if ever you accidentally delete or lose a file, you can literally ‘go back in time’ and retrieve it from a previous date at which the file was sitting intact in it’s designated folder.
I was going through this box of cables which—until today I could never figure out what any of them were for—when all of the sudden it all came into focus very clearly and I was able to fish out an Ethernet cord which I needed to make a specific connection and put aside a bunch of SCSI cords to put in the trash since I finally understood those have gone the way of the stereo cassettes and VHS videos and it’s okay to get rid of them now. And just that tiny thing... feeling like I could figure out this box of mangled mysteries felt so momentous for some reason (maybe because of the hormones, that time of month and all) until... came the time to put the power cord onto the Time Capsule and plug it into the wall. The damn cord just wouldn’t fit into its designated place. I tried turning it this way and that and then pulling at the bit at the end to make sure I hadn’t forgotten to take off the cap or something and then pushed it in HARD again and... nothing, for like, fifteen minutes I couldn’t get the stupid thing connected.
So I made the call to technical support. I couldn’t believe that of all things, I had to call in about not being able to get the power cord plugged in. Even a techno-dweeb can figure that out. I was shaking my head as the phone was ringing because I could just see the tech guy at the other end of the line kind of slapping his head and mouthing “guys, you won’t believe this” to his co-workers. It took a really long time to explain what was the problem “No, not the part that plugs into the wall, that’s fine, it’s the other side, the one that plugs into the Capsule” because of course something so simple should never need explaining. Then he said “hold on, I’ll grab a Time Capsule on my end and see what the connection is like” and he came back saying it was a little bit tight but nothing unusual. I’d been afraid of using excessive force because didn’t want to break anything but then I just... pushed the connector in really, very, VERY hard, at which point of course it was plugged in just fine. So I made some stupid lame joke about it having been a “man shove and certainly not a girl shove” and blurted out a few more things about ethernet connections and whatnot so he wouldn’t think I was completely useless, but I could tell from his tone he couldn’t wait to get off the phone and tell his buddies about the customer who couldn’t even figure out how to get a power cord plugged in.
Usually, I like saying I’m a girlie-girl, and I say it with a certain amount of self-deprecation and even a touch of pride? But not when I’m doing dumb girlie-girl things. Or when other people might be mislead into thinking that I’m dumb. No. That’s just not so very cool. Not so very rockin’ at all actually.
AND THEN...
Yes. Well then I had this really cool device delivered to me today called a Time Capsule which is basically a super router (which enables you to have a wireless connection to the internet) and a high-capacity hard drive rolled into one. The “time capsule” aspect of it is that they have a program on the Leopard OS (operating system) called Time Machine which backs up your entire computer automatically every day, so that if ever you accidentally delete or lose a file, you can literally ‘go back in time’ and retrieve it from a previous date at which the file was sitting intact in it’s designated folder.
I was going through this box of cables which—until today I could never figure out what any of them were for—when all of the sudden it all came into focus very clearly and I was able to fish out an Ethernet cord which I needed to make a specific connection and put aside a bunch of SCSI cords to put in the trash since I finally understood those have gone the way of the stereo cassettes and VHS videos and it’s okay to get rid of them now. And just that tiny thing... feeling like I could figure out this box of mangled mysteries felt so momentous for some reason (maybe because of the hormones, that time of month and all) until... came the time to put the power cord onto the Time Capsule and plug it into the wall. The damn cord just wouldn’t fit into its designated place. I tried turning it this way and that and then pulling at the bit at the end to make sure I hadn’t forgotten to take off the cap or something and then pushed it in HARD again and... nothing, for like, fifteen minutes I couldn’t get the stupid thing connected.
So I made the call to technical support. I couldn’t believe that of all things, I had to call in about not being able to get the power cord plugged in. Even a techno-dweeb can figure that out. I was shaking my head as the phone was ringing because I could just see the tech guy at the other end of the line kind of slapping his head and mouthing “guys, you won’t believe this” to his co-workers. It took a really long time to explain what was the problem “No, not the part that plugs into the wall, that’s fine, it’s the other side, the one that plugs into the Capsule” because of course something so simple should never need explaining. Then he said “hold on, I’ll grab a Time Capsule on my end and see what the connection is like” and he came back saying it was a little bit tight but nothing unusual. I’d been afraid of using excessive force because didn’t want to break anything but then I just... pushed the connector in really, very, VERY hard, at which point of course it was plugged in just fine. So I made some stupid lame joke about it having been a “man shove and certainly not a girl shove” and blurted out a few more things about ethernet connections and whatnot so he wouldn’t think I was completely useless, but I could tell from his tone he couldn’t wait to get off the phone and tell his buddies about the customer who couldn’t even figure out how to get a power cord plugged in.
Usually, I like saying I’m a girlie-girl, and I say it with a certain amount of self-deprecation and even a touch of pride? But not when I’m doing dumb girlie-girl things. Or when other people might be mislead into thinking that I’m dumb. No. That’s just not so very cool. Not so very rockin’ at all actually.
